[Land-speed] Alternative Fuels>From>Jim McNaul

joseph lance jolylance at earthlink.net
Mon Jul 16 13:50:45 MDT 2007


> Uranium enrichment at the 5% or less level for civilian nuke reactors was
> privatized in the early 1990s and its a thriving business, so I don't know
> why Oak Ridge would still be involved.
>
> Sounds like you are combining the civilian and military nuclear
> programs--the radioactive liquid nuclear waste at Hanford was left over 
> from
> the military program.
>
> I don't agree that nuclear plants costs are "unbelievable".  The nuclear
> plant cost includes the capital cost of the equipment and construction 
> labor
> and materials plus the interest during construction (IDC) that the utility
> must pay to borrow the money to build the plant. If the capital cost is
> $1,730/kwe then a 1000Mwe plant costs $1.73 Billion. To borrow that amount
> at 6% interest costs ~$100 million per year. For the plants ordered in the
> 1960s thru the early 1980s the construction schedules were originally 6
> years. But Ralph Nader and his fellow interveners used all kinds of court
> challenges to delay construction for years, extending schedules to 12 
> years
> or more. So a 6 year delay would increase the plant cost by $600 million 
> or
> more just for IDC. Then Nader etc. turned around and dishonestly said 
> "see,
> we told you they were too expensive" even though they caused the problem. 
> That's how the Nukes got a false bad rap on costs.
>
> Currently the operating nuclear power plants are valued at $1,730/kwe and
> the new simplified designs can be built for that price. By comparison, new
> coal plants are more expensive at $2000/kwe. Nuclear fuel (including 
> mining,
> enrichment, and fuel fab) is much cheaper than coal on a $ per Btu basis. 
> Any
> differences in operation & maintenance costs are insignificant by
> comparison. So the nuclear generated electricity is cheaper.
>
> The nuclear plant operators are taxed by the government to pay for waste
> processing activities. Decommissioning can be funded from the 40-50 years 
> of
> revenue from electricity sales and we have both civilian and military
> (nuclear sub) decommisioning experience.
>
> My experience has been in the design, performance, and economic analysis 
> of
> power plants, so I'll defer to DrMayf's hands-on experience regarding the
> other safety issues.
>
> Mayf--looks like we need to move on to LSR issues-- I'll be glad to 
> discuss
> the above with you off-list if you are so inclined.
>
> Lance
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "drmayf" >
>> Excuse me but you are wrong. I worked at Oak Ridge. K25 was the 
>> enrichment
>> palnt for all nuclear fuel. Power plant or bomb except that bombs  all 
>> now
>> use plutonium which is the by product of fast burning of uranium fuel.
>> Oak Ridge has mor e reactor ready materials for nuke plants than can be
>> used in a hundred years. Why? It was too costly to shut down.  As to 3
>> mile Island, yeah we were protecte but just barely. And at that there 
>> were
>> serious problems. The fuel had fractured and was in the process of
>> becoming the china syndrome before humans got enough water on it to cool
>> it down. I spent quite a lot of time in a nuke spent fuel plant looking
>> over the designs to assure safety. There is on eheck of a lot of liquid
>> wastes that have to go somewhere (nitric acid is one of the liquids).
>> Part of the bad rap on nukes is the unbelieveable costs involved with
>> building one. And them maintaining it. And then decommissioning it when
>> it's useful life ahs completed.  I did a lot of work for the US Senate
>> regarding spent fuel, nuclear waste, storage and reprocessing. Then I
>> spent a lot of time in oak ridge designing new and improved methods of
>> enriching uranium. I ahve some back f=ground here and your data just does
>> not fly.
>>
>> mayf


More information about the Land-speed mailing list