Should the US infrastructure upgrades include "green nuclear powerpants"?

[kyzr]

Would you support investing in more nuclear power as part of US infrastructure upgrades?

I'll support getting government out of the way to allow private companies to invest in building as many nuclear power plants as the market will bear.

That's a bad idea. Private companies have a profit motive to cut corners. We saw how that worked out at TMI.

Prove it! Because The reasons behind this malfunction are still unknown.
Causes and Effects of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Disaster
So where is your PROOF that "cutting corners" was the fault? Are you a nuclear engineer expert?

If you read these two explanations of the accident you will see that certain systems did not function as designed. Why was that? Who screwed up? These are critical "safety related" systems that are supposed to be guaranteed to work.
https://www.history.com/topics/1970s/three-mile-island
NRC: Backgrounder on the Three Mile Island Accident

But where is your proof that "cutting corners" was the fault? Was there any actual legal actions brought against those evil for profit companies?
Now this web site: Legal History of Three Mile Island explains in great detail TMI lawsuits,etc.
The point I'm making though is once again those evil profit making companies are at fault...according to anti-capitalists mentalities you exhibit.
In the meantime.. trillions of gigawatts of power has been generated by nuclear plants OPERATED by for profit utilities. But of course really dumb
people like you take those RARE, totally infrequent events as the RULE rather than the exceptions. I'm really tired of people like you taking an isolated,
RARE situation and making it sound like an evil for profit plot! How truly naive...stupid!

The fact that there was a settlement out of court proves that there was someone at fault for the TMI incident.
There were two units at TMI, unit-1 ran as-designed from startup in 1975 to shutdown before the end of this month
Three Mile Island Unit 1 To Shut Down By September 30, 2019
Why did Unit-1 run perfectly and Unit-2 melt down? What were the major differences?
Both had the same reactor designs, and both were built by the same constructor.
They were designed by two different companies. Did that matter? How did the designs differ?
Why were different design outfits used? Was it to save money? Is that a bad thing? Not normally.
Trust me, I'm a lot smarter than you are. I'm a professional engineer and the nuke plants that I worked on work great. I didn't work on TMI-2.

If you think serious nuclear incidents are rare, that just proves your stupidity.
Here is a list for you: Nuclear and radiation accidents and incidents - Wikipedia

 

[miketx]

I voted yes, but only if French or German companies build and manage the plants; American companies are too corrupt and inept to be trusted with such important projects. We can let them build tool sheds or fences or something, maybe.

Right.

 

[Picaro]

I voted yes, but only if French or German companies build and manage the plants; American companies are too corrupt and inept to be trusted with such important projects. We can let them build tool sheds or fences or something, maybe.

Germany shut down their nuke plants after Fukishima.
France has a lot, but so does the US.
In the US the utilities run the nuke plants.

Be that as it may, they've all had far less problems with theirs than we have with ours, and a big reason for that is their high quality of engineering and quality controls during the building. Their county's politics shut them down.

No one is going to change the US laws regarding nuclear power design, construction, or operation, so you might want to change your vote?

. Laws can be changed, so can operators. Brown and Root, GE, and others have crap construction records and practices compared to German and French firms in this field. But yes, if they go with crappy corrupt American contractors, which are all of them, and their criminal illegal alien work forces I would change my vote.

I'd put Fluor & Bechtel against any Euro design or construction firms.

I wouldn't, I would rather use general contractors with the better record of construction safety and far fewer crooked deals they got caught doing. No American companies have that kind of record.

Besides, here in the US we don't do metric, the Euros would go nuts trying to use the US standard sizes for everything, as well as the units for licensing calculations.

Yes, we do metric here.

The Euro firms won't break into the US nuclear market.

Well, that's because of companies with govt. connections like GE, Bechtel, Halliburton, Brown and Root, etc., get lots of sweetheart considerations. They have no real competition.

p.s. GE doesn't do construction, they fabricate the BWR reactor and other critical BWR components, like the turbines.
Westinghouse is the PWR reactor fabricator, but they went bankrupt in 2017.

They did in the past, and the people they employ are still in the business somewhere under other names, so this isn't a point; they build components, which I'm pretty sure are part of the construction ...

French and German firms have the better quality control management, period.

 

[Picaro]

I voted yes, but only if French or German companies build and manage the plants; American companies are too corrupt and inept to be trusted with such important projects. We can let them build tool sheds or fences or something, maybe.

Right.

Which German or French company built that plant? Your link doesn't say.

 

[miketx]

I voted yes, but only if French or German companies build and manage the plants; American companies are too corrupt and inept to be trusted with such important projects. We can let them build tool sheds or fences or something, maybe.

Right.

Which German or French company built that plant? Your link doesn't say.

Beats me. Whatever the French build usually surrenders soon anyway.

 

[Picaro]

Would you support investing in more nuclear power as part of US infrastructure upgrades?

I'll support getting government out of the way to allow private companies to invest in building as many nuclear power plants as the market will bear.

That's a bad idea. Private companies have a profit motive to cut corners. We saw how that worked out at TMI.

Prove it! Because The reasons behind this malfunction are still unknown.
Causes and Effects of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Disaster
So where is your PROOF that "cutting corners" was the fault? Are you a nuclear engineer expert?

If you read these two explanations of the accident you will see that certain systems did not function as designed. Why was that? Who screwed up? These are critical "safety related" systems that are supposed to be guaranteed to work.
https://www.history.com/topics/1970s/three-mile-island
NRC: Backgrounder on the Three Mile Island Accident

We can also include the massive cost overruns due to getting caught using substandard concrete and the like as well . See Comanche Peak, which is only using one of its towers, and of course the usual ridiculous cost overruns.

 

[miketx]

Would you support investing in more nuclear power as part of US infrastructure upgrades?

I'll support getting government out of the way to allow private companies to invest in building as many nuclear power plants as the market will bear.

That's a bad idea. Private companies have a profit motive to cut corners. We saw how that worked out at TMI.

Prove it! Because The reasons behind this malfunction are still unknown.
Causes and Effects of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Disaster
So where is your PROOF that "cutting corners" was the fault? Are you a nuclear engineer expert?

If you read these two explanations of the accident you will see that certain systems did not function as designed. Why was that? Who screwed up? These are critical "safety related" systems that are supposed to be guaranteed to work.
https://www.history.com/topics/1970s/three-mile-island
NRC: Backgrounder on the Three Mile Island Accident

We can also include the massive cost overruns due to getting caught using substandard concrete and the like as well .

The only problem I have and it's why I ridicule things so much is that we don't really know what happened, but we DO know that most media and government don't tell the truth.

 

[Picaro]

A few more years and the plants can be made smaller and more efficient, requiring less radioactive materials, and space flight will be cheaper as well; we can blast the crap and dump it on Pluto.

Even better would be to deport some 100 million or so people and lessen the strain on our infrastructure, and get back on the same track we were on in the early 1970's, with population stabilizing at around 180-200 million and productivity going through the roof. Per capita Kw/hrs aren't all that high now, something like 12Kw per 24 hours for residential use? Been a while since I looked it up.

 

[Picaro]

I'll support getting government out of the way to allow private companies to invest in building as many nuclear power plants as the market will bear.

That's a bad idea. Private companies have a profit motive to cut corners. We saw how that worked out at TMI.

Prove it! Because The reasons behind this malfunction are still unknown.
Causes and Effects of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Disaster
So where is your PROOF that "cutting corners" was the fault? Are you a nuclear engineer expert?

If you read these two explanations of the accident you will see that certain systems did not function as designed. Why was that? Who screwed up? These are critical "safety related" systems that are supposed to be guaranteed to work.
https://www.history.com/topics/1970s/three-mile-island
NRC: Backgrounder on the Three Mile Island Accident

We can also include the massive cost overruns due to getting caught using substandard concrete and the like as well .

The only problem I have and it's why I ridicule things so much is that we don't really know what happened, but we DO know that most media and government don't tell the truth.

Govt., media, and private industry weed out honest people pretty quick, and thanks to the left wing culture wars the population base they all draw from for leaders and employees have little in the way of moral standards, either.

 

[Crepitus]

Vogtle Units 1 & 2, GA
Vogtle Electric Generating Plant - Wikipedia

If the US wants to reduce emissions, one way is to go back to building "green" nuclear power plants. The current fleet averages 38 years old, which already exceeds their expected life.

U.S. nuclear industry - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)
What is the status of the U.S. nuclear industry?
Electricity generation from commercial nuclear power plants in the United States began in 1958. As of the end of December 2018, the United States had 98 operating commercial nuclear reactors at 60 nuclear power plants in 30 states. The average age of these nuclear reactors is about 38 years old. The oldest operating reactor, Nine Mile Point Unit 1 in New York, began commercial operation in December 1969. The newest reactor to enter service, Watts Bar Unit 2, came online in 2016—the first reactor to come online since 1996 when the Watts Bar Unit 1 came online. Nineteen shut down commercial power reactors at 17 sites are in various stages of decommissioning.

Although seven nuclear reactors have been shut down since 2013, total nuclear electricity generation capacity at the end of 2018 was about the same as total capacity in 2003, when the United States had 104 operating reactors. Power plant uprates—modifications to increase capacity—at nuclear power plants have made it possible for the entire operating nuclear reactor fleet to maintain a relatively consistent total electricity generation capacity. These uprates, combined with high capacity utilization rates (or capacity factors), have helped nuclear power plants maintain a consistent share of about 20% of total annual U.S. electricity generation since 1990. Some reactors have also increased annual electricity generation by shortening the length of time reactors are offline for refueling.

Coal power in the United States - Wikipedia

Coal generates about 30% of US power and gas about 34%, both emit CO2.

Would you support investing in more nuclear power as part of US infrastructure upgrades?

I'm not gonna cast a vote because you didn't give a viable option. Nuclear power is fine with me as long as it's not built by a corner/cost cutting "lowest bidder" construction company and not managed by corrupt American energy companies who will scrimp on safety for an extra few dollars.

Totally understand. Is addressing climate change worth the added risk?
The cure (more nuclear) might be worse than the disease?

Without better oversight it may well be.