Safer Nuclear Reactors Are On the Way (scientificamerican.com) 366
Nuclear power plant manufacturers, such as Westinghouse and Framatome, are developing safer nuclear reactors that use so-called accident-tolerant fuels that are less likely to overheat -- and if they do, will produce very little or no hydrogen. As Scientific American reports, commercial reactors use small pellets of uranium dioxide stacked inside long cylindrical rods made of zirconium alloy, which "allows the neutrons generated from fission in the pellets to readily pass among the many rods submerged in water inside a reactor core, supporting a self-sustaining, heat-producing nuclear reaction." The problem is that if the zirconium overheats, it can react with water and produce hydrogen, which can explode. From the report: In some of the variations, the zirconium cladding is coated to minimize reactions. In others, zirconium and even the uranium dioxide are replaced with different materials. The new configurations could be slipped into existing reactors with little modification, so they could be phased in during the 2020s. Thorough in-core testing, which has begun, would have to prove successful, and regulators would have to be satisfied. In a bonus, the new fuels could help plants run more efficiently, making nuclear power more cost-competitive -- a significant motivation for manufacturers and electric utilities because natural gas, solar and wind energy are less expensive.
Russia is also deploying other safety measures; recent installations at home and abroad by the state-run company Rosatom have newer "passive" safety systems that can squelch overheating even if electrical power at the plant is lost and coolant cannot be actively circulated. Westinghouse and other companies have incorporated passive safety features into their updated designs as well. Manufacturers are also experimenting with "fourth generation" models that use liquid sodium or molten salt instead of water to transfer heat from fission, removing the possibility of dangerous hydrogen production. China reportedly intends to connect a demonstration helium-cooled reactor to its grid this year.
Russia is also deploying other safety measures; recent installations at home and abroad by the state-run company Rosatom have newer "passive" safety systems that can squelch overheating even if electrical power at the plant is lost and coolant cannot be actively circulated. Westinghouse and other companies have incorporated passive safety features into their updated designs as well. Manufacturers are also experimenting with "fourth generation" models that use liquid sodium or molten salt instead of water to transfer heat from fission, removing the possibility of dangerous hydrogen production. China reportedly intends to connect a demonstration helium-cooled reactor to its grid this year.
What ever happened to the Toshiba 4S? (Score:5, Insightful)
10-50MW, small, reasonably safe. If I recall correctly the 'meltdown' scenario is a neutron reflector falling away from the fuel causing it to drop well below the mass required for a sustained reaction (i.e., it turns off).
And being small, they're much more robust when it comes to things like earthquakes. So you need more of them... buried deep in the ground they're not exactly vulnerable to terrorism, and because there's more of them your power generation is distributed. Less transmission loss, less issue with cascade failures.
Re:What ever happened to the Toshiba 4S? (Score:5, Insightful)
The archives are filled with reactor designs that look great on paper, but don't work so well in practice.
The Toshiba 4S used molten sodium as a coolant, which can be problematic.
Re:What ever happened to the Toshiba 4S? (Score:5, Interesting)
The Toshiba 4S used molten sodium as a coolant, which can be problematic.
Almost all current reactors use liquid water as a coolant, which is problematic.
Steam explosions are probably the #1 hazard in reactors. The reason containment structures are so enormous (which makes modern designs so expensive) is to contain the pressure of all the coolant flashing to steam when the pressure vessel fails.
A secondary problem is zirconium (used in fuel rod assemblies) splits water into hydrogen and oxygen if the temperature gets too high. This results in hydrogen explosions.
Both of these very large problems go away if you use molten sodium (or molten salts, as in MSR / LFTR / etc designs) in the coolant loops. They create some new problems, but the cost of engineering around these new problems is starting to look pretty small compared to all the problems we've encountered with water.
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Almost all current reactors use liquid water as a coolant, which is problematic.
The UK gets about 15% of it's electricity from CO2 cooled nuclear reactors (we have only one PWR).
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The UK gets about 15% of it's electricity from CO2 cooled nuclear reactors
Less than that now. The two Hunterston AGRs have been shut down for an extended period due to Wigner Effect cracking of the carbon-block moderator assemblies and it's looking more and more likely that they'll never actually restart. This doesn't bode well for the other AGRs which all might reach end-of-life by the mid 2020s at which point we'll only have the single PWR at Sizewell to supply significant amounts of reliable non-fossi
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Everything in the world is problematic. The only question is to what degree and with what certainty.
Steam explosions are well known and understood. Water as a liquid coolant is also cheap and because of our long experience and knowledge the cost of engineering around the steam problems are actually not very high. Molten sodium incredibly more expensive, significantly less understood. It makes far more sense to use sodium in large reactors where the costs can be absorbed through scale and large engineering t
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Re:What ever happened to the Toshiba 4S? (Score:4, Informative)
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Everything you said is true; only problem was that it didn't have a selfie camera and kept dropping calls, so it was kind of doomed in the market.
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"10-50MW, small, reasonably safe."
So, just like these new ones they are so secure that they will actually be able to get fucking insurance?
If not, come back when you do.
safer isn't the issue (Score:2, Insightful)
They're already pretty safe. What we need is cheaper nuclear power.
A nuclear power plant costs about $10B before it can even produce a watt of electricity. 110 nuclear power plants in the US produce about 30% of the US energy needs. They cost together about $1.1T before they ever produced a single electron of power.
In order to produce all rhe US energy needs from nuclear power, we would need 70% more nuclear power plants, at a total cost of $366T before any power was able to be generated. And that's
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What ever happened to that "too cheap to meter" thingie?
It was killed by Jimmy Carter.
We have seen efforts to recreate that plan. A 4th generation power plant built to power a desalination plant will produce electricity as a byproduct. They make their money on selling clean water, the electricity is just extra income. There's at least one nuclear power plant developer that wants to sell nuclear power plants to the oil and gas industry, who make their money on selling hydrocarbons. To do this takes a lot of energy, energy that they produce now with burning a
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In order to produce all rhe US energy needs from nuclear power, we would need 70% more nuclear power plants, at a total cost of $366T before any power was able to be generated. And that's just for 360M consumers.
These guys think it would be more like $6.7 trillion, or $9 trillion on the high end, to replace all electricity generation in the USA with nuclear power.
http://www.roadmaptonowhere.co... [roadmaptonowhere.com]
What I want to make clear, and the authors of that paper/website want to make clear, is that the goal is NOT to have a 100% nuclear electrical power grid. What the intent is to have a mix of energy generation that is affordable, safe, clean, and reliable. How much nuclear does that mean then? A lot more than we have now.
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100% nuclear would be stupid (I say that as a nuclear proponent). Nuclear reactors are extremely slow to ramp their power output up or down. They're great for base load, but abysmal for dynamic (peaking) load. Nuclear needs to be coupled with other technologies which can rapidly ramp up/down in production to fill out the instantaneous peaks and valley
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Right now this is done mostly with natural gas and hydro, but battery or pumped storage powered by wind or solar are also viable for this purpose.
If we have cheap battery storage then why do we need wind or solar power? Would not cheaper and more reliable energy sources be more logical if we had viable battery storage?
I like wind, it's pretty cheap, relatively safe, but far from something we can rely upon to supply more than a fraction of our electricity. I like hydro, it's also safe and cheap. It's not quite environmentally neutral but if we are to control for floods and droughts, provide drinking water to large populations, and maintain navigabl
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If we have cheap battery storage then why do we need wind or solar power? Would not cheaper and more reliable energy sources be more logical if we had viable battery storage?
Since new solar and wind power are currently cheaper on average than new nuclear power, it means that if you have viable battery storage, which you need at the very least for electric cars, then it makes sense to provide electricity for them from wind and solar power. It's not that you *need* them, it's just cheaper on average for opportunistic consumption such as battery charging, that's all.
Re:safer isn't the issue (Score:5, Informative)
Since new solar and wind power are currently cheaper on average than new nuclear power, it means that if you have viable battery storage, which you need at the very least for electric cars, then it makes sense to provide electricity for them from wind and solar power. It's not that you *need* them, it's just cheaper on average for opportunistic consumption such as battery charging, that's all.
We could use solar and wind power only if there was sufficient battery capacity and backup power sources for the times when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine. Batteries take a lot of materials to produce, and a lot of energy too, this costs money. Batteries don't provide electricity, they just time shift the energy and do so with losses.
Wind and solar are currently cheaper on average than new nuclear power because the cost of the storage is not computed as part of the bargain. Nuclear power, left on it's own, needs some kind of back up too. Every nuclear power plant will go down for scheduled maintenance. The key word is scheduled, as in the operators determine when it is shut down. Any utility will stagger these outages so that they are not without power. Solar and wind will go offline but on it's own schedule and all at once. The need for battery storage for nuclear is far smaller than wind and solar, if taken as part of the total cost then I expect wind and solar to lose on the operational cost. That is unless this battery storage is shared with a sufficient amount of reliable nuclear power.
If there is enough nuclear power and cheap batteries the cost of wind and solar might still lose out to nuclear power on costs. A nuclear power plant has an effective constant cost of operation regardless of how much energy it produces because the fuel cost is so low. Wind and solar also have a relatively constant cost, but they require large amounts of storage so that a utility can see it as a reliable power source. If wind and solar are going to be part of the energy mix then it's going to be a fraction of what nuclear provides to avoid the need to purchase the excess battery storage required.
Oh, and I do understand that nuclear power has unscheduled outages. These are exceedingly rare compared to the day/night cycles that wind and solar produce. In a fleet of nuclear power plants having a single unscheduled shutdown would be manageable, primarily by delaying any scheduled outages until the loss in capacity is addressed. This is compared to wind and solar going up and down constantly, all at once in a given area, and no means for backup with simply more wind and solar.
Re:safer isn't the issue (Score:4, Insightful)
If we have cheap battery storage then why do we need wind or solar power? Would not cheaper and more reliable energy sources be more logical if we had viable battery storage?
Since new solar and wind power are currently cheaper on average than new nuclear power,
False. See page 10 [eia.gov]. The ONLY way that solar and wind are cheaper is with all the tax credits they get, factored in (in other words, subsidies). Remove the subsidies, and nuclear is close or cheaper than most of the solar and wind options. And that leaves IN the NIMBY costs (which dominate) associated with construction of a nuclear power plant.
Solar and wind appear cheaper ONLY because they are subsidized massively. Remove the tax subsidies and the true nature of high costs pop out. That's also why countries that increase dependence on wind and solar [joannenova.com.au] see an ever-increasing cost of power.
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Wind, solar, hydro, and geothermal will always be more expensive than nuclear. How can I say that? Because they all use more materials. The second figure on this web page shows the raw material needed for each energy source.
I've already commented on how much full of shit that graph is when it effectively claims that you need 80 kg of steel to support a single 20 kg solar panel (you don't). I see you still haven't found better data.
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I see you still haven't found better data.
Then provide me with better data. You can call Dr. Malhotra and the US DOE liars if you like but unless you can provide better data than what they found then I'm going to believe them over you.
Re:safer isn't the issue (Score:5, Interesting)
By the way, how much do they pay you to make all these pro-nuclear posts?
Who pays you to sell windmills?
Maybe I'm just tired of the lies that keep nuclear power from providing me cheap and reliable electricity. I heard that the nuclear power plant in my back yard will be shutting down earlier than planned because it cannot compete with the wind subsidies. It's been nuclear power that's been keeping my lights on since I was born. If that power plant shuts down before another reactor can be built on that site then the chances of nuclear power keeping my electricity rates low and my electric supply reliable just went to near zero.
I make posts in favor of nuclear power because it's nuclear power that keeps my rates low. I studied electrical engineering at university and as such took a few classes on what makes the electrical grid work. I kept up on the industry even though my day to day work is in IT and software development. It doesn't take a BS in electrical engineering to see that we will not have a reliable electrical grid without nuclear power. What it does take is an honest look at the numbers.
I'm not pro-nuclear so much as I am pro-arithmetic. That's a line I stole from Dr. David MacKay. Speaking of him, he had a bit of his own to say on nuclear power.
The UK being powered by renewable energy is a delusion.
https://www.theguardian.com/en... [theguardian.com]
I expect that the UK will not ever be without nuclear power again, it's just too tempting of an energy source.
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Thorium fuel (Score:3)
I'm inclined to look towards thorium-fueled (technically the fuel's uranium-233, bred from thorium-232 in the reactor itself) molten-salt designs. Thorium's more abundant than uranium, and virtually all naturally-occurring thorium is the needed isotope. Failure modes are utterly boring, the core operates at 1 atmosphere pressure and near the bottom end of the liquid temperature range for the fuel so even total cooling and circulation failure give you days to weeks to do something about the problem before things get critical. The molten fuel's a problem if it gets out due to overheating melting piping, but it'll lose heat to the environment and the solid form isn't dense enough to support fission anymore so it pretty much self-extinguishes and given how long it takes to heat up that much someone will have scrammed the core long before that becomes a problem (drain the core into cooling basins below the reactor and let it cool and solidify and cease fission). Worst-case scenarios are less dangerous than say dealing with molten steel in a smelter, and we know how to handle high-temperature high-viscosity liquids well enough. Failures are still a big problem, but more The Great Molasses Flood than Chernobyl.
Re:Thorium fuel (Score:5, Insightful)
I would love to see a thorium reactor. Hell, I'd like to see breeder reactors make a comeback so we can reuse the stored waste and reprocess it. Better reuse it than stuff it under a mountain for subsequent generations to find.
My biggest concern with nukes is contracting firms. What keeps a contracting company from making a reactor out of silverized plastic and laughing all the way to the bank? Even if they get forced into bankruptcy, the top brass are protected and will be happily buying new yachts with their golden parachutes. In China or Russia, if a contracting firm deliberately cuts corners, the C-levels will fact a firing squad. Here in the US, they would be lauded and praised, similar to the CEO of Theranos, for getting away with it.
We can't even get contractors to ground shower heads... how can we trust them with nuclear reactors?
Re:Thorium fuel (Score:4, Insightful)
What keeps a contracting company from making a reactor out of silverized plastic and laughing all the way to the bank?
The fact that they can only pull this stunt once. The people that deliver will get the next contract. They will laugh all the way to the bank, and then work out a financing deal for the next power plant when they get there.
I am simply tired of people pointing to failed nuclear power projects as examples of why we can't have nuclear power. These are the exception. Every industry has those in it to take the money and run. There's plenty of electric car companies that took the money and ran as well, but they don't get propped up when electric cars are mentioned. Instead it's Tesla, a very successful company.
There are over 400 nuclear power reactors operating in the world today. This shows we can build them from something other than silverized plastic and the contractors take the money and run. Every state in the USA should start building two nuclear power plants, and do it today. The builder that finishes first with an operational power plant gets to build the next two. The one that doesn't gets to take the money and run. If there is a state that finds two builders that fail then they can take a builder from a state that had two succeed.
We had over 100 operating nuclear power reactors in the USA at one time, now it's more like 95. We will need many more nuclear power plants and first thing is to stop losing ground and make the first 100. So, start with two new nuclear power reactors in each state. Then make plans for another 100. Then another 100. We're going to need hundreds of nuclear power reactors in the USA. Let's start building them in quantity. If someone wants to just take the money and run then do what we can to hold them responsible for fraud. Those that aren't just confidence men get to stay in business, and stay out of jail, and will make many more nuclear power plants.
That's how we build a nuclear power industry.
Re:Thorium fuel (Score:4, Interesting)
If we can get contractors to not cut corners, there are a lot of things we cannot even dream of that we can do with the increased availability of energy. Plastics? Thermal depolymerizaion, and turn them back to monomers. No downcycling needed... just toss the organic compounds into the vat, boil them at a high temperature and collect the mineral oil. Trash in the sea? Skim it, depolymerize it, and call it done. Drought? Desalination plants and pipelines. There is a lot that can be done to make life habitable and comfortable for people, but the fear of anything nuclear has kept us in the fossil fuel era, and might just kill us all.
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Microplastic goes straight through the typical mechanical then chemical then biological waste treatment plant. It doesn't get caught in the mechanical filtration because that is for large things, it doesn't get caught in the chemical treatment because it isn't particularly reactive, and the bacteria in the biological treatment do not have enzymes that can break down plastic.
You might induce minor degradation with UV light treatment, but not enough to matter.
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What keeps a contracting company from making a reactor out of silverized plastic and laughing all the way to the bank? Even if they get forced into bankruptcy, the top brass
That kind of contract breaking can end someone in jail.
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The CEO of tgeranos is about to go to court. Wait and see.
My concern is not so much bad parts up front, although that is an issue. Mine is ongoing maintenance and decommissioning, plus waste cleanup. We simply do not have a working waste disposal system. Dry cask storage doesn't work due to vessel failure. Vitrification is expensive and hazardous. Even plunging the waste into a subduction zone is no guarantee, because it's believed that the currents in the mantle may tend to return such material to the surf
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There are a lot very technical issues on nuclear fuels. Everything from stability (ratio of delayed to prompt neutrons) as the fuel burns to chemical stability. I know a lot of work is being done on Throium but its superiority may not be as obvious as it seems.
Nuclear was already safe in the 60s (Score:3)
Re:Nuclear was already safe in the 60s (Score:4, Insightful)
All the big accidents have been caused by major stupidity not engineering.
If background levels of stupidity can cause the reactor to fail, it's bad engineering.
The cost of nuclear has been driven by Green Peace and environmentalists
The accidents didn't help either.
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Its tricky. I think nuclear can be safe if its operated by smart people - but it seems difficult to do that. Somehow the airline industry has manged, but I don't know how to transfer that to reactors.
Even with good operations though, there will still be Fukushima type situations where a nuclear accident results from a larger than predicted natural disaster.
Still, considering the obvious and serious risk of CO2 emissions, I think nuclear is still a good option.
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Its tricky. I think nuclear can be safe if its operated by smart people - but it seems difficult to do that. Somehow the airline industry has manged, but I don't know how to transfer that to reactors.
the air industry was very dangerous in the beginning. You still get deaths due to stupidity, mendacity, cost cutting and murder, just not all that many. Air ravel is overall safe and the thing about it being the safest way to travel has been bandied around a LOT, to get used to the idea that it's safe but not p
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The cost of nuclear has been driven by Green Peace and environmentalists
I thought the idea was that nuclear got killed in the 1970s. How come Green Peace wasn't powerful enough to also effect a switch to renewables and a reduction of carbon emissions in the same time period? So powerful, yet so weak.
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The problem is CO2 isn't safe. We may be faced with unpleasant choices, and I think nuclear will result in less destruction than fossil fuels.
Safer is good, energy now is better. (Score:5, Insightful)
While I certainly applaud the goal to make nuclear power safer we already have nuclear power that is exceedingly safe.
From reading the description in the article these proposed new designs are not about making the nuclear power plants safer. What they want is a nuclear power plant that doesn't self destruct in the case of a failure. Three Mile Island failed safe. There was no, or very little, radiation leaked in that incident. Nobody was injured, nobody died, but a nuclear reactor that was only 3 months old destroyed itself because the operators did everything right. The design was such that if it did reach the point of a meltdown the mess created would stay within the containment structure, and it did.
At Fukushima we saw a single death that is suspected to be from radiation exposure. This after the power plant was struck with a once in a millennia earthquake and tsunami. More people died in the unnecessary evacuation than the actual meltdown. The thousands dead (or missing and presumed dead) from the tsunami seems lost on people. This was a big fucking deal on Japan being hit with this wave and people focus on what is on the scale of things a relative non-event.
I suspect that TMI got so much attention at the time because it played out nearly identically to a movie released only days earlier called "The China Syndrome". Had these two events not been so close in time and place then the movie would have been largely forgotten and the TMI meltdown only a local news story.
Chernobyl is a case of a reactor built with known safety issues, but not known by the operators. It had no containment dome, unlike any reactors operated today. It operated with a positive void coefficient, which is a "feature" no reactor in the USA has. Chernobyl was also operated in a dangerous manner when it blew, a test done without approval and would not have been approved by any sane nuclear engineer. After TMI, Chernobyl, and Fukushima, every nuclear power reactor in the world has undergone reviews, upgrades, and operational changes, to avoid what caused the problems before.
Nuclear power is very safe. We should not have to wait for something safer. Especially when the safety they offer is not to people but to equipment that can be replaced. We need nuclear power now, not when these new designs are finished. There is nothing wrong with the nuclear power plants we have operating today, we should build more like them now. When the new deigns are done and proven then we can build them too.
The longer we wait to build more nuclear power then longer we are operating old nuclear power plants beyond their designed operational life. If nuclear power safety concerns you then we should be building new ones now so we can shutdown the old ones before their wear and tear makes them unsafe.
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How many worldwide Fukushima-type accidents per year would you consider acceptable ?
Re:Safer is good, energy now is better. (Score:5, Insightful)
How many worldwide Fukushima-type accidents per year would you consider acceptable ?
That would be a relevant question if anyone proposed building another 2nd generation nuclear power plant like those at TMI, Chernobyl, or Fukushima. The last first generation reactor went off line in 2015. The last 2nd generation reactor built was at Watts Barr in 2016, even then it's because it's construction was held up for FORTY YEARS and had undergone safety improvements before completion.
Third generation nuclear power is very safe. The currently operating 2nd generation power plants are also very safe. After TMI there were operational changes to the nuclear power plants. After Chernobyl there were engineering changes made to any similar reactors. After Fukushima there were operational and engineering changes to any existing affected 2nd generation power plants. There were many that could not meet the new safety standards from Fukushima and so they were all shutdown permanently.
We need 3rd generation nuclear power now, not 4th generation nuclear at some unspecified future date. We should certainly endeavor to develop 4th generation nuclear but at the same time build 3rd generation (or generation "3.5", the improved 3rd generation designs we have now). We need to do this because we cannot build wind and solar power fast enough to keep up with growing demand. A demand that will grow even faster as existing nuclear power plants are taken off line due to age.
Accidents like Fukushima are not acceptable. They are also so highly unlikely, especially with newer designs, that using that as an excuse to not build more simply does not follow. Nuclear power is not a perfect solution, because nothing is perfect. If it's not nuclear power in our future then the future looks to be very dark and cold.
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That would be a relevant question if anyone proposed building another 2nd generation nuclear power plant like those at TMI, Chernobyl, or Fukushima.
No, the question has nothing to do with type of reactor. It's a simple matter of risk/damage. I'm talking about (roughly) Fukushima-scale damage levels. I'm not asking about safety of any of the current reactor designs, just trying to figure out what kind of risk you're willing to accept. After we have that number, then we can go ahead and look at different reactor designs.
Accidents like Fukushima are not acceptable
So your answer is "zero" ? That seems strange, to be honest. If Fukushima was a "relative non-event", then why would you put the accepta
Re:Safer is good, energy now is better. (Score:5, Insightful)
If we can't have nuclear power then what? We've been trying to replace coal and natural gas for electricity production with wind and solar power for over 40 years now. Next year will be the 50th Earth Day, and what have all those people brought us to actually reduce the environmental damage and human suffering from fossil fuels? These are often the same domestic terrorists holding up new nuclear power plants because they can't seem to understand that nuclear power has more to do with nuclear medicine than nuclear weapons.
Nuclear power is safe, including the 2nd generation nuclear power like that at Fukushima. 3rd generation nuclear power is safer. 4th generation nuclear power promises to be safer yet again. So, why not build more 3rd generation nuclear power now while developing 4th generation nuclear power?
What risk are you willing to accept? If we don't build more nuclear power then, according to the history of safety from each energy source, more people will die without more nuclear power. Nuclear power is the safest energy source we have today. Read up on it.
https://ourworldindata.org/wha... [ourworldindata.org]
http://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/2... [blogspot.com]
https://www.wired.com/2016/04/... [wired.com]
https://www.forbes.com/sites/m... [forbes.com]
Nuclear power does not exist in a vacuum, it must be compared to the alternatives. There's all kinds of articles out there to read on how dangerous nuclear power is to the people that produce the power but then without any comparison every source of energy looks dangerous. Give an alternative that's safer than nuclear power and then we can talk. Until then your protestations on nuclear power are finding fewer and fewer people willing to listen.
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What risk are you willing to accept? If we don't build more nuclear power then, according to the history of safety from each energy source, more people will die without more nuclear power. Nuclear power is the safest energy source we have today. Read up on it.
Why are you spending so much trouble arguing about other things, instead of just answering the question ?
Or do you want to stick with your previous answer that you'll only accept zero risk ? In that case, I'm curious how you got to zero, rather than once in a million years for example.
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Why are you spending so much trouble arguing about other things, instead of just answering the question ?
Because the question equates to the same logical trap as, "When did you stop beating your wife?"
Your question is based on an assumption that does not hold true.
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Your question is based on an assumption that does not hold true.
What assumption am I making ? And why is asking for acceptable risk levels a "logical trap" ?
I think every infrastructure project should start with establishing acceptable risk levels for various kinds of failure. It's not a trap, or a bad assumption. It's vital for determining how much engineering effort (i.e. money) we should put into the project. For example, if you need to put in $1 billion extra design cost in order to prevent an accident that will only cost $10 million, then you're overengineering.
To
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Because you're doing the comparisons in a vacuum and not compared to the alternatives. The only reason t odo that is to avoid comparison to the alternatives.
If you want to show good faith in the argument, why don't you open by telling us what you consider an acceptable death rate (e.g. deaths per TWh) of non nuclear generation sources?
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Because you're doing the comparisons in a vacuum and not compared to the alternatives
The alternatives cannot easily be compared, because they are of a totally different nature. A small amount of poor visible deaths is easier to ignore than a big disaster. That's why airplane accident rates are much lower than those for automobiles.
Also, even with a low number of direct deaths, the cost of containment and clean up in Chernobyl and Fukushima is considerable.
Let me propose a number. Assume we get 100,000 years of operation per reactor before a meltdown-type event similar to Fukushima.
Does that
Re:Safer is good, energy now is better. (Score:5, Insightful)
A small amount of poor visible deaths is easier to ignore than a big disaster.
You seem to be supporting my point. People ignore the deaths from other power generation tech, but not nuclear.
Also, even with a low number of direct deaths, the cost of containment and clean up in Chernobyl and Fukushima is considerable.
Chernobyl is and always has been irrelevant in the west. The west never, ever, ever built nuclear power plants that dangerous. If you're going to judge things by stupid shit that the Soviets did with them you'd rule out just about every piece of technology we have. They built crappy cheap aeroplanes but we still use planes. They decided to churn out endless useless tractors in a ill fated 5 year plan and ended up with one of the worst famines in history, yet we still use tractors. They built an APC with NO ROOF, and yet we don't consider APCs useless and dangerous.
Fukishima is irrelevant to anywhere outside a major Tsunami zone.
Let me propose a number. Assume we get 100,000 years of operation per reactor before a meltdown-type event similar to Fukushima.
Does that sound acceptable and/or reasonable ?
Easily, yes. I find nuclear power generation eminently acceptable and that's a somewhat lower figure than we have right now. I would also not expect the figure we have now to stay that way in perpetuity since I would expect safety to increase over time (like with aircraft).
Now let's ignore things like building stupid reactors like the RBMK and putting them in geologically unstable regions (something the UK is physically incapable of doing since we don't have any). That leaves a TMI style meltdown as the worst that's happened, no deaths and very little contamination escaped the plant.
Would I accept a TMI style melt down at a rate of one every 10,000 years of operation? Definitely, especially as the number would improver over time.
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I believe you are asking this in bad faith and however it is answered will not satisfy you.
What bad things could possibly happen by giving an honest answer ? You are free to ignore any follow-up argument if you feel you've been tricked. At least you'll inform everybody else who is also curious.
Answer me this, why do you want to delay new nuclear power when it means more people will die without it? Why do you hate people so much?
I never said that. Why are you making a bunch of assumptions about my motives ? I have doubts about some aspects of nuclear, but I'm willing to go ahead if someone can make a good case for it. However, I'm not willing to go along with a bunch of handwaving.
Nuclear power is already exceedingly safe.
Does that include the accidents we've already had ?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What bad things could possibly happen by giving an honest answer ?
There is no honest answer to a dishonest question.
I have doubts about some aspects of nuclear, but I'm willing to go ahead if someone can make a good case for it. However, I'm not willing to go along with a bunch of handwaving.
I have my doubts you asked your questions in good faith.
Does that include the accidents we've already had ?
Yes.
Here's some links on why nuclear power is our future, and without "handwaving".
http://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/2... [blogspot.com]
http://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/2... [blogspot.com]
https://www.theguardian.com/en... [theguardian.com]
https://business.financialpost... [financialpost.com]
https://www.reuters.com/articl... [reuters.com]
http://www.roadmaptonowhere.co... [roadmaptonowhere.com]
Re: (Score:3)
There is no honest answer to a dishonest question.
I'm starting to get the feeling you're dishonestly evading the question.
Does that include the accidents we've already had ?
Yes.
Ok, now we're getting somewhere. 75 years, 450 reactors, 3 major incidents, that's 1 major incident (or relative non-events depending on your view) per 10,000 years of operation/reactor. The real number is a bit worse, because not all of the 450 current reactors have been running for 75 years.
Would it be acceptable if we continue at that rate ?
Re: (Score:2)
PS: http://www.world-nuclear.org/i... [world-nuclear.org]
This link says we've had 17,000 cumulative reactor-years of operation, so safety record is about 6,000 reactor years/major incident.
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I'm starting to get the feeling you're dishonestly evading the question.
That's fine. I'm done with you until I see some evidence that you actually read anything I linked to before. Those links should answer your questions on why I see nuclear power as something we cannot do without.
Re: (Score:2)
Those links should answer your questions on why I see nuclear power as something we cannot do without.
I had one question. Do any of the links provide an answer to that one ?
You may very well be right that we need nuclear power. But if we both agree that, say, 10,000 reactor years/major incident is a good number, then we'd need to be able to defend that number to the voters. If we can't defend 10,000 reactor-years, we need to come up with a better number.
Your job is not to convince me, as I represent only one vote. But if none of the parties support widespread adoption of nuclear, then convincing me is point
Re: (Score:2)
I had one question. Do any of the links provide an answer to that one ?
If they do not then you are not asking an honest question.
Re: (Score:2)
If we just say "trust me, it's exceedingly safe", then people will freak out next time there's an accident.
Agreed, there are good reactor designs and implementations and bad ones. Prior to Fukushima, "trust me, it's exceedingly safe [except Chernobyl]" was the usual answer. Now we say "except Fukushima." That significantly weakens the statement such people have been saying.
So I still believe there are a majority of reactors in that "acceptable risk" category, however the case is weakened by the fact that builders, operators, and regulators have not been vigilant enough about shutting down or correcting the un
Re:Safer is good, energy now is better. (Score:5, Insightful)
How many worldwide Fukushima-type accidents per year would you consider acceptable ?
Well, there are either 0 or 1 deaths from Fukushima so that's probably a bad example. Even if you blame the deaths of all the folks who died in the evacuation needlessly (1600) and take that to about 500x, that's about the same number of deaths a year as from Coal. Even in wind or solar there are deaths as the installation of those accounts of a small number of accidents. So people die no matter what technology you choose. The idea is to choose the one with the fewest deaths per unit of energy produced. In deaths per TwH nuclear is safer than anything else. So quit with the hyperbole already.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, there are either 0 or 1 deaths from Fukushima so that's probably a bad example.
I'm not talking about deaths, but damage level to reactor, i.e. meltdowns. The consequence of a meltdown isn't just immediate deaths, it's also the cost and duration of the containment and cleanup procedure.
So quit with the hyperbole already.
What hyperbole ? It's a simple question.
Re: (Score:2)
Fukushima was not a nuclear accident, it was a series of design, operations and management blunders.
It's a nuclear accident because it involves containment failure a nuclear reactor. I don't think the specific cause is very relevant. To determine acceptable risk, you have to consider every possible cause.
Why not stop all traffic, ban all guns, stamp out GMO food, and food additives, etc? Life is risk, you will die one day, I promise.
I never said that I wanted the risk to be zero. All I want is to hear some numbers and discuss them.
Re: (Score:3)
I never said that I wanted the risk to be zero. All I want is to hear some numbers and discuss them.
Here's your numbers. Look at Figure 3.
http://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/2... [blogspot.com]
The UN has compiled the numbers of people killed from our energy production. Based on the data in that chart nuclear power is orders of magnitude safer than anything else we have today. New nuclear power promises to be safer still, and I fail to see how or why they would fail to deliver on that promise. I believe this safety factor improvement will come because the past incidents are rare, well understood, and far cheaper to avoid th
Already had them, people refused (Score:2)
It's not about safety, it's about perception.
Worse, when we invent 'safe', we decide it's OK to take ignore older safety precautions. That's what happened with Chernobyl. They thought their design was so 'safe' they didn't need a concrete shell.
If they do not forgo older safeguards, I am sure the new design will be much safer.
And I am also sure that people will not care. They would rather live next door to a coal power plant because they do not know it is more radioactive than a nuclear power plant. (Co
Golden Age (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, prosperity is right around the corner and landfill will soon smell like strawberries.
Nuclear reactors will be safe when they don't need government subsidies to insure them against liability. They are no longer some "emerging technology". If they're safe, then they should be able to get an insurance company to cover them. In other words: until the free market says they're safe, not in my fucking back yard.
Re:Golden Age (Score:5, Interesting)
They're already safe. Statistically, they're the safest power source man has ever invented [nextbigfuture.com].
The "problem" with nuclear is two things:
Re: (Score:2)
Laughable. First, because that stat ignores future cancer deaths. Cigarette and asbestos manufacturers would love to be able to write off all deaths that didn't happen upon instantaneous exposure to their products. Second, because unless you have an example of a wind farm starting a forest fire that kills someone, the death toll for wind and solar are zero.
Safety and cost. FT
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Golden Age (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't get it, do you? There are only four options:
1. No nuclear reactors. Keep living as we do. Everyone and everything dies of climate change.
2. No nuclear reactors. Return to a standard of life that can only be described as pre-industrial: no more electric lights, no more heating, no more airco, no more internet, and if you want to go anywhere you'll need a horse. Because those oh so great 'renewables' only cover about 0.5% of our total energy need even after decades of investment, and the people using that energy won't be you.
3. The human population drops dramatically, so we stop using such vast quantities of energy. How we generate it doesn't matter.
4. We build nuclear reactors. We keep living as we do. We get climate change under control. Nobody dies.
Who the fuck are you, that you think you have the right to make this choice for everybody?
Nuke Fanboys (Score:2)
You left out option 5: use wind and solar, which have been cheaper than coal for some time, and can be rolled out in a fraction of the time for a fraction of the cost of nuclear power.
And don't bother with the Baseload Bullshit FUD on wind and solar, when you nuclear water heaters go down for months or more at a time for maintenance - which means you need a spare $20 billion nuclear plant to provide backup power.
Re: (Score:2)
Trouble reading, have you? If you go full wind and solar, energy will become something for the 1%, not for the rest of the population. There just won't be enough for everyone. So that choice is actually choice nr. 2, not your mythical nr. 5.
Baseload is not bullshit, it's the simple and undeniable reality of power generation. Nuclear power stations need maintenance, but that's something you can schedule. Maintain each generator in turn, not all of them at the same time. You cannot schedule wind and solar, ev
Re: (Score:2)
Those are not the only four options, unless you're a stooge for the (US) nuclear industry.
Then please enlighten us on our other options. Then also explain how these options don't make you a stooge for whatever industries that provide the options you gave.
Re: (Score:2)
You've seen the other options ad nauseum. You just keep ignoring them, like a creationist ignoring all evidence that the earth isn't 6,000 years old.
Re:Golden Age (Score:4, Insightful)
You've seen the other options ad nauseum. You just keep ignoring them, like a creationist ignoring all evidence that the earth isn't 6,000 years old.
Now explain how you are not a paid shill for wind and solar power.
I've seen the options. I did the math. There is no future without nuclear power. I like wind power, it's reasonably cheap, safe, and has minimal impact on the environment. I like hydro, we need dams for drinking water, irrigation, flood control, navigation, etc. and so putting some generators in there just seems logical. Solar power is nice for off grid use, putting it on the grid is expensive and causes more trouble than it is worth. Bio-fuels is just burning food in my mind, that's an environmental disaster in the making. There is no such thing as "agricultural waste" that we can burn without losing something somewhere else, that is valuable plant material useful for fertilizer, erosion control, and animal bedding. Farmers are not hauling straw to some landfill to get rid of it, they've been using it and selling it for numerous uses since humans have been farming.
I say this as an electrical engineer, former farmhand, and someone that doesn't want to see his electricity get more expensive.
Re: (Score:2)
The United States Government DGAF about about safety, the environment, insurance, or lawsuits. But it's not using your "new designs" - which are an old red herring - on any of its military bases. Because you're peddling snake oil.
No, they're not. (Score:2)
Thorium et all have been on the way for decades, yet never appear. It's all the same vaporware shit that will never be cost effective.
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Thorium et all have been on the way for decades, yet never appear. It's all the same vaporware shit that will never be cost effective.
It's a bit difficult for development to happen if the powers that be in the government will not issue permits allowing for research reactors to be built.
Carter effectively ended the nuclear power industry with his administration. Reagan and GHW Bush couldn't revive the nuclear power industry with Democrats in control of one or both houses of Congress. Clinton and Obama had no love for nuclear power. Maybe GW Bush could have brought some nuclear power love to the federal government, and maybe had some sup
Re: (Score:3)
That's the real problem with nuclear power: cost. Thorium, molten salt etc etc designs may be "safe", but they're still vaporware. If your plant isn't going to be cost effective, why bother building a radioactive water heater.
On the road to where? (Score:2)
Nimby-Town?
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Que the ignorant bong smoking hippies.
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Que the ignorant bong smoking hippies.
Nah, they're too busy mopping up the bong water. It's nasty stuff, as you know, and has to be shipped to an undisclosed location in Nevada.
Re:OT: California's Top Rock and Roll Hits (Score:4, Insightful)
Which did you mean? Cue, or queue?
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Cue.
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About damn time.
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Yep, because cost is more important that a habitable world.
Re:Finally some common sense (Score:4, Insightful)
Yep, because cost is more important that a habitable world.
Or a pipe dream either. That $4.5T number, comes from greenmediatech. I'm guessing that its probably a tad low what with this project using the world's entire supply of several elements for the foreseeable future and all. The problem with renewables is that they don't scale well. They are nice for taking the edge off your power bill. They are terrible at powering an entire grid with customers who need reliable power. Even forgetting the are storage problems, its an unrealistic plan. The basic amount of mining to make and maintain that many turbines and solar panels isn't realistic and likely would create more far environmental damage than the nuclear options would. Remember that nuclear is about 150,000,000x more energy dense than renewable sources. That scales. Neodymium, Samarium and Cobalt mining doesn't.
Re: (Score:2)
nuclear is about 150,000,000x more energy dense than renewable sources
And this is apparently a figure obtained by rectal extraction. (Did it hurt?) 150e6 times as dense how exactly? Surely not by area power
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Finally some common sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep, because cost is more important that a habitable world.
You want to see an environmental disaster? Then make energy expensive.
If people can't afford to buy heat then they will set alight anything that will burn to keep warm. That means trees. If there is a freezing person and a tree within sight then that tree will not last long. If there are no trees in sight then it will be trash, worn tires, books, plastic, lubricating oil, or anything that is not nailed down and perhaps a few things that are. Think of the wasteland that will result as people continue to burn the place to the ground, piece by piece, to stay warm. It won't happen overnight but it will be a creeping and slow death to civilization. A modern civilization without nuclear power is just a dream. The alternative is a nightmare of watching civilization slowly slipping from us.
You can live in your fantasy world of not caring about how much energy costs. The rest of us in the real world care very much.
Nuclear power is already very inexpensive, safe, clean, and we'd have more of it if it wasn't for ignorant assholes like yourself holding it up.
Re: (Score:2)
If people can't afford to buy heat
Heat is a tiny component of the energy we actually use. It also isn't dependent on electricity cost. One of the more environmentally friendly options on the market are district heating and ... setting alight things which burn (biomass).
Re: (Score:2)
What? Your rambling does not even address the comment I made. First, a habitable planet, then worry about expense.
That could mean nuclear, or renewables. Or anything. Nothing else matters if the planet is screwed?
Man, you people go off at nothing, then make no sense.
Re: (Score:2)
No anon, really go fuck yourself.
We have already seen this. Have you heard about Easter Island? This is what is possible to a people: You chop down all the wood, there is no roots, and civilization fades. Without anywhere else to go, civilization just fades.
Another phenomena that is known is that you can make earth infertile from agriculture. Generally crop yields go low before you destroy earth, so generally you move to the next valley before things go sour.
The 1800s saw some rather impressive deforestatio
Re: (Score:2)
Carter Argument is obsolete - time to move on (Score:3)
All those laws were rolled back by Reagan. The whole "Carter blah blah" argument is just another blame tactic the nuclear industry uses to shift the focus off their repeated failure to evolve their industry. Instead they focus on creating PR clones, such as yourself to lie for them.
Now the industry is desperate the whole blame game doesn't work and the only thing that people like you can do is be an obstacle to solving the many and varied problems the industry has.
The article, an obvious puff piece for
Re: (Score:3)
Instead they focus on creating PR clones, such as yourself to lie for them.
I had to read this sentence twice for it to make sense. I thought you meant they "create Pressurized Reactor clones" (such as the AP1000) which is something that they also do.
Re: (Score:2)
Instead they focus on creating PR clones, such as yourself to lie for them.
I had to read this sentence twice for it to make sense. I thought you meant they "create Pressurized Reactor clones" (such as the AP1000) which is something that they also do.
Fair call. I mean Nuclear Industry Public Relations.
FYI, AP1000 is almost a clone of SNUPPS (at Wolf Creek and Callaway - IIRC)
Re:Carter Argument is obsolete - time to move on (Score:4, Informative)
All those laws were rolled back by Reagan.
Which was too little too late. Once the nuclear power industry had all it's best people scattered to the winds doing other stuff it's real hard to bring them back. Carter put a stake in the heart of nuclear power. It would be over 30 years before the NRC would issue another permit to build a nuclear power plant.
Re:Carter Argument is obsolete - time to move on (Score:5, Informative)
All those laws were rolled back by Reagan.
Which was too little too late. It would be over 30 years before the NRC would issue another permit to build a nuclear power plant.
Except that Carter's ban was on the re-processing of spent nuclear fuels not building nuclear power plants. Reagan lifted the ban on re-processing spent fuels immediately after Carter.
The Carter ban is often cited as a ban on breeder reactors. Considering that EBR-II (Experimental Breeder Reactor 2) ran from 1964 - 1994 and Reagan was president from 1981-1989, the Carter ban didn't affect breeder reactors at all. EBR-II was shut down by Clinton and funding to de-fuel and demolish it was provided by W.Bush in the 2005 US Energy Policy Act.
There is simply no evidence that the Carter ban did much at all considering the French re-processing was available the whole time. Re-processing isn't done in the US because it is simply too expensive.
Complaint's about Carter's ban are a claim to moral superiority based in disingenuity.
Re:Nuke is already pretty safe and destructive (Score:5, Insightful)
Why equate nuclear power to nuclear weapons? When you fill up your car do you ponder how much napalm that could make?
When we think of nuclear power we should also consider nuclear medicine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Or think of space exploration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
If we are ever going to get off this rock and explore other planets then it is going to take a lot of energy, energy that cannot be obtained from wind and solar sources alone.
Yes, nuclear power can kill, as can any power source. That includes solar power.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
I'm still waiting to see what happens to a person after he/she leaves the earths electromagnetic field and gets bombarded by cosmic radiation in space.
Are you not aware that 12 men walked on the moon? I'm pretty sure that's outside the protective blanket provided by the Earth's magnetic field.