"Several US nuclear power plants closed well before their design lifetimes, due to successful campaigns by anti-nuclear activist groups.[55] These include Rancho Seco in 1989 in California and Trojan in 1992 in Oregon. Humboldt Bay in California closed in 1976, 13 years after geologists discovered it was built on the Little Salmon Fault. Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant was completed but never operated commercially as an authorized Emergency Evacuation Plan could not be agreed on due to the political climate after the Three Mile Island accident and Chernobyl disaster. The last permanent closure of a US nuclear power plant was in 1997.[56]
US nuclear reactors were originally licensed to operate for 40-year periods. In the 1980s, the NRC determined that there were no technical issues that would preclude longer service.[57] Over half of US nuclear reactors are over 30 years old and almost all are over twenty years old.[58] As of 2011, more than 60 reactors have received 20-year extensions to their licensed lifetimes.[59] The average capacity factor for all US reactors has improved from below 60% in the 1970s and 1980s, to 92% in 2007.[60][61]
After the Three Mile Island accident, NRC-issued reactor construction permits, which had averaged more than 12 per year from 1967 through 1978, came to an abrupt halt; no permits were issued between 1979 and 2012 (in 2012, four planned new reactors received construction permits). Many permitted reactors were never built, or the projects were abandoned. Those that were completed after Three Mile island experienced a much longer time lag from construction permit to starting of operations. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission itself described its regulatory oversight of the long-delayed Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant as "a paradigm of fragmented and uncoordinated government decision making," and "a system strangling itself and the economy in red tape."[62] The number of operating power reactors in the US peaked at 112 in 1991, far fewer than the 177 that received construction permits. By 1998 the number of working reactors declined to 104, where it remains as of 2013. The loss of electrical generation from the eight fewer reactors since 1991 has been offset by power uprates of generating capacity at existing reactors.[63]
Despite the problems following Three Mile Island, output of nuclear-generated electricity in the US grew steadily, more than tripling over the next three decades: from 255 billion kilowatt-hours in 1979 (the year of the Three Mile Island accident), to 806 billion kilowatt-hours in 2007.[64]Part of the increase was due to the greater number of operating reactors, which increased by 51%: from 69 reactors in 1979, to 104 in 2007. Another cause was a large increase in the capacity factor over that period. In 1978, nuclear power plants generated electricity at only 64% of their rated output capacity. Performance suffered even further during and after Three Mile Island, as a series of new safety regulations from 1979 through the mid-1980s forced operators to repeatedly shut down reactors for required retrofits.[65] It was not until 1990 that the average capacity factor of US nuclear plants returned to the level of 1978. The capacity factor continued to rise, until 2001. Since 2001, US nuclear power plants have consistently delivered electric power at about 90% of their rated capacity.[66] In 2016, the number of power plants was at 100 with 4 under construction"
The Oklo reactor uses spent nuclear fuel which has been used in reactors rather than "clean" nuclear fuel which would be produced by the PLEF (albeit from tailing which are currently waste) - see HERE. Whilst Moosey is correct in saying that the US uses a "once through nuclear cycle" and does not currently separate nuclear waste - it has done so in the past and does have stockpiles (at INL and other places) of separated nuclear waste.
SLX Price at posting:
$1.64 Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
(20min delay)
