Several weeks ago Joshua Pearce at Clarion University in Pennsylvania released a study titled “ Thermodynamic limitations to nuclear energy deployment as a greenhouse gas mitigation technology .” In the study he stated... nuclear energy production would have to increase by 10.5% per year from 2010 to 2050 to both replace fossil-fuel-energy use and meet the future energy demands. This line, of course, made the headlines and has been picked up by several outlets and blogs . When looking into his calculations for this statement, he made one assumption error that overstated the above sentence by nearly a factor of three. Page 121, Section 4.1 of the study states: Richard Smalley pointed out that in 2004, the global economy consumed the equivalent of 220 million barrels of oil per day, which converted into electricity terms is the equivalent of 14.5 TeraWatts (TW), or 14,500,000 MegaWatts (MW) (2005). … With a nuclear plant having about 1000 MW (1 GW) of capacity, we would need 14,500...
(4/18/2008) - This morning at 4:37 central time a 5.2 magnitude earthquake shook southeastern Illinois. Illinois is home to six nuclear plants operated by Exelon and are located in the central and northern parts of the state. Here is a statement from Exelon on the earthquake and its nuclear plants:
Comments
For example, its not possible to conduct walkdowns of buried pipes that carry radioactive water that could be leaking and contaminating ground water.
An earthquake on the New Madrid fault broke a buried pipe at Dresden a few years back. That pipe break and subsequent radioactive release of tritiated water went unreported by Exelon for some time as I recall.
I venture to say that it was that particular pipe break that actually unraveled the more extensive unreported leaks to groundwater that had occurred more than a decade earlier at Braidwood.
By the way, exactly how much do natural gas suppliers give in donations to NIRS? How much, Gunter? Care to answer?
Be careful that you don't live next to a natural gas main when the next big one hits. But somehow, I expect your instinct for self-preservation would save you. After all, you are the prophet of anti-nuclearism and you must carry the messianic message onwards no matter what.
I didnt say it couldnt be done.
I said it was too early to tell since Exelon jumped way out ahead of its underground pipe inspections to say "Everything's OK."
Of all the utilities, Exelon lost the public trust, including the State of Illinois, by covering up groundwater contamination that migrated offsight from more than 23 blowdown pipe leaks at Braidwood and more at Dresden and Bryon.
You never answer the question of where you're financed from because we all know the answer: nuclear's competition - polluting fossil fuel.
I know any number of industries that deliberately (not a result of an accidental pipe break caused by natural phenomena) dump toxic materials into the environment, and no one, especially not NDIRS, whispers a word of protest. In my state alone whole mountains have been strip-mined for coal mining and left to erode away. There are abandoned steel mills rotting away leaching who-knows-what into the environment. There was a whole village bought out by the power company that operated a coal-burning plant nearby because of noxious emissions from, ironically, pollution control equipment that environmental whackos demanded to be installed to capture sulfur dioxide. The former residents of that village suffered real, verifiable, harmful health effects. Why aren't you out there protesting these or filing lawsuits and court actions? Those environmental impacts are orders of magnitude greater than any that might come of nuclear plant operations, yet you insist on hammering the nuclear industry for it's comparatively clean environmental record.
Oh, why isn't your name listed on the NIRS web site as staff any longer? Did you and Marriotte have a falling out over who would be top dog?
You must have missed the spontaneous fissioning of NIRS at which Beyond Nuclear was born. If you look at the BN page at http://www.beyondnuclear.org/contact.html and the NIRS page at http://www.nirs.org/columnist/columnisthome.htm you'll see it is the same cast of characters in a different order. Also, they both have the same exact address as the Nuclear Policy Research Institute.
Lisa