Used fuel can't leak. Leaking implies a liquid. Used fuel is a solid. Go drink some shit!

Used fuel is a heavy metal encased in ceramic. It can't leak DF

That's the dumbest thing I have ever read. And that's hard to do since anti-nuclear scumbags are dumb as shit.

What a crock of shit. Here are some facts about used fuel(aka nuclear waste from a nuclear power plant)

It has a total kill count of zero. Yes zero. Meanwhile, 8.7 million people die annually from the waste from fossil fuels and biofuels.

It is a solid metal encased in ceramic. The Simpsons' caricature of green goo is false.

There isn't a lot of it. We could put all of it(yes, all of it) in a building the size of a Walmart. France keeps all of theirs in a room the size of a high school gym--that people walk on.

Cask storage has been perfect. It has a 100% perfect record. Put it in my backyard.

Cask storage is cheap. It's just cement and steel.

All those claims that it's dangerous for thousands of years are untrue. The amount of radiation released from used fuel follows an exponentially decaying curve. All the highly radioactive isotopes decay completely within 5 years (which is why they keep it in water for 10). After the medium-radioactive isotopes, cesium and strontium, completely decay within 270 years, you can handle used fuel with your bare hands.

Weapons waste and medical waste are not used fuel. Used fuel is the material produced by a nuclear power plant. They are different. It's like saying we should ban oranges because apple seeds are bad for you.

Weapons != energy

Climate change could have been averted if we properly pursued nuclear energy.

To date, zero countries have deep decarbonized their grids with solar and/or wind.

France: 29 g CO2 per kWh with its nuclear baseload.

Sweden: 21 g CO2 per kWh, using nuclear and hydro.

Germany: 334 g CO2 per kWh after spending 15 years and hundreds of billions of euros on its energy transition.

Nuclear will be a necessary part of the solution. The only countries to have deep decarbonized their grid did it with hydro and/or nuclear. And since hydro is location-dependent and environmentally destructive, it won't scale. Atoms before Dams!

STOP THE FEARMONGERING LATIMES

Remember, all antinuclear activists are fossil fuel simps.

China is burning and mining more coal than the rest of the world put together.

Its emitting about 12 billion metric tons of CO2 annually. That is a bit under one third of the global total.

It is financing and building coal fired generation plants all over the world.

The US is emitting 5 billion metric tons of CO2 annually.

That is less than half what the Chinese are emitting.

Wake up!

"The results are a wake-up call, and its imperative that they be included in the next generation of climate policies," he added. "Failure to do so will make meeting the worlds climate goals less and less likely."

The world has no climate goals nor any policies either. You have the COPs, which most of the high emitting and fastest growing emitters attend with the sole purpose of preventing them from reaching any agreement on stopping growing or reducing. In which they have been very successful over the years.

Then you have some Western countries adopting what they try and position as national action plans. However these plans never address the total of even national emissions - the only thing they propose is to build wind and solar generation of electricity, which is a minority of emissions. The proposals also, while they are sold as net zero, in fact do not go near eliminating even all local emissions from power generation.

And even if they did, the countries doing this only account for a tiny percentage of total global emissions.

I read these pieces containing comments like the one quoted at the head of this comment and shake my head. These people are living in a dream world - the world in which sending tens of thousands of people to the COPs every couple of years to decide nothing is supposed to be making some difference to the worlds climate and weather.

In the real world the furthest advanced on thee national plan of moving to an electric society powered by wind and solar is the UK, and its failing. They are incurring huge costs to bring the generated wind power from the north coast of Scotland to where demand is, in the south and Midlands. They have no plans for dealing with intermittency of the resulting supply other than gas plants. The cost estimates for the transmission are rising ominously. People are not buying heat pumps anyway. Their latest effort to deal with the so called migration is to allow for the electricity companies to do rolling blackouts. Its beoming an election issue and net zero will not survive the next couple of elections.

As I keep saying, people need to wake up. If its really true that human emissions are going to bring about a climate crisis, get ready, because its coming. There is no realistic prospect of the world reducing its emissions. China etc are growing their economies as fast as they can, and letting the emissions go where they may. The UK is demonstrating that the plan of moving to wind and solar, and to EVs and heat pumps, will not happen and is anyway not affordable, and even were it to be afforded and done, it would only drop global emissions by a fraction of 1% - an amount China makes up by a couple months of growth.

The usual suspects will mark this post as trolling, but its not, its just the view any rational person will come to when looking at the facts of this matter. I am not persuaded there is any existential climate crisis from emissions. But suppose there is, there is certainly no rational global plan to lower them, and this is the point people need to start from. If you cannot get the Chinese to commit to lowering their emissions by 80%, which you cannot, then start preparing for whatever you think continuously rising emissions will lead to. Because its coming, and expensive programs which are no more than feelgoodery will not help.

Grid scale batteries can do more than deal with the intermittency of solar power.

I recall news about the Tesla Megapack in Australia keeping the electric grid stable after a gigawatt scale coal power plant was somehow suddenly taken off the grid. So, consider how batteries could help in keeping electricity flowing should a gigawatt scale nuclear power plant have an unplanned shutdown, it's not like the electrons behave any different if they come from a nuclear power plant than a coal power plant.

If there's a need for grid scale electric storage then nuclear fission allows for energy storage at lower cost than batteries, and possibly lower cost than pumped hydro storage. Nuclear fission is uniquely suited for thermal energy storage since they can produce temperatures higher than concentrated solar thermal, thermodynamics tell us the higher the temperature in the "thermal battery" the better.

A nuclear power plant with thermal energy storage allows for ramping down power and diverting that heat into storage for using when solar power fades with clouds and nightfall. Thermal energy storage could be little more than a tank on a molten salt coolant loop. Because thermal energy storage is so simple the cost of construction and operation could be the cheapest option for grid scale storage. If batteries prove to be lower cost than thermal energy storage then a nuclear power plant can use batteries instead.

If we are going to be truthful with ourselves about the cost of energy then we should not ignore how batteries could be paired up with more than just solar.

Canada figured out how to build gigawatt scale CANDU nuclear reactors without large steel castings. If getting large steel cast parts is an issue for Americans then Americans could work out a deal with Canada, or develop similar reactors independently. That's assuming we'd want to continue building gigawatt scale reactors. Right now there's a Department of Energy contest of sorts to see who has the best small modular reactors. The winners of this competition would likely need a few years yet to get from these first-of-a-kind demonstration reactors to mass production, which means they can avoid any issues over sourcing large steel castings.

There's more to cost reduction with scale than keep building gigawatt scale reactors. SMRs can be designed to scale with quantity, and that's the sales pitch being used to find utilities willing to fund nuclear power plants.

I am continually baffled on how those opposed to nuclear power keep bringing up problems that have been solved decades ago.

That might be a problem right now but certainly solvable in something like five years. When I was attending university for an electrical engineering degree and planning out which courses to take for the next semester I discovered that the professor for one of the fluid dynamic classes had a degree in nuclear engineering. That made me wonder how many other professors teaching at American universities were nuclear engineers. There's few universities in the USA offering degrees in nuclear engineering, but that doesn't necessarily mean there's a shortage of professors willing and able to teach nuclear engineering courses.

If universities see demand for nuclear engineers from both students and the energy industry then they can develop a nuclear engineering program. A nuclear power plant will need people trained in nuclear engineering but only a handful of them as there's plenty going on at nuclear power plants that will not require knowing anything related to nuclear fission. There's clearly enough nuclear engineers for the current demand, because if there were not then I would not see any university with professors trained in nuclear engineering teaching courses ion how to build windmills, they would instead be teaching at a university with a nuclear engineering program, or they'd be applying their expertise designing or operating nuclear power plants.

As it is now it takes about eight years to build a nuclear power plant from breaking ground to producing electricity. This gives the nuclear power industry time to avoid a future shortage of nuclear engineers. The nuclear power industry can, and almost certainly will, do what they can to speed the process along. While attending university I learned of scholarships from John Deere to get more agricultural engineers. If I had learned of this scholarship earlier then I would have switched to agricultural engineering to see my costs to attend university lowered. Much like that nuclear engineer teaching students how to build windmills the degree doesn't lock people into a narrow field of employment options. If I studied agricultural engineering at university I could find work programming binary load lifters by applying what I learned at university about moisture vaporators. The companies building nuclear power plants today can offer scholarships in nuclear engineering just like how John Deere offered scholarships for agricultural engineers.

Your goto example is 5.6 GW for 32 billion. That's a good deal.

I'd guess the authors of the fine article believed that the age of the power plant wasn't important enough to include. There are plenty of details not in the article since the authors of the article will have a maximum word count from their editors, this is so the readers are not given trivial details that would bore and/or confuse the reader. The editors and reporters will have a point they want to get across, the point I got from the article is that there's a growing demand for electricity which has forced people to reconsider the viability of nuclear fission as a source of electricity. If the reader wishes to learn that detail they can easily find that with a web search using the same computer used to read the article.

I'll save you from the trouble of searching this yourself, construction started in 1970 and the reactor commissioned in 1975 which would make this reactor about 50 years old.

That was in the article. The plant had been damaged by a powerful wind storm, as seen only in a once in a lifetime level of power. The reactor didn't see any damage, the damage was to property around the reactor that turns the reactor heat into electricity and sends that electricity to the local rural electric cooperative. At the time immediately after the storm the plant could not raise the money needed to repair it, while also paying for the refueling and maintenance that was in progress then. Minds were changed on restarting the reactor because of rising natural gas costs.

Just like I commented above there's only so much detail that can be put in a news article while also keeping the word count to something that can be easily processed by the intended audience.

Every nuclear power plant is required to show the NRC they have funds set aside for decommissioning before a license to operate is granted. In the end all Americans are contributing to this fund by electricity fees, taxes, and likely more. It appears you believe that there's better options than nuclear fission for producing electricity. I expect that the people working on restarting DAEC did the math on costs versus benefits and found restarting DAEC was their best option. I'm quite certain that these people know more about the costs and income than you do.

Why should anyone be all that concerned about how long the decommissioning will take? There's all kinds of infrastructure projects that take a similarly long time to complete, why should I think any different about a nuclear power plant?

What you've written doesn't mesh with nuclear power. It appears to me that you are simply ignorant about nuclear power and can't be bothered to do the slightest to educate your self. You clearly have a computer and internet, if you didn't then you'd not be posting comments to Slashdot, which allows you to find answers to your questions in only a few minutes. I'm reminded of a comment that's been attributed to Mark Twain, those who don't read will remain as ignorant as those that can't read.

There's two events that stick out in my mind that demonstrate to me how opinions are changing on nuclear fission for energy. The first event was seeing Andrew Yang advocated for nuclear power in his campaign for POTUS. If Yang believed Democrats would not support nuclear power then he'd not likely run as a Democrat. The national Democrat party platform included support for nuclear power shortly after Yang dropped out of the race for the White House, and I'm of the belief that leaders in the party made this shift because Yang was getting popular as a candidate. Yang speaking in favor of nuclear power, and getting plenty of votes in primary elections, likely got Democrat leaders nervous on their chances to win in that race. Yang forced other Democrats to comment on nuclear power, and those that spoke out against it were losing votes to Yang or Republicans.

The second event that tells me public opinions on nuclear power are changing happened in the last week or so, I'm seeing adverts in favor of nuclear power on YouTube. For something like 50 years Democrats were either openly opposed to nuclear power or were trying to pretend that nuclear power doesn't exist. If there's enough money to produce and distribute these adverts then there must be plenty of people willing to fund these adverts.

Maybe you dumbfuck antinuclear scumbags shouldn't have blocked nuclear construction for the last 50 years. You guys really are pieces of shit.

It will strike everyone as very puzzling. After all, everyone on slashdot and Ars Technica knows that wind and solar are far cheaper than nuclear and just as reliable. So why on earth is Google looking into nukes? Why do they not just build a huge wind farm, throw in a few batteries, and get unlimited cheap power?

Because the wind and the sun are free, after all. But instead they seem to be resorting to a ridiculously expensive nuke, and then on top of that, where you have to pay for the fuel, I mean, someone has to dig the stuff up and refine it. Whereas the wind just blows and the sun just shines, so they obviously are cheaper.

They have accountants and lots of MBAa, so they must see this, so the question is why they are going against what their analyses must show them. If it was coal or gas we would know, they were in thrall to the fossil fuel industry. But is there a nuke lobby, and are they not bigger than it anyway.

Help me understand this! Its a great mystery. Unless I have missed something. But what could that be? I mean, it cannot be that wind and solar plus a few batteries are actually more expensive, could it?

I'm aware of the distinction between the two words, I was trying to be funny. I set up the joke but then failed in delivering the punch line. I was referencing the "four boxes of liberty", with those boxes being soap, ballot, jury, and ammunition/cartridge/ordnance/whatever. If the local government fails to enact/pass legislation to change behavior, and/or fails in changing behavior by nonviolent means, then this could lead to violent enforcement, where violent enforcement includes handing out ammunition.

Sure, rarely in life is anything absolute.

Define "typical of an RV" for the class. I know people with an RV, and I've done a bit of looking on what an RV takes for power more generally, so I believe I have some idea on what an RV might take for power. If we are to take my brother's RV as something approaching "typical" then we will see two AC units for cooling. This allows for running a single AC unit if there is only a "travel trailer" outlet for power, which provides 120VAC @ 30A, or running both units if there is a 240VAC @ 40A outlet as found at more "up to date" campsites suited for larger camper trailers and RVs. On a warm Midwest summer day like today there could be a near constant running of the AC unit(s) from early afternoon until about midnight when the outdoor temperature gets below 70F. If we assume a cool fall or spring day for camping then there could be electric resistance heaters running constantly through the night and into the mid-morning when the sun starts to warm everything up.

I can understand that during much of the camping season the high power loads will be largely intermittent, such as microwave ovens as well as more intermittent use of heating and cooling, but that is not guaranteed. I don't know how an RV park would calculate loads to determine main service size but this still means that a BEV with a portable L2 charge cable is no worse than an RV during cool or warm weather.

If the choice is to spend $500 (the highway robbery DCFC fees such as in TFA plus fees for a motel room for the night) or to sleep in the car for the night during mild weather at a campsite for $25 then I'll choose sleeping in my car. If there is severe weather to the point sleeping in my car would not be safe, some hurry to get where I'm going, or some other unusual need, then I'll eat the $500. I won't like paying out $500, would likely dispute the fees as soon as possible as shown in TFA, but if I had to eat that then I'd consider it a once in a lifetime case of bad luck as well as a learning experience to better plan my travels in the future.

That's great but TFA is about a gentleman traveling through the Midwest USA, on what I assume to be a summer vacation, being left with what appeared to be limited options for recharging the BEV he rented. There's a lot of missing details on the situation so we'll have to speculate. If a motel with free EV charging was within the range left on the battery was available then I would expect the driver to take that option than gamble on the fees from an unfamiliar charger. Then consider the point I made above, there may have been more going on which dictated using the DCFC regardless of the fees than spend the night at a campsite in rural Michigan.

A quick look at DCFC fees tells me that $0.40/kWh is about as low as anyone can find in the USA. For a 65 kWh battery like in the Chevy Bolt that comes to about $25 for a full charge. Consider DCFC fees that would be from average to high and it might be double that, perhaps even triple or quadruple. A quick look at some local campsites and I see overnight fees for a spot with electricity being between $25 and $50. Maybe campsites cost more where you are but I'd expect most Midwest campsite fees would be in that $25 to $50 range. It's been a while since I rented a campsite but I doubt there's much difference in the fees over that time and over the general Midwest area, feel free to prove me wrong. Remember that we are talking about people traveling through rural USA, there may not be a Tesla Supercharger on the path from A to B.

I agree that Tesla appears to offer the best option for EV charging, regardless of which make of BEV being discussed, but Tesla chargers aren't always an option. I point to campsites as an option to recharge as (at least in my experience) fees are posted clearly, they will offer a safe place to rest for a few hours to overnight if necessary, will have toilets (though perhaps not the most modern and clean), and likely other amenities to make the stop at least relatively comfortable and likely more comfortable than the typical charging station which offers little more than a slab of asphalt baking in the summer sun. Assuming the BEV driver is not in a hurry, or lacking better options, then $50 for a few hours at a campsite to recharge (literally and figuratively) isn't that bad of an option. What's the better option here? A $200 tow to the next town with a Tesla Supercharger? Or a motel with free overnight EV charging?

The larger point is to keep an open mind on EV charge options when traveling through unfamiliar territory and/or sparsely populated areas like the Midwest USA. Instead of only looking for DCFC on an app consider also campsites, motels that have L2 chargers, truck stops that might not be listed on most EV charging networks, and so on. I've seen comments on Slashdot on how some hospitals and churches have EV chargers that are either free or low cost, they may not be DCFC but expect to at least have a safe place to rest while waiting to charge.

Like most local shops that treat their patrons like shit they made the local news for their actions. This often leads to corrections to this behavior in short order. The shop can change their behavior in response to locals being less likely to visit their shops (and therefore impact income) or the local government will pass some ordnance (or is it "ordinance"?) to more forcefully adjust their behavior.

EVs are still a new enough phenomenon that NACS as a standard charging port is only two years old (or something, it's close enough), so new that we might still be seeing CCS or whatever on new EVs for another two years. The "piece of shit" dealers with sky high fees on charging aren't likely to get away with this highway robbery for much longer. People will learn which dealers are pieces of shit, EV charger apps will learn to post fees as well as potentially just refuse to list charging sites that rob EV drivers, and laws will be passed to force fees charged to be posted prominently like we see now with filling stations.

I'm disappointed that anyone believes they can get away with this kind of robbery, but I'm also encouraged that this is making the news which will discourage this robbery in the future.

I've had generally pleasant experiences with local auto dealers so I've not been trained to believe that dealerships rip people off like I'll hear others express such happening to them. Again, I expect this to be self correcting, especially now that so many drivers will have a smartphone that can give rapidly updated information on anyone that could try to rob them with shady business tactics.

Oh, and a note to those looking to avoid high EV charging fees:
A tip I picked up is that it's cheap to charge up an EV at campsites for those thinking ahead to pack a portable charge cable, a cable that can be had for something like $100 from all kinds of shops be they online or brick and mortar. From experience a campsite will offer as much as a 240 VAC @ 40A outlet for "shore power", or at least some kind of electrical outlet, and charge something like $25 for the night regardless of how much electricity is consumed. You don't have to stay the night, presumably sleeping in your car, but you can if that means charging up cheap while spending the night in a safe place to sleep. Nearly every campsite will have toilets, showers, and WiFi for campers to use. The nicer campsites could also have a swimming pool, laundromat, perhaps a little convenience shop to pick up basic food items and/or toiletries, maybe a playground or hiking trails to get some exercise and/or distract any children traveling with you for a bit. My point is that by thinking outside the box on places to charge there are options to save money on EV charging, or at least having a more pleasant stop than the typical roadside charging spot that is lacking the most basic of comforts for the stop.