Published: January 14th, 2013 at 12:50 pm ET
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Title: Repairs at Four Nuclear Reactors Are So Expensive That They Should Not Be Restarted
Source: Fairewinds Energy Education
Date: January 13, 2013
At ~12:00 in
Nuclear Expert Arnie Gundersen, Fairewinds Energy Education: Duke is seriously considering pulling the plug on the [Crystal River nuclear] plant […]
Last week we had a financial analyst at UBS suggest that Vermont Yankee didn’t make economic sense.
This week, we’ve got a financial analyst at another firm called Fitch and he says that the Crystal River plant will likely be closed because Duke can’t make economic sense out of it.
So the dominoes are starting to fall.
We’ve have Kewaunee, which is shutting down in the Midwest because of financial reasons. And now we’ve got UBS analysts and Fitch analysts also claiming it makes no economic sense to keep other nuclear plants running.
Full program here
Published: January 14th, 2013 at 12:50 pm ET
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sending...
Just lost two neighbors, both healthy and active. One 55, one 35. Complained of stomach pain, one died on the spot, the other went to bed and never got up.
Dominoes starting to fall? You bet.
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Are you near a nuclear power plant, Time? Not that one has to live near a NPP to be a victim of the escalating disease and premature death rate. I wonder when the masses are going to figure out that this is not natural and that we are being poisoned in a myriad of ways!
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Not too far from a pair that have been shut down for some time. Who will ever really know?
And that's the plan.
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Hello TimeIsShort, now you have me wondering what geographic area you're located in. Is there spent fuel stored at the shut down reactors nearby?
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Yes, but it also makes no economic sense to decommission these aging NPPs. Big Rock NPP in Charlevoix, Michigan, was decommissioned in the late 1990's. Guess where the spent fuel is today? In above fround dry cask storage, on the shores of Lake Michigan where the plant stood. The dry casks were placed right out in the open, without so much as a pole barn over them. Protected only by a small guard office and a couple of rent-a-cops. Take a look on Google Earth. Who is going to pay the costs for decommissioning over 100 US nuke plants? Who is going to pay for spent fuel storage? Bet it's going to be us, either with our taxes, or with higher utility bills.
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There never will be decommissioning. Everything will be left where it is onsite. There never was a plan to decommission any commercial size reactor.
In situ forever.
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Sorry, Time. But Big Rock was a commercial nuke owned by Consumers Power Company. Big Rock NPP was decommissioned, with everything hauled away except for 8 dry cask storage containers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Rock_Point
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I stand corrected:
2003
“Spotlight Shined on Secretive Radioactive Reactor Shipment.” NIRS article written November 18, 2003, published in the Nukewatch “Pathfinder” newsletter of December, 2003.
http://www.nirs.org/radwaste/hlwtransport/nukewatch122003.htm
NIRS and environmental coalition press release Concerns Raised on Radioactive Nuclear Reactor Shipped through Southeast for Burial in South Carolina, October 28, 2003.
http://www.nirs.org/press/10-28-2003/1
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Highly-Radioactive Nuclear Reactor Moving from Michigan Through Several States an Route to South Carolina Dump, News from NIRS, October 7, 2003.
"Only three irradiated commercial nuclear power reactor pressure vessels have been shipped for burial previously in the United States, all during the 1990's: Portland Gas and Electric's Trojan nuclear reactor vessel in oregon, shipped up the Columbia River by barge for burial in Richland, Washington; and the Maine Yankee and Yankee Rowe (Massachusetts) nuclear power plant reactor vessels, shipped by road and rail to the Barnwell, South Carolina atomic waste dump. A fourth, long-delayed California reactor vessel shipment shows how irradiated reactor vessels are political hot potatoes: due to local resistance and deteriorated railroad tracks near the San Onofre nuclear power plant in southern California, the nuclear utility decided to ship the reactor vessel by boat through the Panama Canal to get it to the Barnwell, South Carolina dumpsite. But Panama rejected the proposal. The utility then tried to get permission to ship it past the tip of South America, but Chile objected. The current proposal is to ship the shutdown nuclear power plant reactor vessel all the way around the world, across the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, to the Port of Charleston, South Carolina. But resistance is brewing there as well to reject the shipment."
http://www.nirs.org/press/10-07-2003/1
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May not be many more. Certainly not hundreds.
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Per Wikipedia:
(Big Rock Point)Decommissioning costs totaled $390,000,000. (in 2003 dollars)
x100=$39,000,000,000. 39 trillion dollars. That's the ballpark figure, before inflation.
For reference.
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more lovely cost info for you.. "virtually all U.S. spent fuel pools have been “re-racked” to hold spent fuel assemblies at densities that approach those in reactor cores. In order to prevent the spent fuel from going critical, the spent fuel assemblies are placed in metal boxes whose walls contain neutron-absorbing boron." http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/nuclear_power_risk/safety/safer-storage-of-spent-fuel.html
The cost of on-site dry-cask storage for an additional 35,000 tons of older spent fuel is estimated at $3.5–7 billion dollars http://allthingsnuclear.org/dry-cask-storage-vs-spent-fuel-pools/
if you want to be really pissed, read this http://www.princeton.edu/sgs/publications/sgs/pdf/11%202-3%20Author%20Rev%20of%20NRC%20p213-223.pdf
add this
Because it did not take custody of the spent fuel starting in 1998, DOE reports that as of September 2011, 76 lawsuits have been filed against it by utilities to recover claimed damages resulting from the delay. These lawsuits have resulted in a cost to taxpayers of about $1.6 billion from the U.S. Treasury’s judgment fund. DOE estimates that future liabilities will total about an additional $19.1 billion through 2020 and that they may cost about $500 million each year after that.[Footnote 6]
http://www.gao.gov/assets/650/648320.txt
Dig through this one.. will raise your blood pressure..
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your tax dollars at work, supporting corruption and greed at your expense.
maybe it's time to extract some revenge for your hard earned money.
the nuke mongrels are stealing you blind as well as killing us all.
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uh … wouldn't that be $39 billion and not trillion … ? … not that a good ol' reactor meltdown in a sensible nuclear spot like Croton-on-Hudson might not reach that high in real damages … damages that were always under-estimated by the vile, corrupt nucleocrats who are trying to kill you right now with their safe emissions and not-dangerous radioactive releases …
more good things brought to life by GE and friends …
peace
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Wikipedia listed $390,000,000 – $390 million dollars – as the cost of decommissioning. Add two zeros for an additional 100 NPP's, and you've got $39 billion dollars.
My bad. Bad day with all the cancer stories.
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Trojan, how appropriate for a nuclear containment vessel. And where have all the attackers gone that once waited in the Trojan's belly? Have they gone off on their unscrupulous mission to destroy?
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Are you referring to nuclear scrap metal working its' way into the public metal recycling market?
Our government would never let that happen.
Or the rods that are now DU munitions, blowing in the wind across the ME/Africa?
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Time, how you doing? I can't tell for sure if you were being sarcastic, I am going with that for now.
"Our government would never let that happen."
They have spent at least the last 15 years figuring out how to convince us to swallow that nasty pill. I think someone on this forum posted about this just this week. I googled "uranium forklift" and quickly found this report from 1997.
Title: BENEFICIAL USES OF DEPLETED URANIUM
Author: Colette Brown
Link: http://web.ead.anl.gov/uranium/pdf/Dubu97KE.pdf
As far as my comment above:
"And where have all the attackers gone that once waited in the Trojan's belly? Have they gone off on their unscrupulous mission to destroy?"
I was referring to every radioactive particle that ever came in contact of that vessel. Sure, some have decayed and gone away but the others have new homes. They will be sitting there waiting, waiting for us to forget so they can hatch out of where ever we think we can imprison them and kill life.
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Here is a sarcastic title.
Re: Depleted Uranium is the Pride of Civilisation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSNB7GSthj0
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I hear you Phil but is it better to pay with our money or with the lives of countless human, animal and plant lives.
Who would you rather have pay? Many of the people who pushed for and originally allowed these hazards to be built. Is it time to hold a sue-ance? (borrowed that from South Park)
I am not arguing with you about the motivation, money. You are correct, no one in their right mind would choose to loose money because some cooks don't think what you are doing is safe enough. I agree, it makes no economic sense.
So how do we motivate them? How about anyone who wants to keep the NPP's up and running, form volunteer line to the right and your ship to FUKU will be boarding shortly. Investors, employees and gov't/private oversight people are all welcome.
Why employees? They were just doing their job, like Nazi guards at a death camp, just doing what they were told to do. That is no excuse. You can find other work, honest work.
Reading this and currently work in the nuclear field? Look at the pictures of people, animals and plants that are finding their way out of the FUKU hush campaign. Look at your kids, your neighbors kids. Pray, meditate or sit quietly and waste a few minutes thinking about the effects of your actions.
You won't be out of a job tomorrow even if they shut them down, there will be decades of cleanup if not a century or two.
Or keep helping the killing machines build potency for the next accident. Sooner or later, cost is…
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Should have been kooks not cooks, not that we ENEer's can't make some tasty dishes.
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As far as I know dry casks are the safest way to go so far!
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http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CDYQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.new.ans.org%2Fpubs%2Fmagazines%2Fdownload%2Fa_536&ei=86T0ULnuPOXt2QW2koDAAw&usg=AFQjCNF7rZujEXHyNiy_eRc1O9DMTxoGaA
Read the historical marker text regarding cobalt-60 and cancer!!!
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It says:
"…the reactor produced cobalt-60 that was used to treat an
estimated 400,000 cancer patients."
I wonder how many of those patients got cancer again from being treated with cobalt-60?
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It will be us, but if you want it done, there aint no other reasonable way.
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The Google Earth coordinates for the dry cask storage area left after the decommissioning of the Big Rock Plant are 45*21'17' N. 85*11'44' W. my iPad keyboard lacks the degree symbol, so I had to use the asterisk (*). If you wish to copy and paste the coordinates, remember to replace the * with the degree symbol.
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Decommission ALL nukes. Peace.
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That's how it's going to happen as the plants become older and require high price repairs and become uneconomical they will be closed and abandoned with no decommissioning and huge radioactive waste to be dealt with for the next 100000 years and no liability.
Take the money and run,
it does not matter how far you run,
you can't run from the mess you have created,
If it don't affect you directly one way or another,
It will effect future generations,
Have a heart and see the light.
Just say no to nuclear power.
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As Arnie said, the Crystal River plant in Florida
—> has been shut down since 2009, not generating any power, yet still paying staff, security, engineers … probably spent upwards of $1 billion already
—> meanwhile Floridans have been paying exorbinant rates for a plant that doesn't run
—> they're soaking ratepayers in Florida in attempt to keep this idle plant from going belly up
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Oh ya, I forgot to say earlier,
Take one down, pass it around, 200 some odd nuclear power plants on the wall.
200-1 some odd power plants on the wall, 200-1 some odd power plants. . .
Always great to hear when:
dunt dunt dunt, Another one bites the dust! Hey the're gonna get you too, Another one bites the dust!
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Yep, time to move on to safe technologies for electricity, and down the line, replace electricity itself. Main importance is for scientists and their employers to make the world safer and better.
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"down the line, replace electricity itself"
Now, you make me curious. Could you comment on that a bit?
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Immediate access to dark matter, whenever needed.
Unlimited energy, completely surrounding us.
Will the human race be around long enough to develop these technologies?
No.
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Planet earth is in high speed motion 24/7 and will be, until eternity.
This is where the energy arises from that powers the numerous free energy machines that have been demonstrated. AS early as 1871 the free energy table saw of Henry Paine had proven the truth of free energy.
Why was bourse with held and free energy blocked? Why has the genocide technology of nuclear power been boursed into existence?
Do we need to consider any further than who it is that has the authority to issue the bourse?
Why is bourse power not held in common? Can we appreciate how powerful a tool is the issue of bourse?
How many millions or possibly billions of God's babies must suffer and die before we act to end this wrong?
Can labor not act and take control of the bourse so that we may remove this threat from our world? Is it not certain that we can bourse in clean, safe power sources?
Can we not count on you to act and strike them out labor and end this destruction of us all?
Will you not act labor and take the power to issue the bourse into your own hands?
God Bless you all
Free Energy Here and Now and then: Velocity power sources
Read here for free:
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/175654
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So now the taxpayers get stuck with the bill when the houses of ions come tumbling down like dominoes.
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Sounds like the same old story.
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