Paul Dvorak
Six tanks at the Hanford nuclear site in Washington State are leaking their toxic contents, says the headline with only slightly muffled horror. (One version here: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57570857/6-tanks-at-hanford-nuclear-site-in-wash-leaking/). As if you did not expect it, the cleanup will cost billions of tax payer dollars.
The article says Washington governor Jay Inslee has assured the public the leaking material poses no immediate risk to public safety or the environment because it will take a while, perhaps years, to reach groundwater. But then again, perhaps sooner.
According to the article, this news is on top of the previous week’s news that just one of the reservation’s 177 underground tanks were leaking 150 to 300 gallons a year. The article reports that nearby monitoring wells have not detected higher radioactivity levels. (Not higher than what?) Hanford’s tanks hold some 53 million gallons of “highly radioactive waste.”
If nuclear proponents were not so happy to slap around the wind industry, I would not comment on this. Nuclear engineering is a complex discipline that few fully understand. I would assume that tanks in question are fabricated of stainless steel with thoroughly inspected welds (I’m just guessing) and coated with an almost inert ceramic on the inside. And yet, they leak. Now if toxic sludge gets through that to threaten drinking water and aquatic life in nearby rivers, you have to wonder what in the world we are screwing around with.
You can bet North Korea and Iran are not taking such precautions which makes you wonder how soon they will poison their people.
In an unrelated story, Southern Company recently announced that it is optimistic that it will close on an $8.33 billion Energy Department loan guarantee for its Vogtle nuclear plant expansion (about 1,200 MW if other reports are correct) sometime in the middle of the year. If wind power costs about $2 million/MW, the $8.33 billion of tax-payer dollars could build 4,165 MW of wind power.
In light of the leaking tanks, swapping out an aging nuclear plant with one powered by natural gas supplemented by wind seems the obvious thing to do. Together, the two sources (wind and natural gas) can produce the lowest cost and cleanest power. What is the argument against that?
–Paul Dvorak
Filed Under: Uncategorized
And what about the massive amount of toxic and radioactive wastewater from the production of the neodymium magnets for wind turbines that is destroying the groundwater in Batu, China. It’s not in the US, so who cares anyway…not the AWEA. And no mater how you spin it, wind is extremely intermittent and wind farms only produce on average at about 20% of capacity, and each MW of wind must be backed up with a MW of conventional production or we’d have no power much of the time…hence little to no reduction in CO2 mand no replacing of fossil fuel plants. Wind power is a sham.
And what about the massive amount of toxic and radioactive wastewater from the production of the neodymium magnets for wind turbines that is destroying the groundwater in Batu, China. It’s not in the US, so who cares anyway…not the AWEA. And no mater how you spin it, wind is extremely intermittent and wind farms only produce on average at about 20% of capacity, and each MW of wind must be backed up with a MW of conventional production or we’d have no power much of the time…hence little to no reduction in CO2 mand no replacing of fossil fuel plants. Wind power is a sham.
I’d like to see the math for nuclear energy as a whole in the united States. What has been the total investment vs. the return in terms of cheaper baseline electricity. The figures should include a bonus for the reduced carbon output of nuclear, but it should also include the costs for permanent storage of the nuclear waste currently stored at nuclear sites across the country. We can leave out the subsidy nuclear enjoys from government-supported limited accident liability. Of course, no one knows what permanent storage of nuclear waste will cost because we don’t yet have a viable/politically acceptable solution.
What do the leaking tanks have to do with nuclear power? Answer: nothing, they are left over of building bobs in the 1940s.
What does the picture of the power plant in the referenced artical have to do with leaking tanks? Answer: nothing, That place was built lng after the tanks were full.
The tanks are leaking, they are dangerous and the problem needs fixing.
I subscribe to read something about wind power not fear mongering. I am going to unsubscribe. By
Well said, Paul. It’s a conundrum. Fyi, there are currently 66 nuclear power plants under construction around the globe, another 158 are in the planning stages, and 329 more are proposed.
These tanks had nothing to do with power production. They are filled with residual waste left over from plutonium production during the cold war.
If you’re looking for a scandal might I suggest the true cost of wind power which according to the DOE is $65/megawatt hour, versus $45 for nuclear, and $5 for hydro.
I have a question,do you think wind turbine will instead of nuclear in the end?