[sicophiliac]

Too bad the economic stimulus package did not address this issue, 150 billion could have gone a long way in upgrading and maintaining our electrical grid.

[HEADER_RACK]

All those electric cars!! They will be contributing to the demise of civilization!! Let's hear it for the cornies!!

[roccman]

Yep - best get your wind generators up and panels bolted down.. Its gonna be a wild ride ahead of us.

[lawnchair]

20 years of, averaging 2.2% annual growth in demand will do that to you. Double the population growth. 55% more power drawn than in 1988. Added demand about the size of a Missouri or a New Jersey every year.

[Homesteader]

All those electric cars!! They will be contributing to the demise of civilization!! Let's hear it for the cornies!!

Yeah, that's one fact techno-cornucopians conveniently ignore.

No, no, no. . . they all get charged up at night when demand is low and . . . and. . . . and then we all drive our 43 miles and. . .and. . .
cripes are we farked!

[patience]

The son of our local electrical co-op board member told me to expect KWHR price to double in a couple years, due to new plant construction. If we get a carbon tax, Indiana coal-generated power will be costly indeed. Thus my solar system, and lots of usage cutbacks.

[frankthetank]

What about those nuke plants? The McCain Nuke Initiative? Have they started building those yet? How many are completed?

[SILENTTODD]

I heard Edward Teller tell me in 1966 we were going to have fusion by 1975. What happened!?

[lawnchair]

What about those nuke plants? The McCain Nuke Initiative? Have they started building those yet? How many are completed?

The NRC has accepted applications on 13 units at 8 locations in the last year, and are anticipating a total of at least thirty unit-applications in the next year-and-a-half. Since there hadn't been any applications for decades, that's right impressive. Sadly, the 8 applications already filed include four different reactor types, with others in review. Standardization? Not in this country!
McCain's "45 new plants" speech seems pretty weak when 30 of them are already in the pipeline.

[startswithearthquakes]

oh nooozz!!!1 Doom DOO00M DoOooOOMMm

[cube]

What about those nuke plants? The McCain Nuke Initiative? Have they started building those yet? How many are completed?

The McCain plan == 45 nuclear plants
however....
People tend to forget we have 104 nuclear power reactors currently in operation and MOST of them are near the end of their "service life".

We need to build a hundred nuclear power reactors just to stay even.

[Twilight]

Perhaps as in the UK, there is no direct comparison between an old and new nuclear power plant due to the greatly increased size of the new ones? It is possible that what has been proposed would allow the US to "stay even".

The grid issue is very real though, and the last thing we need is to scale mass-ownership of mains-charged electric cars into this environment.

[cube]

Perhaps as in the UK, there is no direct comparison between an old and new nuclear power plant due to the greatly increased size of the new ones? It is possible that what has been proposed would allow the US to "stay even".

You do have a good point. New plants today have a higher capacity than the older ones but I think MOST people are unaware of how serious this situation is.

IMHO we are in a crisis state today.
here's the proof: The above map shows we have 55 nuclear reactors that have been in operation for 20 to 29 years. Nuclear plants back in those days were only meant to last ("service life") for 30 years. An application for a service life extension can be applied for some reactors to give us more time. Assume a new reactor with a single standard of 1,000 MW, then we'd need to deliver 43 new nuclear reactors in 10 years just to replace the first wave of old plants that will be retired. The 2nd wave (10 years) would require 51 reactors. The last 2 reactors on the map we'll just ignore.
So basically we have to bring online 94 nuclear reactors within 20 years just to stay even. If we "fast track" the project today by working on 7 reactors simultaneously then the first batch will be brought online in 5 years. Every year after that a new batch of 6 or 7 reactors would need to be brought online for the next 15 years straight. Assuming it takes 5 years to deliver a reactor, at the height of construction, 30 or 35 nuclear reactors would need to be under construction simultaneously.
*That's not happening*

[Twilight]

Yes, that does seem to be rather unlikely at the moment.

[TreeFarmer]

I think you are drastically overstating the impact of the "30 year life." That 30 years was a number picked, well 30 years ago, but probably has little current meaning. These plants undergo constant maintenance, like all plants, and many parts of them are very new. Now, might some parts need to be replaced in the future? Of course, but I'm betting many of these plants will run for 60 years, not because they have to but because they are still safe to operate.


TF

[Cloud9]

Pretty much the same way 60 year old airplanes continue to fly.

[skeptik]

Sadly, the 8 applications already filed include four different reactor types, with others in review. Standardization? Not in this country!

Very wise. I'm sure you appreciate the dangers of monoculture. If an unexpected design specific failure mode crops up 10 years down the line and all your nukes are the same model - your whole nuclear power supply has to be shut down to fix it.

If the above ratio holds you only lose 25% of your output while the problem is fixed.