Nuclear energy is dead. Good riddance.

[Cosmic Wonder]

www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/construction-halted-south-carolina-nuclear-power-reactors-n788331

Mike

[aquaduct]

So much for the Global Climate Change Scare.

[brucemacneill]

As long as there is relatively cheap oil, nuclear isn't economically viable. It's probably safer to wait awhile for nuclear, maybe 100 years or so.

[Marshall]

By then we will have harnessed butterfly power.

[brucemacneill]

Aug 1, 2017 10:17:12 GMT -5 Marshall said:

By then we will have harnessed butterfly power.

Only if we run out of Unicorn shit and have to find another energy source.

[millring]

I drove south from Rockford, IL, then across the state heading east. I passed 40-50 miles of windmills all standing perfectly still yesterday.

[Russell Letson]

That's because they'd finished milling all the available wind. The ground crews were bagging up the processed product for export to China: mostly for cooling breezes, but some goes to into military warehouses, where they hold it for possible future reintegration as cyclones, to be launched against--well, whoever.

[millring]

talk about wind.

[james]

I think that the implied message that wind turbines are not always turning so lets dismiss renewable energy technologies out of hand is questionable.

[brucemacneill]

I think he was just pointing out that all the hot air is in Springfield, Il., not Rockford.

[epaul]

Aug 1, 2017 17:44:23 GMT -5 james said:

I think that the implied message that wind turbines are not always turning so lets dismiss renewable energy technologies out of hand is questionable.

I thought the message was that since wind energy is intermittent, it might be premature to dismiss nuclear power as a steady, baseline, carbon-free, energy source for when the wind either ain't blowing or is blowing too much.

Nuke has problems. Everything has problems. This old world is filled with problems. I don't know which road leads to the best future, but to be safe, I would keep as many of them open as possible. Yust in case, doncha know.

[epaul]

Actually, let's consider that sentence again. It may not be about energy this or energy that at all. It might just be a solid observation, and a reassuring one at that. Let's take a look...

Aug 1, 2017 15:29:15 GMT -5 millring said:

I drove south from Rockford, IL, then across the state heading east. I passed 40-50 miles of windmills all standing perfectly still yesterday.

I don't know about you, but it appears to me that the windmills were behaving as one would really hope they would. Which is a good thing. When those damn things get it in their minds to move about, they cause a hell of a ruckus, being big and really clumsy things. It was a heartening observation that there was a fifty-mile stretch of them behaving properly. Gives you hope that the darn things can learn.

[james]

Aug 1, 2017 18:01:04 GMT -5 epaul said:

Aug 1, 2017 17:44:23 GMT -5 james said:

I think that the implied message that wind turbines are not always turning so lets dismiss renewable energy technologies out of hand is questionable.

I thought the message was that since wind energy is intermittent, it might be premature to dismiss nuclear power as a steady, baseline, carbon-free, energy source for when the wind either ain't blowing or is blowing too much.

Nuke has problems. Everything has problems. This old world is filled with problems. I don't know which road leads to the best future, but to be safe, I would keep as many of them open as possible. Yust in case, doncha know.

That may be the case. I'll bear that in mind in future. That oil price nonsense threw me off my game a bit.

[Doug]

James, you have no sense of the absurd. 

[TKennedy]

Wasn't it Pogo that said he was all for "New clear fishin"?

[Cosmic Wonder]

I think the DOE should run a pipeline from this forum. There is enough Natural gas here to power much of the country.

Mike

[Cosmic Wonder]

I think the interesting thing about this story, to me, is: this was the plant that was going re-start the nuclear energy industry. It was going to cost 5 billion to build. They spent the five billion and it's no where never being finished. The estimate is another 7 billion to finish. What are the odds that 7 billion isn't enough? The investors pulled the plug. One can bet if there was money to be made they would have gone forward. I think you can stick a fork in nuc-cu-ler. It's done.

Mike

[aquaduct]

Aug 2, 2017 7:56:23 GMT -5 Cosmic Wonder said:

I think the interesting thing about this story, to me, is: this was the plant that was going re-start the nuclear energy industry. It was going to cost 5 billion to build. They spent the five billion and it's no where never being finished. The estimate is another 7 billion to finish. What are the odds that 7 billion isn't enough? The investors pulled the plug. One can bet if there was money to be made they would have gone forward. I think you can stick a fork in nuc-cu-ler. It's done.

Mike

Which brings us right back to the low price of fossil fuels.

Check and mate.

[Marshall]

I read Henning Mankell's memoir, Quicksand. It's about hs last year of life with cancer. Hes pretty morose. And he get's on the nuclear bandwagon early on. I mean in a negative way. he talks about the half life of nuclear reactor waste as 100,000 years. He goes through what has happened to human development in the last 100,000 years. And he surmises that no one will be around in 100,000 years that can read the sign on the door of the nuclear waste storage dumb. Sweden was gong to build one in a mountain base. Henning says the mountain might not still be there in 100,000 years. How can we control what will happen in 100,000 years?

He makes a good point.



Yes I ponder all the motionless wind turbines while driving across the great plains. Doesn't seem efficient. (And damn attractive to boot.)

[Cosmic Wonder]

You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

Mike