If coal plants are too polluting and wind farms too untested, should Kansas go more nuclear? Among the arguments for expanding the Wolf Creek nuclear power plant near Burlington: No greenhouse gas emissions. No likely opposition from Coffey County, home to about half of Wolf Creek’s nearly 1,000 employees. “It has provided a stable work environment and promoted economic development,” Jim Hills, a Burlington auto parts store owner, told the Topeka Capital-Journal. A bigger Wolf Creek, though, would require a huge investment. Then there’s the unsettled issue of where to put such plants’ high-level radioactive waste.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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26 Comments
Where’s the Kansas energy plan?
Sebelius and The Eagle want to kill newer, cleaner coal plants that could be online in a few years, but does the Eagle have a clue how long it would take to build a new nuclear plant if we wanted to start tomorrow? 30 years ago when new nuclear plants were being built in the U.S., construction took 8-10 years. We’d be lucky to get a new nuclear power plant online in 10 years now. What do we do if we run out of electricity in the mean time?
K-State’s nuclear engineering program had to merge with mechanical engineering in recent years just to survive. With most old nuclear engineers retiring — since there have been no new plants in the U.S. in over 30 years — where will we get the nuclear engineers to build a bigger Wolf Creek?
The Nuclear Engineering Department at K-State had a 50th Anniversary dinner in April of this year in Manhattan. One engineer trying to recruit nuclear engineers for a project was having a tough time finding any, even for some rather lucrative wages. Some of us with nuclear engineering degrees had to find other jobs when the nuclear engineering field was nearly killed by politics 30 years ago. You’re clueless if you think you can just start building a new bigger Wolf Creek tomorrow, even if you could raise the money for the project.
OK, the new coal plants don’t belch out black smoke like the unbiased photos used by the eagle a few weeks ago.
I am actually thinking there are people who want us to go back into the 1800’s in the way of creation and use of electrical power as well as transportation. Maybe we should all go the way of some of the Mennonites (no insult intended) and start using horse drawn buggies. That should help us ecologically and economically, shouldn’t it?
Think about it… what county in the world has advanced as economically, industrially, culturally, and educationally in as short of time as that of the USA? Why do you think people want to sneak illegally into this country? How many people from this country want to go live in those other much more established countries south or us or even across either ocean?
Why do some of you people want to actually believe the stories (several dozen of these have been proven false) put forth by AL GORE as gospel truth? What happened to the 3 dozen or so Cat 3-5 hurricanes we were supposed to experience the last couple years? How about the 9-10 we were supposed to have this year? They were to hit us because of the terrible man made global warming conditions us very nasty uncaring human beings (mostly those of us in the USA, primarily Republicans, from what I can read in many stories) have created.
What happened to that huge sheet of ice that was supposed to cover the northern hemisphere that the Global Warming folks were calling for while they were Global Cooling folks? You know, the one like covered us many 1000’s of years ago.
I can sure remember much hotter summers in Kansas than we had the past few year. And remember, our weather records only go back around a 100yrs or so.
Now if we can experience 100yr or 200yr floods, why can’t we have 100yr or 200yr warmth, mildness, or coolness in our temperatures? We sure suffered quite a bit of draught conditions in the dustbowl years, less than 100yrs ago.
What was the quality/quantity of record keeping back then or even earlier compared to today? And how accurate is our recording of these temperatures today? Of course having an official thermometer on top of a black tar roof and/or next to an air conditioning unit (like many are) wouldn’t affect any readings would it?
If we are to blame for Global Warming, then how did we manage to affect the current warming of Venus and Mars as well as Pluto? Are we driving cars there? Are we running coal plants there? Are we flying airplanes through the skies of those planets?
Maybe people should open their eyes and stop blaming “US” for it and look to the nature of the Earth and the Sun for the reasons behind this.
If Wolf Creek can be expanded, build it! We need more nuclear plants. The country should have a goal of at least 100 new plants in the next 20 years.
France is about 80 percent powered by nuclear power plants. They appear to be more green than most countries, looks like a good proposal for Kansas as well.
It would be helpful if The Eagle would provide more information on environmental impact of modern nuclear power plants. Expansion of Wolf Creek near Burlington would seem to be an answer but we need more information. How are they doing it in China and European countries?
And how much new water from the underground aquifers do they use?
The cheapest and easiest form of energy creation is conservation.
As long as all of the details are attended to I am likely to support Wolf Creek expansion. As a scientist who is also reasonably familiar with nuclear science I find it the best of the ‘traditional’ energy sources.
That said, I also agree with my ‘enviro’ friends that we need conservation, efficiencies, wind, solar …
Ben ( or anyone )
Question- If we put all of the spent nuke fuel in the country into one big cube, how big would it be?
I ask this question because I have no idea how big of a problem the storage of spent fuel really is. To listen to environmentalists and the press it seems to be a huge problem. I suspect not, but have no way of judging for myself without some idea of how much spent fuel there really is.
Some interesting statistics and information on Nuclear power.
“The World Health Organization (WHO) says 3 million people are killed worldwide by outdoor air pollution annually from vehicles and industrial emissions, and 1.6 million indoors through using solid fuel.”[14] In the U.S. alone, fossil fuel waste kills 20,000 people each year.[46] A coal power plant releases 100 times as much radiation as a nuclear power plant of the same wattage.[47
[14] http://homepage.mac.com/herinst/sbeder/japan.html
[46] http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05180/529969.stm
[47] http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html
Source: Nuclear power
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power
Heckler - I don’t really know. The high-level waste is not high-volume; just ‘high-heat’. However, that also includes at this time decommisssioned nuke warheads. I favor recycling those by back-mixing with depleted uranium to make fuel.
Kansas - if memory serves me a coal plant emits more RADIOACTIVITY than a nuclear plant.
Get cracking on more nuke plants.
The US in general needs 100 new nuclear power plants, and 50 of the older ones need to be shut down. Modern technology is much safer, the waste is less harmful, and they have developed ways to store the waste safely. The huge facility just outside of Vegas will be open in 10 years.
“Where’s the Kansas energy plan?”
Hey Meadowlark!
Havent you heard? It’s spelled f-a-r-m-b-u-r-e-a-u. Or the alternate spelling? c-o-r-n-g-r-o-w-e-r-s. And the sub plan? i-r-r-i-g-a-t-i-o-n.
We’re all gonna get rich on ethanol, dontchya know? It’s gonna heat our homes, power our cars, use our water, burn off the top soil… AND we are ALL gonna get rich along the way.
Dont believe me? Look at parkinson’s and harkin’s KEC.
Nice that joe harkins could rat f**ck the water supply during the time he was APPOINTED acting head of the Kansas Water Authority.
Does anyone remember he was never confirmed in that postion? I think sebelius took an “unconfirmed nominee” page out of the bushco playbook on that one.
And his rat f**king of the state’s water policy set the stage for big ethanol and big irrigation.
I tried to tell ya almost five years ago…
How’s that working for Kansas?
…and btw, some of us would be less anxious about more nukes if BUSHCO hadnt rat f**ked the regulatory agencies across the board.
Well regulated, tightly monitored nuke plants? Maybe.
But the usual pattern of UNregulated and UNsupervised corporations is MORE likely today than it was 20 years ago.
So? Tighten the regs, fund the regulators and enforcers, and MAYBE we could support nukes.
And… dont forget, KANSAS doesnt need the freakin’ power.. without ETHNANOL.. according to Sunflower and Steve Miller.
So.. you gonna expand that nuke in easter Kansas to sell the power out of state? With no good transmission lines to the west?
hehehehehhehe. mmmmmm kay……
“Of course having an official thermometer on top of a black tar roof and/or next to an air conditioning unit (like many are) wouldn’t affect any readings would it? ”
Posted by: yitsme | October 31, 2007 at 05:59 AM
Not so far, according to AGW skeptics Watts and McIntyre.http://bigcitylib.blogspot.com/2007/09/deniers-rediscover-hockey-stick.html
“To be honest, this is starting to look like a great validation of GISTEMP.”
yitsme: “how did we manage to affect the current warming of Venus and Mars as well as Pluto?”
http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php?a=2
“What the science says…
There are three fundamental flaws in the ‘other planets are warming’ argument:
1. Not all planets are warming - some are cooling2. The sun has shown no long term trend since 19503. There are explanations for why other planets are warming”
yitsme: “Maybe people should open their eyes and stop blaming “US” for it and look to the nature of the Earth and the Sun for the reasons behind this.”
Climate scientists have had their eyes open for a long time — humans, not “nature” have caused most of the recent warming.
Readers might find this an interesting, and digestible, look at nuclear power from the inside. http://RadDecision.blogspot.com
We can put the nuclear waste in the communities where the coal plants would have gone. They don’t mind the pollution and it’ll provide jobs.
heeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Doug!
We can put the nuclear waste in the communities where the coal plants would have gone. They don’t mind the pollution and it’ll provide jobs.
Posted by: Doug | October 31, 2007 at 12:17 PM
Damn, I wish I had that “rolling on the floor” icon!
And btw, Pantex really ISNT that far away from Holcomb….
We are not causing the warming, but we are making it happen faster. That’s about all I can conclude looking at the arguments from both sides.
The worse thing about the ice caps meling isn’t the higher oceans, or severe weather, it’s the fact that they reflect so much heat back into outter space that will now be trapped, and that will make the heating process even worse.
Maybe we could just start painting all the desserts white? Make everyone get white roofs? Make all the roads and concrete pure white? Die the great lakes white?
I’m sure no scientist!
It won’t be long and you boys will be joining me back in the caves! Not because of GW, but because of the ignorance of the GW thumpers!!!!!
“We are not causing the warming, but we are making it happen faster. That’s about all I can conclude looking at the arguments from both sides.”
Posted by: SemperFi71
Try looking again, more closely. Science shows that humans are causing most of the recent warming, and nature is making it happen faster, via positive feedbacks.
The non-science side only offers spin and confusions.
Also it’s wisest to treat the source of the problems, not the symptoms, like the loss of Arctic sea ice. Reducing human-added greenhouse gases would be much more effective than white paint.
I’ve posted before that the climate models are flawed.
“And I’ve posted that the huge UNCERTAINTY re future climate is the main problem.
If we knew EXACTLY how much it’d warm, how much the sea level would rise, we could plan for it.”
Posted by: cosmos | July 08, 2007 at 02:44 PM
That’s right Kansas, the climate models UNDERESTIMATE the future warming, because they do not include all of the unknown natural positive feedbacks.
Like the Arctic sea ice melting much sooner than earlier projected
I already suggested that upthread.
“and nature is making it happen faster, via positive feedbacks.”
I’m sure no scientist!
Posted by: SemperFi71 | October 31, 2007 at 03:09 PM
Well, I AM a scientist. And anthropogenic climate change is REAL and SERIOUS. It has been my professional opinion for several years now that the models and Gore’s movie are too CONSERVATIVE. They underestimate both the ice-albedo, methane, and the CO2 positive feedback loops.
Kansas “values”(sic),
Why don’t you provide a link to my old post???
Posted by: cosmos | July 08, 2007 at 02:44 PM
http://blogs.kansas.com/weblog/2007/07/open-thread-5.html#comment-75261378