Balancing the grid with nuclear and renewables

[Marlin]

Balancing the grid with nuclear and renewables


http://www.energycentral.com/utilitybusiness/riskandoperations/articles/3434/Balancing-the-grid-with-nuclear-and-renewables

[thenuttyneutron]

"According to CAISO's Duck Chart, on a day in 2020, the net load, or the need for conventional generation, is only estimated to be 12,000 megawatts (MW) during the peak of the day when solar is most prevalent and 60 percent of generation comes from renewables. However, only five hours later, 13,000 MW of conventional generation will need to be brought online. This highlights the need for flexible operation from conventional generators. It is highly likely that similar scenarios will play out across the country within the next decade. In fact, in some unregulated markets, it already is."

-Lee Williams


This one paragraph touches many of the issues that we are going to face in the future decades.  You can build up the capacity from renewable power sources but this does not matter much because you can't store it.  Electricity has about the shortest shelf life of any other product made in the world.  How do we expect to respond to our CO2 issue if the capacity of the renewable power sources have a small capacity utilization and you just make up the difference with fossil fuels?   

I have personally heard the concerns of a load dispatcher during a high electrical demand event a few years ago when the "polar vortex" cold snap hit the eastern part of the US.  He was asking for more reactive load which means the grid was in a fragile state.  Without enough reactive load, the grid can't move power around.  The coal piles had frozen and were unable to be loaded into the boilers.  The natural gas units were knocked offline due to low gas pipeline pressures (high demand from residential users).  The only units online that night were the windmills and nukes.  Windmills don't make MVARS!  There were actual rolling blackouts in a few parts of the US that night.  It affected a very small group of people and the grid stayed up.  There however was not enough (real or reactive) power to supply everyone.

Cold can be a nuisance and may be lethal in extreme circumstances.  In extreme cold, you can put more layers of clothes on and generate more heat by moving around.  You can also just snuggle up to other heat generators like kids, spouses or dogs.  Heat on the other hand has fewer options for dealing with it.  Heat kills many more people each year.  If the wetbulb temperature hits about 95 F, humans simply die.  Drinking water is not effective because your ability to sweat and get rid of excess heat no longer works.  The only thing available is an air conditioned shelter or going into a basement.

The US needs to get serious about planning for how to deal with electrical power supplies.  There is no good reason why we have not developed something other than light water reactor technology.  50 years ago we were working on advanced reactor designs that have the ability to ramp power quickly, be passively safe & immune to the highest risk scenarios to a LWR, and achieve very high burn up rates of the fuel which reduces waste.  These advance reactors would be the perfect compliment to renewable power.

[Marlin]

"According to CAISO's Duck Chart, on a day in 2020, the net load, or the need for conventional generation, is only estimated to be 12,000 megawatts (MW) during the peak of the day when solar is most prevalent and 60 percent of generation comes from renewables. However, only five hours later, 13,000 MW of conventional generation will need to be brought online. This highlights the need for flexible operation from conventional generators. It is highly likely that similar scenarios will play out across the country within the next decade. In fact, in some unregulated markets, it already is."

-Lee Williams


This one paragraph touches many of the issues that we are going to face in the future decades.  You can build up the capacity from renewable power sources but this does not matter much because you can't store it.  Electricity has about the shortest shelf life of any other product made in the world.  How do we expect to respond to our CO2 issue if the capacity of the renewable power sources have a small capacity utilization and you just make up the difference with fossil fuels?   

I have personally heard the concerns of a load dispatcher during a high electrical demand event a few years ago when the "polar vortex" cold snap hit the eastern part of the US.  He was asking for more reactive load which means the grid was in a fragile state.  Without enough reactive load, the grid can't move power around.  The coal piles had frozen and were unable to be loaded into the boilers.  The natural gas units were knocked offline due to low gas pipeline pressures (high demand from residential users).  The only units online that night were the windmills and nukes.  Windmills don't make MVARS!  There were actual rolling blackouts in a few parts of the US that night.  It affected a very small group of people and the grid stayed up.  There however was not enough (real or reactive) power to supply everyone.

Cold can be a nuisance and may be lethal in extreme circumstances.  In extreme cold, you can put more layers of clothes on and generate more heat by moving around.  You can also just snuggle up to other heat generators like kids, spouses or dogs.  Heat on the other hand has fewer options for dealing with it.  Heat kills many more people each year.  If the wetbulb temperature hits about 95 F, humans simply die.  Drinking water is not effective because your ability to sweat and get rid of excess heat no longer works.  The only thing available is an air conditioned shelter or going into a basement.

The US needs to get serious about planning for how to deal with electrical power supplies.  There is no good reason why we have not developed something other than light water reactor technology.  50 years ago we were working on advanced reactor designs that have the ability to ramp power quickly, be passively safe & immune to the highest risk scenarios to a LWR, and achieve very high burn up rates of the fuel which reduces waste.  These advance reactors would be the perfect compliment to renewable power.

I agree with much of what you say but disagree on the issue of cold and hot mortality. I read an article in the last year that attributed high cost of renewables and death from cold weather in northern Europe. In general cold has a higher mortality.

Study: Cold kills 20 times more people than heat

http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2015/05/20/cold-weather-deaths/27657269/

[thenuttyneutron]

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-cold-hot-weather-deaths-20150520-story.html

This may be what you are talking about.  I read the article and can see both points of view argued.  I should have been more specific.  What I was intending to compare was extreme cold killing with hypothermia vs extreme heat killing by hyperthermia.  In terms of Extreme heat or Extreme cold, Heat kills more people by hyperthermia.  If you were to include all cold weather issues and not just extreme cold, cold kills more people.  The article hints at additional issues with cold other than hypothermia.  I know that the incidence of disease like colds and flu go up when the weather is cold.  How many people die of a heart attack while shoveling snow? 

"Extreme cold was responsible for about 10% of all deaths on cold days. However, extreme heat was responsible for about half of all deaths on hot days."

-Karen Kaplan

I am reading some recent projections by NOAA and I am wondering if we will see another few lethal heat waves for the northern cities of the US.

[Marlin]

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-cold-hot-weather-deaths-20150520-story.html

This may be what you are talking about.  I read the article and can see both points of view argued.  I should have been more specific.  What I was intending to compare was extreme cold killing with hypothermia vs extreme heat killing by hyperthermia.  In terms of Extreme heat or Extreme cold, Heat kills more people by hyperthermia.  If you were to include all cold weather issues and not just extreme cold, cold kills more people.  The article hints at additional issues with cold other than hypothermia.  I know that the incidence of disease like colds and flu go up when the weather is cold.  How many people die of a heart attack while shoveling snow? 

"Extreme cold was responsible for about 10% of all deaths on cold days. However, extreme heat was responsible for about half of all deaths on hot days."

-Karen Kaplan

I am reading some recent projections by NOAA and I am wondering if we will see another few lethal heat waves for the northern cities of the US.

We are getting closer  heat is a direct cause of death but:


"The sharp distinction between heat- and cold-related deaths is because low temperatures cause more problems for the body's cardiovascular and respiratory systems, it added."

It would seem that areas of moderate temperature were most affected, maybe due to lack of acclimatization. Having worked with crews that alternate working environments a period of adjustment is necessary. One laborer I worked with showed no effect from high temperatures, his biometrics did not change while other laborers had to have frequent breaks to drop core temperatures and pulse rate. This laborer was from a road crew while his counterparts were from general construction, many inside.

[mjd]

The US needs to get serious about planning for how to deal with electrical power supplies.  There is no good reason why we have not developed something other than light water reactor technology.

Yer right... there is no good reason, but plenty of bad reasons. Not the least of which is the current loudest pro-nuclear proponent voices refuse to acknowledge that LWRs are just flat out a bad idea. They have served their primary civilian use purpose, which was just to demonstrate nuclear power could be used to generate electricity.

The problem is, no matter how you slice it, the LWR core can melt and then get over the site boundary fence. To the general public this is "the bomb" without the atomic blast. Then you have nothing to fall back on other than "but it won't hurt you", "it's not very likely", "we've improved the safety by...", "we've learned the lesson from...", blah, blah, blah.

For LWR proponents this position is the same as "my dog has a right to crap in your back yard". That position is wrong, so people will never buy it, and haven't after 70+ years of trying. The futility is that proven (demonstrated) reactor technology has developed "dogs that don't crap", but our impossible regulatory system and the shear cost of being allowed to build one makes them economically unfeasible to do.

50 years ago we were working on advanced reactor designs that have the ability to ramp power quickly, be passively safe & immune to the highest risk scenarios to a LWR, and achieve very high burn up rates of the fuel which reduces waste.  These advance reactors would be the perfect compliment to renewable power.

You need to clarify the "we were...", as you mean the government was; for military application. Any way you slice that one it is a non-starter these days.

[thenuttyneutron]

You need to clarify the "we were...", as you mean the government was; for military application. Any way you slice that one it is a non-starter these days.

*Disclaimer*  This post is made up of a bunch of facts that were used to form my opinions and my personal beliefs.

Many years ago when the mass zeal over nuclear power had swept over the military leaders of the day, the Air Force came up with a plan to build a long range bomber powered by a nuclear reactor.  The lead engineer took on the task knowing that it was a crazy idea to power a bomber with a reactor.  He took on the task with the sole purpose of developing the molten salt fast reactor.  He felt that if he could make it work for a bomber, the superior design would be adopted for use in the future reactor designs developed for other tasks.  The molten salt reactors can be built a lot smaller with the same power output as a much larger sized light water reactor.  To illustrate this point, you can obtain the same power output from a 1 meter wide and 1 meter long cylinder shaped molten salt design as what a 3 meter long and 3 meter wide light water reactor can generate.  This is possible because the molten salt is better at transferring the heat away from the fuel to the coolant.  Salt is also a much better material to use because salt is chemically stable compared to water in a high energy neutron flux.

The molten salt designs are far superior in just about every way when compared to a light water reactor design.  I would say that the analogy of comparing a turbojet to a propeller airplane would be insufficient to describe the advantages of a molten salt design over the light water design.  The biggest advantage of the molten salt design is the inherent safety.  They operate at very low pressures but very high temperatures.  Without high pressures, there is no driving force to spew the radioactive fuel out into the environment and creating a radio-logical emergency.  This also reduces the costs of a reactor by not having the need of a large robust containment building.  These designs are also melt down proof.  The small size but high power output gives it a large surface area to reject the decay heat should the need arise during a transient or emergency.  The salt coolant can transfer the heat away from the fuel quickly and does not boil away.  Light water reactor designs however must be actively cooled for a long period of time before the decay heat output is low enough to be rejected by ambient losses.

Another advantage is the molten salt design's ability to burn up heavy actinides.  Elements such as Plutonium, Californium, Uranium, and Thorium can all be burned in the MSR design due to their harder neutron spectrum.  What I mean by harder neutrons is that the neutrons are moving faster in a MSR and have more kinetic energy than the neutrons in a light water reactor.  These fast neutrons can fission both fissile and fissionable isotopes.  Fissile atoms means that adding a neutron with 0 kinetic energy to the nucleus is enough to cause the atom to fission.  Fissionable elements can also undergo fission but they must absorb a high energy neutron or there is not enough energy to cause a fission.  Fissile isotopes are all fissionable but not all fissionable isotopes are fissile. 

The neutrons in a MSR are moderated less than the neutrons in a light water reactor and are therefor faster and more energetic.  The extra kinetic energy of these neutrons adds enough energy to a fissionable isotope like U-238 undergo fission.  The light water designs simply can't burn these elements because the neutrons are moderated to an energy level too low to burn the fissionable but non-fissile isotopes.  Light water reactors can only burn fissile atoms such as U-235, Pu-239 and U-233. 

This ability to burn both the fissile and fissionable isotopes gives you a few key benefits.  The MSR eliminates the largest challenge of the long term storage of radioactive waste from reactors by burning up the actinides that are present in waste from light water reactors.  The waste of the MSR contain mostly fission fragments and they decay away within a few hundred years.  You can use the waste of today's nuclear reactors as fuel in a MSR design.

MSRs can be designed to be breeder reactors.  The breeding of new fuel is key to our energy future because it would allow us to use the Thorium fuel cycle.  Thorium is much more common than Uranium and it has a very long half life (14 billion years).  It is not going away anytime soon.  With breeding you can make more fuel than you consume.  This is not magic.  It is simple physics.  When you add a neutron to the nucleus of a Thorium 232 atom, you make the already radioactive element more unstable by turning it into a Th 233 atom.  This isotope's radioactive decay path is a beta decay with a 22 minute half-life to Protactinium 233, Pa-233.  This beta decay ejects an electron out of the nucleus and raises the number of protons in it by 1.  The Th 233 has now become a Pa-233 atom.  Pa-233 then beta decays again with a 27 day half-life to Uranium 233 which is a fissile fuel.  This process does not violate any laws of conservation.  The energy was there all along stored in the long half-life and unstable Th-232 atom.

With all these advantages some might be asking why the MSR was not developed.  We built experimental MSRs and they operated safely for many years at DOE facilities.  These research projects were killed because they were not a viable reactor technology for making Plutonium for nuclear weapons.  The research from these projects are not considered classified and the Chinese are now using our data to develop their own advanced reactor designs. 

I will add that there was another advanced reactor design called the Integral Fast Reactor or IFR.  It was killed by John Kerry with the support of anti-nuke democrats and republicans owned by the coal industry.  Ask yourself this simple question.  Had the British refused to adopt coal fired boilers and steam engines to power their fleet of ships because it would have killed their sail making industry, do you think they would have risen to become a super power?  Why is it that the USA refuses to adopt a far superior reactor technology due to the religious ignorance of the anti-nukes and the financial interests of the fossil fuels industry?  This is obviously a rhetorical question, but one that must be addressed if we have any hope of getting past the resistance to nuclear power.  This IFR design was a 20 year project that was killed 2 years before it was completed.  The engineers and scientist that worked on it are either dead or retired.

It would be helpful to explain why this all matters to you and the future of America.  These MSR designs can be used to provide the heat source needed to drive a power plant for both industrial heat and electricity generation.  You could choose a standard Rankine cycle steam plant that has been used for many year and used in all US nuclear plants or use the more efficient and advanced Brayton cycles that are used in natural gas turbine plants.  The Brayton cycle would be especially attractive because you can add a Rankine cycle to use the waste heat from the Brayton cycle to attain an efficiency as high as 60%.  These combination plants are called combined cycle power plants.

Yes, the MSR started as a design to make it possible to power a nuclear bomber.  It was the only thing that would make this crazy idea even possible.  Refusing to accept the MSR would be like the aerospace industry refusing to adopt the jet engine because it was used to power fighter jets.  This "dog" does shit, but you can keep the shit in your own backyard and the shit disappears to the point that you can't even smell it after a few hundred years.

[Marlin]

*Disclaimer*  This post is made up of a bunch of facts that were used to form my opinions and my personal beliefs.

Yes, the MSR started as a design to make it possible to power a nuclear bomber.  It was the only thing that would make this crazy idea even possible.  Refusing to accept the MSR would be like the aerospace industry refusing to adopt the jet engine because it was used to power fighter jets.  This "dog" does shit, but you can keep the shit in your own backyard and the shit disappears to the point that you can't even smell it after a few hundred years.

   The soviet Alpha class submarine was molten salt (lead bismuth) frequently called the hot rod of the oceans. The first Sea Wolf was a sodium cooled reactor. I agree it was not that they did not work it was that they did not fit the culture in the military or civilian nuclear industries. One of Rickovers mistakes in my opinion. Disclaimer: sodium and seawater were not a good mix.

[thenuttyneutron]

MSR designs do not use liquid metals like sodium or lead bismuth for a coolant.  The coolant of a MSR is a eutectic mixture of salts.  This salt contains both ionic parts and is almost chemically inert.  The salt that the Oak Ridge reactor used was a mixture of Lithium Fluoride and Beryllium Fluoride.  This salt mixture does not react violently with air or water.

[GLW]

.....Heat kills many more people each year.....

because many more people live in warm places,....

and the significant density live in heat islands in warm places,...

heat is more tolerable by the naked ape than cold is,...

plant a city of 9.8 million people in a sweltering monsoon landscape and you have Delhi, India,...

which has harbored populations of millions since before air conditioning was even a word,...

plant a city of 9.8 million in the shadows of the Shackleton Range (let's call it Shacklesville) and odds are good that 100,000 would die through the first winter,...

just from stupidity when walking from one neighbor's house to another's,...

if the power went out in Delhi, in the summer, for 60 days, I'd wager 100,000 would die from the heat,...

if the power went out in Shacklesville, in the winter, for 60 days, I'd wager 5 million would die,..

people have lived continuously in the Sahara and the Kalahari for 5,000 years plus,...

penguins live in Antarctica,...


now,...all that being illustrated,....

fat, sedentary, out of shape, processed carbohydrate laden naked apes will die in marked numbers during heat spells,...

most of those naked apes meeting that description live in North America and Western Europe,...

maybe Gaia perceives too many fat, sedentary, out of shape, processed carbohydrate laden naked apes,...


almost forgot,...(sic) for beercort,...

[Marlin]

MSR designs do not use liquid metals like sodium or lead bismuth for a coolant.  The coolant of a MSR is a eutectic mixture of salts.  This salt contains both ionic parts and is almost chemically inert.  The salt that the Oak Ridge reactor used was a mixture of Lithium Fluoride and Beryllium Fluoride.  This salt mixture does not react violently with air or water.

   Current ones no, but liquid metals and molten salt have been pretty much interchangable historically. The main difference in todays MSRs is that the fuel and the coolant are the same thing. 

[Bonds 25]

Should be "balancing the grid with clean, efficient, reliable power............with unreliables"

Wind and solar are a hyped.....expensive, faulty power that have MASSIVE subsidies paid by the (dumb) American Public. They are scenic pollution with the benefit of unreliable, non-energy dense power that does more harm (require fossil fuel back up) than good.

[hamsamich]

Great post GLW.  Mirrors 2 conversations I had with friends earlier this week.  We were saying 95+ temps for a month.  People in Thailand wet sheets at night during the hot season and let the water evaporate off of them for cooling when it gets too hot.

[Rerun]

Uh nuclear requires fossil fuel backup too. Dont you know how the grid works?

[GLW]

Should be "balancing the grid with clean, efficient, reliable power............with unreliables"

Wind and solar are a hyped.....expensive, faulty power that have MASSIVE subsidies paid by the (dumb) American Public. They are scenic pollution with the benefit of unreliable, non-energy dense power that does more harm (require fossil fuel back up) than good.

so, are the "people" of New York "dumb" as presented over in this other thread:

New York (six months later),...

................what was old is new again, welcome to the rebirth of the public benefit nuclear power plant paradigm:

Cuomo nuclear plan blunts criticism by combining with renewables

http://www.politico.com/states/new-york/albany/story/2016/07/cuomo-nuclear-plan-blunts-criticism-by-combining-it-with-renewables-103962

....As a political maneuver, the plan yielded little public criticism because it combined two different energy sources and an upstate job protection program. There was mostly public support for the plan even though monthly utility bills will now increase by about $2 a month as residents across the state pay energy giant Exelon above-market rates for the nuclear energy produced at the four upstate reactors.Billions of dollars, perhaps more than $8 billion, will go to nuclear reactors, according to some estimates. Major environmental groups that worked to close California's last nuclear reactor a few weeks ago were silent, including some that told POLITICO New York on background that they could not oppose a plan that gave unprecedented support to clean energy. The deal means New York is among the first states to put a price on carbon, to enact a policy that recognizes the social cost of fossil fuels, such as their role in creating climate change. It also recognizes nuclear as a power source that should be propped up by the state if it can't survive on the open market. Nuclear facilities across the country are struggling to compete against cheap natural gas, which has driven down power prices.Under the plan, the four reactors in upstate New York will receive $1 billion in ratepayer subsidies in the next two years, and billions more after that.....

OR, is the world adjusting to the realities of a new playing field,...

ya see Bonds 25, you are taking the principled position,...

the problem with that is the unprincipled do not play by your rules, actually, they do not play by any rules,...

I cannot begin to count the number of colleagues and acquaintances I know who count themselves as "green" people,...

at the same time as they drive around in luxo model 9 passenger SUVs,...

swim in their 30,000 gallon, personal, in-ground, backyard, swimming pools,...

mow their 1/2 acre yards atop their Cub Cadet CC760s,...

all the while pointing out how all the light bulbs in their house are green LED bulbs, and by association and deed they are good, green and concerned world citizens,...

principled people would have never got to the place where the cold hard facts require taxpayer subsidy of nuke plants to make them competitive with natural gas plants because the wind and solar cabals cannot meet their promises or projections,...

all the while you and your principles are yesterday's eulogy,...

so, as a principled citizen, do you accept the taxpayer subsidy to keep your slice of the american dream viable for you and yours?!?!?!

OR,...

do you walk away from the corruption of it all and become a principled WalMart greeter?!?!?!?

the cold hard facts in New York are that the unprincipled wind and solar cabal with their unprincipled greencolytes all in league with unprincipled politicos cannot deliver what were deliberate, deceptive, depictions of a future utopia where mankind lives in some sort of technosplendor without bending a single blade of Gaia grasslands,...

sooooo,...

now the greencolytes have to subsidize nuclear,...

is not that just a delicious comeuppance to the willfully ignorant?!?!?!?

I'M LOVING IT!!!!!!!!!!!!   

(sic),...for beercort

[GLW]

Uh nuclear requires fossil fuel backup too. Dont you know how the grid works?

absolutely,...

I love the roar of those smoky diesels when they fire up!!!!!!

but, at a well run nuke plant, those back ups should be needed many, many times less than any wind or solar based grid,...

I would think so, do you disagree?!?!?!?

[Bonds 25]

I would like no subsidies, level the power playing field, make fossils pay for their pollution, limit wind and solar's scenic destruction, a massive decrease in NRC and INPO absurd regulations, a massive decrease in required over securing of Nuclear Power Plants and see our nation fully supporting the advancement of next generation reactors.

Is this too much to ask? Probably.....but it shouldn't be.

I'm sure Rerun is talking about outages and SCRAMS needing fossil back up......which of course is true, for a very small fraction of the time. I'd rather have fossils infrequently backing up abundant Nuclear than say.....backing up solar every night, or on cloudy days or backing up wind when Mother Nature decides wind is unavailable. And of course, back up power doesn't have to be strictly fossil.....it can be hydro or even Nuclear with SMR's.

[Bonds 25]

Also.....if clean power is truly important (which of course it is) then why is New York only supporting upstate and western NY Nuke plants? Isn't Indian Point just as important to the clean power portfolio?

Cuomo is a fearmongering Politician. Fukushima proved that massive evacuations are not nessasary and actually do more harm than good.....and the chances of Indian Point experiencing anything close to the conditions the Operators at Fukushima were handed.....are pretty much nil. Closing Indian Point will do much more harm to the environment, it will affect the amount of reliable energy to NYC (Indian Point supplies 25% of NYC's power) and is the opposite of going clean.

[GLW]

Also.....if clean power is truly important (which of course it is) then why is New York only supporting upstate and western NY Nuke plants? Isn't Indian Point just as important to the clean power portfolio?

lawsuits pending,...

[hamsamich]

It is just as important, even more implortant for the same reason it is being called out (lots o' people). Being so close to NYC is what everyone is so bunged up about.  The state is saying the E-plan might not work like it should due to the large population center nearby.  That seems to be the main reason IP is being singled out.  But it is also not dumping tons of pollution into the sky close to a population center as well.  Most of us in the nuke industry with a clue know radiation risk is way overplayed and even the minimal amount of risk due to carbon output by a fossil unit is probably worse than any health risk posed by radiation (tritium OMG watch out for deadly tritium!!!) 

besides, fossil units put out radiation too. according to european nuclear society and other websites, natural gas puts out close to what a nuke puts out via Rn-222 and chain.  and that's not even mentioning the huge amount of radium in the water coming to the surface from fracking.  but nobody gives a crap, IP is nuclear so it must be bad!!!  Bad IP! bad.  Lets replace it with renewables that won't exist for another 20 years or more, so in reality, higher carbon output.  But we will call it renewables, so that means it is (see diablo canyon fiasco).  By then Cuomo will be somewhere else and IP will be shutdown and everyone can suck on a bit more pollution in the air.  But at least it isn't nuclear.  Whew...

[Bonds 25]

The only thing NYC should fear.....is not having Indian Point's reliable power. Well that and the ice caps melting making Manhattan the real Atlantis.

Emergency response controls at not only Indian Point, but EVERY Nuclear Power Plant need to be seriously overhauled. They need to be based on REAL science and REAL risk. This includes BOTH radiological and security measures.

[GLW]

The only thing NYC should fear.....is not having Indian Point's reliable power. Well that and the ice caps melting making Manhattan the real Atlantis.

Emergency response controls at not only Indian Point, but EVERY Nuclear Power Plant need to be seriously overhauled. They need to be based on REAL science and REAL risk. This includes BOTH radiological and security measures.

Look up Hertel-New York, CHPE, Quebec Hydro, etcetera,...

IP is replaceable, is it a smart or cost effective ?!?!

Who knows,...

That is for another thread,....