Nuclear Power; First Plant Online in 20 years!

Posted by $ Thoritsu 7 years, 10 months ago to Technology
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Well, except for the TVA part, this is great news. Nuclear power is a great solution, and my favorite question to carbon-warming fanatics.

Ridiculous over-regulation and "religious" hatred

TVA Site
https://www.tva.gov/Newsroom/Watts-Ba...
SOURCE URL: http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-First-criticality-for-Watts-Bar-2-2405167.html


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  • Posted by term2 7 years, 10 months ago
    All I can contribute to this is that if nuclear power can work on submarines , pretty much flawlessly, its only logical it can work in hardened, fixed land-based installations. Just makes sense. Its just a matter of redundancies installed so as to handle situations that will inevitably come up, No one wants a nuclear reactor, or any power plant for that matter, to blow up.
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    • Posted by $ 7 years, 10 months ago
      Exactly right! There are like 83 of these things deployed by the US alone, cruising along for the last 50 years without an accident.
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      • Posted by $ jdg 7 years, 10 months ago
        For which Admiral Rickover and his SUBSAFE program -- begun after the loss of USS Thresher in 1963 -- deserve the credit. Which shows that even a government bureaucracy can occasionally get something right.
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        • Posted by $ 7 years, 10 months ago
          Good point, but FYI, SUBSAFE is not about reactor safety, it is about ship safety and seawater leaks. Rickover definitely is responsible for the processes that make this work.
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  • Posted by jimslag 7 years, 10 months ago
    This is good, as a former nuclear electronics technician in the Navy I am happy that there is a renaissanse in the industry. When I got out, the jobs were drying up. Now maybe we can get reliable power. I have worked in utility industry for the last 14 years, mostly control systems and at electrical substations. You need a baseline power source, coal, gas or nuclear, maybe geothermal or hydro based, anyway those sources make sure your lights come on when you flip the switch. Wind is not reliable enough, it does not always blow, even in California. Solar, you need batteries as the sun does not shine at night. My last job was with PNM and it had mostly coal plus about 10% of Palo Verde over in Arizona and a little bit of gas generation. EPA regs came in and demanded we reduce emissions and oh yeah, it is going to cost several hundred million dollars. We put our heads together with the state regulators and came up with another method, EPA said no way. We closed 2 of the 4 plants and they are converting them to gas.
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    • Posted by jimslag 7 years, 10 months ago
      Actually, if you look at California and their power situation, it is a mess. A lot of their power comes from Arizona and Mexico. Travel I-10 west from Phoenix and you see a lot of power plants and power lines all going west to LaLa Land. Same with the Hoover Dam, whatever Vegas doesn't use goes to LaLa Land. If you look at a electrical map of the western power grid, you see 2- 500KVDC lines going into LaLa Land, one from The Dalles, Oregon providing hydro power and another going from Intermountain Power Plant in Delta, Utah. A big coal plant that only supplies the land of fruits and nuts. There is also a big power plant in Mexicali with a natural gas pipeline that runs through southern Arizona and California into Mexico with a pumping station in Ehrenberg, AZ.
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      • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 7 years, 10 months ago
        Don't forget all the water they suck up.S. Cal averages 500 gallons per individual per day. I read where Obama wanted to mortgage S. California using it as collateral for some more budget money. Not one bill sold no matter how attractive the price. Reason? "OMG you realize what would happen if they defaulted. The water bill alone like no one could afford that really huh?"
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        • Posted by $ 7 years, 10 months ago
          Clown state. Will be happy when the others shut off the water and power. The fruits and nuts can live in their carbon-neutral enclave, with no cars, food or deodorant. I bet no more iPhones come from there then.
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    • Posted by lrshultis 7 years, 10 months ago
      One new one and the announcement that California will be closing its last nuclear plant in the next 10 years.
      Time to develop the breeder reactors, especially thorium fueled which the fuel is already in a molten state and have natural shutdown methods.
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      • Posted by $ 7 years, 10 months ago
        Just Thorium I think, which is awesome. Other breeders are problematic.

        CA can then pay through the nose for all the carbon tax it requires it imports energy and water! Lex Luther in Superman One had it right
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 7 years, 10 months ago
    Thanks for the update, Thoritsu. Several of my past FIT students have gone into the nuclear power business.
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    • Posted by $ 7 years, 10 months ago
      Really. Excellent. Good to know.
      Students in which disciplines, if you recall, and how did they go in (commercial nuc, Navy, NUPOC)?
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      • Posted by $ jbrenner 7 years, 10 months ago
        Our nuclear engineering specialization is run out of mechanical engineering, but half of the students in it are from chemical engineering like me. I worked in the nuke business before coming to FIT and before reading AS. While I had a fascinating job, I couldn't reconcile my values with one of the two applications I was working on.

        Most of the students I know specializing in nuclear engineering have gone on to Norfolk Naval Shipyards (now under a new name) to build nuclear reactors. A couple have gone on to my old group at the Savannah River Site (When I worked there it was run by Westinghouse before being nationalized months after I left.). At least a couple are now working in Tennessee for Nuclear Fuel Services.
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  • Posted by Owlsrayne 7 years, 10 months ago
    From what I can see from the pic's it looks like it the same old tecnology modernized. I Thought there would be a total change in reactor design from what the British engineering and using some of the reactor design from nuclear subs.
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    • Posted by $ 7 years, 10 months ago
      Older is safer. What new technologies are you referring to?
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      • Posted by Owlsrayne 7 years, 10 months ago
        2 to 3 years back I was listeniing to a radio interview with a British Nuclear Physicst talking about encasing uranium fuel in a glass matrix that could could withstand the heat in a reactor. If there was a melt down the encasement would render the uranium fuel inert. Once the fuel was depleted in the matrix would be easier to store and wouldn't need a cooling pool. But I haven't been able to find about any more experiments.
        I don't understand why they can't build land based reactors like the ones used aboard submarines?
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        • Posted by $ 7 years, 10 months ago
          The glass vitrification is a waste storage/disposal method. This is not a means to control fuel spills in a meltdown.
          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioact...
          http://www.world-nuclear.org/informat...

          The fuel is clad, but it is not possible to clad a fuel to stop its reactivity in the chain reaction supporting the basic reactor operation. The reactivity must be slowed (which happens naturally in a PWR) or the core must be spread out so that it does not reach a reactivity level to support sustained fission (critical). Spread out could include shielding/neutron absorption, which is what the water does in a PWR:
          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_...
          http://www.world-nuclear.org/informat...

          They do make them like submarines (PWRs), but they want more kW/$ so they've moved away from the simplest (and most reliable features), and in some cases BWR and Breeders that are not as safe.
          The main problem (if there really is one) is they don't operate them like submarines. Three Mile Island operated normally with yellow warning lights on. This is a big no no. Either there is a problem to respond to, or there isn't, what is an operator supposed to do with a warning? In Yoda's words "Do or do not. There is no try."
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        • Posted by $ jbrenner 7 years, 10 months ago
          Vitrification (glass encasing) of spent nuclear fuel has been done for quite a long time at both the Savannah River Site (where it was literally done in the same building I used to work in the late 90's) and at Hanford. However, this is the first time I had heard of doing that with unspent nuclear fuel. Very clever.

          I'm sure those experiments on unspent nuclear fuel are still classified.
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  • Posted by mia767ca 7 years, 10 months ago
    Fukashima is still leaking radiation into the Pacific...the island of Japan will be dead inside 40 years as will be the Pacific Ocean...at one point they considered evacuating Tokyo, but they had nowhere to put 35 million people...they all got irradiated (poisoned)...
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    • Posted by $ 7 years, 10 months ago
      Yes, Fukashima is leaking radiation. So is my watch and everyone's smoke detectors. The island of Japan and the Pacific Ocean are not in serious jeopardy because of Fukashima! Where did you hear this?
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      • Posted by mia767ca 7 years, 10 months ago
        scientific journals..media...the radiation leak is a lot more significant than your watch or smoke dedector...the rad levels in Tokyo were above safe levels...the govt considered evacuation, but backed off...no where to take 35 million people...i would not plan a vacation to Japan anytime soon...rad levels were up in Seattle as a result...
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        • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 7 years, 10 months ago
          Let's settle this the easy way. Sites. Cites, facts and sources. Anything to offer in that area. This is an objectivist site. Anything less goes in the reject column for lack of moral principled thinking. Not my job to do your job. Your claim to fame wants shoring up and i don't change diapers.

          About the most I'll go is mention near Port San Luis California is a nuclear power plant. The whole thing sits dead on top of the San Andreas Fault Line. Seems strange they would choose such a location? And then end it with Comment please?

          You see the distinction betwen thinking and wishful thinking?
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        • Posted by $ 7 years, 10 months ago
          You get more radiation on flight from Japan to Seattle.

          BWRs and breeders are not the only options, and you don't have to build a nuclear plant where tidal waves can wipe them out. They are already designed for seismic events. There are 80-90 PWRs driving around in the ocean since 1950, without a single accident. One even ran into an underwater mountain at ~30 MPH, and came home.

          I am 100% sure Greenpeace (more appropriately GreenWar) has asserted the levels in Seattle are higher, and DDT kills birds. Has someone credible measured levels relevant to a real issue?

          After Three Mile Island people were up in arms, but the levels of radiation from this preventable accident were laughably low.

          Please forward a recent scientific journal article if you have one.
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          • Posted by mia767ca 7 years, 10 months ago
            i flew jets for 40+ years...avg post-retirement life span for pilots is 18 months...female flight attendants have higher miscarry rates and lower birth weight babies (on average)...female pilots ground themselves immediately upon finding out they are pregnant...we absorb the equivalent of 6 xrays a month in radiation...many eye disorders...i have glaucoma, cataracts, and the start of macular degeneration...i am 14 years retired, but i am raw vegan...

            i read many health articles and scientific jounals online...the info is out there...
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            • Posted by $ 7 years, 10 months ago
              I work in this industry, and am pretty well read here. Not going to go look for your supporting data. If you don't want to present it, then drop the argument.

              There is one overwhelming factor in longevity, more than diet, weight, exercise et al. That factor is genes. The rest is noise. No one in my family lineage has died before 90, and pretty active to the quick end. You have fun with raw veggies, and I'll stick with the demonstrated, successful omnivorous diet of my forebears and hope I got their good genes.
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  • Posted by davidmcnab 7 years, 10 months ago
    I'm happiest if part of the output of such a facility can be used to prepare enough H2/O2 rocket fuel to blast the spent nuclear waste into the heart of the sun.
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    • Posted by $ 7 years, 10 months ago
      I have always wondered why that isn't a solution.
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      • Posted by mspalding 7 years, 10 months ago
        It is the solution. Unless there is a malfunction. And then you spread nuclear waste throughout the biosphere. The best solution is to wait a bit until the Thorium Reactors are built. They burn nuclear waste as fuel and render it into something much safer.
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        • Posted by $ 7 years, 10 months ago
          Thorium reactors are a great option, but we don't need to wait until then. There is little evidence of an issue with nuclear accidents, and lots of evidence they are completely controllable. Unless you have some other evidence.

          Are you arguing they represent Friedman's forced servitude?

          I learned about them here, from JLC!
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  • Posted by johnpe1 7 years, 10 months ago
    in july of 1975, they tried to hire me to work on this
    plant. . I chose the manhattan project site k25 instead
    and retired from the sister site y12 in 2008. . the old
    memories are kinda curious, now. . took a long time
    to get this plant going. -- j
    .
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    • Posted by $ 7 years, 10 months ago
      Pathetically long time. That is the bureaucratic problem.
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      • Posted by johnpe1 7 years, 10 months ago
        Trump could probably get one going in a couple of years,
        if the government would get the ... out of the way! -- j
        .
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        • Posted by lrshultis 7 years, 10 months ago
          Just get Trump and the government out of the way and there would just need to be some court cases to take care of idiots with nuclear isotopes with no understanding of what they have. Dirty bomb stuff has nothing to do with nuclear power generation and should be considered a side issue as to how to deal with the dangerously insane.
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          • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 7 years, 10 months ago
            Two questions really.

            Reading up on the Ukraine reactor Chornobyl incident and found out once cleaned up the other four are ready to go. Locals might be a bit touchy though. The problem was human error and intentional human error compliments of Comrade Bernie's and the fascist left's favorite system of government. but that aside.

            I haven't reviewed thorium system enough to answer this. Could they be used to clean up the Chornobyl spill or for the matter the pending one at Hanaford on the Columbia river which segues me into #2 and the sunken nuclear subs in the White Sea and Barents area? Big splash on that and then curtain of silence from the lame stream media.
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            • Posted by $ 7 years, 10 months ago
              Not sure I understand the questions. I don't know enough about thorium reactors to answer those questions either, but I recently read an article that Chernobyl had unexpectedly low radiation, and animals had recovered to the area much faster than expected. I'm personally not a fan of breeders because they have a positive temperature coefficient, and require action to make them safe when there is a problem, rather than inaction to make them safe.
              Naval ships use PWRs which are inherently safe. Those sunk subs are just chunks of metal now, safer still because they are under water.
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 7 years, 10 months ago
    We should be developing nuclear power as fast as possible instead of waiting 20 years between building plants.

    The entire world economy runs on energy. That may be decreasing, but even if the Energy/GDP ratio fell to a tenth of what is now, energy demand will still increase as the population of affluent people on earth grows.

    Burning stuff for energy stored in chemical bonds over millions of years is not sustainable. Plus the preponderance of the evidence shows it's hasting global warming and affecting the world in unpredictable ways. When the evidence for that became solid about 20 years ago, we should have immediately made it easier for people to build nuclear plants. Maybe LENR or geoengineering are coming, but right now they're wild theories. Nuclear energy is proven.
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