Fission Chips

I was doing some skimming on energy sources, mainly because I saw a reference to Tesla’s plans for providing unlimited energy, and of all of the options currently available, I still think nuclear power is the way to go.

Comparing production costs per kilowatt-hour:

Solar=30.5 cents
Petroleum= 10.26 cents
Wind/Biomass= 7.5 cents
Gas= 6.78 cents
Hydro= 4.4 cents
Coal= 2.47 cents
Nuclear= 1.76 cents


Worldwide, the US has the most plants in operation – 104. We get about 23% of our electricity from them. With the obvious advantage in production costs, reduced pollution, and the reduced reliance on foreign oil, you’d think we’d be scrambling to build more plants, right? Know how many nuclear plants are currently being built in the U.S.?

One.

One? What the fuck? Why aren’t we throwing every bulldozer we can find at building these things? We should be stamping them out like Legos. But no, some people have decided that exposing the public to even a blueprint for a nuclear plant will lead to smoking wastelands populated by mutants, so they have pitched fits, blocked sites, protested plans, and generally acted like assholes whenever one has been proposed.

Know how many nuclear plant accidents the U.S has had?

One.

Yep. Good ol’ Three Mile Island almost melted down forty years ago, pissing a small amount of radioactivity into the atmosphere, and ever since then, people have been skittish over nuclear power. But have you ever looked at how the accident happened?

1. A fairly routine blockage occurred in one of the plant’s water filters.
2. Moisture leaked into the air system, inadvertently tripping two valves, which shut off the flow of cold water into the steam generator.
3. Someone had also closed the valves on the backup system. Nobody knows who or why.
4. The indicator in the control room showing that the backup valves were closed was blocked by a tag hanging from the switch above it.
5. The second backup system – a pressure-relief valve – stuck open instead of closing.
6. The gauge in the control room that monitored the status of the relief valve malfunctioned.

What do you think the odds are of this sort of sequence happening again? Six minor (in and of themselves) events stacking up in just that way. Several million-to-one? Keep in mind the state of computer monitoring systems today, the engineering changes precipitated specifically by this occurrence, and the fact that we’ve all seen the opening sequence to The Simpsons.

But you can’t talk about odds with people who have adopted a cause. They won’t settle for anything less than a 100% guarantee that there will never be an accident, which just isn’t feasible. It’s that reason it takes twenty-five years to get a new plant built. An entire generation between proposal and ribbon-cutting.

What are the odds of that changing any time soon? Obama has stated that nuclear power is “not a panacea for US energy woes,” but is worth considering. He wants safer ways of using it first, though.

Forty years. 104 plants. One accident. How much safer does he want it?

Even Mr. Global Warming himself, Al Gore, isn’t completely opposed to nuclear power. However, he does think "[t]hey're so expensive, and they take so long to build, and at present they only come in one size: extra large…And people don't want to make that kind of investment in an uncertain market for energy demand."

“Uncertain market for energy demand”? Have you even looked at the amount of juice your little bungalow in Tennessee sucks down, Al? Multiply that by the world.

Then there are the environmentalists that insist carbon emissions from nuclear plants are “significant.” Uhhh…the fuel contains no carbon, the water used as a coolant contains no carbon, and the byproduct – really hot water (steam) – contains no carbon. What fucking carbon emissions?

The biggest problem with nuclear power is waste disposal. According to people much smarter than me, Yucca Mountain in Nevada is a perfect site for disposal, but wouldn’t you know it, ol’ Harry Reid keeps blocking them.

I would have expected a state that elects Reid to be used to hazardous fallout.