Nuclear Energy - I need to vent/rant

[DRBUZZ0]

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]

:clap:

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

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

[trvlr2]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[shecky]

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]

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]

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]

@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]

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? Anyone in the U.K. who lives near Windscale,sorry, Sellafield,( They changed the name hoping the appalling safety record would change with it) knows that the industry is untrustworthy,deceitful and generally dismissive of the public's fears.
The Irish goverment are none too pleased with the place because the fish on the coast opposite are beginning to resemble the one in the Simpsons. Find a way to treat the crud safely and I will be in front of the nuclear parade tooting my horn. Until then, keep building those windmills.

[RecoveringYuppy]

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]

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? Anyone in the U.K. who lives near Windscale,sorry, Sellafield,( They changed the name hoping the appalling safety record would change with it) knows that the industry is untrustworthy,deceitful and generally dismissive of the public's fears.
Since there are lots of safe places to put the waste, what exactly is your real objection to nuclear energy?
The Irish goverment are none too pleased with the place because the fish on the coast opposite are beginning to resemble the one in the Simpsons. Find a way to treat the crud safely and I will be in front of the nuclear parade tooting my horn. Until then, keep building those windmills.
No idea what you are talking about. Perhaps you could provide a link to your source of misunderstanding?

[geni]

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?

We know from the Oklo reactors that deep cavern storage works.


Anyone in the U.K. who lives near Windscale,sorry, Sellafield,( They changed the name hoping the appalling safety record would change with it) knows that the industry is untrustworthy,deceitful and generally dismissive of the public's fears.

No that would be the unions. The industry appears to want to quit the place.

[DanishDynamite]

geni, any progress on the link I asked for?

[Solitaire]

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)

[Hindmost]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.


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.
[/URL]
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.

[URL="http://www.ofes.fusion.doe.gov/"]http://www.ofes.fusion.doe.gov/ (http://www.nei.org/index.asp?catnum=2&catid=262)


Economic Efficiency is measured using production cost. Production cost is the cost of operating the plant—including fuel, labor, materials, and services—to produce one kilowatt-hour (kWh) of electricity. In 2005, nuclear power had the lowest production cost of the major sources of electricity, with production cost of 1.72 cents/kWh. Coal had a cost of 2.21 cents/kWh, natural gas 7.51 cents/kWh, and petroleum 8.09 cents/kWh. Hydro had a production cost of 0.83 cents/kWh, wind 0.04 cents/kWh and solar 2.17 cents/kWh

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.

[CapelDodger]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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 confiden