🚀 go-pugleaf

Dewey & Lucy Thompson wrote in message ...
>> The problem of high level nuclear waste has not been resolved anywhere in
>> the world, after four decades of nuclear electricity generation. The
early
>> confidence that nuclear scientists would somehow solve the waste problem,
>> just as they had built the atom bomb, has evaporated
>
>The high level waste is a rather simple engineering problem. The difficulty
>is the politics.  The "Oh my, we can't leave this to our decendents"
>argument has a lot of people scared.  You can put that stuff back in the
>ground in a safer condition to humanity than it was as original ore.


I don't accept the assumption that the engineering has been solved.  This
problem is unlike any we have been faced with before in our history. You
must forgive us if we have doubts about the viability of any containment
scheme lasting thousands of years.  There still seems to be considerable
debate about this topic.  If a failure occurs there is no way to reverse the
damage and remove radioactive pollutants from groundwater.  Extraordinary
risks over extreme time periods require extraordinary safety measures.
The paraphrase about what we leave to our descendants gives a mistaken
impression.  We know this mess has to be dealt with, and it will have to go
in someones backyard.  The question remains , why would we consider
expanding and continuing the creation of high level radioactive waste when
this issue is unresolved?  This is _NOT_  simply a question for engineers to
decide, not in a democracy.


>> In the United States, sound science has been overtaken by political
>> considerations in the rush to relieve utilities of the liabilities
>deriving
>> from the spent fuel accumulating at reactor sites. The Yucca Mountain
site
>> is the only one under investigation. Yet calculations done for this site,
>> including those by Department of Energy contractors, indicate that
>radiation
>> doses could be hundreds or even thousands of times above presently
>> allowable limits. There is pressure to relax standards and change
>calculation
>> methods
>> instead of improving the repository program. "
>
>It has gone from "NOT IN MY BACK YARD" to "Not in ANYONES Back Yard".  Even
>when a community group starts looking at supporting a depository, the
>outside forces converge.


>
>> It is dying .  When was the last order in the US?  In spite of all the
>happy
>> talk about "inherently safe reactors"  the people with money aren't
lining
>> up to buy another round of nuke juice.   The _REAL_ nuclear fuel isn't Pu
>or
>> uranium.  It's money, lots and lots of money.  Wall street won't give it
>to
>> you.  The banks won't give it to you.  The utilities won't give it to
you.
>> As a taxpayer I won't give it to you willingly.  As the current batch of
>> reactors face decommissioning fund shortfalls the public will be very
wary
>> of nuclear power.  Bad timing that these "stranded costs"  are surfacing
>> just when the nuke power industry is fighting for air.
>
>All true.  There MAY be a rebirth of nuclear.  IF the global warming
>alarmists have it right (And I am frankly very suspicous that they don't),
>then it will be sooner than later.  If not, it will be decades into the
>future.
>
>Although a comment on your stranded costs point.  During the days of
>building generating capacity under the regulated days, companies had a
>mandate to serve the need.  Thus, they built plants based upon the best
>guess of what the future would be, and gained approval from the regulating
>authority to build them.  NOW, when the winds are blowing toward
>deregulation, there is a lot of howling about the stranded costs. The
>stockholders invested the money to build those plants.
>
> Folks, the rules changed at the behest of the politicians. If stranded
>costs are disallowed, it's tantamount to confiscation.  It will be
>politically popular, but it still does not make it "right".


The rules changed because it made sense to change them.  If you want to take
competition out of the equation then socialize the entire utility
marketplace. If we agree that competition is good then we have deregulation.
What you are proposing here is socialism for the rich, tax or ratepayer
bailouts of nuclear stockholders.  They made bad investments, they  get
burned.  If I put up a windplant and underestimate the costs by a factor of
ten it will be me that pays the piper not the public.
Takingh Maine Yankee as an example, it was not just the pressures of
deregulated utility markets that forced an early shutdown and the resulting
decommissionig fund shortfalls.  There was a history of mismanagement that
led to calls for it's shutdown.  The ratepayers endded up with higher
utility bills for a power plant that no longer operates.

Blaming stranded costs on deregulation is like blaming a cancer on the
doctor who finds it.

Regards, Tim O'Flaherty