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Nuclear Power plant applications.

Posted: Sat Oct 04, 2008 2:00 am
by Aero
The US Department of Energy (DOE) has received 19 Part I applications from 17 electric power companies for federal loan guarantees to support the construction of 14 nuclear power plants in response to its June 30, 2008 solicitation.

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/10 ... es-19.html

And the last comment (FYI) ends with:
The U.S. Department of Energy is sponsoring the Nuclear Power 2010 program, the objective of which is to license and build a new nuclear power plant in the U.S. by the end of this decade. Although the NRC is not involved in this developmental program, we are following DOE’s progress with great interest, since one of the most important steps in achieving its objective would be the submission of an application to the NRC for a combined operating license for an advanced reactor design. The next few years are likely to be busy and challenging as we once again turn our attention to licensing new plants.

Things could get interesting.

Posted: Sat Oct 04, 2008 2:47 am
by JohnP
The U.S. Department of Energy is sponsoring the Nuclear Power 2010 program, the objective of which is to license and build a new nuclear power plant in the U.S. by the end of this decade.
License & build a new nuke plant by the end of the decade. Is that even possble? Or are they saying, end of the second decade?

Posted: Sat Oct 04, 2008 3:32 am
by Aero
by the end of this decade. That does seem optimistic doesn't it. If it's going to happen, someone should know where by now.

Posted: Sat Oct 04, 2008 8:15 am
by olivier
IMHO, unless someone is already building one secretly in a remote place of the country :)
this is strictly impossible. Maybe it would have been possible in the 40s.
Perhaps one could technically build a LWR in two years, but go through the decision-making, funding and licensing processes? No way.

Posted: Sat Oct 04, 2008 11:37 am
by Skipjack
Maybe they meant "start construction of " with build?

Posted: Sat Oct 04, 2008 6:20 pm
by Chuck Connors
Maybe in France or Japan if all went perfectly and it was of the correct design. In the US? Hard to believe.

IMHO 3 years is extremely optimistic and 5-7 years much more likely...therein lies the problem and the delays are typically why they end up costing so darn much.

I hope I'm wrong though! At least the US seems to have finally woken up (again) in regard to Nuclear power.

Posted: Sat Oct 04, 2008 9:27 pm
by olivier
We have a PWR in construction 20 miles from my home.
The plant is planned to be commissioned in 2012 if everything is fine, the construction started in 2006 and before that they had to ask for a licence (which took 2 to 3 years).

Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 4:30 am
by Scupperer
There are a couple of mothballed plants around that could be possibly be finished within the time frame, like Bellefonte, but I seriously doubt it.

Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 6:28 am
by frog
Hi guys. Fission plants are fine as a part of a wider effort using as much of our own resources as possible to free ourselves of the foriegn supplier energy chains that bind us now. That is to say as long as we have safe, long term, deep storage for what are the most dangerous toxic waste products ever created by man.
While the reactors themselves are virtually impervious to assault, the above ground storage systems in use now are woefully lacking. Even the best above ground facility is exposed to natural catastrophy and if I were one of the bad guys, and I wanted to put some serious hurt on our environs, I know where I would be looking.
So let's build some plants and dig some deep holes, (for storage, oil, coal and gas) drive R&D on developing technologies, and pray that the news we are all waiting for is posative and that the funding for continuing the effort will be provided!! :D

Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 8:09 am
by 12345
frog wrote:Hi guys. Fission plants are fine as a part of a wider effort using as much of our own resources as possible to free ourselves of the foriegn supplier energy chains that bind us now. That is to say as long as we have safe, long term, deep storage for what are the most dangerous toxic waste products ever created by man.
While the reactors themselves are virtually impervious to assault, the above ground storage systems in use now are woefully lacking. Even the best above ground facility is exposed to natural catastrophy and if I were one of the bad guys, and I wanted to put some serious hurt on our environs, I know where I would be looking.
So let's build some plants and dig some deep holes, (for storage, oil, coal and gas) drive R&D on developing technologies, and pray that the news we are all waiting for is posative and that the funding for continuing the effort will be provided!! :D
Are you confusing fission products with fusion products?

Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 2:21 pm
by MSimon
frog wrote:Hi guys. Fission plants are fine as a part of a wider effort using as much of our own resources as possible to free ourselves of the foriegn supplier energy chains that bind us now. That is to say as long as we have safe, long term, deep storage for what are the most dangerous toxic waste products ever created by man.
While the reactors themselves are virtually impervious to assault, the above ground storage systems in use now are woefully lacking. Even the best above ground facility is exposed to natural catastrophy and if I were one of the bad guys, and I wanted to put some serious hurt on our environs, I know where I would be looking.
So let's build some plants and dig some deep holes, (for storage, oil, coal and gas) drive R&D on developing technologies, and pray that the news we are all waiting for is posative and that the funding for continuing the effort will be provided!! :D
Nuclear wastes are easier to track down than chemical wastes.

A portable counter is easy. A portable GCMS is a little tougher.

In any case storage need only be for a hundred years or two. This 10,000 years stuff is bogus. Because Uranium is everywhere.

Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 2:39 pm
by Skipjack
Hmm, just use some old salt mines. Problem solved.
We have some here in Austria and I visited them once. They are very deep in the mountains. I think one could savely store anything in those.
In addition, it is not like we have THAT much waste to deal with, especially if we use nuclear waste refinement. Also, as others pointed out, it wont be a problem for that long either.

Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 3:07 pm
by olivier
Image
How good are your eyes? This graph displays the ratiotoxic inventory of PWR spent fuel over time. Most of the radiotoxicity comes from plutonium except in the first three hundred years. More comments on this page.

Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 4:20 pm
by drmike
I think the most important idea to get across with nukes is that there is no such thing as "waste". "One man's trash is another man's treasure" has been the mantra of business merchants for 100's of years. Radioactivity can be put to work in a lot of places, and the long lived stuff is usually called fuel.

It's all the same "green recycling" mantra. The main trick is economics.

Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 7:01 pm
by Helius
I wonder about the concept of a "Nuclear *waste* repository, forever, in Yuck-a Mountain. Sheesh; No wonder there's opposition. What did they expect?

They could have rethought the concept: How about a centralized "strategic restorage and reprocessing facility instead? Long term storage could be a part of it, but I absolutely object to a storage method where recovery is ever less feasible. Geological stability was way overemphasized. This stuff contains energy. We just need to figure out how to convert it to something with usable atomic mass sooner or later.

Yucca Mtn. should be a major research and reprocessing facility.