From: Glenn Morton (glenn.morton@btinternet.com)
Date: Thu Nov 28 2002 - 01:16:04 EST
Hi Blake,
I can always count on you. If I say Yea you say nay.
You wrote:
-----Original Message-----
>From: Dr. Blake Nelson [mailto:bnelson301@yahoo.com]
>Sent: Thursday, November 28, 2002 2:37 AM
>
>Not to get into the details of all this, there are
>manifold things not taken into account by Glenn's dour
>attitude toward fission, including:
>
>1. Improvements in technology for fission reactors
>2. Economies of scale, a company like Toshiba, if it
>has a fleet of advanced boiling water reactors to
>build for a couple of companies can build them pretty
>cheap and almost cost-effective in today's cheap
>fossil fuel market,
The critical cost for a nuke is the containement and safety systems. If you
fore go much of that, the cost plummets. Politically, that isn't ever going
to happen. And yes, economies of scale will help.
One thing to remember about the way oil declines in most basins is that it
remains flat for several years and then begins a rather sharp plummet. That
is what happened to the UK. The production was basically flat. When it began
its decline people would tell me that one couldn't use a year worth of
statistics to get lathered up about. The second year, other excuses were
offered--bad economic times have slowed development. Only by the third year
of decline did people really wake up. And it is when the people wake up
that action is contemplated (not performed, just contemplated). Another
couple of years will go by before the Government here gets alarmed enough to
do something drastic to change the economic climate.
When the world oil production begins to decline, I expect a similar
reaction. This delays the time when the massive build out is begun which
makes the problem last longer
>3. The decline of fossil fuels will make nukes more
>economically viable as the cost of fossil fuels go up
>to reflect the higher cost of fossil fuels,
>4. Governments will adopt pro-nuke policies. For
>example, in the US the biggest single inhibiting
>factor to new nukes (after the fact that fossil fuels
>are cheap and building only one nuclear plant is
>expensive) is that an unregulated (e.g., can't be
>guaranteed to get the costs of construction and
>decommissioning included in a regulated base rate)
>utility has to put up ALL the decomissioning costs up
>front. At hundreds of millions of dollars, you can't
>finance that easily, it is a deal breaker.
As I pointed out, we will be 5 years or more into the problem before we even
begin to break through this governmental inertia. The politicians will spend
a few years claiming that the oil companies are hiding oil in tankers
offshore before they finally wake up. Some politicians may never wake up.
>5. The megawatt plant Glenn assumes is one that has
>flopped on the world market as the perfect price point
>for inefficiency. Plants will come in two varieties
>-- 1,200+ megawatt behemoths, and modular plants with
>each modular unit somewhere on the order of 100MW --
>both methods will make the plants more cost efficient
>to build, operate and maintain.
Blake, it is all good and well to claim I am wrong, but I notice that I
provided actual numbers, you haven't provided anything except opinion here.
Put your numbers on the table. If I am wrong, I will admit it, but it seems
that you offer opinion rather than economic analysis.
>6. Building and operating new nuke plants will
>increase GDP and make money for countless private
>businesses and the government. GDP is not a zero sum
>game.
Somebody has to borrow the money, which has to come out of either taxes or
bank accounts in order to build the nuclear plants. Given the amount of
money we are talking about, I would suspect the interest rates would hit all
time highs and that would depress the rest of business.
>
>I can go on... if you assume the ludicrous convert
>tomorrow scenario Glenn postulates and have today's
>fixed pie to pay for it, yes, the numbers look bad.
Sigh. YOu and I don't ever seem to communicate. I didn't say convert
tomorrow. I said that a huge investment which is a huge percentage of the
world's GDP would have to be made. I don't think the economies can sustain
such an investment plan.
>But what will happen is really more akin to the
>transition from coal to natural gas, and this is what
>would be happening now if it were not for the huge
>capital costs of doing a single plant, the cheapness
>of fossil fuel and the continued (albeit dimi>nishing)
>irrational concern over nuclear plants.
I hope you are correct. I don't think you have studied the energy supply as
extensively as I have, though. It isn't part of a Dentist's purview.
However, that doesn't mean that I am automatically correct. I sincerely
hope I am wrong on this.
glenn
see http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/dmd.htm
for lots of creation/evolution information
anthropology/geology/paleontology/theology\
personal stories of struggle
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