THSCC Forums

Found some info on reprocessing here:
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf69.html

Specifically this addresses one of your concerns of using the rail system to transport the spent fuel. They might still use it for the waste from reprocessing.


That also implies that they are in the process of building new reactors.

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In need of car.

I've also heard that CANDU reactors can use the waste from LWR/PWR reactors with almost no reprocessing.

Yep. It appears somewhere around 2004 we were going to attempt to clean up and fix the mess left laying around since 1972. Wow! Progress...

Why does no one want to touch it? For private business it is not financially attractive. So the power company created it. The state owns cleaning up the damage. Another way to see our taxes flushed down a radioactive hopper...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Valle ... on_Project

The incredible amount of power we can generate from nuclear fission is also a corollary to the incredible amount of damage the process and its leftovers can do. Doing the design for nuclear power is cool and sexy and attracts scientists and engineers. Cleaning up the radioactive crap left over is not as exciting. But more important than the nuclear reactor. We don't have nearly enough invested in that part. Again, not so attractive for private business.

Oh darn, we're back to the $$$ thing again... Let's see, it was estimated to be $15mil to reprocess in 1976. Then they realized it was more like $600mil to meet legal requirements. So NFS bailed and left it sitting in the tax payers lap. So what is $600mil in 1976 dollars today? So let's put the $4bil into Cash for deContamination...

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http://www.greywinds.com

Graham, I'm not clear what you're suggesting? You say that we're not focusing on cleaning up (or reusing) the mess, but then seem to create a mockery of any such plan?

I vote for harnessing the wind and heat energy from the gulf of mexico. I doubt the europeans would mind that. It might even cut down on some of the hurricanes.

On a serious note, Mike's conversation is what we would rather do with the money instead of handing it over to dealerships and car manufacturers for something that may or may not be tangible.

While I agree that Nuclear isn't a perfect solution, I don't think that we should just ignore it, based on a few piss poor implementations in the past, and hope for something better to fall in our laps.

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In need of car.

OH DMAN! I just spent about a hour typing a reply to Jason's linked article and when I hit submit it disappeared into server error cyberspace.
See me at Danville if you would like to hear my answer.

Additional food for thought: NFS's high level liquid waste field was built right on top of the most active fault line in the east, and the plant is located <1/2 mile from Cattaraugas (sp?) Creek which is at the bottom of a deep gorge in that area and is a major tributary to Lake Erie which lies just a few miles downstream from West Valley.

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SPIN or WIN!
there's no glory for going slow.

Chuck, if you use Firefox and have an error like that in a forum posting, unlike Internet Explorer, almost always (hasn't not worked for me yet) you can just click back and FF has all of your typing still in the forum text box. Doing that with IE shows just an empty forum text box. I used to do a quick Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C on a text box prior to submitting a big post just in case of an error, but FF eliminated the need for even that.

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Current stable:
2019 BMW M2 Competition slicktop 6MT
2011 BMW M3 sedan slicktop 6MT
2007 BMW 328i wagon (slushbox for now)
1975 CanAm 125MX2

Grahm the bottom line was that no one wanted the reclaimed stuff. The costs to reclaim, reinrich and fabricate into new fuel rods was orders of magnitude more expensive than starting with uranium ore.
The plant shut down when the AEC cut the allowable exposure to a radiation worker in half in 1971. There was no practical way to retrofit the plant with the necessary additional shielding. Ask me about how we often spent days or even a week each quarter outside the outer perimeter fence cutting grass, shoveling snow or just sitting around because we had reached maximum allowed quarterly exposure prior to to the end of the quarter, or how they would hire clueless college students to enter high radiation areas when necessary to do decontamination or maintainance work. The radiation safety officer in charge would line them up just outside the area and tie a rope around their waste and send them in one at a time to do the work bucket brigade style. The rope was so they could be quickly yanked out when their maximum quaterly exposure was reached, typically in a couple minutes or less. The students were happier than pigs in sh**, they were paid for 8 hours @ 20.00/hr (in 1971 gasoline was < $0.30/gal and minimum wage was ~ 1.00/hr) for a couple minutes work, not realizing they were exposed to more radiation in that couple minutes than from a lifetime of medical X-rays.

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SPIN or WIN!
there's no glory for going slow.

In my nicest voice, I don't see what procedures in 1971 and the exploitation of college students has to do with the issue at hand. Maybe I'm naive, but I just don't see a repeat of this kind of thing. And it has nothing to do with the topic of how to spend the $4B instead of cash for clunkers.

I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree on the validity of more nuke plants in our future and just move on. Chuck, how about enlightening us on what you WOULD spend the money on rather than what you wouldn't? And I'm not trying to be patronizing or anything, I'm seriously curious.


--Donnie

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Wow. You would think that even back in 1971 if someone wanted to pay you 20 times the minimum wage something must be up.

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Vincent Keene
'06 Ford Mustang GT (track rat)
'15 Dodge Charger R/T (yeah, it's got a HEMI!)
'07 Ford Fusion SE (205,000 miles and counting)
'98 Chevy Z-24 (retired)
'93 Acura Integra (Team SWB 24HOL Car)

At the risk of trying to read Graham's mind OMG I think he is suggesting that nuclur power has some advantages but that it might be a good idea to plan for the disposal of the contamination at inception instead of 25+ years later and figure that into the cost of the licensing/production of the plant instead of just putting it off and then having private industry (if you can call power companies private industry) foist the cost of clean up on the public $$. He also suggested in a previous post (echod by Jason that wind/sun energy farms would be a good idea too) OKay he probably didn't mean half of this but I though I would put words in his head . I think we ought to build a wind farm outside Congress with secondary plants outside of the EIB, Fox"News", MSNBC's Olberman central, and CNN since all the hot air in tose zones would surely equal the output of a nuke plant.

Just to clarify, I'm really not supporting the idea of a large scale wind energy solution taking that energy out of the climate. Sounds like a bad idea to me, especially if you're trying to avoid climate change induced by humans.

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In need of car.

Chuck has convinced me that even with all of the cool music, free love, and the golden era of prototype racing at LeMans that I really don't want to go back to 1971.

Ok, maybe I will just skip working with Chuck at that plant and still go back and enjoy the other stuff.

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Richard Casto
1972 Porsche 914
2013 Honda Fit Sport
2015 Honda Fit EX
http://motorsport.zyyz.com
Money can't buy happiness, but somehow it's more comfortable to cry in a Porsche than a Kia.

A Geiger counter picks up more rads outside of a modern reactor than it does inside the facility. I've toured the Babcock and Wilcox facility in Lynchburg (where they make the rods for both civilian and military use), the UVa reactor in Charlottesville and North Anna and ALWAYS found that to be the case.

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Has no responsibility whatsoever.

Yes Rob you got the gist of it. We need to calculate the real cost of nuclear power. Not just the cost to build a power plant. Cradle to grave costs. What will it cost in 10 years to clean up that facility. Spent rods, contaminated fluids etc. That is what the company should have to put up if they want to run a reactor. We have no accountability at the end.

I was saying some of it tongue in cheek Jason. I really do think nuclear power has a lot to offer. I'm not a big proponent of wind power or solar. The payback is not that impressive. Most certainly not for home use.

I'll stick with my 1st choice. Rebates on improving your home heating/cooling systems.

One comment on the Car thing. Since many car dealers are about to go under with this mass closings. Some are probably abusing the Cash for Clunkers just to unload inventory. They have no future so they don't have to worry about repercussions. They can take anything in trade that they can get away with on short order. I did hear on the radio today that congress seemed to be ready to extend this program because it is going so well...

Right now I would consider Mike's idea for $150 of gummy bears though.

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http://www.greywinds.com

I like this idea too, but in a market driven by price, a rebate generally results in a price increase and the money just gets pocketed by the reseller.

I've priced solar panels for my house, and they are roughly 2x the cost now compared to what they were 5 yrs ago. Coincidentally, there are rebates now, to bring down that cost. Perhaps that has something to do with improvements in technology, but I'm a conspiracy theorist at heart, so I'll blame it on the rebates.

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In need of car.