Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Don't tell Jackson Browne, Graham Nash, & Bonnie Raitt...

In 1979, the aforementioned musicians, together with John Hall, held a fund-raising concert as Musicians United for Safe Energy. James Taylor, Carly Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Ray Parker Jr. (who ya gonna call?), Tom Petty, The Doobie Brothers, CSN, and Poco also participated in the effort, releasing a live double [vinyl] album called No Nukes. The movement was largely a response to the mishap, earlier that year, at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island, and the release of the movie The China Syndrome just weeks prior.

Inasmuch as it's prohibitively expensive to get licensing for a new nuclear power plant, none has been built in decades, and the last U.S. commercial reactor to come online was in 1996 in Tennesee (Comanche Peak #2 was the last one before that, in 1993), although some upgrades have been made, and Luminant Energy has filed an application for two additional reactors at Comanche Peak, in conjunction with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

Because of the staggering capital outlay, regulatory burden, and long lead times for these gigawatt power generators, I submit there should be smaller, neighborhood generation stations, maybe on the scale of an aircraft carrier powerplant.

Possible small-scale nuke plant disguised as a strip retail center...

Hey, do you suppose someone stole my idea!?

2 comments:

el chupacabra said...

The good thing about the new Mitubishi reactor is they are modular cutting down on installation and start up time. Antis are saying the new ones will never pay for themselves- I spoke with an engineer who says it will take only 12 years for the CP upgrades to pay for themselves. Not too bad considering the nyumber of people they supply who will continue to get clean/safe energy.

an Donalbane said...

I'm a little bit surprised the costs wouldn't amortize more quickly than 12 years.

Have always thought that nukes are, and should be, an important part of our energy policy (to the degree that we actually have any energy policy). I haven't researched the following, so it's just thinking aloud (or online) but, has the US Government's reluctance to support alternative energy sources been due to the number of workers (read: voters) employed by the extraction industries (crude oil/coal)? Obviously, many allege the Bush admins have favored oil, but on the Dem side of the equation, is it just marginally plausible that a Senator from say, a coal mining state, let's use West Virginia as an example, might use influence to favor coal?

Nukes have the advantage over several other technologies in that they are fairly well developed. I've watched TBoone, and think that wind may play a small part in energy independence. My intuition tells me that Vertical Axis Wind Turbines will ultimately prove to be a better design than current technology.