Nuclear industry suffers major defeat in Iowa

[kristopher]

News release

Nuclear industry suffers major defeat in Iowa

Posted May. 10, 2012
Despite intense industry lobbying, Iowa Legislature adjourns without passing ill-advised nuclear ‘cost recovery’ bill

Des Moines, Iowa — In a major blow to the nuclear industry, the Iowa Legislature adjourned today without passing a bill that would have paved the way for MidAmerican Energy to charge ratepayers in advance for new nuclear reactor construction. The utility would have been allowed to keep the money even if construction was never completed.

MidAmerican lobbied extensively for the bill but Iowa ratepayer concerns about nuclear power doomed the proposal. A poll sponsored by the Des Moines Register in January found that over three quarters of Iowans were opposed to the measure.

“The failure of this nuclear bill shows that the Iowa Legislature is listening to the people of Iowa and not to the well-financed nuclear power industry or to MidAmerican Energy’s lobbyists” said Friends of the Earth Iowa Nuclear Campaigner Mike Carberry. “Wall Street refuses to fund these nuclear boondoggles and so do the private investors of MidAmerican Energy. Now the Iowa Legislature has stepped up and said no to Iowa ratepayer funding as well. And they have good reasons: nuclear reactors are dirty, dangerous, expensive, and produce highly radioactive waste for which there is no solution. Nuclear reactors are a failed 20th century technology -- we need to convert over to 21st century clean, safe energy options including renewable energy like wind and solar, energy efficiency, and smart grid technologies.”

While the nuclear funding bill passed out of a senate committee on March 13 on a hard fought 8-7 vote, it never garnered enough support to pass the Senate. A similar bill passed in the Iowa House last year but also failed to pass the Senate.

Friends of the Earth worked with local and national groups including the Environmental Law and Policy Center, the Iowa Chapter of the Sierra Club, Green State Solutions, Iowa PIRG, Iowa Environmental Council, Iowa Farmers Union, Iowa Move to Amend, CREDO Action and Physicians for Social Responsibility in the debate about the cost recovery bill, taking out radio and TV ads, phoning more than 100,000 Iowans, and mobilizing thousands of activists who called and wrote their elected officials.

“This is a victory for all the people of Iowa,” said Damon Moglen, Friends of the Earth’s Climate and Energy Campaign Director. “Iowans and people across the country increasingly recognize that nuclear reactors are not only unsafe but they make no financial sense. Already a national leader in wind power, Iowa is providing a great example of how to move away from the dirty and dangerous energy sources of the past, and applying clean 21st century energy for the future.”


http://www.foe.org/news/news-releases/2012-05-nuclear-industry-suffers-major-defeat-in-iowa

[Throckmorton]

1. Good for Iowa

I don't believe that the rate payers should pay for any generating assets prior to commissioning.

[madokie]

2. I've been opposed to using nuclear energy for our electrical production from day one

and after three mile island and Chernobyl, I and many of us thought the final nail in that coffin was driven only to see the nuclear industry attempt to raise from the dead. The lesson we need to take from this is to be aware that the nuke boys will at some point in time down the road to once again attempt to raise their ugly heads and try to con us into allowing them to build the most dangerous form of energy production man has ever come up with.
We can get all the energy we need from hydro, renewables, solar, wind and geothermal. Geothermal is where we need to spend some time researching further. I was reading that it is possible to mine some of the needed noble metals for future electronics and batteries from the water from those wells.

Thanks Kris for this post

[kristopher]

5. The roots do run deep, don't they?

I hadn't heard about tying mineral extraction in with geothermal but it makes intuitive
sense, doesn't it?

You're welcome, and thank you.

[RobertEarl]

3. The Future

We will be passing similar bills before long.

Only the future bills will be raising funds for nuclear plant owners
to decommission and clean up the old nuke sites.

Of course, the people will be the owners of these sites.
Along with the next 7 generations and their next 7 generations.

Yep, truth be told, the final bill for nuclear has been kicked so far down
the road that it can't be fathomed the amount of tax dollars required.

[PamW]

9. Already taken care of...

Robert Earl states:
Only the future bills will be raising funds for nuclear plant owners
to decommission and clean up the old nuke sites.

That is already taken care of. Evidently you didn't know that as a condition of their operating license, a nuclear power plant owner is required to put money into an escrow fund to be used to pay for the eventual decommissioning and dismantlement of the power plant or provide some other assurance that sufficient funds will be available to decommission and disassemble the power plant.

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/decommissioning.html

It's already been done for a number of power plants.

For example, the Consumer's Power ( now Consumer's Energy ) Big Rock Point Nuclear Power Plant in northwestern lower Michigan near Charlevoix was decommissioned and totally dismantled. There's nothing left of the power plant at all. The spent fuel was even transferred for storage at Palisades.

The Trojan Nuclear Power Plant near Portland, Oregon was also dismantled.

Maine Yankee at Wiscasset, Maine was also dismantled. The only traces at the site are some dry casks of spent fuel.

The decommissioning costs as well as the costs to disassemble all of these plants were financed by the escrow funds that the plants earned during operation.

PamW

[RobertEarl]

10. That's a start

What about TMI? Fukushima? The next one that blows sky-high?

You do realize that the nukes can't get private financing, right? And that businesses can go bankrupt - like TEPCO.

You sure do have a nice set of rose colored glasses. I guess since you work with and make $$ from nukes you never take off the glasses?

Anyway, the industry has been a pack of liars and cheats from the first "Too cheap to meter " nukecrap propaganda, so why trust them now?

People will be paying to cleanup nuke messes forever. Long after we are dead and gone. Why try to deny it? You know how nasty the waste is and how long it will remain deadly. Oh, wait, you think the pipe dream of reprocessing it will happen. I'd say the only reason you do that is because you work for them.

[PamW]

12. WRONG AS ALWAYS!!

NO - nukes can get private financing. In fact, ALL the nuclear power plants that are owned by private companies were built with private financing. That's almost as bad as the old falsehood that the anti-nukes say that nuclear power plants can't get private insurance. They are REQUIRED to have private insurance, and there are private companies and consortia that DO insure them:

http://www.amnucins.com/

American Nuclear Insurers (ANI) is a joint underwriting association created by some of the largest insurance companies in the United States. Our purpose is to pool the financial assets pledged by our member companies to provide the significant amount of property and liability insurance required for nuclear power plants and related facilities throughout the world.

As far as the nuclear industry being a bunch of liars for having said "too cheap to meter"; you are 100% WRONG there.

The nuclear industry never said "too cheap to meter". That statement was said by a Government official namely, Lewis Strauss who was Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission at the time. Also Chairman Strauss was NOT referring to nuclear fission power plants when he made that statement:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Strauss

In 1954, Strauss predicted that atomic power would make electricity "too cheap to meter." He was referring to Project Sherwood, a secret program to develop power from hydrogen fusion, not uranium fission reactors as is commonly believed

PamW

[kristopher]

13. Good. Then let's remove all loan guarantees and liability caps.

If the nuclear industry is fine without them, then they have no need of federal assistance in these areas.

How about it, shall we revoke Price Anderson and drop all loan guarantees?

[Fledermaus]

14. Last I read, the Fukushima disaster is being nationalized.

I don't think that happens when other power plants blow up.

How many nuclear power plants are idle in Japan now? >90% ?

[kristopher]

15. Yep. The government just took a majority interest in TEPCO

Presently 100% of Japan's reactors are offline. But hey, it is the fault of the victims not the industry that worked so hard to make everyone believe Fukushima could never happen, so all those shutdowns don't really count.

[PamW]

17. Have you really thought it through...evidently not!!

Have you really thought through the revocation of Price-Anderson?
Evidently not.

OK - we do it your way - we revoke Price-Anderson and revoke all the liability caps.

Suppose nuclear utility "X" has an accident. Since you revoked the liability caps, the people who were damaged can collected the full value of what was lost because the liability limit is INFINITE. Right??

WRONG!!! The total value that you can collect is the value of the utility. When the utility runs out of assets; that's it, you can't get any more blood from a turnip. Just because you have infinite caps doesn't mean you can collect an infinite amount.

However, what happens with Price-Anderson. In that case, ALL the nuclear utilities pool their assets to cover the liability. You aren't limited to the assets of just the company that had the accident:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear_Industries_Indemnity_Act

Each reactor operator has to initially put in about $112 million per unit. As stipulated in the above link, if that is insufficient, then Congress can raise the limit without running afoul of the "ex post facto" Constitutional provision.

Because Price-Anderson spreads the coverage over all the reactor operators; the public is in better stead for recovering their losses than if Price-Anderson were revoked, as the anti-nukes would have us do.

I prefer to have the public better protected financially. Otherwise, I would vote to rescind it, and give the anti-nukes one less thing to carp about.

PamW

[kristopher]

30. No, it means they wouldn't be able to operate because they couldn't afford the insurance...

It would price their product off the market.

[PamW]

34. BALONEY!!!

Kris,

Evidently you can't read. The nuclear industry pays for ALL the insurance and ALL the damages under Price-Anderson.

You have bought into the LIE that the anti-nuclear community has been telling for years, that in the case of a big nuclear accident that the US Government comes in with funds from the "Price-Anderson Fund" to pay the damages, and that those funds are provided by the taxpayers. READ the article on Price-Anderson:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear_Industries_Indemnity_Act

The Price-Anderson fund, which is financed by the reactor companies themselves, is then used to make up the difference. Each reactor company is obliged to contribute up to $111.9 million per reactor in the event of an accident with claims that exceed the $375 million insurance limit. As of 2011[update], the maximum amount of the fund is approximately $12.22 billion ($111.9m X 104 reactors) if all of the reactor companies were required to pay their full obligation to the fund.

It's NOT taxpayer funds; it is paid by the nuclear industry.

Additionally, if you read on; if that $12.22 billion is insufficient; Congress can raise the limit.

You evidently believe the antinuclear LIE that the Price-Anderson Act allows the nuclear industry to escape paying damages, and that the taxpayer will pick up the tab.

PamW

[FBaggins]

36. You've mistaken his error.

Oh sure, he also makes the mistake you identify, but that's not the current one.

The error here is the implicit assumption that businesses should/must purchase enough insurance to cover the worst claim imaginable. That if there weren't a law "limiting" the amount of insurance required, they would have to purchase far more. In fact they would have to purchase so much that they couldn't possibly afford it and would thus be unable to go into the business in the first place.

Of course this is simply untrue. No individual or business has ever been required to purchase an amount of insurance sufficient to cover any contingency. If your state didn't mandate a certain amount of auto insurance, would you be forced to purchase millions of dollars worth of insurance (making driving a car impossible to afford)? Of course you wouldn't.

[kristopher]

37. If your interpretation is true then you must support the repeal of Price Anderson, right?

Perhaps you should dig up the reaction of the Nuclear Energy Institute to the extension of PAA and explain their jubilation to yourself.

[FBaggins]

40. You continually pretend that it exists in a vacuum.

It's a very simple question that you keep dodging kris. Do you or do you not believe that (absent a statutory min and max insurance requirement) a business is forced to acquire insurance sufficient to cover a worst-case disaster?

Yes or no?

And if yes, can you give any examples.

[kristopher]

41. It doesn't have to be "worst case" to make insurance unaffordable Baggins.

And you are the one dodging the question.

Why do you oppose repeal of the Price Anderson Act if it is not needed?

Let me repeat it and put it in bold to make sure you see it:

Why do you oppose repeal of the Price Anderson Act if it is not needed?

[FBaggins]

43. Was that a yes or a no?

It doesn't have to be the worst case. Nobody has to carry even a significant fraction of the worst case coverage.

How much coverage do you carry for personal liability?

And you are the one dodging the question.

Why do you oppose repeal of the Price Anderson Act if it is not needed?

Who said I opposed it? It has much the same benefit of those state auto insurance requirements, so it strikes me as a good idea... but getting rid of either wouldn't make it impossible to operate a vehicle/reactor. So I would only oppose it on good-governance grounds, not on "oh no... the industry will fail without it!" grounds.

[kristopher]

44. On "good governance grounds"?

How does unnecessary regulation contribute to "good governance"?

If obtaining all required insurance through the usual market process would be so simple and affordable, why is a regulation that sidesteps that market and transfers risk to the public sector needed for "good governance"?

I answered your question, it doesn't have to be "worst case" to make the price of electricity from nuclear plants unaffordable.

[FBaggins]

47. Yes. Why is that hard to understand?

How does unnecessary regulation contribute to "good governance"?

That's a false dichotomy. Regulations are not limited to two cases ("unnecessary" and "perfect&quot . I don't think that the act has no value, I simply reject the ridiculous notion that the value is "industry couldn't operate without it". Your argument is based on a false premise ("I claim that the act exists because the industry couldn't get insurance without it... so the fact that the industry supports the act must mean that they know they would have to shut down without it&quot

If obtaining all required insurance through the usual market process would be so simple and affordable

It only has to be more affordable and/or simpler in order for a corporation to support it. That's worlds away from a claim that it would be impossible and unaffordable without it.

why is a regulation that sidesteps that market and transfers risk to the public sector needed for "good governance"?

Since that isn't what PAA does, why would the question matter?


I answered your question

No... you really didn't. And we all know why. You do believe that they would need much more insurance (the specific amount is irrelevant) and couldn't afford it. That's simply wrong.

[kristopher]

48. The nuclear industry itself is on record saying they cannot operate without it Baggins.

It is deemed by your friends as being a "must have" line item in their government support wish list.

[FBaggins]

49. There must have been a problem with your html...

...the link didn't come through.

Regardless... even were that true (and not something from the 50s)... didn't the solar industry in germany say that they can't survive without the FIT? DO you believe this to be true, or is this just a case of an industry using hyperbole to get something that will make them more profitable?

On edit - Here's their testimony from the 2005 reauthorization. Strange how they forgot to include "can't operate without it". They didn't even say that they could operate the existing reactors but couldn't build new ones... they just said that those new ones wouldn't be covered by the insurance if the act wasn't reauthorized.

http://www.nei.org/publicpolicy/congressionaltestimony/testimonykaneextended/

[kristopher]

38. Fukushima is estimated to cost over $250 billion.

And if the winds had been out of the NNE that number would probably be at least 50X larger.

[RobertEarl]

16. I do feel sorry for you

Your whole nuclear dream is going up in smoke. And you resort to little truths to make your case when the truth is that nuclear could easily destroy the world as we know it and may even be doing so as i write.

But i really feel sorry for the kids who have a radiated future, thanks to nukers.

Feel bad for the Japanese who are being hammered with radiation right now.

People who work in the nuke industry, if they don't turn and apologize right away, have to be the worst kind of humans ever, since they have forced upon us this horrible future.

And I would probably be banned were i to tell you how i really feel about you shoving this shit in my face.

[PamW]

18. What am I shoving in your face?

People who work in the nuke industry, if they don't turn and apologize right away, have to be the worst kind of humans ever, since they have forced upon us this horrible future.

And I would probably be banned were i to tell you how i really feel about you shoving this shit in my face.
=================

What am I shoving in your face? Are you upset that I am shoving your own misrepresentations and falsehoods back in your face? If you don't like having those shoved in your face, then don't make them in the first place.

As far as nuclear going up in smoke; far, far, from it.

Even the Obama Administration knows that we have to have nuclear, and that we can't let the mistakes of the Russians and Japanese derail us.

Look at what happens when a Russian airliner crashes; like the recent one. Do we run around in circles screaming that we have to get rid of jet airliners because a Russian airliner crashed? The fact that a Russian airliner crashed says NOTHING about the safety of the US-made Boeing airliners or the French-made Airbus airliners.

Likewise the Russians built an unstable designed reactor in Chernobyl, and the Japanese took a US-designed reactor, but didn't follow through with the needed backup systems. Instead of having underground diesel fuel tanks as required in the US, they had their fuel tanks at dockside. Instead of having the backup generators in watertight vaults as required in the USA, they put the generators in non-watertight basements.

The Fukushima backup systems were taken out by a tsunami that splashed over the plant. In the USA, the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant was completely surrounded by water from the overflowing river, but that didn't take out the backup generators.

Contrary to all the nonsense we get from the non-scientists on this forum that we can be 100% renewable, as I have demonstrated in references to the actual study document, our best scientists in the National Academy of Science and Engineering tell us that we can count on renewables for a maximum of about 20% of our electric demand.

With global warming concerns brought to the fore; where do we get the other 80% of our electricity without the carbon emissions of fossil fuels.

We basically have only one choice; nuclear.

If given the choice of nuclear or only having 20% of our present electricity; the public will overwhelmingly go for having nuclear.

PamW

[RobertEarl]

21. If told the whole truth

The people who built designed and operated the nukes would be strung from the gallows. That is why the industry has to LIE, LIE, LIE!

I know you have no hope. But that gives you no reason to not tell the truth.

I would probably be banned were i to tell you how i really feel about you shoving this shit in my face.

[PamW]

35. I'd like to see some of these "LIES"

The people who built designed and operated the nukes would be strung from the gallows. That is why the industry has to LIE, LIE, LIE!
==================

Every time I've encountered an anti-nuke who says the nuclear industry lies, I ask them what that lie is.

In every case, it turns out it wasn't the nuclear industry lying; it was the anti-nuke not understanding something.

So they just "thought" it was a lie; when it was in fact just their own ignorance.

PamW

[kristopher]

39. Allow me

The tip of the iceberg

http://www.olino.org/us/articles/2009/11/26/the-economics-of-nuclear-reactors-renaissance-or-relapse

"Climate Change, Nuclear Economics, and Conflicts of Interest," Science and Engineering Ethics, 17 5-107.
http://www.nd.edu/~kshrader/pubs/ksf-2011-climate-change-econ-conflicts-interest-see.pdf

Data Trimming, Nuclear Emissions, and Climate Change,"
Science and Engineering Ethics 15 (2009):19-23.
http://www.nd.edu/~kshrader/pubs/final-see-2009-data-trimming-climate-nuclear-fulltext.pdf

[PamW]

45. If I've told you once...

Kris,

If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times; I don't recognize that Shrader as being an expert on anything.

What she calls "lies" are just her own misunderstandings of the science.

Get some other documentation for these "lies"

Additionally I don't recognize faulty projections as lies either. Projections are susceptible to unforeseen conditions.

Show me where the nuclear industry knew something for a FACT; and then said otherwise.

PamW

[kristopher]

46. Yes, what *could* a Prof. of Philosophy and an ethicist *possibly* know about lies?

[RobertEarl]

42. well

You are willfully blind.

Is it your paycheck that makes you blind?

The nuke industry claimed Fukushima could never happen.
Are you blind to that?
Or are you going to claim that the nuke industry said Fukushima could happen?

That's real easy for a smart person to answer: Did nukers say it couldn't happen?
Or did nukers say: Expect it to happen.

I see nukers all over claiming that its no big deal. Meanwhile Japanese people are in grave danger. Those nukers are lying assholes who will have a special place in HELL. A Hell of their own making. You can just imagine them buried in a nuke waste depository that burns forever.

[kristopher]

11. Congressman Markey's news release on recent GAO report re decommission funding problems

GAO Report Finds Inadequacy, Inaccuracy in NRC Oversight of Funds to Decommission Nuclear Power Plants
May. 7, 2012 --

Lawmaker queries NRC about plans to ensure adequate funds are available to permanently shut down America’s nuclear power plants safely

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Congressman Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), senior member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, released a new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) that found that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) may not be accurately estimating the costs of decommissioning nuclear power plants nor adequately ensuring that owners are financially planning for the eventual permanent shutdown of America’s nuclear power plants. The request was motivated by several other reports suggesting such inadequacies. For example, a 2009 review of licensee decommissioning funding status reports found that licensees for 27 out of 104 operating nuclear reactors had a combined shortfall of more than $2.4 billion in their decommissioning funds.

Because decommissioning a nuclear reactor costs hundreds of millions of dollars, the NRC is responsible for ensuring that licensees provide assurance that they will have adequate funds at the relevant time to decommission their reactors. The new GAO report, “Nuclear Regulation: NRC’s Oversight of Nuclear Power Reactors’ Decommissioning Funds Could Be Further Strengthened” was requested by Rep. Markey in March 2010 to ensure that nuclear power plant licensees provide reasonable assurance of adequate decommissioning funds and to identify any improvements or weaknesses in NRC’s oversight in this area. Rep. Markey long has been concerned about the strength of NRC’s oversight of decommissioning funding over the past two decades, prompting his request for previous oversight reports from GAO in 2001 and 2003.

“Decommissioning funds are the 401k’s for America’s nuclear power plants, and this new GAO report indicates the nation’s plants are headed for a retirement meltdown,” said Rep. Markey. “The NRC appears to be inaccurately estimating the costs of decommissioning the nation’s nuclear power plants and inadequately ensuring that owners are financially planning for the eventual shutdown of these plants. It will be the public who’ll pay the price if nuclear power plant owners come up short on the bill to safely close these plants.”

A copy of the GAO report can be found HERE.

The GAO examined the overall strength of NRC’s oversight of decommissioning funding. Key findings of the report include:

· The NRC decommissioning funding formula may be outdated since it was last updated in 1988 and is based on two studies published in 1978 and 1980 that used technology cost and other information available at that time.
· NRC’s evaluation of licensees’ funding arrangements was not rigorous enough to ensure that decommissioning funds would be adequate,
· The NRC had not established criteria for taking action if it determines that a licensee is not accumulating adequate decommissioning funds and
· The NRC relies on licensees’ reports of decommissioning fund balances without verifying these balances

The GAO report makes a series of recommendations to the Commission that includes defining what the agency means by the bulk of the funds that licensees will likely need to decommission their reactors; documenting procedures describing the steps that NRC staff should take in their reviews analyzing licensee documentation and verifying that the amounts licensees report to NRC in their decommissioning funding status reports match the balances on their year-end bank statements; continuing reviews of fund balances in a way that is most efficient and effective for the NRC; and considering review of a sample of licensees’ investments to determine if licensees are complying with decommissioning investment standards and determine whether action should be taken to enforce these standards.

In light of the recommendations made in the new GAO report, Rep. Markey today sent a letter to the NRC asking for the Commission’s responses to questions that include:

· What is the experience that leads the NRC to conclude the existing regulatory system is adequate?
· What are the NRC’s plans to improve the ability to estimate decommissioning costs? What new inputs will be included in a revised decommissioning funding formula, and how will the revised formula be verified?
· How is the public to be assured that nuclear power plant decommissioning can be performed in a manner to protect human health and safety and the environment?
· How does the NRC specifically plan to implement each of these recommendations in the GAO report, and what is the timeline for implementation of each?
· Is the NRC considering discontinuing licensee site reviews to verify the accuracy of licensee fund balances in their decommissioning funding status reports as the GAO report indicates?
· What training programs or partnerships is the Commission considering to address lack the financial expertise of agency staff to evaluate compliance with investment restrictions?
· Will the Commission reconsider its October 2010 vote against the NRC staff’s proposed change that would have directed nuclear power plant licensees to adjust decommissioning funds every year and within three months of the annual recalculation of the regulatory minimum needed?

"Adequate decommissioning funds are absolutely essential to reduce radioactive contamination after nuclear reactor permanently shuts down,” wrote Rep. Markey in the letter to the NRC. “Every one of the 104 currently active nuclear reactors across the United States will need to be decommissioned eventually. Having enough money to perform the shutdowns is critical for protecting public and environmental health and safety.”

http://markey.house.gov/press-release/gao-report-finds-inadequacy-inaccuracy-nrc-oversight-funds-decommission-nuclear-power

[GliderGuider]

4. This is great news. The nuclear rat-bastards deserved it. nt

[madokie]

6. Yes they did and yes they do

As I've said before it seems as if once the nuke boys figured out how to harness the power of splitting an atom it seems they quit working on what comes next. Back in the late 60s they were telling us that the waste won't be a problem as in short order they'll figure out what and how to deal with it. Well here it is 50 years later and still no comprehensive plan. If they don't have an answer to that by now it is time that we demand they shut them all down and let the chips fall where they may. I know I can survive without electrical power 24/7. It might be tough and it might take some getting used to but we'll make it. The future generations and or future civilizations do not deserve to find out the hard way that some of our nuclear waste from today is toxic and will kill you grave yard dead as Jerry Clower would put it.

For those who may not know who Jerry Clower is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Clower

One of the funniest persons ever in my book

[PamW]

19. Bad History, as always...

Bad History as always.

NO - the "nuke boys" didn't tell you back in the '60s that they would figure out what to do.

The "nuke boys" from the '50s onward have said that the way to handle wastes is to reprocess / recycle.

Have I not given the following from PBS Frontline an interview with nuclear physicist Dr. Charles Till:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/interviews/till.html

Q: And you repeat the process.

A: Eventually, what happens is that you wind up with only fission products, that the waste is only fission products that have, most have lives of hours, days, months, some a few tens of years. There are a few very long-lived ones that are not very radioactive.

What happened is NOT that the "nuke boys" didn't figure something out in 50 years.

No - what happened is that the US Congress forbade the solution; at the behest of the anti-nukes.

How's that for hypocrisy. You get Congress to forbid the solution, then you complain there is no solution.

PamW

[kristopher]

20. Reprocessing creates more problems than it solves.

The answer to nuclear waste is not to make it.

Renewable energy sources are far more abundant, far more sustainable and provide a more reliable electrical system with none of the downside of nuclear.

[PamW]

22. That Ship has SAILED!!

To all those that say that the solution is to not make it; I have a news flash for you:

THAT SHIP HAS SAILED

The nuclear waste exists. The anti-nukes whine and complain that there's no way to store it for thousands of years....

Then what is your solution. Unless you have a time machine that you are keeping from us; there's no way to go back and "unmake" the stuff.

I've given you the process by which we can turn this multi-thousand year half-life problem into a few decade half-life problem.

But you won't accept the solution when it is handed you on a silver platter.

So what do you plan to do with 77,000 tons of material in the USA alone?

Saying that you wish it was never made is NOT solving the problem.

PamW

[kristopher]

23. Reprocessing creates more problems than it solves.

That is why it isn't more widely used. The first answer to nuclear waste is not to make more it.

Renewable energy sources are far more abundant, far more sustainable and provide a more reliable electrical system with none of the downside of nuclear.

We don't need nuclear power.

[PamW]

24. FLUNKED again I see

Kris,

First, you don't have the faintest inkling of what type of reprocessing I'm talking about.

You do know there are more than one type of reprocessing don't you? Probably not.

OK - show us what you know, or don't know; tell us what problems reprocessing is going to cause.

If you aren't willing to do something about the waste that is already on hand; I assume you will stop whining and complaining about having no where to put it, and no safe way to dispose of it. If you turn down the solution I offer, then you will have to live quietly with the results.

Do you understand the meaning of the maxim, "that ship has sailed"?

You have offered ZERO solutions for what to do with the waste we already have on hand that you would support.
What method of disposal would you like to deal with what is already in existence, and you can't unwind the clock on. Tell us what you would be happy with.

Of course, you can't. You don't know physics, and you don't know chemistry; so you have nothing to offer.

You can only repeat your renewable mantras without mental consideration of same. They don't solve the problem.

We know you say we don't need nuclear power - but your scientific and energy credentials are ZILCH.

People who do have credentials, like the National Academy of Science, say we DO NEED nuclear power.

Why would a person with a deadly disease take the advice of a primitive shaman when a first rate medical doctor is available? Why should anyone take your opinion seriously, when we have good scientists including the National Academy that say you are WRONG.

PamW

[kristopher]

26. Sure "Pam" only you have the secret recipe that no one else is aware of.

The entire industry wants to be saddled with an unmanageable waste problem, everyone in the nuclear industry everywhere is really a covert antinuke in disguise. You can't trust any of them.

[PamW]

27. Uniqueness???

Kris, where in Heaven's sake did you get the idea that "only" I have the secret recipe??????

I'm not alone in advocating what I am advocating. In fact, most pro-nukes advocate what I am advocating.

It's just the anti-nukes that don't know. The nuclear industry always wanted to reprocess / recycle spent fuel to avoid a multi-thousand year nuclear waste problem. It wasn't the nuclear industry that gave us a nuclear waste problem; it is the anti-nukes.

The anti-nukes foisted this unnecessary problem on us; so that they would have something to complain about.

It wasn't the pro-nukes that are against reprocessing / recycling. It's not the pro-nukes that are against MOX.

It's not the pro-nukes that are against dry casks. It's not the pro-nukes that are against Yucca Mountain.

That constellation of problems has been brought to you by your local, short-sighted, anti-nukes.

PamW

[kristopher]

28. It's a typical nuclear circle jerk

Without getting into the broader social implications flowing from increased concentration of political and economic power posed by nuclear, there are 4 major problem areas associated with the technology:

COST

SAFETY

PROLIFERATION

WASTE

The choice of what technology the industry pursues is dictated by pursuit of the one that affords the best balance of those 4 limiting factors.

Just because you have a design that MIGHT enhance performance in some area(s) doesn't mean that the overall technical capabilities are superior to what is being planned, built and sold on the extremely competitive global market today.

The FACT that there are no countries pursuing your "solution" to obtain a competitive edge is prima facie evidence that your claims are an incomplete and (knowing you) dishonest portrayal.

We do not need nuclear "Pam".

[PamW]

31. WRONG AS ALWAYS!!

Kris,

There ARE countries that are reprocessing, Kris. The fact that you pretend they don't exist notwithstanding.

France reprocesses and recycles

Sweden has France do their reprocessing and Sweden recycles.

Japan reprocesses and recycles ( they used to have France do the reprocessing )

Great Britain has reprocessing facilities

As usual, you have NEVER given any type of solution to the waste disposal question, except complain about it.

Although nuclear power plants are expensive to build; nuclear electricity is 2nd only to coal in being cheap.

With the exception of Russia; there have never been any deaths to the public; so nuclear is certainly safer than airline travel which we accept.

Only the anti-nukes get spun up over proliferation. ALL the nuclear weapons states had bombs before nuclear power plants. Red herring!!

I'm telling you what we can do with the waste; but you don't want to do it. You just want to complain and say waste is a problem

Kris, our best scientists say we need nuclear - they are one Hell of a lot smarter than you or any of your friends.

PamW

[kristopher]

32. Wrong way "Pam" strikes again; like I said, the nuclear circle jerk

When one technology is shot down the tactic is to move to a different technology and pretend that it is the same.

Your post specified one technology, and attempted to promote it while admitting that the one you are talking about now in France has problems with proliferation (among many other things).

You are chasing your tail, "Pam".

We don't need nuclear "Pam".

[PamW]

33. BALONEY!!! as per USUAL!!

Kris,

You haven't "shot down" any one technology. I'm also NOT changing tactics.

I support reprocessing / recycling like France, Sweden, Japan,... and a host of other countries do. Although I believe we should also be recycling U-238 and transmuting it into reactor fuel; you pointed out that will take 500 years. I support that - because contrary to the anti-nuke claims that we only have 50 year of nuclear fuel left; that 500 years of recycling actinides represents 500 years of generating electricity. For some reason I don't understand; you think that the 500 years of power is something bad. So I suggested a modification, which I made not to please my sensibilities, but to please yours; and that is we don't recycle the U-238, we just bury it, put it back where we got it. In that case, we can get rid of the actinides like Plutonium that you despise so much in very short order.

France doesn't have a problem with proliferation. Show me where anybody got nuclear weapon fuel due to France's reprocessing operation. Kris is up to his old tricks of when he's backed into a corner, and has nothing substantive to say, he turns on his "reality distortion machine" and COMPLETELY FABRICATES some problem that doesn't exist.

Kris; you are entitled to your own opinion, but NOT your own set of facts and certainly not your own scientific facts.

The nation's scientists are NOT on your side on this. We do need nuclear.

The National Academy of Sciences says so. The scientists of the national laboratories conducted studies on energy a few years ago, and one of the reports that came out of those studies is the following report signed by the Directors of the 10 Dept of Energy national labs:

A Sustainable Energy Future:
The Essential Role of Nuclear Energy

http://www.ne.doe.gov/pdffiles/rpt_sustainableenergyfuture_aug2008.pdf

Look at the 3rd name down in the first column. That's Nobel-Prize winning physicist Dr. Steven Chu, our Secretary of Energy who was signing on behalf of the lab he directed, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. LBNL is very much into renewable energy; but even they see the LIMITED role that renewable energy can play. They know we can't do it all with renewables, and concede we need nuclear if we are to replace the fossil fuels that are contributing to global warming.

I'm citing the very informed opinions of our scientists; and not the warmed over "talking heads" that you post as "substantiation".

What really gets me is the HYPOCRISY. The environmental movement loves to cite scientists when we tell them about global warming, and they beat up on the Republicans as being ignorant knuckle-draggers when they don't heed what scientists say. However, when the scientists also say we need nuclear power, the environmentalists disregard the scientists as fervently as the climate-change denying Republicans.

In a few short decades, we will reach the "tipping point" with CO2 emission into the atmosphere. Once we get there, the planet will already have received a "fatal dose" of CO2, and nothing can prevent the global warming catastrophe. I believe along with Greenpeace co-founder Dr. Patrick Moore, that if we get to that point that we are past the point of no return with regard to global warming, we will have the environmentalists to blame, because they eschewed the nuclear power that the scientists recommended in favor of some pipe dream of doing it all with solar and wind. See Dr. Moore's seminar at:

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/199958-1

PamW

[PamW]

25. Generalizations

As usual, Kris "treats" us to his usual platitudes that are gross generalizations, like "reprocessing creates more problem..."

I've read the litany of claims that Kris posts on this; and I don't find them scientifically convincing, because for one they don't discuss which reprocessing method are under discussion.

I bet this is news to Kris and others that there isn't just one form of reprocessing; but there isn't. There are several different processes that have been used and fall under the umbrella term "reprocessing" depending on what the end application was.

The first reprocessing method was used during the Manhattan Project to reprocess the fuel from the production reactors at Hanford to extract "weapons grade" plutonium to be used for the nuclear weapons under development.

The second reprocessing method was called REDOX and was used at Hanford for weapons material extraction beginning in 1952.

In 1953, a third method called PUREX came online. This plant operated until 1990.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/facility/hanford-plu.htm

The French reprocessing facility at LaHague uses the PUREX process.

In the 1980s to early 1990s, Argonne National Laboratory developed a reprocessing method that didn't remove the non-Plutonium actinides from the Plutonium. Removal of the non-Plutonium actinides is ESSENTIAL for the making of nuclear weapons fuel. Whereas nuclear weapons can't tolerate the non-Plutonium actinides; reactors can. Therefore, the Argonne process gives you a stream of material containing Plutonium that is suitable for recycling to reactors; but is not suitable for use in nuclear weapons as Argonne's Dr. Till explains in the following interview with PBS's Frontline:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/interviews/till.html

Q: So it would be very difficult to handle for weapons, would it?

A: It's impossible to handle for weapons, as it stands.

It's highly radioactive. It's highly heat producing. It has all of the characteristics that make it extremely, well, make it impossible for someone to make a weapon.

The Argonne process solves the "proliferation problem" of reprocessing.

Of course, I've never seen the "proliferation problem" as a very convincing argument so far as prohibiting the use of commercial reprocessing in the USA.

For Heaven's sake; the USA is a "nuclear weapon state". The USA has nuclear weapons. The USA had a nuclear weapons production complex with reactors and reprocessing facilities that were specifically designed for making bomb fuel. The USA had ZERO need for any byproduct from a commercial operation. The bomb production complex could make all the weapons material it needed, and make it better than what could be garnered from a commercial operation.

At present, the USA has ALL the weapons plutonium it needs. In fact, as the USA dismantles weapons, it has more and more surplus plutonium that it has to securely store. So why in the world the USA would hijack more plutonium from a commercial reprocessing operation is beyond me.

Yes - we don't want to have that technology in Iran or North Korea, or.... but using reprocessing technology in the USA should not hinge on whether it is a proliferation problem. The US Government has all the facilities it needs to proliferate, and has, WITHOUT any help from the commercial sector.

Contrary to the ill-considered "opinions" of non-scientists; reprocessing doesn't make "new" radioactive material. Reprocessing is a series of chemical reaction, not nuclear reactions, and chemical reactions don't make radioactivity.

Additionally, radioactivity is NOT CONTAGIOUS has some here would have us erroneously believe. If any person here believes that radioactivity is "contagious" then check out the book "Physics for Future Presidents" by Professor Richard Muller of the UC - Berkeley Physics Dept:

http://books.google.com/books?id=6DBnS2g-KrQC&pg=PA121&lpg=PA121&dq=Muller+radioactivity+contagious&source=bl&ots=_0kYQHCpHo&sig=LjS11kqB4jBoI_gULd2fBvNqICU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=QrqzT4PPIOSIiALb9amdAg&ved=0CE0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

If you are exposed to something radioactive, do you become more radioactive yourself? Do you "catch" it, like you catch a cold. In the world of science fiction, the answer is yes.... In the real world the answer is no, it is not contagious..."

PamW

[Fledermaus]

7. Nuclear power + the bread belt = FAIL! a la Fukushima!

Fukushima farmers plant rice, pray, too

In districts where last year's harvest contained more than 500 becquerels of radioactive cesium per kilogram, farmers are banned from planting rice this year, other than for research purposes.

But in less-contaminated districts with cesium levels of between 100 and 500 becquerels per kilogram, the agriculture ministry has cleared farmers to plant rice — on condition that their paddies have been decontaminated and mandatory radiation checks are conducted on their produce.

The government tightened restrictions on radioactive cesium for food and drink in April. For rice, the limit was lowered to 100 becquerels per kilogram from 500 becquerels with a six-month moratorium.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120510a8.html

[kristopher]

8. That is the kind of real world lab that we can do without.

I'd like to congratulate the people of Iowa for having the sense to avoid getting becoming snared by the nuclear industry hype, but they better be on their toes because that industry's campaign to pilfer their pockets isn't finished yet. To paraphrase Arnold, "They'll be back".

[kristopher]

29. This loss is a significant indicator of future prospects for nuclear power in the US

The policy that was debated was pushed as hard as the nuclear industry was capable of pushing. Without the ability to recover costs in advance of building anything, the industry has a near zero chance of building anything anywhere. Their disastrous performance in Florida, where the have received a tremendous amount of support and have delivered nothing but rising costs and mismanagement is a lesson not lost on the rest of the country.