Economics and politics finally have a nuclear bond.

[RustyLugNut]

It is a political and economic reality that the renewable portfolio must have a baseline source.

The choice of baseline power via nuclear generation makes too much sense for the environment and for the wallet.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michael...l#565a9c917646

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by RustyLugNut

It is a political and economic reality that the renewable portfolio must have a baseline source.

The choice of baseline power via nuclear generation makes too much sense for the environment and for the wallet.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michael...l#565a9c917646

Guess where cell phones were first implemented as the primary source of communication.

Guess where solar panels became the primary source of electric power.

If you guesses rural Africa, you may be right (based on what I know).

Northeast blackout of 2003
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northe...ackout_of_2003

The infrastructure in North America is aging and that includes the electrical power grid. No government or administration seems interested in investing long term into it, as short sighted immediate gratification is a hallmark of our current culture (ie tax breaks today, debt tomorrow).

As pointed out in countless article today's energy grid does not have the capacity for everyone to be driving electric cars.

Big nukes plants for centralized power grid systems are the dinosaurs of the past, like Gerald Ford class super aircraft carriers they exist, but there will be very few of them.

The trend is going towards each dwelling being energy independent, at 58 years old I probably will not live to see the day, but it will come. Be it backyard nuclear power plant, advancements in renewable energy, or super efficient appliances lowering demand. It will come, it's just a matter of when.

The article originally posted is a pretty good one in that it looks at the world and not just the USA. Thanks for posting it.

The article is correct in pointing out this is a political problem, not an engineering technical problem. The two are however intertwined.

When a new technology comes along and changes the politics, this disruptive technology will one day it's self become obsolete and do what it can to hang on to the past. This is how I view nuclear power, it is making it's last stand, and I just hope it doesn't have another melt-down.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by kach22i

The trend is going towards each dwelling being energy independent...

That's fine for dwellings, but how do you run industrial plants, or (sub)urban infrastructure such as water & sewage treatment?

[gone-ot]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

That's fine for dwellings, but how do you run industrial plants, or (sub)urban infrastructure such as water & sewage treatment?

Gooberment "forces" them to join the revolution...or do without.

[oil pan 4]

Palo verde nuclear power station is pretty cool.
It's the most powerful nuclear power plant in the US.
One of the newest in the country.
It's designed to run 100% recycled nuclear fuel.

The people in AZ are a lot smarter than the people in NH who voted to shut down NH Yankee nuclear power station in 2016 I believe and it's license was good through 2025.
The next year after the shutdown customers in NH, VT and ME complained their electrical bills nearly doubled.

The "Union oF concerned scientists" are now reluctantly pro nuclear.
A electrical/mechanical engineer must have joined them and drew it out on a chalkboard explaining how they are wrong and why their ideas excluding nuclear power are stupid and why they won't work.

I like how "climate change" is pushing everyone to nuclear power.
Total backfire. The believers want no oil, no coal, no natural gas, no nuclear. Hahaha.

[redpoint5]

Yeah, to be anti, you have to be anti prosperity, which basically means being anti-intervention, which basically means only the 1% lives.

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

That's fine for dwellings, but how do you run industrial plants, or (sub)urban infrastructure such as water & sewage treatment?

They too will be trending towards energy independence.

Take for instance the Ford Rouge Plant in Dearborn, Michigan.

In the old days they had their own coal burning on site energy/electricity plant for the mega facility.

These days they have a green roof and solar panels on the F-150 assembly plant.

Humans started with their own energy plants known as the camp fire, we shall return to this in a different form one day.

It's hard wired into our DNA not to entrust others with our base needs as it is a vulnerability. Perhaps some of the anxiety in our society is a result of surrendering so much to others that we will never even meet.

Creating and collecting your own energy, growing or raising your own food is a push against this shove. It is a small push back currently, but the tides will eventually turn, if they don't we will be not much more than the farm raised salmon we eat.

[oil pan 4]

Where I work uses around 20 mega watts of electricity on average through the day and 2 billion BTUs of natural gas.
Putting up some solar panels would be pointless.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by kach22i

These days they have a green roof and solar panels on the F-150 assembly plant.

And that produces what percentage of the energy needed to run the plant? Not to mention that it's an assembly plant: all the really energy-intensive stuff is done elsewhere, and the parts & materials shipped to the plant.

Humans started with their own energy plants known as the camp fire, we shall return to this in a different form one day.

Yeah, and we can all learn how to knapp stone tools, too :-)

Creating and collecting your own energy, growing or raising your own food is a push against this shove.

I wouldn't say it's a "push", but I'm sitting by my own "camp fire" right now. And yes, I could have cut the wood it's burning without a chain saw. Perhaps I could even have done it with a stone ax that I'd knapped myself. But that wouldn't have left me much time for anything else. And I sure couldn't have made the steel and temperature-resistant glass that make my fire so much more efficient than a simple campfire.

[oil pan 4]

I'm with you.
I am going to to harvesting firewood. But I need more trees.