Goodnight, sweet prince

3/13/2011 2:04:08 PM

Hope not,

We shall see.

3/13/2011 2:04:35 PM

Wind monsters!

3/13/2011 2:05:05 PM

I thought bbehe was a girl?

3/13/2011 2:13:44 PM

rawr rawr rawr

too loud
kills birds
disrupts scenic views

rawr rawr rawr

3/13/2011 2:22:46 PM

yay intermittent generation!

3/13/2011 2:25:47 PM

more like you need a wind farm the size of an entire state to produce the same amount of energy.

3/13/2011 2:25:47 PM

I too lament what this will do with respect to efforts to build new nuclear plants here in the US.

3/13/2011 2:26:00 PM

Quote :

"more like you need a wind farm the size of an entire state to produce the same amount of energy."

except you don't, and you can still use the land for other purposes such as agriculture and recreational use. Europe already has wind farms in the ocean/sea with more generation capacity than Shearin Harris.

3/13/2011 2:33:02 PM

I think you people are missing the point why I put the wind farm up there.

3/13/2011 3:12:47 PM

The negative publicity will doom nuclear power in this country. Japan will keep it because they have no other choice because of their lack of fossil fuels.

3/13/2011 3:17:41 PM

Really hope this doesn't stall the expansion of Nuclear power. I'll take wind or nuclear seeing how my company is heavily invested in both (building the world's largest offshore wind farm) but I'm more interested in the nuclear work and have been really looking forward to landing the new GE-Hitachi plant design.

Unfortunately most people will probably see this event as another thing to point a finger at for nuclear. I am all for wind power, but it isn't a solution to no nuclear power; we need a good diversified set of production and in many areas wind isn't even feasible. The main problem isn't even justified questioning of nuclear power, but the hordes of uneducated protesters that latch onto events like this and use them to justify not building any nuclear power plants. They are one reason the US is driven to massively over-design the new plants causing the cost to rise which in turn the protesters then point to $/unit of energy as another reason to protest it when all the (in some case excessive) regulations are part of the reason the cost was driven up in the first place.

Anyway, end of my rant. I just hope this doesn't stall the expansion of nuclear work as a whole. If we land the GE-Hitachi job most of our clients will be overseas anyway so I guess we'll have the work whether the US wants the plants or not.

[Edited on March 13, 2011 at 5:06 PM. Reason : ]

3/13/2011 5:00:44 PM

I see the events this week as proof of how safe nuclear energy is. We've only had a handful of earthquakes as powerful as this in in the last 200 years, and the destruction was relatively contained if the reports we're getting are correct. Besides, there aren't many regions of the world on such an active faultline. What's the biggest earthquake that's ever hit the Southeast US, a 6.0? That's about a 1000 times smaller than what hit Japan Friday. Do tsunamis big enough to cause damage actually get created in the Atlantic?

3/13/2011 5:19:17 PM

Tsunami is not an issue if you don't build the plant right next to the ocean

3/13/2011 5:21:05 PM

^^ I agree. I'm just worried what the media spin on this will end up being.

3/13/2011 5:22:35 PM

^^^ They also had a reactor that cracked after a 3.0 earthquake a few years ago. Japan doesn't exactly have the best track record on these things

3/13/2011 5:31:06 PM

They are having the most problems with their oldest reactors.

3/13/2011 5:51:06 PM

ibtsomeyokelbringsupsimcity

3/13/2011 5:56:16 PM

as an aspiring nuclear engineer, I'd hope not.

3/13/2011 5:57:46 PM

What should also get some mention:

3/13/2011 6:06:17 PM

I have a hard time being bothered by that because "slurry" sounds so much like "McFlurry"

3/13/2011 6:09:46 PM

3/13/2011 6:14:30 PM

We just received over a million dollar nsf grant for my phd research involving seismic base isolation of new nuclear facilities in the US. This was approved before the earthquake but I think there will still be a push for nuclear energy.

3/13/2011 6:16:12 PM

personally, I would think that having wind farms on hillsides would be kind of beautiful. Especially, with some cows, sheep, or other plant based farming under them.

3/13/2011 6:36:02 PM

wind and solar farms cannot provide an adequate energy baseload.

I'd be all ears for another option but there isn't one out there right now.

3/13/2011 6:54:51 PM

3/13/2011 6:59:42 PM

I work in nuclear and have a lot of my life invested in it. I don't think things look good for us as far as new nuclear construction goes. Three Mile Island was in 1979 and it took this long to get people used to the idea of building again.

I feel that most people opposed to nuclear weren't very knowledgeable about it, and they're not going to take the time to educate themselves fully about these current events. It's another notch on the belt of the anti nuclear crowd. This is a terrible event for the people of Japan, and its also terrible for the future of nuclear power.

Lieberman is already calling for a moratorium on new nuclear construction. We were just barely getting started as it was and many new plants were getting put on hold for various reasons well before the Japanese plants started having problems. Things don't look good for what is, in my opinion, our best option to power the future.

3/13/2011 9:27:26 PM

i'm in the nuclear industry myself, but i wasn't optimistic of any new plants being built even before the earthquake in japan. the cost is prohibitive, and i don't think utilities would've shelled out billions...especially when so many people are ignorant and scared of nuclear power.

now, i see japan driving a final nail in the coffin. the media is over-sensationalizing it. fear-mongering and all that. go figure...

3/13/2011 9:39:00 PM

^agreed. I felt that way as well, even before the earthquake. Tons of people got out of nuclear after TMI, and I wonder if that is going to happen again. I think this will change our industry.

3/13/2011 9:42:05 PM

Quote :

"I feel that most people opposed to nuclear weren't very knowledgeable about it, and they're not going to take the time to educate themselves fully about these current events. It's another notch on the belt of the anti nuclear crowd. This is a terrible event for the people of Japan, and its also terrible for the future of nuclear power. "

agreed 100%

Like I said earlier, I realllly hope that this doesn't affect GE-Hitachi moving forward with the design of their new reactor. I was really looking forward to being a part of that. I really hope the fact that most of the potential customers interested in purchasing their new reactor design were European and Asian countries will help it because I don't trust it moving forward in America now at all.

[Edited on March 13, 2011 at 9:51 PM. Reason : ]

3/13/2011 9:50:53 PM

what's going on with fusion plants?

3/13/2011 9:53:04 PM

oh, there are at least 20 years of life in the existing nuclear plants. i expect that there will be a second round of relicensing for them, too. so i figure that i can stick with this industry until i retire (if i so choose).

3/13/2011 9:54:03 PM

Is the non-weaponized nuclear power that Bill Gates was talking about in his TED talk about energy still as detrimental to the environment in the case of a meltdown as the current substances being used?

3/14/2011 9:22:34 AM

Yes, b/c of a catastrophic earthquake in a seismically unstable region of the globe we should just swear off nuclear power plants...


What a stupid thread

[Edited on March 14, 2011 at 10:02 AM. Reason : k]

3/14/2011 10:00:40 AM

Quote :

"Yes, b/c of a catastrophic earthquake in a seismically unstable region of the globe we should just swear off nuclear power plants... What a stupid thread"

that is exactly the point of this thread...

That is how the masses will see this. Already seen scores of comments on news articles, facebook, etc. basically supporting the stupid idea you just presented and members of our government are already publicly saying we should temporarily halt progress on new nuclear power plants here because of it.

[Edited on March 14, 2011 at 10:14 AM. Reason : .]

3/14/2011 10:08:23 AM

^^Why is the thread stupid? Nearly everyone is mirroring your opinion. Did you even glance at it?

3/14/2011 10:11:38 AM

Quote :

"except you don't, and you can still use the land for other purposes such as agriculture and recreational use. Europe already has wind farms in the ocean/sea with more generation capacity than Shearin Harris."

your 'mastery of knowledge' knows no bounds does it?

Sharon Harris - Reactors operational 1 x 900 MW
Reactors planned 2 x 1,100 MW

largest offshore wind farms - Thanet 300MW United Kingdom 100 × Vestas V90-3MW 2010

largest ONSHORE wind farm - Roscoe Wind Farm 781.5 MW USA


...

3/14/2011 11:27:33 AM

you would think that this disaster would illustrate the need to replace aging reactors with newer and safer designs.

3/14/2011 11:32:56 AM

or to put backup generators at different altitudes

I'm AstralAdvent and i approved this message.

3/14/2011 11:33:48 AM

Quote :

"Tsunami is not an issue if you don't build the plant right next to the ocean "

Agreed

Quote :

"what's going on with fusion plants? "

This might end the world so I'm not in a huge hurry for them to come out.

3/14/2011 11:35:53 AM

Quote :

"Tsunami is not an issue if you don't build the plant right next to the ocean"

Yeah the middle of tokyo would've been much better

I'm AstralAdvent and i approved this message.

3/14/2011 11:36:50 AM

I too was confused how you can lose all of the backups at the same time. I'm compelled to believe the problem is more complicated than the generators just didn't kick on. Maybe the generators that were working had broken power lines to them or the internal lines inside the plant were hosed.

If it was just a power generation problem they could have flown some generators in on heli's and gotten things under control. Seemingly, anyway.

I'm most curious to see how this plays out with their incredible amount of debt. Billions of dollars in homes and businesses destroyed in the midst of economic recovery when their debt was already 200% of GDP.

3/14/2011 11:40:45 AM

all the diesel generators got flooded with seawater, that's why they didn't work

3/14/2011 11:47:33 AM

^Ya, I report I read said they were in low-lying areas that didn't concern them because they thought for sure the sea walls wouldn't fail.

3/14/2011 11:51:58 AM

Quote :

"you would think that this disaster would illustrate the need to replace aging reactors with newer and safer designs."

true

Quote :

"This might end the world so I'm not in a huge hurry for them to come out."

no, they burn out on their own pretty dam fast, not a thermo nuclear weapon here...

3/14/2011 11:53:34 AM

These reactors are also BWRs which are much older style reactors. Most the newer reactors like ABWRs theoretically have much more redundancy in their emergency cooling systems. After reading about the reactors at this site in Japan, I have been surprised to see how "dated" these are compared to the more modern boiling water reactor designs.

3/14/2011 11:57:11 AM

Quote :

"no, they burn out on their own pretty dam fast, not a thermo nuclear weapon here... "

so you know what will happen if/when they reach the point where it sustains itself like the sun?

3/14/2011 12:00:18 PM

Quote :

"Ya, I report I read said they were in low-lying areas that didn't concern them because they thought for sure the sea walls wouldn't fail."

they also had battery backup system but that only lasted 8 hours and they were delivered generators that weren't compatible to replace them in that time

I'm AstralAdvent and i approved this message.

3/14/2011 12:06:27 PM

they won't/can't you'd need something nearly the size of the sun to do that, you have to keep feeding it to keep it going, what you're referring to is the ability of us to keep it going by adding only more fuel, and not zapping it with even more power to get it to start

3/14/2011 12:07:43 PM

Quote :

"except you don't, and you can still use the land for other purposes such as agriculture and recreational use. Europe already has wind farms in the ocean/sea with more generation capacity than Shearin Harris." your 'mastery of knowledge' knows no bounds does it? Sharon Harris - Reactors operational 1 x 900 MW Reactors planned 2 x 1,100 MW largest offshore wind farms - Thanet 300MW United Kingdom 100 × Vestas V90-3MW 2010 largest ONSHORE wind farm - Roscoe Wind Farm 781.5 MW USA "

Shearin Harris only has one 900MW reactor, and the other two will probably never get built now that Duke is planning a merger with Progress. Even if Shearon Harris gets approved for expansion, we're about a decade away from it getting built.

I didn't say a single wind farm is bigger than Shearon Harris, I said wind farms, plural. It's funny you mention Thanet though, because the offshore pier mount substation Siemens built for that farm is going to make it so much easier to build future offshore wind farms. It's my understanding that siemens is planning on using that cookie cutter model on several other wind farms they have contracts for. The only difference is that they plan on making the future wind farms bigger.

Feel free to skip over the absolutely retarded statement this was in reference to about how much land is required to build wind farms though. The simple answer is that if you build a wind farm in the ocean and outside of a shipping lane, you're not tying up any more land than what it takes to build your onshore substation.

[Edited on March 14, 2011 at 2:23 PM. Reason : Wolfman Tim apparently said it]

3/14/2011 2:22:38 PM