as well as technologies that can make coal clean and nuclear power safe

Coal can never be clean, and is dirty as hell. And nuclear power is already safe, and is getting only safer.

Will you please stop the travesty of using coal and nuclear power in the same phrase ?

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

@Bob Wallace

I will happily reply to you, but please promise you won't use the same arguments against me the next time.

Nuclear is not safe.  

Well you should quantify your statement. Where is it not safe ? I will reply on two possible topics

(a) nuclear plants might meltdown : No, the nuclear plants of the current technology will never melt down. If everybody supervising the plant suddenly dies or disappears mysteriously, the plant will cooly shut itself down. This feature is called inherent safety. All 3rd and 4th generation nuclear reactors have such feature. So no more 3-mile island (which itself produced zero deaths and minimal radiation leaks, btw) Chernobyl is not even being discussed because Soviet Union no longer exists. Sorry.

(b) nuclear plants leak radiation outside : You can measure radiation using Geiger counters. Take one of these instruments yourself outside a nuclear power plant and see how much radiation is getting leaked. Zilch. Note down the number and take the same instrument around your kitchen utensils. You will find there is more radiation.

Statistically speaking, nuclear power has the least number of deaths amongst all possible modes of power production (counted in deaths per giga watt hour). And this is including chernobyl disaster. Hydropower is the most dangerous (all your renewable technologies need pumped storage, which has essentially the same level of danger as hydropower)

There is no solution for safe storage of nuclear waste.

Yes there is. Nuclear waste will be annihilated and will be transmitted as electricity to your home.. So that you can watch TV or charge your plugin vehicle. Cool isn't it ?

But some profound philosophical reason, people like you didn't like this idea in 1994, so they are currently trying to store nuclear waste deep underneath the Yucca mountain.

There are continuing serious problems in design, construction, and operations of nuclear facilities.

The design of new nuclear plants is completely different from the older ones. It is as different as a macbook is different from an ENIAC. But people like you want to have ENIACS and not macbooks. What can I say ?

There are continuing serious problems in construction of nuclear plants. Yes, precisely. People like you are preventing this construction. Faced against such monumental odds, how can nuclear plants have any hope ? I mean, it is probably easier to circumnavigate the known universe in a fusion-powered space ship.

Spending a small amount of money to seek solutions to these problems isn't a bad idea, IMO.  A few millions, not billions.

In fact, there was a moment in 1994, when you didn't have to spend any money. Nuclear power was just sitting there, all for free. The Japanese wanted to spend 60 million dollars so that American nuclear scientists can work in peace.

But the US senate said "No, you guys pack up and close the project."

The scientists replied that packing up costs more money than just letting them work peacefully for just another 2 years. And that, after 2 years, we will have plans for unlimited energy for a several thousand years.

"No" said the US senate, "If we let you continue to work for 2 more years, the North Koreans will steal the plans and proliferate nuclear weapons"  

"But", said the scientists, "our technology has nothing to do with nuclear weapons. It actually has potential to reduce nuclear proliferation. And how anyway, can North Koreans steal our secrets ? "

The US senate said "Blah-blah-blah.. Nuclear power, nuclear weapons.. it is all the same.. Your project is dead. Case closed".

So the Integral Fast Reactor had its obituary written. Ten years later, the North Koreans built the nuclear bomb anyways.

Coal might be made clean.  It's a very, very long shot.  About as long a shot as making hydrogen vehicles efficient.  

When you burn coal, you get CO2. If you don't want CO2, you don't burn coal. Coal = dirty. Dirty = coal.

Clean coal is something like smart Bush. It exists in an alternative universe consisting entirely of antimatter. If you discover such a universe, please let me know.

"Coal and nuclear were power sources that found some use in the 20th Century but were phased out in the 21st as clean, safe, less expensive renewables made them untenable."

Humanity has been using coal  .. since.. let me see ... 10,000 years ago. You have been slightly off the mark when you said 20th century.

We have discovered nuclear power due to some pinheads such as Marie Curie, Niels Bohr, Albert Einstein, Nicolas Tesla etc.. It has been 100 years since these discoveries are made, and we still are burning coal ? This is essentially the strength of our character. Let's say phooeey to all the pinheads. They belong to the 20th century.  We are the brave 21st century folks.. we will be spinning windmills, lining up solar panels (<small>.. and burning all the oil, coal and natural gas that is ever there to find ..</small>)

Oil, coal and nuclear power.. This is how it goes. With increasing level of danger. All evil stuff. As far as we are concerned, they are all the same.

And we 21st century folks enter the brave new world through our such intelligence .. A brave world which is 6 degrees warmer than the 20th century. A brave world where sealevels rise and spread watery happiness. A brave world where old species get exterminated and new species rise. A brave world where Bangladeshis drown, along with their Royal Bengal Tigers. A brave new world where polar bears find eternal peace, without the mundane hassles of a fish-eating life.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

Here's a lot of C&P for you...

---
On April 12, 2003, the licensee for South Texas Project Unit 1 (STP 1) discovered small boron deposits around two of the unit's bottom mounted instrumentation penetration nozzles during a bare metal visual examination of the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) bottom head. Subsequent nondestructive examination of all 58 nozzles at the South Texas nuclear power plant confirmed the existence of leaking, axially-oriented flaws in the two nozzles.

---

The federal agency agreed to a meeting after a petition by 22 environmental groups last January cited leaks in the last decade at nuclear power sites in Braidwood and Dresden, Ill.; Lynchburg, Va.; Salem, N.J.; Haddam Neck, Conn.; and Indian Point and Long Island, N.Y.

Since the petition was filed:

Two more plants -- at Palo Verde, Ariz., and Byron, Ill. -- have reported groundwater leaks.

Illinois has sued Exelon over the Braidwood spill, caused by a broken concrete pipe.

A new spill was reported at Indian Point.

Most of the leaks involve tritium, a byproduct of nuclear power generation. Tritium also occurs naturally at low levels, but large amounts, if ingested, can lead to cancers, birth defects and miscarriages.

The biggest known tritium leak was at Exelon's nuclear reactor at Braidwood, where 3 million gallons of tainted water spilled in 1998 and 2000. Late last year, tests detected tritium in the well of a nearby homeowner, indicating that the leak had spread.

(link below - site software funky)

--

Nope.  No danger here.  This nuclear power stuff is so safe.

--

BTW, do you understand that we could provide all our electricity from wind turbines and a few hours of compressed air and pump-up hydro storage?  

And we could do it for less than half the cost of providing our electricity needs with new nuclear?

Why haven't we built all that wind yet?

Because the cost is too high to mount a very large construction campaign.  

Same reason we won't build lots of new nuclear plants.

But over time we will build wind farms and solar fields.  

If you're a nuclear engineer it would be a good time to find a new career.

--
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11996239

Nope.  No danger here.  This nuclear power stuff is so safe.

Will you do me a favor Bob, and produce information on all the above leaks with precisely the amount of radiation contamination that has been leaked, in REM.

The impact on the affected population depends exactly on the levels of REM.

For comparison, the average person living in the United States is exposed to approximately 0.15 REM annually from background sources alone.

Reported dosage due to dental X-rays seems to vary significantly. Depending on the source, a typical dental X-ray of a human results in an exposure of perhaps, 3[3], 40[4], 300[5], or as many as 900[6] mrems (upto 0.9 REM).

My guess is that the radiation levels of these "leaks" are so minor that they are less than what you get when exposed to, say, on a chest X-ray. In which case, I will please request you to spend more time and effort criticizing (a) lead poisoning due to paints (b) mercury poisoning due to bulbs (c) any other poisoning due to any other unscrupulous industry.

But above all, as I already mentioned to you, the design of 2nd generation nuclear reactors has nothing to do with the 3rd and the 4th generation reactors. The reason nuclear scientists have built new reactors is precisely to avoid problems as you have mentioned.

BTW, do you understand that we could provide all our electricity from wind turbines and a few hours of compressed air and pump-up hydro storage?  

Yes, in the sense we could find enough windy areas, either on land or offshore.

But no, because the environmental costs of this construction will be too prohibitive.

I don't care about dollar costs. But since you asked..  

And we could do it for less than half the cost of providing our electricity needs with new nuclear?

No. This is completely false. Please show me the break up costs of energy production

a) Land lease costs for the construction of wind turbines ?

b) The amount of steel and concrete needed, and their corresponding costs.

c) The amount of transmission cable that needs to be laid.

d) Multiply your estimates by the inverse of the capacity factor (If your capacity factor is 1/3, you need 3 times as many wind turbines)

e) Similar construction costs for the storage.

f) The amortization costs for this construction

g) Add The decomissioning costs divided over the plant life time

h) Add the operational costs for manpower + cleaning + maintenance

Then you show me the numbers and prove that wind power is cheaper than nuclear.  

Vakibs, you have now passed solidly into sockpuppet territory. What do you do for a living, please?

This is me.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

"Will you do me a favor Bob, and produce information on all the above leaks with precisely the amount of radiation contamination that has been leaked, in REM."

No.

My point is that the industry is not safe.  People talk a good game but the facts are that mistakes are made and nasty stuff gets outside where it's supposed to be safely kept.

You want some numbers?

Here's a couple pages for you to read.  

I'll give you a shortcut.

Prices for delivered electricity from new (yet to be built) nuclear.  Nuclear industry numbers generated in the last 12-18 months.

$0.14+ per kWh.

Prices for large wind farm electricty.

$0.07 per kWh.

These costs include construction, fuel (where needed), land, transmission, operation/maintenance, and financing.

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/6/13/11021/6597

http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid467.php

@Bob

Somebody has just accused me that I am a shill or a sockpuppet.

Now, you are citing me a study prepared by none other than Amory Lovins, who is a "consultant" to several fossil fuel companies. Are you kidding me ?

I don't want to know what the costs are. I want to know "why" the costs of wind power will be lower than the costs of nuclear power. Trying to find out why is the key to the scientific debate. Please respect that.

I won't take your numbers for granted, because as we all know there are several subsidies to nuclear power. Who knows, nuclear might cost even higher without the subsidies ? :)

The same is true for the subsidies being received by renewable power (we know that renewables are not getting a lot of subsidies .. but if you divide the subsidies per Giga Watt of electricity produced, you will see there is a substantial subsidy for renewables). Let's not bicker about who is getting subsidies.

Let's break down the costs and look at the blueprints of power generation. Let's  compare the costs of nuclear vs your-favorite-renewable power, across each and every domain. Is anybody up for this challenge ?

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.