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Future Nuclear Open Thread

Fukushima Philosophical Discussion Open Thread

It was suggested in a comment — and I agree — that the previous open threads on the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident were becoming difficult to read, because they are such a mixture of technical details and philosophical discourse. That is, it’s generally a bad idea to cater to two different audiences in one comment thread. So, I will split them up.

Please keep all dialogue here to general and philosophical discussions on nuclear power, its benefits and limitations, its alternatives, history, media treatment of the FD accident, your views on how the world should work and why people should listen to you, etc., etc. Nothing technical please — leave that for the other FD open thread.

Besides the above guidelines, the other rules of the Open Threads on BNC apply. Read here for details.

To kick this discussion off, here is a recent interview I did (late last week) with Mike Worsman of “Our World Today“. The cover story is entitled:

“Japan’s near meltdown – not all bad for future of nuclear“

The interview goes on for 10 minutes, and there is a cover story at this link that is also worth reading.

You can also listen to me on ABC National Radio’s “Rear Vision” programme, broadcast today, talking (with along with 3 other folks) on The history of nuclear power.

Okay, let’s hear your views on what it all means…

By Barry Brook

Barry Brook is an ARC Laureate Fellow and Chair of Environmental Sustainability at the University of Tasmania. He researches global change, ecology and energy.

475 replies on “Fukushima Philosophical Discussion Open Thread”

There’s a striking asymmetry between those who say renewables should dominate the energy mix and those who advocate nuclear. The latter are not hostile towards renewables merely unconvinced it can do the job. However it seems most in the renewables camp are actively hostile towards nuclear.

Thus the recurring question is who are the bigger dreamers? Sometimes I think people are clutching at straws when they say some minor renewable technology is ready for primetime. For example enthusiasts for dry rock geothermal seem to deny the mounting evidence that it will disappoint. But mass produced IFR and LFTR also seem equally nebulous at this stage. Maybe an each way bet is in order. Make that a three way bet with the possibility the human race will never return to late 20th century levels of consumption.

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I am an American living in Japan (roughly a safe 300 KM south from the Fukushima plants) and have thus, of course, been following the news closely. I have family in the U.S. who are extremely worried and encouraging me to leave the country, at least in part I believe due to the type of coverage the Fukushima plants are receiving. As Barry states in his interview, this event has motivated me to do a lot of reading and learning about radiation, nuclear power, and climate change. I know way more about nuclear power and radiation than I did a short two weeks ago. Much of that new knowledge is thanks to this site. Thank you Barry for this site and the information that can be obtained from it.

I have a couple of questions that I think belong here in the philosophical thread. If they are more appropriate in the technical thread maybe they can be posted there?

In making a concerted effort to invest more energy into nuclear technologies in order to move away from the use of coal, how realistic is it to consider technologies such as sodium cooled fast reactors and/or thorium power? It seems, from what I’ve read so far, that both of these technologies and their reactor designs are a big jump forward from the current slow reactor technology. Or, maybe this is the direction the industry is already headed in?

Is the hope that spent fuel from slow reactors can someday in the future be utilized in fast reactors? Reading about fast reactors on the Scientific American website makes it sound like they are much more efficient in terms of utilizing the energy contained in the fuel as well as being much safer.

And, does anyone have links to reliable studies about the effects of radiation on health? I’ve scoured the web (Google scholar etc.) and found studies ranging from those that attempt to establish a direct link to background levels of radiation and cancer to those that suggest that low levels of background radiation may even be good for you…?

Thanks again to Barry for all of the level headed fact based information.

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The recent Fukushima incident is certainly a big set back for the potential uptake of Nuclear in Australia. What I have noticed in the ‘opinion piece’ over news era is a lot of former opponents have quickly claimed: ‘I was considering it, but now I definitely know it’s bad!’ Ironically these statements are not made with knowledge of the full diagnosis of the situation, but rather a few days after the media scrum (including the ABC who happily called it a ‘Nuke Plant’ in many cases) who were initially barracking for a meltdown in some cases, lost all interest.

I think the repressed opposition from most Green groups against nuclear power resonates from antipathy towards the industrialised society it would continue to back. With the status quo maintained, then natural forest degradation, big corporations pushing the ecological limits and threats to biodiversity will not necessarily be solved by replacing Coal/Gas with statistically safer baseload technology. Were it possible to re-frame the debate and bring this to the forefront, it would be good.

If a cap is put in place, and we cannot meet our energy needs from renewables, then I doubt some would actually care, but rather see it as a victory in their own frame of common sense. More likely of course, as has been argued ad nauseam, is that we will continue to burn fossil fuels having a detrimental effect on the environment. The issue then would be a mechanism whereby penalties are placed on technologies that fall well behind nameplate value or certain reliability constraints, thus favouring nuclear.

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John Newlands towards the top. To be fair one would only be anti-nuclear if you were concerned about weapons and accidents. If you take the FoE line then indeed it is nasty stuff, and therefore you’d be pretty hostile.

Even if you are a fan of nuclear there is not much about renewables to get worked up about (other than them being pretty much a waste of money). Certainly some do get worked up about this, but essentially there is nothing about being pro-nuclear that would want you to have renewables banned from having a chance to compete… wheras again if you are anti-nuclear it HAS to be because it is a nightmare waiting to happen.

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Barry – good idea on the split, however there is a lot of media at present about this radioactive water etc, and personally I’d appreciate another update/summary on the situation rather than sift through comments – quite time consuming if you are not involved or reading regularly.

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MattB, yes, I agree — but I’m rather ‘time poor’ (to use bureaucratic jargon) trying to catch up on my work backlog right now, so this next update will alas have to wait until about Friday. At least the summary reports from JAIF, NISA and FEPC that I posted in the new Technical Discussion thread provide some detailed recent data and snippets of key news reports.

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Sean De Boo, on 30 March 2011 at 2:12 PM said:

… including the ABC who happily called it a ‘Nuke Plant’ in many cases

Newsradio headline this morning Radioactivity from Japan discovered in Europe. The subsequent detail referred to the Philippines, South Korea and China. We should take up a collection to buy Auntie an Atlas ;)

WRT to Climate Change it doesn’t matter much what Australia does, what matters is what the Large Developing Economies (LDE’s eg India, China, Indonesia) do

Australia would reduce CO2, CH4 etc to a greater extent if it focused on developing skills, services & technologies that have relevance in the LDE’s. Rather than wasting its financial, political, intellectual and emotional energies arguing over this tax or that tax and the merits of flaky ETS’s. The only people who’ll benefit from those things are bankers, hedgers &lawyers.

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A weird situation is emerging with some nuclear supporters out-greening FoE heavyweights. We have Geoff Russell here a vegan and Podargus a net PV exporter. In my own case I’ve kept my electricity bills down to about $60 total over 3 years and I make my most of my car fuel from used veg oil. It’s clear to me that these forms of energy are small niches that won’t drive the wider economy. I wonder why it is that some have such visceral opposition to nuclear they distort the evidence.

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One reason that we need to build lots of identical small reactors in a very repeatable fashion in factories, is so that we can crash test a random sample in various ways (on an uninhabited Antarctic Ocean island).

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Jason Hollowell, on 30 March 2011 at 2:10 PM said:
“I have family in the U.S. who are extremely worried and encouraging me to leave the country, at least in part I believe due to the type of coverage the Fukushima plants are receiving.”

If you are feeling homesick get on the next plane but don’t think for a moment that you are in any kind of danger owing to the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

This may be a disaster for TEPCO but not for people.

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I really hate to say this….at 47 years old, no kids, and happy.

This hearkens back to a cool early-1980s road-trip conversation I had with a now-Emeritus Professor of ecology/evolutionary biology.

It was about 3 years after the 3 Mile Island situation. I was aware no one had been hurt, much less killed. One of my older-than-average parents had been a secretary at the U of Chicago chem. dept. in the 1950s……

My prof was basically anti-nuclear —– but at least he had solidly taught population theory and he had taught that humans are the ONLY species that is not following classical population dynamics.

I understood his position but believed nuclear had relatively few risks overall. I kind-a supported nuclear energy and I still do….

I am an only child who has chosen to have NO children as of 47, through entirely natural and CHURCH-supported means. (yes, this means YOU if you’re reading this!!!!!!)

That is my right and let me also say that it is the PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY that I have taken toward Earth’s finite resources. (credits????? NE1???? Gimme gimme…………… haha lulz…)

I favor nuclear energy…..but only as a means for a sort of planned-prosperity where human population growth is managed rationally.

I’m gonna come out here and say that I DO NOT favor nuclear energy if it’s a mechanism to degrade natural resources like forest land, timberland etc.

The radiation releases @Fukushima are basically at a hazard level that concerns workers rather than the public. I am not worried about the Fukushima isotopes except as fun projects for far-flung physics departments to do……

By the way….radioactive minerals are really fun to collect using low-level counting equipment.

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I have stayed away from many debates, but surely the pro-nuclear excessive extremism “civilisation-will-collapse-without-nuclear” expressed on the earlier thread, and the notion of “sufficient safety” seem to underlay exactly the same sort of mentality used by the tobacco lobby and BP oil-rig engineers.

On top of this it is now becoming clear that sufficient and serious warnings about Fukushima’s exposure to risk were raised but – because of a mentality – were not acted on.

Similarly, the terrorism is not taken seriously, because we get a blockage based on the same mentality.

I feel that a AP1000 nuclear reactor with a shell thickness of 0.9 metre over a span of 43 metres is probably strong enough to drive a car over but not resist a terrorist attack. As any military historian will tell you, concrete defences against even basic WWI ordnance needed to be (and were) thicker than 0.9 metres.

In essense, the mentality is to exaggerate the positive and downplay the negative, and not look at all alternatives in a balanced manner (because of this). This leads to a self-perpetuating mentality that drives wedges thoughout society.
MODERATOR
Nonuke – you are skating on thin ice here with some of your excessive adjectives and accusatory comments and assumptions about motives and mentality.BNC likes to avoid this and keep the discussion civil even on the Open Threads. You are also expressing opinion as fact without any back-up references.Even philosophers can cite sources to back up opinion.Please check the BNC Commenting Rules before posting again.

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I feel that a AP1000 nuclear reactor with a shell thickness of 0.9 metre over a span of 43 metres is probably strong enough to drive a car over but not resist a terrorist attack.

In matters of engineering, calculation with accurate numbers is usually a better guide than feeling.

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Finrod, on 30 March 2011 at 5:19 PM:

Demonstrates the mentality I am concerned about. Is it appropriate to understand the nature of a terrorist attack by such unsubstatiated comments as:

“calculation with accurate numbers is usually a better guide than feeling”

when NO such “calcuation with accurate numbers” was referenced.

In fact when you chop wood with an axe, or open a milk carton, based on previous experience one knows what the relative amount of force is, based on the nature of the problem.

Based on the experience of WWI and the damage done by even small bombs in London streets during the blitz, plus the damage by the Oklahoma bomber, and the relatively small charges used to break huge concrete girders when buildings are demolished, – it appears that without “calculation with accurate numbers”, a thin reinforced shell, 0.9metres thick – spanning 43 metres, with no flying buttresses, would be easily dealt with by deliberate terrorist attack.

However within the concrete dome, there is a steel containment vessel, which at 4.44 cm, which may not be breeched by falling concrete. But surely it will be buckled,.

In a war zone, AP1000’s will be easily blown apart by any common artillery, or shoulder-launched missiles.

Terrorism is a negative that must be kept in mind.

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Thanks for your continued great work Barry. Heard you this am on the history of nuclear power. Couldn’t come at the bloke [final speaker] who was quite sure that the number of operating reactors world wide would stay around the 440 mark in coming years. I guess that means the 67 under construction will never make it to production. Why do apparently sane people make such stupid statements? I posted on Annabelle Quince’s blog to that effect. Just heard two wave power enthusiasts on P Adams LNL singing the praises of that technology and claiming it could deliver base load power. Can’t see that myself and told Phillip in an email 20 minutes ago. Perhaps someone here can correct me if I’m wrong on that score. Any ideas Barry?

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Not surprised that the German environmentalists are upset. they’ve gone from a nuclear phase out position late last year to a keep nuclear going again and now following Fukushima have gone back to a phase out [of sorts ]position. Talk about confused. I’d like to know what technology they’ll adopt if they turn off their 23.8% nuclear contribution.

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Translation of the german Wikipedia front page citation of Barry Brook:

“The Australian environment scientist Barry Brook calls for further development of nuclear power also in Germany, even after the reactor accidents in Japan.”

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Terry Krieg, on 30 March 2011 at 5:53 PM said

Why do apparently sane people make such stupid statements?

Because of their fixed mindset or restricted view.

Similar problems arose when vaccination was proposed,it was proposed to ban nicotine, and asbestos.

Commercial pressures are part of the problem.

But a willingness to run-the-risk, is also pertinent.

Japanese regulators, knew there was a risk of tsunami, but presumably decided it was not worth moving Fukushima.

Similarly American reactors near faultlines, have a risk, but this can be minimised by selective assumptions. A 1 in a thousand year event – is one such phrase I have heard.

But people are like this. People still build houses on known floodplains in full knowledge that death may result. People should be allowed to accept risk if it does not impact on others.

But with nuclear – the consequences of risk-taking by some, creates damage on many innocent others.

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@ nonukepower, on 30 March 2011 at 5:52 PM:

I am a civil and structural engineer. Clearly, NoNukes is not. When calculating the capacity of a structure to absorb impact, the unit used is NOT “axe blows” . As for the observation that there are no flying buttresses in his version of a notional nuclear reactor, well, mate… flying buttresses are usually seen in masonry construction, say cathedrals and the like. Certainly not steel structures, or reinforced concrete structures, whether domed or not. At almost a metre thick and only 43 metres wide, the dome is quite possible massively strong.. I hold back only because I don’t know how much reinforcement is in it and other salient structural details.

Clearly, for some, hunches are valued much higher than actual real world knowledge.

It’s clear that NoNukes is trusting his hunch and the observation that the hypothetical power station is not constructed like a medieval cathedral.

This is precisely what Finrod pulled him up for.

Finrod, you are on safe ground. Trust numbers, not hunches.

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nonukepower:

You are concerned about risk, but I would suggest that your averse attitude to nuclear plants could be based upon an greatly exaggerated opinion of the consequences of a nuclear accident. These have to be considered as well as the probability of the accident occurring in the first place.

You state that “with nuclear – the consequences of risk taking by some, creates damage on many innocent others.” Do you consider that this damage is significantly greater than that consequential upon accidents or harm associated with other types of energy technology?

Might I invite you to read the following link and then return here and explain exactly what you’re frightened of?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12860842

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@ nonukepower:

Here is an article detailing the NRC’s approval of the AP 1000 with regard to impacts by large aircraft.

http://www.powergenworldwide.com/index/display/articledisplay.articles.powergenworldwide.nuclear.reactors.2011.01.westinghouse-ap1000.QP129867.dcmp=rss.page=1.html

As I have said previously, if someone has the right equipment and manpower, and is absolutely determined to breach the core of a nuclear reactor, they can certainly do so, but you have to make some rather unrealistic assumptions to create such a hypothetical situation.

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nonukepower

Finrod is right; if someone has the right equipment and manpower, and is determined, they can breach a core of a commercial nuclear reactor.

However I do not see any realistic basis for having to make some “unrealistic assumptions” (?!) to create such a hypothetical situation.

Real world politics gives you enough examples. If armies blow-up oil wells damage is done. If armies blow up dams, damage is done.

But if armies blow up nukes – huge damage goes on and on and on.

Finrod’s link about aircraft inmpact just goes to a third party report that someone else has made this judgement with no details at all.

This is not sufficient.

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Barry,
Your statement that it will not be possible for Australia to reduce present GHG by 60% by 2050 is clearly wrong. You may have meant that the lowest cost option would be to generate a substantial proportion of electricity by nuclear power, Fukushima has certainly increased the costs of building new nuclear and will probably exclude future sites close to large urban populations, Australia cannot wait until a time that nuclear is politically acceptable to start reducing GHG emissions, and it seems that renewables can make a significant contribution

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Neil, ‘can’ does not mean ‘will’, or even ‘might’. In theory, yes, renewables might allow Australia to reach a 60% reduction in GHG by 2050. In practice, my judgement is that they won’t even get us 20% of the way there, for a range of technical and economic reasons. But I’ll be happy to be proven wrong. I just don’t want to be proven right, for climate change’s sake.

As to whether Fukushima will increase the cost of new nuclear power, that is a topic for another day. I don’t think it will, but to justify that statement, I’ll need to lay out my arguments carefully — in some future BNC post.

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@ Neil Howes:

Fukushima has certainly increased the costs of building new nuclear and will probably exclude future sites close to large urban populations

That will only occur if the wrong lessons are drawn from this incident. There is a growing cadre of voices not willing to be the passive victims of history. Not this time around.

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Barry,
…….continuing from above; The low risk option would be to plan for a mix of low carbon electricity from nuclear, wind solar and geothermal with natural gas providing the balance. If newer generation III reactors prove to have a much better reliability than those built 30-40 years ago, and solar costs remain very high I would expect that nuclear may account for up to half of the low carbon component.
The danger from nuclear reactor meltdowns is not the small increase in radiation its the economic cost and investment risk. Too many reactor accidents have been caused or made much worse by stupid human errors that have the potential to cause catastrophic economic losses.

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>”IAEA director general Yukiya Amano said, “It is vitally important that we learn the right lessons from what happened on 11 March, and afterwards, in order to strengthen nuclear safety throughout the world” (WNN)

I would hope that by “strengthen … safety” he does not mean “more stringent
limits”. It strikes me that the exceptional rigidity of the legal limits,
installed to assuage past fears, is partly to blame for inflaming the current
public fear.

For example, it was a legal requirement that the nukes shut down automatically
during the quake. Seconds later, with all status checked, the nukes could have
restarted, even if only internal to the power station. Not only would they
have been providing basic power to the site, they would also have been burning
the xenon (Xe-135) backlog, averting the accumulation of the long-lived Cs-135.
A similar off-on would have made the visit of the tsunami a non-event.

It would seem that the Fukushima nukes were damaged by previous overreaction to
anti-nuke fears. Perhaps IAEA’s Amano can persuade world leaders to lead
instead of react.

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@ Chris Warren:

However I do not see any realistic basis for having to make some “unrealistic assumptions” (?!) to create such a hypothetical situation.

Then you have already forgotten the exchange you and I have already had on this very subject where I conceded that even very well designed nuclear power plants (or any other kind of facility for that matter) cannot be expected to withstand an uninterrupted, unchallenged deliberate attack by well-equiped experts. So what? Nuclear plants cannot be made demolotion-proof. It’s not much of a point, and you will get no more out of its being conceded this time than you did last time.

Finrod’s link about aircraft inmpact just goes to a third party report that someone else has made this judgement with no details at all.

This is not sufficient.

Do you doubt that the NRC actually made the determination reported therein?

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Finrod,
Why would any government choose to build a new nuclear plant within 100 km of a major city? Transmission costs are a lot lower than possible costs of excluding one million residents from their homes.
Are we not going to have sufficient battery back-up power to allow a safe shut-down(ie several weeks not several hours back-up)?
Are we going to continue to have multiple reactors close together so that if one fails it will endanger all reactor operations?
Are any countries going to continue to extend licensing of 40 year old reactors built a few meters above the Pacific ocean? or continue to operate any 40 year old reactors?

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With regards to risk, in a much more globalised world where news events are shared, if you conduct enough ventures with probabilities of 1/1000, then you will observe more incidents than 1 every 1000 years, whilst the underlying probability remains the same, it’s hard not to judge all ventures independently.

Rather than just assess likelihood, in a risk assessment the ‘Severity’ is rated also, thus even a very unlikely severe event will still end up with a medium to high rating. Then obliging a look at risk mitigation; either by a design or operational change that can lower the risk further. This is evidenced in the design of the BWR, however the ECCS was taken out by the Tsunami. I would say it’s quite unfair to label Engineers as over confident about risks, we generally sit around all day when designing wondering ‘what happens if this valve A fails to close when tank B is’…. etc. etc. but ultimately there has to be a way to confirm a design and that involves accepting some inherent risks to achieve a desired outcome.
This brings us to the concept ‘sufficiently safe’ and what it means to each individual… maybe it is time to quote a philosopher in this thread. Schopenhauer remarked:
‘Now we always find that the sphere of one concept has something in common with the sphere of other concepts. That is to say, part of what is thought under one concept is the same as what
is thought under other concepts; and conversely, part of what is thought under these concepts is the same as what is thought under the first; although, if they are really different concepts, each of them, or at least one of them, contains something which the other does not contain; this is the relation in which every subject stands to its predicate. The recognition of this relation is called judgement.’

Mathematical analysis makes decisions easier as concepts can logically be traced back to their predicates, we are hardly going to argue about whether a triangle has 3 sides as this is something given by the definition itself ‘a priori’, as such numerical methods are useful in a risk assessment. From the results we can compare two technologies more objectively. Now consider a concept like ‘sufficiently safety’, this clearly means different things to different people, and as we trace back any decision through the concepts to the final conception of what we consider sufficiently safe, it is highly likely we will each differ in how we do this, and the reasoning by which we find our final result.

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Rodger Clifton
It would seem that the Fukushima nukes were damaged by previous overreaction to
anti-nuke fears.

All nuclear reactors have to be able to be safely shut down quickly for a variety of reasons. Dont try to blame anti-nuke fears on inadequate power back-up, failure to act on warnings of potential tsunami threats, multiple human errors and stuff-ups.

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@ Jason : the big difference between Sodium-Cooled Reactors and Molten Salt is that the former have been exploited successfully in industrial size, with real-life experience is materials behavior and even decommissionning due to premature closure of Super-Phenix. MSR are very promising but the industrial proof of concept needs to be done and regulatoy approval will be longer.

I remain pro-nuclear, but I share nonukepower’s concern on “war proofing” the reactors. The problems is that it destroy every solid-fuel land based plant concept ! Every time fuel is solid and retain fission products for a long amount of time between refuels (up to 3 years currently or up to 60 years for Terrapower’s design), every plant is an invitation to war vulnerability. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GBU-28 for instance)
The concepts that survive the test are :
a) Molten Salt, because FP removal can be performed quasi continuously and fuel dissolved in salt is quite inert : blowing it will just spread some heavy metal around : messy, but not catastrophic on a large perimeter.
b) submarine nuclear power plants because we already have some of them that have been shatttered to pieces in the ocean ( see for instance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Scorpion_%28SSN-589%29) with no notable environmental impact !

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Why would any government choose to build a new nuclear plant within 100 km of a major city? Transmission costs are a lot lower than possible costs of excluding one million residents from their homes.

Transmission losses over distance are enough that it’s better to build as close as you can, subject to safety concerns.

Are we not going to have sufficient battery back-up power to allow a safe shut-down(ie several weeks not several hours back-up)?

The problem with Fukushima Dai-ichi appears to have been inafequate protection of the backup diesel generators. It would be much more economical and effective to ensure that those generators are better protected than to demand weeks of battery power storage, which suggestion frankly reeks of opportunistic over-reaction intended to shackle the industry.

Are we going to continue to have multiple reactors close together so that if one fails it will endanger all reactor operations?

I suggest that we wait for a proper post-accident assessment before jumping to the conclusion that reactor failure was caused by failure in neighboring reactors, rather than the multiple failures having a common root cause.

Are any countries going to continue to extend licensing of 40 year old reactors built a few meters above the Pacific ocean? or continue to operate any 40 year old reactors?

It seems likely, although there may be some safety upgrades performed in light of the Fukushima experience.

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Barry
In practice, my judgement is that they won’t even get us 20% of the way there, for a range of technical and economic reasons.
There are not any valid technical reasons why we cannot build a national grid connecting wind and solar power generation to replace all existing coal fired generation using OCGT as back-up and for extreme peak demand.
You may be correct that we dont build it for economic reasons, ie burning coal is a lot cheaper than replacing with renewables and NG back-up. But doesnt this argument also apply to replacing coal fired power with nuclear and NG back-up for extreme peak demand?

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Neil, I’m not going to debate that point here, just as I’m not going to try and argue the hypothetical point that there are not any valid technical reasons why we can’t already have a flourishing network of colonies on the Moon. I have said it’s my judgement, and if you want to understand the reasons for it, then feel free to browse the TCASE series and other material on this blog, such as the ZCA2020 critiques, and then feel free to disagree with me.

In the end it matters little — I will not be joining any anti-renewable picket line or arguing that investors shouldn’t be putting money on renewables. I will simply learn the lessons of history, understand the technology options available for replacing fossil fuels as best as I can, and continue arguing for a rapid and widespread uptake of nuclear energy, most especially the IFR and LFTR.

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There are not any valid technical reasons why we cannot build a national grid connecting wind and solar power generation to replace all existing coal fired generation using OCGT as back-up and for extreme peak demand.

Translation: “Instead of coal, we’ll burn natgas. And we’ll build a few wind turbines and put up some solar panels for decoration. Oh, and we’ll still burn some coal.”

Of course, it wouldn’t take much to prove I’m wrong in my interpretation. All Neil has to do is point to a miffle/major modern nation with a reasonable amount of heavy industry and not abundantly blessed with hydro (like Norway) or traditional geothermal (like Iceland) which has managed to achieve the same kind of transition from coal with technosolar renewable power that France has managed with nuclear power.

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I think the German situation is very interesting/sad

Nuclear power in Germany is extremly unpopular and the Greens have done a brilliant PR job of bestowing all the usual lines of nuclear being too expensive, too dirty, too slow etc. And all that is needed is energy efficiency + renewables, yet whenever the Germans limit their nuclear contribution you see a dash to Coal. All the talk about the virtues of Nuclear Vs Renewables seems to create a situation similar to two stags with their antlers locked. I think all camps can see that coal is the enemy, lets get behind that aim. shut down coal or atleast make it binding in international law that non CCS coal plants are illegal period. Once that is inplace countries that have a Nuclear blind spot have a few hundred years before they exhaust their coal supplies or run out of CO2 storage sites and have to go nuke regardless.

But taking a step back shouldn’t energy matters be outside of politics anyway? Why not leave it to the scientists and engineers we all can see that having religion at the core of government is a bad idea and I belive the same with energy policy.

Wouldn’t it be refreshing if all politians got behind the same plan as this is what the science says rather than appealing to the most votes to stay in power.

So lets take on Coal and then take on Gas.

Which direction would Germany take without the Coal saftey net?

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All the talk about the virtues of Nuclear Vs Renewables seems to create a situation similar to two stags with their antlers locked.

There is a school of thought (to which I adhere) which postulates that the political battle for the future of energy policy is not between nuclear and renewables, but between nuclear and fossil fuels, and that the renewables lobby is in fact a front for the fossil fuel lobby.

The foremost advocate of this school of thought is Rod Adams, publisher of Atomic Insights:

http://atomicinsights.blogspot.com/

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Unlike Finrod, I do not say “so what”.

Nuclear plants present a risk to the extent they spread into the world’s economies.

After all – every nation has the same right to modern technology and Westinghouse will jump at any opportunity to build a nuke at any tin-pot third world country receiving IMF, UN, or other foreign aid.

American shareholders will jump for joy, as Angola, Botswana, Zimbabwe etc all build their nukes.

But even though there is a low probability of a successful terrorist or government attack on a nuke, even America will bomb a nuke if a opponent places their military command centre underneath.

Rogue states have already bombed nuclear facilities and have not disavowed doing so again in the future – eg Osirak reactor in Iraq.

So why is this “unrealistic” or “hypothetical”.

Why is an actual bombing act, and threats of a repeat on Iran, now being placed as; “hypothetical” and unrealistic.

I can see nonukepowers point here.

If there is some determination that airliners will not destroy nukes, then there would be evidence. So far Finrod has not provided evidence. A NRC statement has no more relevance than a Japanese regulatory statement.

Saying “so what” is an example of Terry Krieg’s “stupid things”.

Reality always rings true.

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@ Roger Clifton, on 30 March 2011 at 8:45 PM:

Roger is not the first person to express a thought bubble along the lines of… “If only one NPP was still generating, then that power would have been able to drive the pumps that keep the other 5 reactors safe.” He will not be the last.

If only it was so simple.

FIRST. Each NPP generates at 300 to 1200 MW.

The auxiliary pumps, fans, lighting and ventilation amounts to, say, 15MW per unit.

What would the remainder of the generated power do? Where would it go? Even a small 300MW unit would generate a couple of hundred MW too many. Gen 1 NPP’s cannot simply vent 2/3rds of their steam to atmosphere, because it is slightly raqdioactive. The unit must shut down. I have assumed that the high voltage switchyards and the transmission lines to external loads have been trashed, as appears to have been the case in Japan. 300 to 1000 MW of power would have to be simply waved away. This is impossible, of course – the unit would have to be shut down.

SECOND. The power plant generates at perhaps 20kV. This power is passed to one or two Generator Transformers for step-up to, say, 330 kV or higher. Unfortunately, these transformers have quite probably been shaken off their foundations. If not, then at the very least, they would have tripped due to the operation of buccholtz relays and other protection devices which are designed to ensure that the transformers shut down during emergencies, rather than explode. Buccholtz relays monitor the oil surface within HV transformers. Even the smallest wave could indicate that the transformer is about to explode due to heat buildup which are forming gas pockets, so earthquakes invariably lead to transformer shutdown. There would be no way for the power plant to transmit its power to the grid, or even to the next unit or to supply its own auxiliaries. So the unit will always shut down.

There is no reasonable alternative to shutting down every generating unit affected by a 9.0 earthquake and then restoring the capacity of the system progressively, after the quake and after careful restoration of the electrical grid.

There is hope that future NPP’s will be better served by open circuit gas turbines or diesel generators that can come on line before the battery banks fail.

There is hope that the power stations themselves will survive the quake, healthy enough to be re-started once connection to the grid is restored.

There is absolutely no hope that a single nuclear power plant can remain in service after a 9.0 earthquake, or that, having miraculously having done so, that it can stay on line with its only load being the cooling water pumps, electric feed pumps and so forth related to the adjacent units in the same power station.

I am a power station engineer with more than 30 years’ experience in the industry. While not an electrical engineer, I am absolutely sure that the above is correct.
MODERATOR
John – wouldn’ this comment be better in the technical thread? You will have to copy and paste to move it as we don’t have the facility to move comments.

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Just to make the point clearer;

In addition to Osirak, Israel also bombed the al-Kiber nuclear reactor in 2007. I understand that Israel is chaffing-at-the-bit to repeat this exercise for the benefit of Iran.

So exactly why do nuclear proponents call this “unrealistic” and “hypothetical” ?????

This must be the impact of a particular mindset – surely ????

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If there is some determination that airliners will not destroy nukes, then there would be evidence. So far Finrod has not provided evidence. A NRC statement has no more relevance than a Japanese regulatory statement.

So you think the NRC is pro-nuclear?

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Noticed this excellent letter to the editor by Geoff Russell in today’s Advertiser (Adelaide newspaper).

Get some perspective

PEOPLE worried by nuclear power and the Fukushima reactors need to remember that nobody has died.

The earthquake killed people, the tsunami killed people, fires killed people, infections killed people, falling masonry killed people, but nobody has died from reactor radiation and probably nobody will.

Likewise, nobody died at Three Mile Island and nobody got cancer despite a meltdown.

In the last 50 years, only a single nuclear power accident has killed more than 10 people – Chernobyl. Cancers from the accident killed about 4000 people, which is rather less than the 48,000 people who die every single year in Japan from lung cancer.

A total of three more nuclear power accidents in the past 50 years killed a total of 10 people. In the same 50 years, about 140 plane crashes each killed more than 100 people and 64 coal mining accidents killed 7887 people.

In the 18 days since the quake, about 4230 people would been diagnosed with lung cancer in Japan, mainly from smoking.

Also in the 18 days since the earthquake, about 28,000 Indian children under the age of five will have died because of respiratory diseases due to cooking with wood and cattle dung. Hence the Indian Government’s urgent plans for cheap nuclear power.

It’s a safe bet that more people suffer death and serious injury each year falling off roofs while installing solar panels than will be hurt by Fukushima. Certainly pink batts in Australia are far more dangerous.

Nuclear power is the cleanest source of power with the capacity to meet the world’s needs while giving us a fighting chance of keeping the climate relatively benign.

GEOFF RUSSELL, St Morris.

Well said, Geoff.

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@ Chris Warren:

In addition to Osirak, Israel also bombed the al-Kiber nuclear reactor in 2007. I understand that Israel is chaffing-at-the-bit to repeat this exercise for the benefit of Iran.

So exactly why do nuclear proponents call this “unrealistic” and “hypothetical” ?????

Deary me. Who am I to deny such an impassioned need for an answer, as revealed by such reckless expenditure of erotemes?

Just what would Israel get out of bombing Bushehr? It’s a light water reactor unsuited to producing weapons grade plutonium. If the Iranians want bomb material, they are far more likely to use weapons grade uranium produced in their U enrichment facilities.

Of course, if the Israelis really want to make a point about opposition to nuclear facilities in Iran, they may try to strike soon after Bushehr is started. That would minimise any radioactive release as there would be minimal highly radioactive fission products in the core shortly after startup. They would doubtless be widely condemned by the international community if they struck after enough time had passed to ensure uncontrolled release of large quantities of highly radioactive materials. In both cases where Israel has struck reactors previously, it was prior to startup.

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“I think the German situation is very interesting/sad”

The German situation is simple. we are moving out of nuclear energy. 8 German nuclear power plants have been switched of. (Neckarwestheim I, Philippsburg I , Biblis A und B (Hessen), Isar I (Bayern), Unterweser (Niedersachsen) und Brunsbüttel (Schleswig-Holstein) Krümmel bei Hamburg)

i seriously doubt that several of them will go back online.

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Barry,

Its been good of both you and George Monbiot to stick your heads above the parapet over nuclear power in the context of Fukushima. Your early responsiveness was far better than some ‘official’ nuclear information sources (I had some email interaction with them over this and some just seem to have gone MIA) coupled with your response to the mistaken statements you made. And my congratulations must be extended to the various spokespeople who have also worked to make themselves available to the media finding themselves in a situation they are perhaps not used to.

This philosphical thread is a great idea. There are some areas I disagree with you on philosphically but they don’t worry me as I don’t take an attitude of worship to either nuclear power or renewables and there are times when I have been wrong in my thinking on both (pro and anti nuc proponents in their arguing tend to remind me of the Colliseum scene in Life of Brian).

So what do we do now about nuclear power? By asking that what I mean is: what is the gap between fear/rejection and acceptance/getting-on-with-it in the general population and amongst policy makers and how is it to be bridged? If this has already been worked through forgive me and point me to it. It seems to me that active anti nuclear people understand this very well and is it that, on the whole, pro nuclear people dismiss people’s rejection with very few e.g. Barry, seeking to deal with it by actively going out and talking to people. Again if I’m speaking ignorantly forgive me and point me in the right direction.

Another thing, will Fukushima prove to be an opportunity to bury old nuclear and build new nuclear (Gen IV etc) on top of it? (Plese don’t think me callous or that I’m ignoring the workers in the Fukushima plant as I type this). What do people think? If you think yes, what might be the ways we can use this terrible situation to get society at large to take a good look at new nuc and the separate issue of risk? How do we get people at large to internalise the differences between old and new nuc?

Finally to the guy who Finrod has been arguing about on breaching an AP1000, if I was attacking a country it would depend if I was a terrorist organisation or invading army. What would I be trying to achieve: terror, a propaganda victory or a takeover or substantial damage to my enemy? Then wouldn’t it depend on how limited or extended my resources are? If I have limited resources and expend them on unsuccessfully trying to breach an AP1000 plant then I will have failed perhaps panicing the population by other means would be better, if I’m a terrorist that is. If my intention is to win a military victory might I want the power supply intact and bringing down power lines might be a smarter tactic. I could go and on but I can only see limited reasons for trying to breach an AP1000 and yes, those limited reasons awere perhaps expressed by a handfull of young men who flew planes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon but I think we are now more organised to spot that ahead.

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“Indeed. That comment does not contradict the text you quoted.”

we have switched of 8 (eight) nuclear power plants. we have been told for years, that it was impossible to switch them of. (in reality, Germany is exporting energy)

when the green/SPD government was planning the phasing out of nuclear power, they were conservative about their estimate of renewables. (they expected 12% when we got something close to 17%)

it also was not the green party that pulled the plug on those 8 plants. it was Chancellor Merkel and her conservative party. (her Minister of environment also was one of the first people who confirmed the core melt in Japan)

there were two reasons why german decided to extent the running time of nuclear power plants last autumn: support for the big energy industry. (especially in the economic liberal FDP party). but the extension was also done, to strengthen conservative values for the many elections that happen this year. nuclear energy was perceived by the conservative parties as a way to demonstrate a difference to other parties. (especially the SPD, with which they formed a coalition government before)

the CDU was planning to win the elections this year, by mobilisation of their conservative voters (who support nuclear energy). this plan failed.

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@gallopingcamel

Thanks. Yes, no plans to head home. I did go down to Hiroshima with my family to visit a friend for a few days when the news was the loudest. Felt strange fleeing the possibility (even if it was a false possibility) of radiation in Hiroshima.

@charles monneron

I share your concerns about nuclear power plants being “war proof” but I thought the main concern was plutonium getting into the ‘wrong hands’ and possibly being enriched to the extent that it could be used in weapons. Hitting a bunker full of spent fuel would certainly cause a mess but it really can’t be compared to the detonation of a nuclear weapon can it? One reason for my interest in the fast reactor was/is the statement about current slow reactors (BWR) using only about 9% of the energy available in the fuel. (Ignoring MOX recycling) Seems crazy to be dealing with all the headaches associated with storing spent fuel when it still has so much potential. And using the fast reactor technology would also greatly reduce, if not completely diminish, the possibility of ending up with an after product (waste) that can be used for weapon production…or at least that was how I read the article. Additionally, the amount of time the fuel needs to be stored is far far less according to what I read.
I’m just an observer trying to learn more though. Just hope the reason we aren’t moving more rapidly toward technologies such as fast reactors isn’t solely because of politics and differing ideologies.

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It is indeed a very interesting issue to discuss.
Providing energy to our planet, eliminating pollution, stopping the contamination of our fresh waters and seas are indeed key issues to address in order to save our planet from irreversible damage but unfortunately, we live in a society ruled by an economic system that will put money ahead of anything and everything therefore, we will keep facing extra challenges to fix problems that are already complex on their own. What happened to Japan has been indeed a natural disaster however, many of my Japanese friends have very harsh words towards TEPCO and the Politicians, citing corruption, covering up issues even before the tsunami, wrong doing, dereliction of duty, etc., in other words, nothing new; quite common scenario around the planet.

Maybe some day the humanity will change the mentality and the senseless accumulation of wealth my be replaced for a mentality of sharing and preserving but, I feel that we will need many 14 ft tsunamis and 9.5 earthquakes to change such mentality.

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@ Jason Hollowell.

Not 9% of the fuel, more like 0.7%. Max.

The remainder is essentially future fuel for fast reactors.

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To Barry Brook …

I’d like to recommend you use threaded comments to try and keep discussion on focus. This would allow people to build a discussion around a single comment, rather than an endless list of disjointed comments, each trying to communicate with each other, trailing off after each post.
MODERATOR
It is one or the other – Chronological or threaded. Both have been tried on BNC both have their problems.

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EL, threaded comments have their uses, but also limitations. A big problem is, it is VERY difficult to find which posts are new, and which are old. The posts also get narrowed with each embedding layer, to the point where they are also unreadable. I tried this about a year ago on BNC, and abandoned it. Ideally, I could allow users to switch between chronological and threaded at their leisure. Unfortunately, WordPress.com only lets me hard code one or the other. My choice — a trade off — is therefore for chronological.

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One reason for my interest in the fast reactor was/is the statement about current slow reactors (BWR) using only about 9% of the energy available in the fuel.

It is more like 1%.

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EL may like threaded comments.

I prefer to have them in date order, rather than to have to hunt through 100 or more to find the new ones.

“If it ain’t busted, don’t fix it.

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The meme of civilian plutonium falling into the wrong hand to make a bomb is highly doubtful. Even more so it is has to be an artisanal bomb. It is extremely hard to build a bomb with civilian plutonium because it has not the right isotopic composition : you get a fizzle.
The US pretends it has managed this technologic feat, but there is strong suspicion that the plutonium came from a UK Magnox plant which is dual use (to get military plutonium, you need a short irradiation time so a design where swapping fuel “on line” (magnox, RBMK) is needed).
Same thing with thorium fuel cycle: you can build a bomb with U233 but it so much easier to make it from U235 that it is really a curiosity, not a risk.

Also don’t believe that the IFR has no waste, or at least exclusively fission products waste. At some point highest Transuranics (Americium, Curium) prevent safe running of the reactor. You have therefore to imagine a new type of reactor (for instance a sub-crtici configuration with missing neutrons generated by palliation of accelerated particles.
This is where Thorium is really attractive as its doesn’t have this transuranics generation problem.

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At some point highest Transuranics (Americium, Curium) prevent safe running of the reactor.

That is not correct. The equilibrium concentration of Am and Cm in pyroprocessed metal fuel (after multiple recycles) is in the order of a few percent, with more than sufficient delayed neutrons to keep the reactor stable. This is not theory, it is proven engineering based on extensive fuel testing at Argonne West in the late 1980s.

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This is the scariest story yet. I read a Guardian story about a meltdown thru the pressure vessel, but the author suggested nothing remotely like this.

Someone knowledgeable please comment

When the Fukushima Meltdown Hits Groundwater

by Dr Tom Burnett

Hawaii News (March 27 2011)

Fukushima is going to dwarf Chenobyl {1}. The Japanese government has had
a Level Seven nuclear disaster going for almost a week but won’t admit it.

The disaster is occurring the opposite way than Chernobyl, which exploded
and stopped the reaction. At Fukushima, the reactions are getting worse. I
suspect three nuclear piles are in meltdown {2} and we will probably get
some of it.

If Reactor Three is in meltdown, the concrete under the containment looks
like lava. But Fukushima is not far off the water table. When that molten
mass of self-sustaining nuclear material gets to the water table it won’t
simply cool down. It will explode {3} – not a nuclear explosion, but
probably enough to involve the rest of the reactors and fuel rods at the
facility.

Pouring concrete {4} on a critical reactor makes no sense – it will simply
explode and release more radioactive particulate matter. The concrete will
melt and the problem will get worse. Chernobyl was different – a critical
reactor exploded and stopped the reaction. At Fukushima, the reactor cores
are still melting down. The ONLY way to stop that is to detonate a
approximately ten kiloton fission device inside each reactor containment
vessel and hope to vaporize the cores. That’s probably a bad solution.

A nuclear meltdown is a self-sustaining reaction. Nothing can stop it
except stopping the reaction. And that would require a nuclear weapon. In
fact, it would require one in each containment vessel to merely stop what
is going on now. But it will be messy.

Fukushima was waiting to happen because of the placement of the emergency
generators. If they had not all failed at once by being inundated by a
tsunami, Fukushima would not have happened as it did – although it WOULD
still have been a nuclear disaster. Every containment in the world is
built to withstand a Magnitude 6.9 earthquake; the Japanese chose to
ignore the fact {5} that a similar earthquake {6} had hit that same
general area in 1896.

Anyway, here is the information that the US doesn’t seem to want released
{7}. And here is a chart that might help with perspective {8}.

Making matters worse is the MOX in Reactor Three. MOX is the street name
for ‘mixed oxide fuel’ {9} which uses about nine percent plutonium along
with a uranium compound to fuel reactors. This is why it can be used {10}.

The problem is that you don’t want to play with this stuff. A nuclear
reactor means bring fissile material to a point at which it is hot enough
to boil water (in a light-water reactor) and not enough to melt and go
supercritical (China syndrome or a Chernobyl incident). You simply cannot
let it get away from you because if it does, you can’t stop it.

The Japanese are still talking about days or weeks to clean this up.
That’s not true. They cannot clean it up. And no one will live in that
area again for dozens or maybe hundreds of years.

_____

Tom Burnett has a PhD in Earth Sciences and Physics.

Department of Economics
McGill University
855 Sherbrooke Street West
Montreal H3A2T7
tel 514 3984828
MODERATOR
This comment would be more relevant on the technical Open Thread. It may get lost here on the philosophical thread. Cut and paste to move it to the correct thread. This version of WordPress does not have the facility to move comments.

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It would seem that Tom Burnett, the author the item from Hawaii News that Gregory Meyerson posted is not on staff, or a student, at McGill University, (my alma mater) and his telephone number listed is that of Prof. Thomas Naylor, which I confirmed by calling it.

I will be looking into this further.

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I like democracy now, but they’re idiots on nuclear.

Helen’s performance is priceless.

she’s especially wise on plutonium (not). Once again, see Cohen on plutonium toxicity.

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DV: the guy writes many articles for this paper. He actually says in response that he’s pro nuclear.

On the hawaii site, under his name, I only see the ph.d. in earth sciences. why would he be in economics?

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I came up with nothing, googling Tom Burnett/earth sciences and physics. apart from the meltdown article.

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Beyond the ever elusive radiation/radioactivity conundrum, here are a few issues that nuclear advocates should address to advance their argument (In the eyes of a non technical, nuclear newbie who is firmly on the fence.)

1. Cost and funding, particularly the relationship between private and state actors. Is risk socialized and profit privatized? What are the mechanisms for ensuring long-term responsibilities and obligations are met?

2. Local vs. Centralized. Why can’t we implement many smaller, local solutions feeding the grid rather than large, heavy footprint projects?

For example: I live on the coast of Connecticut, why couldn’t my city become an independent power hub? Starting with an intense energy efficiency program, solar on the rooftops of homes and businesses, tidal generators in the harbor, wind where appropriate, etc.? Perhaps a small modular reactor? The idea is I start with my home and generate what I can, with excess or deficit coming from or going to the next level of user/generator.

3. Waste. Is it recyclable? What are the associated risks with and without processing? (minus the discounting that seems to be so prevalent in these discussions. What CAN happen as opposed to what is likely to happen?) What are the benefits?

4. Storage, with or without recycling waste. How do we address the politics of waste storage? Do Nevadans have a right to say “We don’t want waste stored here’?Assuming Yucca is dead, how can trust and buy-in be achieved to site a new location?

5. What about making nuclear plants non-profit or some quasi for profit/non-profit entity? (Assuming profit would be made in the form of interest on construction loans) Would that expand the base of support for nuclear by removing a motivation that some see as adding risk?

6. Communication. No questions, but an observation. A complete brand overhaul industry-wide is needed. The onus is on the advocates to teach, not the public to learn if that makes sense.

All this is entirely subjective and not nearly complete. It is, however, what is rattling around in my head as I have tried to come to a conclusion about the way forward for nuclear power.

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Oh, and I wasn’t necessarily looking for a line-by-line response. Just giving you the perspective from one point on the “other” side.

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I LOVED the George Monbiot/Helen Calldicot debate. I’ve been praying for one for so long. GM somehow has this ability to cause an eruption of anger and outrage in his opponents, and hence exposing their true motivations.

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Huw, I think that Monbiot debate will really come back to haunt Caldicott and her ‘movement’. The whole WHO, UNSCEAR, IAEA ‘conspiracy’ she kept hammering about really raised Monbiot’s hackles, and there is nothing he loves better than debunking crackpot theories like this via a mix of investigative journalism and rapier-like editorial dissections. A space to watch, to be sure.

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“Chernobyl was different – a critical
reactor exploded and stopped the reaction. At Fukushima, the reactor cores
are still melting down. ”

This shows that Tom Burnett hasn’t a clue how reactors work. Of course Chernobyl had decay heat just like Fukushima!!!! and an exploded cooling system due to 10000% power output – imposible with BWRs due to negative void coefficients ie physics.

If there is still water inside the reactor pressure vessel, and clearly there is, the bottom cannot melt through. If there is water in the drywell, as in seawater injection into the drywell containment, then the reactor bottom cannot melt through either – its a pan in a pan of water. The former pan doesn’t fail because it is cooled by the inner water in the second pan. If there was corium going through the vessel there would be much higher drywell temperatures measured. That’s simply not the case.

This discussion belongs in the technical thread. Let us continue there…
MODERATOR
Thank you. I agree re the wrong thread and have advised that the comments be moved.

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While I wished a better result for the Fukushima Daiichi plant, nuclear power has caused fewer deaths even with this event in its entire history than coal does in one year in the USA alone.

We have three choices to power our earth Coal or Nuclear or Poverty.

Well we sure aren’t going to choose Poverty and perfectly operating coal plant is a daily mass murderer even before mentioning Climate Change. So I choose the energy source which has the lowest down side; Nuclear.

Yes the three worst accidents in of all nuclear history do not even approach mass death cause by one month of coal power. This is the time to win this battle for the nuclear power.

Another Thought

Coal has a spent fuel problem too; it is called coal ash. I wonder how many square miles would have been poisoned if Fukushima was a coal plant. instead of a nuclear plant.

A life time of coal ash washed in land for six miles seems more damaging than the nuclear plant damage so far. Oh yeah, the daily emission over forty years from a coal is just mass murder.

We have two choices to power our planet; coal or nuclear. It seems to me that the nuclear option is the safer option, but I could be wrong.

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@ greg:

Beyond the ever elusive radiation/radioactivity conundrum, here are a few issues that nuclear advocates should address to advance their argument (In the eyes of a non technical, nuclear newbie who is firmly on the fence.)

Oh, and I wasn’t necessarily looking for a line-by-line response. Just giving you the perspective from one point on the “other” side.

Nice try.

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@Gregory Meyerson the Department of Economics department at McGill University has an active interest in natural resource economics. This clown might have attended some conference on the subject there in the past.

I’m not getting through to Prof. Naylor, who I am sure would like to know his number is listed in this piece, but I’ll keep trying.

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Up thread, a poster pointed out a story about a rare-earths tailing pond in China. This is a by-product of the manufacturing process for magnets used in electrical turbines in windmills. (I wonder if those rare earths are also used in the magnets for the turbines generating power in nuclear plants as well).

It’s good that people are looking into more of the manufacturing and production costs of energy, including renewables and nuclear power. The total cost of any energy generation source should be considered before investing in it, including construction, fueling, operations and maintenance and eventual decommissioning. That’s one reason nuclear power doesn’t compare well with other energy sources. [deleted personal opinion presented as fact. Please re-submit with refs to support your claim]
Mining of uranium for nuclear plants has left numerous superfund sites in the US that have to be cleaned up at the expense of taxpayers. Here’s a link explaining what it takes to clean up just one of those sites:

http://www.recovery.gov/News/featured/Pages/RecoveryFundsHelpSpeedUraniumClean-Up.aspx

[deleted comment not upheld by reference given. No numbers of affected people on the table referred to.]
MODERATOR
Please check the BNC Commenting Rules before your next comment and apply these to avoid editing.

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@ Ken F:

That’s one reason nuclear power doesn’t compare well with other energy sources. The danger from radiation in nuclear plants isn’t from the once a decade accidents that receive so much publicity, but it’s also present from the moment the earth is turned to mine the uranium and lasts long after a plant is decommissioned.

A classic example of the lowest form of scaremongering. Comparing the extremely mild radiation levels from a U tailings pond with the highly radioactive products of fission reactions is just a cheap play to people who are not sufficiently informed to parse the claim.
MODERATOR
The comment mentioned has been edited for a number of violations to the Commenting Rules.

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It is unfortunate that some people try to “shine” posting wrongful information.

I am not a Nuclear Physicist, I am just a – former – Nuclear Medicine Technologist who used to work with radioisotopes in the medical field as they have provided an excellent tool for early detection of cancer, cardiac conditions and so on.

Yes, radioactivity could be dangerous but at the same time, I am a firm believer that it can provide an enormous range of benefits when all the bolts on how to handle it are finally discovered.

As many other people already wrote, the news just pick on catastrophes rather than in the positive which contribute to mislead and misinform those who don’t understand the mechanics of the atom.

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As many people, I’ve been digging into nuclear energy following the Fukushima incident (for whcih this blog has proven to be the best source, btw), so I’m not much knowledgeable on the subject, and I didn’t know how to reply a criticism from an acquaintance today. This colleague suggested that any increase in radiation poses a great risk to our health because of possible internal radiation (the chance that you inhale or swallow radioisotopes), which has a lot bigger health impact than external radiation, and that statements about radiation safety around Fukushima are therefore meaningless, because they are based on external radiation, instead of internal (which is what evel scientists want to hide from us [sigh]). He backed up his argument (so to speak) with this text. I know the text sounds like crap, but I didn’t know how to reply or how to give a proper context. I speculated that we are we constantly swallowing and inhaling radioisotopes from natural background radiation and nothing happens, but I don’t know if it is so and I didn’t sound quite convincing. If someone could give me any hint or context, it would be most welcome. Thanks.

*Ng Ai Soo, thanks for your answer about peer reviewed criticism to LNT in Open Trhead 2 ;-)

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If I learned that there had been a spill of mined uranium tailings into the local water supply I would be concerned, just as I’d be concerned about the same news relating to a lead mine or tin mine or copper mine tailings spill. The chemical toxicity would need to be assessed and acted on. That would be a genuine concern. But the radioactivity of natural uranium is just too low to be an issue.

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@ Finrod:

I assumed “on the fence” would be interpreted as “the other side”, as in not pro-nuclear at this point.

And nice try at what? How would that contradiction, even if unintentional, devalue or negate the topics or questions?

You may want to dial back the defensiveness if outreach is your goal.

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@ greg:

I assumed “on the fence” would be interpreted as “the other side”, as in not pro-nuclear at this point.

Really? How exotic.

You may want to dial back the defensiveness if outreach is your goal.

I’m more offensive than defensive.

I have no great interest in reaching out to the anti-nuclear side. I consider the contention of some in the pseudo-environmental anti-nuclear community that they represent a key demographic group which must be converted before pro-nuclear advocates can be considered to have achieved success to be a clever delaying strategy. They’ve clearly read up on their Sun Tzu.

Catering to their whims is not Nixon going to China, it’s Chamberlain going to Hitler.

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Those of you posting about the uranium mine tailings may want to read up about them, otherwise you’re just showing your ignorance. Here’s a good starting point:

http://www.wise-uranium.org/uwai.html

From that website:

“The amount of sludge produced is nearly the same as that of the ore milled. At a grade of 0.1% uranium, 99.9% of the material is left over.
Apart from the portion of the uranium removed, the sludge contains all the constituents of the ore. As long lived decay products such as thorium-230 and radium-226 are not removed, the sludge contains 85% of the initial radioactivity of the ore. Due to technical limitations, all of the uranium present in the ore can not be extracted. Therefore, the sludge also contains 5% to 10% of the uranium initially present in the ore.
In addition, the sludge contains heavy metals and other contaminants such as arsenic, as well as chemical reagents used during the milling process.

Mining and milling removes hazardous constituents in the ore from their relatively safe underground location and converts them to a fine sand, then sludge, whereby the hazardous materials become more susceptible to dispersion in the environment. Moreover, the constituents inside the tailings pile are in a geochemical disequilibrium that results in various reactions causing additional hazards to the environment. For example, in dry areas, salts containing contaminants can migrate to the surface of the pile, where they are subject to erosion. If the ore contains the mineral pyrite (FeS2), then sulfuric acid forms inside the deposit when accessed by precipitation and oxygen. This acid causes a continuous automatic leaching of contaminants.

Radon-222 gas emanates from tailings piles and has a half life of 3.8 days. This may seem short, but due to the continuous production of radon from the decay of radium-226, which has a half life of 1600 years, radon presents a longterm hazard. Further, because the parent product of radium-226, thorium-230 (with a half life of 80,000 years) is also present, there is continuous production of radium-226. (view Uranium decay series)

After about 1 million years, the radioactivity of the tailings and thus its radon emanation will have decreased so that it is only limited by the residual uranium contents, which continuously produces new thorium-230. ”
MODERATOR
These comments belong on the technical thread. I have advised others following this conversation to do the same. The intent of the content may be lost on the philosophical thread.

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@ Ken F:

WISE is a dedicated harf core anti-nuclear group.

As long lived decay products such as thorium-230 and radium-226 are not removed, the sludge contains 85% of the initial radioactivity of the ore.

Indeed. The uranium and its previously produced daughter nuclides left over from mining will continue to decay away, just as they would have if they’d been left in the ground.

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“I have no great interest in reaching out to the anti-nuclear side. I consider the contention of some in the pseudo-environmental anti-nuclear community that they represent a key demographic group which must be converted before pro-nuclear advocates can be considered to have achieved success to be a clever delaying strategy. They’ve clearly read up on their Sun Tzu.”

My way or the highway huh? OK, best of luck with that strategy. Maybe it’ll work better in the next 30 years.

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My way or the highway huh? OK, best of luck with that strategy. Maybe it’ll work better in the next 30 years.

You imply that this strategy has already been tried. It has not. The traditional public response of the nuclear industry to the critics prior to the middle of last decade was silence. The few voices in the wilderness speaking in support of nuclear power were generally not heard over the cacaphony of anti-nuclear propaganda trumpeted by a sympathetic media.

The current situation is something new. There are a growing number of voices which recognise the great promise of nuclear power, and which, thanks to the internet revolution, cannot and will not be silenced. The anti-nuclear movement has lost its traditional monopoly on the public debate. It is no longer free to frame the public discourse as it sees fit.

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re post by: Finrod, on 30 March 2011 at 5:19 PM said:

“I feel that a AP1000 nuclear reactor with a shell thickness of 0.9 metre over a span of 43 metres is probably strong enough to drive a car over but not resist a terrorist attack.

In matters of engineering, calculation with accurate numbers is usually a better guide than feeling.

Oh so right! Calculations, along with a bit of real world testing. {VBG}

I wish I could find a version that shows the face of the wall after the crash – I’ve seen various videos of tests along these lines, with shoulder launched missiles too (can’t recall now if those were of containment wall or high level waste (e.g., spent fuel etc) shipping casks or both) – and was always amazed at how minimal the actual damage to the face of the wall wound up being. Especially considering the utter obliteration of whatever was slammed into it.

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@ Ms. Perps – whenever you need a page or text translated, go to google, then on the menu at the top of the page where it says “more” click on that, go down to translate. Put the URL/address of the page you want translated into it. Either select the language if you know it, or use ‘detect language’ if you don’t. Hit translate. Then a page comes up with “translating” the main things that shows up – if you wait, nothing happens – click on it, and presto, you get the page translated. Often it will even handle small pdfs. Nowhere near perfect translation, but usually quite serviceable.

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“Fukushima has certainly increased the costs of building new nuclear”

Certainly? Hardly. For BWR’s, the Fukushima accident means there should be portable generators on trucks nearby (in a safe place), and water pump trucks on permanent standby as well. According to a recent report on NHK, this is exactly what they are looking at in Japan. Let’s hope for sensible solutions in other countries as well. An effective plan to supply emergency power and temporary pumps to nuclear plants doesn’t seem like it would have to be excessively costly or complicated.

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re post by: nonukepower, on 30 March 2011 at 5:52 PM said:

Demonstrates the mentality I am concerned about. Is it appropriate to understand the nature of a terrorist attack by such unsubstatiated comments as:

“calculation with accurate numbers is usually a better guide than feeling”

when NO such “calcuation with accurate numbers” was referenced.

Actually, nonuke, such calculation was directly referenced, because the comment was about the advanced reactor designed containment – which had massive amounts of such calculations along with real world experimental data used and drawn from.

Finrod’s statement was highly substantiated. This goes for terrorist attack also – terrorists have to be able to get close enough to attack a power plant. There are only certain weapons they would be able to do that with. It’s not like terrorists are going to drive up to a nuclear power plant in a tank, or be able to shoot a cruise missile. There have been quite a few tests done that address shoulder launched missiles and the like.

As to all out war – well, in that case, one side or the other could drop a nuclear bomb too. Do we plan, design, and build for that also? Or direct meteor strike? Or how about supervolcano eruption?

Frankly, under war conditions it’s the chemical plants and other facilities like that (how about virulent virus testing labs?) which I’d be far more worried about. Just look up the Bhopal chemical accident – and that wasn’t even war or terrorism.

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re post by: Ms. Perps, on 30 March 2011 at 6:17 PM said:

One Japanese town is happy to have its nuclear power plant and regards it as a haven:
“ONAGAWA, Japan — As a massive tsunami ravaged this Japanese fishing town, hundreds of residents fled for the safest place they knew: the local nuclear power plant.”
http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5gIAaxSsE61rvxfUAkoa5Jr2aZY3g?docId=6406471

Ms. Perps, that article is an absolute gem. Thank you for posting it!

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Finrod didn’t like the source of my previous post on uranium tailings, calling them “a dedicated harf [sic] core anti-nuclear group”. Here are a some other sources to peruse for information about uranium tailings:

US Energy Information Administration
“The hazardous chemicals and radionuclides contained in uranium tailings, if not properly stored, can negatively affect the natural environment, including the air, soil, and groundwater. In the United States beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a appreciation was developed for the potential health hazards and the severity of environmental disturbances that had accumulated over the long history of domestic uranium ore mining and processing. These problems were primarily the results of ineffective regulatory oversight in governing mine discharges, hazardous waste disposal, and unreclaimed mining sites. This led to the passage, of several U.S. Federal and State laws designed to protect air, water, and land resources.” http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/umtra/background.html

Elements, Mineralogical Society of America

“Worldwide, the mining of uranium has generated 938 x 106 m3 of mill tailings. The radioactivity of these tailings depends on the grade of ore mined and varies from less than 1 Bq/g to more than 100 Bq/g. The most common mode of disposal is near-surface impoundment in the vicinity of the mine or mill. The principal radiation risks from uranium tailings are gamma radiation, essentially from radium decay; windblown radioactive dust dispersal; and radon gas and its radioactive progeny, which are known to cause lung cancer. Uranium mill tailings are also often associated with elevated concentrations of highly toxic heavy metals, which are a major source of surface and groundwater contamination. Due to their high sulfide content (a few to tens of wt%), tailings may acidify groundwater, accelerating the release of radioactive and hazardous elements.”

http://elements.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/full/2/6/335
MODERATOR
Ken – this conversation is technical in scope and should be moved from the philosophical thread. The threads become difficult to follow if topics get mixed. WE do not have the facility to move comments between threads. I have let off-topic comments stand overnight but the policty is to delete them and ask for a re-post to the correct thread. Everyone please note that this will happen during the day.

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I can certainly agree with Ken F that mining in general is an environmentally harmful activity. The country town I grew up in was nestled between two large open cut tin mines, so I have some passing familiarity with this. So what we would ideally like to do is reduce the mining footprint required for our power generation as far as practically possible.

As it happens, I’ve put an article together on that very subject:

http://channellingthestrongforce.blogspot.com/2010/05/mining-of-nuclear-fuel.html

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To those who don’t already realize it, you can find the AP1000 Final Safety Analysis Report and relevant other documentation about the design online wihtout too much trouble.

This stuff isn’t kept secret. The licensing process is extremely in depth and detailed. There are multiple steps, and every bit of the design and all associated assumptions and calculations, materials, etc., are submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission multiple times during that process. At each step NRC then goes over the information with a fine tooth comb, using experts for each area, system, or accident scenario – plus of course a more integrated ‘big picture’ evaluation by experts also. Just go to NRC.gov and you can read up about just what licensing a design entails, and find many of the AP1000 documents too (or links to where you can find them). Any time the NRC has any problem with any aspect, they demand and get either proof from the designer that the design does meet requirements and exactly how it does so, or the designer revises the design until it does meet requirements.

That’s just for the United States – every nation does their own licensing – so to whatever depth each nation goes in licensing a design, the AP1000 has been scrutinized yet again by an entirely new set of experts. As best I know, most use a similar in depth iterative process to design licensing. So anywhere the AP1000 is licensed, it has satisfied large teams of experts that it meets very stringent requirements for function, safety, and so on.

With regard to just how robust the containment design is… here’s a snippet from the AP1000 Probabilistic Risk Assessment Design Control document: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&sqi=2&ved=0CBQQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fadamswebsearch2.nrc.gov%2Fidmws%2FViewDocByAccession.asp%
3FAccessionNumber%3DML083230294&rct=j&q=AP1000%20FSAR%20containment%20jet%20impact&ei=-66TTfenHuXI0QG0yPHMBw&usg=AFQjCNHZbPHJCKmrg5biEUiZn3y3-hc7TA&cad=rja

19F.1

19F.1.2

Introduction

The design of AP1000 takes into account the potential effects of the impact of a large commercial
aircraft. The impacting aircraft analyzed is based upon the impulse time curve provided by the
NRC in July 2007. The impact of a large commercial aircraft is beyond design basis.

Scope

The evaluation of plant damage caused by the impact of a commercial aircraft is a complex
analysis problem involving phenomena associated with structural impact, shock-induced
vibration, and fire effects. The analysis of the aircraft impact considers structural damage, such as
that caused by the penetration of hardened components (e.g., engine rotors, landing gear).

An assessment of the effects of aircraft fuselage and wing structure is performed.

An assessment of the effects of shock-induced vibration on systems, structures, and components is
performed.

An assessment of the penetration of hardened aircraft components, such as engine rotors and
landing gear is performed.

Perforation of analyzed structural components is not predicted; therefore, realistic assessments of
the damage to internal systems, structures, and components caused by 1) burning aviation fuel and
2) secondary impacts are not required.

{snipped for brevity}

19F.3

Results/Conclusions

The AP1000 Aircraft Impact Assessment is detailed in Technical Report APP-GW-GLR-126
(Reference 1). The assessment concludes that AP1000 can continue to provide adequate
protection of the public health and safety with respect to aircraft impact as defined by the NRC.
The aircraft impact would not inhibit AP1000’s core cooling capability, containment integrity,
spent fuel pool integrity, or adequate spent fuel cooling based on best estimate calculations.

The assessment resulted in the identification of the following design features and functional
capabilities; changes to which are evaluated and reported in accordance with 10 CFR 50.150(d).

19F.3.1

Shield Building

The shield building as described in Section 3H and Figure 3.7.2-12 (Sheets 7, 8, and 9) is a key
design feature for the protection of the safety systems located inside containment from the impact
of a large commercial aircraft. The assessment detailed in Reference 1 concludes that a strike upon
the shield building would not result in the penetration of the containment vessel such as to cause
direct damage or exposure to jet fuel of the systems or equipment within the containment vessel.

The location of key safety-related components inside containment, including the reactor pressure
vessel, steam generators, and reactor coolant loop, was analyzed to show that structural integrity
was maintained as a result of shock-induced vibrations resulting from the impact of a large
commercial aircraft. The assessment detailed in Reference 1 concluded that the loads induced by
the impact of a large commercial aircraft are enveloped in all situations by the forces for the safe
shutdown earthquake.
MODERATOR
RD – please move this to the technical thread. I realise you have been following the comments and posting in answer. Unfortunately when this starts it was night in Australia so could not be corrected immediately.I have suggested moving to the technical post to others further down the comments. The information will not get to the interested parties if in the wrong thread and will make the philosophical thread difficult to follow.

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Rational Debate, on 31 March 2011 at 7:42 AM said:

Oh so right! Calculations, along with a bit of real world testing.

Why would you post a video of an aircraft crashing into a concrete wall around 2.5 metres thick, and at around 3metres high, when a AP1000 has concrete 0.9metres thick and spans 43 metres?

So if the video wall was 0.9 metres thick, and the aircraft struck 20metres high, the results would have been more relevant, and more realistic.

Do you have data showing that the dome of the AP1000 is as thick as around 2.5 metres?

I am sure that most aircraft will scarcely damage a bunker constructed as per the video, (10metres span, 2.5 metres concrete), but only pro-nuclear lobbyists would ever claim this applies to AP1000.

Please no more irrelevant publicity material. Where are the promised calculations?.

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