Give nuclear power a chance

One more aspect about restoring Zion to operation should be understood.

Since nuclear plants have low operating costs because of the extremely low cost of nuclear fuel (less than 50 cents per million BTU) compared to natural gas or coal, the effect of adding 2200 MW of low marginal cost generation in the Midwest grid would be to lower the sales price of that electricity under the competitive rules of the existing market.

The lower sales prices lead to lower revenue for the providers of each kilowatt hour of electricity sold into the grid. The major suppliers stand to lose hundreds of millions of dollars each year, especially since the total number of kilowatt hours is unlikely to change too much from year to year.

Exelon, Zion Nuclear Power Plant's current owner, is the largest single supplier into the Midwest grid. It has a conflict of interest in the decision of whether or not to invest the money required to restore Zion to operation.

None of that nuclear power stuff for me. I saw that Chinese Sindrome movie and I know that those Hollywood people only show true stuff so . Just like that Inconsistent Truth movie that Hollywood made for Al Gore who khows everything and wouldn't lie about fossil fuel energy adn that only wind mills and solar endergy and waterfall generators are not bad. If it wasn't all the honest truth the HOllywood people would not be making all those millions of dollars and be contributing it to the democratic party.

Wind power costs are the lowest of any form of generated electrical power. The most expensive are natural gas turbine and nuclear power. I personally know this because I live within 3 miles of a shutdown nuclear power plant that was completely unreliable and expensive. At one time our annual rate increases was about 10%. We could not tolerate this anymore. However there will be a new generation of sea based floating platform 10MW and greater wind turbines using technologies from the gas and oil industries on oil and gas floating platforms. Unlike the he land based wind turbines with a capacity factor between 20% through 35%. Sea based wind turbines will have a capacity factor between 60% through 70%. Trade winds in the open seas are far stronger steadier than the intermittent weaker winds overland. And there are no land use issues. Some of these sea based wind turbines will have 133 meter fan blades that are a diameter of 3 football fields. Such monsters really would be an issue if this were a land based wind turbine in some areas. With a 66% capacity factor 400 would be needed for the equivalent nuclear or coal power plant. A few dozen terawatts of electricity can be generated reliably by sea based wind turbines and this is far more electricity than we could ever use. Just using land based wind turbines 5 year old 1.5KW wind turbines taking advantage of all usable land we would have 40 times more electricity than we could use. Sea based wind turbines taking advantage of the Great Lakes and Ocean Sea coasts with 10MW wind turbines we would have 60 times more electricity than we could use. Combined the two we would have a 100 times more electricity than we could ever use. No nuclear power plant has ever reached 95% reliability at best 66%. Just take a look at the nuclear power plant that’s just down the street from me. Coal and nuclear power are baseline power supplies wind power is used for peaking power supplies they actually complement one another. However when you have a completely rebuilt the national power grid wind power spread out over a wide area not just land based but also sea based wind power on floating platforms is actually more reliable then Coal and/or nuclear baseline power supplies. Most of the technical problems reliability and complaints against wind power were resolved in the late 1980’s. This is why you have a strong push to rebuild the national power grid to accommodate wind power. When the wind stops blowing in one area of the country the other areas of the country can respond quickly with the new power grid. As any climatologists and meteorologists researching 300 years weather data and wind power they will tell you if it is calm in one area it is certainly not in another area. When these climatologists and meteorologists started researching wind power in the early 1970’s they quickly saw the Great Plains States Great Lakes and Alaska’s island chains as the Persian Gulf of wind power.

Green energy will not happen.
Think about it...cheap energy causes people to lose jobs...workers will not be paying into S.S.,
401k's, insurance plans, mortgages, state, and federal taxes...and don't forget the costs too, there is unemployment, foodstamps, uninsured medical care.
Large scale energy production should be focused on hydrogen, because it is the most abundant elament in the universe.

Phil: Nice straw-man argument. No one said nuclear power generates at 95% capacity factor - it just averages 90%. Compare that to your current windmills at 30%- when the wind blows. Your ocean-based windmills are "future technologies" that have yet to be deployed. You failed to mention the cost of transmission lines from those ocean-based windmills; the fact that the grid demands reliable loads of energy and doesn't just switch on a whim. And don't forget the environmentalists who will surely protest and litigate the placement because of the "danger" or "damage" to the sea life.
Nuclear has 50 years of proven capability; a safety record that is unparalleled when compared with the power output per megawatt; near-zero emissions; small land-use footprint; recyclable fuel; 24/7 reliability; it's the only high capacity output that pays for its own decommissioning. BTW, you failed to name the power plant by which you live. Coincidence or just forgetful?
Look into the new, smaller designs like: Hyperion, NuScale, Toshiba 4S, Adams Engines, B&W mPower and others. Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (LFTR) can burn spent nuclear fuel from Light Water Reactors (LWR) and other designs plus use nuclear weapons as fuel. Get educated on this.

Good points, Doc.

Also, don't forget, enlightened people like Ted Kennedy have already quashed windfarms off the cost of Martha's Vineyard. Something about their view being more important than this "green" energy.

Now, let's change the assumptions and assume that every third long article is 3 times more valuable than the previous two. In other words, 2/3 of the long articles continue to provide the user with 10 benefit units' worth of information, but 1/3 of the long articles now have a benefit value of 30.

This scenario corresponds to the occasional situation in which you really, really need to know everything about a problem.

For example, consider a rare disease in which sufferers risk death if they eat 6 particular foods: 4 common foods, and 2 foods that almost nobody eats anyway. If you're reading about the disease out of idle curiosity, you'll probably be satisfied with a short article covering the four common foods. If you just got diagnosed with this disease, however, you won't be content reading an article that says: "there are 6 things that'll kill you, but we won't talk about 2 of them because they're rare." You'll obviously want the long article that will warn you about all the things you need to avoid.

Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy (born February 22, 1932) is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party. In office since November 1962, he is currently in his eighth full (and ninth overall) term in the Senate. Kennedy is the second most senior member of the Senate, after Robert Byrd of West Virginia, and the third-longest-serving senator of all time. The most prominent living member of the Kennedy family, he is the youngest brother of President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, both victims of assassinations, and the father of Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy.

Kennedy was born in Boston and raised in Massachusetts, New York, Florida, and England. He was educated at Harvard College, where he was expelled for cheating on an exam but later readmitted, and the University of Virginia School of Law. His 1958 marriage to Joan Bennett Kennedy would later end in divorce. He was a manager in his brother John's successful 1960 campaign for president, then worked as an assistant district attorney for Suffolk County, Massachusetts. Kennedy entered the Senate in a 1962 special election to fill the seat once held by John. He was seriously injured in an airplane crash in 1964 and still suffers from back pain as a result. Kennedy was elected to a full six-year term in 1964 and was reelected in 1970, 1976, 1982, 1988, 1994, 2000 and 2006.

In the 1969 Chappaquiddick incident, the car Kennedy was driving ran off a bridge and plunged into water, resulting in the death of passenger Mary Jo Kopechne. Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and was given a suspended sentence; but doubts about his account of the accident significantly damaged his chances of ever becoming President of the United States. Kennedy's one run for the office, in the 1980 presidential election, ended in a primary campaign loss to incumbent Democratic President Jimmy Carter. Kennedy is known for his oratorical power, with his 1968 eulogy for his brother Robert and his 1980 Democratic National Convention rallying cry for American liberalism being his best-known moments. Kennedy's heated rhetoric helped lead to the defeat of the 1987 Robert Bork Supreme Court nomination and usher in an era of intense political battles over federal judicial nominations. Kennedy's personal behavior became the subject of public ridicule in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but his 1992 marriage to Victoria Reggie Kennedy stabilized his life.

Kennedy is the Chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. Due to his long history of public service he became known as "The Lion of the Senate". Over 300 bills that Kennedy wrote have been enacted into law, and he is known for his ability to work with Republicans and to find compromises among Senate members with disparate views. Kennedy has played a major role in the passage of many pieces of legislation that have affected the lives of all Americans, including the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, the National Cancer Act of 1971, the Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments of 1974, the COBRA Act of 1985, the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, the Ryan White AIDS Care Act in 1990, the Civil Rights Act of 1991, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, the Mental Health Parity Act in 1996 and 2008, the State Children's Health Insurance Program in 1997, the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002, and the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act in 2009. During the 2000s, he was a leader of several failed efforts at immigration reform. Over the course of decades, Kennedy's major legislative goal has been enactment of universal health care, which he continues to work towards during the Obama administration. Since 2008, Kennedy has been battling a malignant brain tumor, which has greatly limited his appearances in the Senate.

What happens when we use up all the wind? A scenario just like global warming "science".

Quick! Rally the Dems/libs/greens to take something away or tax the citizenry to profit from another scam crisis!

When I worked @ the Zion Nuke plant in the summer of 89 or so they had shut down both turbines over the summer when the demand is highest because radioactive lime deposits in the cooling system were breaking off and flowing into the lake just south of the old beach. The current flows north so they had to shutdown the beach too and then they put in a real hokey powerhouse museum just to prevent beach usage. Apparently a fisherman had driven his boat too close to the effluent pipe & cut it open with the rudder. That was about twenty foot from in front of the cooling tank & the radioactive lime particles could have feasibly drifted to the beach area causing cancer or leukemia, etc. I would rather go without electricity than suffer from radioactivity-related diseases.

Dosimeter wrote:

When I worked @ the Zion Nuke plant in the summer of 89 or so they had shut down both turbines over the summer when the demand is highest because radioactive lime deposits in the cooling system were breaking off and flowing into the lake just south of the old beach. The current flows north so they had to shutdown the beach too and then they put in a real hokey powerhouse museum just to prevent beach usage. Apparently a fisherman had driven his boat too close to the effluent pipe & cut it open with the rudder. That was about twenty foot from in front of the cooling tank & the radioactive lime particles could have feasibly drifted to the beach area causing cancer or leukemia, etc. I would rather go without electricity than suffer from radioactivity-related diseases.

Wow thats about the stupidest thing I ever read. Do you even know how a plant like zion works. There is no concievable way that "radioactive lime" could build up in the cooling system of a pressurized water reactor. All the water in the cooling system does is run through the condenser to cool clean steam just as in a coal fired plant. Either you made this up or the person who told you that was pulling your leg or just as stupid and uninformed technicaly as you are

greg thoms wrote:

<quoted text>Wow thats about the stupidest thing I ever read. Do you even know how a plant like zion works. There is no concievable way that "radioactive lime" could build up in the cooling system of a pressurized water reactor. All the water in the cooling system does is run through the condenser to cool clean steam just as in a coal fired plant. Either you made this up or the person who told you that was pulling your leg or just as stupid and uninformed technicaly as you are

First perhaps you can explain why in the summer of '89 both turbines were shutdown. Second it is the bombarding of radiation against the lime deposits which make them radioactive. Then when they break-off they get expelled into the lake.

So you mean the water in the cooling system travels near enough to the fuel rods so scale that builds up in the pipes actually becomes inertly radioactive given enough time. Then as these deposits build up they occasionally break away. I suppose someone who actually worked at the plant in '89 would know something about it. That does explain Ceco/ComEd putting in that museum complete with rummage-sale level displays. Too bad it was such a nice little beach too. I thought people who worked there had to swear never to talk about such things. Somebody's conscience was bothering them.

Dosimeter wrote:

<quoted text>
First perhaps you can explain why in the summer of '89 both turbines were shutdown. Second it is the bombarding of radiation against the lime deposits which make them radioactive. Then when they break-off they get expelled into the lake.

If you're so smart, suppose you tell us the difference between a BWR and a PWR.

The fact the beach was shutdown the same summer both turbines were off does seem suspicious.

Yeah Doc, excellent comment. I recall the contracted diver who went into the retention tank for $300hr to detect any problems. That was before they discovered the break in the effluent line out in the lake. It all started with the expelled coolant at the end of the effluent pipe having an unusually low temp. I wonder if any disappointed beachgoers thought that sorry Powerhouse museum was a lame excuse to close the beach?

What had "birthers" done that was so over the top? They asked to see Barack Obama's birth certificate, and to date, they have been denied that "crazy" request. In fact, multiple law suits have been filed across the country in numerous forms, simply seeking access to Obama's personal history, and most recently, a judge has fined one of those attorney's $20,000 for "filing frivolous law suits" on the matter.
Meanwhile, taxpayers have picked up the tab for over $1.5 MILLION in Obama legal defense fees, used to keep Obama's birth certificate, his school and college records, his passport and travel records and his law practice files Top Secret. So far, the "transparent president" is anything but "transparent." He is the ONLY president in US history to hide his entire past. per the Give Us Liberty website Oct. 14, 2009

Dr. Orly Taitz'$20,000 statement to the judge: "Why are you afraid to speak up, to stand up for you constitution? Why are you afraid to tell this arrogant jerk from Africa and Indonesia- You need to go home, you cannot be a president and commander in chief because you are not a Natural born Citizen. To be a Natural born Citizen you have to have both parents as citizens. Your father was never a US citizen and you don’t qualify and you also spit us in the face by refusing to unseal your vital records. There is no proof that you are even a citizen. For all we know, you need to go back to Kenya and wait for your green card, and that after we try you for all the crimes perpetrated upon American citizens."