(06-06-2022, 09:18 AM)TrivialPursuit Wrote:

(06-06-2022, 01:46 AM)NewJagsCity Wrote: They need to be in the mix, that's for certain. Put them in a remote enough location, say, in the middle of Nevada or New Mexico somewhere, and then just live with the large transmission losses that are going to occur to get the power to the immediate grids.  The energy will still be cheaper than any coal/oil/nat gas strategy out there, and MUCH more reliable than solar/wind.  States that are too urbanized to feel comfortable with nukes can import power from adjoining power companies/conglomerates that are more rural.  It's sad that this is even on the table as a 'strategy' tho. When I worked for the electric utility here in Jax, a blackout as a load balancing strategy was the worst thing that could possibly happen; dispatchers got demoted as a result of not being able to prevent a blackout

The problem is the vast majority of people do not understand nuclear power.

It's just steam people. Yes, there are rods that superheat the water to create steam - it's not fission going on in the freaking plant... it's just radioactive pellets in tubes that get super hot and makes water boil.

Very simple, very easy - and no melt downs will ever happen again.

You've got some of the terms of art wrong but it is correct to say that nuclear power is safe.  Both Chernobyl and Fukushima were older designs that allowed some of the water touching the fuel rods to be at atmospheric pressure.  Massive amounts of radiation were released, people died, and permanent exclusion zones were created after those incident.  Meanwhile, here, Three Mile Island was a pressurized water system.  When the plant had its emergency shut down, only hydrogen was released, the radiation was minimal, no one died, and no permanent exclusion zone was needed.  Any new reactor built would be even safer than three mile island.

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