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RE: Argh
By rvd2008 on 11/17/2010 1:05:17 PM , Rating: 2
You compare building solar farm from scratch with adding a nuke reactor to existing facility. It's not a fair comparison. Do you have apple to apple example? When was the last nuclear plant build from scratch in this country? Including complete fuel cycle: mining, enriching, storage, reprocessing and disposal? How many decades are needed to build one nuclear plant?

In your example, Watts Bar, one of two reactor units whose construction commenced in 1973. Unit 1 was completed in 1996, whooping 23 years later. The second unit, you mentioned, was about 80% complete when its construction was stopped in 1988. So $2.5 bln is just a tiny bit to complete the work started decades (!) ago.

RE: Argh
By Anoxanmore on 11/17/2010 1:30:21 PM , Rating: 3
You forget about all the red tape that is needed which is why it costs so much to build a nuclear plant from the beginning. If the government would not allow the frivolous lawsuits to be filed to begin with you'd have the start up costs be a lot less, and the time it takes to build one drop by at least a decade if not more.

In addition, I can think of at least twenty different government sectors to cut money from to build an entirely new infrastructure for electricity. Bringing in a total of nearly 2T (Trillion) for money. Which would not all of that be needed.

Try it out for yourself:

It isn't that hard to come up with the funds for it. Not to mention it'd be pretty easy to use the funds to have the government build the nuclear plants themselves, not to mention allow them to actually employ(given to private companies to manage/run) 1000 or more people in a permanent fashion in addition to creating a lot of construction jobs for a temporary time.

After many of the nuclear plants are completed (in say 10 yrs) we can use that extra power (assuming 2GW + plants) to help research fusion, which will be the new energy source and that is literally unlimited. Not to mention this could also effect the inception rate for EV automobiles since our power grid would be up to date, and able to support the plugging in that many would do regardless of time of day. Granted, EV cars & etc are more for urban folk(of temperate climates atm), but the point still stands.

This is also the longest post I've ever posted on here. Well, that was serious anyway.


RE: Argh
By rvd2008 on 11/17/10, Rating: 0
RE: Argh
By Anoxanmore on 11/17/2010 3:21:18 PM , Rating: 2
No it isn't a reality. If you allow people to bring lawsuits that have no merit based on false environmental concerns that only lenghens the time it takes to build said nuclear plants. It is a waste of tax payer money amongst other things.

Nuclear(both fission and fusion) is the answer, and we have the 4th largest deposits of Uranium in the world.
{5} Warren I Finch (2003) Uranium-fuel for nuclear energy 2002, US Geological Survey, Bulletin 2179-A

890Million tons. We'd be fine on our own.

As for your "smaller government!!!!!111oneoneone", sometimes it takes over-riding things to get stuff done. This is one of those times.

RE: Argh
By rvd2008 on 11/17/2010 6:31:51 PM , Rating: 2
890Million tons. We'd be fine on our own.

jeez, can't you read? your own link says
890 million pounds , not tons. In tons it will be about 400,000.

RE: Argh
By Anoxanmore on 11/17/2010 6:35:24 PM , Rating: 2
Typo, it happens.

It still does not change that we have 400,000 Tons of Uranium which is the 4th largest concentration in the world.

Again, we'd last hundreds of years with that fuel and we'd have fusion mastered before we'd ever run out.

RE: Argh
By Master Kenobi (blog) on 11/17/2010 6:45:48 PM , Rating: 2
Plutonium, Uranium, and Thorium are all fissile materials that we can use in our nuclear reactors, we aren't going to run out for a VERY long time.

RE: Argh

RE: Argh
By rvd2008 on 11/17/2010 2:00:37 PM , Rating: 2
Huh? Do you want more gov control or less? Throwing out "frivolous" suits will be the end of democracy. Who should decide which suit is "frivolous"?

RE: Argh
By Spuke on 11/17/2010 6:12:08 PM , Rating: 2
Who should decide which suit is "frivolous"?
The judge. Which, BTW, is the one that does it now.

RE: Argh
By rvd2008 on 11/17/2010 6:38:52 PM , Rating: 2
Good. No change then? I thought the guy suggested to throw out any lawsuit G-man says is "frivolous". And ride over ("over ride") poor bas-ards who do not understand the common good.

