the next innovation for Barth:

https://www.auto123.com/en/new...ema-las-vegas/68637/

My 94 upgraded lightning clone is due to come out of my shop this spring. Way more hp and much less than 10k total cost. for the difference I can buy bocoo high priced gas and have most everything "made in USA" And I have enough solar power to charge one for "free", but the electric car has not come of age as yet. john

I am confused about the current rage for electric vehicles...

Considering the current electrical grid cannot support summer AC loads without brownouts, where are we getting the kilowatts needed for the vehicles? Even if we had the grid capacity, most of our electricity is still generated using fossil fuels.... A classic case of cart before the horse.

In 2009 I bought a Prius hybrid. It has over 200,000 miles now. It has saved me, and the world's energy supply, over 4,000 gallons of gasoline.

The 09 Prius was already off the shelf technology by then, why haven't we mandated hybrid use in small cars? Even one million hybrids on the road could have saved 4,000,000,000 gallons of gasoline in the last ten years. Putting it another way, the hybrid uses roughly half as much fuel as an average car. Just think of what using half the fuel would mean on a global scale: less demand, less pollution and less dependence on foreign crude.

Don't even get me started on cross country railroad transport at 1/10 the cost per ton compared to trucks.

Meanwhile, if back in 09 we had mandated the use of nuclear power for our electrical supply we would have plants on line by now. Virtually limitless supply (especially if we decommission nuclear warheads) of non fossil fuel power. Sure, n plants are not perfect but they seem to have serviced our navy subs and carriers well for almost 75 years with no serious reactor issues. France generates about 75% of their power with nuclear plants...

Concurrently, we could have built a national power grid to supply the increasing demands...

Meanwhile, every hybrid is already half electric. Electric traction motors and batteries in every one. Once we get up to speed on the power grid, it would be simple to just remove the gasoline engine and we have converted the fleet...

Global supply of lithium for the batteries is another concern to be addressed before electrics can take over the fleet...

The older I get, the less I understand. Just sayin'

In an intermediate previous life I had a project in a nuke fuel plant. Tangentially I toured a custom manufacturer of motor control center panels. On the floor was one that was built about 3x, 1/4" rather than 14ga, of any I'd ever seen, query answered, for nuke plant in CA, specs for quake compliance maybe changing probably scrapping.
If France can do it any country should be able but then along comes Japan well after Chernoble so maybe luck prevails?
Resolution for waste fuel, no commitment, but probably well within 1990 capability of resolution by separation and recovery. Still going to forever storage.
National power grid or local units with web connections to neighbors, a lower level national grid.

I am generally not a central government advocate for most things but nuclear plants and power grids need to be nationally integrated. The biggest problem we have here is the profit motive in the private sector. Currently, every nuke plant in the country is different, like reinventing the wheel. None of them are breeder reactor designs. No new n plants have been constructed here for over 30 years. France and our Navy have wisely standardized all reactor designs, with well known standardized operation and servicing, common operator training and service parts. Meanwhile, due to poor grid capacity the plants are located near bodies of water and populated areas. Throw in tsunamis and quakes and we have big problems. With a good grid the plants could be built almost anywhere, with acceptable transmission losses.

Waste is indeed a problem but considering the past strip mining, offshore well spills, air pollution and carbon emissions, I don't think nuclear waste is as bad as that. We can centralize disposal in remote sites with existing systems, once the politicians agree on it.

Putting it simply, until we see huge breakthroughs in fusion, nuclear fission is the only existing technology that can realistically handle our growing electrical demands, while eliminating carbon emissions completely. Coupled with a well managed national grid (not Texas!) we can have a modern power system.

All we have to do is work together and choose when to get started.

There are two nuclear power plants near me.

Both of these reactors, need different specs, one uses the Mississippi River to cool the rods, the other uses towers for cooling to vent the steam, I assume from an underground source, this one has several reactors and up to three towers can be in use depending on the workload. The Eagles like the River unit in the winter, for two reasons, it kills a lot of fish and warms the water so no ice. The Greenies probably hate both. Our Navy has an ocean to cool their reactor, when it is in use. So all three of these methods need different regulations.

As for the waste, load it on Musk owned carbon fuel fired rocket and shoot it towards a distance star for destruction!!

My point being, this is far to complicated for our government, best left in the hands of the private sector, with the stipulation that they coordinate, maintain and improve the safety standards they already have in place.

The power grid is another story, curious why the private sector has not improved the reliability, functionality and hacker invasion prevention, my bet is it has something to do with government regulations, a sturdy grid without breakdowns or interruption is money in the bank for these companies.

On one project I had a colleague that had been on a nuke sub. He told me the charts had occasional marks indicating a dead Soviet nuclear sub! Training, practice and compliance offer advantages when you want to come up for air.
In Illinois a bit east of St.Louis there is also a coal fired electric chum plant. The one near us on the Mississippi has a fairly deep intake and very deep discharge inhabited by "don't mess with me" catfish.
Relative to the waste I think reprocessing is probably the answer but possibly not the easy cheap immediate answer.
Ho ho ho! Santa did not bring my new scale showing 40lbs less!! She did bring happiness and friends.
Best to all and to all a good night

Duane, your example shows the problem with the existing plants being different. Different reactors, different cooling systems.

quote: "My point being, this is far to complicated for our government, best left in the hands of the private sector, with the stipulation that they coordinate, maintain and improve the safety standards they already have in place."

The stipulations you refer to are the government regulations needed to standardize. The private sector will do whatever it can to maximize profit for their beloved shareholders rather than take care of their customers. They will design reactors, cooling systems and grids to maximize their profits. The winter fiasco in Texas a few years ago is a good example of private grid managemant.

No plants should be located anywhere near rivers or bodies of water. Thermal pollution and radioactive contamination are too likely. All plants should have dedicated cooling ponds and the only water that leaves should be as water vapor from cooling towers.

The Chernobyl plants and the Russian subs are good examples of the wrong way to do it. The Chernobyl plant was based on a design that was rejected here for being unstable at part throttle. They forgot that and tried to throttle it back... Meanwhile it is housed in a pole barn type structure. Result was a catastrophy that was preventable. The Fermi II plant near Detroit is surrounded by a reinforced concrete containment vessel over thirty feet thick, designed to stand a direct hit by a 747. Three Mile Island was similar. When it melted down, the plant was ruined but only a small amount of steam vented out, along with a few grams of radioactive Iodine vapor. No measurable radiation outside the plant.

From early on, the Russians showed no regard for submarine safety either. The famous K19 widowmaker in the 60's was one of the first of many disasters. Our subs are designed with full reactor shielding. Submariners receive no significant radiation. The Russian subs mostly shielded the officers quarters, leaving the operators exposed. Russian operators were limited to two tours of duty, having by then absorbed substantial radiation.

Russian reactor fuel production is done in remote areas, often by prisoners who were expendable. Many of the rivers in Siberia are highly radioactive due to waste dumping.

Power companies have no profit incentive to build a grid to service remote customers they cannot directly bill. A similar case exists in the petroleum refinery industry. No new refineries have been built for 30 years. Existing refineries are running at 100% capacity. Every summer when demand goes up, we see a shortage of fuel and the price goes up, with greater profits for the petroleum companies. Additional refinery capacity would relieve these seasonal shortages and stabilize prices, but lower fuel profits. No petroleum companies will invest in refineries when they can milk the customers with supply shortages, unless the investment is mandated.

A nuclear plant in every state, in remote areas, with robust grid interconnections would serve all national needs far into the future. With standard designs and regulation we can lead the world if we choose to.

It is confusing, how companies think. Two new power distribution centers have been constructed in our area. they both still get their power from overhead high voltage lines. Then they transform that and send out a lower voltage to the neighborhood, and industrial users. This voltage is then transformed again into the user voltage, either by the power company or user.

Our local power company is in several neighborhoods burying the lines that supply our houses, but if one wants to bury their line from the new underground source to their house, they must pay for it. The existing poles will not be removed, because the cable company still needs them so burying your line is optional and the underground power lines still terminate at each pole.

The old telephone lines were buried when the subdivision was built in the 60's, landline phones of course have all but been replaced by cell phones and cable. What a waste of money, seems when the telephone lines were installed everything could have been buried saving each company from doing it on their own. even now the cable not being included with the electric work is unbelievable.

So as this neighborhood burying goes on there are these new ugly distribution centers with overhead power lines and steel towers clustered around wonder if they will ever remove these eyesores.

Am not a fan of federal regulations, but common sense could be used.

Once again, the power companies will do what is cheapest, ie overhead lines that can be blown down, iced up, knocked down by trees, and poles hit by cars.

My subdivision near Detroit was built in the 70's with all underground utilities. (They were forced to by local codes) In the 40 years I lived there, we never had a power outage, except when the overhead lines feeding from outside the subdivision were damaged by storms.

Your example is a perfect example of power companies charging the customer for the lines the company owns. Buried lines are more expensive to install but are far more reliable. No pole maintenance, no tree trimming, no lines exposed. God forbid they spend a little of their record profits on their own infrastructure, with less to give their beloved stock holders.

whoa, nothing like thread drift here. Sorry