Comments Joffan has made

No, fusion is different, totally unproven

I'm just talking about an alternative mineral source for existing fission technology which doesn't involve mining.

I should also like to take minor issue with the blanket use of "energy gluttony" since I doubt you could apply that term to many in India for example. We certainly need more energy availability there to lift people out of poverty and hence (sure as day follows night) reduce population growth pressure.On Monbiot on nuclear posted 9 months, 1 week ago 6 Responses

Is this simple enough for you amazingdrax?

Tritium at Barnwell is not from power plant operations. End of story.

Acknowledge this and maybe we can debate something real.
On Can Obama stop the nuclear bomb in the Senate stimulus plan? (Part 1) posted 9 months, 3 weeks ago 53 Responses

David - Taxes are paid on profits

 and profits are net of expenses. I really don't see how you can count payments to the decomm fund as anything but an expense. And I shudder to think what kind of howl you'd set up if the nuclear plant operator was not paying into a decomm fund in advance.On Can Obama stop the nuclear bomb in the Senate stimulus plan? (Part 1) posted 9 months, 3 weeks ago 53 Responses

PTCs and ITCs

David, I'd argue that ITCs are for recovery of capital, and PTCs are a direct production subsidy.

And as you say, current nuclear plants get nothing in this line, and a moderate but limited tax credit is potentially available for the first few years of the first few new-design nuclear power plants. This is pretty much explicitly connected with the additional costs of rebuilding the supply chain for nuclear plants. So, when we get there in 5-6 years or so, you will have an argument that nuclear is costing taxpayers more than some other power sources - although not really very much for the amount of power delivered, and nothing at all for most of the plants currently in application.

What we need is a method of paying for electricity that encourages infrastructure development and discourages the use of carbon fuels. What we have is the opposite, because the price of electricity is allowed to vary sharply on the cost of the fuels used - the major cost of running a gas plant in particular -  but in many places takes no account of construction costs, which at present with steel and concrete prices yoyoing, is pretty variable itself. And no-one seems to be paying for the grid.On Can Obama stop the nuclear bomb in the Senate stimulus plan? (Part 1) posted 9 months, 3 weeks ago 53 Responses

Sorry David, I don't understand your question

I'd love to answer but there must be a missing word or something I think. Can you repost?

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Meanwhile there have of course been nuclear power plants built in the last 30 years, although not as many as there should have been. Perhaps if the electricity market had not been deregulated we could have gotten rid of coal by now. Deregulation of electricity was the real killer to significant investment in both new plants and the grid.

No doubt when Watts Bar 2 opens you will only say negative things about it; but I will cheer that less coal is used.On Can Obama stop the nuclear bomb in the Senate stimulus plan? (Part 1) posted 9 months, 4 weeks ago 53 Responses

Decommissioning funds

Obviously David decommissioning funds are your talking point de jour.

But equally obviously, funds which are paid into (not merely "earmarked for") a dedicated decommissioning fund are not profits. Your claim that they are available for "high risk investment" is clearly not true, since the article you link to points out that they were not hit as hard as would be expected by the slump, because they were trust-fund managed.

One might say... that your comparison with solar is completely out to lunch. Solar gets 30% of yearly profits tax-free and this is real profits, not a future expense that is being allocated for in advance. Nuclear pays tax on all its profits.

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What on earth is your point 3 on New Nuclear plants about?

As for the other benefits; since we need carbon-free electricity, we have to encourage the build out of infrastructure to produce it. I don't think nuclear really needs the production tax credit to be honest, but I guess they asked anyway to level the playing field. I do know that it only applies to the first 6GW built and only for a limited time.

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What's your problem with an R&D plan? Wouldn't you regard that as a Good Thing if say the wind industry and government got forward to propose a plan for the next twenty years?On Can Obama stop the nuclear bomb in the Senate stimulus plan? (Part 1) posted 9 months, 4 weeks ago 53 Responses

Do you enjoy this deception, David?

Nuclear power - and this is nuclear fission power - does not consume anything like the amount of budget you imply; but this is what you are opposed to, and apparently no mis-statement is too low for your purposes. And taking your curiously-phrased statement about "federal electricity related R&D subsidies", which in itself is a clear indicator of cherry-picking, it is also false, since nothing like that amount of R&D is spent on nuclear power - noting your use of the present tense.

Clearly you prefer to argue on the basis of conjecture and projection rather than facts - what was that corn ethanol remark about? I hope someday you will see the folly of this approach.On Can Obama stop the nuclear bomb in the Senate stimulus plan? (Part 1) posted 9 months, 4 weeks ago 53 Responses

Plrease read your own link David

because your link confirms exactly what I said, and not what you are claiming.

The government prevarication on this topic has led to unnecessary cost to the taxpayers - which is no cause for celebration. But it is not a cost on the Nuclear Waste Fund, and neither should it be, since the money was collected long since for funding the repository and not for funding the government to break its promises.On Can Obama stop the nuclear bomb in the Senate stimulus plan? (Part 1) posted 10 months ago 53 Responses

Listen carefully amazingdrax

The Government CAN NOT USE the Nuclear Waste Fund to pay the damages to the companies for failing to keep to their schedule. It has been specifically indicted against such an action:

In 2002, however, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that DOE could not use the Nuclear Waste Fund to pay the damages resulting from the government's breach of its contracts.

Your link does nothing to assert any different position, no matter how you wish it would.

The NWF is not affected by these payments.On Can Obama stop the nuclear bomb in the Senate stimulus plan? (Part 1) posted 10 months ago 53 Responses

amazingdrax, who is compromising?

I don't see these "compromise proposals". They are your personal strawman that no die-hard anti-nuclear activist would consider.

What is needed is for the government, who decided 30 years ago that they are the only competent actor for spent nuclear fuel, to get the hell on with dealing with it. They have collected a huge pile of cash to do that, rightly charged as part of the value of the electricity, and are now in default of their obligation to act with that cash. Ten years in default. If you think the right way for them to meet their obligations is to build waste-transmutation reactors, well and good. It really doesn't affect the question of new nuclear power plant build, though. The waste is actually fine as it is, hurting no-one and posing no threat, and provided the government eventually gets moving there is no reason to delay further plants on this pretext.

You preach like nobody knows that there have been problems in the past with nuclear. Of course there have. But the solution is and was not to go do something else entirely, some unrelated R&D, but to sort out the power process itself, which is what happened in the 80s and 90s.

I'm not interested in who gets rich. I am interested in not burning fossil fuels. You seem to have some idea that we can stop the world; but we can't. Action is needed on all fronts to displace the fossils.On Can Obama stop the nuclear bomb in the Senate stimulus plan? (Part 1) posted 10 months ago 53 Responses

Basically someone is lying here

If the smelters' electricity is going to be powered by coal or gas, then Iceland's greenhouse emissions will go up significantly; otherwise, it won't (and will likely prevent emissions elsewhere).

Which is it?On Björk, Sigur Rós protest Icelandic aluminum plant in concert posted 1 year, 4 months ago 5 Responses

Regulation, not bans

It would be far more productive for tough regulation to be put in place and funded to ensure that the mining proposals could meet, would meet, and in operation continue to meet, environmental preservation requirements.

There is nothing automatically evil about uranium mining, particularly the ground-freeze in-situ techniques which - hello? - do NOT require tons of rock to be crushed. Uranium is neither wildly toxic (lead is a good comparison) nor particularly radioactive. But they should still be subject to heightened oversight and prequalification in vulnerable ecosystems. Whether the Grand Canyon qualifies (it's scenic, yes, but is it delicate?) I cannot say.

And - jabailo - "only water and air" - what's the energy source?On House blocks uranium mining near Grand Canyon National Park posted 1 year, 5 months ago 3 Responses