[Intentional?] Typo aside, a great package on nuclear energy, The Atomic Age Enters a New Dawn, has just gone online over at Der Spiegel.Other pieces include:
(Hat tip to Notes reader Joe on the heads-up.)
- The US Goes Nucular: Prefab Reactors and Longer Life-Spans
- Atomic Turkey: Nuclear Power in the Earthquake Zone
- Switzerland: Putting Nuclear to the Vote
- United Kingdom: The British Atomic 'Green Revolution'
- Russia Eyes the Atom: The Monologue of Nuclear Power
- Japan Unshaken: An Archipelago of Staunch Nuclear Supporters
- China's Race for Nuclear: An Energetic Newcomer
- Germany: The Inexorable Comeback of Nuclear Energy
- An interview with NRG CEO David Crane
Comments
-t7-
BTW The issue will be available on newsstands [in DC, anyway] Monday.
"No nuclear reactors have been built in the United States since the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island. ... A number have recently been approved ..."
Somebody's getting ahead of themselves.
"... regulators and energy companies plan to agree on two or three standard reactor models, which would mean that new nuclear power plants would essentially be constructed as prefabricated units."
'Built to an established design' isn't the usual meaning of "prefabricated".
By my quick tally, I count 50 of the 104 US reactors going online after 1979.
http://djysrv.blogspot.com/2008/01/turkey-plans-5-gwe-8-billion-nuclear.html
http://djysrv.blogspot.com/2008/06/turkey-to-build-second-nuclear-plant.html
FitzPatrick in upstate NY is at 50% power for feedpump seal problems - AGAIN! How many times has this been? When are they going to get the feedpump seal problem finally fixed? Oh, I forgot, the guy who went to germany on a mission to do this - Oscar Limpias - become the head of their engineering org. Promote those who can't do.
And VY is down to 23% because of cooling tower problems - AGAIN! Not enough to have a crumble coioling tower cell the other year. Now we're going to repeat the event.
And the NRC is sending a special team to VY:
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/news/2008/08-045i.html
What do you folks at NEI Nuclear Notes and Adams Atomic Engines have to say about this?
Profitable?
Maybe for the anti-nukes!
Oh my gosh, two reactors derated power for maintenance, what are we to do? I guess nuclear reactors really are unreliable. I'll go tell my communications division to abandon all of our messages that state nuclear plants are reliable. Oh wait, according to the data (pdf), Fitzpatrick and Vermont Yankee have a 95% and 99% capacity factor so far this year. What do you have to say about that?
The anti's have been waiting for the "screw up" that would be the end of nuclear. The public has become bored with that line of reasoning since nothing has happened. You'll be on your deathbed bitter thinking it'll happen, it'll happen I know it will...