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And I would submit that it's far easier to make a wind turbine with a 60 year lifetime than it is a nuclear plant. The turbine just needs to have oversized bearings and gears, but the materials in the reactor are fundamentally damaged by the radiation. Also there is the question of how much of the original plant is still in use at the end of the cycle--compared to how much has been replaced during use.

Also the claim that nuclear plant re-fueling can be timed to coincide with a low period of power demand is questionable, given that the refueling takes months. It takes, what, a day to replace a blade on a turbine?

by asdf on Fri Jul 20th, 2012 at 09:02:34 AM EST
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