Knoxville-Oak Ridge Nuclear Renaissance

[Marlin]

Knoxville-Oak Ridge Innovation Valley At Epicenter Of Nuclear Renaissance

   It's easy to forget how much is going on the nuclear power side of things here in this area when you tend to be up to your armpits in demolition and remediation projects. I high lighted a few of the points from the article:


-TVA, is considering building the new Bellefonte nuclear power plant (Headquarters in Knoxville)
-The Department of Energy (DOE) will build a massive uranium processing facility (Y-12)
-Nuclear Energy Modeling and Simulation Energy Innovation Hub (ORNL)
-TVA, DOE and ORNL are considering building a small modular reactor at a Clinch River site. (Oak Ridge)
-USEC is also creating American Centrifuge Manufacturing (Oak Ridge)
-Energy Solutions now headquarters its government contracting group here (Oak Ridge)
-SAIC moved its energy contracting and consulting headquarters to the Innovation Valley (Oak Ridge)


http://www.poweronline.com/article.mvc/Knoxville-Oak-Ridge-Innovation-Valley-At-0001

[GLW]

Two years later,...

the renaissance is dead,...

renaissance - bringing again into activity and prominence,...

life support is activity, but hardly prominence,...

[Marlin]

Two years later,...

the renaissance is dead,...

renaissance - bringing again into activity and prominence,...

life support is activity, but hardly prominence,...

Most of what I cited from the article are still in progress

-TVA, is considering building the new Bellefonte nuclear power plant (Headquarters in Knoxville)

Still working,

-The Department of Energy (DOE) will build a massive uranium processing facility (Y-12)

In the design phase to be built next to the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility that was completed this last year.

-Nuclear Energy Modeling and Simulation Energy Innovation Hub (ORNL)

Still here and ORNL once again has the fastest commercially available computer to help support it.

-TVA, DOE and ORNL are considering building a small modular reactor at a Clinch River site. (Oak Ridge)

B&W awarded the contract just recently.

-USEC is also creating American Centrifuge Manufacturing (Oak Ridge)

USEC is hiring right now.

-Energy Solutions now headquarters its government contracting group here (Oak Ridge)

Still here, just with new owners.

-SAIC moved its energy contracting and consulting headquarters to the Innovation Valley (Oak Ridge)

Also still here.



Unfortunately most of the news out of the Oak Ridge Reservation is all about the 80 year old nun that breached security. 

[GLW]

The point - counterpoint format is exhaustive Marlin but I'll engage for a bit,...

Still working

Finishing an abandoned project is nice, but not a renaissance,...

In the design phase to be built next to the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility that was completed this last year.

maintaining the status quo for nuke weapons production at the ridge is good for the locals, but not a renaissance,...

Still here and ORNL once again has the fastest commercially available computer to help support it.

government research jobs at ORNL are still in the realm of the previous counterpoint, not a renaissance,...

B&W awarded the contract just recently.

same deal as the previous two counterpoints,...

USEC is hiring right now.Still here, just with new owners.

and again,...

Still here, just with new owners.

with a plummeted stock and after deep layoffs in the fall of 2012 without any indication that the nee public now again private ES is going to hire them back (WOTS is quite the contrary and the layoffs have another round or two to go),...it is definitely not a renaissance if you're an ES former hire,...

Also still here.

there for the tax and overhead advantages of Tennessee versus the former corporate home in sunny SoCal,...nothing to do with a nuclear renaissance, more like conforming to the standard modern corporate model after the retirement of Doctor Bob,...

as for a commercial power renaissance,...

nukeworkers have been targeted by the Obama administration for extinction,...

Yucca is dead and buried,...

the DOE "Blue Ribbon Commission" decided consolidated interim storage was the best answer left, which left the PFS at skull valley as the best potential answer, yet the BLM, DOIA and DOI have continually beset PFS at every turn, finally, on 01/13/2013, PFS pulled the plug on trying to bring consolidated interim storage to fruition and so the Blue Ribbon Commision's best answer is a dead end, Yucca is a dead end and the utilities are stuck with ISFSI's certified for twenty years and a never ending, above ground, temporary storage liability,....

Kewaunee is the first victim,...

Because there is no federal repository for spent fuel, the used nuclear fuel will remain on site at Kewaunee for an undetermined amount of time. After it is cooled for five to seven years in the spent-fuel pool, the waste will then be transferred to concrete casks on the Kewaunee reactor site, Stoddard said.

http://www.jsonline.com/business/dominion-to-close-kewaunee-nuclear-plant-ld7aald-175326791.html

stand by for more,....

Money, politics bury plans for Utah fuel-rod cemetery

Some folks once thought it was a great idea to build a kind of long-term parking lot in Utah's desert for the nation's nuclear-reactor waste.

That thinking drove 11 utility companies to form Private Fuel Storage LLC (PFS) and partner with the tiny Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians in Tooele County to build a private, interim solution for nuclear waste until the federal government created a permanent one.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/55572298-78/nuclear-waste-fuel-storage.html.csp

PFS pulls the plug on parking lot dump targeted at Skull Valley Goshutes in Utah

http://www.beyondnuclear.org/home/2012/12/22/pfs-pulls-the-plug-on-parking-lot-dump-targeted-at-skull-val.html

I'm happy for the continued jobs on the taxpayers dime at Oak Ridge,...

But those jobs have been there since World War 2,...

we're talking renaissance here, not status quo,...

[Marlin]

we're talking renaissance here, not status quo,...

  Semantics, did the Renaissance cease to be the Renaissance while the art, music and science continued. Nuclear power and nuclear science have been declared dead a few times, new work that moves against that end is nuclear Renaissance.



As long as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo painted the Renaissance lived. 

[GLW]

 Semantics, did the Renaissance cease to be the Renaissance while the art, music and science continued. Nuclear power and nuclear science have been declared dead a few times, new work that moves against that end is nuclear Renaissance.



As long as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo painted the Renaissance lived.  

Okay, not semantics, just data,...

the US government issued over 85 power reactor licenses in the ~30 years that licenses were issued before I got out of the USN, that's about 3 per year...

in the ~25 years since I got out of the USN the US government has issued 7, that's about 0.3 per year,...

my semantics are,...

no renaissance,...

just life support and dwindling licensed power reactors,...

edit - that second line read like garbage, see what happens when you type while Miami Vice is playing on NetFlix?!?!?!

[HydroDave63]

As long as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo painted the Renaissance lived. 

As soon as the soldiers of Europe's largest rampaging army went unpaid, the Renaissance ended...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Rome_(1527)

Imagine what a stalled Federal debt ceiling debate, sequestration cuts to DOE, or a dropped reactor vessel somewhere in a swamp can do to the 'Nucular Renaissance' (sic) 

[Marlin]

As soon as the soldiers of Europe's largest rampaging army went unpaid, the Renaissance ended...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Rome_(1527)

Imagine what a stalled Federal debt ceiling debate, sequestration cuts to DOE, or a dropped reactor vessel somewhere in a swamp can do to the 'Nucular Renaissance' (sic) 

  True but research into new designs and applications still continue. If we revive travel to Mars or other destinations beyond the moon nuclear propulsion may very well be used. May not be the nuclear we are use to but Small Modular reactors, traveling wave and general science, and yet unseen applications are what I would see as a Renaissance.

[Marlin]

Okay, not semantics, just data,...

the US government issued over 85 power reactor licenses were issued in the ~30 years that licenses were issued before I got out of the USN, that's about 3 per year...

in the ~25 years since I got out of the USN the US government has issued 7, that's about 0.3 per year,...

my semantics are,...

no renaissance,...

just life support and dwindling licensed power reactors,...

Same response   
 

  True but research into new designs and applications still continue. If we revive travel to Mars or other destinations beyond the moon nuclear propulsion may very well be used. May not be the nuclear we are use to but Small Modular reactors, traveling wave and general science, and yet unseen applications are what I would see as a Renaissance.

[GLW]

....and yet unseen applications are what I would see as a Renaissance.

oh great,...next you're gonna get started on fusion,....

[Marlin]

oh great,...next you're gonna get started on fusion,....

Cold Fusion