Although it may seem very far from Vermont, China will complete the first AP1000 at Sanmen by around the end of the year. That is going to be an important event. Once the leadership of China sees these reactors working … there is going to be a massive buildout in this decade of this design (and larger variants). Something similar may happen with the EPR reactors being built at Taishan.

When methane prices spike in the next 5 years (or less), and people have decided they don’t really want more coal plants, there will be the example in China of what needs to be done.

I wish we could be the leader here, but it isn’t going to happen, partly because of the speculative boom in fracking and partly because the US is simply not building out a huge fleet of electrical generation, the way China is.

The human race will get there though. In the aggregate, over a long enough period of time, we are actually rational.

Re: “As stated above, Gundersen’s performance was a skillful use of FUD.”

Which begs the question on its knees, where are the pro-nuclear guns to tackle his assertions? He chronically gets away with this because he goes virtually unchallenged by “don’t be gentle, bury you” nuclear advocates. Silence and no-response no-rebuttal is perceived as a tacit affirmation of one’s loud position by the public. That this man is received “with open arms” is a gross sign of fatal lack of nuclear education in the public and politicans. Forget the FUD tainted public; I wonder how fairly nuclear energy is taught in Vermont schools nowadays!

“Nonetheless, the evidence contradicts Gundersen.”

But who in the general public knows this? A few nuclear/legislative insiders don’t count! The long lack of nuclear Ads, PSAs and media rebuttals to opponents has resulted in nuclear energy becoming the Dark Vader of energy sources and windmills as the whales of the energy sect. You’re an astute writer and professional; can you offer any ideas how the resources of nuclear blogs can be singularly applied to mass education instead of just preaching to the converted? I’m just sorry I don’t have the bucks to make a mark — unlike Bill Gates.

James Greenidge
Queens NY

PARs units are installed in Candu stations as well as some LWR stations overseas:
Canada
Finland
France
Korea
Ukraine

A typical Candu station requires close to thirty PARs, which are boxes roughly two feet square each (like an oversize ashtray).

As new self-start threshold: 2% H2 with available oxygen
Operating range: 1% to ~8% hydrogen
Capacity increases about linearly with hydrogen concentration, and also increases with pressure.

http://enertechlibrary.cwfc.com/libdocs/literature/1307.pdf

Steven Spielberg started out as an unpaid studio intern doing pieces not much more advanced than these videos. Even if Pandora’s Promise wins Best Documentary, I’ll still be looking forward in a few years to your own “Fermi’s List”.

James Greenidge
Queens NY

You bring up a good point — and dummies like me would still wonder how often do coal/gas/oil/hydro plants get “decommissioned” even after hundred years plus of operation? Some are still chugging along well after the turn of last century — the 19th. Is there some inherent physical reason atomic plants must be decommissioned after several dozen years? Is there no way their longevity can be pushed to the max to operate as long? I include the molten salt and Thorium plants in this as well. I’d rather make decommissioning nukes the equivalent of the lonely Maytag man!

James Greenidge
Queens NY

We have over a hundred reactors in operation and few new ones are under planning and construction. There are about 30 shuttered reactors scattered around the Country. However, we do not yet have a well-developed decommissioning industry. The time scale from construction to decommissioning can exceed a hundred years. This includes 40+ years of operation and an allowed maximum duration of sixty years for decommissioning. I would imagine there is need to train manpower to work in this potential new industry and an established practices for various stages of decommissioning including burial of some components. Members of ANS ought to start thinking about a smooth transition from power generation to decommissioning, as nuclear power generation is here to stay for a long time.