Okay, heres the question part. Being that Solar and wind technologies do not have as high of a yield for energy, and considering in the resistance of the lines and the price of the grade of copper that will have to be used to connect the middle of barren land to populated areas, why cant people see that a nuclear plant would be a better solution, being that it gives a higher yield of power than solar and wind capacities, it can outperform hydroelectric plants, coal plants, and natural gas plants, We have facilities and protocols to protect and dispose of nuclear waste that is created, so why is there such a uproar when building a nuclear power plant, by environmentalists, when the waste produced for the people that use the power would be about the size of a small marble per household per year. so can we just use nuclear as our backbone and put solar and wind in remote areas for the people that are actually in remote areas, and power the rest of america with nuclear and produce 0 emissions from any plant.
btw im an electrical engineer, with an associates and bachelors degree in electrical engineering.
2009-06-30T14:09:51Z
and to the disposal of nuclear waste, the government hollowed out a rather large mountain to store it in and arent using it. and the modern safety protocols are very well adapted, if you compare a modern nuclear facility to chernobyl, chernobyl was a nuclear facility with a tin roof that used sand or graphite...cant remember...to keep the nuclear reaction cool, nuclear facilities today have modern alarms, better detection equipment, better controls, better trained staff, and above all else there is more regulation involved than you can shake a stick at. the biggest cost of building a nuclear plant is litigation... why?!?
Michael R2009-06-30T14:01:06Z
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Because of safety concerns, not saying they are justified but this is the argument.
When a coal plant blows up or stops working it kill 15 workers...when a nuke plant does it kill the population around the plant and the land the plant was built on.
Plus the waste is bad, but given time we might be able to process it.
Nuke power is a good deal, but only if the federal government is all over the construction, testing, security, training, regulating and in the end dealing with the waste. All that cost and the rate payers don't get stuck with the tab....the taxpayers do. When I was a kid, before the first plant was built we were told that nuke electricity would be too cheap to meter. Waste may be the size of a marble per household, but there are a lot of households. On site pools of water can't hold this stuff forever and there really isn't any other venue for it. In comparison, solar and wind in the southwest is a darn good deal. Since it can be decentralized the grid isn't really a problem, and of course the efficiency of solar and wind improves all the time. To build and operate a nuke plant for a decade would cost huge multiples of cash over solar and wind production. It's a technology who's time has gone. RIP!
The simple answer to your question is NIMBY...... Not In My Backyard.
The point you made about upgrading the electrical grid is exactly right. That's an expensive proposition. Thus the only way for nuclear power to step into this equation is if people are willing to have more "local" nuclear plants. Unfortunately, nuclear plants are almost impossible to build in America as everyone is for them up until their town council raises a stink.
Nuclear technology in this country is amazingly safe. The nuclear waste issue isn't as big as some make it out to be.
However the idea that nuclear has a greater yield than solar or wind is based on the current crop of technology. I think the whole point behind pushing solar and wind is to improve the technology to the point where it is closer to the yield of a nuclear plant.
Most people don't know anything about Three Mile Island except the name, and they also remember the movie "The China Syndrome" was about a catastrophic nuclear accident, and they think the Chernobyl accident is proof that nuclear power is unsafe.
It's all bullshit. TMI proved the safety mechanisms worked, Chernobyl proved that they were necessary (the Russians didn't think so before it happened) and The China Syndrome was so stupid it was parodied on Saturday Night Live (The Pepsi Syndrome).
Nuclear power is safe and reliable, enough so that we do use it to power our submarine fleet, and US companies ARE building safe, efficient, and reliable reactors, it's just that we're building them in Europe.
Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi has us headed back to windmills, which were abandoned in most of this country a hundred years ago as inefficient.
There's a reason the Navy uses nuclear power and not diesel on submarines, and it's the same reason we don't have any ships with sails on them anymore (other than the U.S.C.G. Barque Eagle). It WORKS.
Those small marbles per household take a really long time to stop being hazardous and take up a lot of space when multiplied by millions of households. Also, no matter what safety protocols are in place, there's always the chance of an accident. Most people don't want nuclear power plants in their neighborhoods. Also, the oil, coal, and mining industries have very strong lobbying groups.