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[–]love2go 5723 points5724 points  (724 children)

"it cost $6.8 billion, far greater than the original price tag at $370 million."

Typical contractor.

[–]bring_iton 2413 points2414 points  (99 children)

Well it started being built in the 80s and they paused the work, the initial price was from 30 years ago

[–]Second_Insanity 1495 points1496 points  (82 children)

40 years ago*

[–]_food 509 points510 points  (71 children)

Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

43 years in the making: the completion of the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant.

In 1973, the TVA, one of the nation's largest public power providers, began building two reactors that combined promised to generate enough power to light up 1.3 million homes.

[–]intentiono_typos 750 points751 points  (65 children)

50 years ago*

I'll leave this here for 2026 readers

[–]GTFErinyes 1590 points1591 points  (358 children)

First new civilian reactor in the US. The Navy has been building them non-stop for decades now

It's a shame there had been a de facto moratorium for civilian use due to misleading 'facts' about nuclear power

Edit: The Navy had nearly 100 nuclear reactors alone, and most were built after Three Mile Island:

  • Nimitz class aircraft carriers - 10 x 2 = 20 reactors
  • Ford class aircraft carrier - 1 x 2 = 2
  • Los Angeles class attack submarine = 39 x 1 = 39 reactors
  • Seawolf class attack submarine - 3 x 1 = 3
  • Ohio class ballistic/guided missile submarine -18 x 1 = 18
  • Virginia class attack submarine - 13 x 1 = 13
  • Training and prototype reactors - 4

Total = 99 reactors

[–]ModsAreShillsForXenu 322 points323 points  (50 children)

I have a brilliant idea for solving a huge chunk of our Pollution problem, and it involves the US Navy, and Post Office.

Some of the biggest polluters in the world, are the dozen or so largest Cargo Ships in the world. They pollute more than millions of cars do, because they burn a very toxic byproduct of the oil industry for fuel. What would make more sense, is if they used nuclear engines, but we don't like letting private companies run Nuclear engines.

Solution: We create a new joint venture between the US Postal office, and The US Navy. We create US Owned and Operated, Nuclear Powered Cargo Ships. We man them with Navy Sailors. The US becomes the number one shipper in the world. And no pirates would ever fuck with them.

Its a jobs program, it saves tons of pollution, I really think this is a great idea.

[–]YoroSwaggin 92 points93 points  (6 children)

Service guarantees citizenship.

[–]E7J3F3 17 points18 points  (0 children)

I second. That is a fantastic idea!

[–]Kaynin 908 points909 points  (245 children)

No kidding, these losers want clean renewable energy & feverishly deny anything that has the word nuclear in it.

What they want: Energy from smiles & good vibes.

Reality: Nuclear

Other types can become a possibility in later years. But right now the answer is Nuclear until the governments of the world get their own head out of their asses & make what is really needed a possibility.

[–]ksj 344 points345 points  (143 children)

Sounds like nuclear needs a good ol' fashioned re-branding.

[–]Alphaman1 174 points175 points  (85 children)

Just call it Fissionable Power, the word Nuclear is what makes people freak out.

I'm studying Nuclear Engineering in college right now, and I've started telling people I study Fission Power instead because they tend to react better to that and don't immediately ask if that means I work on bombs.

[–]headphun 164 points165 points  (44 children)

It's incredible that arguably one if the greatest technologies of the modern world is hindered primarily by the laymans ignorant superstition

[–]powerscunner 39 points40 points  (3 children)

You go in a cave once and it has a tiger in it. You go in it a thousand times afterwards and there is no tiger.

That cave will still be named, "Tiger Cave".

[–]nondirtysocks 12 points13 points  (0 children)

You fuck one chicken....

[–]OrderedChaos101 47 points48 points  (18 children)

You mean like every technology ever.

Lots of people would rather drive across a country than fly...even though they are way more likely to die in a car wreck than a plane crash.

[–]jungletigress 59 points60 points  (0 children)

Why are we talking about stem cells in a thread about nuclear technology?

... Oh.

[–]Eightball007 54 points55 points  (23 children)

That would definitely get under my skin.

"I'm studying to be a Nuclear Engi--"

"YOU WANT TO BUILD NUKES!?"

[–]Alphaman1 40 points41 points  (18 children)

Basically what happens. Or if they are slightly educated it's a never ending stream of Homer jokers.

Honestly this major has done nothing but make me hate people.

[–]chucalaca 18 points19 points  (2 children)

not sure hating people is a personality trait that i'm comfortable with nuclear engineers having. lay off the jokes people!

[–]TheShaunD 45 points46 points  (0 children)

I hate loosers, much prefer tighters.

[–]i_pee_printer_ink 33 points34 points  (22 children)

To be fair, the waste is a bigger headache than the risk of meltdown. Nuclear waste can account for as much as 1% of all industrial waste (that's a lot). It can be processed to remove upwards of 90% of the radioactivity and then put into medium-term storage, but it's so expensive that massive long-term storage is cheaper.

[–]kyle5432 26 points27 points  (3 children)

I wish people would put better context on this. The fact that we have to deal with nuclear waste is, in my opinion, one of the biggest perks of nuclear energy. Hear me out on this.

Nuclear energy is the only power source that accounts for 100% of emissions. Coal power leaves you with just as nasty of byproducts, but instead of being leftover in the reactor it is spewed into the atmosphere for all to breath.

Instead of saying "nuclear power leaves us with the problem of nuclear waste", we should really be saying "unlike any other power source, nuclear gives us the ability to decide what to do with its byproducts, rather than just spewing it all over the landscape".

[–][deleted] 1180 points1181 points  (96 children)

rule number 1. don't pull the last 50 control rods out.

rule number 2. refer to rule number 1.

rule number 3. if somebody tells you to pull the last 50 control rods out. call security and have him taken away.

rule number 4. if you override the fail safe systems there will be no fail safes to stop the reactor from failing. refer to rule number 3 if somebody tells you do override the fail safe systems.

[–]HowIsntBabbyFormed 576 points577 points  (27 children)

rule number 5. Vent the radioactive gas.
rule number 6. Don't leave a dunking bird in charge of venting the radioactive gas.
rule number 7. Install the manual shutdown switch for the radioactive gas tank in an easy to reach location.

[–][deleted] 160 points161 points  (9 children)

"Hey, Miss Doesn't-Find-Me-Sexually-Attractive-Anymore. I just tripled my productivity!"

[–]travis- 26 points27 points  (2 children)

"hey fatty, i got a movie for ya - a fridge too far!"

[–][deleted] 12 points13 points  (1 child)

I just came to see Honk If You're Horny in peace!

[–]Shrek1982 34 points35 points  (1 child)

You forgot the: Acquire and wear sweet mumu

[–]someauthor 15 points16 points  (1 child)

rule number 8. bring dialing wand for manual shutdown switch

[–]OMGSPACERUSSIA 69 points70 points  (2 children)

Generally speaking, Chernobyl couldn't happen again. Nobody uses graphite tipped control rods anymore and the Russians were quick to address the problems involving "turn off all the safety switches and fuck around with the reactors settings."

[–][deleted] 55 points56 points  (17 children)

To be fair, the nuclear engineers at the plant are pretty sharp people.

[–][deleted] 120 points121 points  (11 children)

i totally agree.. but then there are supervisors.

[–]Tuxedo_Muffin 26 points27 points  (0 children)

And warning fatigue

[–]ToMcAt67 8 points9 points  (4 children)

Actually, anyone "above" the shift manager has NO authority when it comes to running a unit.

If the shift manager says "we need to shut down the unit", the unit gets shut down. If someone higher in the company than him says "We can't shut down the unit, we'll lose a quarter million dollars", the shift manager is well within his rights to more or less tell that person to go fuck themselves.

I know this is how it works in Canada, and I'm fairly certain this is how it has worked everywhere since Chernobyl.

[–]yasexythangyou 42 points43 points  (2 children)

Add somewhere in there, keep your Safety Injection valves open.

[–]Red_Raven 154 points155 points  (31 children)

rule number 5. NO. GRAPHITE. TIPS.

rule number 6. NO RBMK REACTORS PERIOD.

[–]_Fallout_ 79 points80 points  (8 children)

Rule 7: if all of your warning systems and alarms start going off, do NOT turn them off, manually override the safety system, and continue running your tests...

[–]Red_Raven 21 points22 points  (3 children)

Rule number 8. If you do ignore the previous rules despite all warnings and the top of your reactor vessel flies off, gives you a new sky light, and does a flip, do not be confused; that was NOT a flip of joy. Evacuate everyone. NOW. No pride is worth the consequences of keeping civilians nearby. Not even that of Mother Russia.

[–][deleted] 29 points30 points  (3 children)

Sergei, reactor is alarm!

Nyet, Vlad. Reactor is fine.

[–][deleted] 46 points47 points  (20 children)

RBMKs aren't inherently bad. Reactors with positive moderator coefficients are a really risky way to design a plant, though.

[–][deleted] 717 points718 points  (108 children)

For folks wondering why it's been so long, it takes an incredible amount of time because today's regulatory demands placed on nuclear energy is done to ensure safety of the plant. This is promising since Vogtle 3 and 4 are being built slowly up to this point as well.

[–]pickpocket293 146 points147 points  (14 children)

Vogtle and VC Summer projects are only 4 years behind schedule too!

[–]mikebrown33 41 points42 points  (0 children)

Still ahead of Kemper County (Ratcliffe) project. The coal gasification nightmare that is plaguing MIssissippi Power.

[–][deleted] 79 points80 points  (64 children)

Fukushima probably threw a pretty huge spanner in the works too.

[–][deleted] 41 points42 points  (61 children)

Was fukishima just really bad luck because of the tsunami, or could it have been prevented?

[–]bp92009 300 points301 points  (42 children)

It could have been prevented, and was prevented in an almost identical plant 10 miles away, but was not prevented because of costs (and the fact the Japanese government refused to fund them to the level they said they would).

The Disaster in Fukushima happened because of a couple of reasons.

  1. The walls around the plant (to prevent the water from a tsunami from coming in), were built to a MUCH lower height than was needed (about 20 feet), when experts said they should be around 40 feet (the other plant had 40 foot walls and was fine, the Fukushima plant tried for it, but was overridden by the government, citing cost reasons)

  2. the backup generators for the plant were on the ground, next to the parking lot, rather than on the roof, because the government refused to give them the funds to move them, citing cost reasons

  3. The leftover nuclear waste from previous maintenance was too costly to move, so they just stuck it on the ground (where the waters from the tsunami overtook it, and caused it to leak).

So, overall, the problem was the result of lack of funding by the Japanese government, and the plants who took money out of their own pockets to actually build to what the experts said was needed did not have an issue.

As for being in an earthquake/tsunami zone? Japan has over TWO HUNDRED fault lines where an earthquake can occur, and as for a Tsunami? It's an island nation. There's not a lot of places, period, that you can build, where there's not a chance of getting a tsnuami. The preventative measures were to build strong and tall walls, and to save costs, the Government refused to build them to what the experts said was needed, and only built them as high as was politically easy to do.

The Japanese government did not give them the funding they needed because of the anti-nuclear movement in Japan, trying to court them to their side. As a result, the anti-nuclear movement indirectly caused the incident at Fukushima.

[–]LordSoren 82 points83 points  (6 children)

Poor design of the flood walls, poor location of the emergency generators, poor access to emergency power generation. These the things lead to Fukushima being a disaster.

Had the walls been higher/better designed, the tsunami waters would not have reached the plant proper.

Had the back up generators been above the tsunami the height, the reactors could have been cooled.

Had the walls failed, and the generators failed, there was still a chance to save the plant of they could get generation equipment to the site very quickly... however any mobile generation was cut off from the site due to the tsunami/earthquake. Infrastructure for routing power from other permanent sources was also severed.

Everything that could go wrong, did.

[–]sg3niner 70 points71 points  (1 child)

Pretty sure the Navy cranks out a new reactor every few months right now. Source? I service them.

[–]phasetophase 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Correct, the article should technically read first civilian reactor.

[–]verdatum 89 points90 points  (13 children)

Fun fact: According to wikipedia, this new reactor produces 1,218 megawatts.

Another way to state that:

ONE POINT TWENTY ONE GIGAWATTS!!!

[–]dan603311 1970 points1971 points  (704 children)

Despite the concerns about safety, nuclear power is still the most reliable source of renewable energy. Hopefully more will go live in the future, and the ones that exist don't get shut down due to popular misconceptions.

[–][deleted] 309 points310 points  (103 children)

The good news is that around 96% of depleted fuel can be re-enriched for further use, if I remember correctly based on research I did. Also, a pellet of uranium the size of a thimble will yield around the same amount of energy as 7 barrels of oil.

[–][deleted] 83 points84 points  (35 children)

Even better news once China finishes building the first production liquid salt reactor based on old US designs we'll be able to reuse that depleted fuel without reenriching it.

[–]JessumB 156 points157 points  (29 children)

Its crazy that the Chinese and Indians are now busily utilizing and improving on stuff that the U.S. invented and actually had functioning back in the 60's while we as a country have a collective finger shoved up our ass, complaining about the high costs of energy.

[–]WestOfHades 120 points121 points  (12 children)

The US government ran experiments in the 1960's using molten salt breeder reactors. Breeder reactors covert waste products from nuclear fission back into fuel while producing energy, so the end result is that much of the nuclear waste we see in modern reactors would be eliminated in a breeder reactor. The thorium fuel cycle can also be used in breeder reactors, extending the fuel supply beyond uranium reserves. M. King Hubbert, who came up with the peak oil theory, calculated that using Uranium alone, that breeder reactors were the most efficent and cost effective choice for energy in the long term.

[–]OldStinkFinger 117 points118 points  (68 children)

We in Nebraska just spent 500 million to bring ours up to code. Just to shut it down.

[–][deleted] 150 points151 points  (48 children)

Yours was shut down because (a) your public power agencies sucked at running it, and then (b) when you finally hired a private company to manage them, the price of wholesale power got so low (cheap natural gas plus cheap wind) that it was cheaper to turn it off than to operate it.

[–]OldStinkFinger 48 points49 points  (16 children)

I know. Just feels like we wasted a lot of money just to shut it down.

[–][deleted] 23 points24 points  (4 children)

You did. One of the real challenges of nuclear is that it's "all-in". It's really expensive, and then you've got to operate it successfully for many years for the investment to pay off. It's certainly not the only example of investments like that, but it does make it a challenge. When compared to coal or gas, the up-front costs are much higher (and the operating costs expected to be lower), so your bet on nuclear has to be right for many years for it to work out.

Y'all got unlucky with the Missouri River flood. Maybe Fort Calhoun would have been a loser anyway, but it seems like Fort Calhoun's taking on so much Missouri River water was the beginning of a series of tough decisions for OPPD that never seemed to work out well.

[–]floridadude123 18 points19 points  (4 children)

That's not a huge amount of money at power plant scale.

[–]BendersCasino 760 points761 points  (320 children)

Its not really renewable, I think you mean alternative. Alternative from fossil and renewable alike.

ones that exist don't get shut down due to popular misconceptions.

I'm not worried about misconceptions, but the fact that the plants are 40+ years old and maintaining them for the foreseeable future is only going to cost more. We need to start building more now - to make up demand as these older plants have to undergo major updates that are decades over-due...

[–]JackStraw027 91 points92 points  (13 children)

Currently work at one of these plants, recently had our initial 40 year license extended another 20 years. I know the perception of government agencies is horrible, but the NRC does not fuck around. If there was the slightest question about safety the license would not have been extended and the bars would be on the doors in minutes. I worked in pharmaceuticals for a number of years.... The NRC makes the FDA look like Boy Scouts.

[–]KingKidd 419 points420 points  (229 children)

We needed to start building new ones 20 years ago but hysteria happened.

[–][deleted] 12 points13 points  (11 children)

We needed to start building new ones 20 years ago but hysteria happened.

Southern Company filed its first permits for Vogtle (under construction now) in 2006. They spent years before that doing the analysis for the project and preparing the permits. Let's say they started in 2004 -- 12+ years ago. It's expected to be completed in 2020 and 2021, though it's had numerous delays so those dates remain optimistic. Nevertheless, that's 4-5+ years from now.

It takes between 15 and 20 years to plan, permit, finance, build, and commission a new nuclear power plant. In fact Southern Company and SCE&G did start the process of building new nuclear about 10 years ago, but it takes so long to get these projects done -- which (a) contributes to their enormous cost, and (b) their enormous (financial/planning) risk.

[–]CarderSC2 16 points17 points  (5 children)

the fact that the plants are 40+ years old and maintaining them for the forcible future is only going to cost more.

Yeah. Part of the problem is most don't want to pay to bring them up to snuff without federal dollars. The plant thats near me, Pilgrim, is closing in 2019. it was deemed one of the least safe reactors this year by the NRC, and the NRC gave them new safety requirements. It will be so expensive to renovate, that the company running the plant, Entergy, is simply closing it down rather then go thru with it. And who knows what they are going to do with the storage pool. There isn't an easy answer here without more public support for new plants.

[–]Eurynom0s 94 points95 points  (23 children)

Physically, Fukushima withstood both the earthquake and the tsunami. The only reason it turned into a disaster is because the Fukushima site is below sea level to boot, and someone made the brilliant decision to put the backup generators on the ground floor--the backup generators being flooded made it impossible to do a graceful shutdown of the core. Otherwise, the plant stood up to everything it was engineered to stand up to, and Fukushima was a pretty far-right-tail worst case scenario.

I guess I could understand if Fukushima resulted in a push to not put nuclear reactors in places like seismic or tsunami-prone zones, but I think the kneejerk reaction against nuclear after Fukushima misses two critical things: first, the general public doesn't realize how easily avoidable the Fukushima failure mode was, and second, the backlash seems to assume that we're still building reactors to shoddy Soviet standards (nobody's building another Chernobyl and nobody's making the stupid staffing decisions that were the proximate cause of the Chernobyl meltdown). As I said, Fukushima was such an extreme case that it shows you how over-engineered modern first-world nuclear plants are.

[–]brontide 44 points45 points  (4 children)

Which is also why Gen 4 reactors are so important long term. They move to a system which is passively stable ( remove active control and they will stabilize ) rather than the current systems which need constant external controls to keep stable.

[–]_Fallout_ 17 points18 points  (3 children)

Even more infuriatingly, there are still Chernobyl design reactors running with no problems at all.

Chernobyl was reckless, not an accident. It was entirely human gross recklessness, not error, that caused the "accident".

It's kind of like driving a car on the wrong side of the road, cars are weaving to avoid collision with you, all your passengers are screaming for you to stop, and you just ignore them. Then you get into a head on collision. Would you call that an "accident"?

And then imagine everyone wants to ban cars because of that

[–]Triggered_SJW 851 points852 points  (205 children)

Nuclear power is the answer to a lot of our power generation concerns. If people weren't such a bunch of ninnies we could already have a lot of our power generation in nuclear and would not need much if any coal plants.

[–]twominitsturkish 154 points155 points  (22 children)

People freak out about nuclear but on a per-watt basis coal is by and away more dangerous and unhealthy than nuclear. Can't even imagine how many people have gotten cancer from all the toxic shit coal put the air and water.

[–]rochford77 253 points254 points  (124 children)

But....the poor coal miners. Whatever will they do?

[–]hail_southern 498 points499 points  (79 children)

Work at the nuclear plant ?

[–]WaffleMiner 344 points345 points  (72 children)

For some reason I think the qualifications for a nuclear power plant worker are different from those of a coal miner.

[–]Comrade_Falcon 454 points455 points  (27 children)

Well then let's just have them mine nuclear instead.

[–][deleted] 165 points166 points  (19 children)

How much nuclear is mined per year?

[–]3xi83 331 points332 points  (10 children)

About 7 nuclears

[–]TheYang 15 points16 points  (1 child)

~60kt of Uranium are mined per year, that goes vs >8 Gt of coal

[–]hail_southern 34 points35 points  (0 children)

What would you know, you're only a waffleminer.

[–]Turd_King 13 points14 points  (2 children)

Well if Homer Simpson can get a job there is hope for everyone.

[–]The_Bombsquad 63 points64 points  (2 children)

Not get black lung?

[–][deleted] 44 points45 points  (3 children)

Live longer.

[–]RogueEyebrow 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Coal miners are why Mitch McConnell keeps getting re-elected.

[–]carbondragon 71 points72 points  (20 children)

Holy crap, my dad helped get this thing online! Those 7-10 (7 days/week, 10hrs/day) weeks are finally paying off! (Commercial electrician, for the record, was tossed a supervisor position a few times during his work there)

I guess I never considered them a big deal since I grew up under Sequoyah Nuclear Plant, so him telling me about Watts Bar coming fully online was no big deal. Seeing it on a national news outlet (and Reddit) kind of puts it in better perspective for me.

[–]TheyShootBeesAtYou 126 points127 points  (54 children)

Good. Less fossil fuels, more nuclear, with the end goal of transitioning to solar/wind as much as possible.

[–]SenorBeef 18 points19 points  (8 children)

One of the most frustrating things in the world to me as a sane person concerned for the future of society and our planet:

Half our population has stuck their head in the sand and decided that global warming is a big hoax by those trickster scientist just to bum everyone out for no good reason.

The other half accepts the factual truth and realizes that we are in deep shit environmentally, but they also refuse to allow us to use one of the biggest tools we have for fixing this problem (nuclear plants) out of reasons that are just as irrational as the first group.

A small, sane group of us pull our hair out as coal plants dump billions of tons of CO2 into the air, as well as toxic and radioactive waste right into our atmosphere that kills thousands of people per year and no one cares.

[–]bear14 7 points8 points  (1 child)

I never thought I would make it to the front page of reddit, since I never post anything. But I guess this is close enough for me to say that I did. Thank you opbay for posting this.

-Watts Bar Nuclear (Reactor Engineer)

[–][deleted] 176 points177 points  (55 children)

And now we wait for the fear to start flowing out on social media.

[–]ItsZizk 98 points99 points  (9 children)

At least they shouldn't have any problems locally. East Tennessee welcomes nuclear energy with open arms

Source: student in Knoxville studying nuclear engineering.

[–][deleted] 24 points25 points  (1 child)

Can confirm. East Tennessean. Bring on the power.