The Nuclear Power Renaissance 927
Actual Reality writes "It is ironic to me that much of the same sentiment that thwarted the nuclear power industry back in the 80's is partially responsible for reviving it. Nuclear power is very clean compared to any power source that burns fuel. The US has missed several advancements in nuclear technology. We can only hope that environmental concerns will not again stifle our progress."
Cost (Score:5, Informative)
Nuclear madness in Finland (Score:1, Informative)
http://www.olkiluoto.info/en/ [olkiluoto.info]
Plenty of scandals.
Re:Cost (Score:5, Informative)
According to CBS/60 minutes [cbsnews.com]:
Re:Clean nuclear waste (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Nuclear Power for Everyone (Score:5, Informative)
Secondly, reprocessing. The US's main focus for reprocessing is wrapped up in the Bush Administration's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership [energy.gov] (GNEP). This is a freaking scam, and the National Academy of Sciences [fas.org] backs me up. Basically, the types of reactors envisioned require materials science that just isn't there yet, requires funding that just isn't there yet, and requires an infrastructure that Just Isn't There Yet.
The solution is to turn Yucca Mountain [doe.gov] into a medium-term repository. Bury it, safely, for 100 to 200 years, let the exceptionally hot stuff decay away, and I'm pretty darned sure civilization will be able to find some use for the energy stored in there in 100 years. But until then, let the technology mature. The commercial industry (and, by extension, every person in the U.S. who pays for electricity) has been paying into the Yucca fund for too long not to see any return on that investment.
Oh, one more snarky comment. Please provide support via links for your assertions; it's not hard. I would like to see evidence that after 30 years, the spent fuel coming out of a burner like envisioned for GNEP is actually less radioactive than the original ore.
Re:Nuclear Power for Everyone (Score:3, Informative)
You balance the construction cost in year zero with the cost of fuel in the out years.
If your nuke plant costs four times as much to build, initially, but, over the life of the plant, it saves twenty times as much in fuel costs (numbers pulled at random out of poster's butt), you have saved a whole bundle of money by buying the more expensive plant.
Also, entirely too much of the cost of building nuclear power plants has been fighting totally frivolous bullcrap from enviro-whackos who wouldn't know what a void coefficient was if it tore their leg off.
Re:Nuclear Power for Everyone (Score:5, Informative)
Anything else has more C-C bonds and so cannot have as high of a ratio.
Disclaimer: I don't have my chemistry books handy or could make sure the above is compltely true. If I remember correctly, it is. YMMV...
It's been done. (Score:4, Informative)
After the project was nearly ready for production, it was torpedoed largely by John Kerry and Hazel O'Leary. This wasn't a partisan thing; two of the biggest backers were Richard Durbin and Carol Moseley Braun. It's one of the biggest wallbangers in political history that I can think of. I am at a loss as to why anyone is considering building a reactor on any other design.
It doesn't have to. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Ban on re-processing (Score:5, Informative)
This made me think of another point. Any such plant like this creates about 2 units of heat for every unit of electricity.
While you can't get this up to 100% obviously, you can collocate various industries that need heat - such as ethanol plants*. Heck, run steam pipes to various buildings to provide heat. Ammonia refrigeration [nh3tech.org] using heat is a known technology, so it can even provide AC.
Even if you end up selling the heat ridiculously cheap prices - it's currently going up the evaporation cooling tower. Just like how a number of pollution products collected by scrubbers are actually valuable materials.
An ethanol plant getting cheap heat from a nuclear plant for it's processes would help lower the cost of the nuclear power(more money to pay off the building loan quicker) as well as lower the cost for the ethanol(cheaper to produce).
You're getting up to, at minimum, a large town to provide all the workers in the two(or more) plants, as well as all the support workers for them. People like doctors, teachers, waiters, accountants, police, etc...
*Many of which are currently coal or gas fired.
Re:Question: How plentiful is Uranium? (Score:5, Informative)
This link [moneyweek.com] is a pretty good read for that information. Current price of uranium is nowhere near the historic inflation-adjusted high ($75/pound versus $145/pound). However, the author gives some very good information on why the price will be skyrocketing soon:
-there's a gap between production and consumption that's currently being closed by using stockpiles, i.e. old Russian nukes. Once those are used up, that gap opens up again.
-there are many nuclear power plants coming online in the next decade or so. 28 are currently under construction, over 100 more in the next decade.
-at current rates of demand, we'll need 900 new nuclear plants by 2050 to keep up.
In short, it's plentiful now, but it won't be soon.
Nuclear energy is just energy credit card (Score:2, Informative)
2 words....
Uranium Hexaflouride ( go on google it )
9 tonnes of Uranium Hexaflouride is produced for every tonne of usable uranium fuel. It is highly corrosive, breaks down on contact with dihydrogen oxide to form UO2F2 (uranyl fluoride) and HF (hydrogen fluoride) both toxic and has a half life in the range of 4.5 Billion years.
The current method of storage is above ground in steel containers that have a life of only decades and as a result they need to be constantly inspected, repainted and replaced. An expensive option that must be maintained until the uranium threat has gone, and you are still left with the hexaflouride part.
The alternative options for storage all require high energy processes to extract the flouride.
As I said, forgetting about the environmental impacts of nuclear power there are serious issues with the energy and cost calculations that have been touted by nuclear proponents.
Re:I happen to quite agree with TFA: (Score:5, Informative)
The nuclear waste sites you mention are all, or almost all due to nuclear weapon manufacture, NOT commercial nuclear power.
Nuclear waste IS an issue, but it is much LESS of an issue than the *billions of tons* of toxic ash, and carbon dioxide produced by coal power, which you advocate using (not to mention lesser amounts of other nasty pollutants such as mercury, sulfur and the like--ever heard of acid rain? Toxic mercury fish? Where do you think acid rain comes from?). Further, that coal is often mined using extremely environmentally destructive strip mining.
I would like to comment that France has more nuclear power than the USA, but LESS of a problem with nuclear waste. Why is that? It is because we here in the USA are *complete idiots* about safe disposal of waste. It can be done, we're just too stupid to do it! And most of the problem is due to the ignorance and attitude of people like you!
Coal mining, burning, and transport has probably led to the deaths of millions of people. Nuclear power has NOT come CLOSE to such a death toll EVEN INCLUDING NUCLEAR WEAPON USE ON JAPAN.
And you know what? The deaths due to burning coal and other fossil fuels are going to exponentiate once much of the planet becomes refugees due to sea levels rising due to global warming due to carbon dioxide emissions!
I grant you, we SHOULD be using windmills, bicycles, sweaters, walking, transit, hydropower, and solar cells, but advocating the use of *any* carbon-emitting energy source over nuclear power is---your word-- INSANE.
Here's some more supplementary material:
Case Study: The Side Effects of a Coal Plant
A 500 megawatt coal plant produces 3.5 billion kilowatt-hours per year, enough
to power a city of about 140,000 people. It burns 1,430,000 tons of coal, uses
2.2 billion gallons of water and 146,000 tons of limestone.
It also puts out, each year:
10,000 tons of sulfur dioxide. Sulfur dioxide (SOx) is the main cause of
acid rain, which damages forests, lakes and buildings.
10,200 tons of nitrogen oxide. Nitrogen oxide (NOx) is a major cause of
smog, and also a cause of acid rain.
3.7 million tons of carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the main
greenhouse gas, and is the leading cause of global warming. There are
no regulations limiting carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S.
500 tons of small particles. Small particulates are a health hazard,
causing lung damage. Particulates smaller than 10 microns are not
regulated, but may be soon.
220 tons of hydrocarbons. Fossil fuels are made of hydrocarbons; when
they don't burn completely, they are released into the air. They are a
cause of smog.
720 tons of carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide (CO) is a poisonous gas
and contributor to global warming.
125,000 tons of ash and 193,000 tons of sludge from the smokestack
Re:Nuclear Power for Everyone (Score:5, Informative)
simply, it's the ratio of carbon atoms to hydrogen atoms:
methane- CH4 = 1:4 =
ethane -C2H6 = 1:3 =
propane-C3H8 = 3:8 =
butane -C4H10= 2:5 =
Methane has the lowest amount of carbon per mole.
But no matter how you slice it, all hydrocarbon combustion creates CO2.
IMHO, If we need to, as a civilization, we can survive on solar power using existing technologies if we reduce our consumption to more modest levels.
Re:Nah, fuck off (Score:2, Informative)
This is still unproven (there are lots of other noxious things people are being exposed to over there, any of which could be contributing to such problems).
However more to the point, depleted uranium is not particularly radioactive; if you had a brick of it in your hand, you would be exposed to relatively little radiation. Remember also that much of the radiation in that brick will itself be locked up in the interior of the brick because it is also a good shield material.
The issue with depleted uranium is not so much the density of its radioactivity, but the fact that when it's used in munitions it gets burned and pulverized into dust particles which are more easily absorbed by the body. You're not likely to eat a brick of DU and, quite frankly, even if you did swallow a small marble of DU the body is not able to absorb much of it and it will quickly be eliminated. However you could easily inhale small particles of oxidized or pulverized DU which allows for both heavy metal poisoning and longer-term exposure to the radioactivity since the small particles and heavy metal oxides would remain in the body for longer periods of time, and the smaller particles present a higher surface-to-volume ratio for the radioactivity to escape into your body.
The jury is still out on whether this is enough to account for the observed health issues, though there is cause for concern. But it is not an issue outside of military scenarios because you wouldn't be making pulverized and oxidized DU and spreading it all over the environment.
Re:The thing is (Score:3, Informative)
You want to show me where the prototype exists to convert a very-high-powered laser beam to an electricity source
First, most proposals I've seen merely reflected and concentrated the sun.
Second, the 'prototypes' would most likely be solar thermal plants [fsu.edu], merely adjusted for receiving more energy.
We just don't have the launch capacity, keeping the mirror focused on the right spot would require the satellite to perform gymnastics that would tear one big enough to be useful to shreds. Coordinating multiple satellites is still too complicated, and our orbitals are too dirty, as they'd be too large to dodge like the ISS and shuttle currently do.
Re:nuclear waste (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Fine (Score:4, Informative)
http://pdf.aiaa.org/preview/CDReadyMJPC2003_775/PV2003_4431.pdf [aiaa.org]
Re:Nuclear Power for Everyone (Score:4, Informative)
politician what the risks were.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_carter [wikipedia.org]
Breeder reactors _are_ a proliferation concern. You clearly don't know what you are talking about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor#Reprocessing [wikipedia.org]
Separating isotopes _IS_ possible...Maybe difficult, but not impossible. Fuel reprocessing is done
to make this purposely more difficult.
And it's easy to look back with 30 years of hindsight and criticize, but it was an intelligent decision at
the time, and might still be today. Breeder reactors have proven to be better, but I'll bet it wasn't
so obvious 30 years ago. And the proliferation issue still hasn't gone away.
Pebble reactors - safe from meltdown (Score:1, Informative)
Pebble reactors change the risk equation and can be thought of as "failing safely" if cooling fails (as long as the container can withstand high temperatures of around 2000K.)
An easy to understand reference on pebble reactors: http://pebblebedreactor.blogspot.com/2007/01/pbr-passive-safety-comes-from-basic.html [blogspot.com]
China is doing it - http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.09/china.html [wired.com]
I believe that pebble reactors also change the equation when it comes to "spent fuel" but I'll leave that for someone else to follow up on.
Re:I happen to quite agree with TFA: (Score:3, Informative)
"In March 1977, fear of nuclear weapons proliferation (especially after India demonstrated nuclear weapons capabilities using reprocessing technology) led President Jimmy Carter to issue a Presidential directive to indefinitely suspend the commercial reprocessing and recycling of plutonium in the U.S. Other nations did not copy the policy and continued to reprocess spent nuclear fuel."
Now seeing that other nations do reprocess, and our reason was politically based, not scientifically based, AND SEEING HOW OUR HALTING OF ALL COMMERCIAL FUEL REPROCESSING HAS NOT STOPPED OTHER NATIONS FROM DOING SO FOR WEAPONS PURPOSES, we should realize what is labeled as wasted could be "reduced - reused - and recycled". Reprocessing our spent fuel will also have an effect on the type of long term waste storage method needed. A significant majority of the high dose rate fields come from relatively short half lived materials compared to the millions of years many debaters claim Yucca Mtn needs to last. Sr-90 has a half life of ~28.8 years and Cs-137 has a halflife of 30.23 years. Given 7 to 10 halflives at which point isotopes are generally accepted as being 'gone' That means we only need ~ 300 years of storage for the high dose rate field.
There are other aspects of this that could be answered with other solutions if the rules were relaxed to scientific based reality, instead of failed political reasoning. Some uses for these 'waste materials' (read radioactive elements with no political use) can be used in medical radiotherapy, as industrial radiation sources for thickness gauges, and since these materials generate heat as a decay byproduct, they have functioned as thermal sources for various applications.
An additional point to the above post by Peter is that while he pointed out that the RBMK reactor at Chernobyl used graphite for neutron moderation, BWR and PWR reactors here in the states use water to thermalize neutrons, and should a Loss of Fluid Accident occur, ultimately, the reaction would halt because the water would evaporate away and leave nothing to moderate the neutrons so they can split other atoms and keep the reaction going. This prevents things like the extreme core meltdown that Chernobyl experienced. Look of the Loss Of Fluid Test at the INL for additional information
One of the interesting Next Gen reactor Proposals is the Very High Temperature Reactor which not only would generate electrical power, but potentially co-generate Hydrogen gas, which would be a nice potential alternative chemical fuel source.
Re:bleh (Score:3, Informative)
I hope someone does something to stop them and their overhyped [wikipedia.org] fears [nytimes.com] of nuclear materials [stanford.edu], so we can start making new nuclear weapons [aip.org]. Everybody knows we have solved any technical issues [sric.org] with dangerous nuclear power production! [washingtonpost.com]
Re:Nuclear Power for Everyone (Score:4, Informative)
why sequester the methane when you can turn around and burn it again?
Because it's a joke. Natural Gas = Methane. Parent is suggesting that we burn natural gas, convert the CO2 back into natural gas, and then pump it back underground.
Now mods have to take away the parent's "funny" modifier, because I explained the joke, therefore killing it.
Re:I happen to quite agree with TFA: (Score:3, Informative)
Which reprocessing method? There are a bunch of different methods that have been suggested, with properties / design goals ranging from "produce weapons-grade plutonium as the primary output while retaining some claim to being a nuclear power process" to "produce a horrible mixture of hard to separate isotopes that would be harder to turn into a nuclear weapon than natural Uranium ore, but which works great in a reactor".
With the better recycling schemes, especially some of the "in plant" schemes, the long term storage that the high level waste requires is on the order of 300 years - so you build a reinforced concrete building on reasonably stable ground and your fine. Note that this is vastly unlike the 100,000 years that once-through spent fuel requires, where you have to worry about questions like "Will the creatures that stumble into this storage area still understand the concept of written language?"
Yea, and there's an economic consensus that burning Petrol is more efficient than any other plan. Unfortunately, with an "open cycle with direct disposal", we'd run out of Uranium before we ran out of Petrol. Fuel recycling laws aren't just a good idea - they're the only way that nuclear-fission power is even vaguely viable even in the medium term.
Re:Troll news? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:You forgot the first step... (Score:3, Informative)
The sarcophagus over the Chernobyl reactor was built some 20 years ago, and it might survive another 20.
Long term for current radioactive waste would be something like 10,000 years
Re:Alternative Enegies First - Not Nuclear (Score:2, Informative)
and anyone who's driven across the miles/and miles of empty BLM land knows
that the US still has plenty of land w/o water and any farm value. Way more
than necessary to power the US completely.
The yearly income from an acre of solar panels would be far more than farming.
It's the startup costs which need to come down.
Land costs would never be an issue except in urban/suburban areas. Never in
agricultural areas.
Re:You forgot the first step... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Nuclear Power for Everyone (Score:4, Informative)
For a safe design go and look up "Pebble Bed Nuclear Reactor". These have the capability to become a much safer design but they are still on the drawing board.
For a decent article discussing the various types of reactor currently in use look here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reactor_technology [wikipedia.org]
It seems to suggest that Pressurised Water Reactors are the safest design.
Re:Nuclear Power for Everyone (Score:5, Informative)
Chernobyl: The idiots turned off the pumps.
Three Mile: The idiots went cheap with the sensors.
A well funded plant with competent people running it is very safe.
The environmental FUD has ensured that modern reactors have both.
Re:Nuclear Power for Everyone (Score:3, Informative)
The app works good cause we're in northern Arizona, plenty of sunshine at least 350 days out of the year. We still get some cloud cover, and if the clouds hang over for a week, the net goes down. This is why I really don't see solar power being widespread for power generation.
Re:Nuclear Power for Everyone (Score:3, Informative)
Watts are not a measurement of energy. They are a measurement of energy per time. The "per time" part is built-in to the unit watt. A 100 watt light bulb uses 100 joules per second, or 0.134102209 horsepower. Energy is also measured in watt-hours. That's watts TIMES hours, not watts per hour. a 1Wh battery will deliver one watt for an hour. Twenty 100watt bulbs at once will use 2kWh in an hour.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watt#Confusion_of_watts_and_watt-hours [wikipedia.org]