S-PRISM is an advanced Fast Reactor plant design that utilizes compact modular pool-type reactors sized to enable factory fabrication and an affordable prototype test of a single Nuclear Steam Supply System (NSSS) for design certification at minimum cost and risk. Based on the success of the previous DOE sponsored Advanced Liquid Metal Reactor (ALMR) program GE has continued to develop and assess the technical viability and economic potential of an up rated plant called SuperPRISM (SPRISM) 1-4.Presented at the 2003 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants (ICANPP '03)
"The death toll at Chernobyl was 56 people."Coal mining kills thousands of people per year in the US alone [PDF], and that ignores deaths due to other aspects of coal power, such as air pollution from coal plants. Or widespread famine from global warming.
I think you stopped counting too soon.
Proliferation of highly radioactive materials into the developing world?Well, that's what really matters right, making people who live NYC and D.C. comfortable. It would be much better for people in the developing world to go without electricity, or be wedded to obsolete technologies then let them have access to nuclear energy. Those darkies can't be trusted.
I'm guessing that anyone who is significantly invested in New York City or Washington, DC real estate is going to oppose this on general principle.
One issue was continuing escalation in the cost of the project. In 1971 the Atomic Energy Commission estimated that the Clinch River project would cost about $400 million. Private industry promised to contribute the majority of the project cost ($257 million). By the following year, however, projected costs had jumped to nearly $700 million.[6] By 1981 $1 billion of public money had been spent on the project, and the estimated cost to completion had grown to $3.0-$3.2 billion, with another billion dollars needed for an associated spent nuclear fuel reprocessing facility. [5][7] A Congressional committee investigation released in 1981 found evidence of contracting abuse, including bribery and fraud, that added to project costs.[7] Before it was finally canceled in 1983, the General Accounting Office of the Congress estimated the total project cost at $8 billion.[4]Big Energy likes big capital intensive projects. And it likes to keep its customers tethered to the electricity it sells rather than choosing some alternate. So Big Energy trots out a new take on the solution that best fits its priorities and will next expect us to throw gobs of money at it to make it work.
It's not even close to that expensive. According to this the cost is just between 4-6¢/kwh for wind power. We just need a more efficent power grid built to move the electricity generated around the country.Or we could just choose renewables now and get it over with.Sure! That will be 30-50 cents per killowatt hour please. And no griping about closing factories or frozen pensioners.
Well for one thing, burning the plants would release most of the CO2 back into the atmosphere. The char would contain some carbon, but not most of it. It would, however, contain the phosphates and such you would need to grow more plants, thus preventing you from burying it as you suggest.He said 'char' not burn, which I think means overheating in a low-oxygen environment. As far as not getting phosphates from buried remnants, um, where do you think plants usually get neutrients? FROM THE GROUND. You don't even need to burry it; just dump it on the ground. Amorphous carbon is not CO2. You can grow plants in it if you want.
Also, the whole process would take more energy than you got using the fossil fuels that put the carbon into the atmosphere in the first place,Only if you assume the only way to heat something is by burning fossil fuels, which is obviously not the case.
The accessible geothermal resource, based on existing extractive technology, is large and contained in a continuum of grades ranging from today’s hydrothermal, convective systems through high and mid-grade EGS resources (located primarily in the western United States) to the very large, conduction dominated contributions in the deep basement and sedimentary rock formations throughout the country. By evaluating an extensive database of bottom-hole temperature and regional(emphasis mine)
geologic data (rock types, stress levels, surface temperatures, etc.), we have estimated the total EGS resource base to be more than 13 million exajoules (EJ). Using reasonable assumptions regarding how heat would be mined from stimulated EGS reservoirs, we also estimated the extractable portion to exceed 200,000 EJ or about 2,000 times the annual consumption of primary energy in the United States in 2005. With technology improvements, the economically extractable amount of useful energy could increase by a factor of 10 or more, thus making EGS sustainable for centuries.
« Older Pierre Gonnord is a French photographer who specia... | This Gristlemas, why not give ... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by filthy light thief at 3:45 PM on December 18, 2009 [20 favorites]