Final nail in nuclear power coffin? Yucca Mtn fault line & Nevada earthquakes
This entry was posted on 2/24/2008 10:24 PM and is filed under nuclear,Subsidies.
If you're a past reader of this blog, you know that the problem I have with nuclear power is that we don't know what its full life-cycle cost is. (period) So why would anyone invest in it?
Quick, what was your first thought when you heard about the recent 6.0 earthquake in Nevada? Mine was, "wonder how close it was to the not-yet-being-used Yucca Mountain?"
A few recent articles on Yucca Mountain -
Yucca Mountain Nuke Dump Above Fault Line(September 2007) (have you seen this is the main stream media??) Yucca Mountain has been near the top of the list as a national long-term repository for over 20 years and we're finding this out now!!!
Real-time Earthquake Maps, Nevada - U.S. Geological Survey -- the number and magnitude of earthquakes in Nevada raises serious concerns about long-term high-level nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain.
Nevada Earthquake History - U.S. Geological Survey - "Nevada ranks among the most seismically active States."
It's very telling that in Lester Brown's PLAN B 2.0 (Norton, 2006, 300 pages), he only includes one paragraph on nuclear power. Here it is -
"Although nuclear power has been getting some press attention as an alternative to fossil fuels, electricity from nuclear power plants is costly. On a level playing field with no taxpayer subsidies, nuclear power is dead. If utilities pay the full costs of nuclear waste disposal, of insurance against accident, and of decommissioning plants that are worn out, the expense of nuclear power will take it out of the running. And with international terrorism on the rise, the vulnerability of nuclear power plants to attack combined with their use by countries as a steppingstone to the acquisition of nuclear weapons virtually eliminates nuclear fission as a future energy source."
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More info on Putting nuclear power to bed -- for many years (here) and nuclear subsidies (below) -
"The energy bill conference report (H.R.6, “The Energy Policy Act of 2005”) negotiated between House and Senate conferees contains more than $13 billionin cradle-to-grave subsidies and tax breaks, as well as unlimited taxpayer-backed loan guarantees, limited liability in the case of an accident, and other incentives to the mature nuclear industry to build new nuclear reactors." Constructionsubsidies = $3.25 billion +
Authorization of $2 billion in “risk insurance” to pay the industry for any delays in construction and operation licensing for 6 new reactors, including delays due to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or litigation. The payments would include interest on loans and the difference between the market price and the contractual price of power [Sec. 638]
Shut-down subsidies = $1.3 billion
Changes the rules for nuclear decommissioning funds that are to be used to clean up closed nuclear plant sites by repealing the cost of service requirement for contributions to a fund and allowing the transfer of pre-1984 decommissioning costs to a qualified fund, costing taxpayers $1.3 billion [Sec. 1310]
Some say we need to recycle nuclear "waste". How much will this cost? Where's the groundswell of investors saying that nuclear recycling is the answer and that are ready to put their money into this?
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Instead, let's start paying the external costs of our energy use, via federal tax shift from income to non-renewable energy, and let the market decide.
But maybe we can't afford to dismantle those nuclear warheads and use them in power plants. Would it be more economical to sell them? I bet al-Qaeda would pay a lot for a few of them. And then we would not need to even think about storing the "waste" in Nevada. Reply to this
And related to this, the recent power blackout in Florida. I predict that as increased use of wind and solar are mandated, voltage "noise" and blackouts will become more common. For the obvious reason that it is hard enough to keep "supply" and "demand" in nearly exact balance when supply can be controlled and only demand is left to the hope that a large customer base will average out individual decisions about use. Maintaining balance will be harder when ever more of the supply is affected by variations in the wind and clouds.
But a ray of hope: the Sunday Feb 24 Wisconsin State Journal Business section has an article about SoftSwitching Technologies in Middleton. They build and sell devices to smooth out the variations in voltage and maybe keep electronic devices from crashing. Dependable power is more important than cheap power, especially for industry.
They don't explain how their devices work, but since they say they convert AC to DC then back, my guess is they use capacitors. Thus a minor voltage surge or drop would be averaged out by charging or discharging the capacitor
Today most electric current is constant enough that their device operates for only about 30 seconds a year--15 times for two second each. But that can save millions of dollars in shutdown costs. With increased wind and solar, that company may have a bright future. Reply to this
"Where's the groundswell of investors saying that nuclear recycling is the answer and that are ready to put their money into this?"
Maybe they would appear if coal were to pay for its CO2 emissions, and nuclear recycling were to be legalized. It does happen in countries where it is legal.
And Lester Brown's "terrorist" objection is bogus. The US now has 103 nuclear reactors, all defended. None have been attacked, (al Qaeda hits soft targets like trains, planes, buses, markets and places where crowds gather). But would nuclear plants be more subject to an attack if there were 250 more--approximately the number needed to replace ALL coal power plants in the US? There are already plenty of nukes for them to choose from. Reply to this
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