20 Comments

  1. Thanks for posting the pictures of the Sanmen project. It’s amazing to see the apparent progress in just 1 month period between the two photos.

    After this long period of time that the NRC has not ever seen a project from inception to completion, I’m totally convinced they are not capable of doing the job required. Until they prove me wrong, I’d rather see a new quasi-government agency approve, build and run its own nuclear facilities. That seems to be working well for France and China.

    1. It’s two different units, so the pictures doesn’t show anything about progress. That said, it’s very nice pictures.

  2. Thanks for the data on the ‘renewables’. Someone like Markey says renewables and hopes, with some confidence, that people will think this is wind and solar, not hydroelectric plants (usually the largest contributor), burning garbage, and mandated ethanol.

  3. Rod Adams wrote:
    NEI Nuclear Notes beat me to the punch and deconstructed the breathless press release issued by Representative Markey, the ranking member of the House Committee on Natural Resources claiming that “renewables” had produced more energy for the US during the first three months of 2011 than nuclear fission had produced.

    Representative Markey should come to Washington State and talk to our politicians and citizens here. The “renewables” mandate forced onto the power utilities in this state (by a vote of the people) specifically excludes any existing hydro generation (though new hydro capacity is included).

    BTW, I voted against the mandate. Avista Utilities, my electric power provider, has had hydro power since day one, and a long-existing biomass plant (fired by wood wastes). Most ironic is that even before the mandate, Avista offered an option to purchase wind power at a price premium. Funny thing, there were very few takers of this option (put your money where your mouth is). But a much greater percentage voted for the mandate (it won’t cost me anything, will it?).

  4. I might add that not only does wood chip burning increase particulate pollution, it depleted the soil of need high-carbon, bio-mass. Better it be ground to saw dust, mixed with soil, along with human created biological kitchen scraps, leftovers from slaughter houses and left to form top soil. This way ALL the carbon would be retained in a usuable product *forever* and not pushed *back* into the atmosphere.

    1. I really don’t think the waste bio-fuel advocates quite understand the scale of the problem they are trying to solve. They sort of wave their hands over the amount of bio waste mass would be needed to load balance wind and solar generation. The requirement is on the order of 10 billion tons, but the output of the the US is only about 5% of that.

    2. I agree with the solution that David Walters proposes. In order for it to work, we need to build more nuclear power plants in Washington State to make up for the loss of generation (though it is only about 50 MW), and to power the plant that would grind up the wood waste.

      As it is, the plant was built in 1983 not so much as some sort of ‘green’ project but rather as a way of making better use of waste from a number of nearby lumber mills. At the time, much of the waste was burnt on site. At least now the waste is burnt more cleanly and serves to generate electric power.

  5. I’m no lawyer, but what with the Gov’s of New York and Vermount on the anti-nuke loose, I’m wondering whether they can make a case of closing a planet based almost totally on speculative fear? If the historical record of nuclear energy since its conception shows a worker/casuality rate far far below other industrial norms — even accounting for the most massive failures around the world — do they have any leg to stand on other than philosophical bias? Legal Eagles, please fly for me!

    James Greenidge

    1. “the historical record of nuclear energy since its conception shows a worker/causality rate far below other industrial norms ” — Before I retired the data showed that for those US NPPs that were in the lowest quartile on the INPO (Institute of Nuclear Power Operations) ranking on the measurement of “industrial safety/lost time accidents” they still had better safety records than those of the major “accounting firms.” I would not doubt that they are much better today. In fact I think you could add in all (actual not hypothetical) deaths caused at Chernobyl and the numbers would still be better (considering a 30 or 50 year average.)

      1. Wish there was a similar thorough (long!) worker/public – accident/casualty “scorecard” chart rating all nuclear facilties vs all other energy and chemical industries — worst incidents included — out there. It would be a slam-dunk no-brainer positive preference for nuclear energy. What else could the media possibly say??

        James Greenidge

  6. You voted for Obama. Obama put Jackzo in charge. You stated you are proudly democrat. Fill up then on the full measure of your sentiment.

    PS, the Democratic Vermont legislature wants to shut VY down.

    And Democratic NY governor wants to shut IPEC down.

    Democracy – two wolves and one sheep voting on what’s for dinner. You know it’s true. You can delete this as inappropriate, but you still know it’s true.

    1. Ioannes, please find something else to comment on. Your spiel is old, and far, far from being predictable.

  7. for those that may be interested, here’s the formal letter “clearing” the outstanding regulatory issue vis-a-vis the AP1000 design:

    http://www.hse.gov.uk/newreactors/ci-ap1000-2.pdf

    As to the prosepct of Chinese-built components, I do hope so. Cost escalation is far more likely to kill our new build programme than anything else.

    1. Wish there was a similar thorough (long!) worker/public – accident/casualty “scorecard” chart rating all nuclear facilties vs all other energy and chemical industries — worst incidents included — out there. It would be a slam-dunk no-brainer positive preference for nuclear energy. What else could the media possibly say??

      James Greenidge

  8. Just want to say your article is as amazing. The clearness in your post is just nice and i can assume you are an expert on this subject. Well with your permission let me to grab your RSS feed to keep up to date with forthcoming post. Thanks a million and please carry on the rewarding work.

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