The nuclear industry and NEI are livid as they watch their dearly beloved Nuclear Renaissance and all the FREE HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS that come with it withering, dying on the vine as America begins to see through the six year full court press Propaganda Campaign NEI carried out to do away with and discredit the Anti Nuclear Grassroots. We are still here, still standing toe to toe with the industry, and the tide is beginning to turn. A carefully orchestrated Pro Green Nuclear Advertising Tsunami failed to drown out our voices, and people are waking up too some very important reasons why NUCLEAR WILL NOT WORK, key among them described in just two words...Time and Money.The proposal to include nuclear power in the Kyoto Protocol CDM is currently being discussed at the UN Climate talks in Poznan These talks coincide with a run of bad news for the nuclear industry that makes its claims of clean cheap power even harder to justify. Following the news of soaring costs for the European Pressurised Reactors (EPRs) in France and Finland and in the estimated budgets for reactors planned in the US, came the news that South-Africa – till now seen as one of the most promising candidates for a so-called nuclear “renaissance” – is backing off for a while: the planned French reactors are simply too expensive. (TOO EXPENSIVE, backing off...sounds like TIME AND MONEY.)
Sometimes in life, timing is everything, and for the nuclear energy industry the crashing of Wall Street, the two trillion (so far) in bailouts paid for with taxpayer dollars could not have occurred at a worse time. Simply stated, a Nuclear Renaissance, the deployment of a new American Fleet of nuclear reactors requires Energy Subsidy compliments of our taxes in numbers that are STAGGERING in normal times, completely unacceptable when America sits perched on the edge of financial ruin. A Nuclear Renaissance must have a willing populace ready to give reactor owners and the nuclear industry at least $3 trillion dollars, and that figure could quickly soar to at least $9 Trillion, even more if we factor in the costs to be incurred with the wrongful even criminal deployment of GNEP. Congress knows America will not tolerate the tab that NEI wants us to pick up for their renaissance, or more appropriately, resuscitation.
The other reality that is causing Nuclear to wither on the vine as a viable contributor to solving Global Warming...the nuclear industry cannot deliver, cannot deploy enough reactors to make a difference in a timely fashion. The NRC has put dozens of communities at risk by rubber stamping the license renewal applications of America's crumbling fleet of reactors...it was deemed in our best National Interest to RISK 20 more years of operation for failing reactors...we can all hope and pray that the Blind Trust the NRC has placed in the industry's ability to keep these nuclear monsters bandaged together works, but those 20 years will fail to buy the nuclear industry what they need...time, and lots of it. (see below excerpt from Dale Klein Speech)
- Let me begin with the current fleet of nuclear power plants, and the issue of life extensions. As many of you know, about half the current U.S. fleet has received or is in the process of applying for a 20-year license renewal. Many—perhaps most—of today’s commercial nuclear plants, therefore, could have another 20 years of operation. But then what do we do? One of the most challenging projects under way at the NRC right now is asking whether these plants could continue to operate safely from 60 years until… well, we don’t actually know what the technical operating limits of these plants are. And that is the point. In February, the NRC co-sponsored a conference with the Department of Energy to begin figuring out what questions we would need to answer to consider life extensions for plants beyond 60 years. We are only in the early stages, but so far we have determined that there are several areas that we need to closely examine. These include: (It is note here, that the NRC decided to rubber stamp license renewal applications to give the industry until 2050 to get its act together, and deploy REPLACEMENT reactors for America's aging fleet...Dale Klein's admission here that the NRC staff's MOST CHALLENGING project is finding ways to push the life span of these reactors beyond 60 years show us the TRUE FAILURE OF THE INDUSTRY, proves they cannot meet their promised deployment schedules in a timely fashion, cannot HELP AMERICA solve Global Warming.)
Neutron Embrittlement
Annealing/Analysis of Reactor Vessel
Thermal Fatigue
Environmental
Qualification of Components
Chemical control programs; and
Transition to
Digital I&C
No doubt, we will learn as we go along, and perhaps add other issues to that list as we move forward. But I think this list gives you an indication of how complex this issue is—and at least to me, fascinating. As I said, we are only beginning this process, but I do want to add one other point. No matter what the science ultimately leads us to conclude about the feasibility of life extensions beyond 60 years—and I certainly have no intention of prejudging the issue—we will accumulate a vast amount of extremely important information. The data we collect, and the scientific and engineering questions we answer, will contribute to the NRC’s ongoing efforts to implement a risk-informed and performance-based approach to licensing and regulation. Refining and improving our probabilistic risk assessments will enable us to understand, license, and regulate the plants of the future that much more effectively.
To put nuclear where it wants to go, to make them (if they are right) where they want to be in playing a part in reducing CO2, in helping to solve Global Warming, they need to deploy some 200 Nuclear Reactors here in America, a total of 4000 of them world wide by the year 2050. DO the math...just here in America that requires the Nuclear Industry completing and starting up FOUR REACTORS. Right now there is only one company in the entire world that can make a key component of these new reactors. Additionally, there is a huge and increasing worker shortage problem staring the industry in the face...even addressing these and other issues takes time that the industry does not have.
There is an effort to revitalize college programs that will educate and train a new Nuclear Work Force...they cannot produce enough qualified applicants to meet the demand that all these new reactors would create, and for at least the next 15 years, would have trouble filling the positions available at current nuclear facilities as the aging work force retires. It will take 10-15 years to build the necessary manufacturing infrastructure necessary to meet the kind of nuclear demand for new reactor builds that the NEI and World Nuclear are pushing for. No reactor has ever come in on time, and on budget. Being generous, from start to finish it is going to take at least five years per reactor (being WAY GENEROUS HERE)to build a reactor...add to that at least three years to get a permit though and approved (there will be litigation and legal fights for every permit), and we are looking at maybe 2020-2025 before the first NEW BUILD REACTORS start appearing on the American Map. NRC worker shortages, a shortage of ON SITE inspectors will slow the process down even further...as we speak, the worker shortage at the NRC is getting so severe that they are deliberating GREEN LIGHTING reactor inspections at current licensed facilities to free up the required extra inspectors at sites who have had issues...a perfect example of this is Indian Point owned by Entergy.
Time is money, money that we will have to come up with...if you look at the rules the nuclear industry has SNUCK INTO LAW, we the taxpayers will have to pay for ALL THE COST OVERRUNS when the industry gets bogged down. Their hope...stop litigation against their strong armed tactics. Forced nuclear is not an option. Face it NEI, you are losing momentum, and with it your last chance at saving this failing industry...YUCCA MOUNTAIN is gone, and now the DOE, NRC and NEI are so desperate to get a storage facility, any storage facility up and running that they are trotting out the same old game they tried with Low Level Radioactive Waste. Regional Temporary storage facilities...HELLO, IT IS A SCAM.
Nuclear power opponents argue that the industry shouldn't expect or need government support, some fifty years into its existence. In a hotel conference room populated mostly with gray-suited older white men (THINK WALL STREET BAILOUT!), industry executives repeatedly called for an expansion of federal loan guarantees for new nuclear plants. (OVER FIFTY PERCENT LOAN FAILURE RATE on the Nuclear Loans made for the first generation of reactors...let us NOT REPEAT HISTORY.)
Early on in the conference, NEI president and CEO Frank L. "Skip" Bowman said, "We use loan guarantees in this country to support ship building, steel making, student loans, rural electrification, affordable housing, construction of critical transportation infrastructure, and for many other purposes. Please don't tell me that America's electric infrastructure is any less important." He added, "I wish someone would tell me when the word 'subsidy' became a slur, a four-letter word. ... What is there of value in American life that is not subsidized, to some extent?" (No other industry has gotten the amount of GOVERNMENT WELFARE that the Nuclear Industry has recieved, and after 50 years, they are still a failing industry...furthermore, look at the example he used...they are PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE. NEI, Skip Bowman and the nuclear industry want us to TAKE ALL THE FINANCIAL RISKS to build their PRIVATELY OWNED RUN FOR PROFIT REACTORS! Meanwhile, when they screw up (and they will) and there is another CHERNOBYL, we will be left with the TRILLION DOLLAR CLEAN UP TAB thanks to the Price Anderson Act.
After some fleeting references during the recently concluded presidential election campaign, any mention of expanding the nation's nuclear power generating capacity seems to have vanished. The "nuclear" in the proposed 2010 Federal Budget is for continued research on storage and disposal of waste, securing weapons and the destruction of warheads. The preliminary budget outline for the next ten years (2010 through 2019) calls for spending $15 billion per year on renewable energies for both research and implementation by way of subsidies and direct investment. The funding is to come from the proposed "cap and trade" permits greenhouse gas emissions that will be "sold" by the federal government. The renewables mentioned include but are not limited to wind, solar, geothermal and biomass. Nuclear power research or implementation is not found. Currently, about 89% of US electrical generation comes from 3 sources: 49% from coal, 21% from nuclear and 19% from natural gas. At present, wind generation contributes about 2%, geothermal 0.3% and solar 0.004%. The other major source is hydroelectric power at around 6%. In France, 78% of electrical power generation is from nuclear; Belgium is 54%; Republic of Korea (South Korea) is 39%, etc down to China that generates about 2% of their total electricity from nuclear plants. Interestingly, of the 29 nuclear plants currently being built around the world, 15 are in Asia with 7 in India and 4 in China. There are currently 435 plants worldwide with 103 in the US followed by France with 59, Japan with 55 and Russia with 31. In the US, there are 26 applications to built nuclear power generating plants. The last plant to be placed on line was in 1996 based on an application entered in the 1970s. The approval process is estimated at 15 to 20 years and plants, depending on their capacity and location and expected length of time for approval can cost from $5 billion to $12 billion dollars. Most need to be backed by government loan guarantees of privately arranged financing. Included in plant costs are reserve funds for storage and transportation of any nuclear waste and eventual decommissioning and clean up.
America, here is TRUTH...what the DOE and NEI hope, is they can fool one, two, up to four communities into playing host to what is supposed to be a temporary storage facility. Once they get you under contract, they get Congress to pass a law making YOUR COMMUNITY IT, IT beign the national repository for all the nuclear SHIT.
Look at any part of the nuclear fuel cycle, and you see FAILURE, and as these failures mount, TIME becomes more and more an issue. DOE's MOX facility that is not even working yet just lost its ONLY CUSTOMER, Billions of American Tax dollars down the toilet. Classifying Depleted Uranium as a future use resource bought the NRC a quarter of a century, but now the time has come to DEAL WITH THE WASTE...they have NO PLACE TO PUT IT, so now they want to reclassify the waste as the least dangerous in the world. FALSE...in fact, Depleted Uranium gets more and more dangerous as the decay process creates far more dangerous daughter chains of cancer causing radiation. Again, the industry and agency meant to oversee it have failed, and are running out of options and time and they know it.
With each passing say and week, the failures of the industry are mounting. America is not willing to go for nuclear until they can PROVE they can deal with their waste streams, and short of picking a part of America to act as a SACRIFICE ZONE (think Marshall Islands), the nuclear industry cannot safely deal with their waste streams, have no way of putting the nuclear genie back in the bottle.
