+- +-

+-User

Welcome, Guest.
Please login or register.
 
 
 

Login with your social network

Forgot your password?

+-Stats ezBlock

Members
Total Members: 48
Latest: watcher
New This Month: 0
New This Week: 0
New Today: 0
Stats
Total Posts: 16867
Total Topics: 271
Most Online Today: 119
Most Online Ever: 1155
(April 20, 2021, 12:50:06 pm)
Users Online
Members: 0
Guests: 20
Total: 20

Author Topic: How the Nuclear Power "Industry" Views Renewable Energy Technology  (Read 2230 times)

0 Members and 2 Guests are viewing this topic.

AGelbert

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 36274
  • Location: Colchester, Vermont
    • Renwable Revolution
A Polite Discussion With a Nuke Puke In March of 2011
« on: November 25, 2013, 06:56:27 pm »
On of the more polite Agelbert exchanges with a nuke puke (claimed to be a materials engineer with over 30 years experience in nuclear power plant siting, building, operating and maintenance costs) during March of 2011.

DROLL TROLL BILL ---><---AGELBERT

Atomsk's comments are spot on!

Droll Troll had the brass to claim everything was "all good" at Fukushima. I claimed from the start that the reactor vessels had been **** by the earthquake even BEFORE the tsunami. History has proven me right and Droll Troll a bald faced liar.

Also, Vermont Yankee will, thankfully, CLOSE by the end of 2014. Droll Troll Bill had been claiming that it was "cost effective" to keep Vermont Yankee running. He also expresssed dismay abut my "adversarial" dialogue.


Agelbert snark added today along with emoticons
Bill (Droll Troll)

One of the questions you asked me the other day piqued my curiosity and I have done some pencil pushing. The following is based on the current GE ABWR, not the Mark 1 used at Fukushima-1. The new reactor is much bigger and more powerful but the per rod data should be pretty close to the reactors with the accident:

Total number of fuel rods: 54,064
Total uranium dioxide in reactor: 379,221 lbs
Uranium dioxide in each rod: 7 lbs
Uranium in each rod: 6.2 lbs
Natural uranium necessary for one rod (uranium going into enrichment): 48 lbs

Uranium cost (48 lbs): $4446  ( costs not included)
Chemical conversion: $ 283   ( costs not included)
Enrichment service: $2114 ( costs not included ) 
Rod fabrication: $1500 ( costs not included) 
Cost per rod: $8143  

Reactor electrical output (gross) 1,356 MW

Electrical output per rod: 25 kw (excluding all the energy required to mine, refine and maufacture it, of course!) 

Electricity generated over 4.5 years: 591,300 kwh per rod

Wholesale value of electricity: $35,478 per rod 

Federal fee for disposal: $ 591 per rod

The reactor design data is from NRC filings. SWU calculation (how much enrichment is necessary) from wise-uranium.org. Uranium, chemical conversion, and enrichment service prices from uxc.com. Rod fabrication is my guess. I assumed a 90% capacity factor. Wholesale price of electricity is contract price from Vermont Yankee to instate utilities.

Good question

Bill

Posted by agelbert

Mar 30 2011 - 10:32pm

Bill,
Thanks for the info. It's a lot to chew on. That 591 bucks fee floored me though. It sounds like one of those externalized costs that we the people get stuck with.

For many decades scientists were flumuxed by the paradox of the required energy for a dolphin to swim and the actual energy it uses. There was no paradox. The problem was the math in fluid mechanics and hydrodynamics. But it is a testament to the sheer bull headedness of the scientific community to cling to their world view in the face of a reality that conflicts with the math they so love.

I bring this to your attention because my baseline for logical premises is reality, not necessarily scientific status quo. No, I don't question the law of gravity but I question a lot of stuff that many scientists do, like putting mice under hard radiation to see effects on a "mammalian biological model" similar to humans. I think it's wrong to torture animals for the "good" of humanity. But that's another subject.

I will continue to balance the costs of anything that generates energy against anything else by adding up the whole enchilada.


If I buy a car that will become toxic waste after 4.5 years, I would consider it prudent to find out what it was going to cost me to detoxify this car, not just offload the toxic waste at the cheapest possible price. I don't subscribe to Wall Street's greater fool theory although that seems to be the MO of corporate executives everywhere.

So thanks again for the info. I'll get back to you with a summary comparison of nuclear energy with, among other things,  pumping with wave action water with thousands of hydraulic rams several thousand feet up a mountain and using it in a pipe back to the ocean to generate electrical energy. That and other crude and simple energy production methods work but there aren't a lot of corporate profits to be had beyond initial fabrication. Inland alternatives exist as well.

Finally, as a materials engineer, you probably know a lot better than I do how much more expensive the pipes, valves, fittings, insulation, etc. are in a nuclear power plant as opposed to those in a dam or a wind generator. All these things need to be looked at afresh IF humanity recovers from the current level of insanity.

Posted by Atomsk

Mar 30 2011 - 10:47am

Budgeting for crimes is common practice in business, and if businesses are allowed to do that, the state certainly has that right too :-/

Afaics, responsibility and risk gets concentrated at the bottom, power and payoff at the top. I think that responsibility is how society handles feedback from reality, and if you decouple that from power, you get a positive feedback loop, which will lead to cancerous structures.
I know this sounds really vague and mystical and pseudo-scientific and stupid, but I don't have better words for this.

Source: Agelbert's files. I'm sure you can find this at the Common Dreams web site archive for March, 2011. Note: This was before they adopted Disqus so the handles are in-house.

Renewable Revolution
« Last Edit: May 12, 2016, 03:26:33 pm by AGelbert »
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

 

+-Recent Topics

Future Earth by AGelbert
March 30, 2022, 12:39:42 pm

Key Historical Events ...THAT YOU MAY HAVE NEVER HEARD OF by AGelbert
March 29, 2022, 08:20:56 pm

The Big Picture of Renewable Energy Growth by AGelbert
March 28, 2022, 01:12:42 pm

Electric Vehicles by AGelbert
March 27, 2022, 02:27:28 pm

Heat Pumps by AGelbert
March 26, 2022, 03:54:43 pm

Defending Wildlife by AGelbert
March 25, 2022, 02:04:23 pm

The Koch Brothers Exposed! by AGelbert
March 25, 2022, 01:26:11 pm

Corruption in Government by AGelbert
March 25, 2022, 12:46:08 pm

Books and Audio Books that may interest you 🧐 by AGelbert
March 24, 2022, 04:28:56 pm

COVID-19 🏴☠️ Pandemic by AGelbert
March 23, 2022, 12:14:36 pm