Japan Plans to Restart Most of Their Nuclear Reactors 255
pigrabbitbear writes "Areva, the French nuclear fuel company, helps supply Japan with a lot of its juice. And Areva's chief executive says that Japan is going to restart up to six reactors by the end of the year. Eventually, it's going to power up at least two thirds of them. Japan's prime minister Shinzo Abe has been a little cagey, but he recently told the press that yes, despite the upcoming March 11th anniversary of the Fukushima crisis, the nuke plants are coming back online."
Supposedly, they are overhauling their nuclear regulatory agencies to fix the massive failure and regulatory capture that led to Fukushima being run unsafely. They are also not going to restart reactors that are on active fault lines; this includes the largest reactor complex in the world. Vaguely related, the Vogtle plant expansion in the U.S. is running a bit over budget, with folks like the Sierra Club seizing the chance to call for an end to construction (unlikely, since Georgia Power says it'd cost customers more, even pretending natural gas is infinite and will always be cheap, to halt construction in favor of any other kind of power plant), and legislators aiming to 'protect' customers from cost overruns. However, it looks like unless action is taken the nuclear renaissance is already dead due to the inherent short-sightedness of the "free market."
Re:Nuclear Bias (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Bad Summary (Score:5, Informative)
Coal and oil have their own hidden costs that are not apparent on any balance sheet and not easily calculatable.
Pollution has many known health effects. While a nuclear plant does pollute as long as the radiation is contained its effect is much smaller. With air pollution you have increased healthcare costs due to the treatment of any lung issue that arrises just to start, as well as increased Earth temeperature due to greenhouse gasses which makes us use more electricity which makes more pollution... etc.
Re:Nuclear Bias (Score:4, Informative)
"A nuclear reactor offers the promise of unlimited, cheap, carbon-free energy. OTOH, there is a small risk of a very big catastrophe, Are great benefits worth great risks? Hard to say. We now have Chernobyl as one real-world worst-case scenario."
Chernobyl was not an accident, you understand? the reactor was a terrible design intentionally being pushed way outside design specs for no better reason that to see what happened... it is not a real-world worst-case scenario for western reactors, let alone any modern designs.
"Three Mile Island wasn't reassuring either. The reason why it blew, you may recall, is that a relief valve, made by Dresser, failed. It had a classic design flaw, a piston diameter that was too large for its length, like a wide window that gets wedged into the frame when you try to open it. This valve had been tested before -- and failed, about 2% of the time. Scientific American, itself a nuclear power advocate, had a good article about this"
TMI did not 'blow', it had an internal failure resulting in a shutdown, and a very small (barely detectible) amount of released radiation. You do realise that a coal power station would release more radioactive material in a few minutes of operation than TMI did, right? Not to mention the fact that again, it was an ancient design that needed specific human operator control, and thats why it had an internal meltdown, the operators stuffed up (badly) after the valve failed.
"I always favored a free-market solution: The Price-Anderson Act absolved the nuclear industry of liability for any accident, and instead had the government step in, to compensate everyone for the damage (up to $120 million, which wouldn't go too far in Chernobyl). My solution: Repeal the Price-Anderson Act, and let the nuclear power industry get its liability insurance on the free market like everyone else. If they're so safe, let them convince the insurance industry. It seems that American capitalism always needs a government handout."
I suspect you dont know what the NRC is, and dont understand how the global nuclear industry is stricly controlled by it, and therefore by proxy the USA and its government, do you? there is NO free market in the nuclear industry, it is specifically and strictly controlled by one governing body. this is part of what has held it back of course. the fact that reactors in America appear to be privately owned it really just more smoke and mirrors.
Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (Score:2, Informative)
Nuclear is here to stay, in one form or another, unless humans cease to exist. Note that I didn't say "cease to exist tomorrow or next week." Try to think long-term. If you still can't wrap your head around the idea that nothing in the universe comes for free, and that we are stuck on a very small rock, your Buxton Index [utexas.edu] might not be the same as mine.
Re:Nuclear Bias (Score:4, Informative)
It isn't regulation or fear that is preventing the building of new reactor designs, it is economics. Nuclear is heavily subsidised and governments are looking to reduce costs, plus companies want to make safe investments with will defined ROIs instead of building theoretically better but unproven (on a commercial scale) designs.
The simple fact is that the current old designs meet the regulatory requirements and are known quantities. New designs could run into issues that end up costing a lot, or even fail entirely. History is littered with reactor designs that looked good on paper but didn't work very well in practice (we build a lot of them in the UK).
You could argue that the government needs to step in and push new technology forwards, but since saving energy is cheaper and makes them more popular by delivering improvements directly to people's homes that isn't going to happen.
Re:Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (Score:4, Informative)
Loan guarantees are not subsidies, and nuclear is guaranteed to generate cheap and clean power over the long term. Other energy sources (including fossil fossil fuels and renewables) do require huge subsidies, but nuclear is not among them.
LFTRs are nothing like conventional nuclear plants. There have been five studies over the years that place the median cost around $2/W installed, allowing it to undercut even coal. This isn't magic or wishful thinking, it is the logical result of a radically different design. Molten salt reactors are passively safe, run and at atmospheric pressure, and are not cooled by water. Hence, they do not require the enormous concrete containment domes, 9-inch thick pressure vessels, or highly redundant engineered safety systems.
Fluoride salts are among the most chemically stable substances on earth. There is nothing to explode, nothing to react violently with air or water. Indeed, nothing to propel radioactivity into the environment should things go south. Even if you physically rupture the reactor, the salt will just drain, cool, and solidify. Afterwards, the mess is totally solid--you can go pick up the pieces of salt, and stick them back in a reactor.