Argentina Announces It Will Complete Its Third Nuclear Plant by the End of This Year.

[NNadir]

http://en.mercopress.com/2010/02/08/argentina-announces-completion-of-third-nuclear-plant-by-end-of-the-year">Merco Press: Argentina announces completion of third nuclear plant by end of the year

The energy tsar downplayed recent power outages, saying they have affected only 0.5% of users, but that figure refers only to clients in Greater Buenos Aires. Blackouts have affected millions of users in other areas.

The Atucha II plant, which is expected to generate around 700 megawatts, will provide about 3% of Argentina's total power output. Atucha II was originally supposed to come online more than 20 years ago in 1987. The project was stalled for 14 years because of “inexplicable” political and economic reasons, De Vido said last year.
Atucha II is being built in front of Atucha I.

The 360 megawatt Atucha I came online in 1974 while the country's second nuclear power plant, the 650 megawatt Embalse, began operating a decade later. Nuclear power typically accounts for around 5% of Argentina's electricity.

Argentina re-launched its nuclear power program nearly three years ago amid worsening energy woes. Shortages of natural gas used to power conventional generation plants began to appear in early 2004.

The bold is mine.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x246887">The gas man cometh.

The Atucha reactors are heavy water reactors, which can be run directly on the uranium in used nuclear fuel without reprocessing.

I am a big fan of heavy water reactors which were known formerly as CANDU reactors, and were originally developed in Canada. The current leading nation for heavy water reactor design is India, which plans to be the first nation to run its nuclear power ultimately exclusively on thorium power.

[Nederland]

1. What about the proliferation issues? (nt)

Plus, isn't it true that CANDU reactors have lower capacity factors?

[NNadir]

2. Some of the world's highest capacity factors belong to Romanian, Chinese, & Korean HWR.

I covered this on another website (interestingly run by anti-nukes) where I used to write:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/1/7/681265/-A-Geeky-Company-Report-From-Romania:Nuclearelectrica.">A Geeky Company Report From Romania: Nuclearelectrica.

These reactors can be refueled on line, and thus require shut down only for routine maintainence.

As for so called "proliferation:" In theory CANDU's could be used to produce weapons grade plutonium, although the cost would be enormously expensive compared to graphite reactors of the type now being phased out throughout the world because of their positive void coefficients.

Except in the minds of people who know zero science the word "could" is very different than the word "is."

In practice, oil refineries are used to produce nalpalm that actually kills people, but no one ever asks about weapons diversion of petroleum, even though it actually occurs and kills people.

I don't know why we need to discuss proliferation endlessly at the expense of all other energy risks. I note that the only nation ever to launch an actual nuclear war did so using a weapon that was obtained by processing naturally occurring uranium that had spent zero minutes in any kind of nuclear reactor.

The CANDU in my view is an absolutely essential component of nuclear fleets in the short term, especially because of their remarkable ability to use once through nuclear fuel without reprocessing.

It is also suitable for breeder capability using a plutonium/thorium/U-233 exchange. This process consumes plutonium and after the plutonium is consumed, would be able to breed new U-233 fuel directly from thorium with no plutonium intermediate.

However I believe humanity needs more plutonium, not less of it, and objections to this idea is usually stated by people who know zero about plutonium but hate it based entirely on their ignorance.