In reporting on nuclear power, the battle between industry spokesmen and anti-nuclear activists can often loom large, drowning facts in rhetoric. But largely non-ideological resources that can provide national and international context to stories about nuclear power are readily available. Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs has a long list of experts who deal authoritatively with nuclear power and the environment. The same can be said of Princeton’s Program in Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy, the University of Chicago’s EPIC (Energy Policy Institute at Chicago), and the MIT Energy Initiative.
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After forty years in energy engineering, a score of nukes, two score fossil fueled power plants and decades assessing advanced technology, what is coming? the barriers? when? how much? (I never worked on SONGS.) I can state with certainty:
The bedrock issue with nuclear power is survival, both economic and societal. Whoever gets it right, will survive. Others will not.
There were two dots, one inch apart, under the ocean near the Japanese coast. In a a few seconds they separated by over 180 feet, and killed some 20,000 people. The utility had been told, years ago, by an expert in tsunamis, that the Fukashima plants, located in the 1960s, was not conservative, had risk of flooding. "That is one man's opinion" was their response. I engineered nine such plants in the US; knew the decision makers. Locating emergency electrical gear in the basement was cheaper. And dumb anywhere flooding was a risk. The largest tsunamis on earth have been recorded, over centuries, along that coast. Thus far, one man has been killed there; he fell from a height.
It is probable that the steam generator engineer, knowledgeable in flow induce vibration, and tube design, is dead, or running a restaurant. He may have been laid off twenty years ago. The problems with Fukushima, SONGS, or Crystal River (split concrete containment) have a common root: no experienced engineers, and where the remnant exists, they are ruled by financial, political, or legal types. The US Congress is devoid of engineers, the nuclear regulatory commission was chaired by an avowed enemy of nuclear energy, an academic, picked by the Senate Leader. We have experienced the death of a American profession; the knowledgeable people now live in China, or France. China produces far more engineers than America; we produce lawyers, ball players and movie actors. US colleges quit teaching this power technology decades ago; their graduates could not find work.
The result is, and will be, a lowered standard of living because energy will be priced beyond the ability of common people to buy it. Any business which used lots of energy have left, or will leave, in order to survive. Our aged grid may collapse one very hot day (or a New England blizzard). Think a ten year outage: no toilets, drinking water, lights, or heat, for millions.
Everybody has to die. That is the bedrock risk assessment involving energy, of every type. In my judgment the KBG would have done a better job for America. In energy policy, a complex topic involving risk, we listen to fools.
#1 Posted by R. L. Hails Sr. P. E., CJR on Tue 16 Jul 2013 at 11:02 AM
WIth all due respect to Mr. Mecklin, his lens still isn't broad enough .... Since 2010, according to Ventyx, the U.S. has seen 14,600 MW of coal-fired power plant closings; another 11,700 MW of natural gas plant closings and, among the balance, 3,500 MW of nuclear plant closings. So 10 percent of the total closings of 35,500 MW of power plants closings has been nuclear. That leaves 90 percent that's something else. If you believe this is strictly a "nuclear" story, you're mistaken; it's an electricity story.
#2 Posted by Steve Kerekes, Nuclear Energy Institute, CJR on Tue 16 Jul 2013 at 02:35 PM
To take Mr. Kerekes comments a little further,
This is also a story about legal mandates regarding Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) not just a nuclear story.
Recent information and studies are showing that existing plants being taken off-line for several reasons inlcuding larger economic picture. However those studies performed by people and companies closer to the generation side are also pointing out that the artificial legal framework of state mandated RPS's are forcing utilities to use critical resources on wind and solar when those resources could be used for other more rate payer beneficial purposes.
Legal mandates for intermittent power sources are having more of an effect on utility long range decision making then many believe.
#3 Posted by Bill Rodgers, CJR on Sat 20 Jul 2013 at 09:12 AM