South Texas Nuclear Power Plant Tour

[jbird710]

Awesome breakfast, ride, tour, lunch, and ride back.

Thanks Joe for arranging this!

[Tourmeister]

So... anyone gonna post a report with pics? They did let you take pics... right!?

[jfink]

I started a ride report here: http://www.twtex.com/forums/showthread.php?t=75439. Some of you can post up some before ("oh, I forgot my wallet") and after ("I have to get home to play softball") stories to add to the color! Rob and Jay I know you guys took some more photos as well.

[jbird710]

Most of my pictures didn't come out that good either. As a photographer, I make a great network engineer.

[jfink]

Originally Posted by jbird710

Most of my pictures didn't come out that good either. As a photographer, I make a great network engineer.

Yeah, well I'm retired from everything ... including picture taking

What does the future hold for nuclear power? Well, with natural gas at near record low prices and large surplus from shale gas, nuclear is getting diminished attention!

RB

Article from WSJ:

Cheap Natural Gas Unplugs U.S. Nuclear-Power Revival

The U.S. nuclear industry seemed to be staging a comeback several years ago, with 15 power companies proposing as many as 29 new reactors. Today, only two projects are moving off the drawing board.

What killed the revival wasn't last year's nuclear accident in Japan, nor was it a soft economy that dented demand for electricity. Rather, a shale-gas boom flooded the U.S. market with cheap natural gas, offering utilities a cheaper, less risky alternative to nuclear technology.

Duke Energy Corp., taking advantage of cheap and plentiful natural gas, is building a large gas-fired power plant, above, in Rockingham County, N.C.

"It's killed off new coal and now it's killing off new nuclear," says David Crane, chief executive of NRG Energy Inc.,

[jbird710]

One of the things Sheila emphasized was how much cleaner nuclear was over coal (even "clean" coal). I didn't hear her compare to natural gas and thought about asking. However, after she went to all of the trouble to get us in on the walking tour, I didn't want to rock the boat.

[lddave]

The folks I work for killed the building of two new nukes after spending millions in planning . Reason were the problems in Japan caused one of our partners to pull out . And the current low price of natural gas . But the reason coal, lignite and nukes came online in the 70's and early 80's was because the sky rocketing price of natural gas . We have gas, lignite, coal , nuke , fuel oil , solar , and wind powered plants . I prefer to work in gas fired plants .


Dave

[jfink]

Personally, having worked in the energy business for most my life, in particular Natural Gas, I have to say there is economical reasons for generating strategies.

Nukes have a very high entry cost, but are very inexpensive per kilowatt hour compared to any alternative, given the longevity and the reduced cost of fuel. However, there is the issue of waste disposal that can't be addressed until there is a viable long term storage facility. Also, a nuke must be base loaded because you really can't bring a nuke up and down on demand.

Natural gas prices are low now, but have a history fluctuation. Plants have a lower entry cost but due to swings to higher natural gas prices over the life of a natural gas plant the price per kilowatt-hour will be significantly more expensive than nukes. Natural gas plants are not as clean as nukes but are cleaner than most other alternatives. Natural gas plants also are flexible and can be shut down for short terms during periods when demand is low.

Coal fired plants are much better now with stack scrubbers and other measures to reduce pollution. But they are still not as clean as either a nuke or natural gas plant. Fuel is readily available in the US, in fact the US has been called the middle east of Coal. There is, at the most conservative estimate, a 250 year supply of coal. In the future the US will have to deal with a coal strategy for producing energy.

Other alternatives are not viable right now. We see a lot of wind generators, but given the reliability of the energy source (wind), and the location these generators must be placed for access to that energy, it will be very difficult to use this source as a long term replacement for any of the alternatives above.

Cogen has a great future, but will never provide all the need. Moving away from large central sources for electrical energy to small privately operated generating plants that will also use the steam generated for alternative needs, is a very efficient method for providing electricity requirements. However, the logistics of where the steam and electricity is needed make this complicated.

Electricity distributors (HL&P, etc.), not sellers (Reliant, etc), will be challenged to manage the very complicated supplier matrix to match supply with demand. The more alternatives, the more complications.

*** i spent to much time on this ***

[Dave.TX]

Nuclear is not viewed upon nicely by the president and the democrats in congress so they're doing what they can to eliminate it. All they appear to want is solar and wind which, even with millions (or billions) of taxpayer dollars can't sustain itself and isn't successful. Of course miles of red tape and government regulations doesn't help either.

[Hemibee]

Originally Posted by lddave

The folks I work for killed the building of two new nukes after spending millions in planning . Reason were the problems in Japan caused one of our partners to pull out . And the current low price of natural gas . But the reason coal, lignite and nukes came online in the 70's and early 80's was because the sky rocketing price of natural gas . We have gas, lignite, coal , nuke , fuel oil , solar , and wind powered plants . I prefer to work in gas fired plants .


Dave

Partially correct, natural gas prices were not sky rocketing. Jimmy Carter shutdown the new gas fired plants forcing the utilities to swap from natural gas to coal, lignite and nuke plants.

[lddave]

Originally Posted by Hemibee

Partially correct, natural gas prices were not sky rocketing. Jimmy Carter shutdown the new gas fired plants forcing the utilities to swap from natural gas to coal, lignite and nuke plants.

You are correct the Powerplant and Industrial Fuel Use Act of 1978 was passed by Congress . Which forced most new Powerplants to switch away from gas and fuel oil .


Dave