Obama approves 8.3bil loan for nuclear reactors

[KrauserKrauser]

Ok, I'll admit that the YAL-1 was a bit of a red herring. It hasn't entered into anything resembling the production of the F-22 and isn't having it's legs cut out from underneath it ala Constellation, consider the argument dropped.

[Shroom Man 777]

-ABM seems to do more harm than good. It's a needless antagonist in nuclear chess, and against a country like China, having ABM would just force them to build more missiles, overpowering our ABM.

Yeah, it's not like the Russians already have an effective ABM system or anything. Definitely don't want to have the same defenses as the competition. So when China builds their ABM system, as it only makes sense for them to do, does that mean we can finally re-develop (for the umpteenth time) a working ABM system? Can't defend ourselves because it makes other people angry that they won't be able to attack us?

Shitty argument against ABM there sir.

Personally I think there's nothing wrong with ABM. Just like ICBMs or IRBMs. It's just when we put them in other people's backyards, like putting IRBMs in Cuba or Turkey, or ABMs in Poland, that pisses off other people - that's what's wrong with ABM. Not a problem with the technology or the system itself, just how the politicians are using them as bargaining chips for stupid counter-productive power plays against other nations that would resent these actions and only promote bad blood between us and them.

[eion]

-The F-22 has been on the drawing board since the 1980s, prototypes flew in 1991. It is a relic of the cold war. I'd rather have 13 more MQ-9 Reapers than 1 F-22, they've actually fired a weapon in anger and hurt people with them.

You daft idiot, he cancelled production of the F-22, which was in production and in service, and sent the funds to the F-35, which is just about to enter development hell and have it's projected costs brought up to realistic numbers, that is the F-35 will more than likely cost relatively the same amount once all the bugs are worked out. Obama's reason for this? F-22 is too expensive, F-35 will be cheaper because I say so! See the cost overruns that hit the F-22 won't effect the F-35 because of.......Look over there!!!!

We have 145 F-22s and will have 187 by the end of production. He didn't cancel it, the Pentagon has been rolling back orders since the program started. Know how many planes the Pentagon wanted in 2006? 183. Gee, 187 is more than 183. He's not burning the planes, he's just taking the SecDef's advice that maybe we don't need an air-to-air stealth fighter to attack people in caves. And with China and Russia's 5th gen program delayed, maybe a lead of 187 planes will be enough for now.

I didn't say he made the right choice pushing the funds to the F-35, a program I agree is probably only going to get more expensive, I just said what I would rather the Air Force spend 142.6 million dollars on. The F-35 does have the advantage of being exportable though.

-ABM seems to do more harm than good. It's a needless antagonist in nuclear chess, and against a country like China, having ABM would just force them to build more missiles, overpowering our ABM.

Yeah, it's not like the Russians already have an effective ABM system or anything. Definitely don't want to have the same defenses as the competition. So when China builds their ABM system, as it only makes sense for them to do, does that mean we can finally re-develop (for the umpteenth time) a working ABM system? Can't defend ourselves because it makes other people angry that they won't be able to attack us?

Shitty argument against ABM there sir.

AEGIS, PATRIOT, and the ABL are both theater-grade working ABM developed or deployed by the US. The Russians have developed similar systems including intrinsic ABM capability in the newer SAM units. But they have nothing approaching the absolute idiocy of the SDI or the 53 billion Bush threw at the wall.

There is no such thing as perfect ABM because all an opponent has to do is build more missiles. And if you ABM is effective against ICBMs, they'll use SLBMs. If it can stop 90% of nuclear missiles, they can still destroy every city in the US. The only thing ABM does is encourage first-strike. If our nuclear opponents are certain they can destroy us, and we are certain we can destroy them, it does tend to reduce the appeal of nuclear weapons. Which leaves us with rogue states using Super-SCUDS, and we already have systems to combat those.

-The Boeing YAL-1 prototype is complete, and there is nothing saying we couldn't keep it on ice and begin production of more if needed. Boeing isn't going to stop building 747s anytime soon, and used ones are available quite easily.

Because systems integration is definitely easy to do and you can just take a stock 747, strap a laser on go after some missiles! Hell, we can commandeer a commercial airliner and simply tape on the laser for national defense.

You have no fucking clue what you are talking about do you?

That seems to be exactly what they did:

"In 2001, a retired Air India 747-200 was acquired by the Air Force, and trucked without its wings from the Mojave Airport to Edwards Air Force Base where the airframe was incorporated into the System Integration Laboratory (SIL) building at Edwards' Birk Flight Test Center, to be used to fit check and test the various components."

Notice the words retired, meaning USED, and the reference to a GIANT systems integration laboratory where they worked out how to install the components into a 747. We have the prototype; it's not been torn apart for scrap. We can continue testing it and if need be deploy it, and in fact build more. They used a retired one during SI to save money, and built the YAL-1 using a new airframe off the line, but there's no reason to assume they couldn't build more using used 747s, if that proves to be a cheaper option. There are 126 747-400Fs out there for them to buy.

EDIT: But I see we've dropped this argument

But this entire lovely back-and-forth still doesn't connect Obama canceling past programs and Obama canceling one of his own programs.

-What's so wrong with getting EPA approval for a power plant? Don't they approve every coal, natural gas, hydroelectric power plant as well, at least in terms of approving the environmental impact?

Yeah, every power plant needs to meet EPA standards but if you knew a goddamn thing about Nuclear power plants and the insane regulations that are applied to their creation, operation and maintenance you might understand that the approval process for a nuclear plant is orders of magnitude more cumbersome than any other power source due to decades of regulations forced on by anti-nuke environmentalists.

Here's a hint, they had to have special grading and irrigation of the site I worked on due to rain water being too contaminated to stand on the premises. Never saw that sort of insanity at the coal power plant I worked at.

If you drink a little coal dust in your water, can it kill you in a couple days? This stuff can be dangerous, and the last plant we built 30 years ago suffered a partial meltdown not 3 months after it went online. The radiation released has caused no deaths, but the PR backlash is huge. That problem cannot be ignored. TMI-2 violated NRC operating procedure by remaining online while its emergency pumps were shut-down for maintenance, its safety systems had a serious design flaw, and the training program didn't teach techs to know the difference between no power going to a valve and the valve being closed.

Also, I don't have to bury a coal furnace in a concrete cask after I close the plant.

-This is the first nuclear plant we've built in 30 years, we should get it right because I'd like us to build more of them, and more solar, and more wind, and basically anything but fossil fuels.

The EPA's approval will go some way to quieting the environmental lobby.

Building it right is not a problem. We have hundreds of examples of error free plants around the world to work with, we simply haven't had a regulatory environment friendly enough to allow for the building of more power plants in a time frame even resembling a chance of profitability.

Obama could pledge infinity dollars in loans and given the past history of EPA stonewalling of nuclear plant approval nothing would end up being built.

I still don't see any reason why Obama's own EPA administrator would stonewall her boss' program, and if she did, I doubt she'd stay head of the EPA long. Congress will be a bigger hurdle.

Like I said, I hope it is more than a publicity stunt and will believe it when I see it.

Me too, and if it goes wrong in any way, it could set nuclear power in the US back another 30 years.

[Crossroads Inc.]

I want to chime in that, listening to Keith Olbermann last night got me upset at him for the first time in Months.
He spent a seizable part of his show going on about likening current attempts to make new Nuclear reactor to Chernobyl and Three Mile Island.
It really pisses me off that so long after these events the reaction among those on the rights is ZMOG!!! Three Mile ISLAND!!!
I mean, Olbermann is pretty respected as far as a progressive leader, but he had a guy on who basically said "Nuclear can't be 100% safe so we should NEVER build it"

[eion]

I want to chime in that, listening to Keith Olbermann last night got me upset at him for the first time in Months.
He spent a seizable part of his show going on about likening current attempts to make new Nuclear reactor to Chernobyl and Three Mile Island.
It really pisses me off that so long after these events the reaction among those on the rights is ZMOG!!! Three Mile ISLAND!!!
I mean, Olbermann is pretty respected as far as a progressive leader, but he had a guy on who basically said "Nuclear can't be 100% safe so we should NEVER build it"

Yeah, that disapointed me too. If there's any backlash against this move, I look forward to Rachel Maddow having Bill Nye or a real nuclear engineer on to explain why Three Mile Islands and Chernobyls aren't all the common, and in fact often take active effort to circumvent safety systems to happen.

[K. A. Pital]

-ABM seems to do more harm than good. It's a needless antagonist in nuclear chess, and against a country like China, having ABM would just force them to build more missiles, overpowering our ABM.

Yeah, it's not like the Russians already have an effective ABM system or anything. Definitely don't want to have the same defenses as the competition. So when China builds their ABM system, as it only makes sense for them to do, does that mean we can finally re-develop (for the umpteenth time) a working ABM system? Can't defend ourselves because it makes other people angry that they won't be able to attack us?

Shitty argument against ABM there sir.

Creating one functional ABM around your capital (which could defend both NY and Washington) was permitted under the treaty - even Shep says it was dumb not to build one, but make one around ICBM silos instead (which was then taken offline anyway). What was explicitly prohibited by the now-defunct treaty is having ABM installations in other nations' territories (check for the USA), as well as space and sea based ABM elements (once again, check for the USA). Russia's ABM system is limited to a few dozen interceptors, the functionality of which nowadays is under question due to neglect and de-facto offline status for a period of time, as well as the removal of nuclear warheads. You don't want to have "the same" defences as Russia - what you want to have is an ABM system that spans the entire world, having interceptors placed in the ocean-going ships, in other nations - and in the future, possibly even in space itself.

While undeniably no one can prohibit the US from building any ABM systems it likes, that doesn't mean other nations have to be cool and dandy about your strategic military infrastructure spreading out into other nations. Building an ABM system and deploying it all over the world are different things. Trying to deploy your military stuff abroad is the point of contention, not the construction of such systems par se.

The argument that the ABM would be irrelevant against China that your opponent makes, is actually wrong; it would be relevant against China, because nations with small nuclear arsenals will see their offensive means degrade faster than nations with large, redundant, resilient and spread-out arsenals, fitted with various means of delivery, and possibly small nations can lose the status of a nuclear power. This can provoke undesireable responses.

[A-Wing_Slash]

I want to chime in that, listening to Keith Olbermann last night got me upset at him for the first time in Months.
He spent a seizable part of his show going on about likening current attempts to make new Nuclear reactor to Chernobyl and Three Mile Island.
It really pisses me off that so long after these events the reaction among those on the rights is ZMOG!!! Three Mile ISLAND!!!
I mean, Olbermann is pretty respected as far as a progressive leader, but he had a guy on who basically said "Nuclear can't be 100% safe so we should NEVER build it"

Silly Keith. I just saw that clip, and after mentioning that there was some number of curies of radiation his exact words were: "I don't really know what that measures, and it scares the crap out of me." Seems like a fitting summary of the anti-nuclear people.

[[R_H]]

One of our politicians opened his (ignorant) trap and commented on the issue at hand.

The problems of atomic energy remain unresolved up to this day: accidents, insurance, radioactive waste and scarce uranium. Why then does the Democrat Barak Obama want nuclear powerplants? It might be political maneuvering, it's the only way he can achieve a majority against the coal lobby. Two nuclear reactors are by no means an atomic Renaissance. At present, new wind turbines replace an nuclear reactor every two weeks. Wind energy is half as expensive as nuclear energy. Photovoltaic cells are steadily decreasing in price. Renewable energy is succeeding, while nuclear energy is declining globally in popularity and has been for years now. Obama's subsidies will not change anything.

Hey everybody, lets find the lies! There's at least two in the first sentence that I can see. Fourth sentence, it's a renaissance if they'll be the first ones built in 30 years. And so forth.

(Translation by me, I can post the original text if desired)

[Stofsk]

Second last sentence is a complete and total falsehood, IIRC nuclear energy is making a comeback globally, not declining in popularity. Maybe someone with their finger on the pulse can confirm that.

[[R_H]]

Second last sentence is a complete and total falsehood, IIRC nuclear energy is making a comeback globally, not declining in popularity. Maybe someone with their finger on the pulse can confirm that.

Colour me unsurprised. That's about par for course in the energy debates here, one side lies blatantly and doesn't get called on it by anyone, not even their opponents.

[eion]

[quote="Rudolf Rechsteiner"]Wind energy is half as expensive as nuclear energy. Photovoltaic cells are steadily decreasing in price.quote]

Which is nice if true, but the sun doesn't shine at 3 AM and the wind doesn't blow everyday.

[[R_H]]

Wind energy is half as expensive as nuclear energy. Photovoltaic cells are steadily decreasing in price.

Which is nice if true, but the sun doesn't shine at 3 AM and the wind doesn't blow everyday.

Reality is a minor obstacle to those types. That's why they advocate building...gas turbines. Which means we're dependant on either the Libyans, the Central Asians or the Russians (or all three). That, or they advocate buying electricity from our neighbours. Oh wait, France, that's mostly nuke and German, coal. Right now we get most our electricity from nukes and hydro, with relatively little from fossil fuel. If it ain't broken, don't fix it.

[sketerpot]

Let's pick this apart with facts:

The problems of atomic energy remain unresolved up to this day: accidents, insurance, radioactive waste and scarce uranium.

Accidents: what accidents? They're completely dwarfed by, say, coal mining accidents. Or accidents in most any industry.

Insurance: US nuke plants are covered by a large insurance pool put together by the industry itself. What was the problem again?

Waste: There are perfectly viable ways of dealing with it; people just don't want to know about them, because then they might have to rethink their position. Or think about it for the first time.

Scarce uranium: Mostly just lies concocted by taking real numbers and misusing them. Also, using breeder reactors, we could power America for a long time using only our existing stockpile of slightly used nuclear fuel ("waste"). You don't get to complain about both of these, not and be respectable.

Why then does the Democrat Barak Obama want nuclear powerplants? It might be political maneuvering, it's the only way he can achieve a majority against the coal lobby.

Speaking of the coal lobby, I'm always surprised that people give all the blame for crippling nuclear regulation to wannabee-environmentalists. Why no credit for the coal lobby?

Two nuclear reactors are by no means an atomic Renaissance.

They're a start. And other countries are building a lot more. China is ramping up to mass-produce AP1000 plants (and they're working on moving pebble beds into commercial use), India is working on thorium heavy water reactors, South Korea continues to bring more plants online, the UAE is buying from South Korea, and there are several small reactor designs going forward, such as the Hyperion power module and the Babcock & Wilcox mPower.

At present, new wind turbines replace an nuclear reactor every two weeks.

There are about 30 GW of wind capacity built per year right now. His statement is almost true if you disregard capacity factor, the percent of peak power that the wind farms produce on average. The average capacity factor of wind farms in Europe is about 21%, last time I checked, so that comes down to more like 6.3 GW per year. That's a little less than six of the AP1000 reactors that Obama is insuring the loans for. In comparison, China is planning on building about twice that much average generation capacity in AP1000s per year, not including their other nuke plants.

Anti-nukes tend to be downright allergic to basic arithmetic.

Wind energy is half as expensive as nuclear energy. Photovoltaic cells are steadily decreasing in price.

Wind energy is more expensive if you look at cost per average megawatt of production capacity -- remember the capacity factor? Ditto for photovoltaics. And then of course there's the matter of all the storage that you need to make it provide anything like a stable power supply. Or just become more dependent on natural gas; I hear their lobbyists are fun people.

Renewable energy is succeeding, while nuclear energy is declining globally in popularity and has been for years now. Obama's subsidies will not change anything.

Renewable energy's "success" is mostly due to extreme subsidies. Now guess what Obama isn't doing: he isn't subsidizing anything. He's insuring a loan provided by private investors, and the government will receive a substantial amount of money for its trouble.

This Rudolf Rechsteiner guy is quite a piece of work. It's amazing that he manages to be so wrong in so few sentences.

[K. A. Pital]

Man, renewable energy? Outside of hydro, which has truly lots of potential, it has so far been rather modest in it's successes. But the hydropower potential of industrialized nations (Europe, USA, Russia, Canada) is already utilized over 50%, sometimes to a degree as high as 80%. Meaning there is nowhere left to go with hydroelectric power, at least as of now. Other renewable technologies are not as efficient and certainly would not be able to provide the same energy return as nuclear, thermal and hydro, which are the main sources of power for nation-state economies now.

This guy is talking typical anti-nuclear bullshit points.

[adam_grif]

If these boards had their way, we'd be building dozens of the bastards, not two.

And it would be glorious.

[eion]

Man, renewable energy? Outside of hydro, which has truly lots of potential, it has so far been rather modest in it's successes. But the hydropower potential of industrialized nations (Europe, USA, Russia, Canada) is already utilized over 50%, sometimes to a degree as high as 80%. Meaning there is nowhere left to go with hydroelectric power, at least as of now. Other renewable technologies are not as efficient and certainly would not be able to provide the same energy return as nuclear, thermal and hydro, which are the main sources of power for nation-state economies now.

This guy is talking typical anti-nuclear bullshit points.

Hydro has its own enviromental concerns too.

Spain has done some good work with solar power, but nothing is a silver bullet. You need 10 solutions, not one or two.

[Stofsk]

There's no reason we can't have both a variety of renewable energy and nuclear power. The either/or dilemma is a false one, I think.

[adam_grif]

Obviously. Different parts of the world will have different optimal methods of power generation based on geological or atmospheric factors.

[[R_H]]

There's no reason we can't have both a variety of renewable energy and nuclear power. The either/or dilemma is a false one, I think.

Here in Switzerland, every party to the right of the Socialists and Greens is doing just that. It's just the latter two that are screaming their heads off about RENEWABLES and natural gas. Besides, replacing the nukes with renewables would be incredibly expensive, for the government and the taxpayer/electricity consumers.