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| Economy |
| A Nuclear America Can Be A Great America |
| 2016-12-23 |
| h/t Instapundit As President-elect Donald Trump and Congress seek to "put America first," they should give special attention to an export sector America has been putting last: nuclear energy. A focus on making nuclear reactors for export may seem quixotic. After all, nuclear power plants in the U.S. are struggling against cheap natural gas and heavily subsidized renewables. And historically, nuclear plants have been built locally, not manufactured. But global demand for electricity is set to rise 70% over the next 25 years, mostly due to increased energy demand in developing nations. And technological advances mean that new nuclear reactor components can increasingly be mass-manufactured in factories and shipped around the world for reassembly on site. What’s at stake is a market worth $500 to $740 billion over the next decade, according to the Commerce Department, and hundreds of thousands of high-skill and high-wage jobs. U.S. leadership on nuclear dates back to 1953, when President Eisenhower announced a U.S.-led effort "to provide abundant electrical energy in the power-starved areas of the world." It was called "Atoms for Peace." It was a win-win for U.S. and energy-hungry developing nations. Thanks to this effort, the U.S. today gets 20% of its electricity from nuclear plants, which employ 32,000 workers directly and create an additional 200,000 jobs in the economy. And simply helping China to build four nuclear plants has created 20,000 jobs in 20 U.S. states, according to Westinghouse, whose nuclear division is based in the USA but owned by the Japanese conglomerate Toshiba. But, but, but what about "China Syndrome"? |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #7 The need is not specifically electric batteries but energy storage technology. For portability, it might turn out to be more effective to use nuclear energy to convert H, C & O into liquid hydrocarbon fuels (synthetic gasoline?) than to electricity stored in heavy and/or expensive and/or environmentally damaging batteries. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2016-12-23 15:09 |
| #6 Battery tech is being pushed by Musk and his Tesla team. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2016-12-23 12:48 |
| #5 Please, please advance the battery technology along with the nuclear power. The TVA has not issued a license for a nuclear power plant in many decades...was ready to begin again a few years ago, but stopped by the idiot boy Obama. |
| Posted by: Tennessee 2016-12-23 10:51 |
| #4 Put more money into fusion research. Not the turkey known as ITER. But the small scale designs whether they are from MIT, Sandia Labs or any of the commercial projects. Partner with the UK, Japan, South Korea and the EU. The potential payoff is huge. If we can get D-T reactors on linefocus on the Proton-Boron 11 reaction cyclle. Has the potential to be direct to electricity with no need for turbines or waste. The current DOE fusion research is more about producing phd's than juice |
| Posted by: Cheaderhead 2016-12-23 09:17 |
| #3 Maybe - if we don't continue crony capitalist practices in redeveloping the nuclear power industry. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2016-12-23 09:09 |
| #2 ...more people died FIFY! |
| Posted by: AlmostAnonymous5839 2016-12-23 09:00 |
| #1 ....more people died in a Oldsmobile Delmont 88 than 3-Mile Island. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2016-12-23 08:04 |