Ahnuld, Ken Lay, George Bush, **** Cheney and Gray Davis

[The Mad Monk]

If we had more geologists, we'd have more nuke plants.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Oerdin
We need more not less neclear power! No green house gases, reliable, clean, extremely efficient. The list goes on and on. We should build a half dozen more nuclear plants in the state.

Huge capital costs per MW, and no good place to site them.

[Berzerker]

Huge capital costs per MW, and no good place to site them.

Is that over the life of the plant or start up? I know nuke plants are expensive to build. I'd have to see how Palo Verde out in Arizona is doing, I worked on it back in the early 80's when it was under construction.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Initial capital costs, and then incremental costs per kWh are pretty high if you amortize in fueling and waste disposal.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Huge capital costs per MW, and no good place to site them.

Huge capital costs yes, but, that's the cost for clean energy and not paying Abdul to send suicide bombers our way. Plus there are plenty of usable sites if some politician would grabe his nutsack and sound off. I can think of 6 big river in the state right off the top of my head which are in remote areas and could supply the cooling water plus the central coast and the extram north coast are very lightly populated. Build nuke plants there and watch our oil imports crash.

[Dis]

so is it possible there is some huge right-wing conspiracy to **** California? Seems a bit-far fetched... yet it is possible.

Our state got a little bit screwed by high energy prices in the summer of 2000. But the PUC did not pass on most of those costs to the consumer. They told Sierra Pacific to suck it up.

[Dis]

nuke plants do need a good sized river for cooling. Just look at what Spiffor said about nuke plants in France. Some had to shut down to prevent heating the water up too high.

And that is the problem you'd have in California. River water would get too warm. The environmentalists would not allow it. And you have a serious lack of big rivers in California...

[Berzerker]

Palo Verde in AZ has no river

[Verto]

Nuclear plants are great. If I recall correctly, the chance of meltdown is slim, really on 10-30% every time the city goes into disorder, but even if it does the effects aren't that severe.

oops! Wrong forum!

[Dis]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Palo Verde in AZ has no river

now I'm intrigued. I may have to do a little research on that plant. Maybe they just have one gigantic cooling tower. But even then you need to replace water losses...

[Dis]

just found this: they use treated sewage as cooling water.

Construction began in 1976. There are three units, the last of which was completed in 1988. The total cost to build the plant was $5.9 billion.
The Palo Verde plant is the largest nuclear energy generating facility in the United States. It is located about 50 miles west of Phoenix in Tonopah, Arizona. The facility is on about 4,000 acres. Approximately 2,500 people are employed there.
In 2000 the Palo Verde nuclear plant generated 30.4 million megawatts of power.
About 4 million people in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas receive power generated by the Palo Verde plant.
Palo Verde is the only nuclear energy facility in the world that uses treated sewage effluence for cooling water.
Palo Verde does not use fossil fuels to generate electricity. It is a zero-emissions facility.
The reactors at Palo Verde are in an airtight, reinforced concrete structure designed to withstand the force of a jet airplane.