New nuclear power plants in Georgia. Hallelujah.
Georgia Power said Tuesday it has reached an engineering and construction deal with Westinghouse Electric Co. for two 1,100-megawatt nuclear reactors at the utility's Vogtle plant south of Augusta.
Nuclear power is making a comeback in the United States as the nation tries to lessen its dependence on natural gas and foreign oil as well as cut back on carbon emissions and other pollutants.
What Georgia Power, as well as other utilities, will try to sell to consumers is that nuclear plants are actually cheaper in the long run. There are two main messages: The fuel is not as prone to wild price swings like natural gas. Secondly, it also does not produce carbon emissions and will not be subject to a future carbon tax, which will plague coal-fired and natural gas plants.
"A nuclear plant is more expensive up front, but it's cheaper to run," Harper said. "And if you're going to do anything about carbon and greenhouse gases, nuclear has to be a part of that solution."
Posted by Muck at April 10, 2008 09:36 PMmuck,
your nuke shill trolling is not welcome here.
Posted by Turkana at April 10, 2008 09:39 PMUS gives nuclear energy a second look. More good news.
Morning Edition, March 28, 2008 · After a hiatus of nearly three decades, nuclear energy is booming. Seventeen power companies in the U.S. are making plans to build more than 30 nuclear plants.
One state where nuclear power is making a comeback is Florida. At a meeting last week in Tallahassee, Florida's Public Service Commission voted to approve the state's first new nuclear plants in decades.
Commission member Nathan Skop hailed the decision. "Simply put, nuclear power is a strategic investment for the state of Florida and our national security—to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and to protect our environment," he said.
Posted by Muck at April 10, 2008 09:49 PMyour nuke shill trolling is not welcome here.
What are you talking about? Here are realistic concrete plans to deal with reducing greenhouse gas and reducing reliance on fossil fuels. The good news is that since carbon fuels will be heavily taxed in the future as part of a "penalty" of being dirty energy, the costs for nuclear power make sense.
Searching The Google, nuclear power (with recycling of the nuclear waste) could provide energy for 300-500 years. Certainly over that time period, innovation will come up with other power sources.
But climate change is a problem NOW. And of the big sources of power (oil, natural gas, coal, hydro, and nuclear), nuclear is the clean option. (There aren't too many more rivers or streams to build dams on).
Posted by Muck at April 10, 2008 09:56 PMAccording to the DOE, global energy consumption is 4.1 × 10^20 J, or 13 terawatts (TW) per year. Global population and economic growth projections are used to calculate that this demand will double by 2050 and exceed 40 TW/year by 2100. To be a player in the future energy mix, a prospective resource must provide a significant part of that 40 TW for an extended period of time.
Getting up to a 10 TW capacity with nuclear fission (the current state of the technology) requires the construction of a new 1 GW plant every two days for the next 50 years. Once that level is attained, known uranium resources would be exhausted in 10 years.
Exploitable hydroelectric could produce up to 0.5 TW a year. Tidal energy totals something like 2 TW, we could use only a fraction of that. Total geothermal is about 12 TW, again only a small fraction can be exploited. Total extractable wind is on a similar scale.
Our sun delivers, on average, 120,000 TW of energy to Earth's surface. 10% efficient solar farms covering 1.6% of of the US land surface could meet our 2100 energy needs. This is about the same area as is currently covered by federal highways. There are resource issues here as well, of course, relating to the materials used to produce solar cells, but solar is the most abundant, non-depleting energy resource we have.
(The numbers from a DOE Report on Global Energy Resources report issued in 2005; these are similar to numbers I've heard more recently in talks by professionals.)
muck,
you have no idea what you're talking about, and i'm going to make a post tomorrow about the fact that nuclear power is no solution to global warming. after that, if you keep posting this off topic crap in my global warming threads, i'll ban you.
Posted by Turkana at April 10, 2008 11:50 PMAh, Christina I see you have your heads in the alternative energy clouds.
Nuclear engineer James Hopf writes (with references):
"In summary, the actual recoverable uranium supply is likely to be enough to last several hundred (up to 1000) years, even using standard reactors. With breeders, it is essentially infinite."
He easily dismisses your concerns about a limited supply.
Even if uranium lasts for 100-200 years, it bridges the gap until "the next thing." Many people are concerned about fighting climate change NOW and not waiting until other non-nuclear alternative energies become technically feasible on a large enough scale to supply reliable energy. After all, fans of solar energy seem to shy away about where they plan on getting energy at night or on cloudy days. European countries that have gone in the solar and wind direction experience rolling blackouts due to the unreliability of solar and wind. (Link.)
For those of you opposed to nuclear energy, here is the alternative in today's headlines:
Billions of barrels of oil may lie under Northern Plains.
I'm not saying nuclear power is perfect. But it's the best weapon today in the fight against climate change.
Posted by Muck at April 10, 2008 11:51 PMTurk, you have the right to be wrong. I'm all for free speech.
But I have to laugh at the urgency that you give climate change, yet you have no realistic or pratical ideas on what to do about it. Except the fairy tale of alternative energy. Maybe down the road, you'll be right about alternative energy. I truly believe that. But in 2008?
Don't bother with banning me. I don't come around here often enough for you to bother. I just caught the exciting news about the new nuclear power plants and thought I'd share. Maybe some folks here who are serious about climate change will recognize that this news is extremely significant for a country that hasn't built a new nuke for over 30 years.
And in the comments in one of the other threads, I saw a few folks who agreed with me. Kudos to them. They get it.
The fight against climate change is all about reducing CO2. Nukes do that.
Cheers.
Posted by Muck at April 11, 2008 12:03 AMmuck,
you strike me as a generic astroturfer. your comments are all about nukes, your links have nothing to do with global warming and climate change, and your support for nukes comes from a nuclear engineer. christine is an actual climate scientist. i'm going to post something tomorrow that makes clear nukes have nothing to do with solving global warming. you didn't even address christine's point about the amount of nukes we would need to even make a dent in the problem. beyond that, you want to celebrate new nuclear plants, do it in an open thread. your posts and links have nothing to do with what i'm posting. troll elsewhere.
Posted by Turkana at April 11, 2008 12:38 AMCome on Turkana, your own Senator Kennedy stands in the way of wind farm to be located 60 miles off the coast. Do you really believe Senator Reid will try to sell to his state the need to cover the state with solar cells? Whose going to make these cells? Oh, the Chinese, in making them, they'll produce more CO2 than these cells will offset. Didn't Albert Gore and the UN IPCC just win all those awards for this work you're or Hansen is criticizing? China's increased exposure here, double to triple the amounts of CO2 forecast by the IPCC. Still, we, some 300 million plus, are expected to lead over the 1.6 billion from China. A China just beginning to enjoy the fruits of their labors, consuming goods at an increasing rate. And India's 1.3 billion, what of them?
Posted by peter at April 11, 2008 03:45 AMPielke's dad is often presented as a "skeptic" but when one looks at what he's actually written he doesn't deny that manmade CO2 is warming the planet. Now his kid thinks that the sitution is not being presented in stark enough terms. Funny.
When the history of this sorry and doomed era is written (not that "history" is going to be much of a concern as the stable climate radically and irreversibly alters over the next century), the climate scientists are the only ones who will be determined to have done their duty.
They fairly quickly determined what was happening, came together in a remarkably quick and enormous consensus and told the world's governments that something massive had to be done, yesterday.
Everyone else failed the planet and all future generations and creatures, especially American "conservatives" (the last vicious gameplaying deadenders), but the scientists are actual heroes.
Posted by euzoius at April 11, 2008 06:20 AMTurkana, Muck is a longtime troll. Full name 'muckdog'. He has brought his views of nuclear energy for a long time.
If you like his responses on nuclear energy, wait until there is thread on economics.
Also, I'm pretty sure Steve has saved a few comments of his under "Stupid Trolls". And yes, he's been banned before, he doesn't have a rolling IP address like peter.
Muck a lot of the decision making people obviously agree with you. I'm an advocate of wind and solar as long term solutions but nuclear will be a part of the mix. With reprocessing it will be a long time before we run out of nuclear fuel.
Posted by JohnT at April 11, 2008 06:36 AMTurkana, just because Muck is a troll, just because he likes nukes and Christine a climatologist does not, and just because he likes large corporations' energy solutions, does not make him wrong that nukes are being seriously considered by governments worldwide as part of the solution to global warming. Muck is kind of on-topic, for once. They in fact are being considered as part of the solution to global warming by governments around the world, including governments that actually support Kyoto.
Personally, I like the ideas I've read about "pebble reactors," but I'm sure the Georgia design is not based around that, even without having read anything about this Georgia plant. Although, I'm wondering, Muck, how are they going to cool this reactor in Georgia without water?
Anyway, I'm not reflexively anti-nuclear anything except anti-nuclear arms. In my view, solar, wind, thermal, bio-fuels, nuclear and even as clean a coal-burning plant as we could make are all part of a sustainable energy solution. There's no magic bullet with energy technologies. Only smart strategies, and stupid or no strategies. Unfortunately, we seem determined to go with no strategies these days.
But Christine's anti-nuclear stance is her opinion only. She's a climatologist, right? Not a risk manager nor a nuclear engineer let alone a nuclear scientist. I'm willing to listen to information about nuclear energy solutions.
Although, I'm beginning to think it's getting to be too little, too late. A decade ago it was 5 to midnight when it came to global climate change and flooding our atmosphere with CO2. Today, we've got to be at least a minute closer, and nobody's any closer to doing anything, even the countries which claim to support Kyoto don't support it.
It could be that we're dealing with some bad things inherent in the human condition, like short-sightedness and susceptibility to social pressures that impair us from moving on an emergency we cannot see, like global warming. In which case, the cards were already stacked against us and we're probably fucked anyway. I don't mean to be so fatalistic about it, but 8 years of Bush-Cheney have given me a certain sense of inevitability about really bad things. I don't think I'm nihilistic or anything, but I think I'm more resigned about certain things than I used to be.
Posted by Brian Bell at April 11, 2008 07:56 AMI actually agree with JohnT here. Nuclear is part of the solution to fighting climate change; it's not the 100% solution. Wind and solar work when it's sunny and windy. But check out those Euro rolling blackouts where they're using it at just a 10% solution.
Brian, I agree with you, too. I'm not sure how they'll cool those nukes in Georgia. Probably the same way they cool them in Phoenix. Works there. And even if you're right that it's "too late" to fight climate change, I think we should prioritize cleaning our air. Just reading the asthma and chronic respitory problems caused by dirty air means we have to do something.
I'm just amazed at the comments from Turk on the issue. Turk says:
your comments are all about nukes, your links have nothing to do with global warming and climate change,
Amount of CO2 generated from a nuclear power plant: 0. You want to fight climate change by reducing CO2, right?
christine is an actual climate scientist.
Yeah, she mentioned tidal energy. Good luck with that one. Where are those power plants? I respect Christina, and I'm concerned about reducing CO2, too. Even if we get solar and wind working and figure out how to make them work when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing, that's 10% of the solution. What about the 90%?
Here in Sacramento, we voted to take the Rancho Seco nuke plant offline. It had provided Sacramento with 50% of the city's electricity. So when it was shut off, the local power company had to get the power from elsewhere. The costs to Sacramento customers are now 3-times higher than the costs would be with Rancho Seco online. In addition, forecasts are that energy costs will be 6-times higher by 2009.
Now there's a regressive tax on consumers. In addition, the "carbon tax" idea of penalizing fossil fuel plants will only increase the costs of energy. Folks need energy.
And then there's the CO2 issue, one of the greatest dangers we face. The shutting down of Rancho Seco means that we get a lot more energy from coal and natural gas. How many millions of metric tons of CO2 have been thrown into the atmosphere because of shutting down Rancho Seco?
So, aren't my comments "on topic" if the topic is addressing the threat of climate change?
It's not like I'm commenting on your Hillary posts or anything. Although she has gone from being an "agnostic" on nuclear energy to being open to the idea of it being part of the solution to climate change and reducing our reliance on foreign energy.
President Gore in 2000 would have made a world of difference on this crucial issue. The corrupt conservative Supreme Court's selection of the vile junya was more than just the nation's loss, it was the planet's.
The scientists say there is still time IF very substantial emissions cuts are undertaken within the next several years. After that, it'll be too late.
That ALL Repubs in this crucial decade simply refused to lead on this existential environmental issue in the face of the clear warnings by our nation's leading, respected scientists---indeed, censored and diluted the scientists testimony!--demonstrates they are a corrupt, criminal and utterly irresponsible party, unfit to hold a single seat.
We believe militarist US generals and admirals and their "expertise", apparently, but not NASA's climate scientists.
If the planet melts down, the denying, head-in-the-sand, special interest kowtowing Repubs of the past decade will be principally to blame and should be held to account by the nation and the doomed generations of the future.
Posted by euzoius at April 11, 2008 10:12 AMmuck,
where's your peer-reviewed scientific literature that explains how nuclear power can solve global warming? after my post later today, you keep yor nuke shilling out of my global warming threads unless you can prove relevance.
Posted by Turkana at April 11, 2008 10:33 AMWe have the Palo Verde Nuclear Plant here in Maricopa County, AZ and costs have not gone down.
Arizona Public Service will soon (2011) have the Abengoa Solar plant online.
Instead of leading in the Solar Industry we have to rely on a Spanish Company to invest. What the fuck is wrong with investing in the future? Oh... that's right we have conservatives fighting liberal thought every step of the way! They don't have their money invested in it yet! Way to think ahead "Dick"!
Posted by Seven of Six at April 11, 2008 10:39 AMThe longevity of Uranium as a fuel source depends on how it is used. Whith today's technology, the lifetime is rather limited. Maybe better technology (and thus increased longevity) will become feasible and maybe it will not. Meanwhile, solar, at today's efficiency, can supply our energy needs. Contrary to the popular misunderstanding, energy is still produced on overcast days, just at a reduced amount. There are, of course, storage technologies to shift the time of use of collected energy (for example, molten salt...a 1980's DOE project called Solar Two used this, the storage efficiency was something like 99%).
(Solar is still a small part of the energy mix in Europe, so it seems unlikely to be responsible for any power disruptions experienced there. In any case, an opinion article in the Canada Free Press does not really count as a link to useful reporting.)
I'm not suggesting that nuclear is the 100% answer. It's just part of the answer. The US gets 20% of our energy from nuclear, and that number needs to be a lot higher. We have to reduce our reliance on coal, oil and natural gas. Those are the CO2-emittin' b@stards. And I think we all agree on that.
Euz: Really, the last 30+ years. There is a lot of blame to go around in both parties. I think we need to have a bipartisan approach to this, otherwise we'll continue to march down the same path for the next 30 years.
Turk: I found a lot of information via Google. Try a search. And one has to be careful to navigate between the anti-nuke crowd and the nuclear shills.
I doubt if nuclear power will stop climate change; it just doesn't emit CO2. Excess capacity at night can be used to generate hydrogen for mass transit, and reduce the use of fossil fuels during daily commute hours. That would help, too. Overall, I think that's a lot cleaner than coal and natural gas, whether it fights climate change or not.
Seven, I love solar energy. Works great when the sun shines.
And wind? The Day the Wind Died in Texas.
Texas, a model of wind power’s potential, now is a model of wind power’s pitfalls too.
Minders of the Lone Star State’s electricity grid had to cut power to some offices and factories Wednesday evening when the wind dropped—and with it, electricity produced from the state’s many wind farms. The green juice slowed from 1,700 megawatts to the trickle of 300 megawatts.
(Here's where Christina complains that the WSJ is owned by Murdoch...)
Posted by Muck at April 11, 2008 12:44 PM