William Larsen

France, ah the lovely French. Framatone Gogema Fuels, the French company that builds, operates and reprocess the French Reactors. This company bought Babcock and Wilcox’s Commercial Nuclear Fuel unit (Three Mile Island). The operators at TMI should have gone home instead of attempting to over ride the safety backup systems. Human error, not believing what the data is telling you.

Back to the French. True they have lots of reactors and generate the most expensive electricity in Europe. So if you want expensive electricity move to France. The reason they went nuclear is they have no coal, oil or natural gas. In simple terms, they have little natural energy.

True - The French reprocess their nuclear waste and extract the good stuff and store the small amount of bad stuff. The good stuff they use to make new fuel. The US under Carter will not reprocess nuclear waste due to plutonium. Ah, that nasty stuff used to make bombs, a little bit goes a long way. So we intend to keep the byproduct sealed in the fuel assembly and bury at YUCCA Mountain in NV starting in 1996. Oh, wait it is 2008 and YUCCA mountain is not opened. NV governor will not allow radioactive waste to cross the state line so all that nuclear waste is still on site. How much is that costing the utilities and passed on to the customers? Oh, the utilities are suing the DOE for breach of contract.

If you want to pay three times what you are now for electricity, go nuclear or to get a taste of the cost move to Illinois.

Clean coal what is it? It is a conceptional idea only. Have they done it yet, no? Have they done feasibility tests, yes? Is there a process, no? Is there a cost estimate, no? Will it cost more than dirty coal now, yes?

Is wind power available, yes? Is the technology available, yes? Are windmills being built, yes? Is the electricity generated from windmills competitive, yes? Not only is it competitive, it is the second cheapest source.

100 nuclear plants provide 22% of the Electricity capacity of the US. Each nuke plant could be replaced by 1,000 windmills. 1,000 wind mills cost about $1 billion. The last nuke plant built in the early 80’s was $5 billion.

I know that wind power is not high tech and it is not exotic, but if that is what you want, then you must be willing to pay a lot for that exotic stuff and be willing to see your standard of living and most likely your jobs move off shore.

This blog has is a lively discussion on Nuclear and Coal

Clean Coal

"A project by the name FutureGen was set to start in Southern Illinois this year. This was a test project for clean coal here in the United States. The Energy Department pulled the plug on supporting the project when estimated costs ran from about $700 million to now over $2 billion. The Energy Department wanted to fund four concepts over one as the best possible outcome for the United States."