Fukushima Daiichi Open and Update Thread #5

DV82XL, on 4 May 2011 at 9:52 AM — Doesn’t apply to southern France and to southeast US.

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DV82XL, on 4 May 2011 at 12:00 PM — Thanks for the infor. In France and in the SE US there have been times in the summer when the thermal plant had to shut down because of water temperatures and rgulatory requirements. So the ecology did not suffer.

There certainly are means of overcoming this thermal problem. One which might work in some locations is to have a sizable pond to let the once-through water cool before returning it to the river.

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Woomera restricted military area will be opened to uranium mining
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/woomera-range-open-to-mining/story-e6frg8zx-1226049441738

If new mines are developed where will the water come from? Olympic Dam gets water from two bores on the edge of the artesian basin. Woomera only 72 km away by road (per GoogleMaps) gets water from the River Murray hundreds of kilometres away. The proposed desal on enclosed Spencer Gulf appears doomed due to marine ecology concerns.

A magical new energy source is needed to desalinate seawater on more exposed coastline, pump that water inland to the mines and supply electricity as well.

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@ Sod. Of course nuclear has better synergy with electric cars than wind! Nuclear is much more reliable and is there on almost all nights, thus nighttime excess electricity can be used for vehicle charging. That would not work with wind because often it is not there and its intermittency is greater than diurnal. With solar its worse because at night when all those EVs could be charged there is zero sunshine!!!

The nuclear plants can run full out during the night, retaining their advantages of very high capacity factors, while providing the very best of synergy with electric vehicles.

You really have not yet thought this through very well, have you Sod?

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@ Ted Nation. Like DV82XL says you have obviously not read the report.

http://www.mckinsey.com/en/Client_Service/Sustainability/Latest_thinking/~/media/McKinsey/dotcom/client_service/Sustainability/cost%20curve%20PDFs/greenhouse_gas_abatement_potential.ashx

Take a look at e.g. exhibit 3 for a case in point (Poland). You can see that before nuclear some 80 MTCO2eq of FUTURE abatement is possible at negative cost, out of total of 384 MTCO2eq of CURRENT emissions. Now what is your plan for the other 300 MTCO2eq of emissions? That’s the other 80% mind you, and that’s BEFORE economic growth negates much of the 20% you actually saved. The end result is that Poland will emit just as much CO2 in 2030 after the abatement as it does today!!!!

This is more of the 20% solution in 20 years nonsense. We need 90% and we needed it yesterday. Because of economic growth we need plans for deep reductions to eliminate fossil fuels. Otherwise you’re just playing at keeping the status quo.

We need to get CO2 emissions down to under 3 billion tonnes CO2eq/year. Energy efficiency is at best not nearly enough.

We need those nuclear builds. Even with lots of nuclear builds and electric vehicles and heat pumps it will be very very hard to get down to 3 billion tonnes of CO2eq/year, because we still have to find solutions to air and water transport and non-fossil CO2 emissions. Without nuclear we’ll have lost before we even get started.

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“@ Sod. Of course nuclear has better synergy with electric cars than wind! Nuclear is much more reliable and is there on almost all nights, thus nighttime excess electricity can be used for vehicle charging. That would not work with wind because often it is not there and its intermittency is greater than diurnal. With solar its worse because at night when all those EVs could be charged there is zero sunshine!!!”

Cyril, you are wrong on several things.

for a start, electric cars will be plugged in for recharge all the time. (apart from while driving) they do NOT depend on a night time recharge, but will recharge while people are at work as well. sunshine will do a lot of recharging!

they do not need reliable (cheap) electricity either. for the start, electric cars will be introduced as secondary cars for shorter distances. (until we get (payable) solutions for really long ranges)
these cars can very often wait a week for reloading.

—————–

here is, why nuclear and electric cars will not work together:

in the long run, electric cars will only be successful, if they are cheaper in NORMAL USE than those running on gas. they also must have similar properties to the usual car. (range, space, speed, …)

but for introduction and a small penetration of the population, there are different rules.

1. people will buy electric cars, because they are “green”, if the cost is not totally absurd.
this will not work well with nuclear, as the majority of these type of customer does still not accept nuclear energy.

2. people will buy electric cars to go energy independent.
doesn t work with nuclear energy at all.

3. people will buy electric cars if they can save money by “atypical use”. these are people who are prepared to wait a long time for a recharge, in case prices are high because of little wind/solar. (can only be done by people who are ready to switch to bike or public transport to avoid costs)
very little opportunity for these people with nuclear power.

4. people will buy electric cars, because they think they can save/earn money and boost about it. even if in reality and the practical world this doesn t happen.
people are ready to invest significant money, into the feeling that they refuel their car for free )during peak wind) and reselling stored electricity at peak prices. (as with many gadgets, this is more about feelings than about it really being the best investment possible)
this depends on the massive price differences that only solar and wind provide.

in short, alternative energies will speed up introduction of electric cars by a lot. nuclear power will not do this and at best doesn t hinder the introduction.

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EMP yes Hank you should pay attention better, because I replied to your earlier.

Here we go again. A nuclear plant is protected from EMP by the Faraday’s cage that is the reinforced concrete buildings, including containment, turbine and diesel buildings. EMP are radio waves and are stopped by the conducting metal rebar as its lattice pitch is lower than the magnitude of EMP waves (1 foot or more).

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Joffan, that has been dealt with already, you require no response from Ted.

France: 80% nuclear in 19 years (since oil crisis in 1973)
Germany: 3% solar in 2010 (also 19 years from the ‘thousand solar houses program’ in 1991).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Germany

Click to access FRELEC.pdf

The German government expects solar to be 25% in 2050, so that’s 25% in 59 years.

So much for solar scaling rapidly.

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@ Cyril R

The preceeding referred to the EMP/Solar Flare stuff… I can’t keep up with you!

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@Joffan – The poor francophone is let down by the spell-checker again, thanks for catching it.

@Hank Roberts, – Nobody runs longer lines through a geomagnetically active an area as we do here in Quebec. Design and operating steps can be taken to reduce the risk from solar storms, and are. Is it a problem that needs to be addressed? Yes, however it is not one that requires the elimination of long transmission lines. This is yet another red herring that is being dragged through this debate in lue of real issues.

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DV82XL: you’re welcome. However I don’t know what excuse you can use for getting “lieu” wrong :-).

Cyril R., on 5 May 2011 at 1:53 AM: you have addressed it; Ted has not, and I do still await his response.

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Hank Roberts, on 5 May 2011 at 2:32 AM said:

Read, guys. We need all the power systems set up to support fission plants, to avoid more multiple-system failure events along the lines of Fukushima.

I’m confused as to what a geomagnetic/solar storm would do to a NPP other then cause a grid trip. Grid trips happen frequently in NPP’s. Browns Ferry grid tripped just a few days ago.

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sod, on 4 May 2011 at 10:31 PM said:
“electric cars will be introduced as secondary cars for shorter distances”

Well, the #1 most useful application for electric cars is the millions of people who drive their car to work & back each day, with a commute distance less than about 100 miles – I believe most electric cars can do at least that much between recharges?

Particularly given the rising price of oil & thus gas/petrol, a small electric car would be an awful lot cheaper to drive to work & back five days a week, not to mention significantly more efficient.

I average about 40km per day in my car. An electric vehicle would be *ideal* for my daily driving. Instead, I have a european-build turbo diesel, which uses about half the fuel of the japanese-build petrol vehicle I drove previously. I used to go through a tank of fuel a week, now I only fill up every 2-4 weeks (depending on how bad the traffic has been).

As it turns out, nuclear generation would probably result in a lot of cheap power overnight, just when everyone needs to recharge their electric vehicles…

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Workers enter reactor building #1
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13289877

Workers at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant have entered one of its reactor buildings for the first time since it was hit by a powerful quake on 11 March, say officials.
The plant’s operators said the workers were installing ventilation systems in reactor one to filter out radioactive particles from the air.
:
The Tokyo Electric Power Compancy (Tepco) said earlier on Thursday that the 12 workers would work inside the reactor building in shifts of 10 minutes.

According to TEPCO’s forward plan this air filtration should then produce an environment inside the bulding generally lower than 1mSv/hour, allowing the new cooling system to be installed.

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I meant to post the Tepco plan; here it is:

Click to access 110504e13.pdf

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“I average about 40km per day in my car. An electric vehicle would be *ideal* for my daily driving. Instead, I have a european-build turbo diesel, which uses about half the fuel of the japanese-build petrol vehicle I drove previously. I used to go through a tank of fuel a week, now I only fill up every 2-4 weeks (depending on how bad the traffic has been).

As it turns out, nuclear generation would probably result in a lot of cheap power overnight, just when everyone needs to recharge their electric vehicles…”

your use of the car mine is very similar) sounds perfect for electric cars. i guess that you (like me) don t buy one, simply because the price is still much too high.

but for the second time now: electric cars will NOT depend on being reloaded at night. they will be plugged in whenever they stand still.

i do not think that nuclear energy and electric cars work together well, because having many electric cars will decrease the price difference for night electricity and will that for increase the cost of driving the car.
i saw numbers that suggest that an electric car might cost between 1/3 and 1/2 to drive. and with night time electricity being at 2/3 of daytime price (and increasing with increasing EV use), people might lose nearly the majority of the fuel price advantage.

the complete opposite happens with alternative energy. everybody understands the power of “refueling your car for free” or “making profit, by reselling car fuel”

this is a psychological effect that is much bigger than the actual money being saved might suggest it is.

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Joffan, the blackout in 2003 was caused by a short on some powerlines and an overload of the system. There was no significant damage to the infrastructure. Starting the grid back up was a challenge.

What Hank is talking about is the loss of much/most/all of the infrastructure. Imagine bringing the grid back up when all the major transformers have been destroyed. Imagine the computer systems used to control the grid destroyed, as well as the systems required to make new ones. Imagine that at the same time all the global communications infrastructure is out.

Given those results from the EMP/storm how comfortable are you that a nuclear power plant can get to cold shutdown safely?

Have I got that right Hank? Those are possible/likely results of the sort of solar storm you’re thinking of?

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Hank Roberts, on 6 May 2011 at 1:20 AM said:

Remember the problems hauling batteries and diesel fuel to Fukushima? Prolong that for months with far more widespread need for the fuel and power competing.

The power required to achieve cold shutdown is an order of magnitude above the power required to maintain cold shutdown.

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You don’t need a lot of diesel. In the first day for a large reactor you’d need 200-400 kWe for the pumps. Long term its more like 10-20 kWe. Couple of cubic meters of diesel per month is plenty.

Data centers are far more serious, being real energy hogs.

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2011/04/11/blackouts-could-test-japans-diesel-supply/

You need a lot less to run the steam driven pumps valve automated systems, maybe half a kWe.

If submarine grade lithium-ion batteries (used by deep sea divers for underwater lights etc.) then a 1 month supply to power the steam driven cooling pumps would only be around 100k USD extra battery cost. That sounds like a good idea to me. Shutting down a good steam driven system because you’ve run out of juice is really stupid. The batteries can be inside containment as they have no exhaust or air intake requirement. Bunch of passive hydrogen recombiners around the spent fuel pool and all inside the containment, a hardened ground level standpipe connecting to an emergency spray system for the spent fuel pool, and maybe throw in an extra diesel generator at the top floor next to the refuelling crane, and you are all good to go. Fukushima-proof.

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People went into the first reactor on 10-minute shifts, says the press release. What’s new there?

Nothing new as such; they’re just quickly setting up the air extraction & filtration piping that will lower exposure rates in the building for subsequent work. See the Tepco presentation.

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@2v82xl 04 May

“One way or the other the McKinsey report does not support your arguments.”

And just what are my arguments?

On May 1st I posted a question about the seriousness of Dr. Ma’s concern about the design of the AP1000’s concrete shield building. (An NRC staff member commenting on a new reactor design,not a proposed plant). Later the same day Cyril R responded pretty much ignoring Dr. Ma’s issue but attacking the NRC for being too sluggish generally. I responded that maybe a little more regulatory delay might have avoided the Fukushima situation. Cyril then lauched into a tirade about how much worse coal fired generation was. On May 2 I posted a reply agreeing with him about the need to get rid of coal fired generation but suggesting that in developed economies there were safer, faster, and cheaper alternatives and calling particiular attention to improvements in the efficiency with which we use electricity and used the California experience as a example of what could be done utilizing only part of the efficiency potential. Cyril then responded attacking California energy policy and the potential of efficiency improvements plus solar and wind. On May 3rd I responded defending the California case linking the McKinsey abatement study and some other studies to show the potential for efficiency improvements. Later in the day I linked some per capita electricial usage charts for selected countries and called out Germany as an example. Cyril proceeded to dismiss the German case too, using an absurd date range covering a period before German energy efficiency policies were adopted. (Perhaps he should have used his vaunted skills to calculate just how much less CO2e the US would have added to the atmosphere had we matched the German experience over time?)

Now just how does the McKinsey report fail to demonstrate the huge potential of efficiency improvements?

I am not anti-nuclear. I don’t says there is no role for nuclear. I just insist on reactors being well regulated by indepent bodies. I also think nuclear is unlikely to play a big role in the US in the near term. (I think that agrees with an earlier statement you made about nuclear playing its greatest role in developing economies).

I am terrified and sadened by the effects of global warming. I think we have already destabilized the cryosphere and face the inevitability of rising sea levels for centuries. We may have already crossed other tipping points that could produce on-going feedbacks. I would welcome a WWII type of effort to mitigate the release of greenhouse gases even if it included constructing thousands of nuclear reactors. Unfortunately the fossil fuel industry blocks even a limited effort!

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There are few small electic commuter cars around here. Cute and quiet.

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Ted Nation, the McKinsey report says even with all efficiency improvements together, global CO2 emissions WILL STILL RISE.

Since you can’t read properly, I will repeat.

CO2 EMISSIONS WILL RISE WITH ONLY EFFICIENCY IMPROVEMENTS ACCORDING TO THE MCKINSEY REPORT.

Therefore efficiency is *NOT* an alternative to nuclear.

Furthermore, if the cost of the efficiency improvements is indeed largely negative as the McKinsey report suggest, then there is Jevon’s Paradox that comes into play.

Efficiency is at best not enough and at worst has zero effect due to various rebound effects (which makes its cost per ton of CO2 avoided infinite, ie ineffective).

Now try to polish up on your reading skills, or stop trolling. And try to actually *read* your own references, it makes you look so stupid if you don’t.

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@dv82xl

Thanks for reading my mind and telling me what I think! You guys are poor public advocates for nuclear power if you think you can overwhelm any safety and economic concerns with put downs.

@Cyril R.

“Furthermore, if the cost of the efficiency improvements is indeed largely negative as the McKinsey report suggest, then there is Jevon’s Paradox that comes into play.”

This effect is much exaggerated and could be entirely eliminated with a carefully designed rate system. See:

http://climateprogress.org/2011/02/16/debunking-jevons-paradox-jim-barrett/

There have been several posts comparing electrlic rates by country and power source. These articles would indicate that rates are much more influenced by rate design than power source.

http://climateprogress.org/2011/05/05/rate-design-not-generation-source-drives-power-prices-in-europe/#more-48212

http://climateprogress.org/2011/04/28/electricity-prices-in-america-are-low/

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@ Hank Roberts, yes making energy expensive can be very effective in reducing energy consumption, both by chasing away industries and importing the embedded energy in products so that it looks like per capita energy is reduced (but of course its just imported to a greater extent in embodied energy from dirty Chinese energy systems), and by forcing people to use non-cost effective energy efficiency and lifestandard-reducing conservation down their throat.

Thank you for proving my point.

Meanwhile, CO2 emissions are still increasing, with or without energy efficiency.

We actually get more efficient all the time. It makes us more productive, allowing a better standard of life. It’s great. And it doesn’t reduce fossil fuel consumption.

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Now, we can see how well California is not reducing CO2 emissions here:

Well, that didn’t work. Its not too late for California though – they can use nuclear power and electric vehicles plus heat pump heating in winter and ice storage airconditioning to take advantage of nighttime nuclear ‘cold charging’.

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@Ted Nation, – I stand by what I wrote. You are an antinuclear troll.

‘If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck….”

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@Ted Nation: I will take your long silence on other power generation build rates as an admission that nuclear build rates are acceptable and do not pose a real objection to nuclear power. I trust you will pass your new knowledge back to whatever source you originally used for the baseless objection.

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@Joffan

“Ted Nation: I’m still waiting for your response on build rates for other generating technologies (excluding combustion).’

“Ted Nation: I will take your long silence on other power generation build rates as an admission that nuclear build rates are acceptable and do not pose a real objection to nuclear power. I trust you will pass your new knowledge back to whatever source you originally used for the baseless objection.”

I never raised other alternative renewables but focussed on improvements in efficiency. These are on-going but could be greatly accelerated with universal utility rules allowing ultility investments in customer efficiency improvement to be included in the rate base. Roll out is essentially as fast as improvements can be identified and completed.

The build rate of wind and solar obviously depend on the size of the project and whether the planning and permitting are included. For a medium sized wind farm five years from initiation to completion is fairly typical but only two years of this is contruction time. But of course there is the example of the offshore Cape Wind Project taking 10 years to get through the permitting and legal delays. Central solar facilities are also complex undrtakings taking several years to constuct..

The real issue is how much capital is tied up in the construction phase which is a much longer period for nuclear plants. This adds considerable to their cost and to risk incurred.

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@ Sod

the entire USA could have a per capita electricity use like california or some European countries.

Yes. And every government in the world could completely cut funding to military and warfare. Use that money to fix the energy and climate problems – also have world peace! On Planet Sod.

Not to mention (as others have pointed out) that these per capita energy uses, while still burning fossil fuels, simply don’t cut it.

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Both the USA and Germany have more than tripled their per capita electricity consumption. The Germans started out lower but grew almost as fast as the USA. This is not what traditional (ie those who are still innumerate) environmentalists have in mind when they think of saving electricity.

Even with a much stronger push to energy efficiency across the globe, and even assuming rebound effects are small, you will still have to deal with the reality of growing energy and CO2 emissions on the absolute scale.

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the entire USA could have a per capita electricity use like california or some European countries.

In Washington State, we have 2% of the US population but we produce 25% of the US Aluminum.

There are reasons that other areas the the US have higher energy intensity then California that have absolutely nothing to do with how ‘environmentally aware’ or ‘environmentally responsible’ we are.

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Hank Roberts, on 8 May 2011 at 2:31 AM — Earthquakes are measured in units of “moment magnitude”, often abbreviated “magnitude”. Only winds are measured in units called “force”.

And, by the way, there have already been two aftershocks of magnitude 8.0 from the magnitude 9.0 earthquake off the coast of Japan.

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