Randy Atchley wrote on January 10, 2008 03:23 PM: As a Navy Nuke now working in the CT realm in civilian life, I am in total support of Nuclear Power. I think if managed correctly it can be just as safe to the public as any power. We all talk wind and solar etc., and it looks good now, but what is there about those items which will come back to be a negative 20 years from now. We all know one, who wants acres and acres of solar panels or wind mills in site of your property. Just ask Senator Kennedy and I think you will have the answer. Any how lets go nuke it is the logical choice. Educate the people so they have the facts and not just a bunch of baloney that our press puts out.

Sincerely,


Randy L. Atchley MMC/SS-USN RET.

Wes Hackbarth Jr. wrote on January 08, 2008 10:33 AM: My wife and I own 160 acres right by Yucca Mountan. This would be great if it went through!

Susanne wrote on January 01, 2008 04:31 PM: The alternatives for disposal of spent fuel hae never been given the attention they require. Legislation relating to spent fuel disposal has often been part of massive
Christmas Eve bills not subject to amendment. No country has solved the problem of how to permanently isolate spent fuel. A "Manhattan Project" level of effort is required enlisting the efforts of top scientists in many disciplines.





christmas

Jon H. wrote on January 01, 2008 03:39 PM: Grumpy, John F.

You will be suprised that many attractive options exist for nuclear power generation. Pebble bed reactors have attracted a great deal of interest, and for good reason.

Light water reactors, may not be the best option going forward, but they are in the race.

http://www.pbmr.com/

John F wrote on January 01, 2008 12:33 PM: Grumpy,

I guess I wasn't specific enough; I meant the US navy. The Soviet navy didn't have Rickover, thank goodness.

grumpy wrote on January 01, 2008 12:06 PM: Jon H,
Keep in mind that nuclear reactors on Naval vessels have a huge advantage over their land-based coutnerparts: The limitless supply of cooling water. While like designs can be made to work on land, cooling will present more of a challenge, especially in a hot desert. I don't know if a water cooled reactor is viable in NV. Certainly an air-cooled (recirculating cooling fluid much as in an automobile engine) ractor is viable, but it might not be as efficient and so the cost per kw/hr goes up.
John F: You're part right. There's never been a reactor accident on a US nuclear-powered vessel. The Soviet Navy had plenty of accidents. It was not unusual to see one of their nuclear-powered subs getting towed with a 10 mile long cable.

John F wrote on January 01, 2008 11:26 AM: Jon H.,

I agree. If Hyman Rickover was still alive I'd feel a lot better about the future of nuclear power. As far as I know there's never been a reactor accident on board a navy vessel. The ships are very expensive, but well worth the money. The problem with civilian nuclear power is that the people building the reactors are very much interested in economy. If we can be certain that civilian nuclear contractors are following navy guidelines then I say more power to 'em (pun intended).

Jon H. wrote on January 01, 2008 11:04 AM: Grumpy & John F.

The Soviet reactor design had a positive void coefficient and the light water reactors used in the US have a negative void coefficient. Carbon was used in the Soviet design as the neutron moderator, and water is used in the US design as the neutron moderator. What this meant is that when steam bubbles are forming around film boiling in the reactor core, the Soviet design allows the nuclear reaction rate to increase, while the US design causes the nuclear reaction rate to moderate.

In both the US and Soviet accidents, gross human error was the cause of the accident. In the case of the Soviets, a test of the emergency water cooling system was delayed for hours while the reactor was held in a unstable part of the reactor operating envelope. In the case of the US reactor failure, the operators did not believe their instruments and they disabled the safeties in order to prevent a shutdown.

Just as the French patterned their Nuclear program after the US Navies program, I believe this is the path that we should also follow going forward.

And you are both right with regards to the TMI incident. We never fully knew the extent of the damage, until the time we were able to send in robots and catalog the damage.

grumpy wrote on January 01, 2008 09:44 AM: John F,
In the grand scheme of things the meltdown at TMI was indeed minor, but as you pointed out, it could have been far worse. The core temperature never got so high as to burn through the containment vessel as was the case with Chernobyl in 1986.
US reactors are designed with less potential efficiency for that very reason. US core temperatures don't get as hot as other designs because of safety concerns.

John F wrote on January 01, 2008 08:46 AM: TMI was not a minor incident. True, very little radiation was ulitmately released into the atmosphere, but it could very easily have been much, much worse.

According to the Smithsonian, by 7:45 a.m. om Wednesday, March 28, 1979, "a molten mass of metal and fuel—some twenty tons in all—is spilling into the bottom of the reactor vessel." That's the definition of a meltdown. (http://americanhistory.si.edu/tmi/tmi03.htm)

Further, from the Smithsonian, "If this MELTDOWN (caps are mine) were known, or even merely surmised, drastic emergency measures, including evacuation of the region for miles around, would certainly be ordered by the governor." By 9:00 a.m. it is determined that the reactor vessel is holding "firm, and the molten uranium, immersed in water, now gradually begins to cool. The real danger is past without anyone knowing how great it had been."

So you are correct in saying that TMI was not a NEAR melt-down; it was an ACTUAL metltdown that we were fotunate to contain.

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