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Company Seeks First-Time Restart of Shuttered Nuclear Plant (apnews.com) 109

A company that tears down closed nuclear power plants wants to do in Michigan what has never been done in the U.S.: restore a dead one to life. From a report: Holtec Decommissioning International bought the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station last June for the stated purpose of dismantling it, weeks after previous owner Entergy shut it down. Fuel was removed from the reactor core. Federal regulators were notified of "permanent cessation of power operations." But with support from Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and leaders in the Lake Michigan community where Palisades was an economic driver for 50 years, Holtec soon kicked off a campaign to bring the plant back. The 800 megawatt facility had generated roughly 5% of the state's electricity.

"Keeping Palisades open is critical for Michigan's competitiveness and future economic development opportunities," Whitmer said in a letter to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, herself a former Michigan governor, requesting federal funding for the restart. Activists who long criticized Palisades as poorly maintained and dangerous don't want it resurrected. They note its years of mechanical problems, including what the Nuclear Regulatory Commission described as among the nation's worst cases of nuclear fuel container weakening. A degrading seal on a device controlling the atomic reaction led Entergy to close the plant nearly two weeks earlier than planned in May 2022.

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Company Seeks First-Time Restart of Shuttered Nuclear Plant

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  • No (Score:4, Insightful)

    by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Wednesday April 26, 2023 @02:14PM (#63478552) Homepage Journal

    The plant wasn't being run properly before, it also wasn't safe to operate because of degradation of materials, it already wasn't profitable to operate safely, and it's going to cost more to make it safe to operate and then still more to operate it safely.

    The plant was shut down because it wasn't cost-effective to operate it safely, and they claim they're going to somehow do it now that it's become even less cost-effective. This is obvious bullshit.

    • Re: No ; f)(; off (Score:4, Interesting)

      by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Wednesday April 26, 2023 @02:24PM (#63478586) Journal
      You constantly bitch about any solutions to solve AGW. You hate geothermal HVAC as well as electricity. You hate hydro. You hate nuclear, even though new 4th gen SMRs solve numerous issues: no meltdown; low cost of building; low cost to tear down; massive reuse of fuel ESP current âspent fuelâ(TM) ( or really nuclear waste since it is not spent ); much lower costs of electricity vs wind/solar/storage.

      In the end, national security and safety is needed to decide on this. And both say that restarting this is much better than adding more coal/nat gas.
      • You constantly bitch about any solutions to solve AGW.

        Only the shitty ones that don't work. I don't know why you love to cheerlead for those, but it makes you very boring. When is the shell script version of you coming out?

        • You constantly bitch about any solutions to solve AGW.

          Only the shitty ones that don't work

          You mean wind and solar?

          • You can't say that wind and PV don't work. Fact is, they do.
            Another fact is that they are indeterminate, and the storage needed to clean up things and handle nation security would be 10x the costs of nuclear, geothermal, hydro, etc.

            We need to look carefully at off-shore wind, keep using on-shore wind, and quit building utility level PV. Instead, focus on building PV/storage, esp residential, nursing homes/hospitals, and 1-2 story motels in various locations ( why the motels? perfect for disaster handl
            • by Kernel Kurtz ( 182424 ) on Wednesday April 26, 2023 @05:15PM (#63479070)

              China has completed more reactors in the last 15 years than the rest of the world combined. They have 150 more planned in the next couple decades, and unlike the West they are actually capable of doing it.

              This is why China, which is unfortunately a shithole dictatorship with no human rights, is going to to become the predominant superpower in the not so distant future. The West can't build big things anymore. That ended some generations ago.

              • The US is going to lose its dominance because it shit up public education so that it could produce more malleable dumbshits who will go along with corporate greed to the bitter end, and we're almost there.

                P.S. Greed is the only reason to build nuclear plants, which are very profitable for whoever does it, but not the best option in any other way

              • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

                And yet in China nuclear is only about 5% of electricity generation. Also, have a look at this map showing the location of Chinese nuclear plants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

                Notice how they are all in the west of China, mostly along the coast. That's because in the middle and east of China they don't have the water resources needed for cooling.

                China has also installed more wind capacity than the rest of the world combined for multiple years. In fact they installed so much wind power that many of the n

                • Amimojo, spreading more bullshit and lies in 2023.

                  In fact they installed so much wind power that many of the new coal plants they built got mothballed and never used.

                  In what world do you live in? Why do you always make up nice stories like that?

                  Funny also how you praise China for installing more renewables in 2022 than the rest of the world combined (which is true), but you still don't see the bigger picture, which is that they are investing in BOTH nuclear and renewables, because the combination of both is what makes them the next superpower country.

                  Notice how they are all in the west of China, mostly along the coast. That's because in the middle and east of China they don't have the water resources needed for cooling.

                  The east coast of China is also the most developed and populous region

                • Notice how they are all in the west of China, mostly along the coast. That's because in the middle and east of China they don't have the water resources needed for cooling.

                  It's more likely because that is where the people are. The longer the power lines the more expensive they get to build and maintain, and the longer the power lines the more likely it can be for something to break to interrupt the electrical supply.

                  How fortunate that the areas that are unsuitable for nuclear are ideal for wind.

                  Indeed, that is fortunate. That doesn't mean we can not or should not do both onshore wind and nuclear fission. This is not a decision between one or the other, doing both is an option.

                  It appears odd to me that people will be quite vocal about China as an examp

                  • The longer the power lines the more expensive they get to build and maintain, and the longer the power lines the more likely it can be for something to break to interrupt the electrical supply.

                    And also because integrating large amounts of HVDC transmission into the grid requires a robust AC system to accept it.

                • How fortunate that the areas that are unsuitable for nuclear are ideal for wind.

                  How fortunate they will have the inertia provided by nuclear (and some coal) to allow them to absorb the variable inverter based renewables and maintain grid stability. It's almost like they know what they are doing.

                • by jwhyche ( 6192 )

                  Away with you smelly Troll. Your FUD is no good here!

              • I studied Asian history in college. In China, social and change comes slowly, but as pressure to change builds, change can come suddenly. I have a maybe naive hope that one day the Chinese people will shrug off the CCP and embrace democracy the way theyâ(TM)ve embraced capitalism. If they can do this without baking in crony capitalism, the global situation moving into the future would look very different.
            • by jwhyche ( 6192 )

              You can't say that wind and PV don't work. Fact is, they do.

              This true. Wind and solar work, and they work well, under optimal conditions. But conditions are not always optimal to deploy them. An this it the thing that people like dinkypoo, AmiMoJo , and others like them don't take in to account. The amount of energy one of these plants puts on to the grid can vary day to day, even hour to hour. Under some conditions, these plants will not produce any power at all.

              Then they want to tout battery power as a viable means to fill in these gaps that solar and wind

              • Actually, no real development work is NEEDED, but will happen. Need to be able to tap the dried up O&G wells and turn those into producing wells.
                What kills me is that we need to start drilling the outer edges of Long's valley and Yellowstone NOW. There is likely no stopping yellowstone, but it can be kept from being the massive killer that it has been in the past. Long's valley was also a killer, but it appears that it can be stopped. It is only in recent times that it started refilling with magma. The
              • Then they want to tout battery power as a viable means to fill in these gaps that solar and wind can't fill. They don't want to recognize batteries are not up to the task. The biggest battery faculty can only power the grid for 4 hours. That is not going to cut it.

                What they don't want to recognize is that batteries paired with nuclear fission can produce a very low cost, low CO2, and highly reliable supply of electricity.

                Batteries don't care if the electricity used to charge them come from PV or fission, they charge up the same either way. There's going to be unexpected shutdowns at a nuclear power plant for some reason or another and when that happens we can use batteries to fill in the gap and safely restart the reactors. Not every shutdown of a nuclear power pla

                • by jwhyche ( 6192 )

                  This is the beauty and the elegance of the SMR design. Lets say you put six of them on site, that is a good number. When one needs maintenance then you just pull it out and slide a replacement in. The old module is then taken back to the factory to be refurbished. Down time is a few hours instead of weeks or months.

                  You might have to run over a few hippies getting there but they will learn to move.

                  You can probably tell I'm not a big fan of batteries on the grid. I think the resources that are

                  • If we are to assume batteries as a practical means to fill in the gaps for renewable energy then batteries are a practical means to fill in the gaps for large thermal power plants like coal or nuclear fission. But then if we are using heat from nuclear fission or concentrated solar then technologies like molten salt thermal energy storage would be far more practical than batteries for a fast acting energy storage solution.

                    Claims that grid scale battery storage is practical now, or in the near future, then

        • oh BS. You continue to support CHina's growing Coal, but then bitch that America is doing things like Geothermal, nuclear. You are one of the many posters here who is likely a Chinese troll.
      • by Calydor ( 739835 )

        I'm generally in favor of nuclear power at the very least as a stopgap while we get renewables spun up to handle everything.

        This, though. This one is a bad idea. Like a really bad one. It would be a far better idea to build a new, modern, properly constructed plant than try to restart this relic from the 70s after it's already been partially dismantled - ahead of schedule due to leaks, no less!

        • by gweihir ( 88907 )

          Well, I am in general not in favor of nuclear power, but lets ignore that for the moment.

          I completely agree on you assessment on this specific plan and not because I am opposed to nuclear in general. This is a type of plan that numerous nuclear operators have said cannot be done in practice. Remember how Soeder the asshole wanted to reopen a nuke in Germany recently? Completely bogus. There was a public discussion about 5 years ago im Germany about this. Some people basically wanted to conserve the nukes so

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by sfcat ( 872532 )
            Feel free to ignore everything gweihir (and drinkypoo) says. He is a known nuclear troll who spouts misinformation about nuclear on a regular basis. Don't both responding to him, Angle'o'sphere or Amimojo. None of them know anything at all about nuclear technology and will spout lies and spread misinformation relentlessly.
            • by gweihir ( 88907 )

              Well, I would say the same about nil-wit nuclear fanatics like you, but it is not needed. It is _obvious_ you have no clue how thing actually work in the real world, and just mindlessly cheer for anything nuclear.

            • by sfcat ( 872532 ) on 04-26-23 12:09 (#63478718)
              Feel free to ignore everything gweihir (and drinkypoo) says.

              You forgot to click the "post anonymously" box there, sport. I always thought that was you, but thanks for the confirmation.

              • by sfcat ( 872532 ) on 04-26-23 12:09 (#63478718)
                Feel free to ignore everything gweihir (and drinkypoo) says.

                You forgot to click the "post anonymously" box there, sport. I always thought that was you, but thanks for the confirmation.

                It is probably lots of people.

                • It is probably lots of people.

                  Well, perfect, because he is lots of people... if you count his accounts.

              • No, there are a lot of use that will tell you that you are simply a troll.
            • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

              So instead of actually pointing to any flaws in his argument, you're just going to hand-wave and demagogue?

              I think I know who I'll be ignoring in this conversation. Spoiler alert: it's you. At least they brought reasonable ideas as to why this won't work - you just spout vague nonsense that isn't backed by anything at all.

            • by TWX ( 665546 )

              But if we don't respond to gweihir, drinkypoo, Angle'o'sphere, or Amimojo, who's left to reply to? They constitute something 60% of the remaining users active on the site!

              • by jwhyche ( 6192 )

                But if we don't respond to gweihir, drinkypoo, Angle'o'sphere, or Amimojo, who's left to reply to? They constitute something 60% of the remaining users active on the site!

                If we didn't respond to the Trolls then they might actually go away. This might even attract a better class of posters to return. For awhile I stayed in email contact with some of the old posters. A great deal of them left because of posters like gweihir, drinkypoo, Angle'o'sphere, and Amimojo. It was the reason I took a almost a few years off. The constant negativity and irrationally from a few set of posters.

                We really can't have a rational discussion about a nuclear topic without those Trolls we

            • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              I'll give you a free tip. Nobody is going to give you the billions needed to build your precious nuclear power if the best argument you can come up with is "all the critics are trolls".

              • by jwhyche ( 6192 )

                I'll give you a free tip. Nobody is going to give you the billions needed to build your precious nuclear power if the best argument you can come up with is "all the critics are trolls".

                No, but they will be willing to invest in new nuclear power systems once they are out of the research stage. They will be doing this because they want to cut carbon, while at the same time not sitting in the dark.

                Now here is some free advice for you. Goto YouTube and search out Sabine Hossenfelder. Then watch her videos. That will give a you a basic understanding of modern nuclear power. Once you do that, you should have the basic understanding, that you currently lack, to research much deeper and

                • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

                  Ah yes, give us a few more billion and we will deliver the moon on a stick. Not like all the other times we didn't deliver, this one is different. Promise.

          • It would probably be more cost effective to get various models of Small Modular Reactors approved and set up groups of these at the sites of decommissioned nuke plants. Various generating infrastructure can still be conserved, and the electrical distribution hardware is already in place.
        • Not really. This company has only unloaded fuel. NOthing else has been changed. They want to update the maintence, the issues, re-load and then go.
          If this was some other company like say Xcell, I would be ...concerned, if not even opposed to it. That is not the case. Holtec has LOTS of experience with nuclear reactors. Ideally, Holtec can re-start it and then down the road, add in SMRs that burn up the stored nuclear waste that is there, finishing up the nuclear cycle.
        • I mean sure on one hand it's probably a terrible fucking idea, but on the other it's Michigan so even in the worst case scenario it's a shrugging-shoulder "eh" as far as consequences are concerned. Sometimes the tornado that goes through the trailer park does several thousand dollars in improvements.
      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        This is not a "solution". If you had some clue about how nuclear power works, you would understand that. As it is, you are just an useful idiot helping to push a lie you do not understand. Pathetic.

        • i have more than a simple clue about nuclear energy, and radiation. I have worked with radioactive products in my youth. I have known about pros/cons of Nuclear power for decades. The issue is idiots like you that do not have any background in it. If you did, you would be backing SMRs and finishing the GD nuclear fuel cycle. Instead, trolls like you scream against fast reactors, reprocessing of fuel and then gripe about long-live high radiation products that you basically caused.
          • by gweihir ( 88907 )

            Hahaha, you wish. "Working with radioactive products" does in no way make you an expert on nuclear power generation. I have followed the tech for the last 40 years (and I _have_ read the accident reports as far as publicly available) and I am a PhD level engineer. I am also able to see whether something works economically or not. You really cannot compete, except by having an outsized ego that cannot grasp how bad your actual understanding is.

            • And what engineer are you? Hair engineer? Sanitation Engineer?
              Because it is obvious that you have not a single clue about thermal power plants.
              You obviously are NOT a power or mech engineer.
            • I am a PhD level engineer [...] You really cannot compete, except by having an outsized ego

              I am not sure you see the irony in what you just wrote.

              Also, I do agree with your sig, but you didn't have to prove an example for it:

              The internet does not make people stupid. It just makes the stupid ones more obvious.

          • The nuclear industry is always over optimistic with budget (usually way over budget) and time (usually years late) to build and when maintenance gets expensive or its start to lose money as cheaper forms of power like renewables come online, they hand the problem onto the taxpayer States subsidising money losing nuclear plants [cnbc.com] when nuclear, like profitable fossil, is an established tech and should no longer require subsidy.
      • Are actually in production today? Look I'm sorry but I keep hearing about them but I don't hear about them actually being put in the production. They're supposed to be super easy to manufacture and profitable to use. I've done a bit of googling and as near as I can tell they are still capable of melting down if they're not properly maintained.

        And that was with a quite a bit of googling I found that. If that information is wrong do you have a clear reliable source that isn't a complex technical document
        • Of the 70+ Gen4 SMR projects going on right now, the first batch are scheduled to go online in 2030. Any assumptions you have about their life, longevity, or performance will have to wait.

          • Yeah that was what I was afraid of. 7 years before we even know how well they work and 20 years before we know how safe they are to run without maintenance.

            What I generally read is that you can safely run them without maintenance for about 3 days. The problem is I think it was about 10 or 15 days before Fukushima got things under control.

            Again I'm open to being proven wrong but that's not what people do. They just quote death statistics at me. I'm well aware that coal is more likely to kill me the nu
            • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              The only ones anywhere near production are the NuScale ones, and they require refuelling every 2 years. Far from zero maintenance, and in fact that is a shorter refuelling cycle than traditional reactors. The cooling pool needs constant monitoring and maintenance too.

          • by mspohr ( 589790 )

            Too expensive and too late to matter.

            • Not just that, but how much offshore wind could we have built by now with the same money? Those nuclear projects do matter, they're actively doing damage already by sucking the air out of the room metaphorically.

              • Greenpeace activists and the likes are the ones that actively did damage in the last 40 years by lobbying for less nuclear plants. They are the reason why we are in the deepest shit right now.

                Solar/wind alone brings their own batch of problems (minerals availability, dependence on fossil fuels for manufacture/installation, intermittency, grid stability, need for storage...). Anyone thinking either renewables alone, or even nuclear alone for what it matters, is just a fool.

                • Greenpeace: nukes are too expensive! Also Greenpeace: tie up nuclear projects in court for years, making nukes more expensive. Founder of Greenpeace: I was wrong! We need more nukes!
            • Too expensive and too late to matter.

              Most countries goals are to decarbonize by 2050. That is 27 years from now. I probably won't be around for that, but if I had to bet I'd say the chance of actually achieving zero emissions in 2050 is next to nothing. We will be lucky to even stop our emissions from increasing for at least the next decade.

              It would have been better if we had started building more new reactors 20 years ago, but it is by no means too late to start. They will still be needed by whenever they are completed by.

              • Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the roof of the White House. Reagan took the time to have them removed. Pretty much the entire political landscape of the solar industry in a nutshell.
                • Well in American politics we like to put the most backward knuckledragger in charge. We're always looking backwards to the good old days when we were rich, free, and running the world. The right has no plan to actually make the US competitive, in their negligence we'll eventually get to a point where we have electricity in our homes only 5 days a week.

        • by nasch ( 598556 )

          Safe means the maintenance can be skipped and there won't ever be a disaster.

          I don't know of anything that's safe by that definition.

          • Modern solar panels paired with with intelligent microinverters can be neglected forever without causing a crisis, they can shut down if they fault. I don't know of any other generation technology that fits the description, though. Using microinverters is kind of spendy, but can cut costs in the long run — in part by reducing maintenance, and partly by using 240V three phase instead of having any long DC wiring. Where the panels and inverters are pre-wired for one another, it can also reduce the PV co

        • by gweihir ( 88907 )

          There are only 2 (!) SMR installations these days with 4 reactors. One is the "nuclear barge" by Russia, which was planned to be finished in 3 years and took 12. It is not a prototype for series. The other is a pair of experimental HTRs by China, based on the old German patents where they hat to scrap that thing after 14 years build time and 3 years operation because it got damaged beyond repair. China also took a lot longer to build them and likely was massively over budget but they are not talking. These

        • For the same reason I would be nervous living near a rail line I'd be nervous living near a nuclear power plan

          This is called an irrational fear. You should have more fear about living near a coal-plant, or any heavy-industry plant. You should have more fear about obesity, and junk foods in general. You should have more fear about driving cars (both in terms of accidents, and of CO2 emissions which are ruining your health and the health of your kids).

          I guess the bottom line is if it's so cheap and safe why is it so hard for you to demonstrate that?

          It has been demonstrated numerous times already, you can look at all the actual safety measures/redundant systems in a nuclear plant. Also, just look at the really smal

      • by nasch ( 598556 )

        even though new 4th gen SMRs solve numerous issues

        Not really relevant when discussing reopening an old plant, is it?

        • personally, I am not wild about re-opening, but so far, the ONLY thing that was done was to unload the fuel. Technically, they can take care of missed maintenance, repair certain items and then re-load the fuel. And if there is one company that I trust to do this right, it would be holtec. They know more about nuclear reactors than others.
          • by nasch ( 598556 )

            Fair points, but it sounds like this plant was already a disaster waiting to happen, so just getting back to where it was when it was decommissioned may not be good enough.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        This is why your beloved nuclear industry is dying. Instead of offering solutions, you make unfounded claims about the people pointing out the problems with nuclear power.

        Drinkypoo isn't against geothermal or hydro. He isn't talking about 4th gen SMRs, this is an article about restarting a reactor that was built in the 1960s.

        You have literally nothing. It's a massive concession really. You can't even do an ad-hominem based on things Drinkypoo actually said, so you make stuff up.

        • Instead of offering solutions, you make unfounded claims about the people pointing out the problems with nuclear power.

          It seems like you are the one making unfounded claims about nuclear power, instead of offering solutions, or even simply understanding the answers people give you. Answers based on facts, data and sources. Unlike yours.

          Pure hypocrisis from your part, but not that uncommon with amimimimojo, drunkenpoo, gweihair...

    • Well you put so much unnecessary emphasis on the very overrated idea of safety. It's just fearmongering, really. You are doing Putin's work here, trying to hinder the supply of reliable electricity to American households.

      The truth is, our reactors have huge safety margins built in, and these are really unjustified in the light of the most recent developments in nuclear engineering, sciences, and leadership. As a matter of fact, the industry is being deregulated as we speak, to allow for a more efficient use

      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Ah, yes. That mythical huge "safety margin". Stop lying. That margin is there for a reactor running well maintained during its planned (!) lifetime and it is not as large as generally claimed. See Fuckushima, for example. There are tons of old reactors where they now, for example, heat up the emergency cooling water, because they fear otherwise the pressure vessel may shatter from thermal stress. That measure is pure desperation and it is one of the things that happen when you run a non-replaceable part lon

        • Well I guess you missed the sarcasm tag in my post?

          The ugly truth is the US nuclear safety is run mostly such that when a plant fails a safety inspection, the safety requirements are adjusted to pass the plant, not the other way around. You will find ample examples of this when you care to look around a bit. It's only a matter of time until the reactors start to go belly up in action. But if everything else in the country is run by kicking the can down the road, why should the power plants be any different?

          • by gweihir ( 88907 )

            Ah, my apologies. I did indeed miss the /s tag.

            You did capture the sales-pitch and the regurgitation of it by the clueless nuclear fanatics perfectly though.

        • There are tons of old reactors where they now, for example, heat up the emergency cooling water, because they fear otherwise the pressure vessel may shatter from thermal stress.

          So glad to see that your assertions are backed up by facts and sources. Totally not a fear-mongering tactic.

    • by sjames ( 1099 )

      OTOH, they bought it for firesale prices. Even after the needed upgrades and repairs they still got it for a song.

      That means the revenue required to turn a profit on it is less than for the original owner. and so is more reachable.

      With proper management, operating costs may be substantially lower. Companies/people who cheap out on proper maintenance often end up paying 10 times as much in repairs and somehow still think their penny pinching is financial genius.

      • Even after the needed upgrades and repairs they still got it for a song.

        They haven't done the needed upgrades and repairs, in fact they've begun decommissioning so the plant is actually in worse condition than it was when they bought it. Right now we are still in the time before the needed upgrades and repairs, so we don't even know what they will cost, and therefore we don't know how good the deal they got was.

        Per TFA the reactor is "among the nationâ(TM)s worst cases of nuclear fuel container weakening" per the NRC, which is to say that the most expensive piece of the re

        • by sjames ( 1099 )

          It looks like the pressure vessel LID has an embrittlement problem. That should be replaceable. So far, the decommissioning consists of de-fueling, a necessary step for replacing the lid and other repairs. Note that the lid comes off for fueling/de-fueling, so of course it can be replaced.

          Of course the replacements and repairs haven't been done yet, what idiot would do that before even finding out if they would be allowed to bring it up with that accomplished?

          • It looks like the pressure vessel LID has an embrittlement problem. That should be replaceable.

            Oh, the lid has one of the worst embrittlement problems the NRC has ever seen, but the rest of the vessel is just peachy? Try selling that to someone who fell off the turnip truck last night.

      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Nope. Some critical parst _cannot_ be repaired or replaced. For example the pressure vessel. If they actually bring this one up again, it is an accident waiting to happen. But I guess they will not be allowed to do that anyways. Too obviously a really bad idea.

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      It is actually pretty much impossible to make it safe again. There are parts in there that cannot be replaced, for example the pressure-vessel. These were designed for a lifetime of 40 years and far too often with too rosy assumptions and (see France) possibly even falsified safety certificates. Loss of pressure vessel means a melt-down, likely with open reactor containment with an old plant where such an accident was considered "unthinkable" (i.e. the assholes told the engineers to not think about it) and

      • These were designed for a lifetime of 40 years and far too often with too rosy assumptions and (see France) possibly even falsified safety certificates.

        Bullshit. Where is your source?

        Loss of pressure vessel means a melt-down, likely with open reactor containment

        Right, there have been so many meltdowns related to the specific issue you are mentioning. Totally not something made up.

        Think Chernobyl, but worse.

        After everything else fails, why not instill some fear. Any more name dropping you would like to add?

        The interesting question is what is behind this. I suspect some politically motivated lie is being pushed here.

        I am telling you, you just uncovered a deep conspiracy, probably linked to the lizard people. You were right all along.

    • by mspohr ( 589790 )

      It will take years and $millions/billions to make this safe for operation... if it can even be done. And the resulting electricity will be way more expensive than anything else.
      Stupid idea.

  • by slack_justyb ( 862874 ) on Wednesday April 26, 2023 @02:20PM (#63478576)

    Considering that the owners have next to no cash to restart this reactor and are on their (first try here) [bridgemi.com] second application to the Civil Nuclear Credit program [energy.gov]. This plant is so deep into decommission, there's likely not a restart to it. That plus, there's been so much deferred maintenance that it's doubtful $1.1B (which was the amount given to Diablo under this same program) would be enough to restart it. The fund only has $6B in it. Let's use it wisely, not blow what could easily be half of that fund, to restart a measly 800MW PWR.

    Also considering that the owners are finding next to no one to really invest money into restarting it, it's mostly a pipe dream to get this one restarted. IMHO, it's just better if Michigan just looked at building a new facility rather then trying to support this old relic that was left to rot. It's been ran for half a century, it's time to let it go and move on to something better. Clinging to this ancient thing isn't helping the argument for nuclear in America.

    • Agree we shouldn't be subsidizing the reopening, but if the new owners think they can do it with their own funds, why not let them?

      • Agree we shouldn't be subsidizing the reopening, but if the new owners think they can do it with their own funds, why not let them?

        They explicitly don't think that. They're trying to get our funds [apnews.com], also per TFA. TFS doesn't mention this, I wonder why.

        • They are applying for funds/loans made for that purpose. The fact that you don't think those funds/loans are useful in the first place is not another topic entirely.

          From a CO2 emissions viewpoint, it is safer to restart it after maintenance and safety guarantees are given, than to do anything else (build a new one, bet on other technologies, etc...).

          TFS doesn't mention this, I wonder why.

          It's a conspiracy, you were right all along!

          • They are applying for funds/loans made for that purpose. The fact that you don't think those funds/loans are useful in the first place is not another topic entirely.

            Wrong. The topic of this thread is literally where the money is coming from. Try to keep up. You will fail, but try anyway. The whole thread is there, you can just read it if you're confused. Of course, you will probably still be confused, but at least it will take some of your time.

      • but if the new owners think they can do it with their own funds, why not let them?

        That's the entire point of what I just said. They can't find any investment from non-government sources. They themselves are almost broke. The only way they're going to restart this thing is with funds from the Civil Nuclear Credit program, aka tax payers. They've found no one to give them money so they are asking the US Government to give them some money. So they're distinctly trying to do this "NOT" on their own funds.

  • People forget that all energy sources have waste and costs.

    Fossil fuels have tremendous pollution and waste per kWh generated, and that pollution has had global effects that are expected to last for millennia. Nuclear has waste, but far less overall damage per kWh. Solar and wind have some pretty hefty environmental costs up front and cleanup after, but the generation itself is clean.

    Presuming they've got the resources to bring the facilities up to modern safety standards, and to manage the nuclear waste

  • That is my first guess for opening up something like this.
    • by Anonymous Coward

      Holtec Decommissioning International is owned by a conglomeration of automakers. The purpose of re-activating the plant is to provide electricity to national EV charging networks Electrify America, EVGo, and Chargepoint, which are themselves also subsidiaries of several EV automakers.

    • Not that much according to actual figures collected over the past 80 years of reactor operation.
      Cherobyl was a deficient design operated recklessly resulting in the death of about 50 people
      Fukushima Daiichi Accident resulted in zero deaths from radiation.
      3 Mile Island resulted in zero deaths.

      Compare this to the 8 million people a year who die from particulates from fossil fuel consumption worldwide
      https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2021/feb/fossil-fuel-air-pollution-responsible-1-5-deaths-worldwide

      So based upon pas

      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Lying with statistics. You can do it well. Makes you a problem. Risk management works a bit different and so does engineering failure analysis.

        Fuckushima was a small weather change and a concrete-pump not arriving in time away from losing Tokyo for the next few 1000 years.

        • Why is this lying. It is pure science.
          The problem is people who can't do maths or understand science. They make bad choices because they're based upon believe systems which are disconnected from facts. It's like thinking crystals will cure cancer because they're pretty. You may want to believe that but it's just nonsense.
          For example the dangerous mobile radioactive element commonly released by reactors is an isotope of iodine. It has a half life of 8 days that mean that 10g of radioactive iodine becomes abo

        • I guess you really believe what you write, which makes it even more funny.

          Lying with statistics. You can do it well. Makes you a problem. Risk management works a bit different and so does engineering failure analysis.

          He is pointing out statistics, from public reports. You are just lying without providing any sources (as usual).

          Fuckushima was a small weather change and a concrete-pump not arriving in time away from losing Tokyo for the next few 1000 years.

          First, it's Fukushima. Don't be a child.
          Second, your comment about Tokyo is complete nonsense. Do you have any idea about the kind of radioactive elements there are in a nuclear core? Do you think they magically move around? Do you have any notion about what an half-life is?

          Seriously, people who can't get science right, and

          • by gweihir ( 88907 )

            You do not even understand what problem at Fukushima I am talking about, _despite_ a clear indicator. Nice. It really does not get much more incompetent as you nuclear fanatics. You have zero understanding of things.

            • Yes I do. I have actually read the accident analysis report [tepco.co.jp] from TEPCO (although I expect you to claim that this analysis report is not "good enough"). It is in line with what was being reported at the time, and with other [sciencedirect.com] reports [ans.org] that were made.

              I guess you are talking about the SFP cooling of Unit 4, but as you prefer to talk in riddles, this is only a guess. This is one of the difference between religious-like fanatics people like you, and people who base their thoughts processes on science, like me: I us

  • From a CO2 emissions perspective this is a good idea. Yes it's an older reactor however it does have a significant amount of useful life left in the reactor. It is a design which has been demonstrated to be able to be operated safely.
    The design was made by Combustion Engineering and there are a number of other active reactors by this manufacturer still in operation. So the skills are available, the supply chain is still viable and the design is suitable for lifetime extension.
    Now the economics associated wi

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