Shut It Down — Mayor Calls to Decommission Tokaimura Reactor

Bob:

So many people are in agreement with you that nuclear power seems to be dieing a very slow death, and you are probably right. I subscribe to many industry and public utility trade magazines and almost every issue they talk about some nuclear plant shutting down for re-licensing or some construction plans being cancelled.

I once thought the traveling wave reactor was the ticket and so did Bill Gates. However I now believe it will never see the light of day. I then became interested in the high temperature gas cooled reactor and the only commercial plant we ever built in Colorado was shut down 20 years ago so that is probably not going to happened. Then everyone started talking about the liquid metal and molten salt reactors and even the Google execs spent some time and money promoting those reactors. They are also probably never going to be build.

I think were we went wrong was about 30 years ago when we completed the construction of 100+ Gen III PWR and BWR reactors. We STOPPED doing research and development on the NEXT generation and failed to look towards the future. Now here we are 30 years later trying to sell slightly modified Gen III+ reactors whose designed are 30 years old. Is it any wonder utility executives aren’t buying that sales pitch.

Had we paid attention to our energy needs back then we might NOW have safer and far more efficient reactors ready to be built. A few problems seem to exist for the industry but will only mention 4.

1. Our National Labs are still working on reactor designs that were proposed 10 years ago.
2. We are at least 10 years away from having even a prototype of a new design approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
3. No one wants one in their backyard, and
4. Current designs are too expensive to build.

By the time the next generation of reactors are ready to be built, solar panels will probably be 40% efficient. We will also see hundreds of micro water/river turbines in place. Most homes will be built with solar PV built in during construction. We will most likely have more wind turbines in the the great plains, Great Lakes and East and West coasts. We will have a more fuel efficient automotive and trucking fleet running on electricity and maybe natural gas. And I haven’t even talked about geothermal or wave power. So many possibilities.

In short what I guess I am saying is that our mandated regulatory structure is so cumbersome and slow that some nuclear plant designed today will be outdated before the first load of concrete is ever poured.

Have a great day
Tom G.