{"id":6204,"date":"2013-02-10T21:29:31","date_gmt":"2013-02-11T05:29:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/?p=6204"},"modified":"2013-02-18T05:15:15","modified_gmt":"2013-02-18T13:15:15","slug":"2013-02-10-tbd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/?p=6204","title":{"rendered":"2013-02-10 Nuclear’s Model T"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was reading an article in the ASME “mechanical engineering” magazine called “Nuclear’s Model T”<\/a>, which talked about building small nuclear power plants in a factory and shipping them to their operational sites.\u00a0 This issue was Vol.131\/No.7 July 2009.\u00a0 The article was published a few years before the Fukushima Daiichi disaster.<\/p>\n

First off, I will state flatly that I have nothing against nuclear power.\u00a0 However there are some points that the average person should understand before making any intelligent decision pro or con.<\/p>\n

At this time, Feb 2013, nuclear power seems to be dying in the U.S..\u00a0 The Japanese have shut down almost all of their 54 nuclear power plants and since they require the citizenry to give permission to restart the plants and there is so much bad sentiment after Fukushima, it looks like they may never restart them.<\/p>\n

After Fukushima, the Germans have now decided<\/a> to shut down all of their nuclear power plants in the next several years.\u00a0 They believe that renewable power should replace nuclear power.<\/p>\n

There is a single nuclear power plant being built in the U.S.<\/a> but it is the only one in decades that has gone through the planning and building stages.\u00a0 Others have been cancelled.<\/p>\n

After Fukushima, it is unlikely that any IOU (investor owned utility) will build a new nuclear power plant.\u00a0 I think a number of factors will prevent it.\u00a0 One is that the investors will not want to invest the large sums of money needed to build one.\u00a0 And then there is getting an insurer to insure one.\u00a0 Most likely the insurance premiums will be exhorbitant.<\/p>\n

I think the biggest obstacle will be the public.\u00a0 NIMBY or not in my back yard!\u00a0 No one will want to live near one and will not allow one to be built, especially after the Fukushima disaster (the Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant<\/a> is just one example).<\/p>\n

The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, one unit has been shut down recently due to cracks in the pipes.\u00a0 This was just rebuilt and they seem to have been unable to get it right.\u00a0 Now how much faith in nuclear power do you have when the rebuilders can’t even rebuild the power plant?<\/p>\n

It’s always nice to know that we have shot ourselves in the foot when it comes to nuclear power.\u00a0 There is plenty of solar, wind, tidal and geothermal energy out there waiting to be harvested, so why don’t we get with the program, like Germany has, and build a lot more solar photovoltaic plants?\u00a0 We can do it.\u00a0 We have the best locations for PVs in our southwestern deserts.\u00a0 Someday these nuclear power plants are going to have to be shut down, so why not be ready for the future?\u00a0 I think there is too much procrastination with renewable energy.\u00a0 More solar and wind power should be built, until there is enough to supply most of the power.\u00a0 In order to get the solar and wind power to be better prepared for variability in the sun and wind, we need to expand the national electrical transmission grid.\u00a0 Then some bad weather in one part of the country will not have such a bad effect.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was reading an article in the ASME “mechanical engineering” magazine called “Nuclear’s Model T”, which talked about building small nuclear power plants in a factory and shipping them to their operational sites.\u00a0 This issue was Vol.131\/No.7 July 2009.\u00a0 The article was published a few years before the Fukushima Daiichi disaster. First off, I will <\/p>\n

(Read More…)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-off-topic","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6204"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6250,"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6204\/revisions\/6250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}