[GHung]

"Gridweenies".

Cute, some hikamori variant is spouting off about the irrelevance of base load electricity supply to modern civilization. The hinterland simply has no capacity to absorb all the "gridweenies" taking up survivalist lifestyles. So we come to the real essence of the anti-nuke dementia: the desire to cull most of humanity so that the "ready ones" can take over.

Consider "gridweenie" as a term of endearment And as for your "hikamori" comment, I'm quite outgoing. Beyond that, I have family and friends that will be forced to pay for this ongoing debacle, likely for decades. As for "the desire to cull most of humanity so that the "ready ones" can take over"; I'm fully aware that humanity will be self-culling at some point. No need for my participation. I just plan to watch it play out from the cheap seats. Call me lazy if you will.

Anything else?

[Tanada]

Praise God intelligence won out over the NIMBY/short term economics crowd.

[GHung]

Praise God intelligence won out over the NIMBY/short term economics crowd.

This was never a NIMBY issue. There are already reactors online at both of these sites where new AP1000 reactors are being built (though the two in SC seem to be scrubbed), so folks in the area already have nukes in their backyards. The primary objection (on paper) is that rate payers will be on the hook for multi-billion dollar, multi-year-delays, screw-ups.

If your home-building contractor (or subs) came in at twice the price you were originally quoted, well before the home was completed, would you object? Just roll over and pay up? Would you care much if the general contractor said the cost/time overruns were out of their control? At least you could likely legally walk away and find another place to live. These rate payers have no choice but to pay up or get their power cut off, while watching share holders reap benefits.

[aspera]

Diablo is a poor poster child for nuke plants that should remain open. While it produces about 8.5% of California's power, both reactors are pre-70s designs located less than a mile from a fault line.

Agreed Ghung. But that's an understatement. My Uncle was a deputy director at the AEC/NRC dealing with both project management and reactor safety, and dealt directly with the Diablo nuke. He's cited in the press and in NRC documents as saying some rather stupid things (e.g., sunk construction costs makes a case for going ahead despite the fault nearby), that the staff did not take the fault seriously (yes, he said that on record), and he also went on record that it was impractical (economically) to make the design changes needed to withstand the 0.7g (70% of gravity) ground acceleration that the USGS said the fault could produce. The plant was designed for 0.4g although certain parts might survive greater acceleration levels.

Over many beers and many years (he and I went to the same engineering school and hung out on alumni days when I was on campus and later) he admitted to stuff that I won't write down here other than admitting that many of the things that came out publically, while extremely embarrassing, were NOT the worst of it.

So, sure Plant, it's the "liberal environmentalists who are going to kill us..."

[yellowcanoe]

If your home-building contractor (or subs) came in at twice the price you were originally quoted, well before the home was completed, would you object? Just roll over and pay up? Would you care much if the general contractor said the cost/time overruns were out of their control? At least you could likely legally walk away and find another place to live. These rate payers have no choice but to pay up or get their power cut off, while watching share holders reap benefits.

The AP1000 units were the first power reactors ordered in the USA since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. Without an experienced workforce, especially on the management side, it was inevitable there would be problems in the construction of these units. This is the big challenge in resuming the construction of power reactors in Western countries -- the expertise and experience in constructing power reactors is largely gone because no one has been building new reactors. Even France which is the most heavily dependent on nuclear power nation in the world has not completed a new reactor since the year 2000. Their current project to build a new design, EPR, reactor is over budget and behind schedule. While the fact that it is a new design would be a factor, the fact that there was such a long gap where no reactors were under construction undoubtedly is contributing to the problems too!

In my country, Canada, the last power reactors to enter service were units 3 and 4 at Darlington in 1993. With no new construction likely in the near future, both Ontario Hydro and Atomic Energy of Canada moved quickly to terminate thousands of jobs that had been involved with reactor construction.

[GHung]

Considering the ongoing problems building the first new reactors, for decades, in the US, is this a precedent for future attempts? If utilities are being limited from having customers pay these projects forward, will the financing be possible?

Ga. Nuclear Bill, No Longer About Vogtle, Clears Committee

A proposed bill that would have limited how much Georgia Power customers have to pay to help build nuclear Plant Vogtle doesn’t do that anymore. Now the bill affects any future nuclear power plants but doesn’t change things for Vogtle.

The original version had been waiting for a committee hearing but hadn’t gotten one.

This version will still have an impact, said state Sen. Chuck Hufstetler, the Rome Republican who introduced the bill.

“Make sure that anything that happens in the future has to come back to the Legislature, and let’s discuss the financing method,” he said.

Georgia Power’s customers have paid about $2 billion toward the nuclear project on their monthly utility bills.

Liz Coyle, director of the consumer group Georgia Watch, is a critic of Plant Vogtle, but she’s still happy with this version of the bill.

“It allows protections for Georgians in the future, and maybe by next year, we’ll be able to look for something that will relieve Georgians today who are paying those bills,” she said.

Plant Vogtle is years behind schedule, and its budget has nearly doubled to more than $22 billion.

The state Legislature passed a bill in 2009 allowing Georgia Power to collect money from its customers before the project is complete. Hufstetler said he thinks that bill – SB 31 – was a mistake.

“And I think people who voted for it, in hindsight, think it was a mistake. So this will stop that from being used in the future,” he said. “I think the safeguards weren’t put in there in the event of it having cost overruns and delays that allowed for additional profit and additional payments to be made.”

Hufstetler’s bill reversing SB 31 passed out of committee unanimously Thursday.
https://www.wabe.org/ga-nuclear-bill-no ... committee/

[StarvingLion]

Bankrupt France is now succeeding by changing the name of its operating units every few months. Its brilliantly original and obviously a sign of strength.

http://www.powermag.com/as-nuclear-gian ... surrected/

Reforging its core business to return to competitiveness after record losses of €4.83 billion in 2014, French nuclear firm AREVA has split its five operational business units and rebranded them—again. All its assets related to the design and manufacture of nuclear reactors and equipment, fuel design and supply, and services to existing reactors now fall under Framatome, which until January 4 was known as New NP. Operations related to the nuclear fuel cycle will be undertaken by Orano, which until January 23 was known as NewCo.

Creation of the AREVA group itself was an overhaul effort. The company was formed in 2001 with the merger of Framatome, Cogema, a nuclear business of German giant Siemens, and French propulsion and research reactor arm Technicatome. Framatome—short for Franco-Américaine de Constructions Atomiques—was created in 1958 by Schneider, Merlin Gerin, and Westinghouse Electric to exploit the emerging pressurized water reactor (PWR) market. By 1975, the company had become the sole manufacturer of nuclear power plants in France, equipping French state-owned utility EDF with 58 PWRs, and gradually taking on more projects overseas, building reactors like South Africa’s Koeberg, South Korea’s Ulchin, and China’s Daya Bay and Ling-Ao. In 1989, Framatome and Siemens created a joint company called Nuclear Power International to develop the EPR, a third-generation reactor that complied with both French and German nuclear regulations. The companies eventually merged in 2001, retiring the Framatome name and giving birth to AREVA.

One of the company’s most prominent contract wins came in 2003 from Finnish utility Teollisuuden Voima Oy (TVO) for construction of the world’s first EPR, Olkiluoto 3, in southern Finland. In 2007, AREVA also signed a contract with EDF for an EPR in Flamanville, France, and separately with Taishan Nuclear Power Co., a joint venture 70% held by China Guangdong Nuclear Power Holding Corp. and 30% by EDF. Two years later, Siemens withdrew its capital in Areva NP—AREVA’s specialized nuclear steam supply system arm—citing a “lack of exercising entrepreneurial influence within the joint venture” as the reason behind the move, and transferred its 34% stake to the AREVA group.

But plagued by delays and cost overruns at Olkiluoto 3 (Figure 3) and Flamanville 3, as well as at a research reactor construction project, and financially hemorrhaging from renewable energy contracts, AREVA’s finances began to fall into disarray, reaching record losses in 2014. In 2015, EDF moved to snap up between 51% and 75% of the troubled nuclear giant’s reactor business, encouraged by the French government’s attempts to address a rivalry between the two majority state-owned companies.

[StarvingLion]

Perry Plans Nuclear-Energy Talks With Saudis, Sources Say

Bankrupt America wants to allow Bankrupt Saudi Arabia to build atomic bombs so they can blow everyone up when they can no longer afford to import food.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... ith-saudis

Quote:
Perry scrapped a trip to New Delhi to accommodate meetings at the White House this week, creating an opening for him to lead an inter-agency delegation to London, said the people, who asked not to be named to discuss administration strategy. The administration is considering permitting Saudi Arabia to enrich and reprocess uranium as part of a deal that would allow Westinghouse Electric Co. and other American companies to build nuclear reactors in the Middle East kingdom. The meetings in London between Perry and Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Energy and Industry Khalid Bin Abdulaziz Al-Falih are seen as a critical step in months of ongoing discussions over a potential nuclear cooperation agreement, bringing together key deal makers from each country.

[StarvingLion]

Poland is on the brink of total collapse. They have to build nuclear reactors right away because they foolishly believe fission reactors are an ATM Machine. Soon they will discover fission is a pipe dream without oil and then they will all jump out of towers and go splat on the pavement.

Poland Speeds Up Nuclear Power Plans

http://emerging-europe.com/in-brief/pol ... wer-plans/

Quote:
Krzysztof Tchorzewski, Poland’s Minister of Energy, has said that he wants a decision on the construction of a nuclear power plant to be taken as quickly as possible. His statement comes as the Polish energy industry is beginning to feel the pressure of the country’s race against time to reduce its CO2 emissions. “We need to decide on investment in nuclear energy. All our analyses show that we must go in this direction,” Mr Tchorzewski said during a debate at the Welconomy Forum in Torun. The minister’s statement demonstrates that the government is aware of the need to accelerate its decision making. In January, Mr Tchorzewski had announced that a decision on nuclear energy would not be made until the middle of the year.

[StarvingLion]

Its official....Belgium is BANKRUPT. Its throwing in the towel unable to keep its reactors going....

Belgium pledges to ditch nuclear power by 2025.

https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy ... r-by-2025/

Belgium ranks fourth globally, with 51.7% of her power coming from fission. But she is woefully behind her 13% renewable energy commitment, and something had to give: “ExxonMobil’s Belgian office tweeted that it was in favour of the new energy pact.”

[Plantagenet]

Its official....Belgium is BANKRUPT. Its throwing in the towel unable to keep its reactors going....

Belgium pledges to ditch nuclear power by 2025.

https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy ... r-by-2025/

Belgium ranks fourth globally, with 51.7% of her power coming from fission. But she is woefully behind her 13% renewable energy commitment, and something had to give: “ExxonMobil’s Belgian office tweeted that it was in favour of the new energy pact.”

Unfortunately, this may result in even higher CO2 emissions from Belgium. When Germany turned off their nuclear power plants they shifted to coal fired electrical power plants, boosting their CO2 emissions.

IMHO its wrong-headed for countries to shift from nuclear to fossil fuels like coal for their energy production, because its a violation of their commitments to reduce CO2 emissions to fight global warming.

Cheers!

[KaiserJeep]

I'll add something to what Planty said. Germany replaced much of that Nuclear energy with what is euphemisticly termed "Biomass", when burned in what he called "coal plants". This is pellets of bark, compressed sawdust, twigs, etc from logging and from sawmills. Most of this stuff comes from clearcut logging in Canada. The bark, sawdust, etc. really needs to be composted and returned to the soil, if you don't do so, the forest soils get poorer and thinner with each generation of trees logged off.

So the actual situation, since "Biomass" burning is even nastier than coal, and the EU exempts such fuels from air quality standards on the grounds that they are "Green", is quite different today. Clean nuclear has been replaced by dirty coal, and even dirtier Biomass. People are actually dying in the EU in the tens of thousands from this change, versus the one time death of 39 people at Chernobyl.

This is happening because of hysteria over nuclear power, and enthusiam for dirty/deady "Green" power. Meanwhile, the cash-strapped government of Canada is turning the place barren by enabling the "Biomass" exports to the EU.

[StarvingLion]

Told you so. Everything is Ponzi. Replace Westinghouse with "Federal" "Reserve" and its the same.

Kaiserjeep is doomed. He thought Collapse was a process that would last until 2100. But the nightmare is happening at 2020's.

Ponzi and Nuclear don't mix. Thats why Enronables are preferred.

How hedge funds are suing nuclear plant contractors that South Carolina utilities didn't

https://www.postandcourier.com/business ... 29e57.html

Quote:
Westinghouse's nuclear reactor business had become a "de facto Ponzi scheme" by the time it foundered — a money pit that could only be filled by signing up more and more customers to build power plants. That's the case laid out in bankruptcy court filings by Citigroup and a group of hedge funds that have set out to do what a pair of South Carolina power companies didn’t: squeeze more money from the troubled company that could lower power bills for customers.

They accuse Westinghouse of running a project that was "blatantly mismanaged for years." They accuse the company of pulling off an "'extend and pretend' scheme" to string the utilities along for years.

[Plantagenet]

Kaiserjeep is doomed....He thought Collapse was a process that would last until 2100. But the nightmare is happening at 2020's.

Jeepie is going to be fine. When the collapse comes the zombies will riot and rage across the cities of America, but the ticket agents will stop them from getting on the ferry to Nantucket, so he'll be OK out there.

Westinghouse's nuclear reactor business had become a "de facto Ponzi scheme" by the time it foundered — a money pit that could only be filled by signing up more and more customers .....

You could say the same thing about every business in the USA. Businesses all require more customers to keep going. Even the US social security system works that way.

Cheers!

[vox_mundi]

South Florida Nuclear Site to Expand Despite Sea Level Rise Projections

Video - On Thursday, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) approved a pair of new reactors at the Turkey Point Nuclear Generating Station, which is owned by Florida Power & Light, the Palm Beach Post reported. If the reactors are built, they could cost as much as $21.8 billion and wouldn't be ready until at least 2031, the report added.

In a 2014 investigation, weather.com and the Huffington Post identified the Turkey Point plant as one of the eight U.S. power plants most vulnerable to flooding from sea level rise by the end of the century. It showed that in worst-case projections, nearly all of the plant could be flooded by a tropical system in 2033, if current sea level rise projections materialize.

In 2010, when the plant first applied for the license to build these two new reactors, the NRC wanted to know how the plant would stave off sea level rise in future decades. FPL did not mention climate change and used a 1-foot-per-century sea level rise projection in its calculation – far less than NOAA's 5.6-foot worst-case scenario for 2100.

The power plant is located along Biscayne Bay, about 30 miles south of downtown Miami.

[StarvingLion]

Bankrupt Arizona is shuttin her down....givin up on Nukular.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/money/b ... 491088002/

Palo Verde nuclear plant could close if renewable ... - AZCentral.com

https://www.azcentral.com/story/.../pal ... 491088002/
1 day ago - The nation's biggest producer of electricity, the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, could be forced to close in the next decade if voters approve a renewable-energy ballot measure, the plant's owners said. The plant is run by Arizona Public Service Co., which is fighting the clean-energy ballot measure ...

[StarvingLion]

Bankrupt Japan found out that Nuclear fission reactors are not an ATM machine.

Japan prepares to shut troubled 'dream' nuclear reactor

https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Japan- ... ar-reactor

Quote:
In July, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency will begin decommissioning what was hailed as a "dream" reactor that was expected to produce more nuclear fuel than it consumed. The government has so far spent more than 1 trillion yen ($9.44 billion) on the plant, which has barely ever operated.

[onlooker]

Bankrupt Japan found out that Nuclear fission reactors are not an ATM machine.

Japan prepares to shut troubled 'dream' nuclear reactor

https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Japan- ... ar-reactor

Quote:
In July, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency will begin decommissioning what was hailed as a "dream" reactor that was expected to produce more nuclear fuel than it consumed. The government has so far spent more than 1 trillion yen ($9.44 billion) on the plant, which has barely ever operated.

What do you expect from a county that builds nuclear reactors near the shore of a seismically active area - dumb and dumber

[StarvingLion]

Bankrupt America can no longer keep the lights on...they are admitting TOTAL COLLAPSE IS IMMINENT. What part of "I don't think it is ever going to happen" don't you understand. Baseload electricity generators are now a pipedream. They are preparding for TOTAL COLLAPSE and TYRANNY with Explosive Laden Autonomous EV's and the Utility-Scale Renewables you can't possibly lay claim to because its way too expensive and software controlled. In other words, you are dead.

https://www.platts.com/latest-news/elec ... e-26938511

No new nuclear units will be built in US due to high cost: Exelon official

Quote:
Due to their high cost relative to other generating options, no new nuclear power units will be built in the US, an Exelon official said Thursday.

"The fact is -- and I don't want my message to be misconstrued in this part -- I don't think we're building any more nuclear plants in the United States. I don't think it's ever going to happen," William Von Hoene, senior vice president and chief strategy officer at Exelon, told the US Energy Association's annual meeting in Washington. With 23 operational reactors, Exelon is the US' largest nuclear operator.

"I'm not arguing for the construction of new nuclear plants," Von Hoene said. "They are too expensive to construct, relative to the world in which we now live."

Nuclear power in the US "at this point is really a bridge to a different kind of carbon-free world," he said.

If the existing nuclear units in the US can be kept operational despite the economic challenges they face, and technology can be developed to store energy generated by renewable technologies, which are currently intermittently available, "then we won't need these [new nuclear units] at that point," Von Hoene said. "And we won't build them because they'll be too expensive."

"I think it's very unlikely that absent some extraordinary change in environment or technology, that any nuclear plants beyond the Vogtle plant [in Georgia] will be built in my lifetime, by any company," Von Hoene said in an interview at the meeting Thursday.

The two-unit expansion of Georgia Power's Vogtle nuclear plant has experienced first-of-a-kind design, licensing, procurement and construction delays, leading in part to the bankruptcy of main contractor Westinghouse. Georgia Power says Vogtle-3 and -4 will begin commercial operation in November 2021 and November 2022, respectively.

Von Hoene's stance includes so-called small modular reactors, or SMRs, and advanced designs, he said.

"Right now, the costs on the SMRs, in part because of the size and in part because of the security that's associated with any nuclear plant, are prohibitive," Von Hoene said.

"It's possible that that would evolve over time, and we're involved in looking at that technology," Von Hoene said. "Right now they're prohibitively expensive."

[KaiserJeep]

SL, perhaps you should try Decaf.