Obama plan to de-fund Savannah River plutonium conversion plant draws fire

[Marlin]

Obama plan to de-fund Savannah River plutonium conversion plant draws fire

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/obama-plan-to-de-fund-savannah-river-plutonium-conversion-plant-draws-fire/2016/02/25/71428a72-db6e-11e5-925f-1d10062cc82d_story.html?postshare=7861456419126227&tid=ss_tw

[Mounder]

I've visited, but never worked at this DOE site and I'm not aware of too many success stories with projects in the last 30 years at SRS.  If you want a project to fail, set it up at SRS and their mismanagement and waste will doom it in short-order.  The MOX project, if successful could be very beneficial.  It's too bad.

[Rerun]

Not beneficial at all. MOX will never be used in this country

[Mounder]

last US pseudo-bastion of fuel recycling we'll see in our lifetimes.  agreed

[Rerun]

No do you know how much it would cost one reactor to implement MOX?

[GLW]

No do you know how much it would cost one reactor to implement MOX?

technically - no, I do not,...

empirically - too much,...

[Rerun]

Millions and that is simply for the licensing changes. The design changes are even more expensive

[SloGlo]

Millions and that is simply for the licensing changes. The design changes are even more expensive

probly less than won years gross from generation.

[Rerun]

Nope more probably close to 400 million. The net for a big reactor is about a million a day

[Gamecock]

Nope more probably close to 400 million. The net for a big reactor is about a million a day

If they a make a million per day, then why is nuclear power not thriving?

Cheers,

GC

[Rerun]

Both the plants I was at were big plants in good areas. Fermi was rated at about 1200 MWe and both SQN Units were about 1200 Mwe. Pretty certain Fermi is rated higher now. The plants being shutdown are about half that and most importantly are Merchant Plants ie they have to have organizations bid on their power. We used to have a thumb rule. About half or so of your MW is simply to pay bills. That was in a regulated environment. Units shutting down are in non regulated environments or have a glut of power from other sources. Plus they tend to be single units and small.
Because of regulatory structure TVA will never have to shut down a Nuke. No one can import power inside the "fence" Thus WBN 2 will never make a dime. It cost too much. Fermi is in a great area, the biggest power producer in a small company right in the middle of east and west.
The bigger the better as they can absorb the extra cost in an increasingly unfriendly environment. Gas is killing small nukes.

[GLW]

Both the plants I was at were big plants in good areas......

and then,....

corporate bean counters expect every site to be self sufficient plus, no charity cases,...

and then,...

future liabilities due to knee jerk regs (Fukushima - FLEX, Yucca - SECY 11 0029, et al) are unknowns but, are to be expected, and then, those regs cut into the slim margins of the large sites and make the small sites even more untenable,...

and then,...

resistance in too many markets to allow nukes to earn ZECs or RECs,...

and then,...

as nukes shrink in their percentage of the baseload, the services companies (e.g. fuel manufacturers) see a shrinking business market and eventually it will not make sense to be a nuke fuel fabricator,...

and then,...

as the "smart grid" gains in percentage of the distribution, the baseload concept of the "dumb grid" loses it's percentage and becomes a dinosaur concept,...

and then,...

I could go on, but that should give you enough to start your own research,...

[Rerun]

Exactly but in truth FLEX and stuff hasn't cost all that much. I agree it's stupid. As an example SQN had 2 or 3 BIG fire pumps they could simply dip the suction into the river. This was in addition to the electric and diesel pumps required by the license. So why exactly should they have to buy into FLEX equipment? Because those pumps were onsite and couldn't be relied upon.

On the other hand TVA Flooding procedures would not have worked yet they protested...

[SloGlo]

Nope more probably close to 400 million. The net for a big reactor is about a million a day

sew, aye yam off buy <10% on my blind estimate against yore un-posted numbers... eye can handle that error. 

[Rerun]

Yepper!!!

[BetaAnt]

SRS is a monetary black hole. During the ARRA frenzy (2010-2011), a budget of $1.6B was given for cleanup. $400M was transferred to another SRS project and an additional $100M was 'lost'. The 'rent-a-techs' and per diem fraud were blamed for the loss.

SRS is good for doing nothing and costing a whole lot of money to do it.

[Mounder]

SRS is a monetary black hole. During the ARRA frenzy (2010-2011), a budget of $1.6B was given for cleanup. $400M was transferred to another SRS project and an additional $100M was 'lost'.  SRS is good for doing nothing and costing a whole lot of money to do it.

Well, they managed to tear down a couple of cold facilities before the money was gone....