Nuclear Energy - I need to vent/rant [Archive]

DRBUZZ0

15th March 2007, 06:03 PM

Okay, I am posting this mostly as a rant. I'm really getting pissed about all the anti-nuclear crap out there. I'm very pro nuclear energy and I'm in need of spouting off, so here goes.

I hate it when “environmentalists” stomp on everything nuclear. It’s ridiculous, because the reason I like…make that love… nuclear energy is it’s environmental benfiits.

We have a problem: Energy. Actually it's always been a problem, and often the limiting factor in human endeavors. Right now, most of the electricity in the world is being generated by burning fossil fuels. Cars are also powered by fossil fuels, and ideas like electric or hydrogen cars don't help all that much if the energy comes from... burning something.

The problems, obviously are supply, co2 emissions, costs, other environmental problems ect...

Now first of all, lets get a couple of things out of the way.

In regards to wind power, solar power, tidal power and so on.

I'm completely in favor of using renewable natural energy sources where avaliable, but the fact is that it's just not realistic to expect these to be able to do anything more than provide a small portion of total energy needs.

Solar energy is free, but the cells sure aren't. And the fact is that it is never really economical or realistic because of the amount of space needed to generate a given amount of electricity. The energy carried by light over a given area is not that large. It may amount to 80 to 90 watts per square meter, at the most. (that's in a desert, at noon, in the summer). Solar cells are currently about 25% efficient with new designs promising 40%, and due to the nature of light conversion, it's not really a realistic expectation to have better than 50% effecient solar cells.

If you do the math you'll find that most temperate places can expect something on the order of 100-230 kilowatt hours per square meter per year for solar cells, under ideal conditions. That does not count power conversion or battery tending or anything. Considering the amount of power used...well... it just ain't in the cards.

Wind energy is somewhat better, but not all locations are suitable for wind power and of those suited, the real estate required is very large. The maintenance on the turbines is not huge, but it is enough to make it more expensive than most other forms of electricity. Furthermore, it has the habbit of changing based on whims. If you have a coal fired power plant you can turn up the boiler when power is needed. Wind energy, like many other renewable, is based on nature. Thus, if a high demand day happens during a stalled high pressure system... well thats just no good.

And the fact is that we (humanity) needs energy. And lots of it

Energy efficiency and conservation is great, but it can only get you so far. Despite all the efforts toward energy star appliances, efficient lighting, hybrid cars and so on, energy consumption has never gone down. All these efforts have been able to do is reduce the rate at which it has gone up. It’s not realistic at all to expect that conservation could dramatically reduce overall power needs any time soon.

And people will not give up their air conditioners and big screen tv’s. Sorry to break it to everyone, but making the population reduce their standard of living voluntarily for a non-immediate goal doesn’t sell well, and the economic consequences aren’t fun either.

So what do we really need? A reliable, economical, practical, doable source of energy that can produce lots of it in a reasonably small area (as in a power plant).

And right now the only energy source that fits the bill is nuclear energy. We have the fuel, it’s not hard to make. The technology exists. It can be done. It is being done. It may have some shortcomings, but they are not unsolvable problems.

So lets address the two problems that so-called environmentalists like to point to.

First, safety-

Nuclear energy is safe. It’s damn safe. I have no problem living near a plant and I would have no problem working at one. The US has an impeccable record of nuclear safety, with no deaths ever resulting from commercial nuclear energy, no major incidents and the only deaths associated with nuclear energy directly go back to the 1950’s, when reactor design was very hit or miss.

We even have thousands of people living within feet of reactors… in sealed vessels… emerced under thousands of feet of salt water!

”But what about three mile island???” Well I’ll address that with this: Three Mile Island was a disaster… for public relations. And the utility company will need to spend a lot of money cleaning it up… from within the containment dome. Which is containing it!

Nobody died in the incident and safeguards have been instituted since then. Noone was ever in any real danger. Some of the newer designs for reactors are much safer than the ones currently in use. But today, thanks to environmentalists, all the reactors in service are vintage 1960-70’s.

And Chernobyl? A perfect example of why safety systems are necessary. Chernobyl had a graphite-core design which had not been used in the west since the 1940’s, due to the inherent safety problems. There was no containment dome. The reactor was massive and an admittedly flawed design. It was run improperly and the safety systems were manually overridden during a non-standard “turbine rundown test.”

There is no reason why Chernobyle had to happen and such an event is not a concern with modern pressurized water reactors.

Next waste-

Nuclear reactors produce waste. Radioactive waste. This is a problem, but it does not lack solutions. The current trend is toward long-term burial, such as at Yucca mountain.

There are other methods however, which were outlawed during the Carter Administration, due to pressure from “environmental” groups. Despite the lack of US research, they have been developed further elsewhere. These include.

1. Reprocessing – Extracts the usable fuel of both uranium and long-lived plutonium and other heavy elements. This can be reused in reactors and the remaining fission products are much smaller in volume and do not pose as great a long term risk, requiring only 500 years or less to decay to safe levels. While this may sound like a long time, it is far less than the times for standard spent fuel.

2. The use of advanced fast-neutron breeder designs can reduce waste to lower levels which can be disposed of more safely and will be of low radioactivity in 300 years or less. This is a relatively short time, geologically speaking.

3. Photo-neutron transmutation. Without getting too far into this, it basically involves an accelerator which can be used to break down nuclear waste to harmless intert material. The accelerator takes a lot of energy, however the process can also produce energy if the heat produced by the reaction is tapped. A one megawatt accelerator, for example, could produce ten megawatts of usable electricity, through the decay process of short-lived isotopes.

I forget who said it, but one of my favorite quotes was (to paraphrase) that nuclear energy has risks. But they are small, manageable and acceptable risks. Global warming, however, is a totally unacceptable risks.

So what do I propose?

1. A renewed policy for electrical generation with a focus on nuclear energy

2. Standardization and streamlining of reactor design and construction – rather than designing every faculty independently and going through the regulatory, safety and approval processes completely each time, create several standard modular reactor designs. Take into account the newest and most promising technologies, such as sub-critical reactors, thorium breeders, heavy water moderated, liquid metal cooled etc. Create designs. Test them thoroughly and then start building.

Take the example of aircraft. The 747 was first flown in 1969. They still build them, although numerous improvements and modifications have been made to the design. Imagine if each and every aircraft order was designed from the ground up and tested and approved independently. The cost would be enormous.

3. Construction of several large nuclear energy facilities across the country. Each should produce at least a few gigawatts of electiricty. This is because it is much more efficient to have fewer larger facilities than many smaller ones. This way reprocessing and containment technologies can be implemented on site and safety measures can be deployed at fewer sites.

4. Each site should not be a single power plant, but rather have multiple reactors and turbine/generators. This allows for continued operations during refueling or maintenance as well as reduces the severity of a (highly unlikely) accident. Should a breach of some sort occur, the scale will be limited and not effect physically separate units.

5. Disposal of waste based on advanced reprocessing and the use of fast-neutron reactors and accelerator-driven transmutation.

What it boils down to is this: You can go nuclear. You can do it right. And you can achieve a very safe and plentiful energy supply. However, to some degree it’s all or nothing. You can’t build a few plants and not have the proper disposal infrastructure and closed-system reprocessing systems.

Not taking this technology to it’s full potential does not make sense. As research continues toward fusion or other technologies for the future, we need to recognize that we have the technology for clean energy NOW. It’s all been done. It can be done. It should be done.

Wind farms and solar cells are great, and I encourage that they be used wherever they can be. But they just can’t cut it for major electrical needs.

If energy can be generated cleanly, cheaply and in large enough amounts, the possibilities are almost endless. Desalination of massive amounts of water for agriculture or drinking. Treatment of waste. The destruction of nearly any chemical waste by reducing it to the elemental components. Massive heating and cooling. Transportation and manufacturing. Food production in huge greenhouses and under sunlamps.

It’s all possible with enough energy.

vIQleS

15th March 2007, 08:40 PM

:clap:

I'm saving this to show to people. (With your permission.)

ETA: I've corrected some spelling mistakes tho... :)

trvlr2

15th March 2007, 08:47 PM

Good points.

What always bothers me about the alternatives in energy production/use is that the proponents always forget that the increasing energy use/need is a product of spiraling population growth.

If we are going to live on an energy budget, it would seem to be a little easier if the budget did not have to be split so many different ways.

I will happily submit a list of the populations to be wiped out.

Or, I guess, we could make more use of nukular energy.

jsiv

15th March 2007, 09:02 PM

I hear you. Several political parties here in Norway want to ban fossil fuel based cars and heating by 2020.. without proposing an alternative.

So many people think it can be done simply with hydro and lots of happy thoughts. Yes, Norway was once self-sufficient using only hydro, but people need to start understanding that nuclear power is the only realistic option in the future, especially if you factor in the huge increase in power requirements if we start using electric cars and heating.

The biggest issue when it comes to nuclear power (and other things, like, say, flying) is that fear is not rational. It doesn't matter if the risk is real or not. Chernobyl was very bad because it showed people that you can have all these technical safeguards in place and still have something go terribly wrong because of human error. That sticks with people, even though nuclear technology has moved on since then.

Also, nuclear power has been so extremely demonized over here ever since Chernobyl (which still affects us to this day and costs us millions) that it's going to take a lot of work to change the public opinion. Especially when you have interest groups like Greenpeace bombarding us with propaganda.

Still, there seems to be some progress. Norway's large reserve of thorium has started to get media attention recently, and is bringing nuclear technology back into public debate. I don't know how realistic thorium reactors are, but at least we would not be held back by the same economic issues that India is if we were to start working on it.

Anyway, I agree.. Nuclear power is definitely what we need right now. Go nuclear now, while at the same time putting money into R&D of other alternative power sources. If any of them turn out to be viable, we can phase out nuclear technology at a later time.

geni

15th March 2007, 09:48 PM

First, safety-

Nuclear energy is safe. It’s damn safe. I have no problem living near a plant and I would have no problem working at one. The US has an impeccable record of nuclear safety, with no deaths ever resulting from commercial nuclear energy, no major incidents and the only deaths associated with nuclear energy directly go back to the 1950’s, when reactor design was very hit or miss.

False on all three counts.

United Nuclear Corporation suffered the death of an employee in 1964 due to a criticality accident.

We even have thousands of people living within feet of reactors… in sealed vessels… emerced under thousands of feet of salt water!

There have been some close calls with subs.

There is no reason why Chernobyle had to happen and such an event is not a concern with modern pressurized water reactors.

1. Reprocessing – Extracts the usable fuel of both uranium and long-lived plutonium and other heavy elements. This can be reused in reactors and the remaining fission products are much smaller in volume and do not pose as great a long term risk, requiring only 500 years or less to decay to safe levels. While this may sound like a long time, it is far less than the times for standard spent fuel.

Expensive risky (most of the recent incerdents have involved reprocessing) and produces large amounts of weapons grade plutonium.

Reprocessing tends to throw up more technical problems than running a reactor.

3. Photo-neutron transmutation. Without getting too far into this, it basically involves an accelerator which can be used to break down nuclear waste to harmless intert material. The accelerator takes a lot of energy, however the process can also produce energy if the heat produced by the reaction is tapped. A one megawatt accelerator, for example, could produce ten megawatts of usable electricity, through the decay process of short-lived isotopes.

Please provide a citation.

1. A renewed policy for electrical generation with a focus on nuclear energy

2. Standardization and streamlining of reactor design and construction – rather than designing every faculty independently and going through the regulatory, safety and approval processes completely each time, create several standard modular reactor designs. Take into account the newest and most promising technologies, such as sub-critical reactors, thorium breeders, heavy water moderated, liquid metal cooled etc. Create designs. Test them thoroughly and then start building.

Problem is cost. What tends to happen is that every reactor ends up being a test reactor of some type or another.

Standadised ractors have been built. The UK Magnox series for example (which works is pretty safe but has other issues). The saveings are not as big as you would think.

3. Construction of several large nuclear energy facilities across the country. Each should produce at least a few gigawatts of electiricty. This is because it is much more efficient to have fewer larger facilities than many smaller ones.

You are not factoring transmission losses.

This way reprocessing and containment technologies can be implemented on site and safety measures can be deployed at fewer sites.

You really don't want to be runing more than maybe 2 reprocessing facilities total. One per site is unessacery duplication.

What it boils down to is this: You can go nuclear. You can do it right. And you can achieve a very safe and plentiful energy supply. However, to some degree it’s all or nothing. You can’t build a few plants and not have the proper disposal infrastructure and closed-system reprocessing systems.

Not taking this technology to it’s full potential does not make sense. As research continues toward fusion or other technologies for the future, we need to recognize that we have the technology for clean energy NOW. It’s all been done. It can be done. It should be done.

Problem is uranium stocks are not exactly brillantly high.

Yeah it's posible france and japan do it but uranium availibilty is a problem. You can get round that with fast breeder reactors but even france and japan have had serious problems getting the things to work without breaking down in rather alaming ways.

Wavicle

15th March 2007, 09:59 PM

I agree with everything you said except this:

Noone was ever in any real danger.

Had the operators continued to fail to realize that the root cause of the incident was a loss of coolant accident, the entire core might well have melted at which point the housing may not have been sufficient to contain it.

Fortunately it was realized and the radiation was contained. And the incident has been studied, we have learned from it, and today I think between TMI and Chernobyl we know that the most important thing is to maintain the integrity of the core.

Honestly I think the radical environmentalists just want to go back to living "in harmony with nature." You know: 30 year average lifespan; People regularly being killed by wild animals; Women regularly dying in childbirth; 70% infant mortality... Harmonious!

Wavicle

15th March 2007, 10:23 PM

There have been some close calls with subs.

True. Have there been closer or even worse calls with diesel or coal burning ocean vessels?

Expensive risky (most of the recent incerdents have involved reprocessing)

Off the top of my head I can think of two incidents in the last 10 years at a cost of two lives. Neither resulted in a loss of containment of nuclear fuel. How many people have died as a direct result of mining coal, even though we have way more experience mining coal than reprocessing nuclear fuel?

and produces large amounts of weapons grade plutonium.

Please provide a citation. To my knowledge reprocessing is the same process as creating weapons grade plutonium, but the expense to get that enriched is prohibitive. Also unnecessary; you don't need it that pure.

Reprocessing tends to throw up more technical problems than running a reactor.

Please provide a citation.

Problem is uranium stocks are not exactly brillantly high.

Yes they are. (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=world+uranium+reserves). Come on, there is more extractable uranium just dissolved in seawater than we will use in the next 100 years.

DRBUZZ0

16th March 2007, 12:14 AM

False on all three counts.

United Nuclear Corporation suffered the death of an employee in 1964 due to a criticality accident.

Not a civillian power generation accident. It was military weaponry assembly

There have been some close calls with subs.

Two nuclear subs have been lost. Neither was due to reactor failure. The Thresher would be the closest. The navy concluded that the loss was primarily due to a flaw in the design of the ballast tanks.

Many more close calls have happend on deisel-electrics.

[/quote]

Expensive risky (most of the recent incerdents have involved reprocessing) and produces large amounts of weapons grade plutonium.

Reprocessing tends to throw up more technical problems than running a reactor.

Reprocessing can be used to make nuclear weapons. A bleach factory can also make mustard gas. Gasoline can be turned into napalm

Please provide a citation.

http://www.spiritofmaat.com/archive/feb2/nuclear.htm

http://sec.edgar-online.com/2002/09/20/0001010549-02-000561/Section8.asphttp://www.ewire.com/display.cfm/Wire_ID/848

There was an extensive article about transmutation experiments at Oak Ridge published in a magazine a while back. I will try to find it.

Problem is cost. What tends to happen is that every reactor ends up being a test reactor of some type or another.

Standadised ractors have been built. The UK Magnox series for example (which works is pretty safe but has other issues). The saveings are not as big as you would think.

Standardization is only a small part of the issue. There have been many prototype reactors built which showed great promise for power generation. And yet no new reactors in the US have been built in 30 years. There's no point in designing things that aren't going to be built.

You are not factoring transmission losses.

Electricity can be transmitted hundreds of miles efficiently, especially with some of the new DC high voltage systems. There's no reason that a (relatively) small number of plants could supply a large portion of demand. For example, the North East of the US might require eight or so, combined with existing hydroelectric and other power sources and a few standby gas-fired plants for high demand times.

You really don't want to be runing more than maybe 2 reprocessing facilities total. One per site is unessacery duplication

that depends on what kind of reprocessing you are doing. There are new methods utilizing high flux fast neutron reactors which allow for minimal reprocessing of fuel by electro catalytic reactions. Transmutation and other systems may not require any chemical reprocessing.

Problem is uranium stocks are not exactly brillantly high.

if I remember correctly, the US alone has a few hundred metric tons of highly enriched uranium and plutonium from retired or retiring nuclear weapons. Given that reactors do not generally use HEU, just that could last a long time. There are sizable uranium and thorium reserves around the world. Reprocessing can also reduce the need.

Yeah it's posible france and japan do it but uranium availibilty is a problem. You can get round that with fast breeder reactors but even france and japan have had serious problems getting the things to work without breaking down in rather alaming ways.

There's a lot that could be learned from France and Japan. Of course, their systems can be improved on. Their safety record is very good and they've made some good advances recently

DRBUZZ0

16th March 2007, 12:24 AM

My problem with the "environmental" movement is basically this:

Man is currently (mostly) dependent on chemical reactions for energy. We are hitting the wall with them and they are failing to produce the amounts of energy needed.

Nuclear energy is the next order of magnitude higher. You are actually dealing with mass being converted to energy, in terms of the binding energy of particles. There can be no greater energy density than that, with the possible exception of anti-mater, which could be lumped under the nuclear umbrella as is. The amount of energy in a nuclear bond is (if I remember correctly) something like 9000 times that which can be stored in chemical bonds.

By nuclear, I am not just talking about conventional nuclear power. Nuclear decay, nuclear fission, photofission, phototransmutation, fusion... These are all reactions that can yeild vast amounts of energy. Although effective fusion has proven a challenge, many other fission-based or hybrid systems can and do produce vast amounts of energy.

If you are going to oppose all things nuclear simply because you don't like "nuclear" stuff, then you are effectively blocking humanity's progress to harnessing the next energy medium. Humans have gone from human power to animal power to combustion and mechanical to electrical and beyond.

When you watch Star Trek or some other series set in the future, you notice how the tricorders don't run out of juice? Or how the Enterprise is not constantly stopping for refuling? That is because of nuclear energy. There's no other way such power would be conceivable.

Right now there are ways of packing enough energy into a small package to make submarines with nearly unlimited endurance, requiring refueling only every couple of decades or to allow for space probes to continue transmitting years after they leave the solar system.

There are a lot of exciting possibilities, with transmutation, fusion, direct energy conversion and other technologies avaliable now and on the horizon.

Imagine if a group had managed to spread so much fear of boiler explosions that James Watt was forbidden from developing steam-based engines. We would probably still be on horses today.

Slimething

16th March 2007, 12:47 AM

Imagine if a group had managed to spread so much fear of boiler explosions that James Watt was forbidden from developing steam-based engines. We would probably still be on horses today.

I have quite a few more complaints against the modern environmentalist movement but I don't want to derail your thread. Your point is informed and well stated and I agree wholeheartedly.

Don't forget, though, that the neo-Luddite movement is not confined to environmentalists. After all, the Luddites themselves were mainly a group of workers concerned only for their jobs, not a worthier cause like environmental preservation. The religious have also tried to stop technological progress so many times that it would be farcical for anyone to deny it. (My favorite instance involves the lightning rod (http://evolvefish.com/freewrite/franklgt.htm).)

Anyway, excellent post and thread.

fsol

16th March 2007, 05:08 AM

Now first of all, lets get a couple of things out of the way.

In regards to wind power, solar power, tidal power and so on.

I'm completely in favor of using renewable natural energy sources where avaliable, but the fact is that it's just not realistic to expect these to be able to do anything more than provide a small portion of total energy needs.

It is no where near a fact that that is the case.

Solar energy is free, but the cells sure aren't. And the fact is that it is never really economical or realistic because of the amount of space needed to generate a given amount of electricity. The energy carried by light over a given area is not that large. It may amount to 80 to 90 watts per square meter, at the most. (that's in a desert, at noon, in the summer). Solar cells are currently about 25% efficient with new designs promising 40%, and due to the nature of light conversion, it's not really a realistic expectation to have better than 50% effecient solar cells.

If you do the math you'll find that most temperate places can expect something on the order of 100-230 kilowatt hours per square meter per year for solar cells, under ideal conditions. That does not count power conversion or battery tending or anything. Considering the amount of power used...well... it just ain't in the cards.
Average irradiation peaks at about 300W/m2 in north-east Africa.

Your conversion efficiencies seem fairly optimisitc. When companies announce efficienicies of 40% they aren't talking about practical technology. They are usualy small scale test cells, that when scaled up lose performance. I think the world record for a reasonable sized silicon cell is about 20%. Typical commercially available silicon cells are about 15% if you are lucky. A lot of it depends on the installation and the ambient conditions. As irradiation goes up, the cell performance goes up, but as irradiation goes up the cell temperature often goes up and an increase in temperature decreases cell perfomance. A cell that may get you close to 15% in a desert somewhere would only get you 8 or 9% in the UK.

They are stupidly expensive, but that isn't to say that they aren't cost effective for some applications.

Wind energy is somewhat better, but not all locations are suitable for wind power and of those suited, the real estate required is very large. The maintenance on the turbines is not huge, but it is enough to make it more expensive than most other forms of electricity. Furthermore, it has the habbit of changing based on whims. If you have a coal fired power plant you can turn up the boiler when power is needed. Wind energy, like many other renewable, is based on nature. Thus, if a high demand day happens during a stalled high pressure system... well thats just no good.The major cost for windfarms is the capital cost. The maintainence costs aren't really that significant in comparson. Certainly, the pay back time on the initial expenditure is probably the major factor on the cost of wind energy.

The "its windy somewhere all the time" idea actually does work out quite well. The more windfarms you have the less variation in the output from your wind portfolio you see. A study in West Denmark shows that variation in output over time is actually fairly small (Denmark generates about 20% of its energy needs from wind and plan to increase that to 50% by 2030). You will always need some reserve plant, and I wouldn't advocate an all wind grid, but the picture isn't as dark as you make it out to be.

And the fact is that we (humanity) needs energy. And lots of it

Energy efficiency and conservation is great, but it can only get you so far. Despite all the efforts toward energy star appliances, efficient lighting, hybrid cars and so on, energy consumption has never gone down. All these efforts have been able to do is reduce the rate at which it has gone up. It’s not realistic at all to expect that conservation could dramatically reduce overall power needs any time soon.

And people will not give up their air conditioners and big screen tv’s. Sorry to break it to everyone, but making the population reduce their standard of living voluntarily for a non-immediate goal doesn’t sell well, and the economic consequences aren’t fun either.You don't have to lose your big screen tv or air-con to improve your energy efficiency. The economic consequences of doing nothing will be greater. But I know you don't advocate doing nothing.

So what do we really need? A reliable, economical, practical, doable source of energy that can produce lots of it in a reasonably small area (as in a power plant).So nuclear...Personally I think we need a combination of all of the above really and I am far from convinced that we actually need nuclear power. The 2003 Energy white paper in the UK certainly makes the case that in the UK at least it is not necessary. But I realise that that is not a universal.

Nuclear power is fairly rubbish when it comes to dealing with the varying demands of energy use just because of the economics. They are fairly expensive to build, so you want to run them at full capacity for as long as possible to make your money back. This means they are pretty ideal for providing the base load, but as soon as you start running below capacity you don't make as much money. I really don't think there is a quick cure-all, you need different types of generation to deal with the different types of demand, we may even be better off by leaving behind the grid system we have now and moving towards a smaller scale distributed generation model, thoguh we might then lose the benefit of aggregation.

But nuclear does seem to work well in France. 80% of electricity generation comes from nuclear power and they do use them to follow the varying demand with hydro making up the difference. So it can be done that way. They don't really have a workable plan with regards to the waste either though.

Another issue with nuclear power that people seem to forget is that uranium is a finite resource. If demand goes up the price will also go up. And it will run out one day too.

geni

16th March 2007, 06:29 AM

Not a civillian power generation accident. It was military weaponry assembly

No. I'm not aware of any criticality accidents directly involveing weapon assembly. Slotin would be closest but that was in 1946.

No the acident involved a facility which reprocessed for recovery highly enriched uranium in scrap material from fuel element production:

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radevents/1964USA1.html

Rather simular to the Tokai acident.

Two nuclear subs have been lost.

I assume you mean US ones.

Reprocessing can be used to make nuclear weapons. A bleach factory can also make mustard gas. Gasoline can be turned into napalm

Generaly not as lethal as nukes.

http://www.spiritofmaat.com/archive/feb2/nuclear.htm

I do not trust science by pressrelease.

http://sec.edgar-online.com/2002/09/20/0001010549-02-000561/Section8.asphttp://www.ewire.com/display.cfm/Wire_ID/848

404 error.

Standardization is only a small part of the issue. There have been many prototype reactors built which showed great promise for power generation. And yet no new reactors in the US have been built in 30 years. There's no point in designing things that aren't going to be built.

No secret that the US gov runs makework programs in order to hang onto a pool of nuclear scientists. Reactor design may well be covered.

Otherwise Japan China and India all have ongoing reasearch programs.

Electricity can be transmitted hundreds of miles efficiently, especially with some of the new DC high voltage systems. There's no reason that a (relatively) small number of plants could supply a large portion of demand. For example, the North East of the US might require eight or so, combined with existing hydroelectric and other power sources and a few standby gas-fired plants for high demand times.

While approach might make sense for the UK size of the US makes it less practical.

that depends on what kind of reprocessing you are doing. There are new methods utilizing high flux fast neutron reactors which allow for minimal reprocessing of fuel by electro catalytic reactions. Transmutation and other systems may not require any chemical reprocessing.

I'm shall we say sceptical. Reactor rods are not that hard to ship around. High level waste is. Generaly it is best to store the stuff in as fewer places as posible. As a result you want as few reprocessing facities as posible sitting right next to your long term storage.

if I remember correctly, the US alone has a few hundred metric tons of highly enriched uranium and plutonium from retired or retiring nuclear weapons. Given that reactors do not generally use HEU, just that could last a long time.

Reactors have been burning old russian (and south african) material for some time. Stocks are running low. Milling HEU down to the level where it can be used in reactors takes a fair wack of energy.

There are sizable uranium and thorium reserves around the world.

about 20 years worth is the world switches to nuclear burn.

There's a lot that could be learned from France and Japan. Of course, their systems can be improved on. Their safety record is very good and they've made some good advances recently

Japan killed a couple of workers in 1999 (reprocessing). France has backed away from fast breeder reactors.

I don't know about the politics in the US but France has little choice but to build a new generation of reactors. The UK probably will not sure about germany.

geni

16th March 2007, 06:51 AM

My problem with the "environmental" movement is basically this:

Man is currently (mostly) dependent on chemical reactions for energy. We are hitting the wall with them and they are failing to produce the amounts of energy needed.

Coal burn could keep going for over a century.

Nuclear energy is the next order of magnitude higher. You are actually dealing with mass being converted to energy, in terms of the binding energy of particles. There can be no greater energy density than that, with the possible exception of anti-mater, which could be lumped under the nuclear umbrella as is.

No it could not.

When you watch Star Trek or some other series set in the future, you notice how the tricorders don't run out of juice?

That is the least of their wounders. There would be various ways to supply the likely required power levels without resorting to nuclear energy.

Or how the Enterprise is not constantly stopping for refuling? That is because of nuclear energy. There's no other way such power would be conceivable.

There are others. In fact the amount of energy required likely means that the Enterprise does not use nuclear power.

Cuddles

16th March 2007, 07:01 AM

There's a lot that could be learned from France and Japan. Of course, their systems can be improved on. Their safety record is very good and they've made some good advances recently

If by "good" you mean "absolutely terrible", then I agree.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg16422102.800-getting-critical.html
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2859-japans-nuclear-safety-dangerously-weak.html
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18324600.500-fresh-nuke-accident-in-japan.html

You're right that there is a lot that could be learned from Japan. How not to do it.

Crossbow

16th March 2007, 07:02 AM

Until there is a viable method for the proper disposal of nuclear waste, then I continue to have problems with nuclear energy.

By the way, the 'Enterprise' of Star Trek used anti-matter as a power source, not nuclear power.

;)

fsol

16th March 2007, 07:22 AM

Until there is a viable method for the proper disposal of nuclear waste, then I continue to have problems with nuclear energy.

This is (or perhaps was, I must get round to reading their latest proclamation) the UK Governments stance.

MortFurd

16th March 2007, 09:54 AM

Seen on a bumper sticker in Germany:
"Atomkraft Gegnern ueberwintern im Dunkeln mit kaltem Hintern."
Translation:
"Nuclear power opponents spend the winter in the dark with a cold backside."

Germany has been planning on scrapping their nuclear power plants. The environmental groups managed to get enough popularity behind the idea to actually get the gov. to go along with it.

With the concerns over CO2 and global warming, they are starting to back pedal.

As there were no plans to build new reactors, they are going to have to keep old, outdated ones on line longer to cover the time until newer, safer reactors can be built to help reduce CO2 emissions and bridge the gap until alternative energy sources can pick up the slack.

DRBUZZ0

16th March 2007, 10:42 AM

Coal burn could keep going for over a century.

No it could not.

There's no point in debating whether or not anti-protons and positrons count as a field of nuclear physics. I would say they do. In any case. That's beyond any capabities we'd have now

That is the least of their wounders. There would be various ways to supply the likely required power levels without resorting to nuclear energy.

There are others. In fact the amount of energy required likely means that the Enterprise does not use nuclear power.

That's rhetorical. What power method is used in a scifi series is not really relevant. But there is simply no way to equal the energy density of a nuclear reaction with any chemical means. You can't. End of story. Nor could it be done with a low-resistance flywheel, a lot of capacitors. No.

You break down atoms you get tons of energy. Simple as that.

DRBUZZ0

16th March 2007, 10:47 AM

No. I'm not aware of any criticality accidents directly involveing weapon assembly. Slotin would be closest but that was in 1946.

No the acident involved a facility which reprocessed for recovery highly enriched uranium in scrap material from fuel element production:

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radevents/1964USA1.html

Rather simular to the Tokai acident.

Okay, so there have been deaths in the nuclear energy industry? There are also deaths in just about every decent sized industry. Far less though than in other power-generating industries

I assume you mean US ones.

There's no point in including Soviet nuclear programs if you want to talk about how a reactor can be safe. The Soviets blatently disregarded even the most basic rules of safety and reliability. If nothing else, it shows why one must be careful with the technology

Generaly not as lethal as nukes.

I do not trust science by pressrelease.

That was one press release I found on google last night. I can try to find some better articles. However, the science is perfectly sound. The binding energy of a given isotope varies and with 8mev+ gamma rays it becomes possible to break down almost any heavy element. Elements past the atomic mass of about 57 will yeild energy when broken down and will be likley to result in very short lived products.

It has been demonstrated. It's basic nuclear chemistry

Cuddles

16th March 2007, 10:51 AM

There's no point in debating whether or not anti-protons and positrons count as a field of nuclear physics. I would say they do. In any case. That's beyond any capabities we'd have now.

Nuclear refers to things in the nucleus of atoms. Anti-matter is not in the nucleus of atoms, therefore it is not nuclear physics. Your opinion is not relevant, this is a basic fact of definition.

In addition, anti-matter is to nuclear energy what nuclear is to chemical energy. Just as you get more energy from nuclear bonds than chemical ones, you get far more energy from the actual mass of particles than you get from bonds between them. In any case, anti-matter cannot be used to generat energy. There is no anti-matter naturally on Earth. Anti-matter could be used as energy storage, like hydrogen fuel cells, but it can never be used for generation because you need energy to produce it in the first place. There is no logical reason to group anti-matter with nuclear energy.

geni

16th March 2007, 11:55 AM

There's no point in including Soviet nuclear programs if you want to talk about how a reactor can be safe. The Soviets blatently disregarded even the most basic rules of safety and reliability. If nothing else, it shows why one must be careful with the technology

I was going to bring up the example of most of the british hunter killer fleet haveing to undergo a series un unsceduled rapairs a few years back

That was one press release I found on google last night. I can try to find some better articles. However, the science is perfectly sound. The binding energy of a given isotope varies and with 8mev+ gamma rays it becomes possible to break down almost any heavy element. Elements past the atomic mass of about 57 will yeild energy when broken down and will be likley to result in very short lived products.

While technicaly cobalt would fission to iron the odds fo being able to extract any useful energy are limited.

Dilb

16th March 2007, 12:28 PM

shecky

16th March 2007, 01:09 PM

The biggest problem I see with nuclear power in the US is plain old NIMBYism. You just can't get far, even if everyone espouses nukes, as long as it's in someone else's State.

Hamradioguy

16th March 2007, 01:49 PM

Solar intensity is about 1000 W/m2 at the equator. Even as far north as Canada (https://glfc.cfsnet.nfis.org/mapserver/pv/index.php), it averages to 1/2 to 1/3 of that depending on the time of year. Solar power has an advantage here, that it's collecting power based on the area of it's shadow, not the area of the panel, so by mounting it at an angle the performance is better than the solar intensity would suggest.

Of course, when I did calculate how many solar panels it would take to supply the USA with energy, I calculated it would take about 20% of its total area to do so.

And one has to consider that solar panels are not 100% efficient. The technology is improving, but it's still a long, long way from 100%. This and other issues are nicely covered in Petr Beckman's "The Health Hazards of NOT going Nuclear" which I think I have recommended in other threads. Not too technical, funny at times, and highly recommended. Good source material for anyone willing to go head-to-head with an anti nuke person.

DanishDynamite

16th March 2007, 01:57 PM

Excellent rant, DRBUZZO! I agree completely.

I too have never understood the knee jerk anti-nuclear stance of the "environmentalists". Expecially after the advent of Global Warming. Here is a powerful source of energy which produces no CO2, no smog, no oil spills, no nothing, except massive energy and a contained waste product. And there are plenty of deep holes in the ground to store this waste.

BTW, I'm an "environmentalist" myself, in the sense that I've been a member of the WWF for quite a number of years and support 90% of what they stand for. I even had my own personal sponsorship of a whale for a while. With pictures and reports every few months on how she was doing.

I've also noticed that the only significant point of contention so far raised against your OP was geni's statement that there was only "about 20 years worth [of nuclear fuel] if the world switches to nuclear burn."

Would you have a linky on this, geni?

RecoveringYuppy

16th March 2007, 02:18 PM

@dilb and Hamradioguy
And one has to consider that solar panels are not 100% efficient. .
I think dilb already factored in a lot of inefficiency. IIRC US total annual energy usage just crossed 100 quadrillion btu from all sources a few years back. Unless I'm dropping some zeros somewhere that works out to about 30 trillion kwh annually. That's about 3.3 trillion watts around the clock for a year. Area of the US is about 9.6 million square km, or 9.6 trillion square meters. So, if I did the arithmetic properly that's about 1/3 watt/meter. Well under the 100 to 1,000 watts/meter various people have cited for solar flux.

[someone double check my arithmetic please]

htf666

16th March 2007, 02:21 PM

RecoveringYuppy

16th March 2007, 02:39 PM

To continue to use nuclear power when there is no way of disposing safely of the waste it produces is in my opinion greedy, selfish, criminal and a sad indictment of the species that is supposed to be the wisest on the planet.
But there are ways to dispose of it, even recycle it.

And doesn't what you just said apply even more to CO2? Which appears to be harming us more, CO2 or nuclear waste?

DanishDynamite

16th March 2007, 02:44 PM

geni

16th March 2007, 04:07 PM

DanishDynamite

16th March 2007, 04:15 PM

geni, any progress on the link I asked for?

Solitaire

16th March 2007, 04:40 PM

Hindmost

16th March 2007, 04:43 PM

With 20 years working in Nuclear power, I certainly agree with DRBUZZO's rant--he did a good job. One of our problems in the industry has been poor advertising...we have Homer Simpson as our mascot...

Now, a point that DRBUZZO made about the safety of the industry that I would like to expand upon...if you compare nuclear power with other industries, its safety record is excellent. Add up all the deaths from the nuclear industry--it just isn't that many. Chernobyl was an absolutely horrible design...having a positive water coeficient...and pointing to it as some sort of standard is just not reasonable. Having lived in New Orleans--around oil refineries and chemical plants--nuclear looks really good. I actually couldn't get to work a couple days because the ethylene glycol plant next door blew up a some noxious tanks. My wife had similar problems with the oil refinery near her work. The New Orleans nuke had to design the control complex of the plant to withstand chlorine and amonia releases from neighboring plants. Much of the waste coming from chemical plants will never go away whereas the vast majority of nuclear waste is safe after 200 years or so. The long lived isotopes can be fast fissioned in next generation breeder reactors.

With only around 6 to 8% of energy needs worldwide coming from renewable resources, something needs to be done. A combination of many technologies with nuclear contributing is going to be necessary. However, with the very slow growth of nuclear power over the years, there are not enough trained engineers to build a significant number of plants...the long construction time and the cost don't help. In the US, the industry has stagnated and the engineers are all getting close to retirement. The ability to build a plant is being lost.

Combinations of new breeders and advanced lightwater plants can provide a significant amount of energy for a very long time without long term waste issues. Inherently safe fuel designs--which exist right now-- will eliminate Three mile island type of problems. Hopefully, fusion will become a reality in the needed time frame. A reactor about the size of a bedroom can provide enough electricity for about 1 million homes and can operate without refueling for 18 to 24 months.

glenn

about 2.5 billion people on the planet use biomass as their primary fuel.

geni

16th March 2007, 04:59 PM

I've also noticed that the only significant point of contention so far raised against your OP was geni's statement that there was only "about 20 years worth [of nuclear fuel] if the world switches to nuclear burn."

Would you have a linky on this, geni?

The exact numbers jump about a lot and depend on what you consider switching over to nuclear burn to mean and which uranium resurves you include. For example greenpeace go for 4 years:

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/climate-change/solutions/nuclear_fallacy

However I suspect they are ignoreing everything other than known low cost reserves which is unreasonable.

As for the upper end of the scale that can almost be as high as you like as long as you select big enough figures for unknown reserves and aceptable extraction costs.

This guy goes for 10-20 years:

http://www.energybulletin.net/3322.html

The numbers don't matter since they only apply to pure light water reactors senarios.

Problem is that fast breeder reactors tend to have issues (mostly with liquid metal cooling and cost).

The US hasn't really run one since the partial meltdown at Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station in the 60s.

The british Dounreay Fast Reactor worked but was never followed up and since the reactors were rather experimental in design followup would be needed.

The soviets ran various designs and the BN-350 and BN-600 reactors worked but people don't always trust soviet tech (I think BN-600 may be the only fast breeder reactor in operation at present time BN-350 was shut down due to lack of funds) but the japanese have purcased the technical info in any case.

The french Superphénix looks good on paper but there were problems with sodium leaks.

Japan's Monju was closed in 1995 due to a fire and sodium leaks.

Both germany and India have built test fast breeders but none have any running at the moment.

Untill we can get fast breeders to work nuclear isn't really a viable model.

geni

16th March 2007, 05:05 PM

Why do people blame the environmentalist for the lack of nuclear power? It makes no sense.

Well probably because one of them admitted fireing a rocket at Superphénix.

They also forced the shutdown of the fast breeder reactors in germany.

pvt1863

16th March 2007, 05:13 PM

Until then, keep building those windmills.

Allow me to correct you. You should have said, "Until then, keep building those coal plants." That more accurately reflects reality. Coal and natural gas are being ramped up far quicker than renewables.

The measure of a civilised society is how it treats the world that it's offspring will inherit. To continue to use nuclear power when there is no way of disposing safely of the waste it produces is in my opinion greedy, selfish, criminal and a sad indictment of the species that is supposed to be the wisest on the planet. To even suggest that it should be buried in caverns or dumped in the sea is so breathtakingly stupid that the people who put forward this solution surely must be insane?

Just another example of someone who insists on viewing nuclear power in isolation. You pick a drawback which has never been shown to actually harm anyone in this country, and based on that you dismiss an entire technology. Never mind the fact that the alternatives are spewing their waste into the air for all of us to breathe and get sick off of.

And bonus points for dragging personal insults into the conversation. Everyone who disagrees with you is insane, right?

Waste is an issue, but one that is not nearly as large as people make it out to be. We have a great track record of storing waste, the waste can easily be stored in one or two central repositories because it is very small (compared to other industrial waste), and the waste can be recycled.

Almost all of the problems with waste are political, not technical. If the politicians stepped aside and let the scientists and engineers handle it with a reasonable amount of regulation, it wouldn't be a problem at all. But no, politicians (and many environmental groups) love to stick their nose in it and exaggerate the problem because they gain more from making a big deal out of it than they do from solving it. They seem to have no problem with our continued dependence on fossil fuels as long as they can scare people into voting for them. The way some politicians use this issue as a personal political weapon is practically criminal in my mind.

Some of these issues were discussed in this thread (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=74904&highlight=case+nuclear+power). I suggest reading it.

I'm a proud member of the American nuclear industry.

Lonewulf

16th March 2007, 05:18 PM

I find it intriguing that people love to rant about the evil nuclear waste, and then ignore the evil waste that's produced from creation of solar panels.

Oh, but it's GREEN, so it must be good!

fishbob

16th March 2007, 06:14 PM

I find it intriguing that people love to rant about the evil nuclear waste, and then ignore the evil waste that's produced from creation of solar panels.

Oh, but it's GREEN, so it must be good!

They can eat an organic carrot and take a homeopathic pill and and feel just great while ignoring what goes into the landfill down by the river.

I heard a lecture a couple of weeks ago by a Ms Wand Munn. She stated that we could re-process all the spent fuel currently stored at reactor sites around the country and wind up with somewhere around 12,000 - 15,000 cubic yards of waste to be handled carefully for 300 to 500 years. This is roughly equivalent to the landfill at one fairly small town. By volume, one train-load of boxcars could haul this much material.

fsol

16th March 2007, 06:41 PM

Solar intensity is about 1000 W/m2 at the equator.

Not really. As a peak value maybe, but as an average no where near.

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/8020/421/1600/Solar_land_area.0.png

Irradiance is actually lower at the equator than it is at the tropics, due to cloud cover over land masses and water evaporation over the sea.

The 1000W/m2 is the value they use for standard test conditions and it is pretty useless for determining the power that a module will produce in the real world. Actually, they specify 1000W/m2 at 25 degrees C. If you can find anywhere in the world where those conditions happen together...

Hindmost

16th March 2007, 06:53 PM

The exact numbers jump about a lot and depend on what you consider switching over to nuclear burn to mean and which uranium resurves you include. For example greenpeace go for 4 years:

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/climate-change/solutions/nuclear_fallacy

However I suspect they are ignoreing everything other than known low cost reserves which is unreasonable.

As for the upper end of the scale that can almost be as high as you like as long as you select big enough figures for unknown reserves and aceptable extraction costs.

This guy goes for 10-20 years:

http://www.energybulletin.net/3322.html

The numbers don't matter since they only apply to pure light water reactors senarios.

Problem is that fast breeder reactors tend to have issues (mostly with liquid metal cooling and cost).

The US hasn't really run one since the partial meltdown at Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station in the 60s.

The british Dounreay Fast Reactor worked but was never followed up and since the reactors were rather experimental in design followup would be needed.

The soviets ran various designs and the BN-350 and BN-600 reactors worked but people don't always trust soviet tech (I think BN-600 may be the only fast breeder reactor in operation at present time BN-350 was shut down due to lack of funds) but the japanese have purcased the technical info in any case.

The french Superphénix looks good on paper but there were problems with sodium leaks.

Japan's Monju was closed in 1995 due to a fire and sodium leaks.

Both germany and India have built test fast breeders but none have any running at the moment.

Untill we can get fast breeders to work nuclear isn't really a viable model.

The reason fast breeders are not running is more political and economically related than technology. Right now, the nuclear industry has enough fuel to run the current reactors for a long time. Insufficient resources due to lack of necessity and the scare of plutonium have caused the shutdown of the plants. The technical issues could be corrected.

An upgraded EBR II type of design would work just fine. It can be designed with inherent safety in the fuel. It operated fine for many years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_Breeder_Reactor_II

glenn

fsol

16th March 2007, 06:57 PM

The reason fast breeders are not running is more political and economically related than technology.

You could probably say the same thing about various renewable energy tech. In the end whatever is cheapest or is percieved to be cheapest is what we will get.

geni

16th March 2007, 07:06 PM

The reason fast breeders are not running is more political and economically related than technology.

The impressive record of failures suggests that may not be the case.

Right now, the nuclear industry has enough fuel to run the current reactors for a long time.

Price of uranium is going up though.

Insufficient resources due to lack of necessity and the scare of plutonium have caused the shutdown of the plants. The technical issues could be corrected.

France doesn't seem to have had a problem with building up large stockpiles of plutonium. Superphénix had issues.

An upgraded EBR II type of design would work just fine. It can be designed with inherent safety in the fuel. It operated fine for many years.

Not the fuel that has been the problem of late. It is the liquid sodium.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_Breeder_Reactor_II

glenn

Another experimental design that is going to solve all the problems? At least the BN-600 design has a track record.

Hindmost

16th March 2007, 08:02 PM

The impressive record of failures suggests that may not be the case.

Price of uranium is going up though.

France doesn't seem to have had a problem with building up large stockpiles of plutonium. Superphénix had issues.

Not the fuel that has been the problem of late. It is the liquid sodium.

Another experimental design that is going to solve all the problems? At least the BN-600 design has a track record.

EBRII had a great track record...it operated for 30 years without any real problems...had a good breeding ratio and in its final days proved inherent fuel safey. The BN-600 design is similar to EBRII...just about a decade older and larger.

Although the Superphenix reactor had issues...it was shut down due to cost and political issues.

The cost of uranium is still low enough to make it more cost effective to make uranium fuel instead of reprocessing and making mox fuel. Since it is a commodity, it will depend on demand. When Superphenix was shutdown, it was cost effective.

glenn

Hindmost

16th March 2007, 08:10 PM

You could probably say the same thing about various renewable energy tech. In the end whatever is cheapest or is percieved to be cheapest is what we will get.

I agree completely. Wind generators were left behind for years because of cheap energy sources and the fact that they were high maintanence and not reliable sources of electricity. Solar still has that problem. At least in the US, subsidies have helped wind power and solar power in the past. I really have to look at the cost of wind power now.

I still think we need them all.

glenn

Dilb

16th March 2007, 10:38 PM

Not really. As a peak value maybe, but as an average no where near.

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/8020/421/1600/Solar_land_area.0.png

Irradiance is actually lower at the equator than it is at the tropics, due to cloud cover over land masses and water evaporation over the sea.

The 1000W/m2 is the value they use for standard test conditions and it is pretty useless for determining the power that a module will produce in the real world. Actually, they specify 1000W/m2 at 25 degrees C. If you can find anywhere in the world where those conditions happen together...

Ah, ok. I did mean the intensity only reduced by the atmosphere, not with the average power then reduced by nighttime, clouds, latitude and whatever else. The original figure was supposed to be for a desert at noon in the summer, and assuming that the desert isn't Antarctica I think the figure would be decently close to 1000W/m2.

Slimething

16th March 2007, 11:34 PM

Why do people blame the environmentalist for the lack of nuclear power? It makes no sense.

Nuclear power simply costs too much, ...

Public fear breeds overregulation of the subject industry. Overregulation hikes up the cost of construction and operation of facilities. Misaimed public furor scuttles many plans at the building permit stage. I found many hits when I googled "overregulation nuclear power" and this link (http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2005/10/whats-real-cost-of-overregulation.html)is only the first.

An NRC inspector conducting an inspection of the lab I where I worked (metabolism research using radiolabeled materials) told me that, due to overregulation, a telephone that would cost you or me $50 (back in the late '80s), would cost a nuclear power facility $500 because it would have to be failsafe tested to a ridiculous degree.

So, that's why a lot of people blame environmentalists for the lack of nuclear power development in the USA. Perhaps unjustly. I don't equate environmentalists with the luddites that seem to cling to them but that's why.

DRBUZZ0

16th March 2007, 11:59 PM

Why do people blame the environmentalist for the lack of nuclear power? It makes no sense.

Nuclear power simply costs too much, according to this article, Negawatt Power by Reed McManus. (http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200701/negawatt.asp) And, that's the reason Wall Street will not fund the construction of new nuclear reactors; however, the federal government spends a bundle on it, according to this article, Why Not Nukes by Paul Rauber. (http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200701/nukes.asp)

Nuclear energy... expensive?

Have you checked the price of some of the renewable energy sources? Solar power is just about the most expensive way you can possibly generate electricity. Yes, sunlight is free, but maintaining the hundreds of square miles you would need to be a major supply for the grid isn't. Wind power is better, but only by a bit.

I've heard that if you consider that solar panels are being made at factories powered by the grid, the amount of CO2 produced by solar energy (the amount produced by making the panel vrs the amount of energy it can produce in it's lifetime), it actually is MORE than nuclear energy.

I suppose if you could get enough made, you could power the solar cell factories on solar power...

Nuclear energy doesn't need to be expensive and in practice, it's competitive in price.

Then again.... coal is dirt cheap. Especially the high sulfur kind.

And we are NOT going to run out of Uranium. The IAEA has said that we have supplies set for 20 years, using ONLY the current deposits being mined. That's assuming no new operations would be started. The US has produced more uranium than almost any other country, over the past 50 years. And yet, it is rated something like 15th in terms of reserves.

Uranium is not really "rare" as far as materials in the earth's crust go. Now, if you consider reprocessing and the fact that thorium can be used as fuel for reactors through neutron capture, with thorium being even more common, you'll find that the amount of fuel reserves are really quite sufficient for the foreseeable future. Take into account the idea that plutonium and heavy isotopes can be used and it means even more fuel.

No... I don't have the citations now. It's late, but I'll find them. Uranium is not a rare material by any stretch of the imagination.

fsol

17th March 2007, 02:38 AM

Ah, ok. I did mean the intensity only reduced by the atmosphere, not with the average power then reduced by nighttime, clouds, latitude and whatever else. The original figure was supposed to be for a desert at noon in the summer, and assuming that the desert isn't Antarctica I think the figure would be decently close to 1000W/m2.

Yeah, sure. But if you want to size a system, you don't want to size it based on the peak irradiance because you will be disappointed when you start generating and your investors will get mad. If you don't have more detailed irradiance data for your site, a better first guess would be to take the yearly average.

fsol

17th March 2007, 03:27 AM

Nuclear energy... expensive?

Have you checked the price of some of the renewable energy sources? Solar power is just about the most expensive way you can possibly generate electricity. Yes, sunlight is free, but maintaining the hundreds of square miles you would need to be a major supply for the grid isn't. Wind power is better, but only by a bit.

The maintainence is probably not the major factor in determining the plant cost. For something like wind the capital cost is. As such the generation cost depends mostly on the pay back time and discount rate that you use. If you can stretch out the payback time then the costs come down.

With solar the huge costs arise because of the low conversion efficiencies. If you then factor in the intermittant nature of the energy source, costs rise further.

Figures I have in front of me for EUR/MWh tell me that wind onshore or offshore) can be comparable to Nuclear. Solar PV is off the scale where costs are concerned. I don't have direct references for them but the range of values I have are

Nuclear EUR 20/MWh - EUR 80/MWh
Onshore wind EUR 40/MWh - EUR 80/MWh
Offshore wind EUR 55/MWh - EUR 78/MWh
Solar PV EUR 316/MWh - EUR 865/MWh

The range of values for wind comes from selecting different discount rates. (from 5% to about 8%)
The nuclear range comes from the UK energy review with it's high end coming from an MIT study.

These two reports give some insight into costs/projected costs in the UK

http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/strategy/downloads/files/PIUh.pdf - renewables
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/strategy/downloads/files/PIi.pdf - nuclear

They reckon that solar PV won't be competitive in the UK until 2020-2025.

I've heard that if you consider that solar panels are being made at factories powered by the grid, the amount of CO2 produced by solar energy (the amount produced by making the panel vrs the amount of energy it can produce in it's lifetime), it actually is MORE than nuclear energy.

I suppose if you could get enough made, you could power the solar cell factories on solar power...

Nuclear energy doesn't need to be expensive and in practice, it's competitive in price.

Then again.... coal is dirt cheap. Especially the high sulfur kind.This paper does life-cycle analysis (or collects together life-cycle analysis data) for various power sources.

(Gagnon, L et al (2002) Life-cycle assesment of electricity generation options:the staus of research in year 2001. Energy Policy, 30, 1267-78)

You can find it on Science Direct if you have access.

Best practise PV is slightly better on a CO2 eq/TWh basis than best practise nuclear. Although at the other end of the range Solar PV is much much higher. Best practise wind is lower than either of them. All three produce insignificant amounts compared to something like coal or gas, due to the fact that all (well almost all) the emissions are produced during manufacture and the energy source comes carbon free.

And we are NOT going to run out of Uranium. The IAEA has said that we have supplies set for 20 years, using ONLY the current deposits being mined. That's assuming no new operations would be started. The US has produced more uranium than almost any other country, over the past 50 years. And yet, it is rated something like 15th in terms of reserves.

Uranium is not really "rare" as far as materials in the earth's crust go. Now, if you consider reprocessing and the fact that thorium can be used as fuel for reactors through neutron capture, with thorium being even more common, you'll find that the amount of fuel reserves are really quite sufficient for the foreseeable future. Take into account the idea that plutonium and heavy isotopes can be used and it means even more fuel.

No... I don't have the citations now. It's late, but I'll find them. Uranium is not a rare material by any stretch of the imagination.We are not going to run out of oil, coal or gas either by that logic. It is finite. One day it will run out. I couldn't tell you when that will be though.

robinson

17th March 2007, 12:33 PM

TOKYO (Reuters) - A Japanese power company admitted on Thursday that it had covered up a 1999 incident in which mishandling of nuclear fuel rods led to an unintended self-sustaining nuclear fission chain reaction for 15 minutes.

Anti-nuclear activists expressed outrage over Hokuriku Electric Power Co.'s failure to report the accident, although the company said the mishap was relatively minor.

The news of the 15-minute "criticality" -- an unintended self-sustaining nuclear fission chain reaction -- is likely to further dent public confidence in Japan's nuclear power industry, already undermined by safety scandals over the past decade.

- http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2007-03-15T105259Z_01_T75294_RTRUKOC_0_US-JAPAN-NUCLEAR.xml

Hamradioguy

17th March 2007, 01:21 PM

The measure of a civilised society is how it treats the world that it's offspring will inherit. To continue to use nuclear power when there is no way of disposing safely of the waste it produces is in my opinion greedy, selfish, criminal and a sad indictment of the species that is supposed to be the wisest on the planet. To even suggest that it should be buried in caverns or dumped in the sea is so breathtakingly stupid that the people who put forward this solution surely must be insane?

Ah yes, the "safe waste disposal" argument. This came up often when I was involved with radiologicl protection, usually coupled with the argument that this waste would be dangerous "for thousands of years". The real danger is more like hundreds of years, but if one wants to argue dangers of nuclear waste then dangers of non-nuclear waste have to be considered as well. How long will toxic heavy metals in the waste ash of coal plants remain toxic? (Or for that matter the ashes left over from burning wood?) "Forever" seems to me a lot longer time than a few hundred years.

Solar? Sure, I have no problem with this. But to replace our state's lone nuclear plant with solar power as an alternative would require around 30 square miles of solar collectors. The environmental cost of producing this quantity of solar cells, clearing the land, installing, cleaning and maintaining the collectors is not insignificant.

The bottom line is that NO large scale source of power is entirely safe or free of environmental impact. (Take a look at Hydro-Quebec's LG2 project for example.) Safety is relative. Deep burial of nuclear waste would seem a lot safer than dumping used diapers or batteries in the local landfill or tossing fireplace ashes into the backyard. But the former brings with it a lot of emotional and political baggage. Scientists and the folks who do risk vs. benefit studies have their work cut out in the years to come. (As an aside, I can't help but wonder how much of the anti-nuclear power hysteria can be traced to the fact that for most people their introduction to things nuclear was via the atomic bombs dropped on Japan and later Cold War fears of nuclear annihilation.)

RecoveringYuppy

17th March 2007, 01:57 PM

Solar? Sure, I have no problem with this. But to replace our state's lone nuclear plant with solar power as an alternative would require around 30 square miles of solar collectors. The environmental cost of producing this quantity of solar cells, clearing the land, installing, cleaning and maintaining the collectors is not insignificant.

Good points, but something to keep in mind about "clearing the land". Thirty square miles isn't much. It's only .3% of your state. Works out to 1,373 sqare feet per person. May not require much land cleared at all because rooftops are in that ball park and there may be other places to put solar collectors without newly cleared land.

Hokulele

17th March 2007, 02:18 PM

To add another set of opinions to this matter, wind power was recently introduced to our area. The irony during the construction process was the fact that the majority of dissent to the project was from environmental groups. The company that developed the project now has plans for expansion, and again, the environmental factors are being brought up.

http://www.mauinews.com/story.aspx?id=23551

You can use the search tool on this site to find the original letters to the editor and all during the construction of the first phase.

Personally, I am all for using alternative energy sources (we have solar hot water for our house), but it seems like regardless of the source, people are going to complain about any type of power production if it means change in their neighborhood. It seems to be "damned if you do, damned if you don't."

Shadow

17th March 2007, 04:38 PM

CapelDodger

17th March 2007, 09:11 PM

You could probably say the same thing about various renewable energy tech. In the end whatever is cheapest or is percieved to be cheapest is what we will get.

Perception, a crucial point. What policy will persuade the decision-makers of its maximum long-term efficiency, given who they are and how they perceive things?

It's probably moot, since decision-makers will continue to think in the short-term while events unfold around them. Nuclear power means much money spent now, pay-back starting ten years down the line. I don't see it selling - especially given that it doesn't address the gasoline problem. Co-ordinated investment in nuclear power and a hydrogen infrastructure with a ten-year pay-back? Fantasy.

Who's going to put money into nuclear power today or next year not knowing what the price of uranium is going to be in 10, 20, 30 years time? The French, probably, but that's not a free-market thing and they never take their eyes (or fingers) off Africa. The world is in a volatile state, not a good time to commit to long-term projects. Liquidity is the watch-word.

RecoveringYuppy

17th March 2007, 09:12 PM

however; this pales in all comparison to the power of the sun. Why only use solar light when you can have the whole sun? The fact is fusion technology is the true answer to the energy crisis. Many governments already recognize this including the US.
It doesn't exist yet. It's completely impossible at this time to do any sort of planning around fusion power.

Many of your complaints about current fission power have been addressed in this thread.

BTW we don't know which, if any, fusion reaction we might be able to make work. Some fusion reactions produce radioactive waste. Probably less, but who knows until we actually see it?

Hindmost

17th March 2007, 10:43 PM

Well your idea is unpractical. You seem to think its environmentalists stopping nuclear power but the fact is its not.

That fact is nuclear power is pointless for a few reasons. No state wants nuclear waste deposited by the federal government onto their land. I lived in Las Vegas for 10 years and for 10 years, our Governor has fought the depositing of nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain.

The public is scared of terrorism not accidental fallout. The fact is it is just to dangerous to take any chances and money runs Las Vegas. Transporting nuclear waste usually requires a cross-country trek allowing every city it passes through to be a terrorist target. No one wants a possible terrorist threat to pass through his or her city.

It is just too hard trying to find a place to put the waste when no one wants it and everyone is fighting it. Its to much trouble and the more waste you have the more trouble it becomes. Not just the plant but also the waste would need to be put under lock and key with armed guards at all times. Building a bunch of nuclear power plants would just be wasting money.

There are far better ways to conquer energy crisis and they are already about to happen. Tidal energy has the potential to produce a massive amount of energy...however; this pales in all comparison to the power of the sun. Why only use solar light when you can have the whole sun? The fact is fusion technology is the true answer to the energy crisis. Many governments already recognize this including the US.

http://www.ofes.fusion.doe.gov/ (http://www.ofes.fusion.doe.gov/)

http://www.nei.org/index.asp?catnum=2&catid=262 (http://www.nei.org/index.asp?catnum=2&catid=262)

Nuclear energy is cheap, but a hassle to dispose because of political restraints. Wind & Hydro are much more cost effective in production costs. You can produce 2 hydro plants for the cost of 1 nuclear plant or 43 wind plants for the cost of 1 nuclear plant. Wind may not be reliable but with a 43 to 1 ratio, it would make it seem not to matter. Solar plants although slightly more costly produce no waste at all and combined with wind & hydro plants should provide a consistent source of energy until fusion becomes viable.

Solar power also has the potential to be made into a private industry. Businesses can form that place panels on your house using payment plans to drastically decrease the cost of your private power consumption. It can even be ordered by law that all new houses must have solar panels (in cities where its cost effective to have such panels) and the cost of the panels be added to the sale of the house.

There is also wave & tidal power that offers another great solution to renewable power. Consistent & predictable waves are made with gravitation from the moon and winds caused by climate.

Nuclear power that creates waste with each barrel needing 500 years of guarding to prevent terrorism seems pointless when so many better solutions are already around. Any power source that creates waste is useless & most sources will be obsolete once fusion is perfected. How much money will have to be spent to guard those barrels of nuclear waste when nuclear power plants are obsolete in 40 years. Especially since there are cheaper forms of electric production currently available.

Unpractical nuclear power provides 17% of the electrical energy in the USA. It provides much more in other countries. New plants have a design life of 60 years and older plants are upgrading to do the same.

Nuclear waste shipments have been occurring for the past 40 years in the US. The shipping casks are designed to take a fair amount of punishment. As terrorist target, they would be a poor choice since the shipments have military escorts. There are much easier targets.

Tidal power is not the panacea that you claim. The amount of quads available would not make much difference when compared with the energy the world uses. Most of the energy available from hydroelectric power has already been fully developed around world—and definitely so in the US--unless you want to dam up the Missisppi or the Grand Canyon. In addition, it isn’t always dependable…it can be subject to rain and snow fall changes.

The world has not done enough research on fusion power. The US should have continued to build upgraded tokamak designs after shutting down Princton. Nuclear fission is a good bridge between what we are doing now and if fusion power becomes reality.

If the US were energy independent, there would be less need to worry about terrorist attacks. Nuclear power can help, but a combination of many different forms of energy will be needed.

glenn

Shadow

18th March 2007, 02:11 AM

As terrorist target, they would be a poor choice since the shipments have military escorts. There are much easier targets.

It does not matter how likely a terrorist target it is, the fact is its the public that is scared of terrorism.

The world has not done enough research on fusion power.

True, yet the estimate stands at 40 years.

If all goes well, commercial application should be possible by the middle of the 21st century, providing humankind a safe, clean, inexhaustible energy source for the future.

http://www.ofes.fusion.doe.gov/whatisfusion.shtml

If the US were energy independent, there would be less need to worry about terrorist attacks. Nuclear power can help, but a combination of many different forms of energy will be needed.

glenn

The public is scared of terroism, not the intellectual. That is the point of terrorism to create unrational fear, terror. Calm the angry mob and maybe nuclear power will be a possible answer. Otherwise you face an uphill battle, while wind/hydro/solar does not face this obstacle and also has the support of the greeners.

It is politics, not logic, that runs the world. If logic ran the world we would not be in Iraq "helping" them build a new government...after we destroyed theirs.

blutoski

18th March 2007, 02:31 AM

United Nuclear Corporation suffered the death of an employee in 1964 due to a criticality accident.

More to the point: private firms cannot get insurance to operate a nuclear reactor. They are all protected by government. The point being that private insurers have hired experts to review this many times, and consider nuclear reactors too risky to insure economically. These are not tree-huggers.

As a technophile, I would love to see cheap, safe, reactors spring up across the countryside, burying CO2 emitters once and for all. As a scientist responsible to weighing the evidence, however, I consider them too big a risk at this time, and important experts who are not invested in the industry seem to agree.

geni

18th March 2007, 04:56 AM

More to the point: private firms cannot get insurance to operate a nuclear reactor. They are all protected by government. The point being that private insurers have hired experts to review this many times, and consider nuclear reactors too risky to insure economically. These are not tree-huggers.

The problem is that there are factors other than direct risk to consider. Insurance companies have to consider can they afford to pay out should the worst happen. Historically worst case has been things like two airlines colliding over a city or massive gas explosions. 9/11 was a bit of a shock but what with one thing or another it could be covered.

Worst case nuclear disaster (total meltdown with containment failure) is as much as 2 orders of magnitude worse. Lloyd's of London has pools of capital totalling around £32 billion. It is doubtful if even combined this would be enough to pay off against such an event.

geni

18th March 2007, 05:17 AM

EBRII had a great track record...it operated for 30 years without any real problems...had a good breeding ratio and in its final days proved inherent fuel safey. The BN-600 design is similar to EBRII...just about a decade older and larger.

EBRII was still an experimental disign though.

Although the Superphenix reactor had issues...it was shut down due to cost and political issues.

It only ran at all because of political issues though. Sucessful sodium cooled reactors seem to be rare

The cost of uranium is still low enough to make it more cost effective to make uranium fuel instead of reprocessing and making mox fuel. Since it is a commodity, it will depend on demand. When Superphenix was shutdown, it was cost effective.

glenn

The problem is that every different type of nuclear technology appears to require a number of acidents before the problems are fixed.

Light water reactors have had a pretty good safetly record since 1990. However getting there required a range of acidents from the fairly minor SL-1
(lession make sure it takes more than one stupid thing to cause the reactor to go wrong) to the Windscale fire (lesson don't build anything like Windscale Pile no. 1)

We arew still getting reprocessing acidents and we don't yet have much experence with fast breeder setups.

Hindmost

18th March 2007, 08:47 AM

It does not matter how likely a terrorist target it is, the fact is its the public that is scared of terrorism.

True, yet the estimate stands at 40 years.

http://www.ofes.fusion.doe.gov/whatisfusion.shtml

The public is scared of terroism, not the intellectual. That is the point of terrorism to create unrational fear, terror. Calm the angry mob and maybe nuclear power will be a possible answer. Otherwise you face an uphill battle, while wind/hydro/solar does not face this obstacle and also has the support of the greeners.

It is politics, not logic, that runs the world. If logic ran the world we would not be in Iraq "helping" them build a new government...after we destroyed theirs.

I agree that the public is uninformed about nuclear power...as I said...we have Homer Simpson as our mascot. However, an ignorant public is not a good way to define an energy policy.

Hydro is not environmentally friendly as it destroys echo-systems when it floods an area...but there aren't any places to dam up in the US anymore. Wind farms are great...but they will take up a lot of land and solar cell manufacturing and deployment are expensive. Now, I am for all of these, but add up all these and you only get a few Quads. We are using over 100 Quads a year in the US now and over 400 world wide. Only about 6% is renewable. Something needs to be done and soon.

The estimate for fusion coming online has changed every decade. When I was in college in the 70s, we were supposed to achieve real energy producing fusion by the late 90s. The plasma just won't stabalize. The European plant will be very telling--I wanted to work in fusion power eventually and studied it to the extent possible. (it does have radiation issues as well, but they are much less than fission plants and they are inherently safe)

glenn

Hindmost

18th March 2007, 09:20 AM

EBRII was still an experimental disign though.

It only ran at all because of political issues though. Sucessful sodium cooled reactors seem to be rare

The problem is that every different type of nuclear technology appears to require a number of acidents before the problems are fixed.

Light water reactors have had a pretty good safetly record since 1990. However getting there required a range of acidents from the fairly minor SL-1
(lession make sure it takes more than one stupid thing to cause the reactor to go wrong) to the Windscale fire (lesson don't build anything like Windscale Pile no. 1)

We arew still getting reprocessing acidents and we don't yet have much experence with fast breeder setups.

Every heavy industry has accidents. Add up all of them and only a few people have died...not that I consider that acceptable, but it is a fact. Most of the accidents, no one died and no one was hurt. SL-1 was in the 50s and only three people died. TMI was the worst commercial plant disaster and no one got hurt and no one received a high radiation dose. Even if one adds Chernobyl to the mix, it still isn't that many people--and that reactor design was just awful and there was no containment. (I also understand the cancer risks) Inherently safe fuel designs would eliminate a TMI type of accident. These fuels designs exist now. New reactors have on passive safety designs as well.

EBRII was experimental, but the experiment worked 30 years of safe operation...it is the basis for future breeder designs. There have been about 20 breeder reactors built around the world. Some still operating. The problem is not engineering, but cost and politics. With sufficient uranium reserves available, there is no need to build breeder reactors and deal with the reprocessing issues. The phenix reactor is still operating and not having issues. Superphenix was scaled up too quickly. It would take at least 25 years to significantly develop nuclear power in the US again. We certainly can't start building 100 plants tomorrow. I am not expecting it and think I will be dead before another nuke plant is built in the US. However, many other countries are looking at nuclear as a method of reducing dependance on fossil fuels.

glenn

geni

18th March 2007, 09:49 AM

Every heavy industry has accidents. Add up all of them and only a few people have died...not that I consider that acceptable, but it is a fact.

But with most heavy industries the worse case senario isn't that bad (say they death of everyone at the plant.

Most of the accidents, no one died and no one was hurt. SL-1 was in the 50s and only three people died.

But why did no one think that building a reactor which could fail with just one rod removed was a good idea?

Inherently safe fuel designs would eliminate a TMI type of accident. These fuels designs exist now. New reactors have on passive safety designs as well.

There are other types of acident.

EBRII was experimental, but the experiment worked 30 years of safe operation...it is the basis for future breeder designs. There have been about 20 breeder reactors built around the world. Some still operating. The problem is not engineering, but cost and politics.

The problem rate for sodium cooled ractors suggests otherwise.

With sufficient uranium reserves available, there is no need to build breeder reactors and deal with the reprocessing issues. The phenix reactor is still operating and not having issues. Superphenix was scaled up too quickly.

So we need yet another generation of experimental fast breeders.

It would take at least 25 years to significantly develop nuclear power in the US again.

Could be done in a lot less time if it had to be.

We certainly can't start building 100 plants tomorrow. I am not expecting it and think I will be dead before another nuke plant is built in the US. However, many other countries are looking at nuclear as a method of reducing dependance on fossil fuels.

Which is the other problem. France britian japan and the US running nuclear programs is not a problem. For rather a lot of the world it is.

Hamradioguy

18th March 2007, 10:21 AM

Transporting nuclear waste usually requires a cross-country trek allowing every city it passes through to be a terrorist target. No one wants a possible terrorist threat to pass through his or her city.

The only kind of nuclear waste of potential use to a terrorist would be used fuel rods. (Contaminated coveralls and tools pose no threat, and new fuel rod shipments going IN to a reactor aren't very radioactive at all....just ask the good citizens of Springfield, MA.) High level waste like those fuel rods are transported via convoy and are in containers that would be extremely difficult to breach. But hey, let the terrorists try- absent access to some very sophisticated engineering facilities (Think "hot cells" and remote mechanical arms) any success in opening a Type B fuel assembly container would result in some very dead terrorists in a matter of a minute or so.

For better or worse, most terrorists aren't dumb enough to try accessing high level nuclear waste. There are dozens of truly lethal chemicals around that any terrorist with an IQ of 80 and access to simple hardware tools could use to kill hundreds to thousands of people. And no, I'm not about to provide a list for the curious!

DanishDynamite

18th March 2007, 10:56 AM

The reason fast breeders are not running is more political and economically related than technology. Right now, the nuclear industry has enough fuel to run the current reactors for a long time. Insufficient resources due to lack of necessity and the scare of plutonium have caused the shutdown of the plants. The technical issues could be corrected.

An upgraded EBR II type of design would work just fine. It can be designed with inherent safety in the fuel. It operated fine for many years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_Breeder_Reactor_II

glenn
geni provided links which purported that there was at most nuclear fuel for at most 20 years. I realize the amount of fuel left depends on the types of regeneration facilities availaible, but would you have any links which show that a much greater horizon is likely?

Because if 20 years is the general view, my enthusiasm is gone and it is a dead-end technology.

Hindmost

18th March 2007, 12:26 PM

geni provided links which purported that there was at most nuclear fuel for at most 20 years. I realize the amount of fuel left depends on the types of regeneration facilities availaible, but would you have any links which show that a much greater horizon is likely?

Because if 20 years is the general view, my enthusiasm is gone and it is a dead-end technology.

The link geni provided indicates that there would be 10-20 years of uranium if we were to build 10,000 plants and replace all the fossil fueled plants on the earth and eliminate some green house gases. That is not realistic and was for illustrative purposes. Back in my college days--and I have seen little to change this--there isn't a problem. The cost is still cheaper to mine uranium than to develop and reprocess with breeders even if uranium prices go extremely high. I really don't think breeders would be needed if fusion could be developed...but that darn plasma won't settle down. Breeders are great at fast fissioning transuranics and would eliminate long term waste...which is why I would like to see them to be built. Plus, it could get rid of all that plutonium.

geni's link is great and sums up what I have been saying...fission is a bridge to the next best power which is fusion. However, as Dr. Goodstein indicates: "If you're talking about nuclear fusion, then in the long range the fuel is almost limitless but it's been 25 years away for the past 50 years and it's still 25 years away." (I would really get along well with this guy)

When I studied fusion in college, I really wanted to work on it...however, it just doesn't really work yet. It was 25 years away back in the 70s. The original premise was that it would only take about 10 years after the first thermo nuke was detonated...

The world energy situation scares the [rule 8] out of me.

glenn

rwguinn

18th March 2007, 12:30 PM

The only kind of nuclear waste of potential use to a terrorist would be used fuel rods. (Contaminated coveralls and tools pose no threat, and new fuel rod shipments going IN to a reactor aren't very radioactive at all....just ask the good citizens of Springfield, MA.) High level waste like those fuel rods are transported via convoy and are in containers that would be extremely difficult to breach. But hey, let the terrorists try- absent access to some very sophisticated engineering facilities (Think "hot cells" and remote mechanical arms) any success in opening a Type B fuel assembly container would result in some very dead terrorists in a matter of a minute or so.
Why, oh why, do thoise opposed to transporting Nuclear waste across country, on specially designated routes, with monitoring, never, ever have anything to say about the 50000 lb napalm bombs they encourage daily in neighborhoods and downtown streets in every burg and city in the US?
Gasoline tankers are everywhere, all the time.

For better or worse, most terrorists aren't dumb enough to try accessing high level nuclear waste. There are dozens of truly lethal chemicals around that any terrorist with an IQ of 80 and access to simple hardware tools could use to kill hundreds to thousands of people. And no, I'm not about to provide a list for the curious!

dead is dead, nuclear or conventional chemical.

DanishDynamite

18th March 2007, 12:40 PM

The link geni provided indicates that there would be 10-20 years of uranium if we were to build 10,000 plants and replace all the fossil fueled plants on the earth and eliminate some green house gases. That is not realistic and was for illustrative purposes. Back in my college days--and I have seen little to change this--there isn't a problem. The cost is still cheaper to mine uranium than to develop and reprocess with breeders even if uranium prices go extremely high. I really don't think breeders would be needed if fusion could be developed...but that darn plasma won't settle down. Breeders are great at fast fissioning transuranics and would eliminate long term waste...which is why I would like to see them to be built. Plus, it could get rid of all that plutonium.

geni's link is great and sums up what I have been saying...fission is a bridge to the next best power which is fusion. However, as Dr. Goodstein indicates: "If you're talking about nuclear fusion, then in the long range the fuel is almost limitless but it's been 25 years away for the past 50 years and it's still 25 years away." (I would really get along well with this guy)

When I studied fusion in college, I really wanted to work on it...however, it just doesn't really work yet. It was 25 years away back in the 70s. The original premise was that it would only take about 10 years after the first thermo nuke was detonated...

The world energy situation scares the [rule 8] out of me.

glenn
In short, even if we use nuclear fission as an energy source, the horizon is at most 20-30 years away. Is this correct?

Hindmost

18th March 2007, 12:55 PM

But with most heavy industries the worse case senario isn't that bad (say they death of everyone at the plant.

That is not true...worst case scenarios at chemical plants and oil refineries is quite dangerous. I was scared of an amonia spill at the fertilizer plant that I worked near. It would have killed everyone in the area. With inherent safety in the fuel design now...LOCA type events are not even troublesome.

But why did no one think that building a reactor which could fail with just one rod removed was a good idea?

That was a plant in the 50s...reactor analysis is much more advanced now. The person had to pull that control rod to the top of the core very quickly by hand to cause the prompt criticality that occurred--that is the specuation and probably why he ended up lodged in the roof. Such scenarios are not even possible now. That is just not a good analogy with current designs.

There are other types of acident.

The inherent safety applies to all accidents including worst case LOCAs and main steam line breaks.

The problem rate for sodium cooled ractors suggests otherwise.

You will have to quantify this for me...some of the prototypes worked well and some failed. In the US EBRI and EBRII were successful. Clinch River was never completed. The number of incidents that I recall were just not that many.

So we need yet another generation of experimental fast breeders.

No, just a scaled up version of EBRII. However, they won't be cost effective with current uranium prices, so I see little chance of it happening. There is not an economic need, but some countries want to keep the technology available for the future...such as Japan and China and India. The US is not really doing anything substantial and I very much doubt that will change.

Could be done in a lot less time if it had to be.

If a single plant was started today, it would take 10 years of relatively problem free work to get electricity to the grid. If a lot of plants were started, the engineering expertise would not be available. There would be some growing pains. In the US, the engineers are old...and retiring very fast since most of them are boomers. So new blood is coming in, but the expertise in building a large plant is in the people that have done it a few times. My first startup, I was on a learning curve. My second and third, I was solving problems before they became problems.

Which is the other problem. France britian japan and the US running nuclear programs is not a problem. For rather a lot of the world it is.

Korea has been successful at building plants and gets a large percent of electricity from nukes...there program is reasonable. China and India will continue as well. China's time frame is very long.

glenn

Hindmost

18th March 2007, 01:06 PM

In short, even if we use nuclear fission as an energy source, the horizon is at most 20-30 years away. Is this correct?

http://www.americanenergyindependence.com/uranium.html

I forgot the link...here's a scenario to look at. It applies to the world. If we just use a once through cycle (load reactor with enriched uranium and then process the waste and store it), there would be 20-30 years of uranium with thousands of plants built and it is the exclusive source of electricty--not realistic. There are 104 plants in the US and about 400 worldwide built and operating over the past 50 years or so. There is no way thousands can be built quickly. If the growth rate is high, there would be uranium for hundreds of years. Add breeders in and nukes could be around supplying electricity for thousands of years. If we don't have fusion by then, we will probably go back to being hunter-gatherers.

In the US, I would like to see plants start being built now...maybe 10 reactors and then see if we could gear up to have about another 100 plants in about 30 years. However, I am not confident. Actually, I think there is a better chance of wining the lottery.

glenn

DanishDynamite

18th March 2007, 01:39 PM

http://www.americanenergyindependence.com/uranium.html

I forgot the link...here's a scenario to look at. It applies to the world. If we just use a once through cycle (load reactor with enriched uranium and then process the waste and store it), there would be 20-30 years of uranium with thousands of plants built and it is the exclusive source of electricty--not realistic. There are 104 plants in the US and about 400 worldwide built and operating over the past 50 years or so. There is no way thousands can be built quickly. If the growth rate is high, there would be uranium for hundreds of years. Add breeders in and nukes could be around supplying electricity for thousands of years. If we don't have fusion by then, we will probably go back to being hunter-gatherers.

In the US, I would like to see plants start being built now...maybe 10 reactors and then see if we could gear up to have about another 100 plants in about 30 years. However, I am not confident. Actually, I think there is a better chance of wining the lottery.

glenn
Thanks. This was my understanding as well. But geni, who I respect, made a claim which made me a bit unsure. Glad to see that he was exagerating.

So, given that nuclear fission power is close to being the wet dream of "environmentalists", why aren't there more of these plants being built as we speak?

blutoski

18th March 2007, 02:09 PM

The problem is that there are factors other than direct risk to consider. Insurance companies have to consider can they afford to pay out should the worst happen. Historically worst case has been things like two airlines colliding over a city or massive gas explosions. 9/11 was a bit of a shock but what with one thing or another it could be covered.

Worst case nuclear disaster (total meltdown with containment failure) is as much as 2 orders of magnitude worse. Lloyd's of London has pools of capital totalling around £32 billion. It is doubtful if even combined this would be enough to pay off against such an event.

Exactly! The point is that they think it is likely they will have to pay out. In other words: they think some sort of expensive disaster is likely to happen within the lifetime of the market. Most analyses I've seen are waste material disposal accidents, rather than compromised cores, but irradiated water tables are possibly more expensive to clean up than a minor meltdown.

If the owner of a nuclear plant was so certain that a major disaster was impossible, he's confidently build one without insurance.

Nobody has.

The only organizations willing to take on the very real risk of disaster right now are governments, which have the ability to commandeer vast resources to manage cleanup, should it be necessary.

DanishDynamite

18th March 2007, 02:26 PM

Exactly! The point is that they think it is likely they will have to pay out. In other words: they think some sort of expensive disaster is likely to happen within the lifetime of the market. Most analyses I've seen are waste material disposal accidents, rather than compromised cores, but irradiated water tables are possibly more expensive to clean up than a minor meltdown.

If the owner of a nuclear plant was so certain that a major disaster was impossible, he's confidently build one without insurance.
Utter bull. No company builds a windmill or a coal-fired plant without insurance. It is simply business as usual to do so.
Nobody has.

The only organizations willing to take on the very real risk of disaster right now are governments, which have the ability to commandeer vast resources to manage cleanup, should it be necessary.
Utter claptrap. There are lots of companies willing and able to build a safe nuclear plant. They are only hindered from doing so by woo-woo opinions which scare the administration.

Hindmost

18th March 2007, 02:26 PM

Thanks. This was my understanding as well. But geni, who I respect, made a claim which made me a bit unsure. Glad to see that he was exagerating.

So, given that nuclear fission power is close to being the wet dream of "environmentalists", why aren't there more of these plants being built as we speak?

I would say most environmentalists around the US don't like them due to the waste. Greenpeace was certainly against them...sierra club too I believe. There is zero political support from any party here--it is probably considered political suicide of sorts. I always believed that nukes were environmentally friendly with essentially zero release. Running the diesels every now and then would be release some CO2 and soot. There are some low levels of radioactive material released as well.

The construction cost is still high as is operation and maintenance. The fuel cost is just very cheap...one million times more energy than any chemical reaction. (love that statistic) Getting ride of low level waste has gotten progressively more expensive as well. Licensing risks during construction can double the cost of a plant in the US. We also don't have a good plan in the US to get rid of spent fuel...the NIMBY rule is in force and it will hurt long term. The area in Nevada selected has been geologically stable for millions of years...it's dry and would be fine, but no one wants it around. The French have had a resonable spent fuel processing system for a long time. The technology is available.

In the US, the education around nuclear power has been poor and many teachers don't like it either. I would venture to say, if you asked a person here if a nuke plant could explode like a nuclear weapon, most would say yes. Excuse me while I shed a tear...:(

glenn

Lonewulf

18th March 2007, 02:33 PM

In the US, the education around nuclear power has been poor and many teachers don't like it either. I would venture to say, if you asked a person here if a nuke plant could explode like a nuclear weapon, most would say yes. Excuse me while I shed a tear...:(

It's in almost every video out there, such as the K-19: The Widowmaker. The reactor will go critical and it will be just like Hiroshima! OMG!

blutoski

18th March 2007, 03:02 PM

Utter bull. No company builds a windmill or a coal-fired plant without insurance. It is simply business as usual to do so.

Obviously. The reason is that there can be accidents.

Note: there are many projects that operate without insurance, even when big costs are involved. RAL does not insure their satellite launches. They feel they could manage the cost of risk in their profit margins rather than externally through insurance brokers, because the felt the chance of accident was very low.

Boeing's Delta 4 commercial satellite division also does not insure most launches. They're prepared to cover total losses, if necessary.

You only choose to get insurance if there's an economic justification.

Utter claptrap. There are lots of companies willing and able to build a safe nuclear plant. They are only hindered from doing so by woo-woo opinions which scare the administration.

It doesn't matter. There are no insurance companies offering to underwrite these operations - even government owned ones - because they're considered to be too big a risk.

Furthermore, I am unaware of any private companies that are willing to take on the risk of ownership - there are many that are willing to build and operate plants, of course. They are part of the normal private enterprise landscape in many countries.

NEIL and ACE provide insurance to nuclear power plant contractors to cover the contingency of breakdowns that lead to unplanned power outages (which cause an expense to the operator) without hesitation. They also provide all sorts of other insurance, just like they do for other forms of power generation. They will not, however, underwrite the risk of accident leading to irradiation outside the facility. They consider the chance of accident to high in context of the potential for destruction.

Hindmost

18th March 2007, 03:02 PM

A worst case scenario of a melt down followed by a total containment failure is not plausible. To design for this type of scenario is unfeasible in engineering. It would be like designing a building to withstand an asteriod collision along with a tornado.

TMI actually proved the meltdown scenario assumed was not what actually occurs. The core never had a chance of melting thru the vessel etc. (china syndrome stuff) It gave us some new data--most importantly that iodine doesn't get released into the atmosphere. Past analysis assume 100% of the iodine in the core was released into the surrounding environment. Since it seeks out the thyroid, it is dangerous. At Chernobyl, several people died of thyroid cancer. Its half-life is short however.

Inherently safe fuel designs cause the fuel to expand into voids in the cladding causing the fission reaction to shutdown without operator intervention and with all coolant pumps stopped.

glenn

pvt1863

18th March 2007, 03:55 PM

You only choose to get insurance if there's an economic justification.

Unless you are forced to. I'm a good driver and might not insure my car if I had the choice, but the government forces me to.

The insurance companies won't insure nuclear plants because they tend not to insure anything where one event can bankrupt them. Their lack of interest in insuring such an operation is not the result of them expecting such an event, but rather their expectations of the financial damage of a hypothetical event. Claiming that the insurance companies' decision means they expect such an event is misleading.

You are making the classic mistake of interpreting an overly-conservative precaution as an expectation for disaster. "Better safe than sorry" does not mean "something bad is likely to happen."

Furthermore, I am unaware of any private companies that are willing to take on the risk of ownership - there are many that are willing to build and operate plants, of course. They are part of the normal private enterprise landscape in many countries.

I'd like to hear where you got that idea. As we speak, utilities are competing to be the owners of the first new plant in the US. Perhaps you'd like to call the management at Constellation Energy or Dominion and explain to them that they aren't really interested in the programs they are aggressively pursuing.

NEIL and ACE provide insurance to nuclear power plant contractors to cover the contingency of breakdowns that lead to unplanned power outages (which cause an expense to the operator) without hesitation. They also provide all sorts of other insurance, just like they do for other forms of power generation. They will not, however, underwrite the risk of accident leading to irradiation outside the facility. They consider the chance of accident to high in context of the potential for destruction.

Again, the problem is not that the chance is too high. The US has tens of thousands of reactor years worth of operation without such an event. The problem is that insurance companies don't know how much it would cost them if it did occur, and the prospect of a single event driving them out of business prevents them from offerring insurance. If I'm not mistaken, this has been the philosophy of insurance companies ever since the great San Fransisco earthquake of 1906 effectively wiped out the insurance industry in that region in one fell swoop.

pvt1863

18th March 2007, 04:00 PM

Double post edited to use for next post.

A worst case scenario of a melt down followed by a total containment failure is not plausible. To design for this type of scenario is unfeasible in engineering. It would be like designing a building to withstand an asteriod collision along with a tornado.

TMI actually proved the meltdown scenario assumed was not what actually occurs. The core never had a chance of melting thru the vessel etc. (china syndrome stuff) It gave us some new data--most importantly that iodine doesn't get released into the atmosphere. Past analysis assume 100% of the iodine in the core was released into the surrounding environment. Since it seeks out the thyroid, it is dangerous. At Chernobyl, several people died of thyroid cancer. Its half-life is short however.

Inherently safe fuel designs cause the fuel to expand into voids in the cladding causing the fission reaction to shutdown without operator intervention and with all coolant pumps stopped.

glenn

That is a very important point about the lessons learned at TMI-II. The melted fuel was in contact with the pressure vessel for a long time while still very hot. The vessel was not even close to being compromised. If you can shut the nuclear reactions down -- something that the laws of physics do for you in a water moderated reactor -- then the vessel is robust enough to take the remaining decay heat. As bad as the event at TMI-II was, it is viewed as an enormous success from a mechanical design standpoint. The event generated a near-worst case scenario, and yet the structural integrity of the primary loop was not challenged in any place.

Even with that knowledge, one of the Gen III+ designs (the AREVA EPR) incorporates a core catcher that would spread out and rapidly cool the fuel in a "core on the floor" scenario. The EPR also has two containment structures, separated by a six foot gap that is at very low pressure. This decreases the already very low chance of containment failure even more.

blutoski

18th March 2007, 04:39 PM

Unless you are forced to. I'm a good driver and might not insure my car if I had the choice, but the government forces me to.

Yep. Because the value is there. They *don't* force you to get ice cream cone insurance. Reason: there's no value in it.

The insurance companies won't insure nuclear plants because they tend not to insure anything where one event can bankrupt them. Their lack of interest in insuring such an operation is not the result of them expecting such an event, but rather their expectations of the financial damage of a hypothetical event. Claiming that the insurance companies' decision means they expect such an event is misleading.

A distinction without a difference. I hear: "They think it's too risky."

You are making the classic mistake of interpreting an overly-conservative precaution as an expectation for disaster. "Better safe than sorry" does not mean "something bad is likely to happen."

No, I'm repeating the official statements of the insurance providers who have been asked by government to explain why they refuse to provide these types of products. Remember: government wants to buy insurance, too. The firms are not ashamed to explain that they are not ready at this time to insure these activities, as they find them too risky.

I'd like to hear where you got that idea. As we speak, utilities are competing to be the owners of the first new plant in the US. Perhaps you'd like to call the management at Constellation Energy or Dominion and explain to them that they aren't really interested in the programs they are aggressively pursuing.

"owner" meaning "taking full responsibility". I'd queue up, too, for a chance to get all the gravy without all the responsibiliity!

Again, the problem is not that the chance is too high. The US has tens of thousands of reactor years worth of operation without such an event. The problem is that insurance companies don't know how much it would cost them if it did occur, and the prospect of a single event driving them out of business prevents them from offerring insurance. If I'm not mistaken, this has been the philosophy of insurance companies ever since the great San Fransisco earthquake of 1906 effectively wiped out the insurance industry in that region in one fell swoop.

They're not *that* avoidant. An example, again, is launch insurance. There are still some takers, but a lot fewer after the accidents in the 1990s. Two accidents that bankrupted their insurance companies.This proved that the launch industry's track record of safety was not a reliable predictor of future events. The chance of accident was much higher than originally estimated or experienced. Insurance in this industry is now based on more precise methods of prospective analysis, and most players got out of the game entirely. The premiums reflect both the cost and the chance of incidence - all insurance works that way. Again: in some situations, the only underwriter for a launch is government because the risk/cost analysis is uneconomical.

In a technological world of Blue Screen of Death, Mars Rovers that forget to Thin(Km)etric, and loose shuttle tiles, I think we have more to worry about in terms of nuclear power than wiping out the insurance industry.

Hindmost

18th March 2007, 05:57 PM

Double post edited to use for next post.

That is a very important point about the lessons learned at TMI-II. The melted fuel was in contact with the pressure vessel for a long time while still very hot. The vessel was not even close to being compromised. If you can shut the nuclear reactions down -- something that the laws of physics do for you in a water moderated reactor -- then the vessel is robust enough to take the remaining decay heat. As bad as the event at TMI-II was, it is viewed as an enormous success from a mechanical design standpoint. The event generated a near-worst case scenario, and yet the structural integrity of the primary loop was not challenged in any place.

Even with that knowledge, one of the Gen III+ designs (the AREVA EPR) incorporates a core catcher that would spread out and rapidly cool the fuel in a "core on the floor" scenario. The EPR also has two containment structures, separated by a six foot gap that is at very low pressure. This decreases the already very low chance of containment failure even more.

It still is a hard sell that TMI had benefits. No other industry can say their biggest accident didn't hurt anyone.

Adding hydrogen recombiners...deleting iodine scrubbers...reactor vessel level added...enhanced leak detection...core exit temp stuff...SPDS...the list goes on...however, I am 10 years out of date, so my knowledge is limited to what I read up about.

When EBRII was testing the inherent safe fuel design, I was thinking this would be so good for the industry. Clinton just shut down the testing. And no one has done anything to educate the public in the US.

glenn

Solitaire

18th March 2007, 08:31 PM

Public fear breeds overregulation of the subject industry. Overregulation hikes up the cost of construction and operation of facilities. Misaimed public furor scuttles many plans at the building permit stage. I found many hits when I googled "overregulation nuclear power" and this link (http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2005/10/whats-real-cost-of-overregulation.html)is only the first.

An NRC inspector conducting an inspection of the lab I where I worked (metabolism research using radiolabeled materials) told me that, due to overregulation, a telephone that would cost you or me $50 (back in the late '80s), would cost a nuclear power facility $500 because it would have to be failsafe tested to a ridiculous degree.

So, that's why a lot of people blame environmentalists for the lack of nuclear power development in the USA. Perhaps unjustly. I don't equate environmentalists with the luddites that seem to cling to them but that's why.

Environmentalists are a mixed bag, some oppose nuclear power, others support nuclear power, and and even a few remain decidedly neutral about nuclear power. I don't consider environmentalist particularly powerful in the political realm, but the admittedly the current administration biases my view.

I think it's probably the association with the atomic bomb that drives part of the fear. The other part comes from incidents in other industries like the chemical industry that makes people nervous about all technologies. I suspect nanotechnology will produce quite a few nasty surprises soon.

The story about a phone costing $500 might be true. I've encountered a considerable number of second hand and third hand stories that did not turn out to be true. Nonetheless, it sounds reasonable to me. Yet a phone is a small cost when compared to the concrete and steel used in the construction of the plant. I have doubts those cost ten times the normal cost. Figuring out this puzzle might take a while.

Solitaire

18th March 2007, 08:35 PM

Nuclear energy expensive?

Have you checked the price of some of the renewable energy sources? Solar power is just about the most expensive way you can possibly generate electricity. Yes, sunlight is free, but maintaining the hundreds of square miles you would need to be a major supply for the grid isn't. Wind power is better, but only by a bit.

Yes. From the article I linked earlier: 4.5 cents per kilowatt-hour for Coal, 4.7 cents per kilowatt-hour for Wind, 4.8 cents per kilowatt-hour for Geothermal, 4.9 cents per kilowatt-hour for Hydroelectric, 5.2 cents per kilowatt-hour for Natural Gas, 5.5 cents per kilowatt-hour for Biomass, 5.9 cents per kilowatt-hour for Nuclear, and 12.4 cents per kilowatt-hour for Solar. But energy efficiency costs only 3.13 cents per kilowatt-hour.

I've heard that if you consider that solar panels are being made at factories powered by the grid, the amount of CO2 produced by solar energy (the amount produced by making the panel vrs the amount of energy it can produce in it's lifetime), it actually is more than nuclear energy. I suppose if you could get enough made, you could power the solar cell factories on solar power....

A solar panel costs about $6.00 per watt to make. Assuming the cost consists solely of energy then it takes 133.3 kilowatt-hours from a coal fired plant to make. In a desert southwest location like nevada, a solar cell will produce 2.2 kilowatt-hours per year then it will take 60 years to pay off the energy in it's construction. Oh dear, that doesn't sound right. I guess the assumption needs a bit more work. Moving on.

Nuclear energy doesn't need to be expensive and in practice, it's competitive in price. Then again... coal is dirt cheap. Especially the high sulfur kind.

Yet it is. I'm not yet able to solve the puzzle, but I did find this quote:

Record Low Production Costs, Nuclear Energy Institute, 20 February 2007 (http://www.nei.org/index.asp?catnum=4&catid=1014)

The industry's average production costs - encompassing expenses for uranium fuel and operations and maintenance - were at an all-time low of 1.66 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2006, according to preliminary figures. Average production costs have been below 2.00 cents per kilowatt-hour for the past eight years, making nuclear power plants highly cost competitive with other electricity sources, particularly those that are capable of reliably producing large amounts of electricity.

What could the other 3.9 cents remaining be? It's a good puzzle.

Uranium is not a rare material by any stretch of the imagination.

I'm not too worried about that.

Schneibster

19th March 2007, 12:23 AM

Environmentalists are a mixed bag, some oppose nuclear power, others support nuclear power, and and even a few remain decidedly neutral about nuclear power. I don't consider environmentalist particularly powerful in the political realm, but the admittedly the current administration biases my view.Well, we're finally starting to win on global warming.

Now, I'm one of those pro-nuclear-power environmentalists; but I have to tell you, I have serious concerns about human factors, and about shortcuts for finances. I think there is hysteria (damn I hate to use that, it's so sexist, but I'm not talking about women- I'm talking about people who don't know how it works, and are afraid on general principles, some of which you talk about below). I think the points blutoski makes above about insurance are valid, but not because of the actual damage, but because of the perceived liability. It's not a matter of how dangerous it is, it's a matter of how people could sue for something that isn't actually demonstrable damage but that they can claim is and a jury can't tell the difference. I don't know what the solution is to that. There are credible claims both ways. There is accumulating anecdotal evidence that long-term exposure to low-level radioactive material is a major health problem. On the other hand, there is evidence of exposure to relatively high-level exposure that resulted in absolutely nothing. It's clearly apparent that we don't really know how this works yet, and unquantifiable risks are anathema to insurers.

I think that TMI when combined with The China Syndrome killed the nuclear power industry in the US dead. It sucks, as far as I'm concerned- but Brown's Ferry is nothing to sneeze at either. Chernobyl could never happen here, we haven't made anything that gnarly ever, nor would anyone in their right mind. The Soviets decided it was OK to take that risk, and there is a credible argument that Chernobyl did more to take the Soviet Union down than Reagan ever thought of. I don't know if I agree with that, but it's credible. It didn't help the nuclear power industry's reputation in the US, that's for damn sure.

The biggest problem is, there's really no way to concretely define the risk. With the waste, we could be bequeathing a horrifying legacy to our grandchildren. On the other hand, it could be no big deal at all. I perceive global warming as a far worse threat, but I could be wrong. Terrifyingly wrong. I seriously and sincerely doubt it, and I'd put my money where my mouth is, but if low-level exposure is as big a deal as it potentially might be, who the hell knows? And I know a hell of a lot about nuclear energy, because I know quite a lot more about nuclear physics than most people- and although I'd bet on it, heavily, there is still that anecdotal evidence out there.

I think it's probably the association with the atomic bomb that drives part of the fear. That's certainly part of it, I have no doubt.

The other part comes from incidents in other industries like the chemical industry that makes people nervous about all technologies. That's what I had in mind above when I mentioned "human factors." You can't afford to mishandle this stuff; it's dangerous, and the effects can be subtle and long-term. OTOH, there are chemicals that make even relatively high-level nuclear waste look benign. It's more that people are scared of it because they can't see it, than it's straightforward risks.

I suspect nanotechnology will produce quite a few nasty surprises soon.I've been preaching about mataglap nano for quite some time now. We need to make damn sure we have a clear idea of what we're doing before we get into this technology in a big way.

The story about a phone costing $500 might be true. I've encountered a considerable number of second hand and third hand stories that did not turn out to be true. Nonetheless, it sounds reasonable to me. Yet a phone is a small cost when compared to the concrete and steel used in the construction of the plant. I have doubts those cost ten times the normal cost. Figuring out this puzzle might take a while.A $500 phone is one that someone always answers when you dial. ;)

autumn1971

19th March 2007, 01:52 AM

Quick post here, I didn't have time to read all the other posts, but as far as I can tell pvt1863 hit it on the head in the first page, every bit of nuclear waste generated by an american nuclear plant since their inception is stored on site pending a more permanent waste site. There is almost no waste produced by nuclear plants. Other than thermal waste, which is a real, if solvable, problem, the old canard that nuclear plants produce too much waste is refuted by simply looking around. What happens to the supposedly huge amount of nuclear waste generated by these plants? After decades of functional life, the entire amount of waste generated by nuclear plants is storable at the plants themselves. Not the best soloution, but show me any other power plant that could store its waste on-site. Pretty damn efficient, if you ask me.

Yllanes

19th March 2007, 03:21 AM

Well, we're finally starting to win on global warming.

Now, I'm one of those pro-nuclear-power environmentalists; but I have to tell you, I have serious concerns about human factors, and about shortcuts for finances. I think there is hysteria (damn I hate to use that, it's so sexist, but I'm not talking about women- I'm talking about people who don't know how it works, and are afraid on general principles, some of which you talk about below). I think the points blutoski makes above about insurance are valid, but not because of the actual damage, but because of the perceived liability. It's not a matter of how dangerous it is, it's a matter of how people could sue for something that isn't actually demonstrable damage but that they can claim is and a jury can't tell the difference. I don't know what the solution is to that. There are credible claims both ways. There is accumulating anecdotal evidence that long-term exposure to low-level radioactive material is a major health problem. On the other hand, there is evidence of exposure to relatively high-level exposure that resulted in absolutely nothing. It's clearly apparent that we don't really know how this works yet, and unquantifiable risks are anathema to insurers.

That shouldn't happen. The worlwide average dose equivalent absorbed by the population is 2.4 mSv/year (this number changes a lot from one place to another). The nuclear power industry represents one thousandth of that, you get 4 times as much radiation from a one hour plane trip than from the nuclear industry in a whole year. According to the UN (http://www.unscear.org/docs/reports/gareport.pdf), the dose equivalent is Natural sources: 2.4 mSv/year (typically ranges from 1.0 to 10.0 mSv/year)
Medical diagnosis: 0.4 mSv/year
Atmospheric nuclear testing: 0.005 mSv/year
Chernobyl accident: 0.002 mSv/year
Nuclear power production: 0.0002 mSv/year
(when I said the radiation received from nuclear power was one thousandth of the natural background I was including the Chernobyl accident, but not nuclear testing, which isn't energy production).

But you may be talking about the workers. The average dose for Spanish nuclear personnel in 2004 was 1.31 mSv/year. This number is smaller than the variations in background from one place to another. Again, the data from the UN, for different occupations, is

\footnotesize
\begin{tabular}{lc}
\hline
\bfseries Source/practice &
\bfseries Average annual effective dose
(mSv)\\
\hline
Nuclear fuel cycle (including uranium mining) & 1.8\\
Industrial uses of radiation & 0.5\\
Medical uses of radiation & 0.3\\
Education/veterinary & 0.1\\
Air travel (crew) & 3.0\\
Mining (other than coal) & 2.7\\
Coal mining & 0.7\\
Mineral processing & 1.0\\
Above ground workplaces (radon) & 4.8\\
\hline
\end{tabular}

As you can see, air crews receive more radiation than workers in a nuclear plant.

The issue of the aborbed dose for exposed workers is thouroughly monitored and legislated. Even if a lawsuit like that were possible, it would affect other industries at least as much as nuclear power production.

a_unique_person

19th March 2007, 04:13 AM

Bigt

19th March 2007, 09:32 AM

Very interesting thread. I live about 5-6 miles from the Prairie Island Nuclear Power Plant in Red Wing, MN. I've lived here my whole life; the nuclear plant has been operational for over 30 years. What astonishes me - as others have already commented on - is that all of the "waste" fuel is still on site, either in the spent fuel pools in the plant (which I've seen - they aren't very large but they sure are deep) or in dry casks stored on a pad outside and near the plant. This a link to a Google satellite photo of the spent fuel pad: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=red+wing,+mn&layer=&ie=UTF8&z=18&ll=44.619845,-92.639331&spn=0.001371,0.005021&t=k&om=1&iwloc=addr. Those white spots are the dry casks. Each one weighs - if I remember correctly - 90 tons unloaded and a bit over 120 tons with spent fuel.

The dry casks became a source of much controversy when a judge ruled (wrongly, in my opinion) that their storage was a legislative matter, not a regulatory one. So the "environmentally" concerned Minnesota legislature decided to limit the number of casks to 17 rather than the 48 the utility originally applied for. If more were needed, some of the 17 would have to be shipped off site somewhere. That somewhere hasn't materialized yet; however, the legislature has now allowed for more casks to be stored, partly in exchange for a greater investment by the utility in renewable - mainly wind - technologies.

Many are concerned that there will never be a long turn storage solution or about transporting the fuel when one finally goes online. Many believe that the waste fuel is a environmental disaster waiting to happen. Some now worry about terrorists. Well, there the casks are, waiting to be blown up by anyone with sufficient resourses and the moxie to do it. It would be easy! The pad is located within 200 yards of the main road, out-of-sight behind a berm and some trees. Not many know this. There isn't much obvious protection. No concrete barriers, no guards, just a fence and probably a mess of sensors. It would not be hard to overpower what security forces there are (what company overspends on security?), at least for a short while before greater and more powerful forces arrive.

What would it take to blow up a dry cask? Would the payoff be worth the effort? I doubt it but I really don't know for certain. No matter; I am not worried. Should I be?

geni

19th March 2007, 09:51 AM

That shouldn't happen. The worlwide average dose equivalent absorbed by the population is 2.4 mSv/year (this number changes a lot from one place to another). The nuclear power industry represents one thousandth of that, you get 4 times as much radiation from a one hour plane trip than from the nuclear industry in a whole year.

Two problems we this. We are now fairly certain that the body reacts differently to sustained exposure compared to brief peaks of exposure.

Secondly there amount kicked out by the nuclear industry depends on where you live. If you lived close to the old Dungeness magnox reactor you were looking at a dose from direct radition of about 0.5 mSv/year.

fishbob

19th March 2007, 10:00 AM

A solar panel costs about $6.00 per watt to make. Assuming the cost consists solely of energy then it takes 133.3 kilowatt-hours from a coal fired plant to make. In a desert southwest location like nevada, a solar cell will produce 2.2 kilowatt-hours per year then it will take 60 years to pay off the energy in it's construction. Oh dear, that doesn't sound right. I guess the assumption needs a bit more work. Moving on.

From what I have read, the cost of refined silicon keeps going up - which boosts the manufacturing cost for solar panels. That $6 includes materials, labor, sales and marketing, finances - all kinds of things that cost more than energy for production.

geni

19th March 2007, 10:24 AM

That is not true...worst case scenarios at chemical plants and oil refineries is quite dangerous. I was scared of an amonia spill at the fertilizer plant that I worked near. It would have killed everyone in the area. With inherent safety in the fuel design now...LOCA type events are not even troublesome.

And as a result it is becomeing hard to build new chemical plants.

That was a plant in the 50s...reactor analysis is much more advanced now. The person had to pull that control rod to the top of the core very quickly by hand to cause the prompt criticality that occurred--that is the specuation and probably why he ended up lodged in the roof. Such scenarios are not even possible now. That is just not a good analogy with current designs.

More a problem with the design process than the design. Someone aparently thought haveing a single point of failure was aceptable.

The inherent safety applies to all accidents including worst case LOCAs and main steam line breaks.

What about errors in fuel ammounts concentrations?

You will have to quantify this for me...some of the prototypes worked well and some failed. In the US EBRI and EBRII were successful. Clinch River was never completed. The number of incidents that I recall were just not that many.

If the problems are in scaleing up haveing a working prototype doesn't mean much.

No, just a scaled up version of EBRII. However, they won't be cost effective with current uranium prices, so I see little chance of it happening. There is not an economic need, but some countries want to keep the technology available for the future...such as Japan and China and India. The US is not really doing anything substantial and I very much doubt that will change.

The US is not really doing anything substantial that isn't classified.

If a single plant was started today, it would take 10 years of relatively problem free work to get electricity to the grid.

Even Sizewell B which suffered from overuns was up and running after 7 years.

If a lot of plants were started, the engineering expertise would not be available. There would be some growing pains. In the US, the engineers are old...and retiring very fast since most of them are boomers. So new blood is coming in, but the expertise in building a large plant is in the people that have done it a few times. My first startup, I was on a learning curve. My second and third, I was solving problems before they became problems.

Knowing how to build a plant 30 years ago is of limited use (you just can't get the parts gov). So most of the design will either be new of will involve stuff found in other industries.

Korea has been successful at building plants and gets a large percent of electricity from nukes

And we know SK had a program to build nuclear weapons and may still have a low level one.

...there program is reasonable. China and India will continue as well. China's time frame is very long.

Both have nuclear weapons already so not an issue.

Crossbow

19th March 2007, 10:49 AM

I thought it was dilithium crystals, whatever they are.

Sorry, but that is not right.

Vast amounts of power are generated by the matter/anit-matter reaction and the only substance that can safely process such large volumes of power are dilithium crystals.

Yllanes

19th March 2007, 12:49 PM

Two problems we this. We are now fairly certain that the body reacts differently to sustained exposure compared to brief peaks of exposure.
Yes, but I'm not sure I see your point here.

Secondly there amount kicked out by the nuclear industry depends on where you live. If you lived close to the old Dungeness magnox reactor you were looking at a dose from direct radition of about 0.5 mSv/year.

Yes, but even if you work there and the dose is 2 mSv instead of 0.5 this is less than the variation in the natural background from one area to another. Even if it weren't, it would be less than what air crews get, so the problem would not be specific of the nuclear industry.

The dose for the general public is negligible and the dose for people who live just outside the plant or work there is not specially high, not compared to other occupations or the natural background.

geni

19th March 2007, 01:27 PM

Yes, but I'm not sure I see your point here.

Even Airline pilots do not fly continiously.

autumn1971

19th March 2007, 02:10 PM

I don't have the documentation with me, but isn't a very significant portion of the construction cost projections, and therefore the efficiency calculations, due to the years of lawsuits that the anti-nuke movement realized was a great way to keep reactors from being built?

cyr

19th March 2007, 03:31 PM

Even Airline pilots do not fly continiously.

You seem to imply that a low steady radiation level is more damaging than short exposures to higher levels?

I was under the impression that the opposite has been shown to be true, that below a certain level the body is quite capable of dealing with radiation - and in fact a certain level may be beneficial (e.g. cancer rates are lower in areas with high natural radiation levels).

Well, it was on TV so it must be true!

It was a BBC/Horizon documentary, can't remember the name. Maybe someone else knows, or know of some more reliable sources...

Hamradioguy

19th March 2007, 03:57 PM

You seem to imply that a low steady radiation level is more damaging than short exposures to higher levels?

I was under the impression that the opposite has been shown to be true, that below a certain level the body is quite capable of dealing with radiation - and in fact a certain level may be beneficial (e.g. cancer rates are lower in areas with high natural radiation levels).

Well, it was on TV so it must be true!

It was a BBC/Horizon documentary, can't remember the name. Maybe someone else knows, or know of some more reliable sources...

The concept is "Radiation Hormesis" and a major proponent is T.D. Luckey. His papers on this have been published in the peer reviewed Health Physics Journal where, as might be expected, they have caused a bit of a controversy. Most HPs I believe take the stand that "maybe there is, maybe there isn't" anything to this idea. But virtually all agree that when the radiation levels get very low (A chest X-ray, frequent flights as a passenger on an airplane, or living outside the fence of a nuclear plant) the adverse effects of ionizing radiation either don't exist or are too low to measure even in a large population.

We're right back to the issue of relative risk. I always tell my anti nuke friends that they need to wear seat belts, stop smoking, cut back on alcohol consumption, avoid trans-fats, wear bicycle helmets, etc. before raising concerns over radiation from nuclear power production. Heck, if anyone is really worried about ionizing radiation they'd best not sleep on an upstairs floor (more cosmic ray exposure) or in a basement (radon). It can be a tough sell.

Lonewulf

19th March 2007, 04:22 PM

Don't forget a nice hot summer day.

Hindmost

19th March 2007, 05:19 PM

...More a problem with the design process than the design. Someone aparently thought haveing a single point of failure was aceptable.

Comparing that design with anything done today is not reasonable.

What about errors in fuel ammounts concentrations?

Easily determined during low power physics testing...predicted flux profile must be within 3% of predicted or no startup. Calibrated some of those myself.

If the problems are in scaleing up haveing a working prototype doesn't mean much..

Always an issue...it didn't work well with gas cooled reactors...so, a modular design is now the proposed. However, experience rules. We know what we are doing better each day. (as long as we all don't retire)

Even Sizewell B which suffered from overuns was up and running after 7 years..

construction might have been 7 years. Must do about 2 years of engineering before you start pouring concrete. On my last plant, the contracts were signed in 1987, first concrete wasn't until 89-90 and finished the first unit in 95 and the next in 96.

The new advanced designs would require less construction time, but there is a lot of FOAKE to do. And bugs will be there.

Knowing how to build a plant 30 years ago is of limited use (you just can't get the parts gov). So most of the design will either be new of will involve stuff found in other industries. .

I absolutely disagree with this. Experience is paramount in building and running nukes. Welding is still welding and concrete pours are concrete pours. The design will be new, but a pump is still a pump. The instrument cabinets are really the only big changes. I have gone through a lot of those. With modern electronics, it was easy to start them up...much more user friendly.

.And we know SK had a program to build nuclear weapons and may still have a low level one..

CANDU: bomb material quite easily
light water reactor: Garbage...the isotopes of Pu are either burned or capture a few too many neutrons and convert to 240 and 241, etc.--which is useless

Both have nuclear weapons already so not an issue.

glenn

geni

20th March 2007, 08:26 AM

Comparing that design with anything done today is not reasonable.

The design isn't relivant the process to get there is.

Easily determined during low power physics testing...predicted flux profile must be within 3% of predicted or no startup. Calibrated some of those myself.

So the refuel on load designs have been abandoned?

construction might have been 7 years. Must do about 2 years of engineering before you start pouring concrete. On my last plant, the contracts were signed in 1987, first concrete wasn't until 89-90 and finished the first unit in 95 and the next in 96.

I said there were delys (a mixture of it being a new type for the UK and no one working on the plant haveing any interest in seeing the thing finished on time). Still for a more extream example. Calder Hall first started feeding power into the national grid 3 years after the start of construction. All construction was complete after 5 years. That was Britian's first nuclear power plant so past experence availible would have been limited.

http://www.britishnucleargroup.com/content.php?pageID=262&tab=1

The new advanced designs would require less construction time, but there is a lot of FOAKE to do. And bugs will be there.

You've just been explaining that we know how to deal with bugs now.

I absolutely disagree with this. Experience is paramount in building and running nukes. Welding is still welding and concrete pours are concrete pours. The design will be new, but a pump is still a pump. The instrument cabinets are really the only big changes. I have gone through a lot of those. With modern electronics, it was easy to start them up...much more user friendly.

The instrument cabinets are also the only thing you listed that isn't found in other industries. Welding and concrete pours can be found in almost any heavy industry. Pumps and the like feature quite widely in the chemical and oil industries amoung others.

CANDU: bomb material quite easily
light water reactor: Garbage...the isotopes of Pu are either burned or capture a few too many neutrons and convert to 240 and 241, etc.--which is useless

I'm yet to run across a light water fast breeder reactor.

geni

20th March 2007, 08:49 AM

You seem to imply that a low steady radiation level is more damaging than short exposures to higher levels?

Depending on the levels involved this is correct. See the Goiânia accident.

Hindmost

20th March 2007, 08:53 AM

The design isn't relivant the process to get there is.

The process is significantly different now than in the 50s...the comparison is unreasonable. Computer simulations alone have made core design and so many different types of analysis very sophiticated.

So the refuel on load designs have been abandoned?

I don't understand what your are asking.

I said there were delys (a mixture of it being a new type for the UK and no one working on the plant haveing any interest in seeing the thing finished on time). Still for a more extream example. Calder Hall first started feeding power into the national grid 3 years after the start of construction. All construction was complete after 5 years. That was Britian's first nuclear power plant so past experence availible would have been limited.

http://www.britishnucleargroup.com/content.php?pageID=262&tab=1

As I have indicated, it would take 10 years to get electricity to the grid if a plant was started today... plus or minus something. Experience will help, but if a large number of plants start construction...there won't be enough trained people.

You've just been explaining that we know how to deal with bugs now.

The instrument cabinets are also the only thing you listed that isn't found in other industries. Welding and concrete pours can be found in almost any heavy industry. Pumps and the like feature quite widely in the chemical and oil industries amoung others.

All plants require instrumentation...distributed control systems are the norm now using I/O with programmable logic to control components. Simple minded stuff in reality, but works well.

I'm yet to run across a light water fast breeder reactor.

Again, I don't understand what you are talking about. You mentioned bomb building countries...anyone building a light water reactor would not be able to use it to make Pu--which is what I indicated (at least not very easily). I never implied any light water breeder. Candu plants can be used to make Pu quite well due to their operational nature. Typically fast reactors have a better breeding ratio due to the physics involved--less resonance capture of neutrons

Officially, I think we can agree to disagree on Nuclear power. You don't seem to think it is safe and I don't agree with that. A handful of accidents is just not a reason to abandon a clean power source in my opine.

glenn

RecoveringYuppy

20th March 2007, 10:04 AM

This is in the news again today:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070320/ap_on_bi_ge/bp_plant_explosion

pvt1863

20th March 2007, 10:42 AM

Discussing the effect of continual exposure to low-level radiation is pointless in the context of a nuclear power discussion. The radiation exposure to the public is orders of magnitude lower than the continual radiation exposure that an average person gets from other sources.

For example, a person living in Denver gets a dosage that is about 70 mrem more per year than a person who lives in the east next door to a nuclear power plant (all other things being equal). Elevation and local geology are far more influential than the existence of nuclear power plants when determining annual dosage. And those exposures are also continuous.

If we were going to dismiss nuclear power because of the level of continuous radiation that the public is exposed to, then we should evacuate Denver (and the entire Colorado Plateau), ban luminous wristwatches, ban smoke detectors, ban porcelain dentalwork, and ban stone/brick/masonry buildings. All of those cause about the same level or more radiation exposure in our everyday lives as nuclear power does. Things like computers and TVs can also be considered continuous for some, and they supply more radiation also. Bickering over the effects of 0.01 mrem annually from nuclear power plants makes little sense when a person working/living in a stone/brick/masonry building gets 7 mrem from that.

Again, the nuclear fuel cycle contributes (conservatively) about 0.01 mrem to the annual ionizing radiation exposure for an average American living near a nuclear plant. The food we eat and the water we drink contribute over 40 mrem due to naturally occurring isotopes. The air we breathe contributes over 200 mrem per year from naturally occurring radon. These two sources combined supply us with over 24,000 times the continuous ionizing radiation exposure that nuclear power does.

Go look for yourself at what continuous sources are much more significant than nuclear power at the worksheet here (http://www.ans.org/pi/resources/dosechart/).

geni

20th March 2007, 02:31 PM

The process is significantly different now than in the 50s...the comparison is unreasonable. Computer simulations alone have made core design and so many different types of analysis very sophiticated.

And yet the japanese managed to killed of a couple of their workers a few years back.

As I have indicated, it would take 10 years to get electricity to the grid if a plant was started today... plus or minus something. Experience will help, but if a large number of plants start construction...there won't be enough trained people.

I think that the people who design and build large chemical plants would be able to switch over if required.

All plants require instrumentation...distributed control systems are the norm now using I/O with programmable logic to control components. Simple minded stuff in reality, but works well.

You can't use the system systems you would use in a chemical plant.

Again, I don't understand what you are talking about. You mentioned bomb building countries...anyone building a light water reactor would not be able to use it to make Pu--which is what I indicated (at least not very easily). I never implied any light water breeder. Candu plants can be used to make Pu quite well due to their operational nature. Typically fast reactors have a better breeding ratio due to the physics involved--less resonance capture of neutrons

Large scale nuclear programs will require fast breeders. Most countries are likely to want to build there own. Personaly I'd rather Robert Mugabe didn't get his hands on a fast breeder (or even a magnox style design).

Officially, I think we can agree to disagree on Nuclear power. You don't seem to think it is safe and I don't agree with that. A handful of accidents is just not a reason to abandon a clean power source in my opine.

Nothing is safe the question is given the risks of nuclear power how should it be used.

Almost every country outside of europe that has built nuclear power plants has had a nuclear bomb program at some point. If nuclear power plants are going to supply the world's power then something needs to be done to break this pattern first.

If we limit nuclear power to nations that we trust only that presents another set of problems.

If we get round that then we need to solve the problem of large scale fast breeders that work without issues and reprocessing that doesn't keep running into problems.

Ziggurat

20th March 2007, 03:03 PM

And yet the japanese managed to killed of a couple of their workers a few years back.

I remember that accident. It wasn't at a nuclear reactor. It was at a fuel processing facility, and it was the result of stupidity on the part of the workers. It was the kind of mistake that gets people blown up when working with hydrocarbons, too.

Nothing is safe the question is given the risks of nuclear power how should it be used.

Sure. The politics are tough, especially in regards to developing countries. However, if developed countries which already have nuclear power plants increase their use of nuclear power, I can't see how that's a bad thing on balance. It might actually decrease demand for nuclear power from poor countries because of reduced demand for fossil fuels used for conventional power plants.

geni

20th March 2007, 04:19 PM

I remember that accident. It wasn't at a nuclear reactor. It was at a fuel processing facility, and it was the result of stupidity on the part of the workers. It was the kind of mistake that gets people blown up when working with hydrocarbons, too.

There was also that leak at sellafield. The problem wasn't so much that it happened but no one noticed.

Larger scale nuclear industry requires more reprocessing and more fast breeders. At the moment we have problems with both of these.

Sure. The politics are tough, especially in regards to developing countries. However, if developed countries which already have nuclear power plants increase their use of nuclear power, I can't see how that's a bad thing on balance. It might actually decrease demand for nuclear power from poor countries because of reduced demand for fossil fuels used for conventional power plants.

that is only a short term solution.

Ziggurat

20th March 2007, 04:20 PM

that is only a short term solution.

Perhaps, but sometimes that's all you need until a long-term solution which you couldn't have predicted earlier becomes available.

luddite

9th October 2007, 09:34 AM

Hi, I'm new to this forum. While I'm impressed by all the informed discussion about nuclear power, I want to just take a moment and suggest that we're all talking about this based on the wrong premises.

I'm going to take a moment to explain my background. I became politically engaged not quite 2 years ago when I felt like global warming was threatening us all and nobody was doing anything about it. I now consider myself an environmentalist, and for the purposes of this discussion, a luddite. I live in Ontario, Canada. We get almost 50% of our electrical supply from nuclear and more than 20% from coal.

Like most Ontarians, I find nuclear power both familiar and frightening. The fact that waste is stored on site is not reassuring to me. It is a constant reminder that we still haven't figured out what to do with it 20-30 years down. All our reactors were supposed to last for 40 years and they've died after 25. All were over budget. All had serious construction delays. They are strikingly unreliable. They have required expensive refurbishments to keep them hobbling along. None are insured. None have ever had a full environmental assessment. We all have a special item on our energy bill related to the "stranded debt" from nuclear costs. Recently we discovered that our Pickering reactors are located directly over the point where 2 fault lines cross, in the most geologically active area of the country. During the big blackout a few years back, only 2 reactors did what they were supposed to. The rest required intervention to prevent a meltdown. We have never allocated any money for decommissioning or waste disposal, nor is there any money set aside in case of a nuclear accident. Our first nations people who live in communities where the uranium is mined suffer from horrifying rates of cancers, while our governments bend over backwards trying to claim that the cancers are unrelated. There are projected costs of monitoring the waste for centuries. I would say that the overall costs of nuclear have been unacceptably high.

Still, I became engaged in energy issues through my concern about global warming, and wanted to be open minded about all potential solutions. Getting rid of the coal was the priority.

Unfortunately a large part of the coal is used to balance out the nuclear. Nuclear is not dispatchable. The more of it you have, the more you need something to address the peaks in demand. This has been traditionally delivered by fossil fuels. If you level off peaks with storage mechanisms (flywheels, pumped hydro, compressed gas, flow batteries, whatever) you get into additional costs. These same storage mechanisms can be applied to renewable generation (particularly wind) instead to get reliable power without the same risks.

But the real issue I wanted to introduce is the question of why it is we want all this energy anyway. Ontario was blessed with cheap, abundant and safe electricity from Niagara Falls. Our electricity utility is still called "Hydro One" and many Ontarians still imagine that most of our power comes from water. Cheap and abundant energy built up a manufacturing base in the province that quickly absorbed all the power and was hungry for more. Nuclear reactors were developed on the hope of producing power "too cheap to meter".

Instead today Ontarians are still paying for reactors that have died while we use 60% more energy than the average New Yorker. Canadians as a whole use double the electricity of the average Englishman and triple that of the average Italian. This is not because of our harsh weather or long distances. Few Canadian homes are electrically heated, our cars are not electric. The enormous demand comes from inefficient industry, and increasingly from air conditioning. Italy has a hotter climate and a similar industrial base. We have no excuse.

I was born in Brazil and still have family there. They are upper-middle class people who live in houses such as I only wish I could afford. None are air conditioned yet they are comfortable inside. Canadian houses are stupidly designed to sop up all that "cheap" energy.

My point is that the construction of large generation projects automatically creates the need to sell electricity to pay for the construction. You develop a lot of dependent users. Nuclear power plants are especially guilty because they take 10+ years to build, and cannot come online gradually. They are either on 24/7 for months, or off. During the construction time you get no energy, then suddenly you have this surge that you need to sell urgently. So developing the demand for the upcoming nuclear surge often means resorting to running coal plants full out in the interim.

If we really want to tackle global warming, I would assert that what is fundamentally needed is a rethinking of our energy pathways, and a serious reassessment of how much energy we need. We need to stop thinking about filling a demand of x megawatts. California's program of increasing standards in refrigerators has "generated" as much energy as the entire US nuclear fleet. And they are by no means scraping the barrel.

We have buildings here that are refrigerated in the summer to the point that some workers actually have heaters on as well for comfort. We have many restaurants that find it appropriate to air condition the sidewalk patio.

While I've always been concerned about the risks of nuclear power, I would be willing to consider it if vital services depended on it. But it's very difficult for me to justify telling first nations people that we need to keep mining uranium on their lands so that we can enjoy a coffee on an air conditioned patio. If we continued to use nuclear at current rates (not even an expansion), at the most optimistic assessment, the current technology could provide power for 3 generations. The waste we would leave behind for 250.

There is rather a lot that I would be willing to do to avoid that. I haven't air conditioned for 2 years. I hang dry my laundry. I'd be willing to set a timer on my washer so that I could use electricity at night when the winds are best. I would frankly be willing to wash clothes by hand. Does anybody really need an electric can opener? Nose hair clipper? Standby mode for television?

There's been a lot of talk about the expense of solar. The advantage of solar PV is that it matches peak demand almost perfectly. It produces power when we're otherwise forced to resort to firing up our coal plants. If you put a value on GHG emissions and health/environmental costs, it starts looking pretty good. And in my opinion, if you can afford air conditioning, you should be able to afford powering it up in a way that doesn't load up a lot of nuclear waste problems and transmission costs on the rest of us.

In Ontario, we have a plan to rebuild our entire nuclear fleet. It is not my experience that "environmentalists" make the process more onerous. Quite the opposite. All kinds of regulations are routinely squashed to make way for nuclear and ignore its hazards. We live in a curious place where we need a full environmental assessment for a speed bump, but no environmental assessment is required for a nuclear plant and a court has recently ordered a first nations community to cease protesting and allow mining operations on their lands.

The best, most compelling argument for nuclear is that it replaces coal plants. The reality is not that simple. For one thing, nuclear is no more dispatchable than wind and far less correlated with peak than solar. For another, a coal plant goes up in a year or two, whereas you need to count on 15 realistically for nuclear. In the meantime, you're probably using increasing amounts of coal. If instead you put the money into conservation initiatives, after 15 years you would have less demand than you started with and money in the bank, plus you've emitted a lot less. You could even charge more for energy to cover your investment. People would pay more per kilowatt hour, but their energy bill would still be lower on average, because they would use less.

If you absolutely need to invest in generation, wind goes up in less than a year and is far more scalable. There are a lot of smart ways of balancing it, from dispersion to energy storage to cost incentives that drive the price down when a lot is generated.

If you want to address global warming, the smart money is on conservation first, renewables next. I don't imagine there's any role for nuclear, but if there is, it's very limited.

Ziggurat

9th October 2007, 11:22 AM

If you want to address global warming, the smart money is on conservation first, renewables next. I don't imagine there's any role for nuclear, but if there is, it's very limited.

You imagine wrong. I cannot speak to Canada's experience in particular, and perhaps your nuclear industry has been a disaster. But Canada != the world. In the US, projected power demands (which include improvements in efficiency) cannot be met by renewables alone. There will either be an increase in the use of fossil fuels (coal in particular), or an increase in the use of nuclear power. And coal is NOT more environmentally friendly (from any standpoint) than nuclear.

Texastwister

9th October 2007, 11:48 AM

And coal is NOT more environmentally friendly (from any standpoint) than nuclear.

Please source.....thats a strong statement without any justification

Ziggurat

9th October 2007, 01:34 PM

Please source.....thats a strong statement without any justification

What aspect of environmental impact are you interested in?

mhaze

9th October 2007, 02:03 PM

I'm going out on a limb here and I'm going to say that there will be no significant opposition to new nuclear plants in the USA - other areas of the work might follow suit. Watch the the progress on the South Texas Nuclear project's 2 new plants in Houston to see if there is opposition - at all. This is the first of some planned 16-20 new plants that are scheduled to be built.

Politcally the anti-nuclear groups have been marginalized (Greenpeace is still there), UCS is cautiously pro-nuclear, all kinds of ratiional environmentists who are anti-AGW are pro nuclear. The interesting question is whether that 16-20 new plants can be followed with another significantly larger wave.

Lonewulf

9th October 2007, 02:09 PM

I hope so. Nuclear power ftw. :)

rocketdodger

9th October 2007, 02:43 PM

What aspect of environmental impact are you interested in?
Well twister is probably thinking "if all the coal plants exploded simultaneously, the environmental impact might not be as bad as if all the nuke plants melted down simultaneously."

Lonewulf

9th October 2007, 02:45 PM

Either that, or he thinks that we truck out tons of nuclear waste all the time, and that we don't have any possible way to circumvent that with stuff, like, say, breeder reactors.

mhaze

9th October 2007, 02:53 PM

Either that, or he thinks that we truck out tons of nuclear waste all the time, and that we don't have any possible way to circumvent that with stuff, like, say, breeder reactors.

We do need education.

There is still a vestige of fear about the nuclear industry left over from the past, when the big green anti-nuclear lobby was a lot stronger than it is now.

So there are well meaning, but misinformed people about.

Lonewulf

9th October 2007, 02:57 PM

Sure, but if you provide education, people will just say that it's made up by the gubmint or the nuclear companies to satisfy their own corporate interests or somesuch.

Or maybe just certain posters on this forum are that way...

dudalb

9th October 2007, 03:18 PM

Let's face it,the mere word "nuclear" scares the hell out of a lot of people,and I think this gut reaction is responsible for a lot of the anti nuclear power opinion rather then any real considered reaction.
ANd luddite has a very apporpriate name. He seems to be of the school that thinks that using power to make life more comfortable is somehow evil in and of itself. A sort of "Enviorimental Puritan".
But let's face facts.People who live in warm climates where it gets very hot in the summer are not going to give up Air Conditioning,unless big brother tells them too.
You might make the argument that Nuclear Plants might be too risky in certain areas and I would agree...in California anywhere near the San Andread fault for instance. But the abandoment of Nuclear power in the Eighties was a foolish act,IMHO.

Lonewulf

9th October 2007, 03:28 PM

Just to note:

While I've always been concerned about the risks of nuclear power, I would be willing to consider it if vital services depended on it. But it's very difficult for me to justify telling first nations people that we need to keep mining uranium on their lands so that we can enjoy a coffee on an air conditioned patio. If we continued to use nuclear at current rates (not even an expansion), at the most optimistic assessment, the current technology could provide power for 3 generations. The waste we would leave behind for 250.

I'd like to see evidence for that. According to Freedom For Fission (http://www.freedomforfission.org.uk/deb/advantage.html)),

Powerful and plentiful

If we use all uranium and thorium to its full potential, nuclear power can provide our needs for over 50,000 years and it would not require strip-mining the entire planet to achieve this. The fission of one nucleus of uranium-235 yields over 20,000,000 times the energy of the combustion of one molecule of methane. While a large coal-fired power station needs many trainloads of fuel per day, a similarly sized nuclear power station will only need a truckload of fresh fuel per year. This means that nuclear power is not subject to the same price fluctuations as fossil fuels, which are dependent on a constant stream of fuel. This means that nuclear power can be depended on when on cloudy, calm days amid political turmoil with fossil fuel providers, other sources fail.
Clean and compact

Nuclear power is not what most possible would consider when thinking of clean forms of power, but it is in fact one of the cleanest. A nuclear power station does not emit any significant amount of pollution into the atmosphere, from particulates to heavy metals to sulphur dioxide. In fact, because all the by-products are contained, the local residents of a coal-fired power station will receive a higher dosage of radiation than the local residents of a nuclear power station. The nuclear industry manages its waste far more responsibly than any other industry, including those that deal with some very dangerous chemical waste. This is made possible because, since the fuel put into the cycle is so small in quantity, the waste taken out is also very small in quantity. Despite the furore over radioactive wastes, it is in fact compact and easy to handle, far easier than the massive quantities of chemical wastes from other industries.

If someone can refute any of that with, you know, science, I'd like to see it.

From this section: http://www.freedomforfission.org.uk/cyc/fuel.html

Supplies of uranium-235 available by extraction in line with today's uranium prices will only last for fifty years. It should be noted that this is actually not as pessimistic as the estimates for availability of other minerals or fuels. However, uranium-235 lies elsewhere in abundance, albeit with increased extraction costs, which are ready for use once the market makes them economical. Uranium is overall a fairly common metal, about as common as tin or zinc.

Currently, uranium is extracted from rich ores, which are a far more concentrated source. This makes sense economically for the time being while they are available. However, there are other sources, such as granite and sedimentary rocks that contain uranium. Even coal contains uranium, which is usually released into the atmosphere in coal-fired power stations. It is estimated that the trace amounts of uranium present in the coal could provide more energy through fission than the coal itself through combustion. Of course, at present, burning the coal is cheaper than extracting uranium from it.

It is currently estimated, and indeed estimates are constantly increased in all mineral and fuel resources and new information becomes available, that supplies of uranium-235 from these conventional resources are sufficient for over 200 years at present consumption. However, there are less conventional sources, which can offer still more reserves of the isotope, such as phosphate deposits and especially seawater, provided the market makes the significantly increased prices economical.

But this is only the beginning. A nuclear fuel cycle relying exclusively on uranium-235 is doomed to a shorter life because it is only 0.7% of natural uranium. The key to extending the resource is to make use of uranium-238, which comprises the vast majority of natural uranium. In thermal reactors, this is limited because uranium-238 cannot be made to fission by thermal neutrons. It can, however, be bred into other isotopes, which are fissile. When spent fuel comes out of the reactor, it generally contains around 1% plutonium from just this plus a trace of minor actinides. Under the closed cycle, this resource is extracted and fabricated into MOX fuel. This helps to extend the resource further.

luddite

9th October 2007, 04:12 PM

You imagine wrong. I cannot speak to Canada's experience in particular, and perhaps your nuclear industry has been a disaster. But Canada != the world. In the US, projected power demands (which include improvements in efficiency) cannot be met by renewables alone. There will either be an increase in the use of fossil fuels (coal in particular), or an increase in the use of nuclear power. And coal is NOT more environmentally friendly (from any standpoint) than nuclear.

If nuclear were the only option to replace coal, I would regretfully agree. I have not looked at the specifics of energy use in the United States, but the per capita energy use overall is almost as high as Canada's. I would be very surprised if it were not possible to halve consumption with little appreciable difference to lifestyle. In fact, I would be surprised if you couldn't have lifestyle enhancements. Apart from the avoided health and environmental impacts of coal and nuclear, a well-insulated house that breathes at night and retains a comfortable ambient temperature during the day is a pleasure to live in. You don't get fan noise, you don't get the dryness, you don't get discomfort because of radiant penetration. Large flat buildings can be built with green roofs. That's mandatory now in Japan. The designs can be delightful.

Responding to demand increases with constant supply increases is what got us into our present pickle. It will not solve our problems. We do not lack technological fixes. What we need is courage and imagination.

Lonewulf

9th October 2007, 04:14 PM

What we need is courage and imagination.

As well as facts, research, and study.

luddite

9th October 2007, 04:46 PM

ANd luddite has a very apporpriate name. He seems to be of the school that thinks that using power to make life more comfortable is somehow evil in and of itself. A sort of "Enviorimental Puritan".

I chose the name quite deliberately. I'm not unaware that my views put me in this camp.

But I cannot agree with your statement. I do not think that using power is inherently evil. However, as global warming and problems with sulfur and flooding of lands for hydro power indicate, power generation is rarely without consequence. A reasonable and thoughtful person will weigh the advantages of his personal comfort with the consequences of his actions.

But let's face facts.People who live in warm climates where it gets very hot in the summer are not going to give up Air Conditioning,unless big brother tells them too.

Can't agree with that either. In Ontario, we introduced the Peaksaver program two summers ago, hoping to save 7 MW with people who signed up to have a device put on their air conditioner, which would remotely turn off their air conditioner during peak afternoon periods.

Within a few weeks the 7 MW target was hit, with over 100 MW signed up for over the course of that summer. When people were surveyed about why they signed up the number 1 reason was "civic duty". In warm climates, houses might arguably need less air conditioning because they're designed for hot weather in the first place. That's certainly the case for Brazil.

But I'm also all for Big Brother telling people to do things. We need to balance needs, comfort and consequences. Building a nuclear power plant is no less an imposition than changing the building code to something more sensible. If I were to choose between the two, I'd say that smart building enhances life a great deal more than the ability to keep my microwave on standby all day, eating up more energy sitting there than I use to cook in the thing.

luddite

9th October 2007, 04:47 PM

As well as facts, research, and study.

Absolutely.

mhaze

9th October 2007, 05:00 PM

Luddite, I am personally your complete opposite, more a techno fanatic gadget freak. However, on the issue of nuclear power, the actual numbers tell me that it is the way that civilization must go. There's no like or dislike or wishful thinking there.

Once you've got the nuke plants, you can have all kind of cool toys without environmental consequences. High power electric sports cars would be just one example. Plug in hybrids. You've got political and social consequences, such as no further dependence on middle east oil.

Oil isn't going away, because we make lots of things out of it. All aircraft require hydrocarbon fuel. Heavy equipment and trucks require diesel pretty much, as do all boats and ships. But the fraction of oil that's used in the transportation industry and home heating could go down to perhaps 20% of what it is today.

The role that nuclear can play, cannot be played by any other card in the deck.

Lonewulf

9th October 2007, 05:02 PM

I'm a techno geek with a desire to become a cyborg.

So I guess I'm even further the opposite. =D

Ziggurat

9th October 2007, 05:24 PM

I would be very surprised if it were not possible to halve consumption with little appreciable difference to lifestyle.

That's nice that you'd be surprised, but why on earth did you ever come to this conclusion? Do you actually have and facts to back this up, or are you just speculating? Because if it's the latter, you'll have to pardon me for thinking it's not exactly a firm basis on which to create an energy policy.

luddite

9th October 2007, 06:20 PM

Just to note:

I'd like to see evidence for that.

If someone can refute any of that with, you know, science, I'd like to see it.

The problem I've encountered is that there is a tremendous disjoint between the rosy predictions of nuclear supply projected by the IAEA, AECL, World Nuclear Organization, Euronuclear, and other nuclear proponents, and the dismal predictions by environmental organizations.

For the purposes of this forum, I suspect the authority of environmental organizations would be scorned.

However, the authority of nuclear proponents should be suspect too. They are inflated to promote nuclear just as surely as oil companies inflate the projections of oil supply.

However, unlike with petroleum supply assessments, there is virtually no overlap between the two sides in the nuclear debate and I've found very few authorities that I could call even relatively unbiased.

The paper you quote refers to thorium, which I excluded in my carefully worded "current rates" using "current technology". I believe 3 generations is optimistic for current uranium supplies, with many assessments indicating that processing of low-grade uranium deposits is becoming increasingly impracticable even now.

For an indication, see the Post Carbon Institute site. I included the URL initially but wasn't allowed to include it.

For the record, the Post Carbon Institute is one institution which does a more careful weighing of the pros and cons of nuclear power. Its members are concerned about the limited supply of petroleum and are willing to consider all alternatives, but are peopled both by those who embrace nuclear and those who oppose it, as well as those somewhere in between.

Another organization which somewhat straddles the two ends is the Pembina Institute in Canada, which has traditionally been supported by power producers and the petroleum and natural gas industries. Given their funding sources, they are remarkably able to promote energy reductions. Their assessment of nuclear is scathing.

But the authority I trust most is David Hughes. Again, I'm not permitted to give you a reference.

I met with David personally over lunch. He is a senior geologist with the Geological Survey of Canada with 35 years experience. He has positions with the National Energy Board and Natural Resources Canada. He is a nuclear proponent because he foresees shortages with all energy supplies and thinks nuclear may be a necessary interim measure while we learn to dramatically reduce our energy dependence.

Over his 35 years, David has seen various fuels come up with the great hope of becoming the next great panacea. He is skeptical. He is a soft-spoken man who carefully words his statements.

When asked about the promise of nuclear, he dismisses thorium. He dismisses fusion. He dismisses anything that isn't operational now in the current economy (actually, what he says is "You keep working on that. In the meantime, I suggest you figure out how to reduce your energy dependence by 80%").

He has seen too many hopeful prospects sit around for decades. Solar, wind, tidal power, biofuels, algal growth. He points out that even the promised supplies of natural gas have never materialized, that even coal is limited. He states quite clearly that it is not a supply issue. It is an issue of economic deliverability. And in this context he foresees upcoming crises in nuclear just as surely as he foresees crises in oil and natural gas supply.

He talks about the classic resource curve, where supplies become increasingly less practicable to recover. He points out that 85% of the highest grade uranium supplies from Canada have already been extracted, and that the remaining supplies are much poorer. He points out that only 2/3 of North American supplies of uranium come from mines. 1/3 is purchased from Russia from old weapons stocks, under an agreement set to expire in 2012, and which Russia has already indicated it has no intention of renewing.

Given these conditions, he foresees serious disturbances in supply beyond that year even to maintain the current nuclear fleet. And this is a man who still thinks that building new reactors to replace the decaying old ones is probably a good idea.

Lonewulf

9th October 2007, 06:24 PM

I met with David personally over lunch. He is a senior geologist with the Geological Survey of Canada with 35 years experience. He has positions with the National Energy Board and Natural Resources Canada. He is a nuclear proponent because he foresees shortages with all energy supplies and thinks nuclear may be a necessary interim measure while we learn to dramatically reduce our energy dependence.

Over his 35 years, David has seen various fuels come up with the great hope of becoming the next great panacea. He is skeptical. He is a soft-spoken man who carefully words his statements.

When asked about the promise of nuclear, he dismisses thorium. He dismisses fusion. He dismisses anything that isn't operational now in the current economy (actually, what he says is "You keep working on that. In the meantime, I suggest you figure out how to reduce your energy dependence by 80%").

An interesting thing to say. :rolleyes:

I guess we should just give up and not build anything new. I mean, no possible reason to build more nuclear power plants, use breeder reactors, etc...

luddite

9th October 2007, 06:41 PM

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Luddite, I am personally your complete opposite, more a techno fanatic gadget freak. However, on the issue of nuclear power, the actual numbers tell me that it is the way that civilization must go. There's no like or dislike or wishful thinking there.

Once you've got the nuke plants, you can have all kind of cool toys without environmental consequences. High power electric sports cars would be just one example. Plug in hybrids. You've got political and social consequences, such as no further dependence on middle east oil.

Actually, I'm a techno-geak myself. I think flow batteries and flywheels are unbelievably cool. But I do try to weigh in the environmental consequences as well. And I don't share your assessment that they disappear with nuclear. First of all, there are the considerable impacts of nuclear generation to begin with. But when you're talking about sports cars, you also need to consider the impacts of road construction and maintenance, just to start.

Oil isn't going away, because we make lots of things out of it. All aircraft require hydrocarbon fuel. Heavy equipment and trucks require diesel pretty much, as do all boats and ships. But the fraction of oil that's used in the transportation industry and home heating could go down to perhaps 20% of what it is today.

I work with an engineer who routinely refurbishes existing structures to obtain 5-fold reductions in overall energy use. The majority is in space heating. Even greater savings are possible in new construction. I have been in houses so well insulated that they require no heating system at all in Canadian winters. They are more spacious and brighter, and don't have the fan noise, the humidity and dryness problems... The incremental cost is no more than 5% and can actually be negative because you eliminate the cost of ductwork and furnaces. Insulation is cheap.

Insulation is also really cool for techno-geeks, with things like air-gel coming on the market.

Transportation reductions should be similar. We need to return to walkable communities, which are a lot more healthful and pleasant to live in. What transportation needs remain can be delivered primarily by mass transportation. Personal vehicles of the future would be something along the lines of Amory Lovins's Hypercars, another techno-miracle that's lightweight and resource friendly.

What we are experiencing is a failure of imagination from too many years of energy dependence. A brighter future is possible.

luddite

9th October 2007, 06:56 PM

An interesting thing to say.

I thought so too. He is not suggesting we do nothing. Quite the contrary. He is suggesting we do everything, including maxing out all possible generation and still learning to reduce our energy dependence by 80%. I really, really hope that Mr. Hughes is wrong. But his credentials are impeccable, his manner calm.

When he gives speeches, he shows a series of slides that graphically demonstrate the problem in a way that words fail. Over the last 100 years for example, we have learned to use 43 times the energy we used to use. All of the increase has been from non-renewable sources now in decline. For each and every one of these non-renewable sources, discovery rates have not kept up with demand increases for decades. The United States are now a net importer of coal.

robinson

9th October 2007, 09:33 PM

Hmmm

robinson

9th October 2007, 09:38 PM

luddite

9th October 2007, 11:36 PM

That's nice that you'd be surprised, but why on earth did you ever come to this conclusion? Do you actually have and facts to back this up, or are you just speculating? Because if it's the latter, you'll have to pardon me for thinking it's not exactly a firm basis on which to create an energy policy.
Just looking over electricity consumption over the years. In 1950 it was about 2000 kWh annually for the average household. By 1970 it was 7000 kWh per household. By 1990 it was almost 12,000 per capita (not per household) and in 2003 it was over 13,000 per capita.

Over this time, the principal increases in residential electricity use came from air conditioning as the number one contributor, followed by things like televisions, washing machines, dryers, dishwashers and home heating.

Air conditioning and heating can be virtually eliminated with proper insulation. The others can be much more efficient. I don't own a dishwasher or television and rarely use my dryer. My life is not fundamentally altered.

I know that large energy demands are attributable to pumping water to and from buildings. Growth here is disproportionately large, since cities tend to grow out from water sources, increasing the distance water needs to travel to get to new developments. Enormous reductions are possible. We can recycle a lot of our water for washing clothes, watering lawns or, at the very least, flushing our poop. We can harvest rainwater. Overflow rainwater should be allowed to seep into the ground. A side benefit would be an improvement in the health of our rivers. If we really want to get creative, we can separate urine and poop, send the poop to an anaerobic digester and dilute the urine for fertilizer. The geek in me loves this idea.

Water heating should be dramatically reduced with solar thermal pre-heat.

In Ontario the most rapid growth in electricity demand has been in the commercial/institutional services sector, according to the Ontario Power Authority. Within this sector the single largest end-use is lighting. While over 1/3 of these businesses use energy efficient lighting, the sheer scale of lighting has increased. (Incidentally, this must contribute to a higher air-conditioning load, which in some cases generates a corresponding heating load for people uncomfortable in refrigerators). Most of this increase can easily be eliminated with little to no effect on our lifestyle.

If you read George Monbiot's "Heat", you get a very good description of today's supermarkets, with decorative lighting to enhance the appearance of food. Displays also take up space, increasing space conditioning costs and putting pressure on real estate. Very little of this contributes to measurable lifestyle improvement.

Refrigeration accounts for 15% of a household's average energy use. The average refrigerator today is much more energy efficient than its ancestor, but it is also much larger. In 1947, the average refrigerator held less than 10 cubic feet. Today's average is well over double at 23 cubic feet even though the average family is smaller. If we store the same amount of food in a larger refrigerator, the refrigerator has to work harder. It's not improving our lives. If we're storing more food, it's either going to waste or it's going to waist. Either way, no improvement to our lives.

People now illuminate their pictures, their closets, their counters, their cabinets. I have a friend who bought an energy-efficient refrigerator that, to his frustration, came with 3 incandescent lightbulbs.

Computers are getting more and more efficient. Enormous reductions are possible. If they were turned off at night a huge additional amount could be saved. Televisions and microwaves use more energy during the time they are on standby mode than when they are in use.

And then there are the hundreds of useless gadgets.

Truth is, for our personal well-being, the biggest thing we need electricity for is lighting. With LED lighting making it into the market, we can get this necessity with a tiny fraction of the electricity currently produced.

greenparty.ca/en/node/1384
earthtrends.wri.org/searchable_db/index.php?action=select_countries&theme=6&variable_ID=574
links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-9092(197405)56%3A2%3C419%3AECSRDE%3E2.0.CO%3B2-M
conservationbureau.on.ca/Page.asp?PageID=122&ContentID=1502&SiteNodeID=168
energy.gov.on.ca/opareport/Part%203%20-%20Background%20Reports/Part%203-4%20Conservation%20and%20Demand%20Management%20Iss ues.pdf

Slimething

10th October 2007, 12:49 AM

Truth is, for our personal well-being, the biggest thing we need electricity for is lighting. With LED lighting making it into the market, we can get this necessity with a tiny fraction of the electricity currently produced.

greenparty.ca/en/node/1384
earthtrends.wri.org/searchable_db/index.php?action=select_countries&theme=6&variable_ID=574
links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-9092(197405)56%3A2%3C419%3AECSRDE%3E2.0.CO%3B2-M
conservationbureau.on.ca/Page.asp?PageID=122&ContentID=1502&SiteNodeID=168
energy.gov.on.ca/opareport/Part%203%20-%20Background%20Reports/Part%203-4%20Conservation%20and%20Demand%20Management%20Iss ues.pdf

Uh huh. When you and your greenie friends live in the country, you just give me a holler about all you need is lighting, OK?

Professor Yaffle

10th October 2007, 02:06 AM

Lonewulf

10th October 2007, 05:25 AM

I tried to get the real information about cost of Nuclear vs Solar and Wind and other "alternative" power sources. Based on the data, it looks like "alternative" power sources, are actually cheaper, especially in the long term profits.

Not that the data is easy to come by, or accurate, but solar power, for countries with lots of sun, may be the next big thing.

Not according to this chart: http://goldpactpower.com/chart.jpg

It seems that nuclear is on the range of coal in costs, and "green" solutions are far more costly.

As for solar power, you get hardly any solar energy. 4 kw/hour, I think, was the average for the largest solar panel in Germany (I may be wrong). You get hardly anything for all the space you put the solar panels down for... oh, and solar panels aren't "clean". In the production process, the chemicals that go into making them are rather toxic.

Lonewulf

10th October 2007, 05:28 AM

I think the problem in convincing most people (and I'm still open minded on the issue) is that big problem have occurred within living memory, and when nuclear stuff goes wrong, it goes wrong in a big way. Added to that is that disposal hasn't really been sorted and it seems like the attitude is that we keep going and hope that technology has sorted out the problem of disposal by the time it becomes a big problem. I can understand why that would concern people.

I am a non technical but reasonably intelligent person who hasn't made up her mind on this issue. Feel free to try to convince me.:)

First of all, "big problems" with what...? Chernobyl? No nuclear power plant is made even partly on the scale of Chernobyl. Power plants today are much safer, and have been updated with newer technology. The chances of a failure are much much closer to nil than ever before. Also, Chernobyl was run entirely hazardously, with safety protocols essentially thrown out the window. In fact, everything about Chernobyl was a disaster. You'll never see another Chernobyl as long as you live, I bet you $10,000.

As for pollution, read here: http://www.freedomforfission.org.uk/saf/pollution.html

http://www.freedomforfission.org.uk/cyc/waste.html

http://www.freedomforfission.org.uk/saf/reactorsafety.html

Solid waste from coal burning, which includes the permanently toxic metals mercury, arsenic and selenium, is produced a thousand times faster. This cannot, by any standard, be characterised as fit for human consumption either. It is however, not subject to the same stringent controls and accounting as nuclear waste is. Because of its large quantity, to impose similarly proportionate controls would be prohibitive. In addition, fossil fuel burning also releases large gaseous emissions into the atmosphere including sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides as well as particulates.

Nuclear waste remains toxic for tens or hundreds of thousands of years.
Decay curve for spent PWR fuel
Figure 2- Decay curve for spent PWR fuel. (Image courtesy of the WNA)

Tens or hundreds of thousands? No. Unreprocessed spent fuel will have decayed to below the activity of the original uranium ore in under ten thousand years. Figure 2 shows the generic decay curve for spent PWR fuel. Figures such as 50,000, 100,000, or sometimes millions of years get tossed around, but they are more likely to have originated from a random number generator (hyperbole always involves randomly large numbers). The radioactivity of the original uranium ore is generally used as a benchmark since it is what we would be dealing with if it were not for nuclear power. Uranium ore is also not especially radioactive and so represents a relativity benign level of activity.

It should also be remembered that radioisotopes decay exponentially. Spent fuel does not remain glowing green for ten thousand years at which point it stops being significantly radioactive. Throughout the millennia, it is continually decaying, becoming less and less radioactive, less and less hazardous, as time goes on. And because the decay is exponential, most of it happens in the early stages so that the majority of time period is spent at a significantly lower level of activity than at initial disposal and in fact a level that is not especially hazardous at all. Compare this to those mercury and arsenic solid wastes from coal burning, which will be just as hazardous in ten thousand years as they are today.

BTW, I know people will claim that the author of this is an evil disinfo agent that's being paid oogles of money to lie for the evil nuclear power plants. If so, I invite you all to tell that to his face here (http://www.bautforum.com/off-topic-babbling/6536-freedom-fission.html) or just PM his profile (http://www.bautforum.com/members/777-geek.html) on the BAUT forum.

777 geek is the author.

Professor Yaffle

10th October 2007, 06:01 AM

[Please remember I don't consider myself to be at all knowledgable about this area, so please don't feel the need to shoot me down in flames if I say something stupid. Most of what I say will just be stream of consciousness stuff in order for me to work out exactly what my objections are and if the are valid, so that I can try a more informed opinion on for size.]

I agree that a large part of the opposition is based more on perception than actual risk. But before Chernobyl pretty much every proponent of nuclear power I spoke to said that no accident could happen, it was entirely safe etc. And if nuclear power becomes the main source of our power worldwide, what's to stop some nuclear power stations becoming equally lax in safety protocols etc? Or are only countries we* deem to be responsible enough, to be allowed to build them?

*Whoever we might be

Lonewulf

10th October 2007, 06:05 AM

Well, if you're going to talk about Chernobyl, maybe it would be best if you actually read what went wrong, first.

http://www.freedomforfission.org.uk/acc/chernobyl.html

As for countries "we" deem to be safe or not, I think that you're overestimating our power to tell every other country what to do and what not to do. Quite frankly, many countries are building nuclear power plants whether we like it or not.

The major developed countries, the U.S. and the European Union, have the biggest energy needs, I think, outside of China. And China, we can't touch. If China decides to build nuclear power plants, then we're SOL if we want them not to.

As for countries like Africa, I'm not sure about. I'd have to give some thought to that one. I honestly think that we should offer nuclear engineers from other countries to help them set up any nuclear power plants, and use foreign scientists to know how to run them. Africa could definitely use the energy, if certain areas ever plan to pull themselves up into a post-developed country. Although that's definitely a political hotspot, so any venture there will be perilous.

however, in the meantime, we can build nuclear power plants in the countries that have the biggest requirement for them, are able to actually afford them, and can be "trusted" to have them, etc.

This would have a side effect: We would use up less fossil fuels, making what we have in fossil fuels last even longer than before.

Professor Yaffle

10th October 2007, 06:08 AM

I'm not suggesting the the same thing might go wrong elsewhere, but that something else unforseen (as it seems Chernobyl was at the time) could happen. But I will read it all the same, thanks.

Lonewulf

10th October 2007, 06:13 AM

I'm not suggesting the the same thing might go wrong elsewhere, but that something else unforseen (as it seems Chernobyl was at the time) could happen. But I will read it all the same, thanks.

Well, ****, "unforeseen" things could happen with fossil fuel power plants. It could happen with solar panels. It could happen with wind mills. If you want to talk about the "unforeseen", then I can't touch you. I can't say that Hazard X that we don't know about won't spontaneously pop out of nowhere and bite us in the butt. But you'd be much better talking about the various chemical factories that produce and store hazardous waste that could wipe out an entire city block if they're destroyed.

It seems like Nuclear Energy gets the special treatment in the safety concerns category in the opposite way Religion gets the special treatment in the philosophy category.

mhaze

10th October 2007, 06:37 AM

South Africa has had two nuclear reactors operating since 1984.

Lonewulf

10th October 2007, 06:39 AM

Yeah, but I'm thinking places like North Africa.

pvt1863

10th October 2007, 06:58 AM

Chernobyl was not unforeseen. The United States and most other non-Soviet nuclear nations were well aware of the dangers inherent in many of the design features in that design. The NRC had long prohibited any design that used graphite, had a positive moderator temperature coefficient, had no containment, or lacked an immediate SCRAM feature. They also never would have licensed a plant or allowed one to continue operating with wandering criticality problems, nor would they have permitted the bypassing of safety features or the operation of hazardous experiments on site. Most of these decisions were made two decades in advance of the accident, and American engineers who knew about these features were not quiet about the problems in Soviet designs (the only reason concern was not widespread was because the Soviets were secretive about their designs). Based on what I have heard from my professors and some of my older coworkers, the question about an accident at a Soviet reactor was not "if," but rather "when" and "how bad." The ones who did not know enough about Soviet reactors ahead of time to be concerned were floored when they found out about the design. My graduate advisor remembered learning about the Chernobyl accident at a seminar shortly after the accident. He said that he and every other engineers who found out about the design there could not believe that the Soviets would build something so obviously dangerous.

The problem is that people tend to lump all nuclear together. "Nuclear" is not automatically or always safe. Like all technologies, there are safe ways to run it, and there are unsafe ways to run it. When people say nuclear is safe, they are usually implying that western designs are safe, not that all designs are safe. American reactors, by contrast to Soviet ones, have a safety record that is the envy of other industries.

You can't judge technology by simply saying "what if" without any rational basis for the question. Using the accident at Chernobyl to frame such a question for a western nuclear plant where such an accident is physically impossible is a good example of letting fear cloud rational judgment.

Kevin_Lowe

10th October 2007, 07:10 AM

I'm afraid I have not read the thread as a whole, and I apologise if I am repeating things already said.

The nuclear lobby has a history of bald-faced lying, and independent examinations of the viability of nuclear power agree that it's not the technology we should be pursuing. It's not particularly "clean" in terms of net greenhouse gas emissions, because you have to mine and transport and refine huge amounts of ore, and because the high-grade ore is going to run out in fifty years or so at the current rate. If we build more reactors we'll just run out of high-grade ore faster, and mining low-grade ore for nuclear power plants produces more net greenhouse gas than the equivalent gas power plant does per unit energy.

It would also take ten to twenty years to get reactors on-line, and we can get renewable sources ready much faster. So solar, geothermal, wave, wind and so on will be solving problems in the real world before nuclear can get its socks on. That's why there has been only one nuclear plant I know of commissioned this century, in Finland, while wind and solar power systems are growing in number and net production by leaps and bounds. [Edit: I checked that claim, and I was actually wrong. It turns out Finland is the only European country to have commissioned a new nuke plant lately, but non-European nations have of course been at it too. Apologies for passing on a mis-remembered factoid].

It's also a bit cheeky to dismiss the waste problem and the proliferation problem as some of the people quoted in this thread have done. Nuclear waste does decay rapidly at first, but it's still going to be a danger for tens of thousands of years and it's a bit irresponsible to manufacture it when that's much longer than the likely lifespan of existing nations. We also don't particularly need more nations with nuclear weapons, let alone terrorist groups with nuclear weapons. (I consider the terrorist nuke scenario fairly far-fetched, but you can't make a nuke out of solar panels).

Lastly, I think a few people have an irrational reaction to the idea that they should cut down their energy use. It's just common sense that if we want to improve our lifestyle, we can either make more useable energy, or we can use the energy we have more efficiently. Increasing energy efficiency is just as good as building more power stations. We don't all have to go live in sackcloth in candle-lit communes, we just need to figure out more energy-efficient ways of heating our hot water, transporting people from point A to point B and so forth. If we can find ways of using energy more efficiently there's no reason we can't enjoy our current quality of life by using 20% less energy.

luddite

10th October 2007, 07:23 AM

Well, ****, "unforeseen" things could happen with fossil fuel power plants. It could happen with solar panels. It could happen with wind mills. If you want to talk about the "unforeseen", then I can't touch you. I can't say that Hazard X that we don't know about won't spontaneously pop out of nowhere and bite us in the butt. But you'd be much better talking about the various chemical factories that produce and store hazardous waste that could wipe out an entire city block if they're destroyed.

Unforeseen accidents with a coal plant just can't cause the sort of problems an unforeseen nuclear accident can cause. You can blow up a coal plant and you'll probably reduce the toxins released overall while the coal plant is not running. My mom is Ukrainian, and we have many acquaintances near Chernobyl. Their kids are still getting cancers and reproductive dysfunctions today.

People who work at nuclear plants get careless. I have a friend whose husband works at the Bruce reactor, and they live in an area where 80% of the families have a member working in the industry. Power workers have tags which indicate the level of radiation they've been exposed to. There is a black market in these tags so that workers can keep going to work even after they've passed the "safe" zone. Another friend, whose husband worked for years in the industry, spoke about an accident that required cleaning. The public was told it was perfectly safe and the incident was never exposed, but the workers who were sent in got 6 hour shifts followed by 2 years paid leave on condition they never exposed it. I know a nuclear engineer from India, who came to Canada confident that Canadian reactors would operate with much higher safety standards than the Indian ones, which were frightening. To his horror, he found the same flaws in the Canadian system.

I think it's really optimistic to say "it can't happen". I won't deny that Chernobyl was an accident waiting to happen but I'm not confident that there aren't others, and I'm really not sure that a meltdown couldn't happen even with a much safer design. As I mentioned before, during the big blackout, only two of Ontario's reactors shut down properly.

Lonewulf

10th October 2007, 07:29 AM

Unforeseen accidents with a coal plant just can't cause the sort of problems an unforeseen nuclear accident can cause. You can blow up a coal plant and you'll probably reduce the toxins released overall while the coal plant is not running. My mom is Ukrainian, and we have many acquaintances near Chernobyl. Their kids are still getting cancers and reproductive dysfunctions today.
It must be nice when you comment out of ignorance. At least, it must be... ignorance is bliss or somesuch. Must be blissful when you really think that nuclear power plants today are even somewhat equivalent to Chernobyl.

I think it's really optimistic to say "it can't happen".
I am willing to say that the chances of an accident is so low as to be perfectly acceptable.

I won't deny that Chernobyl was an accident waiting to happen but I'm not confident that there aren't others, and I'm really not sure that a meltdown couldn't happen even with a much safer design. As I mentioned before, during the big blackout, only two of Ontario's reactors shut down properly.

A melt down is possible, but unlikely. But even a melt down is not equivalent to what happened at Chernobyl. A "melt down" has to do with a lack of coolant and material melting through the plant and into the earth. It's not the equivalent to a huge explosion.

Sure, something to be worried about, but not something to equate to Chernobyl at all.

luddite

10th October 2007, 08:06 AM

Not according to this chart: goldpactpower.com/chart.jpg

It seems that nuclear is on the range of coal in costs, and "green" solutions are far more costly.

The costs quoted do not include decommissioning costs, which are very high. They do not include the costs of containment, storage and protection for centuries. And nuclear plants are all uninsured, whereas all other types of generation include insurance in the costs listed. Then there are the corresponding health and environmental costs of normal operations, which would probably dramatically increase the costs of coal and somewhat increase the costs of nuclear.

Here's a link to a view that nuclear is pretty expensive.
energyprobe.org/energyprobe/images/NuclearCost/NuclearCost_files/v3_document.htm

In response to the Ontario Power Authority's proposal to rebuild Ontario's nuclear fleet, the Pembina Institute commissioned a study from the same economists that assessed the government plan with the same proposed costs for various power sources, but eliminated the plan for nuclear in favour of diverse renewable sources. They came to the conclusion that even excluding the incidental costs of nuclear, investments in conservation and renewables come up cheaper and more greenhouse gas emissions are prevented.
pembina.org/pub/1509

Lonewulf

10th October 2007, 08:13 AM

t is a pleasant suggestion and as such is great for use in the sound-bite media. It only works if one accepts an underlying straw man that the two are mutually exclusive. In fact, there is no real reason to not expect that we will see increasing use of nuclear and renewable electricity together in the future. Both the World Nuclear Association and the British Wind Energy Association have said as much.

It is also important to recognise the reality that popular renewables such as wind and solar are not sufficiently developed to contribute as large a fraction as nuclear is capable of doing for short to medium term. According to the recent IEA report, Key World Energy Statistics 2006 (2MB pdf), nuclear energy accounts for 6.5% of supply worldwide. Conversely, it lists a category labelled "other" which accounts for a mere 0.4%. This other not only includes solar and wind, but also geothermal as well. To even begin to match the nuclear contribution, would require a 15 fold expansion, even ignoring the fact that geothermal likely accounts for a significant fraction of that 0.4%. Clearly, there is a long way to go before these renewables can substitute significantly for either nuclear or fossil fuels.

If the argument is followed to its logical conclusion, or at least the conclusion implied by many of its proponents, no further nuclear development will be allowed on the basis that this "other" category is the preferred choice.

However, this means that the nuclear sector will be allowed to decay and before renewables can start substituting for fossil fuels, they must first replace nuclear. Even if they did so, several decades-worth of effort will have done nothing to achieve the original objective. Moreover, the importance of nuclear power presently means that it is more likely that renewables will not succeed in filling the void a nuclear phase-out will leave, and the end result will be an increase in the use of fossil fuels, proportionally as well as in real terms.

As far as energy efficiency is concerned, it is a form of energy as much as dieting of agriculture. While it is possible to mitigate the growth in energy consumption through energy efficiency methods, it still leaves the issue of deciding the mix of sources to supply the energy we do consume. If it is argued that energy efficiency can reduce consumption in real terms leading to an elimination of the need for nuclear (and the IEA forecasts go against this), then it could be equally argued that if the nuclear sector was maintained or expanded, the energy savings could be transferred to reduced dependence on fossil fuels, which is, after all, the objective.

Considered realistically, ruling out nuclear because renewables and energy efficiency are preferred, will in reality be counterproductive to substituting for fossil fuels. The concept is driven more by wishful thinking. It is a slogan, not a coherent energy policy.

http://www.freedomforfission.org.uk/deb/alternative.html

http://www.iea.org/Textbase/nppdf/free/2006/Key2006.pdf

luddite

10th October 2007, 08:15 AM

It must be nice when you comment out of ignorance. At least, it must be... ignorance is bliss or somesuch. Must be blissful when you really think that nuclear power plants today are even somewhat equivalent to Chernobyl.

First of all, I explicitly didn't equate all current power plants to Chernobyl. I accepted that Chernobyl was particularly problematic. But saying that Chernobyl was more likely to have an accident than another reactor doesn't change the fact that Chernobyl demonstrates what sorts of things can happen when an accident occurs. My point is that we can't get those kinds of results from an "accident" with a solar installation.

I did, however, leave open the question that unusual as it was, Chernobyl might not be entirely unique. Can you say with complete confidence that every single reactor in the world is safe? And can you say with equal confidence that a nuclear renaissance will retain the same safety throughout?

luddite

10th October 2007, 08:19 AM

It is also important to recognise the reality that popular renewables such as wind and solar are not sufficiently developed to contribute as large a fraction as nuclear is capable of doing for short to medium term.

Because nuclear takes 10-20 years for a buildout, I would argue that it is incapable of delivering any power at all in the short to medium term.

Lonewulf

10th October 2007, 08:21 AM

First of all, I explicitly didn't equate all current power plants to Chernobyl. I accepted that Chernobyl was particularly problematic. But saying that Chernobyl was more likely to have an accident than another reactor doesn't change the fact that Chernobyl demonstrates what sorts of things can happen when an accident occurs.
An accident with a powerplant of that design, yes. We don't make power plants with that design.

An accident with the procedures that were done, yes. We have different procedures now.

My point is that we can't get those kinds of results from an "accident" with a solar installation.
The creation of solar panels involves some pretty toxic chemicals. I'm pretty sure releasing those on a populace would be harmful.

Also, coal is even more toxic. You have an accident with coal, or with certain chemical plants, and you have an issue. Unless you're saying that solar power somehow has the ability to entirely replace all of coal?

I did, however, leave open the question that unusual as it was, Chernobyl might not be entirely unique. Can you say with complete confidence that every single reactor in the world is safe?
I can say that the margins of safety are far higher than that of Chernobyl. Yes.

I can also say with near-certainty that if there is an accident with a nuclear power plant, it's very very very highly unlikely to be quite as explosive as Chernobyl is. Of course, if you can give me a single accident or evidence of one with a nuclear power plant on that scale, I might change my mind.

And can you say with equal confidence that a nuclear renaissance will retain the same safety throughout?
I can say that safety procedures are fairly routine, yes.

Now, let me ask you a question:

Are fossil fuel-powered power plants the same as they were 100 years ago?

Are the methods of digging up fossil fuel the same as it was 100 years ago?

Have we gotten better at processing fossil fuel?

Has processing fossil fuel gotten safer?

If your answer is "no" to any of the above, please go into details.

luddite

10th October 2007, 08:31 AM

The creation of solar panels involves some pretty toxic chemicals. I'm pretty sure releasing those on a populace would be harmful.

Well, if you're going to go into manufacture, then mining uranium is fair game. The toxic tailings routinely left behind are far more hazardous than anything involved in refining sand.

Lonewulf

10th October 2007, 08:35 AM

You mean this (http://www.freedomforfission.org.uk/cyc/waste.html) waste?

For an idea of what this means, consider the American nuclear power output for 2005, which amounted to around 90 GW.yr. The volume of high level waste as spent fuel produced is therefore around 90m³. This means that almost a decades worth of high level waste from the entire American civil reactor fleet could fit into a single Boeing 777 freighter such as one based on the medium capacity aircraft shown in figure 1 (getting the aircraft airborne with that load is another matter however). So Air France's order for 5 Boeing 777Fs is sufficient to store the spent fuel produced by the US reactor fleet over its entire lifetime.

EDIT: Ah, no you didn't.

Oh well. Now you just have to demonstrate that solar energy can catch up with and replace nuclear energy easily or inexpensively. You up to it?

luddite

10th October 2007, 08:41 AM

Also, coal is even more toxic. You have an accident with coal, or with certain chemical plants, and you have an issue. Unless you're saying that solar power somehow has the ability to entirely replace all of coal?

Interesting question. I think wind is a lot more promising for baseload power than solar. I don't think any one thing is going to be the silver bullet. But coal is toxic due to constant exposure. Kids get asthma because of nearby coal plants over decades. Explode a coal plant and you'll get the powder from the coal that was in the plant at the time. It's probably a net benefit to the local asthmatic as it takes a couple of years to rebuild the plant during which time the air is clearer. Explode a nuclear plant and you release toxins that were designed to be contained because they are far too dangerous to be released. It's a different sort of thing.

You can eat coal, even that with a high sulfur content. I wouldn't recommend ingesting depleted uranium.

Coal is more dangerous than nuclear when things are running as they're intended. I didn't think I was saying anything controversial when I suggested that when things don't go as intended, the potential problems from nuclear are higher. I think the question is about the probability that problems can occur.

robinson

10th October 2007, 08:42 AM

Solar energy has already replaced nuclear energy in many areas. While Nuclear power plants are being cried over, solar power just keeps increasing in use.

I think the issue with some people is they still think solar is limited to solar panels creating electricity. The most costly method of using solar power.

Lonewulf

10th October 2007, 08:44 AM

Solar energy has already replaced nuclear energy in many areas. While Nuclear power plants are being cried over, solar power just keeps increasing in use.

Evidence?

Seriously, I want some serious evidence that any country is using only 100% solar panels and have entirely replaced fossil fuels and nuclear energy. If you can, I'd eat my hat and praise solar.

Especially if you could demonstrate that wind, solar, and geothermal could go from 0.4% of the world's energy supply to even some number like 20% to 30%...

...But as long as it can't replace it 100%, there's still a place for nuclear energy, I'm sorry to say. Sorry, but that's how it is.

luddite

10th October 2007, 08:55 AM

Now, let me ask you a question:

Are fossil fuel-powered power plants the same as they were 100 years ago?

Are the methods of digging up fossil fuel the same as it was 100 years ago?

Have we gotten better at processing fossil fuel?

Has processing fossil fuel gotten safer?

If your answer is "no" to any of the above, please go into details.

I'm not sure where this is going, and I'm no expert, but I'll try to answer.

In Ontario, the main difference between today's coal plants and those of the last century is that they've recently had scrubbers installed. That and they're a lot bigger. I would say that on the whole, the technology is remarkably similar. So if I have to answer Yes or No about whether fossil fuel powered plants are the same, I'd have to say Yes.

The methods of digging up fossil fuels have changed somewhat, yes. Certainly fewer coal miners die underground, though exceptions occur. On the other hand we decapitate mountains and expose the surrounding populations to environmental toxins. While the methods of extracting oil, natural gas and coal are all more efficient, these gains are more than offset by the declines in the quality of the resources available. Advanced oil recovery hastens extraction, but is now thought to actually decrease the proportion of resource ultimately extractable. So there are some changes to a basic process. In some ways they can be viewed as progress, in other ways not.

Have we gotten better at processing fossil fuel. Yes. Again the gains in efficiency of processing are more than offset by the reductions in resource quality. It takes more energy to recover the average barrel of oil now than it did 50 years ago.

Has processing fuel gotten safer? Yes.

Lonewulf

10th October 2007, 08:58 AM

luddite

10th October 2007, 09:09 AM

If you can't tell where this is going, I'm not sure what to say. It was rather obvious.

So are you saying that it's not possible for nuclear energy to get safer as time goes along? Are you saying that it's innately different than coal or fossil fuels?
Oh. The reason I was confused was your first question. Have fossil fuel plants gotten safer? Not really. If that's the basis for your confidence in new nuclear plants, then I'd say I'm more worried about nuclear than I was. I would hope that nuclear has made far more gains in safety than fossil fuel plants have.

Lonewulf

10th October 2007, 09:14 AM

Well, evidence would tell you that they already have, if all you're using is Chernobyl as a starting point.

luddite

10th October 2007, 09:22 AM

Evidence?

Seriously, I want some serious evidence that any country is using only 100% solar panels and have entirely replaced fossil fuels and nuclear energy. If you can, I'd eat my hat and praise solar.

Especially if you could demonstrate that wind, solar, and geothermal could go from 0.4% of the world's energy supply to even some number like 20% to 30%...

...But as long as it can't replace it 100%, there's still a place for nuclear energy, I'm sorry to say. Sorry, but that's how it is.
I'm not optimistic that nuclear could fill the void either. Nuclear is responsible for something like 5% of current global energy sources, about the same as all renewables. Expanding this would involve moving to thorium, breeder reactors or fusion. Solar PV is a much more mature and economical technology than any of these, and it is by no means the only renewable around. It isn't even the best.

luddite

10th October 2007, 09:35 AM

Well, evidence would tell you that they already have, if all you're using is Chernobyl as a starting point.
I wish you'd stop insisting that I see Chernobyl as a baseline.

No, I hope that current reactors are designed so that they properly shut down in a blackout unlike the ones in Ontario did. I hope that they have quadruple redundant systems sensitive not just to blackouts but to seismic shifts and break-ins.

10 years ago some activists entered an Ontario reactor by canoe. I have it on good authority that there are now improvements in the form of a chain-link fence across the water. That's not really good enough.

You asked:

Are you saying that it's innately different than coal or fossil fuels?

My answer is I sure as hell hope so.

Ziggurat

10th October 2007, 11:48 AM

Air conditioning and heating can be virtually eliminated with proper insulation.

Uh, no, they can't. Not even close. Especially in places like Arizona. Decrease? Sure. Eliminate? Not a chance in hell. And you won't even get people to cut it very deeply at this point either, because significant advances at this point require either massive capital investments which people can't afford or things like eliminating windows in houses. And I'm sorry, but getting rid of the windows in my house IS a decrease in my standard of living.

I know that large energy demands are attributable to pumping water to and from buildings. Growth here is disproportionately large, since cities tend to grow out from water sources, increasing the distance water needs to travel to get to new developments. Enormous reductions are possible.

How? By building lots of new resevoirs? Not going to happen.

If you read George Monbiot's "Heat", you get a very good description of today's supermarkets, with decorative lighting to enhance the appearance of food. Displays also take up space, increasing space conditioning costs and putting pressure on real estate. Very little of this contributes to measurable lifestyle improvement.

Measurable for whom? If the grocer is turning a bigger profit, then it sure as hell affects his lifestyle. And if he's not turning a bigger profit, he wouldn't be doing it.

Refrigeration accounts for 15% of a household's average energy use. The average refrigerator today is much more energy efficient than its ancestor, but it is also much larger. In 1947, the average refrigerator held less than 10 cubic feet. Today's average is well over double at 23 cubic feet even though the average family is smaller. If we store the same amount of food in a larger refrigerator, the refrigerator has to work harder.

And if we're storing more food? What then? Reducing the frequency of trips to the supermarket reduces energy consumption. Make refrigerators smaller, and you're likely to create unintended consequences.

It's not improving our lives. If we're storing more food, it's either going to waste or it's going to waist.

Well, no. We could simply be storing things that previously we would buy more frequently (milk, for example) or even things we might have simply done without (fresh fruits and juices). People are buying large refrigerators because they want them. Guess what will happen if you mandate that all refrigerators be 10 cubic feet instead of 20? People will just buy two. Frankly, the idea that you can walk around telling people what they need and what they don't need is ridiculous. But then, I guess not everyone believes in the concept of freedom or limited government. News flash: it's not the liberal democracies and capitalist societies which have the worst energy efficiencies, it's authoritarian states and centrally-planned economies.

People now illuminate their pictures, their closets, their counters, their cabinets. I have a friend who bought an energy-efficient refrigerator that, to his frustration, came with 3 incandescent lightbulbs.

The horror. Because those lightbulbs are going to dominate its energy usage, right?

Computers are getting more and more efficient. Enormous reductions are possible.

And they all involve tradeoffs (either lower computing power or more expensive manufacturing techniques) which some people aren't willing to make.

And then there are the hundreds of useless gadgets.

And god knows, the government is really who we want to be telling us what's a useful gadget and what's a useless one, and therefore which ones we're allowed to use and which we cannot. Thanks but no thanks, big brother.

Lonewulf

10th October 2007, 11:49 AM

I'm not optimistic that nuclear could fill the void either. Nuclear is responsible for something like 5% of current global energy sources, about the same as all renewables.
Renewables are responsible for .4%. Nuclear Energy is over 6%. Not quite comparable.

Nuclear also has relatively few plants. If we use breeder reactors, thorium, and various other potential energy sources, it can take up a lot more.

Expanding this would involve moving to thorium, breeder reactors or fusion. Solar PV is a much more mature and economical technology than any of these, and it is by no means the only renewable around. It isn't even the best.
Y'know, I see claims like this thrown around a lot. Can you back that up? "More economical"? How do you define that?

luddite

10th October 2007, 01:06 PM

Uh, no, they can't. Not even close. Especially in places like Arizona. Decrease? Sure. Eliminate? Not a chance in hell. And you won't even get people to cut it very deeply at this point either, because significant advances at this point require either massive capital investments which people can't afford or things like eliminating windows in houses. And I'm sorry, but getting rid of the windows in my house IS a decrease in my standard of living.
I lived in Brazil. No air conditioning is not only possible, it's more comfortable than the modern air conditioned house if done properly. And it's routinely done properly even by poor people in countries where energy is too expensive, too erratic or unavailable.

Eliminating windows is not part of the process. You need expansive windows to cool at night. You just need proper shading and appropriate walls.

luddite

10th October 2007, 01:19 PM

Quote:
I know that large energy demands are attributable to pumping water to and from buildings. Growth here is disproportionately large, since cities tend to grow out from water sources, increasing the distance water needs to travel to get to new developments. Enormous reductions are possible.
How? By building lots of new resevoirs? Not going to happen.

Sorry I didn't explain better. The amount of water we move is many times the amount we need. In large cities a quarter of the water can be lost to leaks. It can end up eroding the ground under roadways or causing other problems.

There is an urban house near where I live that is entirely off grid and gets its water from rain. That water is used for cooking. It's then recycled for showering and clothes washing before being used to flush toilets. Water from the roof is used for watering plants. Human waste along with residual water is anaerobically digested automatically into high-grade fertilizer, so no waste water has to be pumped back. I've been in this home. It's comfortable. The people who own it are a professional working couple. It's not a hardship.

But if you're not prepared to go this far, we can halve the water being pumped by draining roof water to gardens instead of sewers and using chlorinated city water just for cooking and drinking. Greywater can do the rest.

The side benefit of this approach is that urban rivers are revitalized when they don't get storm events delivered overnight.

It's a win-win idea.

Lonewulf

10th October 2007, 01:23 PM

But if you're not prepared to go this far, we can halve the water being pumped by draining roof water to gardens instead of sewers and using chlorinated city water just for cooking and drinking. Greywater can do the rest.
True enough, we use rain water for our plants here in Germany. People are concerned involving recycling, water, and energy. I can go with small measures like this. I won't pretend that it will make a huge difference overall, though.

But you'll have to pry my computer from my cold, dead hands.

luddite

10th October 2007, 01:36 PM

And god knows, the government is really who we want to be telling us what's a useful gadget and what's a useless one, and therefore which ones we're allowed to use and which we cannot. Thanks but no thanks, big brother.

I would want to leave a great deal of personal freedom to the individual. I would not mandate refrigerator size. I would price energy in a way that included all externalities and let the chips fall where they may. I'm only saying that the technological capabilities can enable us all to choose to live comfortably with much less energy.

If the price of nuclear energy included decommissioning costs, insurance and storage for centuries if not millenia, the proper disposal of uranium tailings as well as externalities such as health and environmental impacts, many people would discover that owning a refrigerator twice the size that they needed was a luxury they didn't want so very much.

And one thing you're missing when you talk about "big brother" is that when the government decides to build a nuclear plant it is no less surely determining our future for us. In this forum, most people would be in favour of that decision, but among the public I talk to, people ask all the time what they can do to reduce their energy consumption so that we don't have to build out new generation. By insisting on nuclear, you're condemning them to the risks and effects of a high energy future without their approval.

Lonewulf

10th October 2007, 01:44 PM

health and environmental impacts? Is there evidence that this is a major issue?

The storage is no big deal. I can't emphasize this enough.

Environmental impacts:
http://www.freedomforfission.org.uk/saf/pollution.html

"Storage of all that waste":

http://www.freedomforfission.org.uk/cyc/waste.html

For an idea of what this means, consider the American nuclear power output for 2005, which amounted to around 90 GW.yr. The volume of high level waste as spent fuel produced is therefore around 90m³. This means that almost a decades worth of high level waste from the entire American civil reactor fleet could fit into a single Boeing 777 freighter such as one based on the medium capacity aircraft shown in figure 1 (getting the aircraft airborne with that load is another matter however). So Air France's order for 5 Boeing 777Fs is sufficient to store the spent fuel produced by the US reactor fleet over its entire lifetime.

Really, if people keep making these claims, I'm going to have to ask them to back it up with real, hard data. Or else it's just conjecture at best, and outright dishonest at worst.

luddite

10th October 2007, 01:50 PM

Renewables are responsible for .4%. Nuclear Energy is over 6%. Not quite comparable.
I think you're confusing renewables with non-hydro renewables (You may also be discounting wood, I'm not sure). It's a fair comparison, because there's not much room for growth in hydro, and pretty much none in wood if we still want to call it renewable. But the traditional comparison of the two puts them as roughly equal.
books.google.com/books?id=jRnHMwBQEnoC&pg=PA120&sig=lJTOyph3L1XF4uW1VQB785K5wys#PPA128,M1

Lonewulf

10th October 2007, 01:56 PM

I'm talking about geothermal, solar, and wind. You know, the one where people seem to get off praising right and left. Didn't know you were including hydroelectric power and wood power. Sorry.

Sure, the main argument I hear is, "Oh yes! But the technology will improve and can only get better!" Well, sure... but even at a 100% increase of production, that moves it from .4 to .8% of the world's energy needs. 500% will put it at 2%, which is still asking quite a bit... and isn't enough to surpass nuclear as it exists today.

You'd need a 1625% increase in the effectiveness of the three technologies, which is asking quite a bit. Possible? Maybe. But if you're going to do away with nuclear altogether, then you've effectively changed from 6.5% + .4% to 6.5%, causing a LOSS of energy efficiency.

Quite frankly, I think that we shouldn't do away with nuclear altogether -- nor should we do away with solar, wind, or geothermal. They all have their place.

Nuclear can have a bigger share of the pie, and so can environmental. There's more advantages than disadvantages from everything that I've seen. Quite frankly, we need to remove our dependence on fossil fuels, a non-renewable resource. Sure, the resources for nuclear energy are non-renewable as well, but there's methods of reprocessing and the like that can make it last even longer. Even if the projected 50,000 years is over-the-top, even a 500 year lifespan is worthwhile, and a 5000 lifespan gives us PLENTY of time to come up with better alternatives.

luddite

10th October 2007, 01:57 PM

The storage is no big deal. I can't emphasize this enough.

I don't think anyone thinks the size of the waste is a problem. The problem is that it's hazardous waste that remains hazardous for a long time. We have a special commission in Canada to decide what to do with our nuclear waste. They've been thinking it over for several decades and haven't come up with any smart ideas.

Meanwhile, I understand that nuclear waste in Russia has gone missing. Also in some cases they've lost track of where they put it. That's hard for me to dismiss as "no problem".

Lonewulf

10th October 2007, 02:02 PM

I don't think anyone thinks the size of the waste is a problem. The problem is that it's hazardous waste that remains hazardous for a long time. We have a special commission in Canada to decide what to do with our nuclear waste. They've been thinking it over for several decades and haven't come up with any smart ideas.

Meanwhile, I understand that nuclear waste in Russia has gone missing. Also in some cases they've lost track of where they put it. That's hard for me to dismiss as "no problem".

Solid waste from coal burning, which includes the permanently toxic metals mercury, arsenic and selenium, is produced a thousand times faster. This cannot, by any standard, be characterised as fit for human consumption either. It is however, not subject to the same stringent controls and accounting as nuclear waste is. Because of its large quantity, to impose similarly proportionate controls would be prohibitive. In addition, fossil fuel burning also releases large gaseous emissions into the atmosphere including sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides as well as particulates.

It should also be remembered that radioisotopes decay exponentially. Spent fuel does not remain glowing green for ten thousand years at which point it stops being significantly radioactive. Throughout the millennia, it is continually decaying, becoming less and less radioactive, less and less hazardous, as time goes on. And because the decay is exponential, most of it happens in the early stages so that the majority of time period is spent at a significantly lower level of activity than at initial disposal and in fact a level that is not especially hazardous at all. Compare this to those mercury and arsenic solid wastes from coal burning, which will be just as hazardous in ten thousand years as they are today.

However, it is of course the case that regulatory agencies are never happy with that, particularly when nuclear power comes into the mix, which is why agencies like the EPA demand that any methods of spent fuel disposal be able to contain the material for at least 10,000 years, even though it will have stopped being a significant hazard long before this. It should be remembered that regulatory agencies are always over cautious about things and so their criteria do not define the limits of safety. Safety comes well before their criteria.

http://www.freedomforfission.org.uk/cyc/waste.html

I find it interesting that paying out of our ass for disposal of coal is "okay", but as soon as it's nuclear (even though it's 1/1000th the amount of waste)... OMG!

luddite

10th October 2007, 02:10 PM

I find it interesting that paying out of our ass for disposal of coal is "okay", but as soon as it's nuclear (even though it's 1/1000th the amount of waste)... OMG!

Getting rid of coal is a high priority.

Lonewulf

10th October 2007, 02:11 PM

Getting rid of coal is a high priority.

But getting rid of nuclear is a higher one? :)

luddite

10th October 2007, 02:14 PM

But getting rid of nuclear is a higher one? :)
Nope. In Ontario every sane environmental group targets coal first.

Lonewulf

10th October 2007, 02:19 PM

Well, that's good then.

Look, I'm not saying nuclear is perfect, or the end-all, be-all. However, if we use nuclear to it's full capabilities, it can last us a long time and be a primary or near-primary source of energy for most of our needs. Geothermal, Solar, and Wind energy would have to take a LOT of investment to EVER be able to not only completely replace nuclear, but also manage to surpass it. I think that we need both forms of technology.

luddite

10th October 2007, 02:58 PM

But you'll have to pry my computer from my cold, dead hands.

Goodness, I hope it won't come to that. How could we have these rousing discussions? Obviously, it would be a hardship to me too if gracious living required giving up computers.

RecoveringYuppy

10th October 2007, 03:04 PM

You'd need a 1625% increase in the effectiveness of the three technologies, which is asking quite a bit.
Not that it refutes your argument, but that's not really asking much. 20% growth over 15 years would achieve it. I don't know actual growth rates for those technologies but those kind of growth rates, or even better, are not unheard of.

Lonewulf

10th October 2007, 03:13 PM

Sure, and building more nuclear power plants would increase nuclear's influence as well. Both cost money.

geni

10th October 2007, 03:23 PM

Please source.....thats a strong statement without any justification

uranium in coal means that your average coal power plant will dump more radation into the enviroment that your average nuclear plant.

luddite

10th October 2007, 03:49 PM

Look, I'm not saying nuclear is perfect, or the end-all, be-all. However, if we use nuclear to it's full capabilities, it can last us a long time and be a primary or near-primary source of energy for most of our needs. Geothermal, Solar, and Wind energy would have to take a LOT of investment to EVER be able to not only completely replace nuclear, but also manage to surpass it. I think that we need both forms of technology.

Whereas it would be my hope to avoid nuclear.

I'm very skeptical of the safety of nuclear. We had also better develop much more respectful extraction methods if there is to be any nuclear future at all.

But most of all I'm unconvinced about the economics of nuclear. When Ontario Hydro privatized its operations, it sold off its nuclear plants for less than the estimated decommissioning costs, and the insurance is still the responsibility of the government. If it's so cheap in theory, why is it bankrupting us in practice?

No nuclear plant is ever insured. I'm not aware of any company that promises to decommission reactors. Storage issues have not been resolved anywhere. And every reactor I hear about seems to be behind schedule, over budget and shorter lived than planned.

You quote nuclear proponents extensively. I don't trust them.

When you say it's hard to imagine renewables taking up the slack, I hear and understand you. But it's still difficult for me to get enthusiastic about nuclear or embrace using it to "its full capabilities". Why would we want that?

And at least in Ontario, the experience has been that the nuclear industry has actively interfered with renewable development. And at least here in Ontario, the nuclear industry has historically been absorbing a great deal of public investment. Putting in a similar investment in renewables would be an excellent start. In fact, it would be a big help just to stop putting up roadblocks to renewable penetration.

Governments like big power projects. They're not interested in little power producers here and there. So until this year every single wind turbine or solar installation in Ontario was put up privately. Renewable proponents encountered enormous barriers to acceptance. They weren't allowed to hook up to the grid, or weren't paid if they did. Meanwhile the subsidies to the AECL kept flowing.

And still some people put up wind and solar. Even though it was privately insured, it was still economical in some cases. No nuclear company can do that.

Now the Province has finally developed Standard Offer Contracts for renewable power. But in order to secure a place for nuclear, the lands with the best wind in the Province have been declared off limits, because they are on transmission corridors the Province wants to reserve for future nuclear development. Meanwhile, even by the conservative estimates of the Province, economically recoverable on-land and Great Lake wind capacity amounts to over 700 GW, well over 20 times the provincial peak. Winds off James Bay are even better. If the city of Toronto covered just 10% of its roof space in solar panels, it could produce all the energy it needed. We are awash in energy.

At least in Ontario, the reason renewables comprise such a small portion of the load is a historic preference for big power projects, active interference from the nuclear industry and perverse subsidies for nuclear. I suspect this pattern is repeated all over the world. In jurisdictions that commit to greater renewable penetration, like your own country, renewables comprise much more than the 0.4% world average.

Nuclear proponents also actively interfere with DSM programmes. No big surprise. The rationale for a new power plant requires big demand. So while every government office accepts the fact that conservation dollars go a longer way in meeting new demand than generation, the plan is to throw $100 billion at nuclear and natural gas and leave renewables to private developers to a limit of 5% of the load. And I speak to nuclear engineers who wring their hands wondering whether the grid can support so much "unreliable" renewable power. It would be funny if the stakes weren't so high.

Lonewulf

10th October 2007, 03:51 PM

You quote nuclear proponents extensively. I don't trust them.
And yet, I don't trust you.

You have quoted nothing.

You have verified little of your data.

You have merely brought up claims again and again and again.

I at least have a source, and that source could lead me to other sources as I know how to contact him. He's actually linked towards other trusted sources if you even gave half a look at his webpage. All of his claims are verifiable.

luddite

10th October 2007, 03:59 PM

And yet, I don't trust you.

You have quoted nothing.

What have I stated that's untrustworthy?
I'll source it for you.

Lonewulf

10th October 2007, 04:03 PM

Baroque_On

10th October 2007, 04:28 PM

I think it's fair to state that it is unlikely that there will be a single source of energy (whether it for electricity generation or for the operation of motor vehicles) that is suitable for every single community or application. We can see that communities source their energy needs by exploiting (although I hate to use this particular word because there are so many negative connotations) their natural surroundings: countries such as Australia would naturally attempt to exploit the fact that they are constantly exposed to solar energy. For regions that dont have this luxury (whether you see extended sunlight as a beneficial luxury), other sources of energy must be developed and I think nuclear energy is one of those sources. Obviously there are detrimental effects of the use of nuclear energy on the environment and society, I don't see the reason for immediately casting the idea of nuclear energy aside. I can't begin to imagine the effects of shifting all electrical generation to fossil fuel burning. I think nuclear energy, whether it be fission or fusion (a possibility that I would absolutely love to come to commercial fruition), is a viable source of energy for humanity for the next few centuries. Of course everything I've just said is a thought and welcome any constructive criticism.

Lonewulf

10th October 2007, 04:30 PM

luddite

10th October 2007, 04:44 PM

Let's deal with these one at a time, okay?
1) That nuclear energy is so incredibly more expensive than geothermal, solar, and wind power.

I need a cite on the cost per Kw/h of all of these processes. If you're going to add stuff like mining materials, then I will have to know all the costs of mining materials for the creation of the other mentioned plants.

I provided an article that demonstrated that nuclear power was far below renewable resource power in cost per kw/h. You dismissed it out of hand, but I'm afraid I'll need a bit more information before I accept your rebuttal so readily.
Here's the first quote I found. The source is the Pembina Institute.
pubs.pembina.org/reports/Nuclear_CC_brief_editedMW.pdf

Nuclear is one of the most expensive options available for responding to climate change.
Nuclear represents one of the most costly options available for reducing GHG emissions. Using figures from the Ontario Power Authority and CIBC World Markets, the Ontario Clean Air Alliance calculated that offsetting a tonne of emissions from a coal-fired generating station using nuclear power costs $29.76. This is significantly more than the cost of using wind power ($18.85) or combined cycle natural gas generation ($4.11).9 Improving energy efficiency and productivity to reduce GHG emissions would be cheaper still; experience in other jurisdictions demonstrates that such programs can cost far less than supply options (while increasing economic efficiency and lowering net energy costs). With a per capita electricity use that is 60% higher than in neighbouring New York State, Ontario has no shortage of lower-cost opportunities to reduce its need for electricity and the GHG emissions that go with supplying that power.
Determining the true cost of nuclear power is difficult. To attract private investment into nuclear projects, governments have had to provide complex webs of market, price and return-on-investment guarantees, and assume risks and liabilities related to everything from construction cost overruns and waste disposal and decommissioning to accidents and fuel costs. Even with all of these types of extraordinary guarantees in place, Ontario’s Provincial Auditor noted that the province’s October 2005 deal for the refurbishment of reactors at the Bruce Nuclear Facility still was not rich enough to draw one of the original partners in the private sector Bruce Power consortium — Cameco Ltd., a company whose major business is uranium mining and nuclear fuel production
— into the deal.
Other low GHG emission options don’t need these sorts of extraordinary guarantees of profits and absorption of risks and liabilities by ratepayers and taxpayers to attract private capital investments.

Ziggurat

10th October 2007, 04:49 PM

I lived in Brazil. No air conditioning is not only possible, it's more comfortable than the modern air conditioned house if done properly. And it's routinely done properly even by poor people in countries where energy is too expensive, too erratic or unavailable.

Eliminating windows is not part of the process. You need expansive windows to cool at night. You just need proper shading and appropriate walls.

Oh, I see: just rebuild half the houses in the US. That's a good solution.

Sorry, that's simply not feasible. Furthermore, Brazil's climate isn't the same as the US, and what you were comfortable with doesn't equate to what other people will be comfortable with given the option of air conditioning. And windows make a hell of a lot of difference when it comes to heating, which my house also needs. I don't recall hearing reports of snow in Brazil, but I get those here along with 100 degree humid summers. And I don't have the option of shading my whole house. If you're suggesting I just plant a tree, well, I don't have a hundred years to wait for it to grow big enough.

Ziggurat

10th October 2007, 05:09 PM

Not that it refutes your argument, but that's not really asking much. 20% growth over 15 years would achieve it. I don't know actual growth rates for those technologies but those kind of growth rates, or even better, are not unheard of.

In brand-spanking-new technologies, sure. But wind, solar, and geothermal are not new. Wind power has been around for hundreds of years, and solar and geothermal are decades old. Wind power will see increased deployment, but not by multiple orders of magnitude. Same with geothermal: digging deep into the ground is always going to be expensive, there's no way to make it cheap. The only hope for something like that is a breakthrough in solar power. But don't count on it. It's physically impossible to get efficiency improvements of more than a factor of about 4, and even that's bloody unlikely, and wouldn't even matter if the cost went up (which it probably would in order to get much better efficiency). It will have to be a cost breakthrough. But there aren't any on the horizon which would fundamentally change the equation. And we cannot and should not plan on a breakthrough that may never happen, or may happen a hundred years from now.

Kevin_Lowe

10th October 2007, 05:12 PM

Luddite, that quote doesn't answer Lonewulf's question.

He wanted to know about the cost per kilowatt-hour (presumably after every single relevant cost is factored in). Your quote talks about the cost to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Greenhouse gas emissions should be one of the relevant costs that are factored in, of course, and if you view reducing greenhouse gas emissions as a necessity rather than a luxury then that argument alone would convince you that nuclear is a white elephant.

I suspect, however, that Lonewulf's question is too general to actually have an answer. The cost per kilowatt hour of putting up solar panels in an Australian paddock next door to the solar panel factory is going to be different to the cost per kilowatt hour of putting them on top of an isolated mountain where it rains all the time. The cost per kilowatt hour of wind, tide and geothermal is also going to be highly sensitive to the location chosen.

The question is whether a variety of targeted non-nuclear solutions are between them a better energy production strategy than building a few big nuclear plants, once grenhouse gas emissions, the storage problem, decomissioning costs and so on are factored in.

luddite

10th October 2007, 05:15 PM

Oh, I see: just rebuild half the houses in the US. That's a good solution.

Rebuilding is not necessary. I'm planning to add exterior insulation to my house this coming spring. The capital cost should be repayable within ten years through reductions in energy costs.

Kevin_Lowe

10th October 2007, 05:20 PM

Not that it refutes your argument, but that's not really asking much. 20% growth over 15 years would achieve it. I don't know actual growth rates for those technologies but those kind of growth rates, or even better, are not unheard of.

According to this source:

http://www.renewable-energy-world.com/display_article/272693/121/ONART/none/MARKT/The-'tipping-point'/

Between 1993 and 2003 wind grew at 30% per year on average, solar grew at 20% per year on average.

So the rate of growth you need to eclipse nuclear in fifteen years is the rate of growth we had last century. If we put more effort into renewable energy sources there's no reason we couldn't bump that growth rate up much higher.

luddite

10th October 2007, 05:32 PM

He wanted to know about the cost per kilowatt-hour (presumably after every single relevant cost is factored in). Your quote talks about the cost to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Yes. Sorry.
I'm afraid what I see repeatedly are statements about what's generally not included in the stated costs of nuclear. I've never actually seen these quantified. The big ones are liability and decommissioning. There may also be substantial environmental costs related to mining. I think the environmental/health costs from plant operations are actually modest compared to coal. My understanding is that the health effects are mostly around increased cancer risks, but the deaths from asthma attributable to coal are far higher.

For the record, I never disputed Lonewulf's base costs. I only pointed out what they didn't include. I also pointed out that without excluding decommissioning and liability, private developers were unwilling to build nuclear power plants. This strongly suggests that inclusion of these costs would make nuclear power unprofitable.

luddite

10th October 2007, 05:59 PM

Here's another source that says the same thing - that in a competitive market, nuclear doesn't survive unless decommissioning and liability costs are excluded.

eng.decomatom.org.ru/?q=node/67

And here's Tom Adams of Energy Probe disputing the nuclear industry's claims that all-in costs including decommissioning brought nuclear power to 5.5 cents per kWh. He points out that the all-in costs don't include cost overruns, interest and debt servicing charges related to the fact that the nuclear plants operated for just half their expected life-span. He readjusts the cost to 8-11 cents in 1997 Canadian dollars, but notes that even this cost still doesn't include liability exemption, subsidies through loan guarantees or subsidies for nuclear research.

energyprobe.org/energyprobe/index.cfm?DSP=content&ContentID=285

Here's an article from the Conservation Council of New Brunswick, which estimates the cost of nuclear in New Brunswick at 10.92 cents per kWh as compared to 7.33 cents for small-scale wind. The article doesn't state what the cost includes, but it almost certainly doesn't include federal subsidies for nuclear research.

elements.nb.ca/theme/nuclear_energy/david/coon.htm

Modified

10th October 2007, 06:22 PM

Rebuilding is not necessary. I'm planning to add exterior insulation to my house this coming spring. The capital cost should be repayable within ten years through reductions in energy costs.

That seems quite optimistic. Do you already have energy efficient windows?

Kevin_Lowe

10th October 2007, 06:30 PM

Good work, Luddite. That pretty much agrees with everything I've heard on the subject from sources I trust: nuclear is only competitive if you can hide a lot of the true costs, and it's only a long-term solution if you include fairy-dust technologies like thorium or fusion that don't actually exist and may never exist.

On the other hand renewable energy sources like wind, solar, geothermal and tide power are already being used to generate useful amounts of power without the same kind of voodoo accounting.

What I also think is interesting is that in Australia (and I think the UK), significant numbers of people have been willing to opt in to schemes where they pay more for electricity but the electricity comes mostly from renewable sources. So even if it did end up costing more than nuclear, and I don't think the evidence says it will, there is still a market for it because people want to know that their power comes from sustainable sources.

I like high-tech solutions, but I think in the case of power generation the high-tech solution is going to be big factories mass-producing solar panels, not big power plants running nuclear reactors.

luddite

10th October 2007, 06:48 PM

That seems quite optimistic. Do you already have energy efficient windows?

No. What I have is a very leaky house. I go through Canadian winters in a kitchen where I can feel a breeze from behind the cabinets. So my energy costs are insane. But a lot of houses in my community are going through the same kind of retrofit. If natural gas prices increase as expected, the payoff will be a lot quicker. This kind of thing will become more and more economical with rising fuel costs.

I bought the house because it's in a walkable community with great public transit access to boot. We don't need a car, which reduces emissions from transportation a lot.

luddite

10th October 2007, 07:45 PM

Here's another way of looking at nuclear power. Thorium, breeder or fusion reactors cannot come online in the next 15 years. So for the time being, the best we can hope for with nuclear is a buildout of conventional uranium-based fission reactors over that time. If we pour all our resources into this technology, we will be delaying action on global warming throughout the construction period, when we will be relying on existing generation, probably from fossil sources. Any money put into nuclear now is money not spent on conservation (which can come online in weeks or months) or renewables (which can come online within a year). The fact that nuclear plants require enormous capital investments that are paid off over a 40-year life expectancy means that we can instead invest in 50 years worth of strategies (10+ years construction plus lifetime) with more immediate returns. The planet simply doesn't have that much time to waste.

Now, if we instead invest in things with more immediate returns, by 10 years from now we should have eliminated the need for that much power from nuclear, either through CDM or alternative generation that goes up faster.

CapelDodger

10th October 2007, 07:59 PM

My answer is I sure as hell hope so.

A good answer.

(And Hi from me :).)

Hindmost

10th October 2007, 08:22 PM

Whereas it would be my hope to avoid nuclear.

I'm very skeptical of the safety of nuclear. We had also better develop much more respectful extraction methods if there is to be any nuclear future at all.

But most of all I'm unconvinced about the economics of nuclear. When Ontario Hydro privatized its operations, it sold off its nuclear plants for less than the estimated decommissioning costs, and the insurance is still the responsibility of the government. If it's so cheap in theory, why is it bankrupting us in practice?

No nuclear plant is ever insured. I'm not aware of any company that promises to decommission reactors. Storage issues have not been resolved anywhere. And every reactor I hear about seems to be behind schedule, over budget and shorter lived than planned.

You quote nuclear proponents extensively. I don't trust them.

When you say it's hard to imagine renewables taking up the slack, I hear and understand you. But it's still difficult for me to get enthusiastic about nuclear or embrace using it to "its full capabilities". Why would we want that?

And at least in Ontario, the experience has been that the nuclear industry has actively interfered with renewable development. And at least here in Ontario, the nuclear industry has historically been absorbing a great deal of public investment. Putting in a similar investment in renewables would be an excellent start. In fact, it would be a big help just to stop putting up roadblocks to renewable penetration.

Governments like big power projects. They're not interested in little power producers here and there. So until this year every single wind turbine or solar installation in Ontario was put up privately. Renewable proponents encountered enormous barriers to acceptance. They weren't allowed to hook up to the grid, or weren't paid if they did. Meanwhile the subsidies to the AECL kept flowing.

And still some people put up wind and solar. Even though it was privately insured, it was still economical in some cases. No nuclear company can do that.

Now the Province has finally developed Standard Offer Contracts for renewable power. But in order to secure a place for nuclear, the lands with the best wind in the Province have been declared off limits, because they are on transmission corridors the Province wants to reserve for future nuclear development. Meanwhile, even by the conservative estimates of the Province, economically recoverable on-land and Great Lake wind capacity amounts to over 700 GW, well over 20 times the provincial peak. Winds off James Bay are even better. If the city of Toronto covered just 10% of its roof space in solar panels, it could produce all the energy it needed. We are awash in energy.

At least in Ontario, the reason renewables comprise such a small portion of the load is a historic preference for big power projects, active interference from the nuclear industry and perverse subsidies for nuclear. I suspect this pattern is repeated all over the world. In jurisdictions that commit to greater renewable penetration, like your own country, renewables comprise much more than the 0.4% world average.

Nuclear proponents also actively interfere with DSM programmes. No big surprise. The rationale for a new power plant requires big demand. So while every government office accepts the fact that conservation dollars go a longer way in meeting new demand than generation, the plan is to throw $100 billion at nuclear and natural gas and leave renewables to private developers to a limit of 5% of the load. And I speak to nuclear engineers who wring their hands wondering whether the grid can support so much "unreliable" renewable power. It would be funny if the stakes weren't so high.

Time for me to jump back into this...luddite you have painted a very inaccurate picture of nuclear power by taking extreme examples and portraying them as representative of the entire industry. Half the story essentially.

First, nuclear power has proved its safety for a long time. The worst accident in a commerical US nuclear plant--TMI--No one got hurt or received any substaintial radiation. Compare nuclear with any heavy industry and it looks very good from a safety point of view.

Spent fuel is an issue. However, it is not insurmountable. When you indicate that no one has figured out how to deal with this issue, that is not correct. The French have been reprocessing fuel for a long time and storing it in dedicated facilities. The US has problems with its storage facility, but these are engineering issues and political. Spent fuel is radioactive for about 2-3 hundred years. A very few isotopes are longer lived and most of those can be disposed of with fast reactors.

Upgraded reactor designs now available with inherent fuel safety in the next generation of reactors will further reactor safety.

Nuclear plants in the US are all insured. The only difference is that the liability is limited. The decommisioning costs of a plant are required by law to be included in the cost of the plant. Accounts are set up to stockpile money for the decommisioning activity over the life of the plant--typically 40 years. Some utilities are extending the life to 60 years as well giving extra time to bank money. Plants that shutdown early are generally small in size and are less economical due to the fixed costs of running a plant.

The last generation of nuclear plants could be constructed in 6 years if properly managed. This may not have been typical in Canada and the US, but other countries have done much better. Most of the US problems were due to licensing and TMI retrofits. However, I worked in Korea in the nuke industry and they were able to build and startup the plants in six years. Their record if very good.

Next generation plants will take even less as they have improved the design and safety by system design improvements. Also, coal plants take about 4 years to build, not 1-2.

I have to say...most opponents of nuclear power and coal power do not seem to understand how much energy 6.5 billion people use. The world uses about 400 quads of energy each year. Conservation might be able reduce that 10%, maybe 20%. Wind and solar, with current technology can provide only 10-20 quad or so. The world needs a lot of energy. Fission and hopefully fusion will be able to provide a lot of that energy with no greenhouse emissions. Renewables are not going to provide 300 quads of energy any time soon. Renewables only comprise more that 0.4% when hydro power is included...take out hydro and the 0.4% is accurate.

You have also portrayed the Candu reactor as a problem...it is great design with an excellent safety record and some of the best capacity factors in the industry due to its online refueling capability. It has had normal design issues and refits like any evolving technogy..however...there is nothing systemically wrong with the reactor design.

Demand has caused plants to be built...not the other way around. The Air conditioners came first...utilities then needed to build plants--which they try to avoid due to capital costs. That's why they promote switching to appliances and bulbs that use less energy. Utilities do not like big power projects due to the risk involved.

When I get some time, I will address more issues you have brought up.

glenn

Corsair 115

10th October 2007, 08:54 PM

No. What I have is a very leaky house. I go through Canadian winters in a kitchen where I can feel a breeze from behind the cabinets. So my energy costs are insane. How old is this home? It sounds like it is one built quite some years ago. It wouldn't be fair to compare a home built, say, seventy-five years ago to one built only two years ago.

But a lot of houses in my community are going through the same kind of retrofit. This is an area where governments can play a role by offering tax incentives for such retrofits or other energy efficiency improvements.

Indeed, there was such a federal program (though not funded to any great degree) which was cancelled by the Conservatives, and not without some complaints from the public about it. Interestingly enough, later on the Conservatives decided to float a new program as a replacement.

We don't need a car, which reduces emissions from transportation a lot.It also saves quite a bit of money every year. That's gas, maintenance, parking, insurance, and car payments that don't have to be made.

luddite

10th October 2007, 09:22 PM

How old is this home? It sounds like it is one built quite some years ago. It wouldn't be fair to compare a home built, say, seventy-five years ago to one built only two years ago.

No. The techniques for new homes are different. Easier. My 80-year-old house doesn't have a cavity for insulation, hence the need for exterior insulation. For the average new house, insulation can be upgraded in the existing cavity.

But really, we should stop building crap houses. We've known about global warming for decades. We should just have a smarter building code.

I believe that Germany is moving to the Passivhaus standard. Passivhaus structures have no heating system at all (a small load achievable from rarely used space heating is permissible). I'm actually hoping Lonewulf will back me up on this. I do know that George Monbiot proposes this standard for England by 2012.

http://www.raisethehammer.org/blog.asp?id=365

luddite

10th October 2007, 09:33 PM

Nuclear plants in the US are all insured. The only difference is that the liability is limited.

The liability is limited to an estimated 8 cents on the dollar. And as a result of the same Price Anderson Act, all insurance companies include a "nuclear exclusion clause" exempting property from protection in case of a nuclear accident.

In Canada, our own Nuclear Liability Act limits insurance to just 1 cent on the dollar.

For all intents and purposes, I would call this not insured.

http://www.ccnr.org/insurance.html

RecoveringYuppy

10th October 2007, 09:48 PM

In brand-spanking-new technologies, sure. But wind, solar, and geothermal are not new. Wind power has been around for hundreds of years, and solar and geothermal are decades old. Wind power will see increased deployment, but not by multiple orders of magnitude. Same with geothermal: digging deep into the ground is always going to be expensive, there's no way to make it cheap. The only hope for something like that is a breakthrough in solar power.
Uhh, no. In the first place, I've read ahead in the thread and I see that someone has already cited the fact that those technologies are growing at rates at or above the rate I cited as hypothetical. In the second place, your claim that wind power, etc are "hundreds of years old" is specious. I could claim that oil is thousand of years old based on biblical citations. The wind power of today is not comparable to the wind power of the 19th century.

luddite

10th October 2007, 11:04 PM

The decommisioning costs of a plant are required by law to be included in the cost of the plant.

Glenn is correct about the US. I just looked this up:

http://www.uic.com.au/nip13.htm

Funds for decommisssioning are also set aside in France, Germany, Switzerland and Japan.

http://cnic.jp/english/newsletter/nit117/nit117articles/nit117decom.html

Canada has no particular policy. It seems that Britain is grappling with the sudden need to deal with useless and dangerous reactors. The costs of decommissioning are proving to be a lot more than anticipated:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4140636.stm
http://www.forbes.com/business/feeds/afx/2006/08/16/afx2952909.html
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,,1789671,00.html

I'm not sure what the US experience will prove to be once they have to decommission a lot of old plants. But it's clear that the Canadian experience is not universal.

Lonewulf

10th October 2007, 11:17 PM

No. The techniques for new homes are different. Easier. My 80-year-old house doesn't have a cavity for insulation, hence the need for exterior insulation. For the average new house, insulation can be upgraded in the existing cavity.

But really, we should stop building crap houses. We've known about global warming for decades. We should just have a smarter building code.

I believe that Germany is moving to the Passivhaus standard. Passivhaus structures have no heating system at all (a small load achievable from rarely used space heating is permissible). I'm actually hoping Lonewulf will back me up on this. I do know that George Monbiot proposes this standard for England by 2012.

http://www.raisethehammer.org/blog.asp?id=365
My home has no air conditioning, but Germany isn't built in Corpus Frikkin' Corpus, AKA, Hell. I'm not entirely sure of the political situation here, I'm pretty much a newly arrived auslander. However, I wouldn't be surprised if this is the direction that Germany is moving into. They're very environmental-minded here.

If I was in Corpus Christi, you'd pry my air conditioner from my cold, dead hands.

Here in Germany, I'm just cold. x.X It's been rather chilly lately, but instead of using our heaters, I've been using firewood. Not sure if that's better or worse. :)

Hindmost

11th October 2007, 03:47 AM

The liability is limited to an estimated 8 cents on the dollar. And as a result of the same Price Anderson Act, all insurance companies include a "nuclear exclusion clause" exempting property from protection in case of a nuclear accident.

In Canada, our own Nuclear Liability Act limits insurance to just 1 cent on the dollar.

For all intents and purposes, I would call this not insured.

http://www.ccnr.org/insurance.html

The link quotes a 7 billion dollar accident without citing a source. The price anderson act was not quoted properly. See the link below.

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/funds-fs.html

I would like to see the study referenced first.

glenn

mhaze

11th October 2007, 08:01 AM

My home has no air conditioning, but Germany isn't built in Corpus Frikkin' Corpus, AKA, Hell. I'm not entirely sure of the political situation here, I'm pretty much a newly arrived auslander. However, I wouldn't be surprised if this is the direction that Germany is moving into. They're very environmental-minded here.

If I was in Corpus Christi, you'd pry my air conditioner from my cold, dead hands.

Here in Germany, I'm just cold. x.X It's been rather chilly lately, but instead of using our heaters, I've been using firewood. Not sure if that's better or worse. :)

It's not well known but there are numerous areas of the USA that did not develop, and which appear to have developed at the rates they did, due to the availability of air conditioners. Arizona, Nevada, some parts of Texas come to mind.

How many people would be in Tuscan, Arizona if you said no air conditioners?

luddite

11th October 2007, 08:07 AM

The link quotes a 7 billion dollar accident without citing a source. The price anderson act was not quoted properly.

I would like to see the study referenced first.

Actually, Glenn, the study was referenced in the link I gave. The study was entitled "Theoretical Possibilities and Consequences of Major Accidents in Large Nuclear Power Plants" and was published by the US Atomic Energy Commission in 1957. It is also known as the Brookhaven Report. The amount in today's dollars would be much higher.

I should note that, written as it was by the Atomic Energy Commission, the study stressed the very low risk of such a large accident. Nonetheless, the fact remains that in the event of a serious accident, the amount of liability to nuclear power plants would be a tiny fraction of the total costs incurred.

You can see the whole act here:

http://www.dissident-media.org/infonucleaire/wash740.pdf

luddite

11th October 2007, 08:09 AM

How many people would be in Tuscan, Arizona if you said no air conditioners?

If we want to deal with global warming, perhaps we should stop trying to air condition Arizona? If people had chosen to live in more amenable climates in the first place, they wouldn't find it a hardship.

Ziggurat

11th October 2007, 08:39 AM

Uhh, no. In the first place, I've read ahead in the thread and I see that someone has already cited the fact that those technologies are growing at rates at or above the rate I cited as hypothetical.

I can't find the post you refer to - do you have a post number?

In the second place, your claim that wind power, etc are "hundreds of years old" is specious.

I didn't say wind power, etc. were hundreds of years old. Out of that list, ONLY wind power is hundreds of years old, and that was my only claim. The rest are decades old, as I said.

I could claim that oil is thousand of years old based on biblical citations. The wind power of today is not comparable to the wind power of the 19th century.

Yes, actually, it is. Cars of today are much different than the first internal combustion engine cars, but the basics haven't changed. The mechanism for converting wind energy into mechanical energy really hasn't changed at all in hundreds of years, nor will it. And while the next step (converting from mechanical to electrical energy) is a little newer, it's still well over 100 years old, and the mechanisms involved there are also still the same and will not change. Wind power is only going to see incremental improvements, and those will be due almost entirely to slow advances in manufacturing technologies (ie, cost improvements, NOT efficiency improvements).

cloudshipsrule

11th October 2007, 08:43 AM

Any money put into nuclear now is money not spent on conservation (which can come online in weeks or months) or renewables (which can come online within a year). The fact that nuclear plants require enormous capital investments that are paid off over a 40-year life expectancy means that we can instead invest in 50 years worth of strategies (10+ years construction plus lifetime) with more immediate returns.

From a utilities business standpoint this simply doesn't work, which is why dozens of plants are in the planning stages among numerous utilities. Construction is set to begin withing the next two years. (Land is already being cleared at some sites.)

Ziggurat

11th October 2007, 08:47 AM

If we want to deal with global warming, perhaps we should stop trying to air condition Arizona? If people had chosen to live in more amenable climates in the first place, they wouldn't find it a hardship.

And so the solution is... forced relocation? I hear China can pull that sort of thing off.

luddite

11th October 2007, 08:59 AM

I have to say...most opponents of nuclear power and coal power do not seem to understand how much energy 6.5 billion people use. The world uses about 400 quads of energy each year. Conservation might be able reduce that 10%, maybe 20%. Wind and solar, with current technology can provide only 10-20 quad or so. The world needs a lot of energy.

I think you're really lowballing the potential from conservation. Even pretty mainstream utilities are targetting in the area of 50%. See BC Hydro below:

http://www.energyplan.gov.bc.ca/bcep/default.aspx?hash=4

I know that after the blackout here in Ontario, voluntary measures from concerned citizens (dimming lights, turning down air conditioners, not using gadgets) reduced the load by 25% overnight without replacing any inefficient infrastructure.

You note that you worked in the nuclear industry. It has been my experience that when talking to power workers they cannot conceive of reducing demands by more than 10% or so (and I talk to a lot of power workers). Meantime, I also talk to a lot of individuals that try to push the envelope and live fairly regular modern lives with 4, 5 and 10-fold reductions in energy use. Regular civilians who muddle through tend to trust the power workers while wishing much more was possible. We do them a disservice in ignoring the potential.

The Air conditioners came first...utilities then needed to build plants--which they try to avoid due to capital costs. That's why they promote switching to appliances and bulbs that use less energy.

I can't speak for all the world, but I'm pretty familiar with the systems in Ontario and California. In both cases the only reason utilities promote efficiency is because they are paid to do so. And in Ontario we end up with a perverse system where they promote efficiency to get tax dollars on one side and try to encourage new users to fill their capacity on the other.

luddite

11th October 2007, 09:06 AM

And so the solution is... forced relocation? I hear China can pull that sort of thing off.

One part of the solution would be to tax carbon enough to bring emissions down and to include the externalities of all energy sources in the costs. If we do it gradually, people will move as they find other places more affordable. Or they'll fix their houses. Or they'll get creative about low-energy ways of cooling. Or they'll learn to adjust. I believe in leaving it up to them.

But providing cheap, subsidized and unmaintainable power to keep people moving to Arizona would seem to me to be the worst possible policy.

fishbob

11th October 2007, 09:06 AM

And so the solution is... forced relocation? I hear China can pull that sort of thing off.

Geez.

The solution is to stop building typical suburban frame houses in the desert. The solution would include building suitable houses for the climate. Adobe, masonry, high ceilings and similar climate specific features are ancient but effective.

Ziggurat

11th October 2007, 09:15 AM

Geez.

The solution is to stop building typical suburban frame houses in the desert. The solution would include building suitable houses for the climate. Adobe, masonry, high ceilings and similar climate specific features are ancient but effective.

All that will help, and I'm actually in favor of it. But it only helps. That cannot fix the problem, nor will doing so mean that building new nuclear plants will become unnecessary or pointless. You can do that in addition to building nuclear plants, but you can't do it instead of building nuclear plants.

Ziggurat

11th October 2007, 09:20 AM

One part of the solution would be to tax carbon enough to bring emissions down and to include the externalities of all energy sources in the costs. If we do it gradually, people will move as they find other places more affordable. Or they'll fix their houses. Or they'll get creative about low-energy ways of cooling. Or they'll learn to adjust. I believe in leaving it up to them.

And screw them if the increased tax burden has serious negative consequences for their lives.

Not going to happen. I know you've got all these fantasies about what you could accomplish if you held the reins of power, but you don't. America is a democracy (or if you want to get technical, a constitutional republic), with all that entails, both good and bad. I wouldn't want it any other way, and even if I did, I'm not going to get it.

luddite

11th October 2007, 09:56 AM

And screw them if the increased tax burden has serious negative consequences for their lives.

Not going to happen. I know you've got all these fantasies about what you could accomplish if you held the reins of power, but you don't. America is a democracy (or if you want to get technical, a constitutional republic), with all that entails, both good and bad. I wouldn't want it any other way, and even if I did, I'm not going to get it.

I wouldn't want it any other way either. But the fact remains that the enormous energy demands of America (and Canada is no better) are playing real havoc with the climate. One of the things I appreciate about this forum is that this threat is taken seriously. I do not believe that you could build nuclear plants in time to solve this problem. It would take more than a decade to build out, and current technology simply couldn't replace all of America's energy needs.

There are problems with suburban frame houses that go beyond the air conditioning load. I take it you're proposing that nuclear support an electric car fleet, too? And power up ships to bring cheap goods from China to be sold in suburban strip malls accessible only by car? How deep is your commitment to the way of doing things now? Are you willing to risk frying the world for the right to air condition? Because I don't think nuclear can come close to bridging the gap in time. We need urgent action within this coming decade.

So I don't need to run the world to recognize that the current system is unsustainable.

And in democratic America, we have a number of prominent politicians who recognize the problem and propose carbon taxes, regulations and other measure to combat it. Eventually, with enough tropical storms or enough lost ice sheets, I'm confident that the American spirit will embrace the challenge and address climate change appropriately. During the second world war, the American economy turned on a dime. The automotive sector simply stopped producing civilian vehicles, oil was rationed, people planted victory gardens and knitted socks for the troops.

But the change will be a lot easier the earlier we begin. A huge part of the reason why North Americans find it so hard to envision the necessary changes is that they've spent the last two decades, when climate change was a known threat with obvious solutions, dedicating enormous amounts of energy in building up an energy-intensive infrastructure in seeming defiance of reality.

So yes, it will be hard. It will only be harder if we wait. And if we have the courage to elect officials who will make some hard choices, we will all be better off.

Ziggurat

11th October 2007, 10:34 AM

I wouldn't want it any other way either. But the fact remains that the enormous energy demands of America (and Canada is no better) are playing real havoc with the climate. One of the things I appreciate about this forum is that this threat is taken seriously. I do not believe that you could build nuclear plants in time to solve this problem. It would take more than a decade to build out, and current technology simply couldn't replace all of America's energy needs.

There are no available "solutions" which don't involve decades to implement. Nuclear isn't any different in that regard.

I take it you're proposing that nuclear support an electric car fleet, too?

Not with current electric car capabilities, no. But if the energy density problem ever gets solved (and hydrogen looks like the best chance we have right now), then yes.

How deep is your commitment to the way of doing things now?

Depends what you mean by "way of doing things". If by that you mean letting people make choices for themselves, very deep. If you think I have any particular attachment to particular choices that have been made, no, I don't. I just realize that things cannot change very fast unless 1) a technological breakthrough happens (don't plan on it) or 2) government forces dramatic and rapid change. And no, changing building codes doesn't constitute dramatic and rapid change, nor will it have significant impact for decades.

Are you willing to risk frying the world for the right to air condition?

"frying the world"? That's not exactly what's at risk. And it's not simply the right to air condition that's at issue: it's whether or not government has the power to dictate to people what they do with their resources and property. When governments have that power, bad things happen. And a whole lot more people have been killed by bad governance than are at risk from climate change.

But the change will be a lot easier the earlier we begin. A huge part of the reason why North Americans find it so hard to envision the necessary changes is that they've spent the last two decades, when climate change was a known threat with obvious solutions, dedicating enormous amounts of energy in building up an energy-intensive infrastructure in seeming defiance of reality.

Really? Then why is it that China has outpaced us as a CO2 emitter even though their economy is a fraction of ours? The fact of the matter is that the US economy is not energy-inefficient. It's just really really big. You want to snatch some low-hanging energy efficiency improvements? Look elsewhere.

sts60

11th October 2007, 10:46 AM

Interestingly enough, the vast majority of "nuclear waste" released into the environment comes from burning coal (http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html) - for example, something close to fifty short tons of U-235 alone is pumped into the air by coal-fired plants worldwide, along with about 12,000 tons of thorium. Not that anybody really thinks coal is a "green" power source to begin with, but it's striking how much radioactive material is released by its use. The report also points out "The energy content of nuclear fuel released in coal combustion is greater than that of the coal consumed."

luddite

11th October 2007, 10:54 AM

There are no available "solutions" which don't involve decades to implement. Nuclear isn't any different in that regard.

The difference between nuclear and other solutions is that with nuclear you actually have to have energy inputs for a decade or more before any climate benefit is realized. And when the reactor turns on, producing, say 1000 MW, you need to have a market for that full 1000 MW. So up to the moment of installation, you're providing almost 1000 MW through a power source that you can turn off. Coal comes to mind. So building out nuclear involves a commitment to decades of coal. In most cases, coal plants have to remain after nuclear comes on line to support peak fluctuations and reactor down times, though one coal plant can support more than one nuclear plant.

So yes, conservation and renewables would probably take more than a decade to fully install, but in the meantime they would be making huge dents in today's emissions. That's an enormous difference.

luddite

11th October 2007, 11:01 AM

From a utilities business standpoint this simply doesn't work, which is why dozens of plants are in the planning stages among numerous utilities. Construction is set to begin withing the next two years. (Land is already being cleared at some sites.)

Yes. Utilities are in the business of selling energy, not solving climate change. Which contributes to policies that involve high energy rather than low-cost solutions. So if we want smarter policy, we'll need some structural changes. A variety of regulatory and pricing mechanisms come to mind, but I'm not advocating for any one in particular.

Ziggurat

11th October 2007, 11:11 AM

The difference between nuclear and other solutions is that with nuclear you actually have to have energy inputs for a decade or more before any climate benefit is realized. And when the reactor turns on, producing, say 1000 MW, you need to have a market for that full 1000 MW.

The market is already there. Turn that on, and all those fossil fuel plants which already exist can decrease output. And they will. Why? Because operating and fuel costs are a small fraction of the cost of a nuclear plant, but they dominate for fossil fuel plants.

So yes, conservation and renewables would probably take more than a decade to fully install, but in the meantime they would be making huge dents in today's emissions. That's an enormous difference.

Conservation efforts are not mutually exclusive with nuclear plants, and that's already happening anyways. As already pointed out, power companies PREFER conservation efforts to new power plants, and are already pushing them. But it's not enough. As for renewables, I've seen no evidence that they can provide the necessary capacity. They are also being ramped up, but they won't cut it alone. Not by a long shot, not for many decades to come (if ever).

Ziggurat

11th October 2007, 11:15 AM

Yes. Utilities are in the business of selling energy, not solving climate change. Which contributes to policies that involve high energy rather than low-cost solutions.

Wrong. Utility companies have a built-in interest in limiting power consumption. They have guaranteed profits if things remain static. Increases in power consumption require infrastructure investment, and that entails risk. Risk threatens that guaranteed profit. Utility companies don't like it, and they try to avoid it. That's why my utility company set up a program to coordinate air conditioners so that they can be temporarily shut off if there's a peak in demand. By flattening out the demand curve, they hope to avoid having to upgrade capacity. They don't WANT to sell more power than they are right now.

Hindmost

11th October 2007, 11:24 AM

Actually, Glenn, the study was referenced in the link I gave. The study was entitled "Theoretical Possibilities and Consequences of Major Accidents in Large Nuclear Power Plants" and was published by the US Atomic Energy Commission in 1957. It is also known as the Brookhaven Report. The amount in today's dollars would be much higher.

I should note that, written as it was by the Atomic Energy Commission, the study stressed the very low risk of such a large accident. Nonetheless, the fact remains that in the event of a serious accident, the amount of liability to nuclear power plants would be a tiny fraction of the total costs incurred.

You can see the whole act here:

http://www.dissident-media.org/infonucleaire/wash740.pdf

Sorry I missed that. Actually I am familiar with the report and it is not a good report to predict what would happen in an accident. Its assumptions were not really related to a real situation--but that was intended as a worst case scenario.ie., worst weather, accident, release etc. It assumed no containment and a most of the core gets ejected directly to the atmosphere without any expanation as to how that could occur. Current computer models and reactors do not compare with 1957 very well. This has been updated and I will find the info...don't have time right now.

glenn

RecoveringYuppy

11th October 2007, 11:25 AM

I can't find the post you refer to - do you have a post number?
Here:
According to this source:

http://www.renewable-energy-world.com/display_article/272693/121/ONART/none/MARKT/The-'tipping-point'/

Between 1993 and 2003 wind grew at 30% per year on average, solar grew at 20% per year on average.

So the rate of growth you need to eclipse nuclear in fifteen years is the rate of growth we had last century. If we put more effort into renewable energy sources there's no reason we couldn't bump that growth rate up much higher.

I didn't say wind power, etc. were hundreds of years old. Out of that list, ONLY wind power is hundreds of years old, and that was my only claim. The rest are decades old, as I said.

OK.

Yes, actually, it is. Cars of today are much different than the first internal combustion engine cars, but the basics haven't changed. The mechanism for converting wind energy into mechanical energy really hasn't changed at all in hundreds of years, nor will it. And while the next step (converting from mechanical to electrical energy) is a little newer, it's still well over 100 years old, and the mechanisms involved there are also still the same and will not change. Wind power is only going to see incremental improvements, and those will be due almost entirely to slow advances in manufacturing technologies (ie, cost improvements, NOT efficiency improvements).
Even if all that is true, it's also true that the market for and competition to wind power are now completely different. The drivers for and potential limits to wind power include the price of fossil fuels, available land area with wind and a very large market for electricity that wind power has barely tapped.

It really shouldn't be controversial that a small player in a large market can grow quickly. The real argument is what the limits are and how fast they might come in to play for each technology.

luddite

11th October 2007, 11:38 AM

Really? Then why is it that China has outpaced us as a CO2 emitter even though their economy is a fraction of ours? The fact of the matter is that the US economy is not energy-inefficient. It's just really really big. You want to snatch some low-hanging energy efficiency improvements? Look elsewhere.

The Chinese economy is a rather big fraction of the US economy. According to the CIA World Factbook, China's GDP is $10.21 trillion. As compared to the US with $13.16 trillion, that's 77.6%. To generate that GDP, China consumes 2.494 trillion kWh of electricity, or 67% of the American's 3.717 trillion kWh. It also consumes just 31.5% of the oil (6.534 million bbl/day vs 20.73 million bbl/day for the US) and just 7.5% of the natural gas (47.91 billion cu m vs 635.1 billion cu m for the US).

More importantly, the Chinese population is 4.4 times as large as the US population (with 1,321,851,888 vs the US at 301,139,947), so the average Chinese consumes 15% of the electricity of the average American, 7.2% of the oil and 1.7% of the natural gas. This is not the low-hanging fruit.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ch.html
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html

Nor is it true that Chinese emissions have outpaced those of the US. The US produces about 25% of the world's emissions while China stands at about 15%. What is true is that China's emissions are rising more quickly. Note that the bulk of this growth is accounted for by Chinese exports to the US to fulfill US consumer demand:

http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2005/china.shtml

Or see this article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7028573.stm
which states:

"Every time we hear a government minister talking about climate change, they seem to be drawn towards scapegoating China and its rising emissions," said Nef's policy director Andrew Simms.

"But a big factor in that rise is that China has become the major factory for the western world, so their greenhouse gas emissions are largely driven by higher levels of consumption in the west."

Two years ago, US researchers calculated that 14% of China's carbon dioxide emissions were accounted for by exports to the US.

Nef believes that international negotiations on climate change should move towards a system where emissions are attributed to the end user rather than the country producing the goods.

I would be in favour of a system that attributed the emissions to the end user. It would drive Chinese emissions down. It would also make air conditioners in America much more expensive.

luddite

11th October 2007, 01:02 PM

Originally Posted by luddite
The difference between nuclear and other solutions is that with nuclear you actually have to have energy inputs for a decade or more before any climate benefit is realized. And when the reactor turns on, producing, say 1000 MW, you need to have a market for that full 1000 MW.

The market is already there. Turn that on, and all those fossil fuel plants which already exist can decrease output. And they will. Why? Because operating and fuel costs are a small fraction of the cost of a nuclear plant, but they dominate for fossil fuel plants.

The question is whether we can drive down demand in the meantime below the levels where we'd need another reactor. Actually, we could take some extra time for two reasons. First because the business plans for nuclear require decades of operation to turn a profit, and second because the embodied energy in nuclear construction can be avoided if we eliminate the need for reactors. With some conventional utilities proposing 50% cuts in that timeframe and plenty of individuals achieving more, I'd say that's possible, though it would admittedly be challenging. At the very least, targets for nuclear should be limited as much as possible.

The US produces 362,837 thousand MWh in total, of which 68,391 is from nuclear and 169,306 is from coal. Getting rid of the coal is the priority. Getting rid of both would mean replacing 65.5% of installed capacity with conservation, renewables and cogeneration.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/tablees1a.html

Demand reductions of 50% are being advocated in some jurisdictions. I've already pointed out British Columbia. I think the process is more challenging than the goal. North Americans consume twice as much energy as Europeans, who have by no means stopped trying to introduce efficiency measures. In fact the European Union plans to reduce energy demands by a further 20% by 2020. I don't think they'd mind if we stole all their ideas.

http://earthtrends.wri.org/text/energy-resources/variable-351.html
http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:ah5rSuoEjggJ:europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do%3Freference%3DIP/05/774%26format%3DPDF%26aged%3D0%26language%3DEN%26gu iLanguage%3Den

So can 15% of today's consumption be made up for by renewables? Well, the US Department of Energy predicts that wind will make up 20% of the energy mix, and that's 20% of some high-energy future scenario.

http://www.energy.gov/5091.htm

But that certainly isn't the limit even of wind capability. Generally, wind capacity has been limited because it's deemed to be erratic. But as more and more countries which take emissions seriously are funding associated storage, we get countries like Denmark targeting 50% wind penetration by 2025.

http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=46749

I know in Ontario the currently economically recoverable wind capacity totals 675 GW just onshore and Great Lakes, with more potential in James Bay, according to conservative government estimates. Wind proponents think this is low. Still, considering that Ontario's all-time peak load was 27 GW, that's pretty good.

http://www.energy.gov.on.ca/opareport/Part%204%20-%20Consulting%20Reports/Part%204.6%20Helimax%20Report%20on%20Wind%20to%20O PA%20-%202005.11.24.pdf
http://www.theimo.com/imoweb/media/md_peaks.asp

Then there's solar, biomass and cogeneration. Can we get it all up? In some ways it's easier than building reactors. Certainly a joint Pembina/WWF report that carefully weighed the options concluded that for Ontario, the renewable option would be cheaper and would drive down emissions faster.

http://pubs.pembina.org//reports/RID_report2_final.pdf

I can't speak for every jurisdiction. But I think saying "people need their air conditioners" is a copout. At the very least, they should be asked whether they would prefer investments in more nuclear to keep their air conditioners or investments in insulation so their air conditioners would be unnecessary and we could reduce our nuclear reliance. At least among people I know, the answer is obvious, and it's not nuclear.

luddite

11th October 2007, 01:17 PM

Wrong. Utility companies have a built-in interest in limiting power consumption. They have guaranteed profits if things remain static. Increases in power consumption require infrastructure investment, and that entails risk. Risk threatens that guaranteed profit. Utility companies don't like it, and they try to avoid it. That's why my utility company set up a program to coordinate air conditioners so that they can be temporarily shut off if there's a peak in demand. By flattening out the demand curve, they hope to avoid having to upgrade capacity. They don't WANT to sell more power than they are right now.

I agree that utilities are risk averse. They don't want to build out infrastructure unless they can foresee a guaranteed market for it. That doesn't mean they don't want to see general trends to increased capacity. And they definitely don't want to see demand reductions.

sts60

11th October 2007, 01:36 PM

I can't speak for every jurisdiction. But I think saying "people need their air conditioners" is a copout. At the very least, they should be asked whether they would prefer investments in more nuclear to keep their air conditioners or investments in insulation so their air conditioners would be unnecessary and we could reduce our nuclear reliance. At least among people I know, the answer is obvious, and it's not nuclear.
Where do you live, anyway, if you don't mind my asking? (Fair trade - I live in Maryland, USA.) Have you ever spent a summer in a place like Houston? No, I'm not dismissing the need for conservation and alternative energy sources, but I am wondering if your personal "climate history" may shape your perceptions about things like air conditioning.

Ziggurat

11th October 2007, 02:52 PM

The Chinese economy is a rather big fraction of the US economy. According to the CIA World Factbook, China's GDP is $10.21 trillion. As compared to the US with $13.16 trillion, that's 77.6%.

Notice that there are two GDP's listed. One is listed at 10 trillion. The other is at a far lower value of 2.5 trillion. Why the discrepency? It's an artifact of currency manipulation on the part of the Chinese government. Compare that to other countries (for example, Japan) and you'll see that the two GDP's are pretty close to each other. 10 trillion is NOT a good representation of China's economy compared to the US.

To generate that GDP, China consumes 2.494 trillion kWh of electricity, or 67% of the American's 3.717 trillion kWh. It also consumes just 31.5% of the oil (6.534 million bbl/day vs 20.73 million bbl/day for the US) and just 7.5% of the natural gas (47.91 billion cu m vs 635.1 billion cu m for the US).

Noticeably lacking from your comparison is coal consumption. Hmm...

Nor is it true that Chinese emissions have outpaced those of the US.

Perhaps that depends upon your source, but here's one which places China on top:
http://www.mnp.nl/en/dossiers/Climatechange/moreinfo/Chinanowno1inCO2emissionsUSAinsecondposition.html

Hindmost

11th October 2007, 03:21 PM

Actually, Glenn, the study was referenced in the link I gave. The study was entitled "Theoretical Possibilities and Consequences of Major Accidents in Large Nuclear Power Plants" and was published by the US Atomic Energy Commission in 1957. It is also known as the Brookhaven Report. The amount in today's dollars would be much higher.

I should note that, written as it was by the Atomic Energy Commission, the study stressed the very low risk of such a large accident. Nonetheless, the fact remains that in the event of a serious accident, the amount of liability to nuclear power plants would be a tiny fraction of the total costs incurred.

You can see the whole act here:

http://www.dissident-media.org/infonucleaire/wash740.pdf

The Brookhaven report has been revised several times and the revisons actually indicate much worse numbers. However the assumptions are for incredible failures. In addition, the original Brookhaven report concluded that the damage outside the plant would be zero if a containment building was used and did not fail.

Using WIKI for brevity as it is resonable in this case.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUREG-1150#NRC_disclaimer_of_CRAC-II_and_NUREG-1150

NUREG-1150 is the up-to-date document and should be used for referencing risk.

This commentary below outlines the risk at about a billion to one for an individual reactor.

http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/news/rpccna/pcrcna12.htm

Although I haven't read this whole link, from a cursory view, it provides good info about nuclear power with specific references to CANDU plants.

http://www.magma.ca/~jalrober/Decide.htm

glenn

luddite

11th October 2007, 03:39 PM

Where do you live, anyway, if you don't mind my asking? (Fair trade - I live in Maryland, USA.) Have you ever spent a summer in a place like Houston? No, I'm not dismissing the need for conservation and alternative energy sources, but I am wondering if your personal "climate history" may shape your perceptions about things like air conditioning.

I live in Toronto, Canada. We get winter days well below freezing and summer days in the 80s. I was born in Brazil. I have family in places like Brasilia and Uberlandia where the temperature gets even higher. I just looked up Uberlandia, where it's 95 degrees at the moment, and summer there is yet to come. They don't have air conditioning. They build sensibly. Their houses with stone or tile floors, deep porches, high ceilings and other features, are more comfortable than air conditioned houses here. And they don't have to make them airtight. Windows let in breezes all day. And their houses aren't even insulated, though they are built with hollow bricks.

My first house was an end-of-row townhouse with a huge south-facing wall. Even with modern insulation it was a hell hole in the summer. Completely unliveable without air conditioning. I think to do without air conditioning, you'd need about a foot of insulation on that wall. We did put insulation in the roof when we re-roofed. It helps but doesn't solve the problem. If we had stayed in that house, re-insulating would have been a priority.

The house I live in now has no insulation. It's an 80-year old house of triple brick construction. It should be an oven. But it's not. It doesn't require air conditioning. The street has majestic old trees, the houses are so close that the deep eaves almost touch. They all have gracious porches. At nightfall in summer, we open our windows. Even in the summer, by the morning, I actually wake up chilled. Then we shut the windows. It can be 35 degrees outside, but it never gets uncomfortably warm inside.

Heating is another issue, and the reason why I'm planning on investing in a lot of insulation.

A few months ago, I went out to see a local housing development which featured energy-efficient homes. The first thing that struck me was that the designs were identical to homes that didn't have the Energy Star rating. The eaves are no more than 2 inches out. Each house stands on its own field. There's no consideration for where windows are placed. Even for a market that demands efficiency, the builders are just slapping on an extra layer of insulation. They're cookie-cutter models. We built more intelligently 100 years ago, even though we didn't have the tools we have today. And still, by making almost no effort, they're achieving 20% reductions in energy use.

All of this built environment will need to be addressed. I'm well aware of the challenges. Some re-insulation can be done economically now, some will become economical if fuel prices rise, and some will require subsidies. It's definitely cheaper than investing in new generation.

I think there's a place for air conditioning. It's vital for hospitals and seniors residences. It would work well there with ground source heat pumps. But I think, given the huge demands it places on the system, that it should be avoided where possible.

Can it be eliminated in Houston? Based on my experience in Brazil, I suspect it can.

But even assuming you find some very special case where air conditioning is absolutely necessary, you can definitely still reduce the load to a tiny fraction with appropriate insulation and smart features and design.

Hindmost

11th October 2007, 04:44 PM

I think you're really lowballing the potential from conservation. Even pretty mainstream utilities are targetting in the area of 50%. See BC Hydro below:

http://www.energyplan.gov.bc.ca/bcep/default.aspx?hash=4

I know that after the blackout here in Ontario, voluntary measures from concerned citizens (dimming lights, turning down air conditioners, not using gadgets) reduced the load by 25% overnight without replacing any inefficient infrastructure.

You note that you worked in the nuclear industry. It has been my experience that when talking to power workers they cannot conceive of reducing demands by more than 10% or so (and I talk to a lot of power workers). Meantime, I also talk to a lot of individuals that try to push the envelope and live fairly regular modern lives with 4, 5 and 10-fold reductions in energy use. Regular civilians who muddle through tend to trust the power workers while wishing much more was possible. We do them a disservice in ignoring the potential.

There is a reason that industry people believe it is difficult to conserve. It's because they know where the power goes. In my experience, most people don't realize how much power is needed to run their lives even if they live a fairly modest lifestyle. In big economies like the US and Canada and Japan and Europe, the vast majority of energy is for industrial use--in the US 40% with 35% residential and commercial and 25% transportation. Conservation can reduce the residential and commercial heat and electricity usage to a large degree.

The industrial sector is fairly efficient in the world now and they are not going to see much in energy reduction. You can't run a steel plant on solar power. The energy requirements for food production are enormous just to produce fertilizer. Getting products all over the world requires trucks and ships--with the increasing world population, this is going to increase in the future and there is not much efficiency gain in these areas. There is a show on TV in the US called "How its made." The show gives a synopsis of how everything from twinkies to hockey gloves are made. In every show, energy is paramount. It is that industrial sector that is most important to energy consumption.

I can't speak for all the world, but I'm pretty familiar with the systems in Ontario and California. In both cases the only reason utilities promote efficiency is because they are paid to do so. And in Ontario we end up with a perverse system where they promote efficiency to get tax dollars on one side and try to encourage new users to fill their capacity on the other.

US utilities promote conservation and also are starting to give energy type credits for less use of electricity to reduce peak loads--US utilities do not want to build new plants because they really got burned back in the 70s and 80s.

http://www.cl-p.com/clmres/indexclmres.asp see "summer saver awards."

I am not surprised that the blackout produced a 25% reduction after people voluntarily reduced demand...however, was it sustainable. Did the energy uses stay 25% less. It is easy to shutdown stuff temporarily--stop doing laundry, turn up A/C etc.

I am all for conservation and using many sources of energy. However, some are just dreams such as ethanol in the US and biodiesel...they are not going to make a significant contribution as the energy balance is just not favorable--it takes too much energy to get a product. Nuclear power needs to be part of the mix as it is a proven technology that is improving in safety and has long term benefits and is much less suseptible to world events. If fusion becomes a reality, then all the fission plants can be discarded.

glenn

Ziggurat

11th October 2007, 05:38 PM

Demand reductions of 50% are being advocated in some jurisdictions.

They can demand all they want. It's not going to happen in the US. As pointed out by hindmost, residential power use isn't even the dominant consumer. Efficiency gains of 50% aren't possible across the board, and that's assuming no economic or population growth. No thanks.

In fact the European Union plans to reduce energy demands by a further 20% by 2020.

They can plan all they want to. Good luck hitting that target. They already failed to meet Kyoto goals.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/europe-falling-behind-in-kyoto-carbon-targets/2007/06/15/1181414548676.html

So can 15% of today's consumption be made up for by renewables? Well, the US Department of Energy predicts that wind will make up 20% of the energy mix, and that's 20% of some high-energy future scenario.

http://www.energy.gov/5091.htm

I can't find any such statement in your link.

luddite

11th October 2007, 08:55 PM

Conservation can reduce the residential and commercial heat and electricity usage to a large degree.

The industrial sector is fairly efficient in the world now and they are not going to see much in energy reduction. You can't run a steel plant on solar power. The energy requirements for food production are enormous just to produce fertilizer. Getting products all over the world requires trucks and ships--with the increasing world population, this is going to increase in the future and there is not much efficiency gain in these areas. There is a show on TV in the US called "How its made." The show gives a synopsis of how everything from twinkies to hockey gloves are made. In every show, energy is paramount. It is that industrial sector that is most important to energy consumption.

I think we're getting to the crux of the situation here. And this is where my luddite views will come out and where many of you will simply disagree.

As you say, Glenn, commercial and residential processes are where the big savings are. We can also stop moving things (and ourselves) around so much. Industrial needs are very diverse so it's a lot more difficult to make generalizations. It's also more challenging to achieve reductions. I'm going to try to take a crack at a few suggestions in a moment, but I'll pause to recognize for a moment that this is where my priorities may diverge from most of the people here.

I would love to include a link to David Hughes's excellent diagram showing world energy use over the last century. Imagine a 43-fold increase from a little wee baseline that goes way back in history. First coal grows monstrous and levels off. Then petroleum gets introduced, gets monstrous and levels off. Then we bring in natural gas. And finally uranium. Uranium is just the tip of the steadily rising mountain. At the end of the 1800s most of our fuel was renewable, with a tiny layer of coal on top. That same absolute amount of energy we still obtain from renewables today. The only thing that's changed is that most of it is now hydroelectric where it used to be wood. Looking at that diagram it's difficult not to get struck by how unsustainable this is. It's a lot like looking at Al Gore's hockey-stick diagrams.

In the absence of David Hughes's diagram, I'm going to point you to a diagram developed by the Energy Information Administration of the United States showing world energy projections. It begins in 1980 with 283 quadrillion BTUs and projects to 702 quadrillion BTUs in 2030. That's an increase of 250% over 50 years. This is what keeping the status quo involves. This is what it would take if we insist industries continue to pursue constant steady growth.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/world.html

One thing we need to begin with is the fact that industry today is much more energy-intensive than it ever was. Hence the suggestion that we just replace the dirty fossil fuel energy that's killing us with something else that's energy intensive but doesn't have the same emissions problem, and nuclear presumably comes to mind.

I object to this for a number of reasons. I've already expressed my concerns about toxic tailings and spent fuel. But another thing is that our industry is also very resource intensive. In my lifetime, the world will not only have probably gone through the majority of its petroleum and North American natural gas, it will have also gone through most forests, all the best uranium, most of the largest fish.... In a single century we've killed so many lakes and rivers. I'm not worried about cute fuzzy animals here. I'm concerned about the livability of the planet for humans, for my grandchildren.

So I'm not in a huge hurry to make sure that our industry can keep at it, unless we can develop a way of making industry more responsible for its actions. I think of global warming as just the most critical warning sign that our relationship with the environment that sustains us is seriously dysfunctional. Anyone who wants to can bite my head off now. It seems to me more important to have breathable air and drinkable water than a monster fridge.

But I see another problem.

Replacing electricity from coal with electricity from splitting atoms is just not going to save our industrial sector if we're serious about tackling global warming. The plastics industry is huge and relies on petroleum products. Feeding ourselves relies on industry which derives fertilizer from fossil sources.

In addition, industry just uses more fuel than nuclear can provide. Replacing just the coal currently used for power generation in North America would require a tripling of the nuclear fleet. David Hughes thinks even maintaining current nuclear capacity will be difficult. But electricity is not the only energy source for industry, and many of the sources are carbon-intensive. The steel industry, for example, relies on coal.

And we still have to eliminate the fuel used for transportation -- personal, commercial and industrial.

And then we still have to account for the crazy growth patterns of 250% every half-century that current industrial models predict.

So can ALL this energy be replaced by nuclear power? I've spent time with people who lived near uranium mines and watched their communities get decimated by cancers. Yes, you can extract uranium even by grinding up granite, but imagine what that would do to the landscape. Imagine the manpower that would be required.

And even then, would it be enough?

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently updated their predictions to point out that the 2 degree temperature rise that would signal catastrophic impacts is now almost certainly unavoidable. This is a pretty conservative bunch. George Monbiot suggested that Canadians need to cut their emissions by 94 percent by 2030 in his book Heat. The majority would need to happen in the next decade. Now, a year later, he's saying that's probably not enough.

The fact is, we don't have economically viable thorium, breeder or fusion reactors. If there's a place for the remaining high grade uranium, it will probably be at most to replace the current aging nuclear fleet during the next decade.

In the meantime, a lot of painful cuts will have to be made, whether we want to see them or not. The only alternative is accepting even higher temperature increases. At 2 degrees some self-perpetuating cycles may already kick in. The IPCC speculates that 7 degree increases may be reached by century's end. The last time the Earth warmed by 7 degrees, the mass extinctions destroyed every land animal larger than a pig.

If we want a good shot at preventing this, we need to make massive cuts within the next few years. We can't wait around counting on a nuclear breakthrough.

I would personally like to see no more nuclear. I can't stomach the thought of imposing uranium mining on yet another community. And if massive changes are going to be made anyway, I figure we might as well do it right instead of dickering with uranium. But I can't help feeling that sitting around dreaming about fusion is keeping us from the very real and urgent need to drop emissions now, whether or not we invest in nuclear.

Now, I'm going to take a crack at making a few suggestions about what to do about industry, but I'll admit at this stage I'll be guessing and would appreciate corrections.

Not all industrial processes are streamlined. A lot use a great deal of heat or other energy or pressure. Some of this can be captured. Petroleum cracking ovens, for example, release a lot of heat. Coking coal for steel releases not only heat but also combustible gases, which are actually less harmful if burned. Unfortunately both these ideas rely on maintaining industry dependent on fossil fuels. If we want to get creative, we can start manufacturing steel in the winter in communities that can use the waste heat and turn to agriculture in the summer. Some industrial processes will go back to being done by hand. Monbiot has ideas about how to change the way we make concrete so that fewer emissions are involved. We need to make a lot fewer cars. Some industries may just die because they have no place in a low-carbon future. I think that's okay. I'm pretty sure we'll have full employment. Food will have to be grown closer to home. Economies will be more local. We'll be throwing fewer things out and fixing things more.

Go ahead, bite my head off.

The thing is, there are distinct advantages to a low-energy lifestyle. It's not something I fear. Plus, I was just sent this link to a New Scientist article headlined "Zero emissions needed to avert 'dangerous' warming" which states:

Only the total elimination of industrial emissions will succeed in limiting climate change to a 2°C rise in temperatures, according to computer analysis of climate change. Anything above this target has been identified as "dangerous" by some scientists, and the limit has been adopted by many policymakers.

http://environment.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn12775

So here's the thing. Some of the people on this forum think that low-carbon does not mean low-energy, and the most exciting prospect for maintaining high energy is nuclear. I think that nuclear is costly, unreliable and leaves a hazardous legacy for descendants we've already burdened enough. But most of all, it just can't deliver enough energy fast enough to maintain our current energy trajectory. I'm sympathetic to people who fear energy descent so much that they're willing to invest in every last scrap of energy available (though my greater sympathies are with the First Nations living among the uranium tailings who never even benefited from our high-energy party), but I think that fantasizing about a high energy future is simply a dangerous distraction.

Cuddles

12th October 2007, 05:38 AM

Noticeably lacking from your comparison is coal consumption. Hmm...

And don't forget wood. A huge amount of wood is burnt in China which replaces the need for electricity, for heating and cooking for example. While wood can be virtually environment-neutral when managed properly, the way it is used in China, and other countries in the area, involves simply cutting down all the trees and not replacing them. China is also one of the bigest importers of wood, mainly from other countries that have serious problems with deforestation, so even the improvements in conservation within China don't help matters, they just shift the problem somewhere else. If all the wood was replaced by electricity, just how much more power would China need, and where would it come from? The answer is lots and fossil fuels.

In addition, any comparison between China and the US, or any other western country, has to take into account the social conditions. Although the US does have issues with poverty, it's not even close to China. The average Chinese citizen doesn't use less power because they are environmentally concious, it is simply that they don't have access to that amount of power and they can't afford things to use it anyway. Compare urban China with the US and I doubt Americans will look quite as insanely power hungry any more.

Belz...

12th October 2007, 05:45 AM

Gosh I love hydro-electricity. Long live Québec!

Oh, yeah... the floodings!

Lonewulf

12th October 2007, 06:03 AM

Hydro is a limited venue, really. There's only so many places you can place dams, after all.

luddite

12th October 2007, 06:07 AM

Originally Posted by Ziggurat View Post
Noticeably lacking from your comparison is coal consumption. Hmm...
And don't forget wood. A huge amount of wood is burnt in China which replaces the need for electricity, for heating and cooking for example. While wood can be virtually environment-neutral when managed properly, the way it is used in China, and other countries in the area, involves simply cutting down all the trees and not replacing them. China is also one of the bigest importers of wood, mainly from other countries that have serious problems with deforestation, so even the improvements in conservation within China don't help matters, they just shift the problem somewhere else. If all the wood was replaced by electricity, just how much more power would China need, and where would it come from? The answer is lots and fossil fuels.

I only included the energy sources listed on the CIA site. I thought that using different sources, with potentially differing methodologies of data collection, would muddy the waters. I was well aware of the gap with coal, and wished it had been included. Both the US and China use a lot of coal. China uses more.

In addition, any comparison between China and the US, or any other western country, has to take into account the social conditions. Although the US does have issues with poverty, it's not even close to China. The average Chinese citizen doesn't use less power because they are environmentally concious, it is simply that they don't have access to that amount of power and they can't afford things to use it anyway.

Yes. It is an unfortunate reality that throughout the world the main difference between countries and people who burn a lot of carbon and those who don't is simply availability. But the climate doesn't care why we burn things. The climate only responds to the absolute quantity. Saying "Well, they would burn it if they could" is blaming the victim who never participated in the carbon party. It is important to me to figure out how to power down without sacrificing our social conditions. It is also important to note that there is substantial variability now among developed nations, with most of Europe coupling better social conditions than exist in North America with a substantially lower carbon footprint.

I'm all for pressuring China to do more as well. India, too. The single biggest act that would help bring them in is for the US to join the Kyoto nations and commit to timely reductions. The Chinese have already indicated that they would like to do more. Their country is already being hammered by the effects of climate change, with droughts affecting agricultural productivity. Models predict severe reductions in the flow of most of China's rivers after the meltdown of the Tibetan plateau. Pointing fingers at China is too often an excuse to do nothing ourselves. Playing a game of chicken with China benefits noone.

luddite

12th October 2007, 06:20 AM

You have also portrayed the Candu reactor as a problem...it is great design with an excellent safety record and some of the best capacity factors in the industry due to its online refueling capability. It has had normal design issues and refits like any evolving technogy..however...there is nothing systemically wrong with the reactor design.

I'll quote the Pembina assessment:

The Ontario CANDU reactor fleet has been subject to severe performance and maintenance problems. Over the past decade, some Ontario facilities have had average
operating capacities below 40 per cent rather than the expected 85–90 per cent range. Reactors expected to have operational lifetimes in the range of 40 years have turned out to require major refurbishments after approximately 25 years of service. Refurbishment projects themselves have run seriously over budget and behind schedule.

Heavy reliance on coal-fired electricity to backstop under-performing or offline nuclear units has been associated with major increases in releases of greenhouse gases and other air pollutants. The shutdown of eight reactors between 1995 and 2001 under the 1997 Nuclear Asset Optimization Plan led to emissions of GHGs from the province’s coal-fired power plants increasing by a factor of 2.3, sulphur dioxide emissions by a factor of 2, and nitrogen oxide emissions by a factor of 1.7, significantly exacerbating the severe air quality problems regularly experienced in southern Ontario.

Is it a cost-effective solution?

Nuclear power generating facilities are subject to very high capital costs and long construction times relative to other electricity supply options. In addition, in Ontario there is a history of serious delays and cost overruns on nuclear generating facility projects, accounting for $15 billion of the nearly $20 billion “stranded debt” left by Ontario Hydro.

Nuclear energy also brings with it a unique set of risks, largely arising from the very high costs and levels of uncertainty involved in handling, storing and managing waste fuel and other radioactive wastes. Implementation of the Nuclear Waste Management Organization’s proposed strategy for managing waste fuel from existing reactors is estimated to be likely to have a total cost in the range of $24 billion. This would be in addition to the costs for the development and management of facilities for low and intermediate level radioactive waste and for managing waste rock and tailings at uranium mine sites. The costs of decommissioning Ontario’s existing reactors have been estimated at $7.474 billion.

Even with extensive subsidies and financial guarantees provided by governments, these costs, timelines and risks make it difficult for nuclear power projects to compete for private capital investments against potential investments that will bring much more rapid and secure returns.

Is it safe?

Much has changed in our understanding of radiation risks since the construction of Canada’s first commercial reactors in the early 1970s. For example, recent research on the effects of even very low levels of ionizing radiation suggests that no level is safe to health. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) lists a number of radionuclides as carcinogenic to humans, including isotopes produced in uranium mining and milling, fuel production and nuclear power plant operations.

Yet despite our improved understanding of these risks, Canadian standards and practices appear to have not kept pace with this changing knowledge. It has been suggested, for example, that existing standards in Canada for cancer risks arising from radiological hazards permit much higher levels of acceptable risk than is the case for chemical and other hazards. Current Canadian standards in some areas are substantially
weaker than those in place in other comparable jurisdictions. The existing drinking water standard in Ontario for tritium (of which discharges from nuclear power plants are the primary source), for example, of 7,000 Bq/L is significantly weaker than the standards in the United States of 740 Bq/L and in the European Union of 100 Bq/L.

Workers in the mining and refining, conversion and fuel fabrication sub-sectors are also found to be routinely exposed to levels of radiation above those that would be considered acceptable to members of the general public. There is a history of significant occupational health effects, particularly elevated incidences of lung cancer, among uranium miners attributed to radon exposure. Increased mortality among uranium miners is also attributed to exposure to silica, solvents, asbestos and radiation.

As well, substantial health risks have been identified in relation to the consumption of certain types of“country” food, particularly caribou, in the vicinity of uranium mine/mill operations as a result of contamination by radionuclides.

While nuclear generating facility operators argue that the levels of public exposure to radiation arising from facility operations are trivial in comparison to other sources, recent studies suggest that health impacts of low-level radiation exposure may be more significant than previously thought, and that children and infants may be particularly at risk from such exposures.

Nuclear generating facilities are additionally subject to uniquely severe accident and security risks. A serious accident or incident could result in the release of large amounts of radioactive material to the atmosphere, which could be distributed over a large area. By comparison, the impacts of major incidents or accidents at facilities employing other generating technologies would be short term and largely limited to the facility site itself. It has been estimated that the monetized value of the off-site environmental, health and economic impacts of a major accident at the Darlington generating facility east of the City of Toronto, for example, would exceed $1 trillion (1991 $Cdn).

For the full source, go here:

http://pubs.pembina.org/reports/Nuclear_web.pdf

Belz...

12th October 2007, 08:02 AM

Hydro is a limited venue, really. There's only so many places you can place dams, after all.

I know, I know. I was just being obnoxious.

Hindmost

12th October 2007, 03:46 PM

I think we're getting to the crux of the situation here. And this is where my luddite views will come out and where many of you will simply disagree.

As you say, Glenn, commercial and residential processes are where the big savings are. We can also stop moving things (and ourselves) around so much. Industrial needs are very diverse so it's a lot more difficult to make generalizations. It's also more challenging to achieve reductions. I'm going to try to take a crack at a few suggestions in a moment, but I'll pause to recognize for a moment that this is where my priorities may diverge from most of the people here.

I would love to include a link to David Hughes's excellent diagram showing world energy use over the last century. Imagine a 43-fold increase from a little wee baseline that goes way back in history. First coal grows monstrous and levels off. Then petroleum gets introduced, gets monstrous and levels off. Then we bring in natural gas. And finally uranium. Uranium is just the tip of the steadily rising mountain. At the end of the 1800s most of our fuel was renewable, with a tiny layer of coal on top. That same absolute amount of energy we still obtain from renewables today. The only thing that's changed is that most of it is now hydroelectric where it used to be wood. Looking at that diagram it's difficult not to get struck by how unsustainable this is. It's a lot like looking at Al Gore's hockey-stick diagrams.

In the absence of David Hughes's diagram, I'm going to point you to a diagram developed by the Energy Information Administration of the United States showing world energy projections. It begins in 1980 with 283 quadrillion BTUs and projects to 702 quadrillion BTUs in 2030. That's an increase of 250% over 50 years. This is what keeping the status quo involves. This is what it would take if we insist industries continue to pursue constant steady growth.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/world.html

One thing we need to begin with is the fact that industry today is much more energy-intensive than it ever was. Hence the suggestion that we just replace the dirty fossil fuel energy that's killing us with something else that's energy intensive but doesn't have the same emissions problem, and nuclear presumably comes to mind.

I object to this for a number of reasons. I've already expressed my concerns about toxic tailings and spent fuel. But another thing is that our industry is also very resource intensive. In my lifetime, the world will not only have probably gone through the majority of its petroleum and North American natural gas, it will have also gone through most forests, all the best uranium, most of the largest fish.... In a single century we've killed so many lakes and rivers. I'm not worried about cute fuzzy animals here. I'm concerned about the livability of the planet for humans, for my grandchildren.

So I'm not in a huge hurry to make sure that our industry can keep at it, unless we can develop a way of making industry more responsible for its actions. I think of global warming as just the most critical warning sign that our relationship with the environment that sustains us is seriously dysfunctional. Anyone who wants to can bite my head off now. It seems to me more important to have breathable air and drinkable water than a monster fridge.

But I see another problem.

Replacing electricity from coal with electricity from splitting atoms is just not going to save our industrial sector if we're serious about tackling global warming. The plastics industry is huge and relies on petroleum products. Feeding ourselves relies on industry which derives fertilizer from fossil sources.

In addition, industry just uses more fuel than nuclear can provide. Replacing just the coal currently used for power generation in North America would require a tripling of the nuclear fleet. David Hughes thinks even maintaining current nuclear capacity will be difficult. But electricity is not the only energy source for industry, and many of the sources are carbon-intensive. The steel industry, for example, relies on coal.

And we still have to eliminate the fuel used for transportation -- personal, commercial and industrial.

And then we still have to account for the crazy growth patterns of 250% every half-century that current industrial models predict.

So can ALL this energy be replaced by nuclear power? I've spent time with people who lived near uranium mines and watched their communities get decimated by cancers. Yes, you can extract uranium even by grinding up granite, but imagine what that would do to the landscape. Imagine the manpower that would be required.

And even then, would it be enough?

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently updated their predictions to point out that the 2 degree temperature rise that would signal catastrophic impacts is now almost certainly unavoidable. This is a pretty conservative bunch. George Monbiot suggested that Canadians need to cut their emissions by 94 percent by 2030 in his book Heat. The majority would need to happen in the next decade. Now, a year later, he's saying that's probably not enough.

The fact is, we don't have economically viable thorium, breeder or fusion reactors. If there's a place for the remaining high grade uranium, it will probably be at most to replace the current aging nuclear fleet during the next decade.

In the meantime, a lot of painful cuts will have to be made, whether we want to see them or not. The only alternative is accepting even higher temperature increases. At 2 degrees some self-perpetuating cycles may already kick in. The IPCC speculates that 7 degree increases may be reached by century's end. The last time the Earth warmed by 7 degrees, the mass extinctions destroyed every land animal larger than a pig.

If we want a good shot at preventing this, we need to make massive cuts within the next few years. We can't wait around counting on a nuclear breakthrough.

I would personally like to see no more nuclear. I can't stomach the thought of imposing uranium mining on yet another community. And if massive changes are going to be made anyway, I figure we might as well do it right instead of dickering with uranium. But I can't help feeling that sitting around dreaming about fusion is keeping us from the very real and urgent need to drop emissions now, whether or not we invest in nuclear.

Now, I'm going to take a crack at making a few suggestions about what to do about industry, but I'll admit at this stage I'll be guessing and would appreciate corrections.

Not all industrial processes are streamlined. A lot use a great deal of heat or other energy or pressure. Some of this can be captured. Petroleum cracking ovens, for example, release a lot of heat. Coking coal for steel releases not only heat but also combustible gases, which are actually less harmful if burned. Unfortunately both these ideas rely on maintaining industry dependent on fossil fuels. If we want to get creative, we can start manufacturing steel in the winter in communities that can use the waste heat and turn to agriculture in the summer. Some industrial processes will go back to being done by hand. Monbiot has ideas about how to change the way we make concrete so that fewer emissions are involved. We need to make a lot fewer cars. Some industries may just die because they have no place in a low-carbon future. I think that's okay. I'm pretty sure we'll have full employment. Food will have to be grown closer to home. Economies will be more local. We'll be throwing fewer things out and fixing things more.

Go ahead, bite my head off.

The thing is, there are distinct advantages to a low-energy lifestyle. It's not something I fear. Plus, I was just sent this link to a New Scientist article headlined "Zero emissions needed to avert 'dangerous' warming" which states:

http://environment.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn12775

So here's the thing. Some of the people on this forum think that low-carbon does not mean low-energy, and the most exciting prospect for maintaining high energy is nuclear. I think that nuclear is costly, unreliable and leaves a hazardous legacy for descendants we've already burdened enough. But most of all, it just can't deliver enough energy fast enough to maintain our current energy trajectory. I'm sympathetic to people who fear energy descent so much that they're willing to invest in every last scrap of energy available (though my greater sympathies are with the First Nations living among the uranium tailings who never even benefited from our high-energy party), but I think that fantasizing about a high energy future is simply a dangerous distraction.

I agree with most of what you posted here. I have been following the energy industry since my college days...however, I looked at nuclear as a method to contribute to the worlds energy needs with less harm to the environment than other sources. Nuclear has shown to be safe and environmentally friendly in my opinion--which we can agree to disagree on.

The waste produce from other heavy industries can be enormous---and where most nuclear waste will be gone in about 300 years--a lot of chemical waste is forever. When I worked at a nuke plant in Louisiana, I was very fearful of the plants around me. Briefly: There was a monsanto plant that used to make agent orange, a fertilizer plant that used amonia and chlorine in its process, a union carbide ethylene glycol plant that had a couple of toxic explosions that prevented me from going to work. I felt like I was running a gauntlet just going to work.

With all the hype over nuclear plants, less than 100 people have died--including chernobyl--from nuclear related accidents. No other industry comes close to that. Issues associated with nuclear power get overly amplified--reporting requirements for the industry are extreme and detailed. And they should be. This puts nuclear issues on the front page more often and people opposed to nuclear power will focus only on the negative aspects. Since the majority of the population does not understand how a nuclear plant is operated, undue fear is the norm. Except in France. They put an education system together that kept the people informed and have a much greater acceptance of nuclear power.

Nuclear power has high upfront costs, but very low fuel cost. That makes it competitive. However, I think they are the safest method of producing large scale electricity...and the record supports that. Nuclear power won't be able to solve all the worlds energy issues...no one should claim that. It will take 25 year or so to redevelop the industry in the US...however, the technology is available and competitive as other countries have shown.

If an earthquake comes, I want to be in a nuclear plant...it would be the safest place.

From an engineering basis, thermodynamics rules....to do any type of work, we must be able to raise the temperature of something and then cool it off. If we don't have energy, we don't have civilization.

glenn

DRBUZZ0

12th October 2007, 05:07 PM

Let me just ask one question: Does anyone have any ideas for carbon-free energy that are not nuclear-based and which can provide the energy currently needed by civilization?

In the US we need hundreds of gigawatts. In the world we need several terawatts. In the future, at the rate things are going, we'll need a good 15-20 terawatts of energy.

You can conserve all you want. Switch to compact florescents, go nuts with insulation and then we may need a few gigawatts less, but we will still need LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS of power.

As far as I can tell, there are only two methods of providing this which are CO2-free [yes, we all know that they produce co2 in the building process and from incidentals, such as plant workers driving to work and so on] Nuclear can do it and hydroelectric can.

Unfortionately, we've run out of rivers. That leaves one.

Unless somebody can propose another???

I might add that the largest solar power station is located in Germany. It produces 87 megawatts under ideal conditions. That's rather small. But that's just ideal conditions. It averages out to producing the equivelent of 4 megawatts continuously.

4 megawatts: That's one single good sized locomotive. So running the solar plant is roughly equivalent to taking one locomotive out of service somewhere in the world at any given time.

Cost: About a half a billion dollars.

One of the larger wind farms in the US is Maple Ridge Windfarm. It takes up about 12,000 acres in upstate New York. It cost about about $550,000 to build. it produces about 300 megawatts during good conditions. It produces more like 240 during average conditions. It produces as little as 60-80 megawatts during unfavorable conditions, such as a stalled front.

The cost of maintaining the 195 turbines, each 300 feet tall and and with 130 foot blades is enough to make the cost of generating electricity at the facility more expensive than burning coal - at least before government subsidies and tax write-offs.

The facility is actually located in one of the "best" areas on the eastern seaboard for wind power, because it has decent reliable sustained winds.

For reference, the nuclear plane down the road from me has been cranking out about 2.2 gigawatts for the past 20 years.

I've seen estimates that put wind and solar ABOVE nuclear for secondary CO2 emissions. Of course, this is somewhat a matter of how you generate the energy which you use to enrich the urnaium or to fabricate the solar panels or wind geneators and to produce the stuff that they all consume, such as lube for the wind turbines, replacement parts, donuts for the employees to eat and so on.

Hindmost

12th October 2007, 06:32 PM

I'll quote the Pembina assessment:

For the full source, go here:

http://pubs.pembina.org/reports/Nuclear_web.pdf

The data selected is cherry-picked to present only one side of the equation. The statement about capacity factor is just not correct. True, there have been some older Candu plants that have had low capacity factors. Such things are common as a technology develops. The facts are that nuclear power plants have better capacity factors than coal or gas fired plants. Candu plants have a combined lifetime capacity factor of about 80% and the Candu 6 generation have CFs of close to 85% and are typically the highest in the world. In the US...nuke plants have a installed capacity of about 12-14% of the grid total but supply 20% of the electriciy due to their high capacity factor. The arguement is truly a non-starter as nuclear plants world wide have proven track records of supplying electricity. Now, one can single out a plant that is shut down longterm for design modification or refit and that plant will show a low CF. But that is not evidence. Us plants had low capacity factors while doing TMI retrofits. They improved after the changes were made.

One can see from this link how nukes do best in comparison to other forms of electricity.

http://www.cns-snc.ca/media/reliability/reliability.html

And here is a brief overview of how nuclear plant performance has steadily improved in the US. And this is typical world wide. As the technology has matured, the problems get solved.

http://www.nmcco.com/education/facts/business/perform.htm (http://www.nmcco.com/education/facts/business/perform.htm)

I have to say that I don't know much about the hazards associated with uranium mining. So I can't respond at this time. However, uranium ore is a known thing and I would believe that the technology is available to deal with it.

Finally, the arguement that nuclear takes too much time to built before the plant hits the line is short sighted. Just because an efficient energy system cannot be brought online quickly should not be cause for abandoning it. It is short term thinking that has caused problems. We need long-term solutions. With reprocessing and breeder reactors, nuclear can provide energy for about 1000 years. However, I am hoping fusion has a shot before then...

glenn