Comments on: Open Thread 2

By: Barry Brook

Barry Brook — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 23:45:00 +0000

Peter, it was this one:
http://bravenewclimate.com/2010/02/22/hansen-adelaide/

By: Peter Lang

Peter Lang — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 23:15:40 +0000

Could someone please give me a link to the comments on the debate between Hansen, Switkowski and Olson versus Mark Diesendorf et al. Several people attended and posted their comments on one of the threads, but which thread was it?

By: Open Thread 3 « BraveNewClimate

Open Thread 3 « BraveNewClimate — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:14:29 +0000

[...] Thread 3 Posted on 5 March 2010 by Barry Brook The last Open Thread has just slipped off the BNC front page, so time to launch a new one. The Open Thread is a general [...]

By: Barry Brook

Barry Brook — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 23:44:34 +0000

I will be at the IQ2 debate tonight.

By: Peter Lang

Peter Lang — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 23:42:21 +0000

Dr Hansen, Ziggy Switkowski and Erica Smyth will debate Molly Harriss Olson, Mark
Diesendorf and Jim Green tonight at Melbourne Town Hall from 6.30pm on whether Australia
should embrace nuclear power. The Age is a partner for the IQ2 debate.

By: Finrod

Finrod — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:40:49 +0000

Thanks Finrod. He’s arguing nuclear power is too expensive in the US and therefore no one should be building them, and that loan guarantees are ’subsidies’. A pretty tired old argument. He also concludes by saying we should build renewables, but completely ignores the cost of this approach. Breathtaking.

I’ve left a couple of comments in the comments thread there. It seems I have a jousting partner. I’ll just have to see if he replies to me again.

By: Barry Brook

Barry Brook — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:34:47 +0000

Thanks Finrod. He’s arguing nuclear power is too expensive in the US and therefore no one should be building them, and that loan guarantees are ‘subsidies’. A pretty tired old argument. He also concludes by saying we should build renewables, but completely ignores the cost of this approach. Breathtaking.

By: Finrod

Finrod — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:12:27 +0000

Barry, you’ve been mentioned in the following article:

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/nuclear-its-just-too-expensive-for-us-and-the-rest-of-the-world-20100225-p4y3.html

By: Robert Smart

Robert Smart — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:59:50 +0000

http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-national/nuclear-only-way-to-cut-emissions-20100226-p66g.html: Mr Abbott said that if “the most urgent task confronting humanity is to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions” the “only realistic way to do that in ways which maintain living standards” was to move to nuclear energy. However, he will not be taking it to the next election.

He should take it to the electorate. (1) He’ll get Peter Cosgrove on his side; (2) Isn’t it better to take a policy that maintains living standards, rather than taking Lib’s current plan, which they are now admitting doesn’t. [Of course their actual plan is not to reduce living standards, but to not reduce emissions, but they can't admit that.]

By: Lawrence

Lawrence — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 21:26:46 +0000

One thing about these figures that may be confusing is a bit of vagueness about how much U-235 is left (or consumed):
“After a year of operation, the following ‘waste’ results: 18.73 t of uranium (mostly U-238),”.
When people read that 99% of the energy remains I think people wonder if that means only 1% of the U-235 was fissioned, since the input was also “mostly U-238″.

By: G.R.L. Cowan, H2 energy fan 'til ~1996

G.R.L. Cowan, H2 energy fan 'til ~1996 — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 20:55:26 +0000

Thanks. As discussed above, it's really more like 95 percent of the fission potential still there, not 99. Also, according to this, those 16 casks are at the former Yankee Rowe site, not Maine Yankee. (How fire can be domesticated)

By: Barry Brook

Barry Brook — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 11:23:45 +0000

Scott, correct.

In rough terms, per gigawatt year one needs about 200 t of natural uranium to deliver 20 t of 4.5% enriched U, of which about 1 t of the LEU is fissioned. So about 99.5% of the energy from the natural U remains, but the once-through used LWR fuel has 19/20 or 95% of its energy content remaining. All in very rough terms — the details of enrichment, burn-up etc. depend of a variety of factors.

Some details here:
IFR FaD 3 – the LWR versus IFR fuel cycle
http://bravenewclimate.com/2010/02/16/ifr-fad-3a/

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 10:58:53 +0000

Am I correct in thinking that LWR spent fuel has approximately 95% of the original energy content, still unused? I always thought the 99% figure came included DU left over from enrichment?

Thanks.

By: Barry Brook

Barry Brook — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 05:24:31 +0000

http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/11/10/follow-britains-nuclear-lead/#comment-34667

Peter Lang said:

http://www.nukeworker.com/pictures/displayimage-5205-fullsize.html

16 canisters hold all the used fuel from 32 years of nuclear power generation from the Maine Yankee nuclear power plant. 99% of the available energy in that fuel has not been used yet. The fuel is available for use in the future. Why would anyone want to dispose of it?

By: G.R.L. Cowan, H2 energy fan 'til ~1996

G.R.L. Cowan, H2 energy fan 'til ~1996 — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 04:51:29 +0000

I'm trying to find a photo that I think was linked from here. It showed dry storage casks on a white concrete pad with green grass beyond them. I think they were at a decommissioned plant. Can anyone point to it based on the above? (How fire can be domesticated)

By: Lawrence

Lawrence — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 23:03:11 +0000

This was the news article that did not explain anything to me.

http://thetyee.ca/News/2009/06/09/LittleReactorsCouldnt/

By: DV82XL

DV82XL — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 22:26:02 +0000

Keen was president of the CNSC during both decisions. Her dismissal was a bit more complicated than being fired for following the law. She was dismissed for having lost the government’s confidence, because it was clear that she had let the situation get out of control during the NRU fiasco.

When the Minister responsible stepped in to try and deal with the situation, Keen publicly accused him of interfering. It became very clear very quickly to even her own officials and AECL and independent experts that, in fact, this was not about safety. This was a potential difference in opinion between the two, even CNSC’s director general of nuclear cycle and facilities regulation indicated the reactor was as safe as ever.

She threatened to take the government to court over this, and also said she was going to file charges of interference, with the Parliamentary Ethics Committee, but I guess she talked to her lawyers, because she never has.

By: Lawrence

Lawrence — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 19:51:11 +0000

In any case thank you for taking the time to offer some analysis of this situation. I tried to find out about it by reading things in the news but I never found any satisfactory explanations.

By: Lawrence

Lawrence — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 19:40:07 +0000

Not to confuse things – Linda Keen shut down the NRU not MAPLE right?
If AECL was contractually obligated to finish MAPLE how can they just stop? I dislike socialising cost and privatising profit but it’s a big protest to make.

By: Lawrence

Lawrence — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 19:35:43 +0000

I guess I’m dumb. If a public employee follows the law, and Parliament fires them for it, isn’t there something wrong with that picture? Perhaps I don’t want to know.