It is possible that rules about exclusion zones have changed since TMI was built. Not least because of the incident at TMI. In the UK it seems you can’t have any population within 1km of the reactor and there are density limits up to 20 miles out.
Yeah, it says right there in the article that they aren’t just counting the land for the plant itself, though it could be more clear.
…land to accommodate the nuclear power station itself, its exclusion zone, its enrichment plant, ore processing, and supporting infrastructure.
In a more positive development…
The Minneapolis-based company, which currently produces 60 percent of its power from fossil fuels, said it will slash carbon emissions by 80 percent from 2005 levels by 2030, from a previous target of 60 percent, before going to zero in 2050. It has already slashed those emissions by 35 percent.
In a statement, the utility said its 2030 goal can be reached affordably with renewable energy and other current technologies. To achieve the 2050 goal of all zero-carbon electricity, however, “requires technologies that are not cost effective or commercially available today,” Xcel said.
That’s a pretty big caveat.
I have a plan to be much thinner and better-looking by 2020, but my scheme requires technologies and surgery that are not cost-effective or commercially available today.
The other article posted points out the most detailed flaws in that analysis… Like the fact that nuclear plants aren’t bigger than existing coal plants, and most coal plants have the same cooling requirements . So saying “you don’t have room for those plants” is silly, since you could just replace existing coal plants with them.
Yeah, I think literally zero carbon emissions is not quite at “pipe dream” level but is very unlikely. The only way they can get there with current tech is by building more nuclear plants, something I wish would happen all over the place but is unlikely.
I am so fucking sick of these assholes
Not just the US, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait as well.
Another attempt underway at carbon capture. Economical? Not so much, at least not yet; but the more attempts, the better the chance someone can make it work.
At least that makes sense since their economies are based on fossil fuels.
It makes sense though, our politics are fueled by fossils.
Badum ching!
They can pull a ton a day out of the air with their prototype plant. We only need to scale that up by about 100,000,000 times to keep concentrations at their current level.
I was thinking “Surely we aren’t putting out 100 million tons a day”. But it checks out.
Ugh.
When it comes to atmospheric carbon capture, it’s hard to beat switchgrass-- plus it automatically uses solar for the energy input.
Let’s say they scaled it to do 1000 tons a day.
That is, very roughly, 907185 kg. Carbon has a density of 2260 kg/m^3. So that translates into 401.4 m^3. Which is, in turn, 14175 ft^3 a day.
This is the equivalent to about 42% of the volume of the Eiffel Tower. We would need 100,000 of these per day. Picture the volume of 20,000 747’s per day. That’s the scale we are talking.
Ho-leee shit.
*all calculations done at the nominal density of pure carbon at normal graphite densities of 2.26 g/cm^3
Might as well make diamonds, so it will pay for itself then.
Which has a density of 3.5 g/cm^3 as opposed to the 2.26.
And manufacturing diamond on that scale would crash the global diamond market which is fueled by cartel like behavior to enforce artificial scarcity by DeBeers and such.