The comparison of nuclear power to any other energy source currently utilized in the United States is a case of apples and oranges. NO OTHER energy source has close to the need for high-level security over waste storage, nor nearly the length of time required to render that waste non-toxic. Is there another energy source that produces waste that gets MORE volatile and less stable over time?
I have not seen a single comparison of options for America’s energy solution that includes these integral costs.
But that is just the financial logic.
Far more insidious and far greater justification for why nuclear power is not a viable solution is the ongoing effects of the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
I beg you, especially if you believe that nuclear power should be part of our energy equation, to take a few minutes and view a short slideshow of the work of photographer Paul Fusco, who visited Chernobyl and the surrounding region in 2006, twenty years after the nuclear accident:
http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/essay/chernobyl
Paul Fusco at MagnumInMotion.com
There is no other argument necessary. View these images and then tell me you are willing to risk this fate for your grandchildren and their grandchildren. How could you?
Categories: nuclear power
Algae hampers Yankee cooling system
By Susan Smallheer STAFF WRITER – Published: July 9, 2009
BRATTLEBORO – The algae problem at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant that is affecting the plant’s ability to cool itself will probably mean the plant will reduce power for a couple of hours several days a week for the rest of the summer.
But Entergy Nuclear workers recently discovered a reduced efficiency in the chlorination system that has been tracked to an “underperforming chlorine injection system,” said Entergy Nuclear spokesman Robert Williams.
He said the system had been repaired and plant efficiency was improving.
The nuclear reactor uses water from the Connecticut River to cool key plant components, but the buildup of algae lessens the effectiveness of the heat transfer and the algae must be removed by chlorination, Williams noted.
“The biofouling continues to be normal slime-producing algae – the same familiar aquatic growth that clings to rocks in the rivers,” he wrote in an e-mail.
Williams said because the plant is now producing 20 percent more power, and as a result 20 percent more steam, the plant’s cooling towers can’t do all the cooling, so the reactor must reduce power to facilitate the chlorination, he said.
Read the entire article: http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20090709/NEWS02/907090381/1003/NEWS02
Categories: Entergy · Entergy Nuclear · Environment · VT · Vermont · Vermont Yankee · energy · nuclear power · nuclear power plant · the environment · uprate
