Atomic energy will not go away

[Mr. Sandman]

If anything this is a reason to pump more money and effort into research. Stopping anything nuke is not going to solve anything.

To answer a question one of the kids asked me... How many windmills does it take to equal 1 nuke plant:


Cobbled some numbers to put it in perspective:

A typical nuclear power plant produces 1,000 megawatts of electricity per hour.

At 25 megawatts to 1500 acres for a nice wind farm of 60 to 70 turbines, you would need 60,000 acres and 2400 to 2800 wind turbines to equal 1,000 megawatts. Of course, these wind turbines only produce that much power when the wind is blowing just right. That only happens about 25% of the time, so you really need four times as many wind turbines and four times as much space to produce, on average, 1,000 megawatts of electricity per hour. So that's, 240,000 acres and 9,600 to 11,200 turbines. 240,000 acres is 375 square miles.

At 5 acres of solar panels per megawatt, you need 5,000 acres of solar panels to equal 1,000 megawatts of electricity. Those solar panels only work at peak power levels during the sunny times, so, on average, they only put out about 25% of their rated capacity. That means you really need 20,000 acres of solar panels to generate 1,000 megawatts of electricity per hour, on average. 20,000 acres is 31.25 square miles

Now if you wanted to power the US with 100% solar and wind since nuclear is about 20% of the power and we have about 100 reactors providing that power, you would need to multiply the above numbers by about 500 to provide that power.

So, this means to do it with wind: you need 5.5 million windmills covering 187,000 sq mi (Calif is ~160,000 sqmi)

or, for solar you need to cover 15,500 sq mi. (MA is about 10,000 sq mi)


So, it is just not feasible to think about building something like this. Am I against windmills and solar? NO!! I think we should blaze ahead with plans to develop what we can but to think we will power the world with it is naive. We need everything! Nuke, clean coal, NAT Gas, wind solar, hydro, etc. IMO the largest unused and cheap resource that we have in this country is Nat gas. Together with clean coal plants I think we can power the country without importing much of anything and doing our share until clean unlimited atomic cures the world of this forever.

[blondterror]

Great to keep this in perspective... in the right location Nuclear power has its place in the mix... I would like to see more use of geothermal and tidal technologies in areas that are conducive to these 2 technologies

[JohnR]

I would like to see more alternative energy replacing stinky coal and such but we also need to find a way for new design nuke plants to come online which are far safer than these already pretty safe 40 year old designs. None of the other scenarios are realistic alternatives to fossil fuels yet we need alternatives to fossil fuels - so something has to give.

[Mr. Sandman]

Nat gas alone could solve a lot of our oil/energy problems for a few hundred years. I think some power plants are looking into switching over. Also, I would not give up on clean coal burning.

[JohnnyD]

I'd like to see the infrastructure which is teetering on the edge of total collapse to be upgraded. With an upgraded infrastructure comes significantly improved efficiency.

Also, I appreciate the push in places like Israel that require things like rooftop solar water heaters. In most places in this country, enough energy lands on the roof of our homes to allow you to remove yourself from the grid.

We need to remember that much of the energy that is created is merely wasted.

[PRBuzz]

Nuclear power is (can be) a very safe form of energy, if it wasn't it wouldn't be found as the source of power on many of the naval ships. The laws/regs make it really cost and time prohibitive to construct new plants, $10s of billions in costs and >10 yrs from start to finish construction, then you begin the licensing approvals....

[JohnnyD]

Originally Posted by PRBuzz

Nuclear power is (can be) a very safe form of energy, if it wasn't it wouldn't be found as the source of power on many of the naval ships. The laws/regs make it really cost and time prohibitive to construct new plants, $10s of billions in costs and >10 yrs from start to finish construction, then you begin the licensing approvals....

I'm very interested what will come from the newish concept of utilizing nuclear waste to power the plants. From what I understand, there isn't nearly as much refining needed and the waste is reused.

[Mr. Sandman]

I am looking forward to the first DEMO of a fusion reactor which I think has been proposed for 2024. (I bet there will be delays but the potential for this technology could actually save mankind) I hope I am alive to see it work in a real capacity.

Waste is not nearly as bad as fission reactors and has a half life that is much shorter and can be dealt with with current technology.

IMO we could have done this already if the US made a major (moon-landing-like) commitment. But 3 mile island and wall street put the breaks on anything nuke for the last 30 years.

[Fishpart]

What about neighborhood sized nuclear reactors like we have safely floating all over the globe? Could also cut down on transmission losses and add redundancy to our power supply..

[Raven]

building 7 nuclear reators on an island (Japan)that has the oldest civilization and LONGest history of "Tsunami Events" leaves one thinking about the original Wisdom of such a plan....

China having long been the most economical largest human powered and low technology (that worked quite excellently) society although communist has 12 nuclear reactors now under construction.

............is this their future as well?

[PRBuzz]

Originally Posted by Fishpart

What about neighborhood sized nuclear reactors like we have safely floating all over the globe? Could also cut down on transmission losses and add redundancy to our power supply..

How many neighborhoods could afford multi-billion $ construction costs?

I like the concept of localized transmission. Would need some cross transmission capability between neighborhoods to serve as emergency backup .

[buckman]

Originally Posted by PRBuzz

.... time prohibitive to construct new plants, $10s of billions in costs and >10 yrs from start to finish construction, then you begin the licensing approvals....

And that's just for a wind farm.

[Swimmer]

The basic design in Japan are from GE engineers here in this country. I'd say thier stock will be in the chitter sortly.