Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Nukes, Nukes, the Magical Fuel

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by

James A. Bacon
in

I’ve been critical of Dominion’s “big grid” strategy of building monster power plants in outlying areas and linking them to customers with monster transmission lines. But I’m realistic enough to know that Dominion, like Virginia’s other power companies, will have to add more capacity eventually — no matter how much we conserve, and no matter how rapidly we bring renewable energy sources online. And when Dominion does bring on new capacity, I’m perfectly happy, like the Daily Press, to see it to run on nuclear energy.

Dominion has established an excellent track record for safety and efficiency of its nuclear units. If we can solve the problem of disposing of the spent nuclear fuel rods — surely the United States is big enough and has enough empty places that can take them — nukes are cleaner than fossil fuels. And, if man-made global climate change charges your batteries, nukes don’t emit greenhouse gases.

Indeed, I would go the next step forward. Virginia ought to encourage the use of electric vehicles — all running on clean, nuclear-powered fuel. I may have issues with Dominion, but I’d far rather rely on a home-grown electric utility for my fuel source than fossil fuels (whether oil or natural gas) imported from Venezuela, Nigeria or the Middle East, where our money props up dictators and underwrites terrorism.

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10 responses to “Nukes, Nukes, the Magical Fuel”

  1. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Dominion’s predecessor, Vepco did NOT have an excellent track record with nukes. In 1979, Vepco led the nation’s utilities for the most fines ($112,400) from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, followed by Commonwealth Edison. Vepco was bungling its management of its Surry Nuclear Plant and also had problems at North Anna. Many of these problems were later straightened out, but let’s not forget history and give the impression that Dominion is just peachey. The same nuke power stations are the only ones in this state that Dominion has.

  2. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Anonymous, You’re quite right, VEPCO had a lot of problems. But that was 25 to 30 years ago. Dominion deserves credit for getting its act together, and as long as it can maintain safety and reliability standards at current levels, nuclear power would seem to be the preferred alternative.

    I’ll bet you’re the same “anonymous” who gave me a hard time for preaching the virtues of renewable fuels and conservation. If not nukes and if not renewables, which fuel source would you prefer? Coal? Natural gas? Oil? Don’t they all have drawbacks?

    No energy strategy is perfect or risk free. We have to balance the costs and risks of each. Right now, nuclear is looking pretty good.

  3. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Lake Anna is discharging hotter and hotter water.

    What happens when climate change increases drought and lowers Lake Anna and energy demands on nuclear increase?

    This is huge problem in France right now. Its killing their rivers.

    I also have not heard any warning or evacuation plans or Richmond if something happens with Lake Anna’s nuclear facilities.

    I don’t think nuclear is sustainable, safe, or clean.

  4. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Anonymous 9:09… interesting angle that I’d never considered. Worth looking into.

  5. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    JAB,
    I think you’ve got your anonymous’s mixed up. But then, how could you know?
    Anonymous

  6. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Anonymous,
    Dominion does have accident plans and has regular drills at North Anna as it does at Surry. It is required to do so by the NRC and FEMA.

  7. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    But not in Richmond. If, God forbid, an accident or terrorist attack took place, nuclear radiation could threaten Richmond.

    Do not fool yourself.

  8. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    Dominion is on a fastrack to add another unit at North Anna which I understand, the design has been changed to be air cooled so as to not further impact the lake itself.

    A few months ago, the CEO of Dominion was asked about their plans for a new unit at North Anna – and the long and short of it was that the financing for such a thing would have a major impact on the company and that basically, for right now, they will be pursuing the permit – as a strategy to “bank” it for the future.

    Folks don’t want more power lines bringing coal-generated electricity from Wva and the Midwest.

    I wonder how they’d feel about having more nukes instead plus less polluted Va cities, less mercury pollution of our rivers and less nitrogen pollution in the Chesapeake Bay ( about 1/3 of the nitrates are from auto emissions).

    Also mentioned recently, wind turbines 10 miles offshore… barely visible from the coasts.

    So .. here we are.. folks don’t want the power lines, nor the coal-plants, nor the nukes… but they want the electricity.

    What’s Dominion to do?

    If you were in charge at Dominion – what would you do?

    But let’s also be honest about Dominion’s motivations – as a business and that is that it is not in their interests to sell LESS electricity.

    They show almost no interest in conservation strategies such as Smart Meters or peak-hr pricing of electricity or a half dozen other conservation strategies used across this country and the world.

    The reason that Dominion has a virtual free rein though is our fault – as a society.

    We cannot agree among ourselves on what we think the right approach is and our elected representatives (with lobbying help from Dominion) have absolutely no fear from voters on this issue.

  9. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    “Dominion has established an excellent track record for safety and efficiency of its nuclear units.”

    Fine. Let them buy insurance on the open market, and then come back and see me in 80,000 years.

    Yep, everything has its drawbacks, but at least coal doesn’t have the drawback of worrying what form of government will be controlling it 80,000 years from now.

    Take the probability of a problem, and multiply that by the cost of the problem, and you have the probable cost. Run that forward x number of years, and then discount the cot back to today.

    Do that for coal, solar, wind, and nukes.

    Nukes don’t make the cut. Not even if it means we freeze in the dark.

  10. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    It’s interesting….

    we cannot do electricty with ____ because it is _____.

    Nukes = 80K waste management
    Coal = mercury and nitrogen pollution, greenhouse gases

    Solar = can’t operate at night

    Wind = can’t operate on windless days

    solar/wind = too expensive

    hmmm…. solar/wind appears to cost 3-5 times as much as coal/nukes.

    Is solar/wind actually CHEAPER over time…. than coal/nukes?

    Bonus Question: – If solar/wind CAN produce real live electricity that can actually power our homes – what is the reason why we prefer mercury and nuclear waste?

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