Frank Boettcher wrote:
....

... And I don't believe that ethanol is the answer.

And, if you'll recall, I've repeatedly agreed I don't think biofuels in
general (and ethanol in particular) are "the" answer, either. I do
think there's a role in a transition that is useful, however.

Given the political realities, doesn't appear as though there's
sufficient political will to yet allow for new exploration in many of
the currently off-limit places and even if that were to change now, it
wouldn't have an effect on production for quite some time. It also
doesn't do anything to improve/increase the refining capacity which,
while it has grown owing to expansion efforts, is still a bottleneck.
Meanwhile, if it can coincidentally pump some life into the farm
economies of the central plains, that can only be, imo, _a_good_thing_ (tm).

System 80 would have been a good start, but it was killed by the left wing
wacko's in the early 70's.

If you're referral is to the CE "standard design" they named that, then
yes, there's (yet another) place we went far wrong way back when, along
with Jimmy pulling the plug on the CRBRP and stopping NRC licensing
review for the proposed GE-built/financed commercial fuel reprocessing
facility at Barnwell.

It _is_, otoh, heartening to note that TVA/NuStart have actually filed a
formal licensing application for a new unit at the Bellefonte site in N
AL (about three weeks ago, now). Of course, it's more than a little
disheartening that the Bellefonte I unit sits there over 90% complete,
abandoned in situ since the late 80s/early 90s along w/ the roughly 850
MWe that Rancho Seco could have been producing in CA if not for the
ill-considered plebiscite orchestrated by the same groups.

Coincidentally to your energy-related background, in a former life I was
NE for B&W NPGD Lynchburg. I came back to farm after 30-something years
mostly generation-related engineering last 10 or so mostly for the
fossil utilities at the EPRI I&C Center located at Kingston Fossil.

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