While nuclear energy has great potential to be clean, low cost, abundant power, it has not been in...
How will McCain battle the safety, cost and waste issues that have put the U.S. nuclear energy program in the 30 billion hole? Or is this just added fluff to fend off short term energy and environmental answers our country desperately needs?
Haase - While I would love to post this entire Wikipedia thread, it is lengthy and should be read in full at Wikipedia for those interested in tackling our three decade old economic energy debate. (i.e. senate, congress, pres. candidates etc..) as I am not sure they are qualified to discuss nuclear power... here is a brief history of nuclear energy for McCain's energy program: From Wikipedia
History of waste cost over runs and safety issues... we need to resolve
The United States produces the most nuclear energy, with nuclear power providing 19%[4] of the electricity it consumes, while France produces the highest percentage of its electrical energy from nuclear reactors—78% as of 2006.[5] In the European Union as a whole, nuclear energy provides 30% of the electricity.[6]
In 1952, President Harry Truman made a "relatively pessimistic" assessment of nuclear power, and called for "aggressive research in the whole field of solar energy."[13]
In 1954, the consensus of government and business at the time was that nuclear (fission) power might eventually become merely economically competitive with conventional power sources.
Installed nuclear capacity initially rose relatively quickly, rising from less than 1 gigawatt (GW) in 1960 to 100 GW in the late 1970s, and 300 GW in the late 1980s. Since the late 1980s worldwide capacity has risen much more slowly, reaching 366 GW in 2005. Between around 1970 and 1990, more than 50 GW of capacity was under construction (peaking at over 150 GW in the late 70s and early 80s) — in 2005, around 25 GW of new capacity was planned. More than two-thirds of all nuclear plants ordered after January 1970 were eventually cancelled.[19]
During the 1970s and 1980s rising economic costs[20] and falling fossil fuel prices made nuclear power plants then under construction less attractive. In the 1980s (U.S.) and 1990s (Europe), flat load growth and electricity liberalization also made the addition of large new baseload capacity unattractive.
Brookings Institution suggests that new nuclear units have not been ordered in the U.S. because the Institution's research concludes they cost 15–30% more over their lifetime than conventional coal and natural gas fired plants.[24]
For those with short term memory loss, I'll include a few previous posts in the last year on nuclear energy:
- Nuclear power will be economically obsolete in next decade
- Uranium Paradox: Reason To Favor Coal-Fired Electricity? Or Not?
- Future won't favor new nuclear plants
- Clinton goes nuke and so will Hillary
- United States could have Nuclear fuel Shortage in six years
- New Wave of Nuclear Plants Faces High Costs Wall Street Journal
- LA Times Anything But Nuclear
- 53 million gallons in danger of leaking nuclear waste
- $500 billion needed to build the country's next generation of nuclear power plants.
- Nuclear Regulatory Commission Oversight: Security of Our Nation's Nuclear Plants
- U.S. may import 20,000 tons of nuclear waste
- OBAMA's connection to nuclear energy
- "alarmist pressure" forces pursuit of the Nuke option...
- The Achilles Heel of Nuclear Power
- Nuclear power concerns cloud US emissions benefits
- Nuclear Power Can't Curb Global Warming - Report
- United States could have Nuclear fuel Shortage in six years
- California - Goina, hafta, go nuke
Question: Lets put the aside the simple arguments of: "billions in debt, rising cost of maintenance & safety components, subsides & trillions of pounds of radioactive waste"... What obstacles bother me?
Water? I mean the Achilles heel of nuclear power in the context of climate change: water.
Climate change means water shortages in many places and hotter water everywhere.
nuclear power is the most water-hungry of all energy sources, with a single reactor consuming 35-65 million litres of water each day. Our nation is fighting a war on Water use and 150 nuclear energy plants use 600,000,000,000 gallons of fresh water PER DAY. As with most power plants, two-thirds of the energy produced by a nuclear power plant goes into waste heat (see Carnot cycle), and that heat is discharged into large bodies of water — cooling ponds, lakes, rivers, or oceans.[40] Droughts can pose a severe problem by causing the source of cooling water to run out.[41][42]
Throwing away a finite source - Current light water reactors make relatively inefficient use (using only 3%) of nuclear fuel, fissioning only the very rare uranium-235 isotope. Main article: Depleted uranium
