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Nuclear Power Can Be Green – But At A Price

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23 hours ago, Illurion said:

Not exactly.

Nuclear Power plants use TWO TYPES OF WATER........  

(1)  water for cooling

(2)  water for boiling to make steam to turn the turbines.

Water for COOLING can come from the ocean, or rivers,   BECAUSE COOLING WATER CAN BE DIRTY...    which ocean and river water often are.

HOWEVER.

Water for BOILING is a totally different matter.   BOILING water MUST BE CLEAN....  AND IS USUALLY BROUGHT DIRECTLY FROM DEEP UNDERGROUND AQUIFER WELLS...

Power Plants,  whether Nuclear,  or conventional,  USE TENS OF MILLIONS OF GALLONS OF CLEAN BOILING AQUIFER WATER PER DAY,   AND USUALLY 3 TIMES THAT MUCH OCEAN OR RIVER WATER FOR COOLING PURPOSES....

.................

So anything that affects the availability of that water is a problem...

So a DROUGHT could very well affect the ability of a POWER PLANT,  Nuclear,  or otherwise,  if the level of the aquifer drops,  AS THE CLEAN BOILING WATER IS FAR MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE COOLING WATER.

You can have all the cooling water you want,  but if you do not have enough CLEAN BOILING water,  your power plant cannot operate,  or generate steam.

..................

ps:   my Father used to be a design engineer for a nuclear power plant manufacturer.   

You could build it with a desalination plant next to it, but I am against the nuclear regardless. 

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On 1/17/2019 at 7:55 AM, Pavel said:

Nuclear is low carbon, it's part of the solution.. It’s time to make compromise.

Why compromise when there is no need to. Natural Gas energy is free by comparison or go with wind or solar. 

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The sun (fusion skeptics are surfacing) is the source of nearly all our positive energy flow; it's output is directly affects our ability to live on the surface of this orb. Some (perhaps more than we know at this time) comes up from the center of the earth through the crust and heats our oceans and a few locations on land. Certain folk discovered ways to stay warm during those climate changes when the sun grew cold; wood is a fine sustainable resource, but insufficient for the great populations of the present.  Fossil fuels  lighted a great fire under our ever-expanding wealth; cheap energy drives a standard of living ancient kings could only dream of.  The energy in one gallon of gas has been compared to the work output of a hundred slaves; we burn tens of thousands of gallons every five minutes at stop lights everywhere.

Those in control of fossil fuels are very unwilling to relinquish their hold on a power spanning the globe. They have funded anti-nuclear and other "green" groups whose activism has led to banishing nuclear power from "good-thinking" narrative.  War, interrupted by short periods we call "peace" (politics) has always existed to control resources.

Solar panels on every roof and/or a windmill in every yard are not going to turn out the megatons of steel, wire, concrete, asphalt, etc etc. that will keep our techno-civilization running.  If the entire nation were carpeted in ugly panels and eagle killing machines, they could not power our current energy demands. Nuclear could have saved our fossil fuels for far more important things than idling at a stoplight. Sad.

 

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(edited)

.

Edited by jaycee

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21 hours ago, Illurion said:

Nuclear power has already been used in satellites.

For this nuclear waste task,  the ships will need to be more reliable than what we have now,  which is why i said  "THERE WILL COME A TIME, WHEN WE WILL HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY."

However not in our lifetimes or our sons and daughters. Like saying we will all live on Mars at some point. Hence your statement is irrelevant to the problems the plant faces now with storing spent nukes.

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Recycling of nuke fuel is a pretty rock solid way to minimize the waste. France, Russia, Japan do it. The US has just been hamstrung by historical fears of nuclear proliferation or terrorist etc.. Trump should open up to reprocessing the fuel...

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On 1/18/2019 at 12:40 PM, Illurion said:

My father spent several years in the UK.

I SUGGEST that you actually READ the examples that you present,  given that the example you posted supported what i said,  and not what you said.

I will make this simple tell me the name of the nuclear power station in the UK that uses large amount of local freshwater in the power cycle i am not refering to top ups or utilities. All the evidence I can see from reports indicate none. So name the station.

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14 hours ago, jaycee said:

However not in our lifetimes or our sons and daughters. Like saying we will all live on Mars at some point. Hence your statement is irrelevant to the problems the plant faces now with storing spent nukes.

Such advanced rockets will not be in my lifetime,  as i can die at any moment due to my situation.

I am sure it could easily be in our children's lifetime,  as their lifetimes should reach around 2060 or 2070.  Possibly longer.

Rocketry has advanced so fast lately that what we are discussing should be possible by 2040 to 2050.

So i disagree with you.

The only question is the cost in comparison the other alternatives.

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(edited)

10 hours ago, jaycee said:

I will make this simple tell me the name of the nuclear power station in the UK that uses large amount of local freshwater in the power cycle i am not refering to top ups or utilities. All the evidence I can see from reports indicate none. So name the station.

You apparently are not looking at the right reports........... if any at all....

Silly you...

So,  i will make this VERY SIMPLE FOR YOU...9_9

 

IT TAKES VERY CLEAN WATER TO MAKE STEAM TO TURN A TURBINE.............

 

ALL LARGE CITY AND REGIONAL POWER PLANTS REQUIRE HUGE AMOUNTS OF VERY CLEAN WATER FOR BOILING TO GENERATE ELECTRICITY.........  NUCLEAR AND CONVENTIONAL...

The larger the plant,  the more megawatts generated,  the more such water is needed,   into many Millions of gallons a day...

And it takes much much more water than that for COOLING purposes on a daily basis............

 

WHAT IS IT ABOUT THAT SIMPLE FACT THAT YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND ?

 

Un-clean water,  when boiled,  leaves massive amounts of contaminants in the piping,  which quickly degrades the ability to generate steam.    Causing much un-necessary maintenance and repairs costs...

 

So dirty water is not used for BOILING / STEAM generating purposes,   

 

AS WAS ALREADY PROMINENTLY NOTED IN THE POWER PLANT EXAMPLE THAT "YOU" ALREADY SUBMITTED.............

AND THAT "i" COPIED FROM THE WEBSITE OF THE POWER PLANT EXAMPLE THAT YOU SUBMITTED,   AND "ALREADY POSTED" FOR YOU IN MY PREVIOUS REPLY TO YOU IN THIS THREAD......!

AND THAT I POST,   AGAIN,   HERE:

"This necessitates the use of ultra pure water to minimise the buildup of salts in the evaporator and subsequent corrosion problems."

 

 

SO,  THE ABOVE STATION EXAMPLE THAT YOU SUBMITTED IS ALREADY YOUR "ONE" EXAMPLE.....

...............

THE ABSOLUTE BEST, CLEAN SUCH WATER COMES FROM DEEP UNDERGROUND AQUIFER WATERAS IT DOES NOT NEED TO BE "PURIFIED" as much,  or not at all.

PERIOD.......

SO,  EVERY LARGE POWER PLANT IN YOUR COUNTRY USES HUGE AMOUNTS OF VERY CLEAN WATER FOR BOILING...

PERIOD......

If PURE DEEP AQUIFER WATER is not available,  then what ever source  (river, stream, lake, desalination)  of water that is USED FOR BOILING / STEAM MUST BE "PURIFIED" TO MAKE IT ELIGIBLE TO BE USED FOR BOILING TO GENERATE STEAM FOR THE TURBINES....

Such EXTRA purification can be expensive depending on the source of the water.......

That is why most ALL large power plants are specifically situated near the source of the cleanest water available...........

................

In contrast,   most any normal FRESH water source can be used for COOLING purposes,  with minimal  "purification" needed......,  though,  there is no reason they could not purify it too if they wanted to spend the money to do it.......

..............

One thing not mentioned in all of this thread so far,   is the UN-GREEN STATUS OF THE WATER DISCHARGED FROM ALL PLANTS,  NUCLEAR OR CONVENTIONAL,   AS ALL OF THAT WATER IS USUALLY DUMPED RIGHT BACK INTO THE NEAREST WATER SOURCE CLOSE TO THE POWER PLANT...

THE DISCHARGED WATER IS VERY HOT,   AND CAUSES "THERMAL POLLUTION" WHEREVER IT IS DISCHARGED...

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

 

So here is my assignment to you,  since you seem to care so much...

 

CALL THE POWER PLANT THAT YOU PRESENTED AS AN EXAMPLE........

or,  if you are afraid to:

Then pick any other large city, or regional power plant............!

Call them up,  or use the web,  whatever floats your boat.............

Ask them where they get their BOILING / STEAM water from,  how much of it they use per day,  and whether they have to "PURIFY" IT IN ANY WAY......

And ask them where they get their COOLING water from,  how much of it they use per day,  and whether they have to "PURIFY" it too......

If they state that they get both streams of water from the same source,    ASK THEM IF THEY TREAT ONE STREAM THROUGH A PURIFICATION SCHEME THAT THEY DO NOT TREAT THE OTHER STREAM WITH.......

HAVE THEM PUT THEIR ANSWER IN WRITING TO YOU,   WITH THEIR LOGO AND A CONTACT NUMBER,  SO YOU CAN POST IT IN THIS THREAD.........

................

Doing that should answer your question.

Edited by Illurion

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13 hours ago, Illurion said:

Such advanced rockets will not be in my lifetime,  as i can die at any moment due to my situation.

I am sure it could easily be in our children's lifetime,  as their lifetimes should reach around 2060 or 2070.  Possibly longer.

Rocketry has advanced so fast lately that what we are discussing should be possible by 2040 to 2050.

So i disagree with you.

The only question is the cost in comparison the other alternatives.

The problem is reliability. If you do a HAZOP ie look at all the possibles of things going wrong mathematically, very common in nuclear and O&G industries I can see no scenario  it would pass one of these due to the high risk factor of the rocket blowing up. There has to be a renewable rocket with a very long safety record of not crashing and having regular flights to even start considering it as a possibility.Nuclear industry uses triple redundancy on safety systems that is how high they value safety so putting waste in a rocket is way out there in the risk stakes.

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12 hours ago, Illurion said:

WHAT IS IT ABOUT THAT SIMPLE FACT THAT YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND ?

Avoiding giving me a simple answer to a simple question leads me to ask what YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND please name the statioN that uses vast quantities of fresh water, I assume your father worked on it so can't be a problem.

I have however done the research that you haven't and present some of it below that backs up my point freshwater is not consumed in vast quantities by UK nuclear power stations. You will notice the '-' in the Fresh Water columns of the table.

Table 5. UK thermoelectric electricity Capacity and Generation in 2010 with resultant Abstraction and Consumption. Each generation class is split by cooling method (open, closed, hybrid) and the cooling sources in W of freshwater (FW), tidal surface water (TW) and sea water (SW). Air-cooled (AC) capacity has also been included.

2010 Capacity (GW) Generation (GWh) Abstraction 103 ML/year Consumption 103 ML/year
  FW TW SW Sum FW TW SW Sum FW TW SW Sum FW TW SW Sum
Coal and biomass
Open 5 5 10 19,965 22,725 42,690 2365 2692 5057 16 18 33
Closed 14 4 18 56,745 17,715 74,460 120 37 157 100 31 132
Hybrid 1 1 2326 2326 3 3 3 3
Gas and CCGT
Open 0 5 2 7 1254 26,421 8973 36,648 55 1169 397 1621 9 3 13
Closed 4 9 13 22,159 45,015 67,174 19 39 58 15 30 45
Hybrid 1 3 4 7400 13,363 20,763 4 7 11 3 6 9
Nuclear
Open 4 6 10 0 22,658 39,482 62,140 3725 6490 10,215 29 50 79
Oil
Open 3 3 3203 3203 430 430 4 4
Air-cooled (AC), mostly OCGT
AC       11.5       56,857            
Totals (excluding AC)
Sum 20 33 14 66a 87,558 150,667 71,179 309,404a 198 7776 9579 17,553 119 127 71 317
% 30 50 21 100 28 49 23 100 1 44 55 100 37 40 22 100
a

Total figure excludes capacity/generation from thermoelectric air-cooled capacity.

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16 minutes ago, jaycee said:

Avoiding giving me a simple answer to a simple question leads me to ask what YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND please name the statioN that uses vast quantities of fresh water, I assume your father worked on it so can't be a problem.

I have however done the research that you haven't and present some of it below that backs up my point freshwater is not consumed in vast quantities by UK nuclear power stations. You will notice the '-' in the Fresh Water columns of the table.

Table 5. UK thermoelectric electricity Capacity and Generation in 2010 with resultant Abstraction and Consumption. Each generation class is split by cooling method (open, closed, hybrid) and the cooling sources in W of freshwater (FW), tidal surface water (TW) and sea water (SW). Air-cooled (AC) capacity has also been included.

2010 Capacity (GW) Generation (GWh) Abstraction 103 ML/year Consumption 103 ML/year
  FW TW SW Sum FW TW SW Sum FW TW SW Sum FW TW SW Sum
Coal and biomass
Open 5 5 10 19,965 22,725 42,690 2365 2692 5057 16 18 33
Closed 14 4 18 56,745 17,715 74,460 120 37 157 100 31 132
Hybrid 1 1 2326 2326 3 3 3 3
Gas and CCGT
Open 0 5 2 7 1254 26,421 8973 36,648 55 1169 397 1621 9 3 13
Closed 4 9 13 22,159 45,015 67,174 19 39 58 15 30 45
Hybrid 1 3 4 7400 13,363 20,763 4 7 11 3 6 9
Nuclear
Open 4 6 10 0 22,658 39,482 62,140 3725 6490 10,215 29 50 79
Oil
Open 3 3 3203 3203 430 430 4 4
Air-cooled (AC), mostly OCGT
AC       11.5       56,857            
Totals (excluding AC)
Sum 20 33 14 66a 87,558 150,667 71,179 309,404a 198 7776 9579 17,553 119 127 71 317
% 30 50 21 100 28 49 23 100 1 44 55 100 37 40 22 100
a

Total figure excludes capacity/generation from thermoelectric air-cooled capacity.

?

How dumb can you be...

Everything we have been talking about is  PURE CLEAN WATER FOR "BOILING" TO MAKE STEAM.........

And yet you still keep posting silly graphs about water for COOLING......?

You DO realize there is a difference......!

Your first example already proved i am right.......

 

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49 minutes ago, Illurion said:

?

How dumb can you be...

Everything we have been talking about is  PURE CLEAN WATER FOR "BOILING" TO MAKE STEAM.........

And yet you still keep posting silly graphs about water for COOLING......?

You DO realize there is a difference......!

Your first example already proved i am right.......

 

No I have clearly started this conversation stating there was no consumption of fresh water as it was stated by the newspaper article that a drought would cause problems for UK nukes. 

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(edited)

26 minutes ago, jaycee said:

No I have clearly started this conversation stating there was no consumption of fresh water as it was stated by the newspaper article that a drought would cause problems for UK nukes

And you are wrong,   because there is a VAST use of Fresh water in all power plants for boiling / steam purposes, 

And you are wrong when you state that the newspaper article writer is wrong for stating that a "drought" could affect the operation of power plants by restricting the amount of fresh water available for boiling / steam purposes.    The writer is correct,  it could..   South Florida is a perfect example of this...  ie:  less and less fresh water availability for steam causes power production problems..

It is not just saving in the cost of  "coal" or "oil" or "lng" that is causes Power Companies to close some plants and open others,  the availability of fresh water also plays a significant part...

Edited by Illurion
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39 minutes ago, Illurion said:

And you are wrong,   because there is a VAST use of Fresh water in all power plants for boiling / steam purposes, 

And you are wrong when you state that the newspaper article writer is wrong for stating that a "drought" could affect the operation of power plants by restricting the amount of fresh water available for boiling / steam purposes.    The writer is correct,  it could..   South Florida is a perfect example of this...  ie:  less and less fresh water availability for steam causes power production problems..

It is not just saving in the cost of  "coal" or "oil" or "lng" that is causes Power Companies to close some plants and open others,  the availability of fresh water also plays a significant part...

Read the chart I gave you look at the Freshwater Consumption for nukes and say I am wrong again. I am right, fact.

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(edited)

27 minutes ago, jaycee said:

Read the chart I gave you look at the Freshwater Consumption for nukes and say I am wrong again. I am right, fact.

I did look at it........  all of the consumption numbers on the chart are for COOLING....

IT IS WATER for BOILING THAT USES THE PURE AQUIFER WATER........

so your chart is irrelevant........  apples and oranges.....

Your chart was interesting in that it shows that your nuke plants use twice as much more seawater than surface water for cooling,  which generally means the plants are situated near the sea,  away even from rivers,  which i assume is a conscious effort to use seawater rather than surface water,  as surface water is so necessary for many other human activities that it should not be wasted,  or polluted by "thermal pollution" from the plant discharge...........  So you take water from the sea,  and discharge back in to the sea...

That is ok,  as cooling water does not have to be purified as much........

In the USA,  on the east coast,  plants tend to be inland near rivers for cooling water,  with pure aquifer for boiling,   BUT,  on the west coast,  the plants are mostly by the sea like yours.

Sea side plants have to go to extraordinary lengths to get pure aquifer water for boiling,  given the problems of salt water intrusion into seaside aquifers, etc...

But,  either way,  you are looking at the wrong chart...........

Edited by Illurion
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1 hour ago, jaycee said:

Read the chart I gave you look at the Freshwater Consumption for nukes and say I am wrong again. I am right, fact.

Of course you Are correct.

Cooling circuits in reactors are for cooling the steam, a condensation part in the steam card that allows for greater power extraction in the steam expansion cycle.  The steam goes back to water, and then (because they use turbines and not piston steam engines,thus no exposure to lube oil) flows back to the reactor core as hot water, then again to be converted to steam.   

Think back to the railroad steam locomotive.  The old ones were non-condensing and the steam expelled from the power or drive pistons was exhausted to the atmosphere.  Later the exhaust was expelled through a jet pipe inside the smokestack, to increase the air draft through the boiler firebox grate.  Still later it was discovered that going from non-condensing to condensing engines greatly increased the amount of power extracted, so condensers were fitted into the return lines.  The condensers transferred some of the heat to the incoming feedwater, in order to save on coal.  The condensers allowed for much greater power output, and steam engines were constructed up to some 6,000 HP. That is a lot of power!

In a nuke plant you do not cool the core.  The whole purpose of the core is to generate concentrated heat.  That heat is taken away by a fluid, typically pressurized water.  Older models of plants used boiling water; pressurized water plants let you pull more heat, thus produce more power. Ultimately the heat is transferred to a gas cycle and the expanding gas, usually steam, is used to drive the turbines.  From there the expelled, low-temperature gas is condensed back to water typically through yet another heat exchanger, usually (for land installations) via huge cooling towers, those giant concrete tube structures you see near the plant.  In that, a spray of water is injected through nozzles onto the hot condensate pipes and the resulting water vapor rises up and out in a white plume.  That water cycle is independent of what is going on inside the machine itself.

Not all of the coolant water sprayed onto the condensers is turned into vapor; some remains as hot water, and is discharged.  The reason operators like to use freshwater is that then they don't have corroded pipes from the seawater. You can make those condensers out of naval bronze, a bronze compound that is formulated to resist seawater corrosion, but that gets very expensive. I do not know what metals your British salt-water condensers use, I suspect it is a nickel-chrome stainless steel alloy.  I am not a metallurist so I cannot advise on that point.  However, that is the reason for using seawater; the rejected heat is then widely dissipated by circulating currents.  River water can also be used but it does increase the heat load on the river, itself an acceptable result if there is enough water flow.  Where those plants get into trouble is when it is August and little rain so the river flow gets low, and then the hot water raises the river temps to the point it affects the fish life cycle. 

Fresh distilled or aquifer water is not being added.  If that were the case, then submarines could not run; where would the fresh replacement water come from?  Intuitively you already know that they are designed with the fresh-water loop in closed cycle.  The power steam is simply condensed, the heat rejected and transferred to a coolant circuit, and that is in turn dumped into the ocean. 

New reactors, the Thorium type, use no reserve cooling water at all.  If they overheat (by plant failure) a plug in the bottom of the molten-salt heat transfer medium melts out, and all the molten salts and the contained nuclear material goes whoosh out of the core and into a large underground bunker, which spreads out the material and brings it below reaction criticality.  The nuke reactions then stop, and the stuff is allowed to cool by convection to the walls of the big bunker into the surrounding earth. That is why they are so inherently safe, need no on-site fire or police departments, and can be allowed to run unattended.  The public does not "get it" because the public is (a) hysterical and (b) is not trained or educated in basic physics.  So, go blame the public schools for the big mess we are in.  All their fault.

In a BWR or a PWR perhaps one-half of one percent of the available fuel is actually burned.  IN a thorium cycle you can dump in the used "spent" fuel rod, and all the other reactive material, even the workmens' gloves, and burn it all up.  The USA has easily 500 years' supply of spent material top produce all the electricity it will ever need,just from the old stuff lying around, and do it with total safety.  What holds that back are the ideologues on the Far Left, and the little old ladies that go to hysteria over anything and everything.  We live in a society where people get dragged off airplanes for their behavior.  How do you expect rational debate over thorium plants from these same people?   Cannot be done. And now you know why the industry has collapsed.  

Stupid is as stupid does.

 

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Although not a specific to nuclear issue, the heat dissipated in a steam turbine plant, and in a desalination plant, does have quite the effect on the environment. The corals in the Red Sea down by Jazan were legendary. Heat for desalination and power plants is killing them. By all accounts the corals are still quite brilliant north of Jeddah. 

As a kid I used to note swimming in Lake Hyco (in North Carolina) was much warmer as you got closer to the power plant. A coal fed plant.

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On 1/18/2019 at 11:26 PM, nuclearstu said:

The sun (fusion skeptics are surfacing) is the source of nearly all our positive energy flow; it's output is directly affects our ability to live on the surface of this orb. Some (perhaps more than we know at this time) comes up from the center of the earth through the crust and heats our oceans and a few locations on land. Certain folk discovered ways to stay warm during those climate changes when the sun grew cold; wood is a fine sustainable resource, but insufficient for the great populations of the present.  Fossil fuels  lighted a great fire under our ever-expanding wealth; cheap energy drives a standard of living ancient kings could only dream of.  The energy in one gallon of gas has been compared to the work output of a hundred slaves; we burn tens of thousands of gallons every five minutes at stop lights everywhere.

Those in control of fossil fuels are very unwilling to relinquish their hold on a power spanning the globe. They have funded anti-nuclear and other "green" groups whose activism has led to banishing nuclear power from "good-thinking" narrative.  War, interrupted by short periods we call "peace" (politics) has always existed to control resources.

Solar panels on every roof and/or a windmill in every yard are not going to turn out the megatons of steel, wire, concrete, asphalt, etc etc. that will keep our techno-civilization running.  If the entire nation were carpeted in ugly panels and eagle killing machines, they could not power our current energy demands. Nuclear could have saved our fossil fuels for far more important things than idling at a stoplight. Sad.

 

Nuclear is not economically competitive. Period! That is why nuclear is dying. The same reason as coal. The public is supporting the remaining plants by paying extra on their power bills. Natural gas is cheaper and cleaner over the lifespan of costs. It is not even close. Give it up.

Dangers of Nuclear Plants and Radioactive Waste https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Jp7yumkT6T1tEAdC4jb1K6LvO45rtoHwFbRcl08rrS4/edit

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