[Rhodes22-list] The Hydrogen Economy - Part II

[Roger Pihlaja]

Rummy,

The other 100+ nuclear reactors in the United states have been operating
nearly continuously for up to 40+ years with excellent safety records.  A
similar number of essentially identical reactors in France have been
operating continuously for about as long, also with excellent safety
records.  The safety systems at Three Mile Island did their jobs.  Although
the reactor core was heavily damaged in the accident, there was no
significant release of radiation to the environment and no one was injured.
The Russian reactors, like the one that failed at Chernobyl, are an entirely
different design and did not incorporate the sort of redundant safety
systems used in US and French designs.  So, other than a really good example
of what not to do, the Chernobyl experience is not relevant.  Given the
record of hundreds of thousands of safe operating hours in the US & French
reactors and the positive safety experience during the failure at Three Mile
Island, what would it take to "prove" safe design?

It is my understanding the legal battles at the Yuka Mountain Repository are
over whether the safe containment time is 10000 years or 100000 years.
Since even the shorter time is twice as long as all of recorded human
history, what would it take to "prove" either number?

A few of the oldest nuclear power plants have already been shut down &
decommissioned safely.

Rummy, believe it or not, I do "get it".  The arguments over nuclear power
have long since ceased being rational and data driven.  Since it is now an
emotional, fear driven, movement with a very broad base of popular support
in this country, I conclude that no amount of logical arguments will ever
change the minds of a sufficient number of antinukes.  In the board rooms of
power companies, the arguments against nuclear power are strictly economic,
not technical.  The antinuke movement has made it so expensive and time
consuming to go thru the permitting, licensing, & start-up processes, and
fight the legal battles along the way; that, nuclear power plants have
become uneconomical.  The same thing would happen to any technology that
required a private company to invest several billion dollars and then have
the investment sit idle for as long as a decade before generating cash flow
with a significant possibility that the plant might never be allowed to
start-up.  The reason why no nuclear power plants have been built in the
United States for 25+ years is as simple as that.  It will require some
equally traumatic event such as I described in my previous post to change
enough attitudes.

Rummy, as far as me being a "techno type", you better believe it!  That's
Mr. Nerd to you.  Like it or not, we live in an ever shrinking, technology
driven world.  World population is at 6.2 billion souls and growing
exponentially.  Third world economies, like China and India, are growing
their economies and energy consumption at double and triple the rate of the
United States.  We have long since passed the point at which world
population could be supported without technology.  Rummy, there is no such
thing as going back now.  You'd better learn to deal with it or consider
moving to the backwoods of Montana.

Roger Pihlaja
S/V Dynamic Equilibrium


----- Original Message -----
From: <R22RumRunner at aol.com>
To: <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
Sent: Monday, January 17, 2005 5:15 PM
Subject: Re: [Rhodes22-list] The Hydrogen Economy - Part II


> Roger,
> You really don't get it do you. You sit in a laboratory or whatever it is
> you used to do and work up theories and design new things, but you never
> consider the long term consequences of your actions. You always leave that
to
> someone else.
> There might be a small anti-nuclear movement in this country, but I
believe
> the American people are smart enough to rein in techno types like you
because
> you don't have all the answers. The bottom line to nuclear power is that
> there  is no end to the bottom line. We will always have the price to pay
for the
> waste  and the left over, used up nuclear plants.
> It simply does not make sense, and that's why you won't see another
nuclear
> plant built until you guys figure out solutions to the long term problems.
>
> Rummy
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