Why is Nuclear Energy So Expensive?

[Rick C]

On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 1:30:43 PM UTC-4, Whoey Louie wrote:

On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 12:51:17 PM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:

My point about the probability is that they give numbers for the chances of an accident separately due to a single cause, at a single reactor for a single year. Those numbers appears to be very conservative being 1 in some tens of thousands. But when you combine even just the number of reactors and number of years the results drop to 1 in 10!!!

Obviously you failed probability and statistics, if you ever took it.
If the probability of a failure is one some tens of thousands,, then having
N of them, the probability increases by a factor of N. There aren't
several thousand nukes operating in the US, which is what even your
numbers would require.

Dude, you didn't even read. The number of plants, ~100 and the number of years, ~70. The 1 in 70,000 number is for one reactor for one year due to an earthquake.... so over all reactors in the US around 1 in 10 over their lifetimes due to earthquake.

Hardly a conservative number. Then combine that with the many various ways an accident can occur and you get some very disturbing results indeed.

That's wrong too. The predicted accident number would already include
that, you don't then add it on.

No, the chance of radiation release due to earthquake is not even the most likely cause of radiation release from the core. Loss of coolant is the most likely as estimated by the NRC. You will need to google that to get the exact terminology. The web page where I was reading this a few months ago was making the point that the earthquake numbers are not the worst to worry about.

Please don't complain that I'm not proving my point by not providing references. It's late and you can do a little leg work too instead of just saying I'm wrong about everything when you didn't even read what I've written. If you really want to know the facts, please do some research on your own. Otherwise please just don't respond to me. Ok?

You are the one who opened the Fukushima can of worms.

The point is that things DID go wrong. The designers of nukes would have you believe there was virtually no chance this could have happened, that it was unforeseeable, yet it did happen. We look back with 20/20 hindsight and say it was inevitable.

At North Anna they had a generator fail. When they looked into the cause it was found that the procedure for installing the head gaskets was faulty. That procedure was a single point of failure for every generator and was not discovered until the plant was 40 years old during an emergency. What if every generator had failed because of a bad head gasket installation?

Seems to me if you believe the global warming folks, most of whom are the
same ones that are opposed to nuclear power, we're headed for a total
global catastrophe. In which case, the risks from nuclear power look
very acceptable by any reasonable standards. Or is all that global warming
stuff BS?

You are making a false dichotomy, that it's either global warming or nuclear power.

--

Rick C.

+-- Get 2,000 miles of free Supercharging
+-- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Rick C]

On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 1:08:19 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:

On 10/13/19 1:00 PM, Rick C wrote:
On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 9:59:23 AM UTC-4, Whoey Louie wrote:
On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 2:10:20 AM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:
On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 1:28:35 AM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:
On 10/13/19 12:49 AM, Bill Sloman wrote:
On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 3:06:27 PM UTC+11, k...@notreal.com wrote:
On Sat, 12 Oct 2019 16:49:35 -0500, amdx <nojunk@knology.net> wrote:

On 10/12/2019 4:08 PM, Uwe Bonnes wrote:
Rick C <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:
I wonder if we (the global "we") will continue to build nuclear
power facilities much longer. It just seems like the cost and
risks are untenable and the tax payers are picking up the tab
for the overruns.

As long as there are countries trying to get or substain their nuclear
weapon arsenal, there will be nuclear (power) reactors.


I thought a lot of it was overcoming the lawsuits from people trying
to stop the nuclear plants.

And overcoming piles and piles of regulations placed on the industry
by lefists who are hell bent on bankrupting the industry and moving
civilization back into caves (everyone else, not them, of course).

Looking at it from a slightly more rational point of view, the regulations were put in place by essentially a-political people who were interested in avoiding more Chernobyls, Fukushima's and Three Mile Islands.

Quite how making nuclear power slightly more expensive would have moved civilisation back into caves isn't entirely clear. We moved out of caves long before nuclear power was an option, and wind and solar power - and fair bit of grid-scale battery storage - seem perfectly capable of keeping us out of the caves in future.

Krw's read only memory seems to have programmed with a lot of misinformation back whenever it got programmed, but this is fairly recent denialist propaganda of a particularly silly sort.


The public in the US pretty accurately recognized that the nuclear power
industry was staffed by ex-DOD people, "Neon Johns", Enron-style
predatory executives, and various fashions of megalomaniacs who
habitually underrepresented the real-life risks and would gladly tell
any lie and regularly sweep any safety issues short of a catastrophic
failure under the rug to get to play with their nuke-toys and make a
quick buck in the process, if left to their own devices.

This isn't even about the risk which is not as trivial as some would like you to believe. I was amazed when I ran the numbers and found the risk of core damage with a release of radiation was 1 in 10 across the US industry over the lifetime of the reactors FROM EARTHQUAKE ALONE! That isn't even the largest of the different sources of risk.

--

Rick C.

--- Get 2,000 miles of free Supercharging
--- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

I'm sure others would love to see the "numbers" you ran to come to that
absurd conclusion. To start with, probably 1 in 10 reactors in the US
are not even in an area where a significant earthquake is likely during
the lifetime of the plant. And that's before we get to any failures.

Next!

They publish numbers for the various reactors being damaged in an earthquake. I started with the number for North Anna which is one of the least likely, around 1 in 70,000. Factor in the useful life of the reactor which presently stands at 70 years and now it's 1 in 1,000. There are 100 such reactors in the US, most of which have a worse risk factor and you get 1 in 10 approximately. Not high math.

He's underestimating the risk of large earthquakes on places like the
East Coast. Just cuz it hasn't happened in living memory or recent
history doesn't mean the risk is infinitesimally low, it may just mean
it's overdue

The problem with that is they design the reactors to match the chance and severity of anticipated earthquakes to get the probability down to the nominal value of 1 in 70,000... most of the time. So smaller earthquake likely, less earthquake resistance, similar odds, unless they aren't.

While I was looking for the starting numbers a reference indicated the probability of something going wrong with the reactor itself was an even more likely event. So the ultimate odds are at best 1 in 5. You wouldn't even drive your car if the odds of a serious accident were 1 in 5.

This is one of the reasons why nuclear reactors are so expensive to design and build. To be safe they have to be designed so much better and to account for so many more problems than most anything we make.

Yes, too cheap to meter indeed. Tell that to Dominion who seems to be very happy billing their customers for half a billion dollars obtaining a facility approval that will likely never be built.

I've mentioned this before but the NRC says, "Indian Point 3 is calculated to be 1-in-10,000 each year" which is the worst earthquake rating in the US even though this is considered acceptable. NYC is just 25 miles downwind and in 2001, "During the September 11 attacks, American Airlines Flight 11 flew near the Indian Point Energy Center en route to the World Trade Center.. Mohamed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers/plotters, had considered nuclear facilities for targeting in a terrorist attack." Imagine how much worse the results would have been if this has been the target of one of the planes.

Before anyone talks about how the containment vessel would likely withstand the impact of an airplane, consider they don't need to attack the vessel itself, only the cooling system which is outside the containment vessel. Knock that out with not even too large an airplane and the reactor will melt down. Given enough damage to the cooling system and the containment vessel will leak radiation through the cooling channels or even other means as is presently happening at Fukushima. The difference is that at Fukushima they are dumping radioactive water into the Pacific ocean. At Indian Point they would be dumping it into the Hudson river that runs right through NYC.

When all this was factored in it seems the decision was made to end the approval of these two reactors and shut them down by 2021. The plans to replace this energy include the 650 MW gas generator at Wawayanda, New York and transmission lines from other areas. Environmentalists are calling for efforts to replace this capacity "by renewable energy, combined with conservation measures and improvements to the efficiency of the electrical grid."

I know that many don't want to discuss the facts. They prefer to put their own spin on everything in a way that makes them feel good. For me the more I look at nuclear power, the more issues I find and the more I don't like it. These are real issues that everyone should be aware of. But many people don't want to learn from the mistakes that others have made. So we will repeat the same mistakes. Complacency is a big one. Hubris is another. They both can lead to nemesis.

--

Rick C.

-++ Get 2,000 miles of free Supercharging
-++ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Rick C]

On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 8:50:14 PM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:

On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 2:06:04 AM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:
On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 12:50:07 AM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:
On Saturday, October 12, 2019 at 3:29:33 PM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:

I wonder if we (the global "we") will continue to build nuclear power facilities much longer. It just seems like the cost and risks are untenable

Almost any 'seems like' scenario can be created as an exercise in spin.

If you don't like my evaluation, why not respond to the many facts provided?


A 2016 report said that the estimated construction cost of China's demonstration HTGR is about US$5,000/kW ‒ about twice the initial cost estimates."

If it produces for 20 years, 250 days/year, that amounts to $5000 for 1.2x10^5 kWh,
or about 4 cents/kWh; it doesn't kill the economics, unless another source is available cheaper.

That's the point. While you say $40 per MWh isn't a show stopper, that's on top of the many other ...

Lots of 'estimate' costs turn out wrong, the magnitude matters; that magnitude isn't
a show stopper, IS the point.

No, it's not a show stopper. There are plenty of applications for expensive energy. Various militaries use nuclear power generation. They aren't worried about the cost. For commercial power generation having a $0.04 per kWh base cost before operating and other costs are added in is *clearly* cost prohibitive when you can produce electricity for $0.04 per kWh in total by other means.

Interesting that you are only responding to the Chinese cost estimates and ignoring the rest of the numbers I provided from the massively overrun projects in the EU and US that I also posted.

What do you think will be the rate of return on the billions of dollars spent on the failed reactor project in South Carolina?

The worst part of it is that these numbers are far above what was expected when the projects were started.

But you expect overruns now and in the future? Why is that, I'm not seeing any known cause
that ought to persist/grow/shrink according to a timescale.

Not sure what you are trying to say. When you ask if I expect overruns "now"... they have happened... is that "now" enough for you? What do you mean?

Do you not understand that an entire nuclear reactor company no longer exists because of a massively overrun project in South Carolina? There is no longer a Westinghouse nuclear reactor company.

Yeah, but solar cell company Solyndra also no longer exists. Is there a known cause that
we should expect to repeat?

What does a startup company like Solyndra have to do with building nuclear power plants???


> Understanding is deep stuff, not touched by casual rhetorical spin.

Yes, indeed. Unfortunately literally every commercial nuclear project in the western world in the last 20 years has had massive schedule delays and cost overruns. This is what we like to call "a clue" that we can't seem to build commercial nuclear power plants on schedule and under budget.

In contrast, many other power projects, like solar and wind farms seem to be easy to build on schedule, under budget and produce the expected results. They also seem to be getting cheaper and cheaper to build while nuclear seems to be getting more and more expensive.

--

Rick C.

++- Get 2,000 miles of free Supercharging
++- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Rick C]

On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 7:47:20 PM UTC-4, Whoey Louie wrote:

On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 1:00:34 PM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:

They publish numbers for the various reactors being damaged in an earthquake. I started with the number for North Anna which is one of the least likely, around 1 in 70,000. Factor in the useful life of the reactor which presently stands at 70 years and now it's 1 in 1,000. There are 100 such reactors in the US, most of which have a worse risk factor and you get 1 in 10 approximately. Not high math.


Like I said, when you have a cite to the actual numbers, let us know.
We don;t know what numbers you used or what you did with them, nor
what quantifies as a radiation release. If it's popcorn fart, who cares?

You are such a whiner. The numbers are from the NRC. If you want details, google or ask the NRC. I'm tired of discussing this with you. You can't even trim a post.

--

Rick C.

+-+ Get 2,000 miles of free Supercharging
+-+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[bitrex]

On 10/14/19 3:43 AM, bitrex wrote:

On 10/14/19 1:33 AM, Rick C wrote:
On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 1:08:19 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:
On 10/13/19 1:00 PM, Rick C wrote:
On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 9:59:23 AM UTC-4, Whoey Louie wrote:
On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 2:10:20 AM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:
On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 1:28:35 AM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:
On 10/13/19 12:49 AM, Bill Sloman wrote:
On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 3:06:27 PM UTC+11,
k...@notreal.com wrote:
On Sat, 12 Oct 2019 16:49:35 -0500, amdx <nojunk@knology.net
wrote:

On 10/12/2019 4:08 PM, Uwe Bonnes wrote:
Rick C <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:
I wonder if we (the global "we") will continue to build nuclear
power facilities much longer.  It just seems like the cost and
risks are untenable and the tax payers are picking up the tab
for the overruns.

As long as there are countries trying to get or substain
their nuclear
weapon arsenal, there will be nuclear (power) reactors.


    I thought a lot of it was overcoming the lawsuits from
people trying
to stop the nuclear plants.

And overcoming piles and piles of regulations placed on the
industry
by lefists who are hell bent on bankrupting the industry and
moving
civilization back into caves (everyone else, not them, of course).

Looking at it from a slightly more rational point of view, the
regulations were put in place by essentially a-political people
who were interested in avoiding more Chernobyls, Fukushima's and
Three Mile Islands.

Quite how making nuclear power slightly more expensive would
have moved civilisation back into caves isn't entirely clear. We
moved out of caves long before nuclear power was an option, and
wind and solar power - and fair bit of grid-scale battery
storage - seem perfectly capable of keeping us out of the caves
in future.

Krw's read only memory seems to have programmed with a lot of
misinformation back whenever it got programmed, but this is
fairly recent denialist propaganda of a particularly silly sort.


The public in the US pretty accurately recognized that the
nuclear power
industry was staffed by ex-DOD people, "Neon Johns", Enron-style
predatory executives, and various fashions of megalomaniacs who
habitually underrepresented the real-life risks and would gladly
tell
any lie and regularly sweep any safety issues short of a
catastrophic
failure under the rug to get to play with their nuke-toys and make a
quick buck in the process, if left to their own devices.

This isn't even about the risk which is not as trivial as some
would like you to believe.  I was amazed when I ran the numbers
and found the risk of core damage with a release of radiation was
1 in 10 across the US industry over the lifetime of the reactors
FROM EARTHQUAKE ALONE!  That isn't even the largest of the
different sources of risk.

--

    Rick C.

    --- Get 2,000 miles of free Supercharging
    --- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

I'm sure others would love to see the "numbers" you ran to come to
that
absurd conclusion.  To start with, probably 1 in 10 reactors in the US
are not even in an area where a significant earthquake is likely
during
the lifetime of the plant.  And that's before we get to any failures.

Next!

They publish numbers for the various reactors being damaged in an
earthquake.  I started with the number for North Anna which is one
of the least likely, around 1 in 70,000.  Factor in the useful life
of the reactor which presently stands at 70 years and now it's 1 in
1,000.  There are 100 such reactors in the US, most of which have a
worse risk factor and you get 1 in 10 approximately.  Not high math.

He's underestimating the risk of large earthquakes on places like the
East Coast. Just cuz it hasn't happened in living memory or recent
history doesn't mean the risk is infinitesimally low, it may just mean
it's overdue

The problem with that is they design the reactors to match the chance
and severity of anticipated earthquakes to get the probability down to
the nominal value of 1 in 70,000... most of the time.  So smaller
earthquake likely, less earthquake resistance, similar odds, unless
they aren't.


While I was looking for the starting numbers a reference indicated
the probability of something going wrong with the reactor itself was
an even more likely event.  So the ultimate odds are at best 1 in
5.  You wouldn't even drive your car if the odds of a serious
accident were 1 in 5.

This is one of the reasons why nuclear reactors are so expensive to
design and build.  To be safe they have to be designed so much
better and to account for so many more problems than most anything
we make.

Yes, too cheap to meter indeed.  Tell that to Dominion who seems to
be very happy billing their customers for half a billion dollars
obtaining a facility approval that will likely never be built.

I've mentioned this before but the NRC says, "Indian Point 3 is
calculated to be 1-in-10,000 each year" which is the worst earthquake
rating in the US even though this is considered acceptable.  NYC is
just 25 miles downwind and in 2001, "During the September 11 attacks,
American Airlines Flight 11 flew near the Indian Point Energy Center
en route to the World Trade Center. Mohamed Atta, one of the 9/11
hijackers/plotters, had considered nuclear facilities for targeting in
a terrorist attack."  Imagine how much worse the results would have
been if this has been the target of one of the planes.

Before anyone talks about how the containment vessel would likely
withstand the impact of an airplane, consider they don't need to
attack the vessel itself, only the cooling system which is outside the
containment vessel.  Knock that out with not even too large an
airplane and the reactor will melt down.  Given enough damage to the
cooling system and the containment vessel will leak radiation through
the cooling channels or even other means as is presently happening at
Fukushima.  The difference is that at Fukushima they are dumping
radioactive water into the Pacific ocean.  At Indian Point they would
be dumping it into the Hudson river that runs right through NYC.

When all this was factored in it seems the decision was made to end
the approval of these two reactors and shut them down by 2021.  The
plans to replace this energy include the 650 MW gas generator at
Wawayanda, New York and transmission lines from other areas.
Environmentalists are calling for efforts to replace this capacity "by
renewable energy, combined with conservation measures and improvements
to the efficiency of the electrical grid."

I know that many don't want to discuss the facts.  They prefer to put
their own spin on everything in a way that makes them feel good.  For
me the more I look at nuclear power, the more issues I find and the
more I don't like it.  These are real issues that everyone should be
aware of.  But many people don't want to learn from the mistakes that
others have made.  So we will repeat the same mistakes.  Complacency
is a big one.  Hubris is another.  They both can lead to nemesis.


The cooling systems are pretty vulnerable to e.g. drone attack. In a
decade or so someone sitting a thousand miles away will be able to fly a
quiet $5,000 drone in three feet off the ground and drop a 100 lbs of
RDX right up the thing's goddamn tailpipe.

Or maybe tomorrow it's clearly possible right now.

If they can do it to an oil refinery like in Saudi Arabia....they had
the best US-made air defense early warning system ten billion dollars
could buy. junk

 

[bitrex]

On 10/14/19 1:33 AM, Rick C wrote:

On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 1:08:19 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:
On 10/13/19 1:00 PM, Rick C wrote:
On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 9:59:23 AM UTC-4, Whoey Louie wrote:
On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 2:10:20 AM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:
On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 1:28:35 AM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:
On 10/13/19 12:49 AM, Bill Sloman wrote:
On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 3:06:27 PM UTC+11, k...@notreal.com wrote:
On Sat, 12 Oct 2019 16:49:35 -0500, amdx <nojunk@knology.net> wrote:

On 10/12/2019 4:08 PM, Uwe Bonnes wrote:
Rick C <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:
I wonder if we (the global "we") will continue to build nuclear
power facilities much longer. It just seems like the cost and
risks are untenable and the tax payers are picking up the tab
for the overruns.

As long as there are countries trying to get or substain their nuclear
weapon arsenal, there will be nuclear (power) reactors.


I thought a lot of it was overcoming the lawsuits from people trying
to stop the nuclear plants.

And overcoming piles and piles of regulations placed on the industry
by lefists who are hell bent on bankrupting the industry and moving
civilization back into caves (everyone else, not them, of course).

Looking at it from a slightly more rational point of view, the regulations were put in place by essentially a-political people who were interested in avoiding more Chernobyls, Fukushima's and Three Mile Islands.

Quite how making nuclear power slightly more expensive would have moved civilisation back into caves isn't entirely clear. We moved out of caves long before nuclear power was an option, and wind and solar power - and fair bit of grid-scale battery storage - seem perfectly capable of keeping us out of the caves in future.

Krw's read only memory seems to have programmed with a lot of misinformation back whenever it got programmed, but this is fairly recent denialist propaganda of a particularly silly sort.


The public in the US pretty accurately recognized that the nuclear power
industry was staffed by ex-DOD people, "Neon Johns", Enron-style
predatory executives, and various fashions of megalomaniacs who
habitually underrepresented the real-life risks and would gladly tell
any lie and regularly sweep any safety issues short of a catastrophic
failure under the rug to get to play with their nuke-toys and make a
quick buck in the process, if left to their own devices.

This isn't even about the risk which is not as trivial as some would like you to believe. I was amazed when I ran the numbers and found the risk of core damage with a release of radiation was 1 in 10 across the US industry over the lifetime of the reactors FROM EARTHQUAKE ALONE! That isn't even the largest of the different sources of risk.

--

Rick C.

--- Get 2,000 miles of free Supercharging
--- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

I'm sure others would love to see the "numbers" you ran to come to that
absurd conclusion. To start with, probably 1 in 10 reactors in the US
are not even in an area where a significant earthquake is likely during
the lifetime of the plant. And that's before we get to any failures.

Next!

They publish numbers for the various reactors being damaged in an earthquake. I started with the number for North Anna which is one of the least likely, around 1 in 70,000. Factor in the useful life of the reactor which presently stands at 70 years and now it's 1 in 1,000. There are 100 such reactors in the US, most of which have a worse risk factor and you get 1 in 10 approximately. Not high math.

He's underestimating the risk of large earthquakes on places like the
East Coast. Just cuz it hasn't happened in living memory or recent
history doesn't mean the risk is infinitesimally low, it may just mean
it's overdue

The problem with that is they design the reactors to match the chance and severity of anticipated earthquakes to get the probability down to the nominal value of 1 in 70,000... most of the time. So smaller earthquake likely, less earthquake resistance, similar odds, unless they aren't.


While I was looking for the starting numbers a reference indicated the probability of something going wrong with the reactor itself was an even more likely event. So the ultimate odds are at best 1 in 5. You wouldn't even drive your car if the odds of a serious accident were 1 in 5.

This is one of the reasons why nuclear reactors are so expensive to design and build. To be safe they have to be designed so much better and to account for so many more problems than most anything we make.

Yes, too cheap to meter indeed. Tell that to Dominion who seems to be very happy billing their customers for half a billion dollars obtaining a facility approval that will likely never be built.

I've mentioned this before but the NRC says, "Indian Point 3 is calculated to be 1-in-10,000 each year" which is the worst earthquake rating in the US even though this is considered acceptable. NYC is just 25 miles downwind and in 2001, "During the September 11 attacks, American Airlines Flight 11 flew near the Indian Point Energy Center en route to the World Trade Center. Mohamed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers/plotters, had considered nuclear facilities for targeting in a terrorist attack." Imagine how much worse the results would have been if this has been the target of one of the planes.

Before anyone talks about how the containment vessel would likely withstand the impact of an airplane, consider they don't need to attack the vessel itself, only the cooling system which is outside the containment vessel. Knock that out with not even too large an airplane and the reactor will melt down. Given enough damage to the cooling system and the containment vessel will leak radiation through the cooling channels or even other means as is presently happening at Fukushima. The difference is that at Fukushima they are dumping radioactive water into the Pacific ocean. At Indian Point they would be dumping it into the Hudson river that runs right through NYC.

When all this was factored in it seems the decision was made to end the approval of these two reactors and shut them down by 2021. The plans to replace this energy include the 650 MW gas generator at Wawayanda, New York and transmission lines from other areas. Environmentalists are calling for efforts to replace this capacity "by renewable energy, combined with conservation measures and improvements to the efficiency of the electrical grid."

I know that many don't want to discuss the facts. They prefer to put their own spin on everything in a way that makes them feel good. For me the more I look at nuclear power, the more issues I find and the more I don't like it. These are real issues that everyone should be aware of. But many people don't want to learn from the mistakes that others have made. So we will repeat the same mistakes. Complacency is a big one. Hubris is another. They both can lead to nemesis.

The cooling systems are pretty vulnerable to e.g. drone attack. In a
decade or so someone sitting a thousand miles away will be able to fly a
quiet $5,000 drone in three feet off the ground and drop a 100 lbs of
RDX right up the thing's goddamn tailpipe.

If they can do it to an oil refinery like in Saudi Arabia....they had
the best US-made air defense early warning system ten billion dollars
could buy. junk

 

[Rick C]

On Monday, October 14, 2019 at 3:43:33 AM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:

On 10/14/19 1:33 AM, Rick C wrote:
On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 1:08:19 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:
On 10/13/19 1:00 PM, Rick C wrote:
On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 9:59:23 AM UTC-4, Whoey Louie wrote:
On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 2:10:20 AM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:
On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 1:28:35 AM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:
On 10/13/19 12:49 AM, Bill Sloman wrote:
On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 3:06:27 PM UTC+11, k...@notreal.com wrote:
On Sat, 12 Oct 2019 16:49:35 -0500, amdx <nojunk@knology.net> wrote:

On 10/12/2019 4:08 PM, Uwe Bonnes wrote:
Rick C <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:
I wonder if we (the global "we") will continue to build nuclear
power facilities much longer. It just seems like the cost and
risks are untenable and the tax payers are picking up the tab
for the overruns.

As long as there are countries trying to get or substain their nuclear
weapon arsenal, there will be nuclear (power) reactors.


I thought a lot of it was overcoming the lawsuits from people trying
to stop the nuclear plants.

And overcoming piles and piles of regulations placed on the industry
by lefists who are hell bent on bankrupting the industry and moving
civilization back into caves (everyone else, not them, of course).

Looking at it from a slightly more rational point of view, the regulations were put in place by essentially a-political people who were interested in avoiding more Chernobyls, Fukushima's and Three Mile Islands.

Quite how making nuclear power slightly more expensive would have moved civilisation back into caves isn't entirely clear. We moved out of caves long before nuclear power was an option, and wind and solar power - and fair bit of grid-scale battery storage - seem perfectly capable of keeping us out of the caves in future.

Krw's read only memory seems to have programmed with a lot of misinformation back whenever it got programmed, but this is fairly recent denialist propaganda of a particularly silly sort.


The public in the US pretty accurately recognized that the nuclear power
industry was staffed by ex-DOD people, "Neon Johns", Enron-style
predatory executives, and various fashions of megalomaniacs who
habitually underrepresented the real-life risks and would gladly tell
any lie and regularly sweep any safety issues short of a catastrophic
failure under the rug to get to play with their nuke-toys and make a
quick buck in the process, if left to their own devices.

This isn't even about the risk which is not as trivial as some would like you to believe. I was amazed when I ran the numbers and found the risk of core damage with a release of radiation was 1 in 10 across the US industry over the lifetime of the reactors FROM EARTHQUAKE ALONE! That isn't even the largest of the different sources of risk.

--

Rick C.

--- Get 2,000 miles of free Supercharging
--- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

I'm sure others would love to see the "numbers" you ran to come to that
absurd conclusion. To start with, probably 1 in 10 reactors in the US
are not even in an area where a significant earthquake is likely during
the lifetime of the plant. And that's before we get to any failures..

Next!

They publish numbers for the various reactors being damaged in an earthquake. I started with the number for North Anna which is one of the least likely, around 1 in 70,000. Factor in the useful life of the reactor which presently stands at 70 years and now it's 1 in 1,000. There are 100 such reactors in the US, most of which have a worse risk factor and you get 1 in 10 approximately. Not high math.

He's underestimating the risk of large earthquakes on places like the
East Coast. Just cuz it hasn't happened in living memory or recent
history doesn't mean the risk is infinitesimally low, it may just mean
it's overdue

The problem with that is they design the reactors to match the chance and severity of anticipated earthquakes to get the probability down to the nominal value of 1 in 70,000... most of the time. So smaller earthquake likely, less earthquake resistance, similar odds, unless they aren't.


While I was looking for the starting numbers a reference indicated the probability of something going wrong with the reactor itself was an even more likely event. So the ultimate odds are at best 1 in 5. You wouldn't even drive your car if the odds of a serious accident were 1 in 5.

This is one of the reasons why nuclear reactors are so expensive to design and build. To be safe they have to be designed so much better and to account for so many more problems than most anything we make.

Yes, too cheap to meter indeed. Tell that to Dominion who seems to be very happy billing their customers for half a billion dollars obtaining a facility approval that will likely never be built.

I've mentioned this before but the NRC says, "Indian Point 3 is calculated to be 1-in-10,000 each year" which is the worst earthquake rating in the US even though this is considered acceptable. NYC is just 25 miles downwind and in 2001, "During the September 11 attacks, American Airlines Flight 11 flew near the Indian Point Energy Center en route to the World Trade Center. Mohamed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers/plotters, had considered nuclear facilities for targeting in a terrorist attack." Imagine how much worse the results would have been if this has been the target of one of the planes.

Before anyone talks about how the containment vessel would likely withstand the impact of an airplane, consider they don't need to attack the vessel itself, only the cooling system which is outside the containment vessel. Knock that out with not even too large an airplane and the reactor will melt down. Given enough damage to the cooling system and the containment vessel will leak radiation through the cooling channels or even other means as is presently happening at Fukushima. The difference is that at Fukushima they are dumping radioactive water into the Pacific ocean. At Indian Point they would be dumping it into the Hudson river that runs right through NYC.

When all this was factored in it seems the decision was made to end the approval of these two reactors and shut them down by 2021. The plans to replace this energy include the 650 MW gas generator at Wawayanda, New York and transmission lines from other areas. Environmentalists are calling for efforts to replace this capacity "by renewable energy, combined with conservation measures and improvements to the efficiency of the electrical grid."

I know that many don't want to discuss the facts. They prefer to put their own spin on everything in a way that makes them feel good. For me the more I look at nuclear power, the more issues I find and the more I don't like it. These are real issues that everyone should be aware of. But many people don't want to learn from the mistakes that others have made. So we will repeat the same mistakes. Complacency is a big one. Hubris is another. They both can lead to nemesis.


The cooling systems are pretty vulnerable to e.g. drone attack. In a
decade or so someone sitting a thousand miles away will be able to fly a
quiet $5,000 drone in three feet off the ground and drop a 100 lbs of
RDX right up the thing's goddamn tailpipe.

If they can do it to an oil refinery like in Saudi Arabia....they had
the best US-made air defense early warning system ten billion dollars
could buy. junk

The North Anna nuclear facility is right on a public lake. Anyone could fly a drone from a half mile away and do what you are talking about and not even get caught. Why do you say "in a decade"? I don't know what drones you can get that would carry 100 lbs of anything though. Still, I think a smaller amount of a high explosive would do serious damage to the cooling system, no? I suppose they might jam a drone if it was remotely controlled. Anything else would need to be pretty sophisticated.

--

Rick C.

+++ Get 2,000 miles of free Supercharging
+++ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Whoey Louie]

On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 9:03:48 PM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:

On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 1:30:43 PM UTC-4, Whoey Louie wrote:

Seems to me if you believe the global warming folks, most of whom are the
same ones that are opposed to nuclear power, we're headed for a total
global catastrophe.

The difference, is that one might be a problem by unlikely accident, the other
implements a deliberate injury

'Catastrophe' usually means sudden event, which is NOT the sole global warming
evil to be expected.

Of course none of that blather has anything to do with my valid point.
And you'd have to be a real loon to deny that the global warming
folks are predicting a climate catastrophe. There is no
requirement that a catastrophe has to be sudden.

 

[Whoey Louie]

On Monday, October 14, 2019 at 1:42:52 AM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:

On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 1:30:43 PM UTC-4, Whoey Louie wrote:
On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 12:51:17 PM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:

My point about the probability is that they give numbers for the chances of an accident separately due to a single cause, at a single reactor for a single year. Those numbers appears to be very conservative being 1 in some tens of thousands. But when you combine even just the number of reactors and number of years the results drop to 1 in 10!!!

Obviously you failed probability and statistics, if you ever took it.
If the probability of a failure is one some tens of thousands,, then having
N of them, the probability increases by a factor of N. There aren't
several thousand nukes operating in the US, which is what even your
numbers would require.

Dude, you didn't even read. The number of plants, ~100 and the number of years, ~70. The 1 in 70,000 number is for one reactor for one year due to an earthquake.... so over all reactors in the US around 1 in 10 over their lifetimes due to earthquake.

I'm waiting to read what's behind the numbers you started with.
For example, what constitutes a "release of radiation"? Is that
a popcorn fart or Chernobyl? Who's numbers are theses, GE or
GreenPeace?

Hardly a conservative number. Then combine that with the many various ways an accident can occur and you get some very disturbing results indeed..

That's wrong too. The predicted accident number would already include
that, you don't then add it on.

No, the chance of radiation release due to earthquake is not even the most likely cause of radiation release from the core. Loss of coolant is the most likely as estimated by the NRC.

Loss of coolant would be the primary means by which an earthquake
would cause the release, so again, sounds like you're double dipping.



You will need to google that to get the exact terminology. The web page where I was reading this a few months ago was making the point that the earthquake numbers are not the worst to worry about.

Please don't complain that I'm not proving my point by not providing references. It's late and you can do a little leg work too instead of just saying I'm wrong about everything when you didn't even read what I've written.. If you really want to know the facts, please do some research on your own. Otherwise please just don't respond to me. Ok?

I see, it was months ago, don't have the numbers now, don't know what
they were based on, and don't raise any doubts.

ROFL

You are the one who opened the Fukushima can of worms.

The point is that things DID go wrong. The designers of nukes would have you believe there was virtually no chance this could have happened, that it was unforeseeable, yet it did happen. We look back with 20/20 hindsight and say it was inevitable.

At North Anna they had a generator fail. When they looked into the cause it was found that the procedure for installing the head gaskets was faulty. That procedure was a single point of failure for every generator and was not discovered until the plant was 40 years old during an emergency. What if every generator had failed because of a bad head gasket installation?

Seems to me if you believe the global warming folks, most of whom are the
same ones that are opposed to nuclear power, we're headed for a total
global catastrophe. In which case, the risks from nuclear power look
very acceptable by any reasonable standards. Or is all that global warming
stuff BS?

You are making a false dichotomy, that it's either global warming or nuclear power.

Not at all. I'm simply pointing out how hypocritical the global
warming folks are who say a global disaster of epic proportions
is coming unless we do something immediately, yet most of the
same folks won't use readily available nuclear power which we could
deploy quickly to help avoid the global disaster.

--

Rick C.

+-- Get 2,000 miles of free Supercharging
+-- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Whoey Louie]

On Monday, October 14, 2019 at 1:50:10 AM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:

On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 7:47:20 PM UTC-4, Whoey Louie wrote:
On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 1:00:34 PM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:

They publish numbers for the various reactors being damaged in an earthquake. I started with the number for North Anna which is one of the least likely, around 1 in 70,000. Factor in the useful life of the reactor which presently stands at 70 years and now it's 1 in 1,000. There are 100 such reactors in the US, most of which have a worse risk factor and you get 1 in 10 approximately. Not high math.


Like I said, when you have a cite to the actual numbers, let us know.
We don;t know what numbers you used or what you did with them, nor
what quantifies as a radiation release. If it's popcorn fart, who cares?

You are such a whiner. The numbers are from the NRC. If you want details, google or ask the NRC. I'm tired of discussing this with you. You can't even trim a post.

--

Rick C.

+-+ Get 2,000 miles of free Supercharging
+-+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

You make much money from all that Tesla spamming?

 

[whit3rd]

On Monday, October 14, 2019 at 2:11:09 AM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:

On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 8:50:14 PM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:
On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 2:06:04 AM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:
On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 12:50:07 AM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:
On Saturday, October 12, 2019 at 3:29:33 PM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:

I wonder if we (the global "we") will continue to build nuclear power facilities much longer. It just seems like the cost and risks are untenable

Almost any 'seems like' scenario can be created as an exercise in spin.

The worst part of it is that these numbers are far above what was expected when the projects were started.

But you expect overruns now and in the future? Why is that, I'm not seeing any known cause
that ought to persist/grow/shrink according to a timescale.

Not sure what you are trying to say. When you ask if I expect overruns "now"... they have happened... is that "now" enough for you? What do you mean?

It's not clear that the 'nuclear power project' having an overrun is related
to its being nuclear, or power-related, or some odd principles of project estimation or management.

So, it's illogical to project those issues onto every other 'nuclear power project', because
no causation is established. Does this overrun scenario apply to all power projects?

>...every commercial nuclear project in the western world in the last 20 years has had massive schedule delays and cost overruns. This is what we like to call "a clue" that we can't seem to build commercial nuclear power plants on schedule and under budget.

But, I've already pointed out that nuclear power plants for submarines ARE made on schedule,
and without such fuss as you suggest. There may be something scary about commercial
failure, but it doesn't follow the 'nuclear power' component everywhere.

A part-failed initiative (WPPSS) of years ago had management (rush four builds in parallel instead
of serially), financing (bonds in default because of nonauthoritative issuance), and technical
problems (that literally were set in concrete and hard to work around), The one
plant that they finished, though, generates power economically.

<https://www.historylink.org/File/5482>

> In contrast, many other power projects, like solar and wind farms seem to be easy to build on schedule, under budget and produce the expected results.

Is that so? I've heard that the long-term viability of some wind units are in doubt because of the
extended maintenance requirements (and parts availability).

 

[Whoey Louie]

On Monday, October 14, 2019 at 6:28:09 PM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:

On Monday, October 14, 2019 at 2:11:09 AM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:
On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 8:50:14 PM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:
On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 2:06:04 AM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:
On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 12:50:07 AM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:
On Saturday, October 12, 2019 at 3:29:33 PM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:

I wonder if we (the global "we") will continue to build nuclear power facilities much longer. It just seems like the cost and risks are untenable

Almost any 'seems like' scenario can be created as an exercise in spin.

The worst part of it is that these numbers are far above what was expected when the projects were started.

But you expect overruns now and in the future? Why is that, I'm not seeing any known cause
that ought to persist/grow/shrink according to a timescale.

Not sure what you are trying to say. When you ask if I expect overruns "now"... they have happened... is that "now" enough for you? What do you mean?

It's not clear that the 'nuclear power project' having an overrun is related
to its being nuclear, or power-related, or some odd principles of project estimation or management.

So, it's illogical to project those issues onto every other 'nuclear power project', because
no causation is established. Does this overrun scenario apply to all power projects?

IDK, but it sure applies to almost all govt projects and we don't see
the libs complaining about that, saying that we need to stop public
projects or welfare programs, because the cost turned out to be way
higher than projected. They want even more of those, go figure. And
many of those programs were total failures, not just cost over runs.

...every commercial nuclear project in the western world in the last 20 years has had massive schedule delays and cost overruns. This is what we like to call "a clue" that we can't seem to build commercial nuclear power plants on schedule and under budget.

But, I've already pointed out that nuclear power plants for submarines ARE made on schedule,
and without such fuss as you suggest. There may be something scary about commercial
failure, but it doesn't follow the 'nuclear power' component everywhere.

A part-failed initiative (WPPSS) of years ago had management (rush four builds in parallel instead
of serially), financing (bonds in default because of nonauthoritative issuance), and technical
problems (that literally were set in concrete and hard to work around), The one
plant that they finished, though, generates power economically.

https://www.historylink.org/File/5482

In contrast, many other power projects, like solar and wind farms seem to be easy to build on schedule, under budget and produce the expected results.

Like Solyndra and so many other solar bankruptcies and failures.
I guess we should punt on that too?

Is that so? I've heard that the long-term viability of some wind units are in doubt because of the
extended maintenance requirements (and parts availability).

 

[bitrex]

On 10/14/19 4:43 AM, Rick C wrote:

The cooling systems are pretty vulnerable to e.g. drone attack. In a
decade or so someone sitting a thousand miles away will be able to fly a
quiet $5,000 drone in three feet off the ground and drop a 100 lbs of
RDX right up the thing's goddamn tailpipe.

If they can do it to an oil refinery like in Saudi Arabia....they had
the best US-made air defense early warning system ten billion dollars
could buy. junk

The North Anna nuclear facility is right on a public lake. Anyone could fly a drone from a half mile away and do what you are talking about and not even get caught. Why do you say "in a decade"?

I qualified my statement afterward

I don't know what drones you can get that would carry 100 lbs of
anything though. Still, I think a smaller amount of a high explosive
would do serious damage to the cooling system, no? I suppose they might
jam a drone if it was remotely controlled. Anything else would need to
be pretty sophisticated.
>

Yay, one more safety system that has to work more-or-less perfectly

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Tuesday, October 15, 2019 at 10:41:00 AM UTC+11, Whoey Louie wrote:

On Monday, October 14, 2019 at 6:28:09 PM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:
On Monday, October 14, 2019 at 2:11:09 AM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:
On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 8:50:14 PM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:
On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 2:06:04 AM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:
On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 12:50:07 AM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:
On Saturday, October 12, 2019 at 3:29:33 PM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:

<snip>

In contrast, many other power projects, like solar and wind farms seem to be easy to build on schedule, under budget and produce the expected results.

Like Solyndra and so many other solar bankruptcies and failures.

Solyndra failed because the technology it used wasn't good enough.

Trader4 won't be able to list the "many other solar bankruptcies and failures" because he makes a habit of misunderstanding what he encounters and sees what he wants to see when his source doesn't actually support that interpretation.

> I guess we should punt on that too?

Trader4's guesses are a trifle predictable.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Tuesday, October 15, 2019 at 1:24:52 AM UTC+11, Whoey Louie wrote:

On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 9:03:48 PM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:
On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 1:30:43 PM UTC-4, Whoey Louie wrote:

Seems to me if you believe the global warming folks, most of whom are the
same ones that are opposed to nuclear power, we're headed for a total
global catastrophe.

The difference, is that one might be a problem by unlikely accident, the other
implements a deliberate injury

'Catastrophe' usually means sudden event, which is NOT the sole global warming evil to be expected.

Of course none of that blather has anything to do with my valid point.
And you'd have to be a real loon to deny that the global warming
folks are predicting a climate catastrophe. There is no
requirement that a catastrophe has to be sudden.

In English, there is. In some dialects of English this may be missed by less educated speakers.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/catastrophe

Unrestrained anthropogenic global warming is already making certain well-known catastrophic events more frequent and more catastrophic - the hurricane that hit Japan a couple of days ago is a fairly obvious case in point, and eastern Australia has a had very early start to the bushfire season with 40-odd homes destroyed and twp people killed.

A "climate catastrophe" would have to affect an area large enough to have a "climate" and over that kind of area the change is going to be progressive..

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Rick C]

On Monday, October 14, 2019 at 6:28:09 PM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:

On Monday, October 14, 2019 at 2:11:09 AM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:
On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 8:50:14 PM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:
On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 2:06:04 AM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:
On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 12:50:07 AM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:
On Saturday, October 12, 2019 at 3:29:33 PM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:

I wonder if we (the global "we") will continue to build nuclear power facilities much longer. It just seems like the cost and risks are untenable

Almost any 'seems like' scenario can be created as an exercise in spin.

The worst part of it is that these numbers are far above what was expected when the projects were started.

But you expect overruns now and in the future? Why is that, I'm not seeing any known cause
that ought to persist/grow/shrink according to a timescale.

Not sure what you are trying to say. When you ask if I expect overruns "now"... they have happened... is that "now" enough for you? What do you mean?

It's not clear that the 'nuclear power project' having an overrun is related
to its being nuclear, or power-related, or some odd principles of project estimation or management.

So, it's illogical to project those issues onto every other 'nuclear power project', because
no causation is established. Does this overrun scenario apply to all power projects?

Correlation is not causation... but...

When 100% of civilian nuclear power plant projects in the last 20 years are way past schedule and very over budget even to the point that in the last six months the remaining schedule gets extended by six more months, repeatedly on some projects, clearly there is a common thread.

I don't believe anyone has found the smoking gun (so to speak) connecting tobacco use to cancer. Yet we accept the connection.

Do you?

...every commercial nuclear project in the western world in the last 20 years has had massive schedule delays and cost overruns. This is what we like to call "a clue" that we can't seem to build commercial nuclear power plants on schedule and under budget.

But, I've already pointed out that nuclear power plants for submarines ARE made on schedule,
and without such fuss as you suggest. There may be something scary about commercial
failure, but it doesn't follow the 'nuclear power' component everywhere.

So??? What is your point? We are discussing civilian nuclear power plants..

A part-failed initiative (WPPSS) of years ago had management (rush four builds in parallel instead
of serially), financing (bonds in default because of nonauthoritative issuance), and technical
problems (that literally were set in concrete and hard to work around), The one
plant that they finished, though, generates power economically.

https://www.historylink.org/File/5482

So you see this one plant as a success story??? This is the quintessential example of why civilian nuclear power plants are so very difficult to build. Out of five reactors, they were only able to bring one reactor online and at a cost of billions of dollars spent that produced zero electricity. What that money factored into the 2.3 cents per kWh cost cited? Sure, if you ignore the massive cost and risk of building a civilian nuclear power plant the remaining costs are not so high. But who will actually try to build such a plant if there is only a 1 in five chance of the reactor ever coming online?

In contrast, many other power projects, like solar and wind farms seem to be easy to build on schedule, under budget and produce the expected results.

Is that so? I've heard that the long-term viability of some wind units are in doubt because of the
extended maintenance requirements (and parts availability).

Parts availability??? I have a hard time imagining a company not being willing to make and sell parts when that is typically more profitable than making and selling the actual product.

My understanding is that there are more kW of wind production in most countries than solar, but solar is coming on strong in the US. There are farms in planning now that are comparable in capacity to other power plants such as fossil fuel and nuclear.

It will be interesting to see the combined adoption of EVs and solar power generation. While solar has issues with matching the power consumption curve in most locations EVs are very flexible in being charged and so can be paired with solar very easily. Solar has one issue in that the generation is nearly free other than the fixed costs of amortization of the capital. So in the end solar energy may be sold on a subscription plan like cell phone data. You pay for X number of kWh each week or month and you can use up to that amount to charge your EV during the solar generating periods. If you don't use that much the capacity has gone to waste but is paid for by your subscription. If you need more you pay prevailing rates which would be higher since it is likely fossil fuel or nuke based.

Since most people drive about the same number of miles most weeks this would work for them fairly well giving them the significantly lower rates of solar power while providing the investors of a reasonable rate of return. Of course I am assuming this is in five or ten years when EVs are common and solar is even cheaper than it is now. Yes, energy can be on a subscription like cell phone data. That could work.

--

Rick C.

---- Get 2,000 miles of free Supercharging
---- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Rick C]

On Monday, October 14, 2019 at 7:36:03 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:

On 10/14/19 4:43 AM, Rick C wrote:

The cooling systems are pretty vulnerable to e.g. drone attack. In a
decade or so someone sitting a thousand miles away will be able to fly a
quiet $5,000 drone in three feet off the ground and drop a 100 lbs of
RDX right up the thing's goddamn tailpipe.

If they can do it to an oil refinery like in Saudi Arabia....they had
the best US-made air defense early warning system ten billion dollars
could buy. junk

The North Anna nuclear facility is right on a public lake. Anyone could fly a drone from a half mile away and do what you are talking about and not even get caught. Why do you say "in a decade"?

I qualified my statement afterward

I don't know what drones you can get that would carry 100 lbs of
anything though. Still, I think a smaller amount of a high explosive
would do serious damage to the cooling system, no? I suppose they might
jam a drone if it was remotely controlled. Anything else would need to
be pretty sophisticated.


Yay, one more safety system that has to work more-or-less perfectly

What's the name of the shipboard missile defense system that lays out a blanket of thousands of bullets in a few seconds? Phalanx I believe. They can deploy that at nuke plants. A little collateral damage isn't too much to pay so our nuclear plants can remain safe. Then we can be safe from drones up to the last moment.

--

Rick C.

---+ Get 2,000 miles of free Supercharging
---+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

On Mon, 14 Oct 2019 21:10:10 -0700 (PDT), Rick C
<gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:

In contrast, many other power projects, like solar and wind farms seem to be easy to build on schedule, under budget and produce the expected results.

Is that so? I've heard that the long-term viability of some wind units are in doubt because of the
extended maintenance requirements (and parts availability).

Parts availability??? I have a hard time imagining a company not being willing to make and sell parts when that is typically more profitable than making and selling the actual product.

What if the manufacturer goes bankrupt or sold to a competitor ?

Such events may become more common when the subsidies to wind and
solar are finally removed and the wind operators have to work with
commercial terms. This means for instance that the price obtainable
varies daily, especially if there are gross overproduction during some
days. If operators can't afford expensive repairs but are forced to
shut down a turbine, this will also reduce the maintenance money to
the wind turbine manufacturer.

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Tuesday, October 15, 2019 at 3:10:16 PM UTC+11, Rick C wrote:

On Monday, October 14, 2019 at 6:28:09 PM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:
On Monday, October 14, 2019 at 2:11:09 AM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:
On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 8:50:14 PM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:
On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 2:06:04 AM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:
On Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 12:50:07 AM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:
On Saturday, October 12, 2019 at 3:29:33 PM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:
snip

Correlation is not causation... but...

When 100% of civilian nuclear power plant projects in the last 20 years are way past schedule and very over budget even to the point that in the last six months the remaining schedule gets extended by six more months, repeatedly on some projects, clearly there is a common thread.

I don't believe anyone has found the smoking gun (so to speak) connecting tobacco use to cancer.

There is no nice simple single connection, but tobacco smoke is lousy with carcinogenic tars, and one the effects of smoking is to disable the cilia that push these tars, fine particulates from diesel exhaust and a bunch of other crap up out of the lungs where they can get cough out in lumps of dirty mucus.

Back when I was younger, and collected stats to try to frighten my father out of smoking, I noticed that smoking in Australia where the air used to fairly clean, gave you about the same chance of lung cancer as not smoking in the UK (where it wasn't). Smoking in the UK was much more dangerous.

Yet we accept the connection.

Do you?

He'd probably need to know more about why they got expensive before he'd actually accept the connection.

Establishing correlation is much easier than establishing causation, and skimping on that part of the job isn't a good idea.

...every commercial nuclear project in the western world in the last 20 years has had massive schedule delays and cost overruns. This is what we like to call "a clue" that we can't seem to build commercial nuclear power plants on schedule and under budget.

But, I've already pointed out that nuclear power plants for submarines ARE made on schedule, and without such fuss as you suggest. There may be something scary about commercial failure, but it doesn't follow the 'nuclear power' component everywhere.

So??? What is your point? We are discussing civilian nuclear power plants.


A part-failed initiative (WPPSS) of years ago had management (rush four builds in parallel instead of serially), financing (bonds in default because of nonauthoritative issuance), and technical problems (that literally were set in concrete and hard to work around), The one plant that they finished, though, generates power economically.

https://www.historylink.org/File/5482

So you see this one plant as a success story??? This is the quintessential example of why civilian nuclear power plants are so very difficult to build. Out of five reactors, they were only able to bring one reactor online and at a cost of billions of dollars spent that produced zero electricity. What that money factored into the 2.3 cents per kWh cost cited? Sure, if you ignore the massive cost and risk of building a civilian nuclear power plant the remaining costs are not so high. But who will actually try to build such a plant if there is only a 1 in five chance of the reactor ever coming online?


In contrast, many other power projects, like solar and wind farms seem to be easy to build on schedule, under budget and produce the expected results.

Is that so? I've heard that the long-term viability of some wind units are in doubt because of the extended maintenance requirements (and parts availability).

Parts availability??? I have a hard time imagining a company not being willing to make and sell parts when that is typically more profitable than making and selling the actual product.

My understanding is that there are more kW of wind production in most countries than solar, but solar is coming on strong in the US. There are farms in planning now that are comparable in capacity to other power plants such as fossil fuel and nuclear.

It will be interesting to see the combined adoption of EVs and solar power generation.

<snipped point that gets made pretty regularly>

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Tuesday, October 15, 2019 at 4:46:04 PM UTC+11, upsid...@downunder.com wrote:

On Mon, 14 Oct 2019 21:10:10 -0700 (PDT), Rick C
gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:


In contrast, many other power projects, like solar and wind farms seem to be easy to build on schedule, under budget and produce the expected results.

Is that so? I've heard that the long-term viability of some wind units are in doubt because of the
extended maintenance requirements (and parts availability).

Parts availability??? I have a hard time imagining a company not being willing to make and sell parts when that is typically more profitable than making and selling the actual product.

What if the manufacturer goes bankrupt or sold to a competitor?

The competitor can make just as much money out of getting spare parts made as the original firm.

When a manufacturer goes bankrupt, the technical staff with the skills to get spare parts made quite frequently go into the business of looking after existing customers - to whom they are known.

It's not big business, but it can be a steady and profitable small business..

Such events may become more common when the subsidies to wind and
solar are finally removed and the wind operators have to work with
commercial terms.

The subsidies have essentially done their job. Solar cells and wind turbines are produced in volume - wind turbines aren't such a dramatic demonstration of the benefits of large scale production as solar cells, but there are now factories churning them out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wind_turbine_manufacturers

This means for instance that the price obtainable
varies daily, especially if there are gross overproduction during some
days. If operators can't afford expensive repairs but are forced to
shut down a turbine, this will also reduce the maintenance money to
the wind turbine manufacturer.

The repairs may be delayed, but if the wind turbine is going to make money on good days after it is repaired, the repair will eventually get done.

Operators who can't afford to keep their machines repaired will get bought out by people who can. They become a commercial opportunity and no-spinning windmill blades are obvious from quite a distance.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney