California electric rates are getting ridiculous

On 12/4/2008 3:13 PM Pete C. spake thus:

Since that was me, let me say how idiotic that objection is. It (the sun) *is* inexhaustable for all intents and purposes, since when the sun finally does go out, the game's over for all of us.

Cash prize or no, the point is it is policy and that policy was made by the processes of government. I'm not saying it necessarily was the best decision, but it was the decision reached and NV did not prevail in the debate. So far, they've been unable to win a change in that decision and for the better good of the whole it's time to move forward.

The technical issues can't be resolved until there is a stable political framework within which to operate to solve them. As noted earlier, a misguided (1) former president tossed over a billion dollars of private investment in a reprocessing facility about 20 years ago and nobody in the national political spectrum has had the backbone since to pay more than lip service to any truly coherent and realizable energy policy.

Time is coming, however, when it will no longer be able to be pushed aside and ignored as it has been and (imo) when the generation shortage reaches the crises stage there will be a massive change in public attitude and all these apparently insurmountable issues of such importance will be swept aside almost overnight in the rush.

(1) Despite (or perhaps because of the military side of it) his training in the nuclear Navy, this former president was never able to separate and understand the difference between commercial and military nuclear power. Hence despite his well-intentioned but naive efforts he succeeded in neither accomplishing nonproliferation (witness N Korea and Iran) and in hastening and sealing the current stagnation of the US commercial nuclear industry, thereby hastening the use of significant quantities of natural gas for electrical power generation, surely one of the most extreme examples of shortsighted use of a resource ever.

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And radiation, and lots of radioactive waste that no one has yet found an acceptable safe way of disposing of. It is all sitting in on sight storage, costing us taxpayers money while producing no power.

Care to provide numbers. Please include full life cycle cost, including full cost of decommissioning.

You didn't read or at least pay attention to what I wrote upthread. I had already talked of there being seismic criteria for the design and construction of Yucca Mountain. I was simply saying that in the extremely unlikely event of a seismic event even greater than the design basis plus the overdesign that something did happen it would _still_ not cause a nuclear disaster.

A design for a high-level waste repository only requires it be both monitored and retrievable _IF_ that is the goal and design criterion. It does so happen that that is the criterion for Yucca Mountain, true.

The reason for that is, of course, owing to the fact that the reprocessing option had previously been removed from the table leaving this as the only way forward at the time the decision was made.

I reiterate that there are far more serious boogey men to worry over in the world than a postulated seismic event at Yucca Mountain. That is true in large part to what I do know has been included in the design of the facility and what I know from 30 years commercial nuclear power experience of the nature of spent nuclear fuel.

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The problem is it still isn't connected to the grid in any cost-effective manner that can contribute more than fractional percentages of demand and it doesn't appear likely that that can change within any near term horizon.

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snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com wrote: ...

That's absolutely untrue. No commercial reactor fuel or reprocessed spent commercial fuel has been used for weapons purposes.

U weapons can be and were created w/o the need of a reactor at all.

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How does the layman trust the government for the truth on this experiment?

Some how, I read a particular metal would be needed to encase (shielded around) all this mess (10,000 years) and would deplete the earth supply of that material.

I'm just more skeptical of the government than I am of the dangers of a quake. But I live here 100 miles away.

... There are tapes of the impact -- I'm sure if one looked one could find them on the internet by now.

I'm absolutely positive one can still find the reports and look at the pictures.

If you're worried about the black helicopters, sorry I can't help.

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snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com wrote: ...

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That's also simply flat-out wrong. In the US alone for only commercial (non-defense facilities) the following sites have had equipment, structures, and portions of the facility containing radioactive contaiminants removed or been decontaminated to a level low enough that the property can be released and the NRC license terminated:

Big Rock Point Charlevoix, MI Fort St. Vrain Platteville, CO Haddam Neck Meriden, CT Maine Yankee Wiscasset, ME Pathfinder Sioux Falls, SD Saxton Saxton, PA Shippingport Shippingport, PA Shoreham Wading River, NY Trojan Ranier, OR Yankee Rowe Franklin Co., MA

The following are in progress of decontamination:

Rancho Seco Herald, CA San Onofre 1 San Clemente, CA

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The reprocessing of our nuclear fuel sources is equally inexhaustible in that context as well.

As for the game being over when the sun runs out of juice, that is very much dependent on how far we progress in space travel and colonization in the millenias until the sun does go kaput.

Only if you think in terms of electricity. We should have been building all houses with at least some passive solar capability for the last 30 years. It ain't rocket science or gee-whiz tech- the sunnier, less-electrified parts of the world have been taking advantage of the sun for thousands of years. Electric and gas have simply been so damn cheap since central HVAC for the masses came along, that nobody bothered to think about it. Build the house right, and you can reduce your need for electric and gas a bunch.

-- aem sends...

I suggest we hang onto it. Sooner or later, someone will form some new kind of reactor, which will take our nuke wastes, and turn them into more energy.

We must immediately halt all production of electric cars, until the pollution and waste problem is solved. What to do with all the huge batteries, after two or three years. Car batteries at present are 4 to 5 years, and they are shallow discharge. Deep cycle trolling batteries (or some new technology) will need to be replaced every few years. Think of the children!

In my own unscientific texts, ethanol is a major loser. My van gets 18 MPG on gasoline, and 15.5 MPG on ethanol. What that means, is that I burn MORE petroleum with gasohol than I do by burning pure gasoline. I lose more than

I've seen impacts provided - I'm just not totally CONvinced.

Nope, not at all. It's the government I worry about.

Like I say, just a laymen and non-expert.

On 12/4/2008 5:37 PM snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com spake thus:

Yes, please do. While doing so, keep in mind the following parts of the nuclear fuel cycle, each with its own set of hazards (like transportation between each step):

o Uranium mining * o Uranium milling o Uranium tailings disposal o Fuel enrichment o Fuel rod fabrication o Nuke plant operation o Spent fuel removal and on-site storage o Spent fuel dismantlement (separating fuel from carrier) o Spent fuel packaging o Spent fuel disposal (TBD)

Oren wrote: ...

I don't know what the first part is intended to parse to.

What, precisely, aren't you convinced of and why based on test documented test results? You seriously think the test results were somehow fabricated? If that's the case it's tinfoil hat time, sorry.

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And, of course, to be fair, compare them to any alternative mechanism of generating equivalent power to the grid at equivalent or lower cost and reliability. (HINT: these life cycle studies were done exhaustively years ago. While absolute numbers on the $$ values will change w/ inflation, the relative rankings won't. Nuclear wins overall owing to the much smaller volume of material handled as compared to coal, on other materials costs owing to the low density output of the alternative sources.)

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aemeijers wrote: ...

The key word there is "reduce". But, it ain't gonna' go away (the need that is) and the change towards hybrid/electric vehicles is a whole new demand arena...

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There are MANY valid alternatives - some I've mentioned here. It is incorrect to say there are no alternatives in the disposal matrix and it is likewise incorrect to say there is no plan. The plan is to wait until it is time to make a decision.

Fortunately, with the new administration, the official plan becomes "Hope." The strategy to achieve the goals of this plan is "Belive," and the principle tactic to implement this strategy is "Yes, we can!"