New Jersey Weighs Building Another Nuclear Plant, First Since 1973

[flashl]

Source: NY Times

TRENTON (AP) — Gov. Jon S. Corzine said on Thursday that New Jersey was considering building a nuclear power plant, the first in the United States since 1973, as part of an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the state.

The proposal, part of a 15-year energy master plan, does not specify a site, but a spokesman for Public Service Electric & Gas said the company was investigating the possibility of adding a fourth plant to its Lower Alloways Creek site in Salem County and expected to make a decision by the end of the year.

The plan calls for reviewing sites, permits, financing and waste disposal involved in bringing another nuclear plant to the state and for studying other technologies that would cause only minimal or no carbon dioxide emissions.

“A business-as-usual energy policy risks enormous economic and environmental consequences,” Mr. Corzine wrote in the plan. “In contrast, an energy policy that focuses on producing and using energy as wisely as possible greatly reduces these consequences and positions us to be a strong competitor in the global economy.”

NY Times

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/nyregion/18nuke.html

[no_hypocrisy]

1. NIMBY

Not in my back yard.

[jeanruss]

2. atomic suicide

To know the dangers of nuclear power read "Atomic Suicide" by Walter Russell. He was the scientist that originally discovered the nuclear elements back in the 1930's. He proposed Hydrogen as the next source of power for the planet and built an engine powered by Hydrogen for NORAD. He got nowhere because of the economic stranglehold of Big Oil and Gas. America and the world were sold out when Russell's inventions were ignored. His books also reflected his concerns about global warming and water shortages back then as well. The vision of this brilliant genius can still help us today.

[PittPoliSci]

3. interesting.

when did he write the book?

[jeanruss]

19. 1957

He wrote it in 1957-the dedication reads: "For the preservation of humanity in its threatened hour of total extinction this book is humbly dedicated." In it he explains what radioactivity is, why and how it kills and what to do about it. "The Man Who Tapped the Secrets of the Universe" is a small book by Glenn Clark, that is a biography of this genius's life. His work was to enable man to leave fossil fuels behind and enter The Hydrogen Age. "A New Concept of the Universe" was one of his scientific books that explained how we would obtain hydrogen from the air and water the way the sun does. He was a fascinating guy who excelled at everything and had a strong belief in God and how science and nature are always manifesting God.

[defendandprotect]

24. Privatization of our natural resources, like privatization of our military, end up ...

in suicidal decision making ---

[girl gone mad]

46. The sun doesn't..

obtain hydrogen from air and water.

Did you mean to say something else?

[amandabeech]

4. From what source did he plan to obtain the hydrogen, and which source of energy

did he plan to use to liberate the hydrogen from its atomic captors?

[Bill McBlueState]

5. what are nuclear elements?

I thought you meant things like uranium, but that was discovered long before the 30's.

[FarCenter]

12. All elements are nuclear

Even hydrogen, which has a nucleus consisting of either a single proton or a proton and a neutron.

[wtmusic]

36. Walter Russell didn't discover anything

"Although a number of his books have been published, few of his claims have been verified by mainstream academics. This is mainly due to the fact that scientists assume the existence of matter and Dr. Russell assumes the existence of mind."

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

:crazy:

[Occulus]

6. We need to also spend research dollars on

something else.

^^ an ACTUAL contender for fusion power ^^

[PittPoliSci]

7. i agree.

but in the meantime, i'd be willing to accept nuclear power, if for no other reason than to disrupt the stranglehold big oil and gas has on energy production.

[Occulus]

8. That's the tragic part.

It would cost "only" $200M to build WB-7, the prototype device. I should note, Bussard's work was originally funded under a Navy contract and kept classified for a number of years, so there's definitely something to it. Having watched his Google talk (you can see it for yourself here), I must say I'm very impressed. The science seems sound, and Bussard himself said that the two major obstacles at this point are a) funding and b) engineering hurdles.

In other words, all that's lacking is to build and test the thing.

As an aside: some may accuse me of spamming this topic whenever alternative energy subjects arise. I do, and I do it because I think this could well be the 'magic bullet' we're all hoping for, well beyond what solar, wave, or wind power can possibly provide. There are approximately 300,000 years' worth of fuel on Earth for this type of reactor- it uses boron ions, for Christ's sake. Plus, we would not have to concern ourselves with consumption of energy if this device pans out.

So... anyone have $200M just laying about? :D

[NutmegYankee]

9. "Engineering Hurdles"

I often finds this to be a phrase for, we can't actually make it work or the materials needed are Unobtainium. That tends to ruin the flow of one's project.

As far as a Navy contract goes, it was probably an R&D project that went nowhere, hence the failure to continue the contract.

And last, the fuels still must be made (elemental boron from borax, etc and helium), so the cost is worse than many other options and it still emits radiation.

[Occulus]

11. Bussard was intrumental in designing and building the Tokamak

He later disavowed it completely in favor of this approach. By the way, I recognize your "naysayer" language ('Unobtanium' being one of the principal terms in that regard), but it really does not apply to this approach. An IEC reactor requires no special, exotic materials in order to function, and in fact the idea has been around for quite a while. The principal stumbling block has been that the design required a grid between the ions and the core; the ions would collide with the grid, and although fusion is theoretically possible using this approach, the grid would vaporize before fusion could occur. In other words, only the old design required 'Unobtanium'.

Bussard's idea was to contain the ions in a magnetic potential well, rather than a physical charged grid. We can easily construct a magnetic potential well; it's just a bunch of magnets! His lab went on to build six test reactors; WB-6 shorted out and blew apart shortly after it was activated. Even so, the data they were able to gather in that very short time appeared to validate Bussard's math. It's my understanding that that has since been confirmed. One question is losses due to Bremsstrahlung, or 'braking radiation'. I have no answer for that issue; you'd have to learn a lot more about it to answer that question, if it has been answered.

Experiments are ongoing. Here's a current photo of the test chamber the lab will be using for WB-7. This is of necessity a vacuum chamber:



(edited for size)

This isn't exactly an unfounded amateur venture, here. As far as extracting boron ions, I searched extensively, and I couldn't find anything saying that it would be prohibitively expensive. I seem to recall Bussard stating unequivocally that the fuel would be cheap. If you can find such a source, by all means, please show that such a plentiful and already utilized resource is so difficult to produce or refine.

Finally, please do not naysay things like this without learning a thing about them. It only serves to spread FUD, and that's the worst thing that can happen to the funding of such projects.

[NutmegYankee]

17. I Don't mind R&D projects, I think they are great myself...

But I wait until the research is complete and prototypes tested fully before heaping great hopes upon them. Been there and burned, before, hence the "Naysayer" attitude. One only wants to get burned on R&D projects once.

[Trillo]

15. Interesting that there's more buzz about this

now that Bussard is dead.

Them's the breaks of corporatism, I reckon.

[defendandprotect]

10. Yeah . . . let's give terrorists more opportunities to blow us all up to hell ---

Nuclear is B.S. ---

:nuke:

[PittPoliSci]

13. oh give me a break...

[defendandprotect]

14. Are you saying there are no "terrarists" . . . or are you saying you love nuclear --- ???

Or both?

[PittPoliSci]

16. i'm saying that nuclear power plants aren't bombs.

[defendandprotect]

22. I think Chernobyl and surrounding areas look still like an atomic BOMB hit them . . !!!

[PittPoliSci]

26. they aren't weapons grade.

they don't go boom unless someone makes them go boom with a bomb. plus, our reactors are nothing like russian ones, ours have much better containment shields. it's like comparing apples to oranges.

edited for clarity.

[defendandprotect]

28. Let me say that something went one hell of a BOOM at Chernobyl ....

And, our reactors aren't like the Russian ones . . . but they are like the 3 Mile Island ones?

Additionally, when idiots have gadgets like these they tend to use them and abuse them ---

Keep in mind that we've also exploded at least three nuclear weapons in space ---

presumably to try to break thru the Van Allen Radiation Belts!

Patriarchy and capitalism are suicidal --- as we can see from Global Warming and the threat to

humanity and the planet ---

[PittPoliSci]

30. it was mostly fire damage though.

i agree that nuclear technology should not be placed in the hands of the market place. i was thinking something more along the lines of the TVA, but based on the direction this country is heading, any type of public domain energy production is probably a fool's dream.

[defendandprotect]

31. Only because no one flew a plane into it ---

We are going to have to nationalize our natural resources ---
and at some point, stop the privatization of our military ---

the patriarchy is stupid enough without our permitting this to go on ---

We need to reign in the violence and those who profit from it --

there are many other roads to energy independence --- nuclear is a bad idea from any angle.

[PittPoliSci]

43. i don't agree about nuclear.

but i do agree with everything else.

i'm especially worried, because I work for the postal service, and I have this dread fear that if McCain gets his shot at the presidency, we're going to be looking at a privatized USPS, and i'll probably have my wages slashed or i'll be fired.

[defendandprotect]

53. Right . . . they've been after total privatization of it for a long, long time ---

We're all under attack by Bushco/GOP -- and I think we're a long way from the problems being over --

especially because I'm not sure that ALL of the public totally understands what has been going on.

[Lorentz]

35. There was no nuclear explosion at Chernobyl

It was an industrial explosion, nothing more. Radioactive contamination was spread because there was radioactivity near the fires.

As for the space explosions: you can't "break through the Van Allen" belt. That's just nonsense.

[NutmegYankee]

33. And the trees and city that are still perfectly intact right next to the plant?

Yawn.

[NutmegYankee]

18. I love nuclear plants. n/t

[MadHound]

20. Until they solve two big problems, nuclear is a stupid, suicidal choice

And even if they solve the problems of what to do with the waste, and eliminate human error, there's one problem that we'll still be facing, the lack of uranium. Pretty soon, if we go nuclear, we will be bent over a uranium rod rather than an oil barrel. Uranium is scarce and getting scarcer.

[sir pball]

21. Maybe it would encourage

The US and Russia to decommission a good chunk of their nuclear weapon stockpiles and downmix the 95% enriched uranium they use to the 2-5% that power plants need.

And plutonium, there's gigantic stockpiles of that sitting around and we can always breed more of it (not sure if you get more useful energy out of the Pu than from the U you put in though).

Waste can be buried, the processing and transport is a logistical nightmare but Yucca really *isn't* that bad an idea...the natural reactors at Oklo left literally tons of high-level nuclear waste buried uncontained in water-logged, porous rock and they've remained well sequestered. I really don't see a problem with sealed barrels of vitrified waste in dry, hard, stable bedrock. Beats shooting it into space..

[PittPoliSci]

25. plus, some advancements in technology have lead to recycling waste to get more energy out of it.

i don't think it's a great idea to completely rule nuclear out of the equation just yet.

[sir pball]

27. Agree 100%

While it isn't an ideal solution, advancements in reactor design have made it a whole lot safer and it's here and workable on the massive scale we need right now. There's pretty much no R&D left, all we need to do is start building.

[PittPoliSci]

29. there's always more research you can do.

but they are definitely workable on a massive scale, and are completely capable of decentralizing energy production in the country.

[sir pball]

32. Oh, sure

There's always more research to be done and I fully support it, but the latest designs (esp. pebble beds) are fairly mature and pretty darned safe...the Germans turned off the cooling systems and removed the control rods from the AVR reactor and the thing just warmed up a bit and then sat there merrily doing absolutely nothing.

At any rate, it beats anything else for producing the tremendous amounts of energy modern society demands in a relatively clean fashion.

[MadHound]

42. There's alreaady been one accident due to fuel handling at a pebble bed in Germany

And frankly, running a reactor without a containment building(which is the design of the pebble bed) is absolutely crazy. Do you really want to do away with that big safety system known as a containment building?

Plus, the pebble bed produces more tonnage of high level waste than a conventional reactor, and I've already pointed out the problems with that.

[MadHound]

40. No R&D left? HAH!

They have yet to make a reactor proof from human error. They haven't solved the waste problem. And frankly they haven't figured out a way to build reactors without a huge amount of government subsidies, including that for R&D.

[PittPoliSci]

44. i'm not sure i trust a company to build a reactor without govt oversight.

or subsidies. One of the biggest problems with the free-market is that it has never been an innovator of ideas, it's only responsibility is to make money for investors. most major projects that have lead to an advancement of technological development have been the direct result of government research and development, this stretches back all the way back to the american revolution.

[MadHound]

52. Then I suppose that you approve of the subsidies for coal and oil that the gov't is doling out?

Sorry, but I find the idea of the government monetarily favoring dirty energy alternatives over clean, renewable ones rather abhorrent. It keeps the current energy model in place, and thus the climate keeps changing.

As far as gov't oversight goes,I'm all for it, and frankly believe that the nuclear industry could use a bit more.

As far as free market never leading to innovation, well we could have this entire debate on the matter, but that's a different subject than nuclear power, so I won't hijack this thread. All I will say is that if you can honestly look around at things like computers, electronics, etc. and not think that free market R&D is ineffective, you're simply blind.

[MadHound]

38. The trouble is much of the waste isn't from the fuel

Much of the waste, if not most of it, is material ranging from contaminated paper swipes to activated aluminum cans(and those are truly scorching cans) to the containment vessel itself(one big hunk of activated goodies). None of this can be recycled, and it all has half lives ranging from days to tens of thousands of years.

Nuclear is a chimera, one we shouldn't chase any further.

[MadHound]

37. A few *minor* problems

First of all, reclaiming and refining old warheads is not going to yield very much usable fuel. You lose at least half of the material in the process, it is a hazardous and polluting process that is energy intensive to boot. Besides, honestly, how many warheads do you think anybody will decommission for fuel purposes? Not enough to provide any sort of reliable fuel stream, not on the scale that is being proposed.

However even if you solve the fuel problems, the others remain. Burying waste underground is not a suitable solution, especially at Yucca. Yucca sits at the convergence of four decently sized faults, and if they went off, there could be major problems. Even without them going off, there are still problems with Yucca. The EPA did a dye test from the bottom of Yucca and found that dye injected from Yucca showed up in the Las Vegas water supply two weeks later. Not a good thing.

You must remember, we're talking on the scale of tens of thousands of years here, do you really want to pass this problem on to future generations? Hell, it probably wouldn't take that long. Most nuclear waste is stored in steel containers, it only takes a few years to activate steel, add a little moisture, a little paint deterioration, and you've got Fe59 entering the water table. Not good, not good at all. In fact it really isn't the potential catastrophical that is the biggest danger, it is the insidious, bit by bit release of radioactive material into the water over years and decades that is the biggest problem, and that applies anywhere underground or aboveground.

Then there is simple human error. It's always there, always present, and even if it happens only once every few decades, when it does it's deadly. Think Chernobyl. You can never rule out human error, given a long enough period of time, it will happen. There have been some close calls, even minor events, how long before the next big one?

Then there's *minor* things, like the tritium leaks that are commonplace in the industry. Again, it's all about the water table. Speaking of water, did you hear about the reactors in France and Minnesota that had to be shut down due to lack of water? In these days of global climate change and burgeoning water strains, nuclear power could get really dicey. Furthermore, the water that reactors return to the environment are creating massive damage to the ecosystems their dumping into, heating the surrounding water up and destroying or displacing many species.

And no, we certainly don't want to launch waste into space. If cost doesn't discourage you, Columbia and Challenger should.

All in all, nuclear power isn't the panacea it was cracked up to be, and frankly should be discarded as any sort of energy solution. Especially when we have solar, wind, geo-thermal and other resources that are renewable and much cleaner.

[girl gone mad]

48. France...

is in danger of having to shut down 2/3rds of their plants over the next few decades because of rising temperatures and receding waters in the Rhone. Hope they have a back-up plan.

[wtmusic]

56. There aren't going to be any future generations

if we don't do something now. Solar, wind, geothermal...a drop in the bucket. You can worry about 10,000 years from now if you like but it won't mean squat if the Earth is uninhabitable 500 years from now.

[defendandprotect]

23. PLUS we use a lot of electricity in running these plants . .. which is always denied ---

[Codeine]

34. That statement doesn't make sense.

Nuclear plants generate electricity well beyond the energy used to operate them.

[girl gone mad]

49. The post doesn't make sense to me, either..

but it does take an enormous amount of energy and resources just to build a nuclear plant.

[Codeine]

51. No argument there,

but one doubts that is what the poster meant.

[wtmusic]

39. Let's put that scarcity myth to bed right now

"It is more plentiful than antimony, tin, cadmium, mercury, or silver, and it is about as abundant as arsenic or molybdenum.<5><9> It is found in hundreds of minerals including uraninite (the most common uranium ore), autunite, uranophane, torbernite, and coffinite.<5> Significant concentrations of uranium occur in some substances such as phosphate rock deposits, and minerals such as lignite, and monazite sands in uranium-rich ores<5> (it is recovered commercially from these sources with as little as 0.1% uranium<7>).

In 2005, seventeen countries produced concentrated uranium oxides, with Canada (27.9% of world production) and Australia (22.8%) being the largest producers and Kazakhstan (10.5%), Russia (8.0%), Namibia (7.5%), Niger (7.4%), Uzbekistan (5.5%), the United States (2.5%), Ukraine (1.9%) and China (1.7%) also producing significant amounts.<39> The ultimate supply of uranium is believed to be very large and sufficient for at least the next 85 years<34> although some studies indicate underinvestment in the late twentieth century may produce supply problems in the 21st century.<40> It is estimated that for a ten times increase in price, the supply of uranium that can be economically mined is increased 300 times.<41>"

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

[MadHound]

41. *Sigh*

Yes, uranium is plentiful, however the trouble is that it lacks concentration. There's about 1-2 parts per million concentration in most places. However the current commercially available from mining is roughly fifty years worth, at the current rate of use. Going back and recycling old material might get you another fifty years worth, again at the current rate of consumption.

And frankly, do you really want to go grinding down mountains for uranium? Have you ever been to a uranium mining site? I have, they are toxic hellholes that are destroying the environment and slowly killing people and animals for miles around.

And again, there are no sure cures for those two other big problems, what to do with the waste and prevention of human error

[PittPoliSci]

45. have you ever heard of the changing scarcity of oil arguments?

this is kind of an aside, but the USGS has always estimated oil reserves well over that which the oil companies said existed. Big oil did this in an effort to drive up prices.

Do you think there might be a similar motive for understating uranium reserves?

Or perhaps it is just a plot to undermine the use of uranium based energy sources? The old "there isn't enough to justify the research" type argument?

[wtmusic]

54. Could be

Until they enforce the Sherman Act and investigate price-fixing among all of the energy giants, you won't know what's scarce and what's not.

[girl gone mad]

50. Let's take your argument at face value..

and say that fissionable materials are abundant and cheap.

A limited supply of uranium is not the only restraint on the proliferation of nuclear power:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aaVMzCTMz3ms&refer=home

[girl gone mad]

47. Lack of fissionable materials...

not to mention the extreme expense of building and maintaining a nuclear reactor.

I'd be interested to know if there are any that have ever recovered their costs (not counting the government subsidies).

It's amazing how capitalism is all tied up in this need for constant growth in energy consumption, paired with a bottleneck that only elites get to control. It would be great to see small communities move to co-op systems based on renewable, clean energy and promoting conservation.

[wtmusic]

55. Nuclear costs about the same as coal per MW generated

and is cleaner.

How many people worldwide have died of cancer from coal smoke? How many species have gone extinct from global warming directly related to coal-generated power? The earth is slowly dying because of fear of statistically rare catastrophic events.

[Pavulon]

57. Breeder Reactor!!

Measured efficiency is how long it takes to fuel another reactor of same size.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_breeder_reactor