Yay!

$8.3B in loans guaranteed for nuclear reactors

It's about time we focus on a better form of energy generation we've had for fifty-six years.

What are your feelings on this plan, as well as nuclear energy as a whole?

My thoughts are pretty simple and optimistic. It doesn't create CO2 or any real pollutants compared to any viable method of energy generation (Wind and solar are jokes at this point.) It creates significantly more energy because it uses an entirely different method of energy generation. I love it in every way possible and it offends me that the Cold War and silly accidents have let my country hide from it like little children. Most importantly: It doesn't fund middle eastern countries.

As long as they keep the Homer Simpsons out, I'm for it!

I have a feeling that Terrapower will get more funding since there's about 70000 tons of radioactive waste sitting around the mainland, no reactors in Hawaii (unfortunately its oil powered, not even coal and super expensive). I assume if that works then things might no longer depend on King Abdullah, Saudi Arabia, and the rest middle east which has nothing else of value besides stinking camels.

Besides that, 8 billion is not a lot of money for reactors, its cheaper to run it once its built compared to everything else (assuming no meltdown), but if things move in the right direction then I'm sure they'll get more money in time. I prefer wind energy myself but realistically this oil driven war in Iraq is to obviously not worth another war with Iran and maybe even Venezuela, and also a stampede in Haiti ( they secretly have a lot of it). These wars are for consumption, so was defending Kuwait from Iraq and Afghanistan is also supposedly a war over a pipeline through the middle east, where Iran has to change or go with the flow so to speak.

Just to clarify, in the article it states he wants it upped to $54.5 billion in 2011.

That's only $180 dollars for every man, woman and child in the USA. Fair trade?

and thats just 8 reactors and thats roughly 8*1.5 million people. Which is (12/300) *100% ~ .04 percent of the population.

If you look at my above calculation, nope?

You'll probably have to do that anyway, since unlike Iraq they really are going to have WMDs very soon.

On Topic: Finally some support for cleaner and cheaper electricity...

Im a camper, moving to Australia in case the shit really strikes the fan!

Exactly how long must the plants and the waste storage systems be maintained after the nuke fuse has stopped producing electricity for us? Yes, I know, we have no answer because we haven't solved the waste storage problem yet.

Say it loud, folks! We love the nuke power because we don't have to take care of the waste for hundreds or thousands of years. Earth is screwed anyway, so let's benefit from the nuke power as long as we're around.

Acute radiation level is ~2000 years, long term low level radiation is several million years.

Yep, as opposed to current other methods of producing energy that require us to take care of right now in spite of us not knowing how to take care of them, so they end up polluting our environment and poisoning us.
Wikipedia says:

While the nuclear plant generates more nuclear waste, at least it is in a controllable "format" and not spewed out directly into the air, and that's just the radioactive pollution :S

So since not using electricity is something that couldn't possibly happen in any near future, I propose that it would at least be better to delay the problem until hopefully we are advanced enough to handle it than to just ignore the problem we are causing right now.

Yes, exactly. Too bad someone has to control it for a thousand years or so. Hope we have saved money for that job, too. Think it this way. Some 3 or 4 generations at the time of William the Conqueror did something to increase their standard of living and left the problems caused by their actions to next generations to solve. And the next generations (including us) just had to deal with the problems, if they wanted to stay alive, using resources for it but not gaining anything from it (except the staing alive thing).

Well, we could dilute the radioactive waste into all the oceans. I guess it would be more diluted than it was before digging it up.

Theres the marianna trench.

It was Gnolam who said a couple weeks ago that the high-level radiation stuff is worth extracting energy from? Like a two stage steam engine or something. It'd take a different-in-degree-not-kind of plant to get water to boil from the heat.

Last I heard you actually get more radiation in the air/the-environment out of coal plants than nuclear plants. Not to mention that the "waste" you get out of the new nuclear plants can be used in other processes till its no longer a risk.

Finally, a good use of the money. I think this may be the first thing they've done in a long time that I agree with.

Though it's not a lot of money for nuke plants, and it will be many years before we see any effects from it, it's still a start. We're only how many years late?

Why do you care? Your ideals seem to say you want more drilling in the US, along with more coal plants.

Huh? More drilling, yes, but not more coal plants. Lets produce more oil domestically and cut down on our foreign dependence. But then again, the EPA needs a swift kick in the ass for making it harder to get natural gas powered vehicles approved. Lets start making new cars powered by CNG, instead of these shitty hybrids and other "environmentally friendly" vehicles. By the time the CNG runs out, we aught to have enough nuclear plants built up that we can switch over to hydrogen.

What's wrong with water turbines? There's talk of putting a wind farm east of Cape Cod, but everyone is fighting it. Since we have the Gulf Stream, I think we should drop turbines into the water and generate electricity from it.

With any large-scale power (enough to power a country) off of steams, I would fear that we would be damaging our ecosystem. If not significantly disrupting the current flow, than indirectly with sea life being hurt or starving from food distributions being changed.

I base that on nothing but intuition, however.

I would like to stress that internal combustion engines are not well suited for mobile applications like transportation. I haven't run the numbers, but I think it's much more efficient to produce power at a single plant that can afford the highest quality emissions equipment and internal parts (regenerators, inter and aftercoolers, etc) as well as teams of professionals paid to maintain the equipment--contrasting a single, relatively cheap engine that is stopped and started, driven hard and weak (way outside of the efficient loads), braked without regeneration (different from aformentioned "regenerators"), driven in cold and hot environments without re-use of radiator heat, and so on. Power plants are more efficient, but I haven't deducted if they make up for the energy conversion losses going from mechanical to electricity and back to mechanical.

Electric and other reversible processes (pneumatic) are much more suited to transportation.

[second paragraph added]

This doesn't help the nuclear energy image at all:
http://www.reformer.com/ci_14453833

ahhh.. nuclear energy : will we use it to make clean power soruce that will save the earth.

Or will stick a rocket on the end of it and use it to blow each other to bits.

meh can not compute logic choose. so do both

Well, here in Germany/continental Europe, you're still advised not to eat mushrooms you find in the woods in some regions because of the Chernobyl disaster... (the distance being some 1200-1500 km (800-1000 miles) / 24 years). Not that I ever cared about eating mushrooms in the woods. But it's scary.

There was a study discussed in the press here a while ago that showed that the rates of Leukemia in children were somewhat higher in areas near nuclear power plants... Yay!

I think there's still space for reducing overall energy consumption. Just if you consider proper heat insulation...

Yeah, if you can find away to store a usable amount of energy. I can drive several hundred miles on a tank of gas and fill up almost anyplace within a few minutes. Can't do that with batteries, and probably not pneumatics either. Possibly hydrogen, but they still have the problem of storing a useful amount of the stuff.

Build railroad lines!

I don't think you're being creative enough. Gas has an infrastructure that's been established for over fifty years. What's the difference in filling up a tank of gas and going to a "gas" station and swapping batteries? And pneumatics, being gas, can fill far faster than liquids due to their much lower viscosity.

Hydrogen is a automatic biproduct of modern nuclear reactors that can be made extensively during low power consumption periods that occur every night. Hydrogen can be burned in a common engine exactly like gasoline. Hydrogen can also be put into fuel cells. Either way, it has zero carbon emissions because it contains no carbon. NOx emissions suck however, due to the very high temperature of stoichiometric combustion.

Gasoline is mostly a very compact way of storing hydrogen. The carbon atoms increase the molecular weight enough that it's a liquid at room tempurature. 'Nuff said.

Farming the gulf/jet streams is probably the most risky and least environmentally friendly method available. Almost every climate on the planet is dependent on them and with melting Ice - I think Greenland is of particular interest - we're weakening it as it is. If we alter it enough to change it's path, billions will die.

There are some cancer studies that need serious examination but I think nuclear is usually singled out for pollution because it's in one single place. Also, people like to believe their own driving is harmless. I'm glad we're investing in nuclear and hope we can do it it a clean and safe manner.

Well yeah. But nobody ever made a comparative study of health impacts from coal plants and nuclear plants. When you think about all nuclear powerplant failures you see that there was only one with radioactive material leakage caused by sheer stupidity. When you obtain some data on materials contained within a smoke from regular coal plant you'll see that Chernobyl is a needle in the haystack of radioactive material spitted into the atmosphere.

By the way, has anyone ever made a calculation how big is an environmental impact caused by manufacturing a hybrid or pure electrical car and its batteries?

Oh, thank you, I didn't know before!

Well, what about Uranium supply? It isn't infinite either, is it?
What if someone insane crashes a plane into a nuclear power plant?

And still:
Who will guard the radioactive waste for 2000+ years?

OICW: I love how all arguments against nuclear energy are ones that would be solved with a simple Google search. ... and yet it's still a debatable issue.

For instance, coal fired plants inject more uranium into the atmosphere than nuclear power plants.

Very bad. Not to mention things like copper prices skyrocketing because we're selling millions/billions of large electric motors now.

Except that it contains carbon and therefor pollutes the environment significantly more than hydrogen.

It will last us 20,000+ years. I would hope that in 20,000 years we will be able to find a new form of energy. We've had internal combustion engines for less than 300.

Already been tested. The videos are even on YouTube.

It's possible we can reprocess and use it. Not even trying certainly won't get us the answer to that question.

Pollutant, huh? Guess I'd better go around with a bag of lime attached to my head so I don't get fined.

Who is "we"? Are "we" really going to try, even if it could be very expensive? Still, you won't be able to reuse 100% of it.

Where? Do you have the link?

That exactly is the point. You won't stop "sheer stupidity" with technology...

Not to mention corruption.

Pfft. The only fallout you guys got was in the extreme east of Germany, and that wasn't even that bad.

In the absolute worst case scenario, there's only the containment building between the plane and the reactor. But the containment building is basically a bunker - it's a steel and reinforced concrete structure specifically designed to withstand explosion-level overpressures. Besides cold war military bunkers, nuclear reactors are pretty much the most hardened targets available. And even if the containment structure is breached, that's not enough - the plane needs to penetrate down through to the reactor core to release any radioactity (sure, there's activity in e.g. the primary coolant loop as well, but a breach there will only cause limited, local contamination).
And that's the worst case. Normally, you have an entire building surrounding the containment structure as well, which basically makes the whole thing a bunker with standoff armor.

So to summarize: it'd temporarily shut down operations at the reactor, but getting any appreciable release of radioactivity into the environment is extremely unlikely.

Au contraire. Technology (automation, decision-aiding systems, etc) can make up for a lot of stupidity.

Yes, I recall it was rather worse in Sweden...

Stupidity, contrary to Earth's ressources, is infinite

We all know it. There's that blinking light which has been blinking all the time and nothing severe has happened. Well, okay, nothing has happened, why do anything about it? Just disconnect that annoying light and everything is allright again. Some other time, of course, there might be other circumstances...
It's just human.

Depends on how narrowly you define stupidity and what level of decision-making you take into consideration... What about delaying necessary investments or falsifying/"understating" reports? I'd call that stupid, too.
But, hey, there's some profit to be made. Besides, you don't want to spoil the image of your corporation. ... Good for you that at least no one without equipment will detect the radiation.

The Americans say that nuclear power is feasible and that the nuclear waste is not a problem, the Europeans say it is not feasible and that nuclear waste is a problem. Most probably, the truth should be in between the two positions.

For me, if nuclear is a viable option from all aspects (including management of waste), then it is welcomed, provided that the dangers from mismanagement are minimized, i.e. if the procedures for managing nuclear power are easy to follow and minor deviations will not create havoc.

I say we just use fusion, because it doesn't produce radioactive waste. Also, we already have a big fusion generator ready to be used. It's called the sun.

Not true, it produces very little waste but the walls of the reactor need something to shield the neutrons produced. The shield eventually acquires radioactivity due to neutron capture.

The other problem with fusion technology is the proliferation of fusion nuclear weapons. If for example Iran decided to build a fusion plant, they would eventually also figure out the system to build a fission-fusion type weapon.

If you read dumbed down news like CNN they'll never tell you these things because they want as much public support for the hype as possible without any drawbacks so your tax money can be used without your senator worried about being reelected.

There might be just as many problems with fusion as there are with fission, and as long as the world doesn't explode due to some religious nut then the technology is safe and sound. I mean Iran's president of course.

The problem, of course, being that people do have the equipment. Around here, radiation is constantly being monitored throughout the country through a combination of fixed monitoring stations (to catch airborne particles)^[1] and regular^[2] gamma dose rate measurements at reference points in every municipality. I would hope other countries have similar programs, even if they're not quite as ambitious.

Huh?

That's a great point (and I mean that) except that it doesn't even apply to our current power infrastructure.

Nuclear energy is much safer because they're required to take precautions because everyone is so afraid of it. The same cannot be said about other means of energy generation.

Err, I have an idea...why dont we install kinetic energy gathering strips under every pathway, motorway and road in the world, so as people move around the energy produced can be stored...bear in mind that I'm an egg, so my plan may not be perfect.

Because you'll be ruining the efficiency of the cars' engines. The energy those strips would be collecting would not be 'wasted' energy, but rather the energy that was meant to be used for moving the cars in the first place.

Nothing, except batteries are heavier and it will be a little more difficult. Well, that, and that batteries are horribly inefficient ATM. Both in terms of losses in charging/using the stored energy as well as weight. Good luck getting a long range with our current battery tech. Oh yeah, and then the fact that they have a limited service life and are usually quite bad for the environment.

Pneumatics are fine too, but unless you can get it high pressure enough to liquify, it's not a very dense way to store energy, so you probably won't get a long range out of it.

But not just cars, people walking etc as well...

That's probably fine then, especially on American sidewalks... this might even be seen as a public service .

I am an European, I am for nuclear power and I dont care where the waste goes to.

I'm just saying that there are plenty of real-world applications that are on-par if not better than current ones so we should put significant research and subsidies into producing them instead of relying on gas just because it's what we've been doing for years.

Moreover, coal releases tons (as in literal use of the word) of waste. The difference between nuclear and coal is that nuclear gets stored in large waste facilities in the ground and coal gets pumped into our air. For those who don't know, our respiratory systems are much more susceptible to carcinogens than our digestive systems and our skin. This is why you can eat BBQ (which has carcinogens) and never get cancer, whereas if you smoke you're... playing with fire.

Do do ttsssss....

I have yet to see Chernobyl pale in comparison to any coal or oil plant but everyone thinks the Russians and the USSR are the only idiots who can't handle nuclear power so the US ramps up support saying that cannot happen. The fact is there is always a chance a reactor can meltdown. Its a chance and there is no way around human error, earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, freak airplane crashing into the reactor, homer Simpson types at the plant, or some other reason that might just make the thing blow up. 3 mile island is the last reactor accident in the US and that was one reason why no one proposed a new plan and actually funded it till now.

Yeah, no matter what, you shouldn't disable all the safeties, and run the reactor without coolant. Bad idea. Letting idiot military leaders who know nothing about nuclear power have actual power in a nuclear plant is pretty stupid.

Theres probably a better chance of being hit by a meteor just after winning the lottery, while on a plane thats already crashing

As was explained earlier, theres little chance of an air plane actually doing any damage to the reactor since not only is it encased in massively thick steel reinforced concrete, usually with another larger concrete building surrounding the actual reactor.

Before you act all scared, try looking up the new technologies and reactor designs available. All of the past accidents all happened with rather ancient and immature/crude designs. As people say "shit happens". Except the radiation in nuclear plants is normally well contained, where as in coal plants its put straight into the air.

Many modern reactors have passive safety features that prevent meltdown. Meaning they don't have to be triggered at all.

Moreover, the entire world haven't seen a meltdown since 1986 which was under the collapsing Soviet Union. Meanwhile, we've had plenty of oil spills and wars over oil. Heck, I just realized that more people are going to die trying to control oil than are going to die in any nuclear accident.

The biggest issue with "safety" with nuclear energy is that people don't understand it like they do standard physical reactions like combustion. They treat it like magic, and fear it accordingly.

People often choose the wrong things to be afraid of.

Lots of people fear flying too, even though it's abundantly clear that flying is the safest way to travel. What people really should fear is cars.

And SuperAIDS...

The problem Im seeing is that you quoted wikipedia which is seriously the first mistake most college students make when it comes to higher learning. Its not that there's something wrong with wikipedia but its not to be taken seriously if anyone wants a discussion on nuclear reactors and reactor design. its easy enough to read so a 7th grader can learn from but most academics frown when they see a citation from there because its over generalized information which does not take into account many years of knowledge that cannot fit on a web page short enough to hold someones attention span. Nuclear reactor design is not that simple. Thats why I dont want bother even getting into details because Im pretty sure Im missing a lot of facts.

Here something on CANDU failures

Dude, I'm gonna stop you right there. Do not even try and lecture me on writing papers. I've been writing A-grade college papers for 5 years.

Wikipedia is sufficient for internet discussions. If you want peer reviewed articles, write an essay or read a book, but get off the internet. Unless you're on a research-level forum, this point is moot. The link you posted wouldn't even qualify. It has a author and a date, which is good. But it's still not on a peer reviewed database which means it's not good enough for a primary source in a research paper.

Thats good, at least you know what I mean. I've had a discussion on the internet that ended up going into evolution and quotes from the bible going against it. So you probably have had my share of people to deal with.

Yeah, dude I know what you're talking about. Sorry I came off harsh, I get sucked into these things way too easily.