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We have spent trillions of dollar on cancelled nuclear power plants. Fool me once.....
Many were 90% or more complete.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_canceled_nuclear_plants_in_the_Uni...
Prior to Fukushima there was a Nuclear Renaissance planned where about 20 reactors were going to be built in the USA. After Fukushima most were cancelled or delayed, except for 2 in GA and 2 in SC. Duke was still fairly active on 2 in NC that never broke ground. Westinghouse designed all 4 reactors. At the time of decision they said that with Computerized design and scheduling it would be easy to build them on schedule and within budget. The first generation of reactors did not have this. Westinghouse totally blew the projects. They were doing massive design changes during construction. Westinghouse had partnered with Shaw Group to build these plants. Shaw Group was bought by CB&I who had no interest in Nuclear. Westinghouse ended up having to buy the group working on the plants. Construction was a mess with virtually no scheduling. Westinghouse (who is owned by Toshiba) was in the red for Billions of dollars. So much that it was taking down Toshiba, a huge conglomerate. Westinghouse filed for bankruptcy. Recently the plants in SC were cancelled and the customers are stuck with the billions spent to date and nothing in return. The 2 in GA are still under construction with an estimate of $25 billion to complete for 2 1000 MW power plants. I predict that they will eventually be cancelled also. 2 Reactors in NC that never broke ground were also recently cancelled after 1/2 billion was spent. What needs to be investigated is the utility managers are walking away with millions. Such large projects leave a lot to be skimmed off of the top.
At the existing plants, they have become bloated with expensive staff. Plants that originally had staffs of 100 to 200 have staffs of a 1000. Empire builders are part of the problem. Paperwork and security is the other part. When they operate they are ok. Maintenance is very expensive. The reactors are getting old and cracking. They have all run out of room to store fuel indoors so they are storing fuel in Casks outside on concrete pads. These casks have a storage license of 40 years. Then something will have to be done with them. They have not figured out a permanent storage location in the 50 years of commercial nuclear operation. Plants that are being shut down are scheduling decommissioning for 40 years out. This leaves the next generation with a big (BIG) mess. They will not want it and did not profit from it. Funds set aside for decommissioning will probably be pilfered in that 40 year time.
All in all it makes renewables look better. Energy storage is the new frontier in electrical power. Solar with battery storage for night use makes a lot more sense and it is happening rapidly. Kauai recently went 100% solar with battery backup. Tucson Electric is heading that direction.
The government needs to stop tagging the public sector to bolster up private industry and their profit taking. This time around, I don't know that the public is going to stand for another private sector bailout. The private sector never comes to our rescue but they expect us to constantly be bailing them out. I say, let the whole nuclear energy industry go under. We should have been investing in alternate energy like solar all along. Fukushima should have taught us something about nuclear energy. Insanity is repeating the same failed path expecting different results. Nuclear energy is expensive and it is dangerous. And I think the public has had it with the private sector being bloodsuckers. I'd like to see the day when we use our homes to collect solar energy and sell it back to the energy companies to reduce our out-of-pocket costs. We don't need nuclear energy but we do need a clean source of low impact energy and solar is the way to go.
I know that this hogwash directed at milking the tax payers pockets is more interesting to you than other things that might be more important but I must mention this to you.
Have you noticed that MSN eliminated its comment section? Have you noticed that either hackers are gainning the ability to block people saying things that they don't want to hear, or the sites are allowing it?
Those are things designed to quiet the voices of people who see things differently from what the people who control the government want us to see them.
The purpose of all this is to keep us fighting over petty stuff. While we fight each other and are preocupied with the color of people's skin, their political view, their sex, their sexual preferences and so on, nothing can really be done to resolve those problems.
We are like a bunch of cats in a bag fighting each other. If those cats realized that they could use their nails to rip the bag apart, we could get free to do what has to be done to get the country working properly again.
If we were like ants, we would get together to lift those problems that appear to be huge and we would get them out of the way but we are not. If ants were like us, they would die in their ant hills because the food would never make it into the nest. The ants would be out there trying to push the food in all kinds of directions but not in the direction of the nest.
" Anytime a sanction to be met before civilized talks can resume is just another way of telling Americans that we hold some kind of authority or "morality" over an advisary".
yep ans its sad
site
Immigration broken many years. Congress did not fix; too bad. They stay. Possession is 80% of the law.
. The older generation is deathly afraid of change on anything.
If the industry's bust then, as usual, taxpayer will wind up with the bills and likely for waste disposal / storage... whatever?!?!?
Nuclear energy is a lot of things, but renewable is not one of them.The only real reason for nuclear reactors is to process nuclear material to be used in nuclear weapons. With our vast reduction of nuclear weapons production the nuclear energy industry is left holding the waste and the bills.
I agree with you too, NK has the right to live in peace too...
Diane in post #20. Thank you for noticing the Fox News link. I could of posted dozens of other links. Chose the Fox News link because if they are reporting it, it is kind of like hitting you with a baseball bat in the head and you still do not believe that it has anything to do with man (or in your case ((I think)) women) changing the climate.
Here, take your choice of links
Records changed by 10 to 15 degrees in not normal. 1 or 2 degrees is more normal.
Smoke was bad all day. I mean really bad. Have never seen it this bad.
Sorry about going off of Subject.
Legend: Same conditions here in North Idaho. Much smoke from surrounding fires. Record number of days w/o measurable precip. 90's temperatures persist into September (haven't seen that in my 40 years in this area). Downright frightening, as I live on wooded acreage!
@ #19
This never happened. By all your previous postings, Fox is all fake news all the time.
Off subject: Fires in the west are at record conditions. San Francisco a couple of days ago hit record 105 and San Jose hit record 115. These are way above previous records. Denver yesterday hit a record 97. Smoke in Colorado this morning is the worse I have ever seen it in 60+ years. Thick. News has warnings for sensitive groups to stay indoors.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/09/03/fires-rage-through-west-los-angeles...
Finnish law currently requires transgender people to be sterilized.... blah this is despicable - but there are so many other places more so. What benefit does this really have to Finnish society besides humiliating the innocent?
It does not make anyone more of a man to go along with this rubbishsick twisted law punishing the less fortnate.
Perhaps war mongers and war profiteers might reconsider if this was something they had to consider.
To me it is simple - the rights to mine the minerals
"Is it time to cut and run?"
Hell no! We're just warming up! Giving up now would threaten to reverse decades of bipartisan effort to keep the empire on a permanent war footing, as soulless oligarchs get mind-boggling rich fouling the planet with ever-escalating war machinery and the smothering stench of spilt blood and burnt oil.
And to all you phony Christianists, godspeed: Cling to your guns and bibles; wrap yourselves in the flag; stick your scared little pin-heads in the Fux News sand and don't worry about outside reality -- GODah (and his orange buffoon) will make America white again!
"America First ...MF-ers!"
The Romans, now they were good imperialists. So too we're the British for a time. We Americans-not so much. We are like the half pit bull, half collie dog. We tear off the victims leg then run to get help. This worked after WW2 with Germany and Japan when our intentions were altruistic. It hasn't worked since then because our intentions are not. Listen to Paul Simon's anthem American Tune.
Winning anything seems like something that happens suddenly.
Losing seems like what happens when you slash PPACA advertising by 90%.
Lotteries are precisely accurate. What about elections?
In a largely unregulated Capitalistic/Fascist society, money is power, and the military industrial spy complex has that power. Endless war massively enriches a few like the Dick Cheneys at the expense and death of the many.
The Declaration of Independence instructs us on what we need to do: " Governments are instituted among men and women, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomed destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to abolish it."
Off topic, but I need to say this. Diane's later comment in yesterday's blog precisely proved my point about citizens not knowing the difference between right and wrong, good and evil. In her post she attacks a group of citizens who are standing up against the obvious evil of fascism/racism.
There is no subjectivity or grey area about good and evil here..anti fascist citizens standing up to those who openly profess to be racsist and fascist is a patriotic duty we all need to participate in. I'm sure many Germans from the 1930's wished that they had pushed back like this too. The extreme brainwashing by right-wing media of citizens like Diane has lead us down the hellish path we're currently on in this country...she's just an average example of those who got Trump elected.
Trump's justification for US troops in Afganistan is that if we leave, it will create a vacuum which will be filled by ISIS. Seems to me that's a perfect opportunity for wiping out ISIS. They're all in one spot so a couple of bombs will do the trick.
Marty
George got us in and there is no way out without chaos spreading. Get used to paying for a money-pit war.
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What is it we were expecting? This country, the USA, has a long history of getting into everybody's face, grabbing their land and resources, and advancing our agenda. It's only gotten worse since the 1950's. This is not a democracy. As has been pointed out here, countless times, it's a republic, headed by some of the most ruthless bastards ever to walk the earth. Money talks, and more here than anywhere else. A great majority of Americans have wanted us out of the Middle East for almost as long as we've been terrorizing that region, but it's a pointless sentiment as long as we, collectively, consent to being governed by a class of professional politicians totally in thrall to the "moneyed elite". There are two political parties in this country each promoting the same agenda. The rhetoric varies, but at the bottom line the result is and will remain identical: "we are the "essential nation" and will have our way with you. Period." It's time for things to change. If we don't affect that change we will be responsible for the destruction of the planet and every life form on it.