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Continuing the Nuclear Debate
Posted by Chris Vernon on April 3, 2008 - 10:35pm in The Oil Drum: Europe
Topic: Alternative energy
Tags: nuclear, nuclear waste, thorium [list all tags]
- Skip Meier - Nuclear Waste
Bill Hannahan - We have yet to design the Model T of nuclear power plants
Charles Barton - Thorium Reserves
John Hutton's latest reflections on nuclear power demonstrate how rapidly British energy policy is regressing to its default mode - dig it up and burn it. At the same time as we are promised the nuclear pipe dream, we are also set to have new coal-powered power stations without carbon capture and storage. This comes at the same time as we have fought for one of the lowest renewables targets in the EU, are languishing third from bottom in current renewables provision out of 27 EU states, and are announcing yet another microgeneration review.The message Hutton's department seems to want to promulgate in its energy policy is to reassure everybody that no serious change is needed, that we should carry on increasing our demand for energy and that climate change isn't as urgent as some people make out. One can only conclude that the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform is utterly unfit for purpose and should have the title Department for Fiddling While Rome Burns.
Colin Challen MP
Lab, Morley & Rothwell
Nuclear Waste
Skip Meier70ish Theoretical Physicist with educational studies in the mid 1960's to 1973. Ph.D. work in General Relativity and Quantum Field Theory during the early days of attempted quantization of GR; Thermodynamics of Black Holes. Taught at various colleges throughout the US including the Navajo Nation College at Tsaile AZ. Continuing independent collaboration with others on problems in Gravitational Quantization vs Superstring Pseudo-theories. Presently wandering the canyon country of SE Utah and the Colorado Plateau - in the middle of Superfund sites from the last uranium boom and within 20 miles of the only US licensed and presently operating Uranium mill. People here are still dying from the last round of careless unconcern for proper handling (and processing) of radioactive materials, including HLRW.
Introduction
There are at least three expressed goals for the increased use of nuclear fission to provide us with useful supplies of electrical energy as fossil fuels go into decline and anthropomorphic global warming becomes manifest and increasingly more threatening.
- To quickly increase the number of nuclear power plants and electrical output from them over the 21st C. allowing coal and natural gas fired plants to be phased out while sustainable and renewable sources of electric energy can be developed and employed. Moving into the 22nd C. and beyond, we can then begin to phase out nuclear power based upon fission energy.
- To develop sufficient electric nuclear power generation as quickly as possible to provide base load requirements into the foreseeable future.
- To quickly adapt nuclear power as the predominant source of energy while moving to a *all electric* society.
(12) The term “high-level radioactive waste” means—I will not be addressing the issues of the actinic (and transuranic) fractions of the spent fuel but only the fission decay products - the high level radioactive waste as defined in (12) above.
(A) the highly radioactive material resulting from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, including liquid waste produced directly in reprocessing and any solid material derived from such liquid waste that contains fission products in sufficient concentrations; and
(B) other highly radioactive material that the Commission, consistent with existing law, determines by rule requires permanent isolation.
(23) The term "spent nuclear fuel" means fuel that has been withdrawn from a nuclear reactor following irradiation, the constituent elements of which have not been separated by reprocessing.
The Physics of Nuclear Fission and Power Generation
For every Kg of fissile fuel that undergoes fission approximately 850-950 gm of highly radioactive waste isotopes are produced.
1 GWe continuous power generation will produce 8.76 GKWhe energy (1 GW Year), consume about 900-1000Kg of fissile fuel and produce about 850-950Kg of high- level radioactive waste (HLRW) per year. This waste is a mixture of isotopes with greatly varying half-lives (decay rates) ranging from fractional seconds to 1My+.
The daughter isotopes will each undergo radioactive decay following the exponential decay function given by A(t) = A(initial)e^ct with c being the individual decay rate of each and related to the half-life by c = -0.693/(half-life in years). However, and this is critical to the understanding of the problem of HLRW, while the fission products undergo their individual decay rates and deplete, more HLRW is being generated at the rate given above - about 850-950 Kg/(GW Year).
The exponential decay function must be reconsidered and modified when the isotope undergoing decay is also being produced. For simplicity, if the rate of production is held constant and is represented by “S”, then the amount of that isotope present after a time t is given by the exponential function:
where c is as before.
Because c is negative -S/c is a positive quantity and e^ct will go to 0 with increasing time, leading to the constant value -S/c for the amount of HLRW accumulated and eventually maintained with a constant yearly production rate.
As stated above, each fractional isotope in the HLRW has a different half-life (HL); each will accumulate to a different limit as time progresses; but a feel may be obtained for what occurs by using an average HL of 50 yrs. (based on the assumption made by many that after 500 years the HLRW is ‘harmless’.) Assuming this gives c = -0.014/yr (from c = -.693/HL).
A value of S = 900Kg/yr. and the c above gives an eventual steady state value of:
It is certainly true that the 900 Kg produced during the first year will have been reduced to 0.9 Kg. after 500 years but there will be 63 tonne requiring isolation.
Let us consider the single HLRW isotope Cs(137) - which is both a beta and high energy gamma emitter with a HL of 30 yr. and therefore very dangerous. Cs (137) makes up about 3.5% (by mass) of the fissioned nuclei and therefore has a yearly rate of production of about 31.5Kg/yr. for each GW Year unit of energy production.
For Cs(137), c = -0.023 and with S = 31.5 this gives an accumulated steady state value of:
Associated Health Risks
High level radioactive waste does not exist in nature (at any measurable level), is partially composed of isotopes of elements, for example cesium, iodine and strontium, that are easily incorporated into the chemical and physiological structures of organisms - they are readily taken up and, if not isolated, will pass up the food chain - in both land and water - from plant/algae to herbivore to carnivore (becoming more concentrated with progression); as they decay within the longer lived higher organisms, cellular and organ damage can occur as well as DNA modification leading to cancer some time later.
Additionally - and very important - some are extremely dangerous without ingestion; merely being in proximity can be very damaging if not fatal. Since ‘proximity’ depends not only on ‘closeness to’ and which isotope (and amount thereof) is present but also on time of exposure, it is very difficult to protect against accidental exposure without permanent isolation of the HLRW; this will become exceedingly more difficult as we increase our nuclear power generation output and the total amount of accumulated(-ing) HLRW which include some second (and third) generation isotopes of the original HLRW - for example, Cs(135) with a half-life of 2.5 My.
A review of the radiative characteristics of (some) the HLRW products can be reviewed on the following two links (Wikipedia sites, not complete):
Fission product
Fission product yield
We have yet to design the Model T of nuclear power plants.
Bill HannahanEach new technology has a life cycle. It starts with an idea, then a prototype. If the technology involves high energy and/or hazardous materials, the prototype is often the most dangerous example, but there is only one prototype, so its risk to society is low. Risk to the public is greatest when the immature technology is first deployed in large numbers.
We have frozen nuclear power technology at its most dangerous stage of evolution for 30 years, yet it safely generates about 20% of our electricity in the U.S., 80% in France. Next generation plants will have fewer parts and passive safety systems, including the ability to contain a full meltdown.
General Electric ESBWR
Nuclear News on the ESBWR (.pdf)
Westinghouse AP1000
Areva EPR (.pdf)
Today we should be designing fourth generation nuclear plants, building third generation plants, living off the energy of second generation plants and converting our first generation plants into museums. In fact, no two nuclear power plants are exactly alike. We have yet to build the Model T of nuclear power plants.
Imagine that Boeing built airplanes in a swamp, outdoors, far away from any attractive place to live, using minimal tooling and equipment. Workers and equipment would be exposed to rain snow dust heat and insects. Very high salaries would be required to attract workers away from their families to work in harsh conditions. Productivity and quality would be low. The airplanes would be more expensive, less clean, less safe and less reliable than modern factory built planes. That is the way our first generation nuclear plants were built.
We should build facilities to mass produce floating nuclear power plants. They would consist of a canal 600 feet wide and a mile long, enclosed inside a building equipped with high quality lighting, heat, air conditioning, fire protection, communication systems, cranes and tooling, that provide a comfortable safe efficient work environment.
The process begins with a dry dock where a massive steel reinforced concrete barge is constructed. It is floated down the canal for installation of modular equipment. Employees will have safe, permanent, high paying jobs in an attractive coastal location. The application of assembly line techniques will dramatically reduce man-hours, construction time and cost, while improving safety and quality. The completed plants will be towed to coastal or offshore sites, prepared in parallel with plant construction.
The biggest single element in the cost of conventional nuclear plants is the interest on the loan to build the plant, about 1/3 of the total cost, due to the long construction time. Floating plants will be produced initially at the rate of two per year ramping up to about six per year, eliminating most of the interest expense.
A facility to mass produce floating nuclear power plants was actually built, for details see here.
We can make clean safe inexpensive energy available all over the world, have the high paying jobs and control the technology. We can design the plants to be highly resistant to acts of terror and the diversion of nuclear material, insist that plants be subject to international inspection as a condition of sale or lease and sell or lease these plants at a cost that is much lower than traditional construction methods, eliminating the fig leaf of energy production to hide a nuclear weapons program.
Cost
Reducing U.S. emissions now is of minor importance. If we eliminate all of our greenhouse emissions tomorrow, the developing world would gobble up the savings in a relatively short period of time.
The most important goal for the U.S. should be to accelerate the use of our technical capacity to develop energy technology that is less expensive than fossil fuel and can be implemented quickly all over the world. People will make the switch quickly and voluntarily, not kicking and screaming.
This is why the U.S. should increase R&D spending for non-fossil energy sources from $3.00 per person per year to $300.00 per person per year, $90 billion per year.
We should be pushing every technology as hard as possible and building demo plants of each as it becomes possible.
What are the odds that a submarine reactor on steroids is the best way to produce massive amounts of commercial nuclear power? There are dozens of ways to split uranium and thorium atoms, here are a few examples.
2.25 cents per kWh would raise $18 billion each year from our existing nuclear power plants, more than enough to build at least one demonstration facility to mass produce floating nuclear power plants and several prototype reactors using advanced technology. That leaves $72 billion per year for non nuclear energy R&D.
Mandating the widespread use of expensive energy systems has resulted in the highest electricity prices in the world, Denmark, 41 cents per kWh, Germany, 30 cents per kWh (Electricity prices for EU households and industrial (.pdf)) yet they still get most of their electricity from fossil fuel.
We pay 9.5 cents per kWh in the U.S... A year’s supply of electricity costs the average American $1,260. Mandating expensive energy systems could easily double that figure. Technology mandates are far more expensive than the cost of developing better technology.
Letting a bunch of gray haired law school graduates in Washington DC try to cherry pick energy technology is a formula for disaster.
France is 80% nuclear, most of the rest is hydro, and they pay 19 cents per kWh. France runs its nuclear power industry like the U.S. runs the post office, and they are building windmills now to show more renewable energy, so their cost will likely rise in coming years.
Our nuclear power plants have been paid off for a long time and they help keep prices down. The operation and maintenance cost for U.S. nuclear plants in 2006 was 2.0 cents per kWh (link) including the fuel assembly cost of 0.5 cents per kWh, of which the uranium cost was 0.19 cents per kWh.
Expensive energy systems will not solve the world’s energy problem because most people cannot afford them.
If we spend 2.25 cents per kWh on R&D for a decade or so we can solve the energy problem and save over $1,000 per person per year for centuries. Accelerating the development of low cost, clean, safe energy systems is the greatest and cheapest gift we can provide to future generations.
For more details go to: Bill Hannahan's essay on energy.
Download the PDF and spreadsheet (mid page).
Thorium Reserves
Charles BartonCharles Barton grew up in Oak Ridge, where his father was a reactor chemist. Barton learned about Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors from his father, who spent nearly 20 years researching them. A retired counselor, his blog, Nuclear Green focuses on the history of nuclear research, and on the potential role of thorium cycle reactors in providing the world’s energy needs.
In 1962 a team of Geologists from Rice University in Houston, Texas, took a few months to explorer the Conway Granites of Vermont. At the time Rice Geologists were usually involved in a search for oil, but these geologists were under contract from Oak Ridge National Laboratory to look for Thorium. ORNL Scientist had the crazy idea that they could build a thorium fuel cycle reactor that could produce a billion watts of electrical power for a year from less than a ton of thorium.
The Rice Geologists J. A. S. Adams, M.-C. Kline, K. A. Richardson, and J. J. W. Rodgers reported:
The costs of extracting the uranium and thorium from the Conway granite are estimated by workers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory to be less than $100/pound, or at most five to ten times the present costs of nuclear raw materials. This source of nuclear fuels, therefore, is currently uneconomic compared to the sources now being utilized. In terms of total energy content, however, the Conway granite represents an energy resource several orders of magnitude larger than the lower cost material. In the long-term future, when supplies of cheap uranium and thorium may start to be exhausted, sources such as the Conway granite may become increasingly important and necessary.They concluded:
Thus the importance of the present work on the Conway granite lies in the indication that tens of millions of tons of thorium are available when the need for vast amounts of higher-cost nuclear fuel becomes pressing. These amounts may be compared to the few hundreds of thousands of tons of previously estimated thorium reserves. It is reassuring to know that the long-term future of nuclear power is not limited by the supply or by a prohibitively high cost of fuel. Furthermore, the Conway granite may become even more important considering the likelihood that improved extraction techniques may make the thorium available at costs well below the $100/pound estimated in preliminary laboratory experiments. It is also possible that larger amounts of lower-cost thorium might be realized by locating high-grade ore reserves such as the Lemhi Pass, Idaho, area may prove to be, or by finding a large granitic batholith more economic than the Conway.”Last year the a rumor began to circulate on the Internet of a remarkable geological find at Lemhi Pass in Idaho. Recently the USGS has estimated the United States Thorium reserve at 160,000 tons, but the story that was circulating claimed an assured reserve at Lemhi Pass alone of 600,000 tons. Thorium is a heavy metal. Like Uranium 238, Thorium 232 is fertile. Thorium absorbs neutrons, in reactors and other neutron rich environments. The neutron triggers a transformation process that converts Th233 into U233. U233 is fissionable like U235 and Pu239....
“Finally, it should be noted that the statistical and exploration techniques developed in the present work and described above, particularly the portable gamma-ray spectrometer, may make it possible to explore for thorium and develop reserves far more cheaply and rapidly than was the case for uranium.
Thorium Energy, Inc., the major holder of the Lemhi Pass thorium vein, recently posted on the Internet a report on its Lemhi Pass finding:
Thorium Energy, Inc.™ owns the proprietary mineral rights to the largest claim in this region, representing what is believed to be one of the single largest privately owned Thorium reserves in the world.Why is this thorium reserve just now being discovered? An Australian Government, Geoscience Australia report states:...
The Company’s reserves consist of 68 separate resource claims, each consisting of approximately 20 Acres, located in the Lemhi Pass Region, which is situated along the border between Idaho and Montana. Included in the Company’s claims are significant mining veins, which contain 600,000 tons of proven thorium oxide reserves. Various estimates indicate additional probable reserves of as much as 1.8 million tons or more of thorium oxide contained within these claims. The Company’s claims also include significant deposits of rare earth metals.
...
Metallurgy tests conducted in the region estimate that the average mine run grade is approximately 5% or more of thorium oxide (ThO 2). In fact, vein deposits of thorite (ThSiO 4), such as those that occur in the area of the Lemhi Pass, present the highest grade thorium, mineral, and are believed to contain approximately 25 to 63 percent thorium oxide (ThO 2) per ton of raw ore. Thus one ton of thorium ore could potentially yield as much as 500-1,200 lbs. of high grade thorium oxide (ThO 2), as compared with less than one percent of raw Uranium ore that is typically utilizable. The deployment of Lemhi Pass Thorium represents a more economically feasible source of nuclear grade ore than Uranium deposits.
“Exploration for thorium to date has been minimal and there are no comprehensive records of resources, mainly because of a lack of large-scale commercial demand.”
What is true of Australia is also true of the United States, and indeed the rest of the world.
Research has demonstrated that it is possible to design reactors that will convert thorium 232 to U233 very efficiently. 800 kg of thorium 232, under a ton, converted into U233 can produce a billion watts of electricity for a year.
See Liquid Fluoride Reactor (Wikipedia)
The 600,000 proven tons of thorium at Lemhi Pass represent enough energy to power the United States for as much as 400 years. 1.8 million tons of thorium contains enough energy to power the United States for well over 1000 years. The tens of millions of tons of thorium that Rice University Geologists reported in 1962 finding in the Conway granites of Vermont could last the United States for a very long time.
Skip Meier indirectly points to a major advantage of the thorium fuel cycle. A thorium cycle reactor will produce less than ton of fission byproducts a year, most of which can be recycled by industry as soon as it comes of a reactor because it is no longer radioactive.
Most of the fission products produced in a thorium fuel cycle reactor have half lives of under 2 hours. Thus most fission products will have ceased being radioactive within a few days of being produced.
http://www.cns-snc.ca/branches/quebec/NWMO_submission_Table_1.jpg
If the thorium fuel cycle is well managed the only actinide it will produce will be Np-237 which is easily extracted from a liquid fluoride fuel carrier.
Np-237 is not fissionable, and hence is not a proliferation danger, but it's eventual radiation is a long term hazard, and should be disposed of with care.Neptunium is fissionable with fast neutrons, and is a proliferation risk. It should be burned by some fast neutron process, either in a liquid chloride nuclear waste disposal reactor, or as a target material in a spallation thorium breeder.http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf35.html
About 20 pounds (9 kg) of Np-237 will be produced for every GWy of electricity generated by a thorium fuel cycle reactor.
In addition to NP-237, the thorium fuel cycle produces seven long lived fission by products. A very small amount of Tin-126 is present among the fission products, It has a half life 230,000 years, but then decays into Antimony126 a strong gamma-ray emitter. Other long lived radioactive daughter isotopes are weak radiation emitters. Several are biologically inactive. This does not mean that the long lived fission products should be treated carelessly, but it does mean that they are not a danger to life on this planet, or to human lives.
The thorium fuel cycle produces a tiny fraction of the waste generated by the uranium fuel cycle. The waste from the thorium fuel cycle does not constitute a proliferation danger, and the long term radiation emitters are not highly dangerous. Most fission products from a thorium fuel cycle reactor are not radioactive by the time they come out of a reactor, and can be recycled by industry.
A truly incredible amount of information on the thorium fuel cycle, and on the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor can be found on Kirk Sorensen's blog, "Energy from Thorium."
http://thoriumenergy.blogspot.com/
In addition to an amazing document repository, Kirk's blog contains what is undoubtedly the most extensive discussion-dialogue about nuclear technology found on the internet. Reading Kirk's blog is an absolute must for anyone who wishes to be literate on nuclear issues, or wishes to make informed comments on nuclear energy. I claim for my own blog, Nuclear Green much more modest accomplishments. However, I do try to maintain a complete list of links to blogs that write on nuclear related topics.
http://nucleargreen.blogspot.com/
I'm surprised that the Oil Drum has granted Charles Barton a guest spot, given that he has no professional expertise in the subject area ("retired counseler" who questions the details of other's professional credentials) and calls Chris Vernon "a world class idiot" (which makes one wonder how effective a counselor he must have been).
Ditto.
That blog doesn't even have a vaguely professional feel to it, let alone any actual expertise...
Hey! Don't you go dissing unprofessional and inexpert blogs, we have fun! :p
Mind you, if I were going to have a whole blog about nuclear energy, I should probably try not to confuse fission and fusion, as for example in the title here, "Long half life fusion products"?
Still, I've based my entire fame on being unprofessional and inexpert! So be nice...
Will Stewart, I am a listener who repeats what he hears. That is what a good counselor does. Since my father, was a nuclear scientist, I got much of my information from a good sources. I am nuclear literate, and I defer to scientist and engineers on technical issues. That is why the substance of my post is born by the voice of people who know what they are talking about. I also acknowledge who I am.
> I am a listener who repeats what he hears
A parrot does the same, as do the uniformed when manipulated with disinformation, so that hardly provides you with any qualifications. Your style of denigrating others who disagree with you, notwithstanding your complete lack of credentials, destines your 'contributions' to the dustbin of the internet archives.
My father was a geologist with the USGS, and I learned much from him, but that neither qualifies nor motivates me to deride those with an opposing viewpoint to mine on geology matters.
Surely if his writing is so uniformed and unqualified it ought to be easy to tear it apart, rather than just calling him a poopyhead.
I mean, if you said, "You are wrong because of X, Y and Z, and therefore are a poopyhead", I would not complain. But you're just saying, "you are a poopyhead." Your critique lacks substance.
I'm the last person who can criticise others for making personal attacks. I'd only say, put some substance in them, let the personal attack be the salt to bring out the taste of the rest of the dish. A mouthful of salt alone isn't so tasty.
"poopyhead" is your term, not mine; you missed the point completely, as I did not critique his content, merely his style. The 'salt' you refer to is more like dung to the rest of us, so don't be surprised when we spit it back out.
And frankly I'm in favor of nuclear being part of the overall energy mix, as well as significantly higher percentages of renewables and substantive demand management and, above all, conservation; cooler heads will go farther in this discussion.
So he's right. You have not a single argument against the article, except how easy it is to read.
It baffles me how anyone would admit in a conversation he has no points to contribute, and somehow find pride in this ?
Welcome to the real world. Here "reality bites" and style is optional. I'm not entirely sure you'll like it here.
tomc has been here all of 1 week and three days, and professing, "Global warming is a fantasy". His version of reality must always be the right one, we must assume...
Will, I bet you know a whole lot more about geology than the average Oil Drum commenter. What I deride is nuclear illiteracy. Not knowing enough to make intelligent comments, and not knowing what you don't know. Many of the critics of nuclear power simply repeat slogans that were invented in the 1970's. I don't mind hearing from well informed, consistent critics of nuclear power, and I respect their views. I am quite willing to have dialogues with well informed and thoughtful critics, because I share many of their concerns. I am aware of the technological short comings of light water reactors, and I think that the problem of nuclear waste should be solved. I would appreciate dialogue on how to do that. What I object to is people who oppose nuclear power, and who also reject any solution to the problem of nuclear waste by reciting a bumper sticker slogan.
Update: I have been a very bad boy, and I have been kicked off Tho Oil Drum:
luís de sousa said...
The Oil Drum Europe gets seventy thousand (70 000) visits per month. If you don't read it it doesn't mean that others don't.
I suggest next time you submit your article to some place else.
Luis, how could you? My eyes are so stained with tears.
Thanks to the Oil Drum for having Charles here. What Charles does is very important, making a narrow field of a technical substance accessible by a much larger share of the interested population. Expertise without the communication of it to others has no value, so Charles adds important value. I appreciate what Charles does and respect the quality of his work.
Charles has value, makes a worthwhile contribution, stimulates interest, shares knowledge and raises the wisdom of lots more people in a conflicted field. I'll post you, Charles . . . We've quoted and linked to you and Bill already. At about a third of TheOilDrum's visitor count in just the first 9 months, with a neutral to positive position about energy and fuel, common sense and a positive outlook has a good following too.
Charles is respectfully mentioned here: http://newenergyandfuel.com/http:/newenergyandfuel/com/2008/03/21/2000-m...
I'll be happy to link to Charles and Bill anytime. They offer really good stuff for people's screen space.
By the way, all this debate is rather "behind the curve" anyway... http://newenergyandfuel.com/http:/newenergyandfuel/com/category/fission/
...tee hee hee...
...sorry.
Name-calling mere obscures the facts. Both sides, ANY side should stay away from it.
That being said, your Thorium article is old news. I could nitpick about the details, but the essence is the same for all nuclear energy: too expensive.
I'm not bothered at all about the fact that nuclear reactors around the world produce nuclear waste. Stop bringing it up, it's not the point.
The only real issue in nuclear energy is that those who would like to build new reactors want taxpayers money to pay for it. That's why there's so much lying and cheating and lobbying and deceptive pr around.
For example: stop mentioning how France gets 80% of it's electricity from nuclear energy. Period. The French electricity company is a state-controlled and state owned company. No known full accounting exist of the true cost of electricity in France. By not mentioning that you are telling half-truths. A half-truth is a full lie. Charles Barton, I'm calling you a liar. You know I'm right. Stop it.
This knowledge (about French nuclear energy) has been around for many years,if not decades now. As is the knowledge that EdF (the energy company concerned) has massive debts that are guaranteed by the state. Yet you parrot disinfo like there's no tomorrow.
I have no problem with Thorium, nor with a reactor that works on it. Go ahead and do it.
But you're trying to lie your way into getting politicians to give you MY money to do so.
And I DO have a problem with THAT.
If you are serious about Thorium energy, convince the industry to put their OWN money in it. Not MY tax money. Somehow, I don't see you doing that. If Thorium is so nice, or nuclear energy as a whole for that matter, how come nill reactors have been built without tax payers money?
That's my central issue with nuclear energy: the people involved are a bunch of lying, cheating, stealing bastards who wouldn't invest a DIME without a taxpayer bailout. And they know it.
You want nuclear energy? Put up YOUR money. Not mine.
where is the energy source that is not subsidized ?
Solar ? Subsidized (feed in tariffs, tax breaks, research subsidies etc...)
Wind ? Subsidized (feed in tariffs, tax breaks, research subsidies etc...)
geothermal, biofuels, oil, coal, natural gas ? All subsidized.
Every energy producer is taking taxpayer money.
by your own definition, a half truth is a lie. I would not be that harsh, I would say research your assumptions. Let's look at all energy sources as critically as we look at nuclear power.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/02/feed-in-tariffs-support-for-renewable.html
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/01/energy-costs-with-externalities.html
Nuclear lobbying is less than coal and oil.
http://depletedcranium.com/?p=480
Every energy producer is taking taxpayer money.
Is that justified? No.
Does that make it Ok for nuclear energy to do? No.
Nuclear lobbying is less than coal and oil.
See above. You do not invalidate my arguments.
Crusty, Are you the clown from the Simpsons? You certainly made me laughed, You denounced name calling and then called me a lier. What was most funny, is that you called me a lier over the cost of French nuclear power, and no where in my post or in my comment did I mention the cost of French nuclear power. If we assume that the use of carbon based fuels carries a hidden economic cost - and I would argue that it actually carries several - then there are hidden savings from the French use of nuclear power that ought also to be considered.
Crusty, Are you the clown from the Simpsons? You certainly made me laughed, You denounced name calling and then called me a lier.
Well I've come straight out and called you a liar.
I'm not sure what a 'lier' is.
hidden savings from the French use of nuclear power that ought also to be considered.
So now your are going to argue with SECRECT data? Hidden data, hidden magical data?
What a weak argument: you have identified you do not understand the technology you make claims about and NOW you want people to consider data that is 'hidden'?
What was most funny, is that you called me a lier over the cost of French nuclear power, and no where in my post or in my comment did I mention the cost of French nuclear power.
Halt. You apparently even fail to see that you are a liar. Here's some reasoning 101:
By putting forth the French nuclear energy program, you implicitly and explicitly use it as a showcase for the succes of nuclear energy as a whole. Understand this part?
You don't have to give the French energy program as an example if you want to show that something is technically feasible. You could do that with ANY nuclear energy plant anywhere in the world that works. You implicitly want to show it is economically feasible.
Now, the problem is, you will find very few people, apart from a few rabid treehuggers, that will argue that nuclear energy cannot work at all. If you pour endless amounts of money into it, as has been done in the past 60 years, of course you can make it work.
However, just because something is technically feasible, doesn't mean we should do it. And it most certainly doesn't mean you get to use my tax money to do it.
By continuously trying to portray the French nuclear energy program as a succes story you are trying to put forth a technological succes story as an economic succes story. Which it isn't. By doing this, you are a liar. QED.
Like I said before, stop being a liar. It's no shame to stop.
Crusty, I do not wish to involve myself in further debate, because we have worn through the issues of disagreement. I have in a post at the end of the comment section of this blog, pointed to some areas of agreement shared by commenters on both sides. I have suggested that nuclear power in not going away, and that critics of nuclear power might better use their energy by seeing that their concerns are not ignore in the future development of nuclear power. I suggest you consider this, if you wish to have a voice on issues like nuclear safety.
I would share with you some information on French nuclear power.
NUCLEAR NEWS FLASHES - Friday, March 14, 2008
INTERNATIONAL NEWS:
--NUCLEAR REMAINS FRANCE's CHEAPEST BASELOAD GENERATING OPTION going
forward, although the costs of all options have risen "significantly" over
the five years since the French administration last studied the issue, the
head of the French energy office, Pierre-Franck Chevet, said March 13.
Chevet said that the upcoming 2008 "reference costs" study - part of a
series issued periodically by the administration to guide choices for
future electricity generating plants in France -- will show that a new
large nuclear power plant will produce baseload power more cheaply than the
alternatives considered -- plants based on fluidized bed coal technology
and on pulverized coal (coal slurry), and on natural gas. Chevet said at a
meeting of the French Nuclear Energy Society that the 2008 study confirms
the order of competitiveness of the technologies available for baseload
power plants to start up in 2015, with nuclear the cheapest, then
fluidized-bed coal, followed by pulverized coal, and then by gas. The
estimates do not include any carbon tax or trading mechanism, and Chevet
said a 20-euro-per-metric-ton carbon tax "accentuates the effect" of
nuclear's competitiveness for baseload power generation. In 2003, the
reference costs for generation of baseload power (330 days a year) were
estimated at 28 Euro-cents per kilowatt-hour for a 1,600-MW EPR nuclear
power plant, 32 cents for fluidized-bed coal, 34 cents for pulverized coal,
and 35 cents for gas. The reference costs study, long delayed, is due to be published by May.
===========
NUCLEAR NEWS FLASHES - Thursday, January 11, 2007
INTERNATIONAL NEWS:
--NUCLEAR POWER SAVED FRANCE 16 BILLION EUROS (about US$20 billion) in energy import costs and at least 128 million tons of CO2 emissions in 2006, the French industry ministry said January 11. France's nuclear electricity production in
2006 was about 430 terawatt-hours. Had that generation come from combined-cycle gas-fired plants instead, the ministry's Energy Observatory calculated, the
country's 2006 energy import outlays would have been Eur 62 billion, or 3.6% of
gross domestic product, instead of Eur 46 billion (2.7% of GDP). The total extra
cost includes Eur 13.5 billion for additional natural gas imports and a loss of
Eur 2.6 billion in electricity export revenues. The carbon emissions savings
equal the annual emissions allocated to French industry over the period 2008-
2102, and half of the credits to German industry, Industry Minister Francois
Loos said at a press briefing. Had coal-fired power replaced the French nuclear
kWh, the additional CO2 emissions would have amounted to 250 million to 300
million tons, Loos said. Counting exported electricity, French nuclear saved the
European Union 150 million tons of CO2 last year, he said.
In that table, note the bottom line: "Smaller contributors = 8". In other words, there's eight megawatts' worth of radioactive strontium and cesium and whatnot. Hardly a negligible load of long-lived isotopes. And probably typical of the fission products for any actinide burner.
Charles, I doubt very much you need any support from me - you seem to be fairly thick-skinned, which I'll assume you get from your councillor experience.
That being said, it appears that when unable to discredit the technology or ideas, opponents (of any issue really) go after the person to salvage what’s left of their paradigm.
Some time ago, several colleagues and I were sitting around the office on a Friday afternoon discussing yet more good news regarding nuclear power (not sure if it was another COL in the USA, more environmental impact assessments being initiated for nuclear plants in Finland, South Africa's contemplation of 12 large nuclear plants, or yet another deal struck by Sarkozy lead France - but it doesn't matter). Someone made a comment about how the thread of positive nuclear news (from our perspective) would be impacting anti-nuclear activists. The idea came up about Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and her stages of grief. They are:
It seems to fit doesn’t it? I blogged about my thoughts, but here again I see a lot of anger. We will just have to be patient and work through it (not intended to be as patronising as it may sound).
Thanks for you time, energy and posts.
Thanks for the comment. As a scholar of nuclear science, I am more a historian than a scientist. I am interested in who are these people - the scientist - and why do they think the way they do. That requires me to understand enough about nuclear science to interpret their thoughts. I have high regard for many nuclear scientist like Alvin Weinberg and my father, who I regard as highly intelligent, competent and creative men who had astonishing vision, and great integrity.
I am certainly not a scientist. I am also a grump old man, who is inflicted with the pains and indignities of an aging body. Professionally I counseled drug addicts, and that very often counseling is a battle of wills. I learned that when facing an irrational client, it was better to let go of my anger than to try to keep it pent in. I have little patience for people who justify craziness. I might not be the best person to argue this post, but I will do my best. I have stated on more than one occasion that i am more than willing to dialogue with anyone who is willing to listen to what I say. It is quite obvious from some comments here have closed minds, and are only looking for excuses that nuclear power is bad. When I read comments that appear to deny basic facts. How could someone who pretends to be an informed participant in a debate on nuclear power ignore the fact that U-239 is fertile? I confess that I get annoyed. Is he for real? He presents himself as an expert on nuclear matters. How could he make such a blunder? Either his is claiming to be an expert on a subject about which he actually knows nothing, or he is using arguments which he knows to be phony, and hoping he won't get caught at it.
I'd really like to see us have these discussion threads in a civil fashion, without the personal attacks, insults and so forth.
I'm a big fan of MSBR/LFR technology, using thorium as the fuel, or using U/Pu fuel.
That said, I do have to say, respectfully, that I think Charles's comments like this are certainly potentially a little misleading, if not a little inaccurate:
"A thorium cycle reactor will produce less than ton of fission byproducts a year, most of which can be recycled by industry as soon as it comes of a reactor because it is no longer radioactive.
Most of the fission products produced in a thorium fuel cycle reactor have half lives of under 2 hours. Thus most fission products will have ceased being radioactive within a few days of being produced."
Yes, as with any reactor, even current uranium-fuelled LWRs, there is a lot of activity in the fuel that will decay very quickly - but there will still be quite a lot of activity in the fission products for a very long time.
There will still be lots of activity in the form of reasonably long lived fission products - Sr-90, Cs-137, Tc-99, I-129 and everything like that, for example - just as there is with current reactors.
There will still be lots of activity in the form of reasonably long lived fission products - Sr-90, Cs-137, Tc-99, I-129 and everything like that, for example - just as there is with current reactors.
Thank you for the clarification.
I have some questions, what about the costs of electricity produced in a MSR? Is the price even comparable with the price of 1kWh produced with a LWR (LWR electricity costs include waste deposit and buildback which should not be necessary to the same extend with a MSR if i understand the concept correct)?
As uran prices are rising, the cost of one kWh of power from a LWR will rise too, is there a point of break even in costs per kWh electricity compared to the MSR, or, not to be looked over, a CANDU.
Uranium extraction from seawater costs ~250$/kg of pure uranium (not yellow cake), so a cap is set to the maximum price uranium will achieve in the foreseable future.
Is the point of break between the costs of electricity produced with a MSR compared to a PWR even achievable with that fact in mind?
Uranium prices have almost no bearing on the cost of nuclear power; Its all wrapped up in capital and only slightly operation.
MSR's are potentially more economic because they have higher operating temperatures and thus higher efficiencies, no fuel fabrication costs, and potentially much lower capital costs (low pressure operation means massive pressure vessels aren't required.) Their risks are development, licensing, and costs of maintenance of a hot primary loop.
In regard to the Model T idea, if it was easy, it would have been done already. You need to remember the high capital cost of these plants along with long construction times (~4-5 years) create an incentive to make design changes. Technology advances so rapidly and commodity prices fluctuate so much that changes are almost a necessity. Not every power company needs new capacity at the same time so the plants will be built in increments and with every increment there will inevitably be changes.
Another comment on the constant comparison to France. It is not a good idea to have 80% of your electricity from nuclear power (at least with current technology). The first reason is that nuclear is best suited for baseload power, which is less than 80% of needed capacity. The second reason is that if you rely on a single source of power, you hold your economy hostage to the price of the fuel. Yes nuclear fuel is dirt cheap comparatively, but you don't know if it will always stay that way. Electricity is like investments, you must diversify into coal, nat gas, renewables, hydro, and (gulp) oil. I believe a goal of 30-40% nuclear generation is a proper and realistic goal for the next 30 years.
And finally, the ultimate solution for energy, probably hundreds of years away, is the ability to store electricity in mass quantities.
The fuel price would have to go up more than 50 fold before you started to notice a price difference.
You mean pumped hydro?
Pumped hydro is one means of storing energy, but there are plenty of others, for example :
- graphite, molten salt or even just hot water, as used in all the solar thermal plants that are now springing up
- flow batteries
- ultracapacitors (potentially), especially if the vehicle-to-grid idea can be made to work
Check out a good review of the field here :
http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/renewable/aest/pubs/aest-review.pdf
Its worth being wary about uranium price rises - uranium prices have been very (and artificially) depressed by the disposal of Russian weapons material in the past decade. The supply is dominated by a few large companies (even fewer if BHP succeeds in taking over RIO) and we've seen how successful they have been at pushing up other commodity prices on the back of Chinese demand in the past year or two.
You can expect that to be the norm if there is a large shift to nuclear - there's nothing like a captive (and desperate) market for your particular type of dirt (one of the primary benefits of renewables is the economic freedom they provide once constructed).
Big Gav, I have looked at the price of energy storage. Large scale energy storage is not less expensive than nuclear power. As with all energy schemes involving the large scale storage of water, there is a certain risk to human life involved in pump storage.
certain risk to human life involved in pump storage.
And yet, the failure mode of such does not have a history of staying a threat for an extended time after a failure.
No, it just kills a lot more people in one go...
A depressed price means that no-one has seriously been looking for more for ages.
As most of us agree with the idea of Peak oil, and indeed feel that we may have already peaked, it is worth while considering the characteristics of oil and uranium to see how they compare.
One of the danger signs for oil was that more and more exploration was leading to ever smaller amounts of oil discovered.
For uranium the exact opposite has occurred, and massive new finds have happened recently as soon as anyone started looking - not really a sign of any peak there.
In addition to that there are good possibilities to increase the efficiency of use by factors of 50 or so - that is not a possibility in the case of oil.
Oil is also difficult to substitute, save for some purposes by the also hard to get gas.
Thorium is an easy alternative, and is four times as abundant as uranium.
The use of lower grade ores is only prohibited by what appear to me entirely fanciful EROI calculations -
http://nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/WebHomeEnergyLifecycleOfNuclear_Power
I really find it difficult to believe that any sensible person would do anything other than conclude that the Storm-Smith calculations are other than worthless, and indeed as sensible a person as Hubbert foresaw no peak for nuclear resources on any human time scale.
In short uranium and thorium exhibit none of the characteristics of peaking that oil has in the past.
Nor has coal, yet people don't try to imply that it's infinite :)
Actually, coal exhibits a number of the same characteristics as oil and gas:
It is only formed in highly specialised circumstances, rather than being a substantial component of the crust, reserves estimates have been heavily downgraded, and to my mind it looks as though those who argue that we could run into shortfalls fairly soon have a very strong case.
Uranium and thorium reserves do not need to be infinite to make a huge contribution to our needs in these times when it is urgent to reduce CO2, but renewables are still immature.
In practise though, whilst not infinite, they are so huge and the potential to use them more efficiently so great that for the next couple of hundred years they might as well be infinite - which is handy as it gives us plenty of time to develop renewables so they can be used without breaking the bank.
DaveMart,
Even in in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, you still insist that we will run out in a few hundred years. Uranium & Thorium is not stored solar energy like fossil fuels, it is stored super nova energy from earlier stars. The geothermal heat of the Earth is the result of radiation released from uranium & thorium. Is geothermal now suddenly not 'renewable'? You can also use low-grade ores, which are exponentially more abundant. Sorry man, you could just as well argue against solar power by saying that the sun's fuel is finite.
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/cohen.html
http://www.ans.org/pi/ps/docs/ps74.pdf
deuterium what you don't understood is the energy differential between nuclear fuel and fossil fuels. M. King Hubbert states, "1 gram of U-235 releases 2.28 x 104 kw-hr of heat, which is equivalent to the heat of combustion of 3 tons of coal or of 13 barrels of oil. One pound of U-235 is equivalent to 1400 tons of coal or 6000 barrels of oil. Within narrow limits the same values are valid for U-238 and for thorium."
The energy ratio between uranium and coal is 280,000 to 1. In terms of absolute weight, there is far, far more recoverable uranium and thorium in the earths crust and in sea water, than there is coal. Thus if a given weight of coal will provide all the energy used by people for one year, the same weight of thorium or uranium will provide the same amount of energy for 280,000 years. Thus the recoverable uranium and thorium on the earth provide all the energy people need for millions of years. You are right that this is a finite resource, but the number of the days which people will live on the earth is also finite. The finitude of our days on earth is smaller that the finitude of recoverable uranium and thorium.
Um, I think you mean "the energy ratio between U-235 and coal is..."
Since U-235 makes up 0.71% by weight (1 part in 141) of the uranium found naturally, we then get not 280,000:1, but 1,9858:1; let's be generous and call it 2,000:1.
And then we must consider that potential energy is not work done, so that the potential energy of anything - uranium, coal, sunlight - won't all be turned into useful work done. So for example fuel rods might be uranium enriched to 3.5% by weight U-235, after one cycle it's about 0.8% U-235, so that 77% of the U-235 has been used, and 77% of its potential energy released. Thus in practice the 2,000:1 then becomes 1,540:1.
This of course assumes that getting fuel rods ready for a reactor takes exactly as much energy as does getting coal for a coal-fired station.
Barton wants to tell us that an 11-step process requires only as much energy as a 3-step process. Plainly it does not. Unfortunately the variations in the mining/crushing step due to richness of ore are too great for us to get a good number comparing the energy requirements of the two. But we can confidently say that coal:uranium is less than 1:1, so that the 1,540:1 uranium:coal energy-by-weight ratio drops significantly.
Uranium still looks pretty good, if you consider only energy by weight as an important factor; but it's not 280,000:1.
As with Hannahan, I advise you to check your sources very carefully and think things through. You can make a very strong argument for nuclear without making things up, or making absurdly grand claims. We've moved on from May 1940 when U-235 was first isolated and people thought it had five million times as much energy as coal.
They should have got someone anti-nuclear like me to write the article; when you're against something, you're familiar with the arguments against it, and will look very critically at the arguments in favour of it, so paradoxically can actually argue for it better than those supporting it.
Well, better than these two did. Again I say: poor Skip. It's not your fault, mate.
If all our electricity came from coal the average American would need 14,200 pounds per year. If it all came from uranium it would be 0.723 pounds. See page 2
http://www.nuclearcoal.com/ENERGY%20REV%20X1.pdf
See cell B 26 and cell K 94 of the spreadsheet
http://www.nuclearcoal.com/ENERGY%20CALCS%20REV%207.xls
The ratio is 19,600 for our primitive first generation reactors.
Converting 5.4 ounces, cell E83 (0.34 lb) of Uranium to fission products will release enough heat to generate a lifetime supply of electricity for an average American with no CO2 emissions. Our primitive first generation nuclear plants split less than 1% of the Uranium mined to fuel them.
In order to produce 5.4 ounces of fission products we mine 58 lb, cell H95, of Uranium.
Breeder reactors can split 60-99% of atoms mined, depending on which technology is used. Six to twelve ounces of uranium will provide a lifetime supply of electricity, equivalent to 1,140,000, cell F26, pounds of coal. The ratio is between 1,500,000 to 1 and 3,000,000 to 1, not 2,000 to 1. High temperature reactors will be even better with a higher thermodynamic efficiency, so your newspaper clipping is fairly close.
Not a good assumption. Fuel cost for coal plants is 2.3 cents per kWh vs, 0.5 cents per kWh for reactor fuel assemblies, of which the uranium cost is 0.19 cents per kWh.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epat8p2.html
Manufacturing reactor fuel requires expensive facilities run by a well paid staff. How do they manage to make money while selling the fuel so cheap? Especially if it takes so much energy to make reactor fuel? The secret is that one foot of fuel rod less than a half inch in diameter can make 5,000 watts of heat for four and one half years.
How many steps to make a box of cereal? The number of steps is no indication of cost.
If you don't even know the difference between "uranium" and "U-235", and confuse fission for fusion as in your mate's blog title here, "Long half life fusion products" - then honestly I really am not going to bother to go through any of your other calculations, or bold assertions about breeder reactors, etc.
First get the basics right, then we'll listen to you about the more complicated stuff.
I do not believe Charles’ ‘error’ was in fact an error at all. He used total uranium – and rightly so provided he assumed the deployment of breeder reactor technology as is used in the Thorium fuel-cycle – the very subject of his contribution above.
As for the other numbers in Kiashu's post - I don't know where to begin, but to say they are wholly inconsistent with application of an actual nuclear fuel cycle.
Kiashu, you seem very confused. You have a number of fundamental misconceptions.
U-238 is fertile, and is converted into Pu-239 in a reactor. This happens in Light Water Reactors as well as breeder reactors, as any basic text on nuclear energy will tell you. It is not only possible, but highly desirable to extract the energy of U-238, if we are to use a uranium fuel cycle.
LWRs extract a small amount of the energy of U-238. But they are very inefficient at the breeding process. Efficient extraction of the energy of U-238 requires faster (unmoderated) neutrons. Any nuclear process that does not take advantage of of the energy potential of U-238 is wasteful, and is the biggest source of the problem of nuclear waste.
I have criticized the concept of a Liquid Sodium Fast Breeder Reactor, but there are other nuclear technologies that would allow the safe and efficient conversion of U-238 into Pu239. This should be the topic of other posts, however.
I regard the thorium fuel cycle as advantages when compared to the Uranium fuel cycle for reasons outlined by B.D. Kuz’minov, and V.N. Manokhin of the Russian Federation State Science Centre, Institute of Physics and Power Engineering,Obninsk: http://nucleargreen.blogspot.com/2008/03/introduction-this-russian-paper...
Your description of the fuel processing of nuclear fuel assumes that nuclear fuel is to be used in solid fuel reactors. Many reactor designs do not require enriched U-235, even when they use the Uranium fuel cycle. I have already stated my preference for LIQUID fuel reactors, which have significant advantages in fuel processing/reprocessing. Back in the early days of reactor development reactor chemist complained about the problems created by using solid fuel in a reactor. The result was the MSR. The first MSR used Uranium fuel cycle nuclear fuel, but the MSRE used a variety of fuels during its history and burned U-233, U-235, and Pu-239 at the same time.
You need to read a basic text on the use of thorium in reactors, WASH-1097 "The use of Thorium in Nuclear Power Reactrs".
http://www.energyfromthorium.com/pdf/WASH-1097.pdf
I suggest that you try to understand this text, rather than simply look for excuses to oppose nuclear power.
I think you have missed my point - I am simply arguing a least case scenario.
As critics of nuclear power often argue that it is not worth while developing nuclear power as we will run out of it, I am simply responding that even if this is the case, it is still a very worthwhile investment.
Personally I agree with you that nuclear power supplies will last for huge periods of time, and that it could certainly be extracted from seawater at reasonable cost in both energy and money, but I don't really need to make that case but the far more modest one that nuclear resources are adequate for long enough to make a real difference.
I agree with you in the sense that uranium does not need to be infinite in order to make large contributions to the realm of alternative energy sources. According to a previous post by Professor Sevior, uranium is as abundant as tin or zinc and to date we have only mined less than one-ten millionth of an estimated 40 trillion tonnes of uranium. Uranium is a finite resource, regardless, we have tons of it. Ultimately, this fact shouldn’t support continuous mining of the resource until it runs out. I assume, at one point or another, people believed oil to be virtually limitless and now we’ve reached an era of multiple crises due to energy depletion.
My concerns lie not in the sustainability of nuclear energy or the ability to meet the capacity of oil, but the political implication nuclear energy has on the international system. I believe that the transition from fossil fuels to alternative energy that includes a heavy dependency on nuclear energy might actually significantly alter the forms of warfare for the worse.
In other words, how many of you think Iran is a nuclear threat?
I believe so. Nevertheless there are those who believe Iran’s nuclear ambitions have been solely for civilian use. There has been substantial evidence which demonstrates that much of Iran’s nuclear activity includes that which is not necessary for the production of nuclear energy, but which is necessary for the production of a nuclear bomb. Then again, this is mainstream media, and we all know mainstream media has a propensity to exaggerate and sensationalize stories. Nevertheless, BBC has claimed that uranium conversion plants in Isfahan, Iran, is producing metals not needed for the reactor’s fuel, but is used in the core of nuclear bombs (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4617398.stm). I’m certainly not an expert on nuclear energy or nuclear warfare, and these are solely my observations, but that seems a little suspicious to me. Other scholars argue that Iran would be much better off investing in fuel-efficient cars, for example, because of the costs of nuclear energy which can be prohibitively expensive. Some scholars (Kaveh Ehsani and Toensing) believe that Iran’s nuclear proliferation can be a “nuclear tipping point,” creative incentives for other states to partake in nuclear proliferation. Another perspective argues that nuclear proliferation is a disease that will spread like cancer, subsequently the US has every right to intervene in Iran’s activity and “eliminate” the Iranian nuclear threat. Once again, this brings issues of security dilemmas, states acting preventively all at once – potentially creating one large nuclear frenzy.
The consequences? Perhaps another Cuban Missile Crisis, except the part where it ended peacefully.
In other words, how many of you think Iran is a nuclear threat?
I believe so.
So is MAD (mutual assured destruction) a bogus concept?
Sorry, but coal is showing a logistics production curve worldwide and has gone to nearly zero production in several once major producers such as Britain and Germany. Dave Rutledge at CalTech has done the Hubbert Linearization for coal world wide and it looks like it will peak in about 15 years.
> Pumped hydro is one means of storing energy, but there are plenty of others,
Indeed, there are a number of others, with a mix of short, mid, and longer term storage;
- Compressed Air Storage (CAES)
- Flywheel storage
- Superconducting magnetic energy storage
- Even hydrogen, in large underground reservoirs
Come on! We need to find solutions for the entire energy system. Those solutions will not serve tens to hundreds of millions of customers any time soon.
Because you say so? Sorry, that's not good enough.
You are the one making incredible claims about the scalability of technologies, some of which are totally unproven on any significant scale. Therefore the burden is upon YOU to provide proof for your incredible claims before anyone should bother believing you. Just because you say so is not good enough reason to believe it to be so until you provide that proof.
> You are the one making incredible claims about the scalability of technologies
Show me where.
Note I didn't say any one of these would provide the whole solution in isolation, as no one has defined what the whole problem is (I would be happy to entertain your thoughts on how to define/specify it). And as I mentioned, demand management and conservation would be major parts of the answer, something foreign to most of the pro-all-nuclear arguments I've seen. I'm actually pro-nuclear myself, though not as 100% of the solution, but as part of a healthy mix with various renewables.
Hydro storage has also been mentioned, and there are many sites available for storage that might not be appropriate for typical hydro power generation (i.e., over 100 pumped storage facilities are now in existence, with many over 1GW, some over 2GW).
CAES is existing technology, with some plants built as long as 30 years ago and others now in the process;
http://www.bine.info/pdf/publikation/projekt0507englinternetx.pdf
http://www.isepa.com/about_isep.asp
http://search.nrel.gov/query.html?qt=+compressed+air+energy+storage&char...
http://www.espcinc.com/
Flywheels are in partial use now, and banks of them are feasible at any number of locations throughout a grid's control area. They need to address scalability, though again, I've seen no full definition of the requirement, though they add capacity when used as frequency stabilization;
http://www.energystoragedemo.net/cec/fess/fess.asp
http://www.beaconpower.com/products/EnergyStorageSystems/index.htm
The link at www.greenhouse.gov.au does not work. Can you provide the title of the report?
The_Dude wrote:
What you fail to understand is that there is no technical reason that nuclear plants need to be 1000 MWe+ behemoths. The choice to move to enormous scale machines was a deliberate one that is based on the often professed "economy of scale", but there is a lot of evidence to show that it was a bad choice as the only path forward.
There was a time in the distant past - when I was just a couple of years old - when the US funded an atomic fission power plant, designed it, built it in a factory, disassembled it, transported it to Antarctica, reassembled it using a small team of soldiers and then operated it for a number of years. The time lag between funding and operation in Antarctica was just about 18 months.
The trick in economical production of all technology is to work out the kinks in low volume production and then to replicate the successes over and over again. I sure wish that nuclear engineering textbooks would teach about the economy of mass production - a technique that is as old as the cotton gin and certainly closely related to the success of the Model T.
BTW - I happen to know a company that has plans to apply this design philosophy to atomic power.
Rod Adams
Founder, Adams Atomic Engines, Inc.
"In regard to the Model T idea, if it was easy, it would have been done already. You need to remember the high capital cost of these plants along with long construction times (~4-5 years) create an incentive to make design changes. "
So true! Just think of those hand assembled, room sized vauum tube computers from the 60s that were good for nothing but a little algebra. Thank goodness we did not invest in that idea. Some nitwits actually though there was a general business application for computers. My slide rule and logarythm table tucks nicely in my shirt poctet, thanks!
Before this discussion gets rolling to far. I would want to point out that the discussion on nuclear power should not be an assessment made where nuclear power is compared against some hypothetical and fictional alternatives that are without waste, without risks, without deaths and which can be built in a timely fashion. The current energy mix has wastes, risks and deaths and what has been and is being built is far from the ideal.
I have a snapshot of the big energy picture http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/big-energy-picture.html
Of the 100 quadrillion BTUs that the US uses 85% comes from fossil fuels. (It coincidently means that 1 quad BTU is about equal to 1%. World usage is a little over 4 times more with a slightly different energy mix)
(Dept of Energy figures for 2006)
40% of that is from oil (20-22 million barrels per day about 12-13 million barrels per day imported, recent high prices have dropped oil usage by 400,000 or so barrels per day, which is more than all geothermal, wind and solar combined)
23% from coal (mainly supplying 50% of electricity)
23% from natural gas
8.2% nuclear
3.3% wood based mainly, waste and biofuel
2.9% hydro
0.35% geothermal
0.27% wind (3 year wait for a new turbine if you order today)
0.07% solar (years to make factories, roof systems do not pay back costs to buy and install)
Energy use is currently close to evenly split between residential home (electricity and heating), industrial and transportation.
My energy plan recommendation is a work in progress and is at
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/04/energy-plan.html
I will be adding more on better biofuels and discussing the timeframes for localization and adding more rail and mass transit (those will take a long time and the rail and mass transit has the issue of getting to higher usage.)
I have also looked at solar power.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2007/06/solar-cells-with-407-efficiency-made-58...
==
On nuclear waste.
Skip,
What is the number of deaths from the nuclear power plant related superfund sites ? Do you have the sources for those figures. How do they compare to other energy sources ?
It seems pretty much all of the nuclear waste is isolated and stored at the plant sites and are not killing anyone.
Looking at the list of US energy sources above. The larger ones than nuclear are oil, coal and natural gas which all have far higher death rates and actual deaths. Plenty of related superfund sites and just general air and water pollution.
Wood based sources of fuel. Lumber industry workers have the most dangerous occupation.
Hydro has had deaths. Deaths constructing dams. Deaths from hydro dam accidents.
Wind and solar also have associated deaths.
but all of the other non-fossil fuel energy sources are not in the same league of deaths as coal and oil. Natural gas is also dangerous from accidents and pollution but not as bad as coal and oil.
As the numbers of nuclear installations rise and the amount of HLRW increases, the number of safety related incidents will increase, as will the likelihood of a major incident. This increase should be factored into decisions about nuclear build.
There are some horrifying stories here from the LA Times about the impact or uranium mining in the US on the Navajo community - http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/11/22/115626/76?source=daily
Mining certainly needs strict regulation - the overwhelming majority of it is for coal, and that has had massive effects on health.
The current state of play is that those states like Germany who have elected to try to cut down or out the nuclear option are not able to replace it with renewables, and are in fact burning more coal to make up for it - Germany is considering applying for a relaxation of CO2 emission requirements so that it can phase out nuclear energy.
I have little doubt that just like coal mining, or some of the mining for rare elements needed for solar arrays, that much of the uranium mining industry has been poorly regulated, and we would all like to see that improve.
Production of PV panels and lithium batteries is causing grave environmental damage in China.
Are you arguing that both should be stopped?
I don't think so, so this is special pleading.
The uranium mining industry needs proper regulation, not banning.
It would however minimise the need to mine such vast quantities of iron, as construction of nuclear plants is much more economic in that resource than, for instance, solar thermal plants or wind turbines - and it would also minimise the coke needed to turn that into steel.
The article is interesting, however it is inadvisable to take one source which is not audited by, for instance, the American Medical association (apologies for the lax terms - I don't know the appropriate bodies in the US) as gospel.
For coal mining though you could multiply the damage by 100.
IMO one of the main reasons why the whole nuclear/radioactivity thing makes people so uneasy is that it is perceived as an 'unseen' danger -at least you can see cigarette smoke, coal smog, etc. The thought of something slowly building up in you and affecting your children is deeply disturbing to many people. One two headed baby shock story trumps a million silent pollution-induced deaths so to speak...
I always thought of France as being one of the leading countries in respecting the health and quality of life of its people yet they are top of the charts for nuclear usage. I think policymakers should look there for lessons learned on 'how to sell nuclear to a wary public'.
Nick.
Most locally grown food in France is identified by the location that it came from. I have heard that food from areas with large #s of nuclear plants sometimes goes by different names.
Alan
Alan,
I have heard lots of things too, that doesn't make them true. A banana emits more radiation than a nuclear plant. The potassium-40 in the Banana is radioactive, and eating one exposes a person to .01 milirem. People living near nuclear plants are exposed to .009 milirem per year. For coal plants, .03 milirem.
The issue was public perception and how the French had accepted nuclear power. I gave a counterpoint (years ago article in major newspaper).
EdF has to bribe those close to it's plants with cheaper electricity, so all is not 100% publicly accepted in France.
I also seriously doubt your numbers.
BWRs do emit significantly more radiation than PWR reactors, so "one # does not fit all".
And any excess potassium in bananas is excreted with a few hours, so your banana sounds VERY much like BS.
Alan
Any excess potassium in bananas is excreted from the body... and so is any excess caesium, iodine, strontium, or anything like that.
There's nothing magical about radionuclides that make them subject to biomagnification.
Iodine is selectively and efficiently scavenged and concentrated in the thyroid.
There is bio-selection for different isotopes of the same element, or even different elements. I believe that Strontium is preferred over Calcium for bone deposits as one example. Sometimes the bio-preference is for the non-radioactive isotope, sometimes the radioactive one, sometimes no preference.
Alan
There's a difference between the body *uptaking* say, iodine, just like the potassium in a banana is uptaken, and biomagnification in the food chain.
Read my longer explanation here:
http://enochthered.wordpress.com/2008/03/17/bioconcentration-and-biomagn...
"There is bio-selection for different isotopes of the same element"
"Sometimes the bio-preference is for the non-radioactive isotope, sometimes the radioactive one, sometimes no preference."?
Anybody with a basic knowledge of basic chemistry, physics and biology knows that that is complete nonsense.
Can you provide any scientific argument to back up such a claim?
Quick and Dirty Google of biological isotope selection
http://www.springerlink.com/content/t541861r64334114/
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/1996/96GB02345.shtml
http://earth.huji.ac.il/data/pics/TransitionMetalIsotopes.doc
Alan
France imports almost all of their uranium, which is why there is little uranium mining impact in France. The US also imports pretty much all of it, and much of the rest is ex weapons material. Less domestic mining, less domestic impact, better to sell to the domestic public. Don't fool yourself though, the impact is there and many uranium mining industries are in need of heavy regulation.
The real problems with nuclear power right now, I'm afraid, are cost and financing.
The gen3+ are supposed to be evolutionary designs to improve economics, but reality so far is that the project costs are shooting through the roof, even in coutries like China where regulation are, well, not always strict. Light water reactors have historically been on a negative cost trajectory, despite significant advances in the technology. Producing reactors en masse in facturies is largely unproven and so are floating nuclear powerplants (Russia is not a good example - cheap nuclear power at the cost of the environment and people's health is not acceptable.) They are no more realistic than large scale renewable energy schemes.
Decommissioning the entire UK reactor fleet has been costed by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority at about $ 12,000 per kW, maybe in the ballpark of $ 6000 per kW after discounting. To be fair, a large part was military related although it's difficult to disentangle the costs.
France is able to export cheap baseload nuclear. This is not an option for Europe as a whole, as you can imagine, it doesn't work when everyone does it. The same is true for the US as a whole. Increasing the nuclear share sacrifices capacity factor due to miscorrelations with the daily/seasonal electric demand, which will further increase the cost of nuclear power. There are a few ways to deal with this, but no one appears to be working on it seriously.
Nuclear power is important, it will help with lowering various emissions, it is proven that it can be safe and clean. What is also proven is that safe and clean comes with a price tag. Nuclear power that is safe, clean and cheap is unproven.
I was sent an estimated build cost of $8000/kW that Florida Power and Light has been considering:
http://www.psc.state.fl.us/library/filings/07/09467-07/09467-07.pdf
Taken together with your estimate that is $20,000/kW without the cost of fuel.
Chris
Given a load factor of 80%, that'd make it $20,000/kW / 0.80 = $25/Wdelivered.
Hmmm... some rough figures for comparison, they're from some recent Aussie projects:
- natural gas, $750,000/MW, load 85%, $1/Wd [source]
- geothermal, $4 million/MW, load 98%, $4/Wd[ibid.]
- wind, $2 million/MW, load 35%, $6/Wd
- concentrated solar PV, $420 million/154MW, $2.7 million/MW, load 20%, $14/Wd [source]
The geothermal and wind load factors are as per the source; I think they overestimate to make it look shiny, and it'll be more like 90% and 30%. The 20% for the solar PV is pretty standard, you only do worse if you're in northern Europe, which the reference one ain't. Still, it wouldn't change the overall picture much. Seems like, in terms of delivered energy, from most expensive to least, it's,
Nuclear
CS PV
Wind
Geothermal
Natural gas
Coal probably goes just between gas and geothermal, but the fuel's really cheap. Hydro varies a huge amount so we can't really say. I wouldn't know about solar thermal, and there aren't really enough tidal plants in the world to judge, it'd probably vary like hydro does.
Pretty clear why various governments prefer natural gas and coal, or wind if they're of a greenish tinge. Just on cost nuclear seems to fall. And no wonder we're not seeing many solar projects in Australia...
A few caveats.
The $ 12,000 per kW is not an overnight cost, it is back-loaded so can be seen as running costs, and a small amount of interest on the decommissioning fund could be allowed (but not risky funds, the money has to be there at the end!). However, I've found out that the 12,000 per kW is fully attributable to civil nuclear power, not to weapons as I previously mentioned. 80% CF sounds reasonable for a fleet average over it's lifetime.
Here are the figures I found for new nuclear projects in the US:
Moody's estimated $5000 - $6000 per kWe.
The FPL 2200 MWe project has been revised to $5780 - $8071 per kWe.
The FPL 3040 MWe variant has been revised to $ 6256 - $ 8005 per kWe
The NRG project, based on FPL ABWR, but for 2700 MWe is estimated at $ 5062 - $ 6488 but they include some transmission costs, so substract a couple hundred.
Progress Energy: $ 6300 per kWe. (7000 minus 10% transmission and hookup IIRC)
About capacity factor. It's better to think about how well the power delivered correlates with demand. CST with some storage scores really good here. Nuclear not very good, and wind is quite awful (although wind can achieve better correlation by aggregating multiple independent wind sites, it's still not really good).
For example, the US consumes roughly 4 Exa-Watt-hours of electricity with roughly 1 Terra-Watt installed. That implies an average aggregate capacity factor in the ballpark of 45% (give or take a few percent).
On top of that comes the daily load curve, which is far from flat, and pretty much all of these daily load curves tend to have a very significant daytime peak.
These two factors suggest a flexible fully dispatchable power plant capable of 40-60% capacity factor (ie load-following) would be ideal for high penetrations in the US grid.
That's why I like the Ausra analysis so much. They realize the importance of correlation with the load. They take a system perspective, which is important - the consumer pays for the system, not just the individual power plants.
A high penetration of baseload nuclear powerplants could become problematic. However, when a large number of plugin-hybrids are charged at night, the nuclear powerplants could maintain higher capacity factors.
I think the most objective way to analyse is to look at the levelized energy costs, including all costs and the time value of money as well.
With capital costs of 5-8 USD per Watt installed for nuclear powerplants in the US, the payment on capital alone could be in the order of 15-25 cents per kWh. Faster build times and lower interest rates could lower that a bit. But we still have to add one or two cents for running costs, plus at least one or two cents to pay for legacy & cleanup, unless in the case of the US the decommissioning costs turn out to be substantially lower (possible).
These new nuclear projects are not cheap, there's no doubt about it.
Well, I assume that most of the sites will never be fully decommissioned, anyway. Someone will bugger off with the cash, declare the company bankrupt, the government will put a lock on the fence and a warning sign up, and that's that.
The world has a pretty poor history with these things.
But even the build cost puts them up there as the most expensive option.
Not that I'm that worried about cost, as I said before. The way I see it, physical limits are the most important. If we're keen we can afford just about anything, but we can't avoid the physical limits.
I mean, just look at the leaps in the price of oil - and everyone just keeps on truckin'. If you'd asked people ten years ago what'd happen if oil were $100+ a barrel, they'd start talking about Mad Max. And yet here we are, with no great dramas. I don't see why electricity generation would be different. We're just so dependent on it for our particular chosen lifestyle.
I mean, our state government here is seriously considering spending $8 billion on 16km of road tunnel under the city, going between two points almost no-one travels between. If we'll pay $500 million/km for a tunnel we don't expect to be used, I don't see why we wouldn't pay however many billions for power plants of whatever generation type we choose.
For the Third World, cost is an issue. Not for us.
You're not following this through. At the end of the month, someone has to pay the bill. Most people will not be willing to pay 20 cents a kWh if they can get it for 10 cents a kWh elsewhere - especially if both options are low-polluting. I'm afraid that something that costs $ 8000 per kW doesn't scale very fast even if it runs for free after the initial payment.
If you don't have an alternative, then cost is less relevant. This is not the case for generating electricity.
If one contractor says 8 billion for the road tunnel, and the other, also a respected company, says 7 billion for the exact same tunnel, who do you think the government will licence the contract to?
Alternatively, if another respected company says they can build a bridge for 5 billion, then that lower cost would have to be compared to the benefits of having a tunnel. If the benefit of the tunnel (eg low visual impact) doesn't outweigh it's costs, then the tunnel won't likely be built at all.
Money is not infinite. There are capital restraints in every market. If gas turbines had an order of magnitude greater capital costs, do you really think that so many had been built in the US?
Indeed, a good case can be made that cost, in particular capital and levelized cost, is the most objective parameter in analysing the potential of a technology to scale up fast.
The thing is that one way or another, governments set the rate/kWh. Across the West, it's pretty rare that a particular city will rely entirely on a single generator. So you get several generators putting their power into the grid. The price, then, is not a factor of any single generator and its costs, but is a sort of stew of the costs, subsidies, tariffs and speculation of the different generators, retailers, and so on.
For example, my own state has coal, gas, wind, hydro and solar generation happening. So it's not really a matter of saying what'll be cheaper or more expensive. If they put in more coal and gas then electricity prices will go up because coal and gas are becoming scarcer and more expensive; if they put in renewables the price will go up because those are more expensive to build than coal and gas. Same's true of nuclear.
I mean, the government just draws revenue from taxes and federal grants and loans, and then decides what to spend it on in any given year. So if they build a $1,000 million gas plant instead of $6,000 million worth of wind turbines, they're not going to say, "okay, tax bill is lower this year."
Sure, money's not infinite, but here in the West there's more than enough for whatever power generation we happen to choose, so long as we're not absurdly greedy about the amounts we want.
Stepping aside from Australia and its wasteful spending on useless stuff, let's look at an example everyone knows - USA.
Subsidies to coal, oil, gas and nuclear electricity generation = $3 billion
Subsidies and tax breaks to biggest five US oil companies = $18 billion (compared to $123 billion profits)
Losing the war in Iraq = $123 billion
Money lost due to subprime mortgage and derivatives crisis from April 2007 to March 2008 = $200 billion
US trade deficit in Jan 2008 = $58.2 billion - that’s just for January. So that'd give us $700 billion for the year.
Money spent on Joint Strike Fighter Project so far, without a single plane being delivered = $300 billion
If money is not infinite, you wouldn't guess it from looking at that list.
There's so much money flowing around that's being pissed away utterly unproductively that I really can't get excited at some electricity generation method costing $2 billion rather than $1 billion.
Worrying about the cost of nuclear compared to solar (or whatever comparison you like to make) is like worrying about a punch in the nose when your femoral artery is gushing blood out onto the floor. Honestly.
No offense, but I kind of stopped taking you seriously after the first sentence. If you have a thorough understanding of macro-economical concepts, you're not showing it in the above post.
If it is too expensive, it does not scale. As the Engineer-Poet has said: we can run a few cars on perfume, but not the entire fleet. Hydrogen faces a similar problem. It's only slightly more realistic then converting all our vehicles to run on Chanel nr 5.
Well, since nuclear power has federal govenment backing through infinite loan guarantees, you want to multiply cost estimates by π, or π2 if it is double backed as with the too big to fail TVA.
Chris
US Dept of Energy analysis of central power costs
Naturals gas needs to look at the cost of fuel. Most of the costs for natural gas and coal and oil are from the higher operating and fuel costs.
Nuclear has 90% operating load.
Your quoted cost per KW for nuclear is about 10 times higher than the DOE figure which I present in an image of a table in this thread on cenral power source costs. (Because you are perhaps unintentionally making massive accounting mistakes.)
You are also not comparing the same numbers. You are comparing grossed up numbers for nuclear that take into account inflation over construction and allowance for funds used during construction (AFUDC). AFUDC is subsequently recovered through depreciation and is allowed a return through its inclusion in the rate base.
http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/old/08033870.htm
Any decommissioning costs would need to be adjusted by taking the present value of the costs. So if the plant lasts 60-80 years then reduce the anticipated decommissioning costs by that amount. Also, all other energy sources would need to have full life cycle pollutant adjustments and decommissioning costs built in as well for a level comparison. Decommission costs for most plants is less than 1 billion. If reduced for the time value of money it would be about $30 million to set aside money in a fund with long term investment rates to get to the needed money.
Plus the set aside would not happen until X years of plant life + time to construct.
60 years at 6% = 31 times less
40 years at 6% = 10 times less
40 years at 8% = 20 times less
60 years at 8% = 94 times less
70 years at 8% = 202 times less
80 years at 8% = 427 times less
We do not pay full decommissioning costs before the plant is built or it is operated.
So your decommissioning costs are too high and they do not adjust for when the decommissioning happens.
Naturals gas needs to look at the cost of fuel. Most of the costs for natural gas and coal and oil are from the higher operating and fuel costs.
The cost of fuel has to be heroic to justify 5-8 bucks a Watt nukes just on that basis.
Nuclear has 90% operating load.
80% is more realistic for a larger penetration rate of nuclear power. France is ~80% nuclear but exports a significant amount, allowing higher capacity factor than usual. This does not work for the US as a whole nor for Europe as a whole, due to the broad similarity of load curves everyone will want to export at the same time. And even then France can only get ~77% capacity factor. It's much less if you take into account the fact that the average load factor of the US grid is lower than France's, combined with the aforementioned factoid that exporting power benefits don't apply.
Your quoted cost per KW for nuclear is about 10 times higher than the DOE figure which I present in an image of a table in this thread on cenral power source costs. (Because you are perhaps unintentionally making massive accounting mistakes.)
Nope, your reference has become obsolete. It's figures are no longer correct; my figures are the latest updates on real projects being commissioned/built right now.
Any decommissioning costs would need to be adjusted by taking the present value of the costs.
That estimate was also made by the NDA. The 12,000 figure is lowered by discounting, but still bigger than $ 6000 per kW. You cannot do discounting twice; if you allow discounting on the decommissioning fund you can't use the adjusted $ 6000 per kW figure.
So if the plant lasts 60-80 years then reduce the anticipated decommissioning costs by that amount.
No. I use proven figures. The longest operated nuke in the US operated for 35 years. 60-80 is possible but unproven and therefore it would be biased to use such figures.
So your decommissioning costs are too high and they do not adjust for when the decommissioning happens.
Cost is cost. It's accurate. It has to be paid. Yes, it's not front-loaded, and I already mentioned that. But the figure is accurate.
All energy construction costs are rising with the commodity price rises.
http://www.edisonfoundation.net/Rising_Utility_Construction_Costs.pdf
From the Sept 2007 Batelle, Edison foundation report. Nuclear power costs have been staying more stable than other kinds of energy. Nuclear is the lowest line, which means prices moved the least.
Oyster Creek has been operating since 1969. 40 years of operation and it is getting extended to operate for another 20 years. Half of the plants have had license extensions for 20 more years to 60 years. To pretend that they will not keep running to the end of the 60 year extended licenses is biased and blatently misleading.
The NDA is the UK's decommissioning authority and they have had the poorest performance on decommissioning and have a reactor type that is more costly to decommission. An OECD survey published in 2003 reported US dollar (2001) costs by reactor type. For western PWRs, most were $200-500/kWe, for VVERs costs were around $330/kWe, for BWRs $300-550/kWe, for CANDU $270-430/kWe. For gas-cooled reactors the costs were much higher due to the greater amount of radioactive materials involved, reaching $2600/kWe for some UK Magnox reactors.
[If I am not building a gas UK Magnox reactor then decommissioning costs are a lot less, which they are not in Florida ]
You are cherry picking and mixing data. You have not discounted once and are mixing up reactors.
Financing methods vary from country to country. Among the most common are:
Prepayment, where money is deposited in a separate account to cover decommissioning costs even before the plant begins operation. This may be done in a number of ways but the funds cannot be withdrawn other than for decommissioning purposes.
External sinking fund (Nuclear Power Levy): This is built up over the years from a percentage of the electricity rates charged to consumers. Proceeds are placed in a trust fund outside the utility's control. This is the main US system, where sufficient funds are set aside during the reactor's operatinig lifetime to cover the cost of decommissioning.
Surety fund, letter of credit, or insurance purchased by the utility to guarantee that decommissioning costs will be covered even if the utility defaults.
In USA, utilities are collecting 0.1 to 0.2 cents/kWh to fund decommissioning. They must then report regularly to the NRC on the status of their decommissioning funds. As of 2001, $23.7 billion of the total estimated cost of decommissioning all US nuclear power plants had been collected, leaving a liability of about $11.6 billion to be covered over the operating lives of 104 reactors (on basis of average $320 million per unit).
In USA many utilities estimates now average $325 million per reactor all-up (1998 $).
http://www.uic.com.au/nip13.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_decommissioning#Cost_of_decommissio...
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/news/2003/03-125.html
http://npj.goinfo.com/NPJMain.nsf/0/e3cbea48edde388d86256c3700638f70?Ope...
All energy construction costs are rising with the commodity price rises.
Already dealt with that - the argument doesn't hold up to scrutiny as the increases in cost are monstrously greater than just the rise in raw materials. Think about it. Wind uses far more material than nuclear, but hasn't risen nearly as strong, as your Edison reference shows. This undermines your argument. It has more to do with advanced reactor technology and more advanced (non-commodity) materials and expert labour being undersupplied compared to recent increases in worldwide nuclear power plant builds.
To pretend that they will not keep running to the end of the 60 year extended licenses is biased and blatently misleading.
To pretend that nuclear power plants ALL last 60 years when NONE of them have EVER ran that long ANYWHERE on earth is biased and blatently misleading. I base my analysis on empirical data. You base yours on predictions and projections. Yours is not a very objective analysis Brian.
From Wikipedia:
Consumers Energy had previously announced that Big Rock Point's operating license would not be renewed when it expired on May 31, 2000. However, economics proved in January 1997 that it was not feasible to keep Big Rock Point running to the license's expiration date.
An OECD survey published in 2003 reported US dollar (2001) costs by reactor type.
For someone who calls himself a futurologist, you are using surprisingly antiquated data. That's ironic, don't you think?
for BWRs $300-550/kWe
Big Rock Point cost an order of magnitude more than that. Decommissioning cost vary so wildly that it is difficult to state such a thing without being misleading.
The NDA is the UK's decommissioning authority and they have had the poorest performance on decommissioning and have a reactor type that is more costly to decommission.
Well there are various other costs as well, such as chemical contamination of sites etc. which are significant, and were underestimated previously. The Magnox design is more expensive to decommission, 2600 per kWe is the claim. Well it turned out to be a bit more than that, and it could be that the estimate gets raised again in the future, if history is any lesson. So why should I trust your obsolete sources?
You are cherry picking and mixing data. You have not discounted once and are mixing up reactors.
The NDA estimate is for the entire fleet. It's 12000 per kW and still more than 6000 per kW after discounting. You don't have to believe me, just check the NDA website. You show me just one nuke, Oyster Creek. It's you who is cherry picking data Brian. I've given you multiple real project costings in the US as well, and I didn't even take into account decommissioning for the US reactors, so no, I am not mixing things up.
In USA, utilities are collecting 0.1 to 0.2 cents/kWh to fund decommissioning.
Based on the average decommissioning cost so far. That may not prove to be the best assumption.
Let's see, 0.1 to 0.2 cents/kWh based on 325 per kW. For the UK, it's $ 12,000 per kW so that means 3.7 to 7.4 cents/kWh. Or 1.9 to 3.8 cents/kWh when discounting is taken into account. (give or take, depending on exchange rates etc, check the NDA website.)
Look, decommissioning cost is reasonable if done well in a fund with interest. My point here is, if you assume low costs for decommissioning you can get into trouble in the end. It's better to pay a bit more, and have a bigger financial buffer at the end. What can go wrong? If there's any money left, then that's great, it can be used for new projects and stuff.
By the way, I'm not too happy with you quoting interest (nuclear) groups.
What goes wrong is that nuclear then looks too expensive, and people have even more reason not to build it.
Since the nukers want to see the things built, they'll always understate the costs.
Also, you are not comparing overnight costs for each source. Every power generation has to add in other owner costs like land and site prep. Will the other power sources not need land or connection to the grid ?
The overnight costs quoted in the FPL are from $6.7 billion, or $2,444/kW, to $9.8 billion, or $3,582/kW.
In March 2008 Progress Energy published estimates for building two new Westinghouse AP1000 units on a greenfield site in Florida. If built within 18 months of each other, overnight capital cost for the first would be $5144 per kilowatt and the second $3376/kW. The costs include land, licence application, initial core load, cooling towers, owner's costs, insurance and taxes, escalation and contingencies. This would appear to be a wider scope for overnight capital cost than usual. Interest adds about one third to the combined figure - $3.2 billion, and infrastructure - notably 320 km of transmission lines - about another $3 billion. The units are expected on line in 2016 and 2017 and are expected to save customers some $930 million per year relative to natural gas-fired generation.
http://www.uic.com.au/nip08.htm
China contracted for $5.3 billion for four AP1000 in 2007. Construction started. The contract was for $1,130/kw
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=65127
four AP1000 in the USA, contract in 2008 $13.7 billion, $2927/kw
http://news.smh.com.au/toshiba-in-talks-on-lucrative-us-nuclear-plant-de...
Also, you are not comparing overnight costs for each source. Every power generation has to add in other owner costs like land and site prep. Will the other power sources not need land or connection to the grid ?
I've mentioned it, but it's a small part of the cost. More relevant is that the interest during construction is significant and has to be paid during that time, so a loan is required for that as well, and is thus subject to regular discounting. If not then that can be seen as a fiscal benefit ie a hidden subsidy. It's best to compare total project cost of nuclear with total project cost of other power sources, as that gives the most useful comparison - all project costs are front loaded.
You can get the updated figures in the tables here. Check out Table 3: Comparison of all-in cost estimates. Total project cost for Progress energy is $ 6300 per kW.
Oh, and you might want to be careful with Chinese power plant figures. I've done some research there. The available data is notoriously unreliable.
We will discuss the real costs of these projects further when they are 100% finished and operating fully.
Big Gav, Yes indeed uranium mine safety practices during the cold war were poor, but current uranium mining practices are much more in tune with safety issues. Worker's safety is best protected by strong unions, and by an aware public that will not tolerate shoddy and unsafe practices.
That makes 2 strikes. Have you not noticed the trends in the US for the last 30 years? Progressively weaker unions and fewer and fewer regulations on big businesses and industries of every type. What on earth makes you think this trend will suddenly reverse? Additional question is what makes anyone think we will clean up the existing mess from coal before we go on, full sail, into nuclear power? What makes you think that the energy producing industry will tolerate stronger unions and more regulation?
Please, come back to earth!
fewer and fewer regulations on big businesses and industries of every type.
Are you sure on that? Or is it regulations are subject to selective enforcement?
Well then you're just screwed because all that iron, coal, bauxite, indium, copper, lithium and other neat minerals you're going to need in obscene amounts aren't inherently cleaner to mine and process than uranium.
And do you really want farmers to toss all that uranium right where food crops are grown instead of co-mining it with phosphates? (to the tune of ~100 g per tonne of phosphate rock).
And do you really want farmers to toss all that uranium right where food crops are grown
The fertilizer, which the company describes as treated raffinate, is processed from wastes at Kerr-McGee's Sequoyah Fuels Facility here, one of two plants in the United States that purify milled uranium, a step in the process of making nuclear fuel rods for power plants.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DEEDB1E31F935A25752C1A...
(So it seems the government and farmers do nor care - next?
I believe it's ammonium nitrate solution... great fertiliser!
Phosphate rock, and phosphate fertiliser made from it, has significant amounts of uranium and daughter nuclides and heavy metals in it, you know. Probably a lot more than this stuff does.
Ironically Gov. Shwarzenegger announced plans to remove California's ban on building new nuclear plants a few weeks ago. The LA times has been leading the crusade against nuclear, although most other newspapers, even the New York times, have been running very favorable editorials.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/opinion/24cohen.html?ref=opinion
What I'm wondering is, where are the stories about the tarsands, and their exponentially larger impact to tribal lands in Alberta TODAY? Or coal mining deaths that occur every year, not just in the 1940s? If something is a million times as energy dense, you're mining much, much less.
And of course, there is no mention that today we mine the stuff using in-situ leaching.
Gav? This post again?
The radiologic health protection practices during the early years of intense uranium mining (to principally feel the nuclear arms race) were abominably tragic, as was the Chernobyl accident and (financially for the utility at least) Three Mile Island.
But these were all decades ago. Today mining standards are significantly more evolved, robust reactor designs are the global standard and operational practices, transient response and accident mitigation training and procedures are mature.
While one must remain aware of the history as justification for the better practices of today, I fail to understand the broader relevance to a modern, objective consideration of nuclear power.
If you’re really concerned about energy related deaths due to unsafe practices today; I suggest you become a mining standards activist in China and park yourself and your picket sign outside one of their many coal mines.
Posts such as this serve only one objective and I doubt it has anything to do with finding a solution to any energy or climate related challenge.
I am sorry if I come off as aggressive, angry or offensive; but I am beginning to wonder why you have been charged with the maintenance of this blog.
Remember that the nuclear advocates are talking about a significant ramp up in nuclear generation. Regulatory regimes will become more thinly spread and some unscrupulous companies and nations may well try to cash in. After all, economic growth is our god, and we must worship it, at any expense.
As nuclear ramps up, it is simple statistics that the number of incidences will increase and the likelihood of a major incident also increases.
That is why inherently-safe reactor types must be the ones developed and deployed in mass quantities. The liquid-fluoride thorium reactor is not capable of catastrophic failure due to the inherent self-regulation of the reactivity, as well as the fail-safe nature of decay heat removal.
Even if the incidences went up a lot, nuclear would still be much safer than any other major source of power. The industry is way over built now from a safety perspective due to the relentless unjustified attacks on it over the last few decades.
The industry is way over built now from a safety perspective
That attitude is precisely why I hesitate to support nuclear power (I somewhat reluctantly do, but ONLY if done right). *IF* Zimmer or Bellefonte could have gotten an operating license (see attitude above) I would oppose nuclear power.
The industry MUST (and can) build safer as the number of plants increase.
Best Hopes for keeping the pro-nukes out of policy making,
Alan
nuclear would still be much safer than any other major source of power.
So safe it puts guards asleep?
http://www.google.com/search?q=sleeping+wackenhut+guards+nuclear+plant
Nuclear power is ba far the safest source of electricity. There are more deaths associated with windmills than with reactors despite the much smaller installed generation base. Dams and pump storage facilities are notorious killers. They can be far more dangerous than reactors in the number of human lives that are in harms way. Finally no one has kept track of deaths associated with solar generation of electricity. PV production is a notorious source of environmental pollution, the Chinese dying like flies from PV related pollution, and solar advocates are doing a good job of covering the problem up. In addition no one knows how many people died from falling off a roof while installing a solar panel, solar advocates don't have enough fingers and toes to count them all.
Charles, you are talking about what the industry is like now. All I'm saying is that those who advocate a big build out in nuclear must accept that the absolute number of incidents will thus increase, even if the percentage remains small, or even decreases. Some of these increased instances will be significant and a few are likely to be very significant. That's just the nature of anything we do. There are associated risks and nothing can be made 100% safe. So an increased incidence rate must be factored in to decisions on a nuclear build up. To ignore that would be foolish.
On a related topic, we should also consider that unstable societies may increase the rate of significant incidences. Is it unthinkable that previously stable societies may become unstable in the foreseeable future?
sofistek, Risks are risks. If you increase the scale of solar or wind power generation you proportionately increase the risks. Empirical evidence suggest that more people are going to die per MW of generated electricity from windmills, than from nuclear. We don't know what the risks are for solar because no one is keeping track of the accidents and deaths. It is possible to lessen the risks associated with nuclear in two ways:
1. To build in superior safety features like passive emergence cooling. Examples include the AP-1000 and the ESBWR. The probability of core meltdown with the ESBWR is once every 29 million years, and the ESBWR has superior containment features in the very unlikely event of a worst case core meltdown.
2. To build inherently safe reactors like the Pebble Bed Reactor, or the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor.
Little effort is being made to improve the safety of solar or wind power generators. Indeed there is a virtually universal denial that there are any safety, health or environmental problems associated with renewable power.
What empirical evidence? Would a significant incident have global repercussions? Would it leave hundreds of square kilometres uninhabitable? Would it have long term effects? Would it increase terrorism risks?
You mentioned "inherently safe" again. Why do you do that? Nothing is inherently safe. It (the design, not the construction) might be inherently safer but not inherently safe.
Do you think all companies in all regions in all countries are bound to have the same ultra standards of safety that you seem to think is a given?
All I'm saying, and what you appear to be side-stepping, is that an increase in numbers of nuclear plants (some are advocating even more smaller plants) will, without doubt, increase the overall likelihood of safety incidents and of a major incident. It would just be a matter of time.
Yes, there are reactor designs that are inherently safe. They are incapable of the type of radioactive release that concerns you. Learn more about them.
Yes, there are reactor designs that are inherently safe. Learn more about them.
So nice of you to provide pointers to these wonders.
He said that the reactor designs were safe.
Designs are always safe, it's just the thing itself that mightn't be :)
There are a few "Generation IV" designs which are supposed to be utterly safe, can never melt down or explode or anything like that... but they're just on paper. I'm old enough to remember the Space Shuttle was supposed to make putting things into orbit just $500/lb, and lead to 24 launches a year... Its design on paper said that was what it'd be like. And yet...
Kiashu says
Sign. Kiashu, several commenters have discussed liquid core reactors. Melting down is not a problem for them because they are designed to run with melted fuel. Melt down is part of the design and is well controlled. Nor is it possible for a LFTR to explode. Now the LFTR is more than a concept on paper. As I have pointed out two Molten Salt Reactors were built during the 1950's and 1960's and proof of concept experiments were run with them.
Uri Gat and H.L. Dodds discuse the safety of MSRs here:
http://weblog.xanga.com/bartoncii/605511152/molten-salt-reactors---safet...
Gat and Dodds state:
Gat and Dodds point out a passive safety feature of the MSR, the freeze valve:
Gat and Dodds point out the advantages of a molten fuel, in the event of an accidental release, it freezes, thus containing radioactive products within the frozen fuel matrix:
I will call your attention to the rest of the Gat and Dodds' paper which outlines more safety features of the MSR if you are interested in further investigation.
The pebble bed reactor is also inherently safe. Its coolant gas can be shut off and its chain reaction immediately ceases. While the fuel of the PBR remains very hot, its fuel does not melt down nor does it explode. Again this is not just on paper.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor
A proof of concept PBR was built in Germany, and operated successfully for 21 years until the German Government shut it down for political reasons in 1988. A second Pebble Bed reactor was constructed in Germany and operated for a short period of time before the politicians shut it down. Research on PBRs continues in South Africa and in China.
Coal plant designs are not safe.
They are designed to allow air pollution and mercury pollution.
Oil and natural gas facilities are also designed for air pollution.
Regular no accident operation facilities are designed to spew thousands of tons of pollution.
Even the CO2 sequestering designs would only use CO2 scrubbers and allow the other particulates and pollutants through.
The statistics show that nuclear has been as safe or safer than all other power sources on a terawatt hour generation basis. The new plants should even be even safer.
Space shuttle launch prices were based upon high volume of launches which did not happen and the entire design got bastardized by the political process. In hindsight it is also clear that the costs also do not come down without reducing the army of people needed to launch.
Nuclear power already has a substantial amount of volume and there is no doubt that there is volume demand for energy. To get to lower space luanch prices besides supplying vehicles to make the launches cheaper there needs to be more demand for space launches. Demand has to be generated with policy or business plans. A chicken and egg problem.
Plus nuclear power plants have 435 that are operating and already have competitive operating prices for energy supplied. So it is a matter of making what is already working even better and if the attempts to make a better design do not work out there are the incremental improvements to existing systems.
6 competing GenIV options, the gen 3.5 designs, modification to existing processes with new fuel coatings and geometries.
Were there already 400+ successfully operating reusable space ships in the 1970s? Did they have competing refinements to successful rockets that might also deliver cheaper performance ? Once the space shuttle design started showing that it was not going to deliver were there competing options to switch to ?
Empirical evidence for our ability to let the longer-lived isotopes cool down is non-existent. Impact of the dissemination of extra nuclear particles throughout the environment is very difficult to quantity.
> Nuclear power is ba far the safest source of electricity.
and
> no one has kept track of deaths associated with solar generation of electricity. PV production is a notorious source of environmental pollution, the Chinese dying like flies from PV related pollution, and solar advocates are doing a good job of covering the problem up.
Can one be any more biased than this??
How is that possibly biased?
Nuclear power is by far the safest source of electricity. That's not bias, it's a simple statement of a fact.
The manufacturing of Si photovoltaics in China is causing widespread dumping and pollution of silicon tetrachloride wastes, because there's no environmental regulation.
Solar PV manufacturing is more energetically and chemically intensive, per GWh of electricity delivered, than manufacturing nuclear fuels.
> Nuclear power is by far the safest source of electricity.
And people espousing these statements say, "and you can't count Chernobyl, because it's not really nuclear power" or somesuch. Sorry, widespread use of nuclear power is going to involve nations that choose to approach safety in any manner they see fit, and 'fool-proof' is an oxymoron, especially when software is involved.
> The manufacturing of Si photovoltaics in China is causing widespread dumping and pollution
The manufacturing of everything in China is causing "widespread dumping and pollution".
You focus only on the manufacturing of fuels, not on the waste products, mining, and decommissioning, so your bias is showing through with your emphasis.
Again, I support an increase in nuclear along with renewables to eliminate coal burning, but believe that nuclear zealotry will backfire in the faces of the zealots.
And people espousing these statements say, "and you can't count Chernobyl, because it's not really nuclear power" or somesuch.
This time around it was "Consider only the American case".
Will Stewart, it seems your arguments involves something of a contradiction. On one hand you would count Chernobyl against nuclear power, despite the weak safety standards of the Soviet establishment. On the other hand you wish to not count pollution of the Chinese PV industry against PV power generation because of the low safety and environmental problems of the Chinese establishment. And then you accuse someone else of bias.
You have misrepresented my statements, creating a strawman. Please read my posts carefully before responding next time.
And the mass production of nuclear power plants would be different how exactly? That's not inevitably linked to solar power per se, but to the production methods in China and the externalization of productions costs throughout the capitalist world.
Could we have a source for that, please?
Wind generated accidents here. The American nuclear industry has not had any deaths associated with reactor operations in many years.
http://www.wind-works.org/articles/BreathLife.html
Most of those deaths appear to be related to the construction or moving of wind turbines. What was the mortality rate during mining and processing of uranium, and during the construction and maintenance of nuclear reactors?
What he said.
This suggests that the problem is not with wind turbines themselves being inherently dangerous, but with the US having poorer workplace health and safety practices than than Europe.
So what we learn from this is not that wind turbines are deadly, but that the US needs to improve its workplace health and safety practices. Which is not going to come as a surprise to many people at all.
If a parachutist fell into a nuclear reactor's steam outlet I daresay that'd kill her, too. Again, the problem here is not specific to wind turbines.
Nuclear power is ba far the safest source of electricity.
So long as you ignore how when the man made machines that attempt to harness fission experience certain failure modes the land becomes un-inhabitable, the miners die off/health problems, how man has failed to dispose of what was created, (and on and on)
And the testament to your veracity:
Finally no one has kept track of deaths associated with solar generation of electricity. PV production is a notorious source of environmental pollution,
I see. So the deaths and damage from the mining, processing, and use of depleted uranium are *NOT* worthy of your attention, yet you are claiming:
the Chinese dying like flies from PV related pollution
'dying like flies' - What an appeal to emotion VS actual argument with data. Man up and show data.
'from PV related pollution' - I see. As the 'knock off' effects you claim matter - there are plenty of the dead and maimed in Kosovo, Afagainstan, and Iraq suffering from the use of Depleted Uranium.
solar advocates are doing a good job of covering the problem up. In addition no one knows how many people died from falling off a roof while installing a solar panel, solar advocates don't have enough fingers and toes to count them all.
Now here you claim others are ignorant, yet:
You expressed success of a project you 'wondered' about.
You use language to attempt to claim many deaths - yet you have not produced proof that you are right. Then you claim the 'other side' lacks data.
YEa....Why again should anyone care about what you say?
eric blair, There are mining and processing deaths associated with renewable energy too. No one keeps track of them as far as I can tell. As has been pointed out elsewhere in the comment section of this blog, the is currently no uranium mining in the United States. Statistics on mining deaths in foreign countries are hard to come by. People do keep track of accidents and deaths in the wind in the wind industry. We can compare the mortality rate associated with wind generation and reactor energy operations for that reason. Since 1975 there have been no deaths associated with power reactor operations in the United States.
Paul Gipe states that there have been 13 deaths associated with wind generation in the United States.
http://www.wind-works.org/articles/BreathLife.html
So you are not willing to defend your statements with numbers, data - and you will let stand that your position is based on emotional appeal.
That's fine.
Since 1975 there have been no deaths associated with power reactor operations in the United States.
Peak Oil is a worldwide problem - yet you cherry pick the data to support your position. No references for YOUR positive claims - just feel good words.
"when the man made machines that attempt to harness fission experience certain failure modes the land becomes un-inhabitable"
Is, say, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania uninhabitable? No!
Is Kiev, Ukraine unhabitable? No!
Are Hiroshima or Nagasaki uninhabitable? No! - and no nuclear power plant can ever, possibly, remotely come close to doing that!
The geological disposal of radioactive waste has been a solved problem, well, ever since two billion years ago when nature started doing it at Oklo.
Are there deaths occuring, today - not in the 50's during the race to mine uranium for the arms race - from mining uranium for commercial nuclear power?
The use of uranium in munitions used in war has got nothing to do with nuclear electricity generation - it's irrelevant.
So, how many "safety related incidents" are there actually happening in the world today involving commercial nuclear electricity generation that actually hurt or harm people or the environment, for real?
When was the last time HLW from commercial nuclear electricity generation actually harmed or hurt people or the environment, for real? (Don't bother talking about, say, Hanford, which has got absolutely nothing to do with nuclear power.)
What is the "likelihood of a major accident" predicted to be? Even when a "major accident" happens, what do you foresee actually happening, in the real world, for real? What is actually going to happen?
The deaths from commercial nuclear power generation in the United States today are... zero.
Outside of the Soviet Union, in fact, I'm not aware of any deaths resulting from the use of commercial nuclear power generation, ever.
A man was killed by exposure to uranium hexafluoride when a cylinder of UF6 burst once, in the US - but I consider that an industrial chemical accident, not something related to nuclear energy - it's not the uranium or radioactivity or nuclear properties that make UF6 a dangerous chemical.
The Tokaimura accident in Japan involved 19% enriched U-235 for an experimental fast reactor research prototype - when you start dealing with very highly enriched U-235, obviously you've got to be a lot more careful about accidental criticality - 19% is far more dangerous than the 3.5% or so used in current LWR nuclear power technology. So, I don't consider that a commercial nuclear power accident.
You forget the increased deaths from cancer et al related to increased radiation exposure. A small # of deaths, but NOT zero.
And I worked with a scarred electrician whose helper died in a nuclear power plant accident. High voltage industrial accident, but it was in a nuclear power plant. One of many I am sure.
Alan
Yes, accidents involving, for example, high voltage electrical systems, and steam systems, for example, are not uncommon in the energy generation industry.
They're certainly far, far less frequent in the nuclear industry than in the fossil-fuelled generation industry.
But even, say, electrical accidents do happen in the nuclear industry, I won't call them "nuclear accidents". If somebody is killed by nuclear generated electricity in a tragic accident outside the plant fence it's not a nuclear accident - and if the same thing happens inside the plant fence I don't think it's a nuclear accident, either.
"increased deaths from cancer et al" might not be zero, quite true - but it's a very, very small number - IF you assume that the LNT hypothesis is factually true. Remember - LNT is a hypothesis in (almost) the same sense that Intelligent Design is a hypothesis. Even if you assume LNT as true, it's so darn difficult to quantify the number.
If we average out the very small positive number resulting from LNT analysis with the negative numbers resulting from applying Hormesis models, I think we can safely say zero is a good working number.
If you say that nuclear power saves lives by replacing far more dangerous, more risky fossil fuels, that's an indisputable fact.
They're certainly far, far less frequent in the nuclear industry than in the fossil-fuelled generation industry.
I would judge the opposite. Higher quality equipment is required for safety related systems, true (same quality for non-safety systems) but the level of testing and maintenance is one or two orders of magnitude higher in a nuke than a FF plant.
The more you mess with it, the greater the number of accidents, is my judgment.
Alan
Discussion on this issue is certainly important and worthwhile but numbers are sorely lacking for many reasons. I'm not begging off; I'll look for definitive links.
Other energy sources? They are presently worse. Folks rightly point out that our present methods of energy and fuel production and use do cause serious damage to the environment as well as direct death and shortened life spans of humanity - and that very little will be done about it, one reason being that it would be too costly to remediate the dangers. True enough, as pointed out by Wallerstein in his essay that, I believe, was linked to on TOD.
Thus my concern with the *next big thing* in fuel and energy production; now is the time - as we move onward with our seeking of sources of both - to realize that if we *don't* pay close attention to protecting the environment and public health while investigating and implementing the replacements for what now exists, then we will have likely created a situation nearly identical to the one we now have. Namely too late, too expensive and lack of will to remediate the almost certain known *unintended consequences* of wholesale development of future power sources.
Re: your last statement above- It is my belief that it is universally understood that 'nuclear waste' should be permanently isolated in deep geologic repositories. But this is not happening and it should before we increase the amount being generated. Is it is really not "killing anyone" now? Are you sure?
I am not sure that this is 'universal'. There is at least one small dissenting voice - mine!
It seems to me that nuclear power has made a rod for it's own back by hasty development mainly in the interests of the weapons industry, and that we should aim for wastes which are dangerous in terms of hundreds of years.
It is also my understanding that this is possible, if some part of the reactor fleet is appropriately designed.
Even if more expensive this seems to me to be the option we should go for.
I believe that nuclear waste (unburned fuel) should be temporarily stored in containers as they have for the last few decades and then used as fuel for new high burn reactors. All of the components should be productively used.
A much better solution for now it to place large signs on the waste with the names of the Senators and Congressperson who were in office when the waste was generated together with the skull and crossbones and other signs indicating the danger. Images should appear at the beginning and end of every TV program broadcast together with mornful music. When Calvert Cliffs is refueled, an airplane trailing a sign saying "More Steny Hoyer poisonous lethal nuclear waste" should be flown all over the 5th district for a month. Same for plants in other districts.
More reactors is definitely not the solution. If you are in a hole and want to get out the first thing to do is to stop digging. Shut down the nuclear power plants.
Chris
So, what exactly is your argument?
Why isn't nuclear power a solution to our energy needs? What's your problem with it? Why should we shut down nuclear power plants?
I thought we were going to put our carbon dioxide in those? :)
SkipinBluff wrote:
Skip - do you really believe that there has not been any work done on this issue with regards to protecting people and the environment from the effects of large scale use of nuclear fission technology? I have dozens of books in my library that discuss the health effects of radiation that document numerous studies conducted over many decades.
If you want to do some research in this area, you could start with the thousands of papers that are available at Radiation, Science and Health.
The next big thing is here. We know that fission power related health effects are enormously lower on a percentage basis than the health effects of continuing our massive dependence on combustion and we are pretty sure that continuing our present course of pouring all kinds of pollutants into the atmosphere is putting our collective survival at risk.
Don't you think it is time to move on and work to replace as much combustion as possible? Right now, fission is limited to the large scale electrical power market and a few specialty transportation applications like aircraft carriers, ice breakers and submarines, but there are a number of near term applications where the characteristics of nuclear fission power are well suited to directly replacing various fossil fuels including coal, oil and natural gas.
There might be some better technology available sometime in the distant future, but right now I can see no prospects of finding that ideal energy source. For my money, well designed fission plants are already superior to all other choices and there is plenty of room for improvement.
It may be true that nuclear energy carries less overall health risks than fossil fuel energy - I doubt it, but I suppose if you broaden the "health risks" enough to include the war in Iraq and car crashes and the like then at some point it becomes true.
But let's assume nuclear is heaps safer than fossil fuels: are these our only two choices?
Geothermal
Tidal
Hydroelectric
Solar PV
Solar thermal
Wind turbines
I exclude wave power because it's not commercially-proven, it's all experimental, and biomass because it's not been shown to be done in a sustainable way.
So actually it turns out that it's not either fossil fuels or nuclear, but that we have a few other choices. Amazing, that, that the world doesn't split evenly between black and white.
Precisely.
Skip - do you really believe that there has not been any work done on this issue with regards to protecting people and the environment from the effects of large scale use of nuclear fission technology?
Still waiting for one of the pro-nukers to explain
http://www.google.com/search?q=sleeping+wackenhut+guards+nuclear+plant
Don't you think it is time to move on and work to replace as much combustion as possible?
Yes. But if sleeping guards can't have actions taken via proper channels, why should the process of fission power be trusted?
Well?
I have described nuclear plant security with an extra picture but here is the bulk of the info for those who do not want to click through.
Some anecdotes of incidents where no one died and nothing actually happened.
Plus the people were sleeping "in the ready room".
They were not at the time supposed to be guarding anything.
similarly if a surgeon fell asleep in the operating room that would be one thing but if they were in the break room then the impact is ??
In this case there were other guards at the necessary points.
http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2008/02/thoughts-from-rod-adams-on-p...
http://atomicinsights.blogspot.com/2008/02/sleeping-guard-video-from-you...
Report on security guards for critical infrastructure.
http://fas.org/sgp/crs/RL32670.pdf
5000-8000 guards among the 67 nuclear sites. (some with multiple reactors)
So about 100 guards per nuclear site.
Say 20-30 per shift.
If I have 15 on active duty and 5 taking a break, does it matter if the 5 are on the toilet, eating or sleeping ?
Guards are not the only layer of security.
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06388.pdf
Detection. At all four sites, the owners installed additional cameras throughout different areas of the sites and instituted random patrols in the owner-controlled areas.
Delay. The sites we visited installed a variety of devices designed to delay attackers and allow security officers more time to respond to their posts and fire upon attackers. The sites generally installed these delay devices throughout the protected areas so that attackers would have to defeat multiple security systems before reaching vital areas or equipment. For example, the sites installed fences outside the buildings housing the reactors and other vital equipment and blocked off entrances to make it more difficult for attackers to enter the buildings. Similarly, the sites installed a variety of delay devices within the reactor and other buildings, some of which are permanent and others that security officers would deploy in the event of an attack.
Response. Each of the four sites we visited constructed bullet-resistant structures at various locations in the protected area or within buildings, increased the minimum number of security officers defending the sites at all times, and expanded the amount of training provided to them.
the new vehicle barrier systems consisted of rows of large steel-reinforced concrete blocks, or (at one plant) large boulders weighing up to 7 tons in combination with piles of smaller rocks. (See fig. 3 for an illustration of a vehicle barrier system.) The vehicle barrier systems either completely encircled the plants (except for entrances manned by armed security officers) or formed a continuous barrier in combination with natural or manmade terrain features, such as bodies of water or trenches, that would prevent a vehicle from approaching the sites.
While in many cases it may be true that increasing guard numbers can make a
facility more secure, in other cases the relationship between guard deployment and facility security may be less clear. In guarding, quantity does not necessarily ensure quality. Analysts have suggested several reasons why increasing the number of guards at a given facility might not make it more secure, or might even make it less secure.
- Guards can only meet “guardable” threats, such as physical intrusion
or surveillance by potential terrorists. Any number of guards could
not be expected to prevent attack by a commandeered airliner, or a
remote cyber-attack on facility safety systems.
- If the nature of a terrorist attack is potentially “guardable,” but
guards are not trained to recognize it, additional guards may be no
more likely to respond to it effectively than fewer guards.
- If an increase in the number of guards at a facility is accomplished
by making the existing force work more hours, the guards may
become fatigued, disgruntled, and, consequently, less effective.
- Increasing the size of a guard force may lead to confusion about
individual responsibility and reporting relationships, which may
reduce guard effectiveness.
- Expanding a guard force may increase opportunities for hostile
“insiders” to infiltrate that force. Having a larger guard force,
however, might make it more difficult for such an insider to
successfully conduct hostile activities.
I will not be repeating this reply across the dozen times that you posted this non-incident.
Some anecdotes of incidents where no one died and nothing actually happened.
Hrmmm lets see. Sleeping guards, reported up the chain of command, where nothing was done UNTIL videos were put up on the web - THEN action was taken.
Are you going to next claim that the sleeping was within the operating policy set up to make sure safe operation of the plant is maintained?
I will not be repeating this reply across the dozen times that you posted this non-incident.
Thank you for at least responding. I only posted it many times because none of the pro-nukers were responding to a simple failure of the safety policy.
This thread is a summary of what was to be 'Part 3' of my original submission of 4 weeks ago...
Review of the Literature - New Reactor Designs
Views held by many include:
“New Designs produce no nuclear waste.”
“After 20 half-lives have passed the waste is no more radioactive than the original ore” - or some such equivalent statement. This is a meaningful statement only after all nuclear reactors have been shut down - and then for some fission products, 20 HL’s is millions of years, 10 HL’s also.
Addressing the first view I’ll use the example often mentioned - the MSR.
Charles Barton provided the following link (from 1970) to advances in this technology:
NAT_MSBRfuelcycle.pdf
I quote (my emphasis added):
“One of the most important aspects of the
Molten-Salt Reactor (MSR) concept is that it is
well suited for breeding with low fuel-cycle costs,
and it does so in a thermal reactor operating on
the 232Th-233U fuel cycle.
And...
“The peculiar suitability of the molten-salt reactor for
economical thermal breeding stems rather from
the practical possibility of continuous removal of
fission-product wastes and 233 Pa, and virtually ar-
bitrary additions of uranium or thorium, without
otherwise disturbing the fuel.
The stated advantages are: 1) Thorium can be a fuel; 2) More fuel can be added without disturbing the reactor core or operation of the reactor; 3) HLRW can be continuously removed. NOT that none are produced.
His link to this very recent (Feb. 2004) site on Advanced MSR’s:
Advanced Molten Salt Reactors (.pdf)
contains the following image and clearly shows the off-gas system (in yellow) for the collection of the HLRW gasses being produced and the white tanker-truck representing HLRW containing fuel salt to be processed for removal of the HLRW and the addition of purified salt containing additional fissile/fertile fuel.
There are still technical challenges to overcome before Advanced MSR’s become economic or viable (as of the date of the above paper) but progress is being made. The above papers and designs refer to MSR’s that are scalable up to 1-1.6GWe.
The following link is to a very large PDF file that reviews (January 2007) the status of small reactor designs (<300MWe) including non-conventional designs, Fuji being one discussed in Annex XXX of that paper. It is very important to realize that ALL reactor types mentioned are either in design or prototype, with a very few in ‘pilot’ phase, none commercially available.
Status of Small Reactor Designs (.pdf)
It is universally recognized that solid fuel reactors require fuel fabrication facilities while liquid fuel reactors do not - but do require facilities that ‘purify, liquify and blend’ the fuel. It is also universally recognized that some solid and liquid fuel reactors ‘burn’ nearly 100% of the fissile fuel while other types do not - in all cases the ‘waste’ contains HLRW material and needs eventual disposal in deep geologic repositories for permanent isolation.
The approach taken at the above link (in Annex XXX discussing the Fuji) to both prepare the liquid fuel and to reprocess the waste is the development what is called a THORMIS-NES (Thorium Molten Salt Nuclear Energy Synergetic) System and is based upon adopting the first goal stated at the beginning of this (my) discussion (and seems to be the position of many here as well.) It is described in detail in Section XXX-1.5. It produces liquid fuels Thorium based MSR’s as well as processing the waste from MSR’s and traditional LWR’s as well.
Here is a configuration of a possible THORMIS-NES system (fig. XXX-4):
FIG. XXX-4. Schematic of the thorium molten-salt breeding fuel cycle system; green colour envelopes the fuel cycle facilities located within regional fuel cycle centres.
The AMSB breeder reactors are accelerator driven MSBR that treat the fertile salt and produce U(233) from Th(232). Note that the spent fuel from traditional LWR’s and the ‘dirty’ salt from the MSR’s (both Fuji (200 MWe) and large MSR’s are fed into the chemical processing plants - and the F.P. (fission products-HLRW) are then routed to the Radio-waste plant for disposal. Also note that the entire green area is to be heavily safeguarded.
The above accelerator driven MSBR's are scaled down versions of ADR's that are to be produced as 'stand alone' power producers - not just breeders of U(232) for use in MBR's. To my knowledge, the accererator beam current necessary for continuous power generation is higher than the present prototypes are generating. See the link below:
Accelerator-Driven Nuclear Energy
Somebody probably already posted this which shows the technical pluses and minuses of thorium cycle reactors.
http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/TE_1450_web.pdf
Still, along with the euphoria I think we should examine the desirability of a continuation of BAU
under nuclear power or if we shouldn't reject the whole growth-without-limits mentality which has brought us into the current mess.
majorian, I am very much in favor of thinking in terms of sustainability. In terms of nuclear power, I would welcome well informed dialogue. It is certainly ok to be critical if you understand what you are talking about.
I would not wish to launch society on a line that would leave us without resources after a few years. Actually the document you point too, looks at pluses and minuses for various approaches to the thorium cycle. Some approaches are clearly superior in terms of benefits and costs.
If it can be used, it will be used. This history teaches us with precious little in the way of counterpoint. Thus, if you plan a nuclear future, you will get a nuclear future. The transition to non-nuclear will occur *only* when it must. Thus, since we can power ourselves differently, we should. I would, given my original supposition, suggest nuclear be used only where it truly is the only, or far and away the best, choice.
If you don't accept the original supposition, you will naturally come to a different conclusion.
Nuclear clearly far and away better than coal, oil and natural gas.
It is cheaper than solar and more scalable until solar gets more technology breakthroughs.
Wind is also limited in speed of scaling for the next decade or two.
Sustainability in terms of an attempt at treading in place has always failed as a strategy in the past. The societies go into decline.
And that equals far and away how? And, are we left to assume that economies of scale do not, suddenly, reduce per unit costs?
This is utter BS. You, and so many others, refuse to see a paradigm other than BAU, just with different energy sources. Screw BAU in any form, I say, and open your eyes to the area outside the box. As I've noted repeatedly, if a 14 year old, uneducated African boy can build a working windmill to power his home, virtually anyone can. This is being done by others, too.
Distributed networks, 200 dollar windmills, communities pulling together to provide their own power with materials at hand... think smaller, yet bigger, and free from Big Business and the government deciding what you can and cannot have and for how much.
We can give every home in the US some sort of independent energy production for as little as 1/6th the cost of building enough nuclear for the US to run on - if not less. It would be safer, not being made with poison, and just as reliable since it would be millions of distributed nodes rather than a small number that could be destroyed or damaged relatively easily.
Etc.
Cheers
If you read what I said. Far and away better than coal, oil and natural gas.
I indicate it is cheaper than solar. I believe this is true and you do not present a counter to that claim.
I indicate that it is more scalable than solar. If you look at the solar and wind adoption figures from the DOE.
You can see that the increase in wind from 2002 to 2006 was 0.153 quads.
Nuclear was up 0.065 quads during a time when no nuclear reactors were built. Which was about the total generated from solar.
Nuclear power generated more than doubled since 1985
and quadrupled from 1975.
Nuclear in 2006 was 31 times more than wind power.
The 14 year old boys windmill. 39 feet tall and power 10 six-watt light bulbs, a TV set and a radio.
A total of 60 watts of light bulbs. (ten six watt bulbs.) Probably prividing a radio which could be battery powered and a TV that is also likely small.
sounds ilke 100 to 200 watts of total power.
This is a depowering of 20 times from the US level.
Smaller windmills are more inefficient. What is the EROEI for the small windmills ? Small windmills are not as cost effective as the 3MW+ units. Big windmills can come close to the costs of nuclear but small windmills do not.
Your plan simply does not come close to working.
They are having trouble building a windfarm out in the bay near Ted Kennedy. You are proposing a windmill for every house and apartment. Not only will it not happen on a large scale you cannot even get one town or city to agree to it. Try starting with Berkeley first. Even there it will not happen.
There is a 3 year waiting period for any new order for one of the efficient and practical windmills.
There is business as usual and there is change within the range of the possible. You are not near the range of the possible. No aspect of your plan intersects with reality.
Scalability has nothing to do with adoption rates by corporations. From the information you provided, between 2004 to 2006, nuclear power dropped in electricity production, while wind grew by over 80%.
> There is a 3 year waiting period for any new order for one of the efficient and practical windmills.
A reliable source on this, please?
> Smaller windmills are more inefficient.
Sources, please? And how much more inefficient? And what are the consequent extra fuel costs associated with said efficiency delta?
> No aspect of your plan intersects with reality.
Groundless assertion.
3 year waiting period
A reliable source on this, please?
I know that the wind turbine maker I work with has a 2 year wait on the towers.
Permitting and design may very well be a 3 year+ process.
No data or research to back your points up. No attempt to show calculations or programs.
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=272316
it has been confirmed
from various studies that the larger the wind turbine, the more cost
efficient it is. Studies have shown that the economies of scale start
to affect the cost per KW from around 500 KW turbines to larger
turbines. It means that the larger the wind turbine, the less the cost
per KW (More info – 3)
3. Wind Turbine Cost
http://www.windpower.org/en/tour/econ/
**Information on turbine costs and economies of scale. For example, the cost As you move from a 150 kW machine to a 600 kW machine, prices will roughly triple, rather than quadruple. The reason is, that there are economies of scale up to a certain point, e.g. the amount of manpower involved in building a 150 kW machine is not very different from what is required to build a 600 kW machine.
CONCLUSION: The larger the Wind power turbine, the greater the economies of scale.
http://www.windaction.org/news/14138
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/backlogs-threaten-govern...
February 15, 2008 by Danny Fortson in The Independent
Ambitious plans to erect more than 10,000 wind turbines across Britain and around the coast by 2020 are at risk of being derailed by a critical supply bottleneck. The German engineering giant Siemens, which is one of the leading wind turbine manufacturers, admitted yesterday that it had a four-year backlog of orders for its largest machines. "Supply is indeed tight, relative to demand," a spokesman said.
http://www.windaction.org/news/13205
Also talks about transmission upgrades delaying projects. Nuclear would face similar issues but the multi-year build for nuclear allows parallel track development of transmission where needed.
And the Hokkaido Japan based forge can only produce 4 new containment vessels/year (they are looking at increasing that to 8/year). That is WORLD wide capacity.
Outside of Russia, the only source for over 500 ton forgings. France can make smaller ones that might be welded together.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&refer=home&sid=aaVMzCTMz3ms
Siting new nukes next to old nukes can help with transmission. Often two nukes were planned (with related transmission) and Unit #2 lies rusting, 28% complete and abandoned. Building an all nuke at that site can use the surplus transmission available.
In other cases, existing transmission lines can be upgraded or expanded (or just duplicated with a second line some yards away).
Alan
AlanfromBigEasy, true, but a number of other companies intend to add capacity to forge containment vessels.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&refer=home&sid=aaVMzCTMz3ms
Babcock & Wilcox Co intends to forge containment vessels in small sections and weld them together. They built reactors that way in the past. I of course favor moving to a more efficient reactor technology which does not require containment vessels.
In short the so called containment vessel issue is not an issue for the future of nuclear power.
In short the so called containment vessel issue is not an issue for the future of nuclear power
It is for at least the next dozen (plus) years.
Alan
Er, pressure, not containment vessels that are a unique requirement of some PWR designs.
My error.
Does GE Advanced BWR require such large forgings ?
I think AP-1000, Mitsubishi and Areva do, but not sure in all cases.
Alan
Alan, I amy well be mistaken, but my understanding is that it is essentially a design choice as to whether to use one large forging or two, and that a number of reactors have been built in that way.
Obviously the single forging design is preferable, but presumably other measures to strengthen the design can be used where that option is chosen.
Stupidly I have not kept the references, but I understand that both Areva and the Russians intend to enter the market to produce large forgings, together with one other, if my memory serves, but the name escapes me.
I understand it as a significant bottleneck in ramping up nuclear reactor production globally because the PWR designs assume single forgings. After speaking with a nuclear engineer, they dont technically require single forgings, but then you have to certify a design that is multiple forgings or use existing designs that use multiple forgings. (CANDU's for instance)
Which takes time of course. If the world goes for nuke in a big way, there will be some utilization of multiple forging designs, and huge investments in heavy forging facilities.
I don't think thats going to happen though. I suspect there's enough coal and inertia such that coal will be the major power producer in new power for decades, with wind and nukes showing strong but largely insignificant growth.
That is what I would have thought, but check out some of the posts and articles here about limits to coal - it looks like there is not that much of it:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2697
The Oil Drum | Routledge
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2785
The Oil Drum | Coal reserves and economics
I now see nuclear in temperate regions and solar in warmer climes as being the likely course.
You keep making the same mistake. I have said repeatedly that centralized systems are not an answer precisely because they are vulnerable to decay under conditions involving terrorism, not to mention collapse. You ignore this, yet it is far more important than efficiency. As has been pointed out in past discussions, robust trumps efficient when discussing survival. This is a deal breaker, a show stopper. So, quit talking about efficiency because it is a non-issue. DO address my point about robustness and vulnerability.
This is getting irritating. Answer the points raise, if you've the stomach.
Your arguments are nonsensical. You state rates of current supply of energy from various sources... why? It is meaningful in what way? It isn't. Red herring.
Regarding de-powering: duh! That is exactly what we are all about, no? Powering down. Using less. Saving more for the future. That young man built a system equal to his needs and wants. I would expect others to scale accordingly. Using his output as a measure of what all outputs would be is disingenuous.
Absolutely nothing you stated supports this. You ignore the point raised about reusing and recycling materials to build power generation. Factor in ZERO cost of materials to build the windmills and see where your cost-benefit and efficiency measures are then. Let's see, free to build, energy extracted from a free medium (wind, solar, water) and energy flowing into your home for.... FREE!
Can every household achieve zero cost? No. Can many? Yes. Can many more achieve low cost? Absolutely.
Now, for the final time, either address distributed networks with regard to security, robustness, safety and low-cost production via recycling.
Cheers
ccpo, excuse me, but I haven't the slighest idea what this comment is about.
You state:
Outside of the fact that this appears to be as expression of an overly emotional state it is hard to make heads or tails of what this means. You seem to be repeating something you believe you have said before, but it is still hard to understand what you mean, and you offer no evidence that would tie this statement to reality.
You state:
Oh wow, I did not know that windmills tore themselves down. I did not know that it cost nothing to recycle used building materials. I did not know that used solid concrete would jump back into cement trucks and could be poured again, that rebar could unbend itself, and that the used parts of old windmills can be reassembled into new machines without processing and without costs!
It does cost money to decommission windmills/parks, but the gains from material value (recycling) make up for most of this cost.
It would be a bit optimistic to assume they will cancel each other out, although some projects being commissioned right now do assume this will be the case.
I don't think decommissioning windmills/parks costs more than $ 100 per kW, especially if you take into account new recycling methods as well as increases in raw material costs.
At any rate, it is definately cheaper than decommissioning a nuclear fission powerplant.
Compare it to the NDA estimate of $ 12000 per kW to decommission the UK nuclear fleet.
Doesn't the NDA estimate include weapons development sites also? Come back when you've split that out. And I believe that they are playing accounting games with their estimates since there were defintely whispers of a clean-up figure about half their highest estimate as the "true" cost.
In any case the decommissioning cost is irrelevant provided that it's included in the cost of electricity, which has been the case certainly for UK and US, despite interference from governement in the resulting funds generated.
Doesn't the NDA estimate include weapons development sites also? Come back when you've split that out
Yes, I mentioned that already, but it's really difficult to disentangle the costs. One report on the NDA website does imply that the majority is public-sector civil nuclear related, with about $ 6800 per kW, but this is an older estimate and doesn't take into account the more recent cost overruns.
EDIT: it appears the sole purpose of the NDA is the decommissioning of civil reactors and related legacy. So the full $ 12000 per kW is attributable to civil nuclear power, not to weapons.
In any case the decommissioning cost is irrelevant provided that it's included in the cost of electricity
It's important that it's included into the levelized cost, but not irrelevant as it does affect the economics of nuclear power. When one assumes a decommissioning cost of $ 300-500 per kW or something and it turns out to be an order of magnitude bigger, then one may find the financial models are not as rosy anymore.
I was astonished by the cost of dismataling British reactors, which greatly exceeds the cost experience for dismantling American civilian reatcors. I have to wonder if this is due to the British government having allowed their Nuclear nesearch establishment to go to seed. Having shut down their top center of nuclear technology, British government "experts" are trying to figure out how to decommission reactors with limited understanding of the task. Stupidity is truly expensive. Of course there is also problems with the original British reactor technology, and the low status of engineers south of Hadrian's Wall.
One shutdown estimate coming early in the decade, estimated reactor shutdown costs. as follows:
Western Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR)L $200-$500/KWe
Magnox /gas cooled reactors Up to $2600/KWe
http://www.uow.edu.au/eng/phys/nukeweb/decom_cost.html#ref
A 2002 estimate put the total decommissioning cost Maine Yankee at $635 million. Other American Nuks have been commissioned for less.
I think dealing with the radiactive graphite is a relatively big part of the cost estimate. The NDA's estimate has almost doubled since the beginning of the decade. Big rock point was a BWR which proved much more expensive to decommission. So I don't know if the PWR estimates are correct either, since they are not that different from BWR's. Some large nukes were really cheap to decommission. I wonder why there are such large differences even within the same technology. There were a lot of non-radioctive related (chemical) cleanup costs involved in the UK fleet estimate.
I prefer heavy water reactors myself.
Thanks for the response here Cyril. While I don't doubt that this figure is as published, I do doubt its justification. The agency in question was set up as part of an effort to dismantle the nuclear industry and has no interest in showing low costs.
Even if we take the figures as the best effort to clean up the sites concerned, I would not see these figures applying to new build.
I agree that the cost of decommissioning, however funded, has to be taken as part of the economics of nuclear power.
The agency in question was set up as part of an effort to dismantle the nuclear industry and has no interest in showing low costs.
The opposite is true: one of the main reasons the NDA was brought to life is precisely to find out ways to lower the cost of decommissioning. The estimate has been increased despite that, because there was also significant chemical contamination which had to be dealt with properly, and the technical difficulties (and thus, cost) of decommissioning in general were underestimated.
Even if we take the figures as the best effort to clean up the sites concerned, I would not see these figures applying to new build.
That's the risk here - we just don't know what it'll cost. Hopefully, the industry will benefit from learning of the decommissioning of the current reactors, but it is a future liability nevertheless.
I'm all for renewables ie specifically solar CSP, solar PV,
and wind ; either utility scale where appropriate and small
scale widely distributed as well; but I'm under no illusion that
we can continue BAU on the back of renewables alone ..
Fossil fuel depletion and potential restrictions on carbon emmissions
aside; it's clear that we're facing having to replace coal, oil,
and gas generating facilities ..
I'd prefer to move up the energy density ladder for that task and support the build out of next gen nukes for that reason ..
Long term the thorium cycle sounds like the best bet for base load ..
Anyone know if any of the proposed designs are generating any
serious commercial interest from either potential owner/operators or the financial community ??
Triff ..
This appears to assume a no-collapse future. No?
Sure. If society collapses, we have much more existential concerns than decaying power plants.
Won't it be a nice gift to leave for them - radioactive metals for them to make into shivs!
Nuclear clearly far and away better than coal, oil and natural gas.
Great! Now - make that argument as to why Iran should have a reactor or 2 as others are arguing no in the public sphere.
How do you propose stopping them, and what has that got to do with how vigorously we should pursue a civil nuclear program in the West? - The East is already a done deal.
So your position is there should be a difference between 'west' and 'east'?
Why?
I am simply asking you what effect you think your disapproval of an Iranian nuclear reactor will have,- how do you propose stopping them?
By war?
How is a nuclear program for civil purposes in the West going to effect an Iranian build?
I suggest, 'not at all'.
I am simply asking you what effect you think your disapproval of an Iranian nuclear reactor will have,- how do you propose stopping them?
And what basis do YOU think I disapprove?
By war?
Not even the US of A will do that. War needs an declaration by Congress - do you see the US Congress doing that?
How is a nuclear program for civil purposes in the West going to effect an Iranian build?
I suggest, 'not at all'.
So then YOU have NO problem with Iran having reactors that produce power for civilians? How about North Korea? Syria?
Civilian nuclear reactors aren't a remotely effective way to produce a bomb; not even covertly.
If you go the highly enriched uranium route, that can be done with centrifuges and a whole lot of time.
If you want to go the Pu-239 route that can be done with a simple graphite pile like the x-10 graphite reactor, designed and built in 10 months at oak ridge in 1943. It takes natural uranium without enrichment and is unburdened by having to produce power or submit to any kind of inspection; nobody's watching so you don't have to worry too much about worker safety either. The fuel rods must have very low burn up or you will get unacceptable quantities of Pu-240, which is why civilian reactors are so unsuitable for this; you look very suspicious changing fuel rods all the time and moving your slighty used rods away for reprocessing. Getting the plutonium out is as simple as chemical reprocessing without centrifuges.
Why do you think stopping Iran from having a civilian reactor in any way prevents them from developing a bomb? Why do you think you can stop them from developing civilian nuclear power?
Your assumption is that nuclear power is not sustainable. I have pointed to evidence that the proven Thorium resources in one locality, Lemhi Pass are enough to power the American economy for at least 400 years, and possibly for well over a thousand years. Other thorium resources are known to exist, and have yet to be explored. Very competent geologist say that the thorium deposits in the Conway granite of Vermont exist in the order of tens of millions of tons. We are talking then about a horizon that extends out for many thousands of years. Compared to the century or two run of oil. Thorium is sufficiently abundant that recoverable deposits will remain when the last human being dies. That is quite enough for me right now. That is virtually sustainable.
Actually, that wasn't my argument. I responded too quickly above and rather awkwardly. However, I will gladly point out that population growth will be making many more things scarce in the future. What, don't know. Someone here likely does.
But your silver bullet doesn't exist yet, does it?
Let me do point out that motivated aggressors won't have much trouble putting nuclear plants out of commission for weeks or months at a time, if they get serious about it. Would this be a problem with millions of household/community based power systems?
Cheers
The silver bullet may not exist but the thorium bullet does! The thorium is there in the ground, and the technical means to convert thorium into electrical energy exists as well. Just take a look at Kirk Sorensen's blog "Energy from Thorium."
http://thoriumenergy.blogspot.com/
Nuclear power plants go out of service all the time for refueling and servicing. There needs to be redundancy in any power producing system. If terrorist have to power to destroy all of the nuclear power plants at the same time, there are other, far more vulnerable targets that they might pick. But to ascribe to terrorists such massive power is at least right now implausible.
Much of the security arrangements for nuclear plants is confidential for obvious reasons. We can speculate about those arrangements, but is speculation a substitute for informed discussion? Rather than offering vague speculation about terrorist threats, critics of nuclear power need to monitor the NRC to make sure that rational security standards are in place, and that reactor operators are continuously monitored for compliance to those standards.
You answered one part with a fib and the other you didn't answer. The Fib: Thorium bullet doesn't exist. The point, the casing and the powder may theoretically exist, but none of them exist anywhere but on paper or in crude form.
You are making the same mistake DaveMart makes in ignoring time. I don't see where the time exists for the nuclear option. That alone disqualifies it as a serious part of the response. Part of the response? Fine. A major part? Sorry, but we don't have 20 to 30 years.
The Non-Answer: I didn't ask how hard it is to put a nuclear plant out of commission, I asked if terrorists could put a distributed network of millions (actually tens of millions) of home-based power plants out of action.
So? (Rhetorical question.)
The correct answer is: "No. That is a strength of your suggested approach, but I still prefer the nuclear option because.... blah, blah, blah."
Cheers
ccpo, Your account of the time problem assumes that we are going to continue to do business as usual. We no longer have that luxury. The history of the Manhattan Project illustrates what can be accomplished if the constraints of business as usual are lifted. How many years would it have taken to build the first reactor, had not the constraints of business as usual? Looked at what was accomplished with reactor development in a few short years. No one had conceived of a reactor before the late 1930's, yet In December 1942 the first reactor went critical. By late 1943 the X-10 reactor was operational in Oak Ridge. By 1944 the even more advanced Hanford Reactors were coming into service. By mid 1945 enough plutonium had been produced at Hanford to build two atomic bombs. That could not have been accomplished by business as usual. How many years would it have taken to build the first reactor if business as usual processes had been followed?
As for the Fib bullet not existing, I wonder then what my father was doing when he worked on the two successful MSR reactor projects at ORNL in the 1950's and 60's. I wonder what all those documents that describe the two molten salt reactors are all about. Was that some collective fantasy by ORNL scientist? Were the suffering from delusions when they concluded that they had made the things work?
Your account of the time problem assumes that we are going to continue to do business as usual. We no longer have that luxury.
So will you also be an apologist when some fission plant fails? How about if the failure was due to 'a moron in a hurry' and the rules/regs were ignored - or the rules/regs were removed in the interest in 'getting things done'?
(1979 brings us the legal 'moron in a hurry' statement)
http://www.google.com/search?q=techdirt+moron+in+a+hurry
I wonder then what my father was doing when he worked on the two successful MSR reactor projects at ORNL in the 1950's and 60's. I wonder what all those documents that describe the two molten salt reactors are all about.
You 'wonder'?
http://www.google.com/search?q=molten+salt+reactor+failure Amazingly these days *YOU* do not have to wonder - if *YOU* want to take the time for *YOU* to remove your ignorance over the happenings of the past. *YOU* can use the internet and search engines so *YOU* not longer have to wonder.
And *YOU* are claiming "two successful MSR reactor projects" - on what *ACTUAL* basis is there success? That all the design ideas worked as expected? Or that the whole damn thing didn't become slag when turned on? Reports show the ORNL reactor was not functioning for a few months due to the failure of a part - so is that a success that things did not become a pile of slag or a failure because the system was off?
eric blair, Jeeze Louise. Does this sound like a failure? From the Wikupedia entry on the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-Salt_Reactor_Experiment
eric blair, Jeeze Louise.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Jeeze
So are you shocked or just annoyed that you have been called out?
You 'wonder' about something - in a time when knowledge is no longer bound by having to make a physical copy to move that knowledge. Are you annoyed that someone DARES to call you out on your 'claim of wonder'?
Does this sound like a failure?
Considering *YOU* as an advocate has to 'wonder' about the success - I'd call your attempts to use rhetoric to persuade a failure. Oh and a failure in showing your claim of success is correct, what with the whole matter being a source of wonder.
Now I will attempt to provide you with an education so your ignorance can be removed.
For a project to be declared a success or a failure - there has to be a starting set of parameters. Then the outcome gets matched VS that starting set.
For you to claim the project is a success - you must have had access to not only the starting set of parameters, but the outcome results as well.
So:
1) You are yet another name on the long list of liars
2) You are ignorant about how one can claim success
3) You have information that you have not shown (But this is not an option as you "wonder" about the project)
Which is it? You were ignorant about how a project can be declared a success, or you are a liar who's now been called out and are 'annoyed or surprised' over the call out?
Feel free to redeem your position - show the design goals as originally stated, then how the data of the building, operation, and decommissioning were shown to meet the expectations of the design goals.
Remember: You are the one who claimed 'success' and yet expressed your lack of knowledge of the project via your expression of 'wonder' as to what happened.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/wonder
(note - Mr. Barton has opted not to provide data to show how the project goals were ment - ergo he is allowing the liar charge to stand. So keep in mind his 'wonder' while claiming 'success' of the same project - if Charles lies here, where else has he lied?)
It does?! Friend, you're not a good mind reader. You are failing at it. My account assumes TS is gonna HTF sooner rather than later; that collective action in the face of a massive economic downturn, geopolitical instability, famine, water shortages, energy shortages, etc., is highly unlikely; that GW is going to come at us faster than many think.
I thought he told you all about it?
;)
Seriously: are there, now, currently, existing on this planet, working thorium reactors? I was pretty clear inn stating the essential components probably exist, wasn't I? And I never indicated they didn't work, did I?
The problem with an agenda? It affects how you perceive your world. Take off the radiation-affected glasses and read what is written, not what you want it to say.
Cheers
ccpo, you fail to distinguish between proven technology and its implementation.
Because of their large thorium reserve, the Indians have an on going and successful R&D program with thorium fuel cycle reactors. They built three thorium cycle research reactors between 1971 and 1990, and in 1998 they built a 500 keV accelerator to research accelerator-driven thorium breeding.
Two other test reactors at the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research at Kalpakkam are being used to investigate the thorium fuel cycle. The Kamini (Kalpakkam mini) reactor is being used to breeding U-233 from Th-232. So clearly then there are are reactors in India than now, in April 2008 use the thorium fuel cycle. The Indians are researching the use of the thorium cycle in CANDU reactorsand are developing their own Avanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR).
In addition a 500MW thorium/uranium.plutonium fast breeder is under construction at Kalpakkam. The intent is to use plutonium to get large scale thorium breeding started. Indian development thorium breeding fast breeder technology is a major issue in the Us-Indian nuclear talks.
http://www.rediff.com/news/2006/feb/27bush10.htm
The Indians fully intend to have a large number of thorium based reactor running by 2020.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf62.html
http://www.iaea.org/inisnkm/nekr/fnss/fulltext/0412_7.pdf
http://www.india-defence.com/reports/3390
http://www.energy-daily.com/reports/Thorium_Reactors_Integral_To_Indian_...
There have been numerous other thorium fuel cycle based reactors.
The original Pebble Bed Reactor the AVR (Atom Versuchs Reaktor), which operated for 21 years at 15 MWe, almost all of that time, 95%, with thorium based fuel. It was shut down for because of the political opposition of the anti-nuclear lobby, not because of a technological failure.
The German 300 MWe THTR (Thorium High-Temperature Reactor) reactor in Germany was developed from the AVR and operated between 1983 and 1989 shut down in 1988 because of the crazy political opposition of anti-nuclear fanatics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THTR-300
The 20 MWth Dragon reactor at Winfrith, UK, which conducted successful Th232 to U233 breeding experiments from 1964 to 1973.
The General Atomics' Peach Bottom high-temperature, graphite-moderated, helium-cooled reactor (HTGR) operated between 1967 and 1974 at 110 MWth, using high-enriched U-235 with thorium.
http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=6310141
The Shippingport experimental light water thorium breeder reactor (1977 and 1982):
http://www.inl.gov/technicalpublications/Documents/2664750.pdf
The Elk River (Minnesota) Reactor, the Indian Point (N.Y.) No. 1 Reactor, and
The Fort St Vrain reactor:
http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/25710/page/2
In addition to the reactors listed research involving the use of thorium in reactors has been conducted in France, Japan, Russia, Canada and Brazil.
Research followup to these projects were in no small measure blocked by the political opposition of the anti-nuclear lobby. However at present numerous companies, universities, national laboratories and research establishments are actively engaged in Thorium Fuel cycle R&D. According to IAEA reports and other sources these include Brookhaven National Laboratory, Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, and Framatome Technologies and Westinghouse, Inc., Argonne National Laboratory, The Center for Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems (CANES) at MIT, Purdue University, the University of Florida, Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories, Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd (Canada), Centro de Desenvolvimento da Tecnologia Nuclear, Belo Horizonte (Brazil, Tohoku University, Sendai (Japan), Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, Taejon, British Nuclear Fuels plc, Sellafield, Seascale, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, State Scientific Center - Institute of Physics and Power Engineering, Obninsk (Russian Federation), Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Gazi Universitesi, Ankara (Turkey), Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique, CEA/SACLAY, Gif-sur-Yvette (France), Toyohashi University of Technology, Toyohashi (Japan), Kyoto University (Japan), Institute of Nuclear Energy Technology, Tsinghua University Beijing, Nuclear Research Institute Rez plc, Rez (Czech Republic), National Science Center 'Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology', Kharkov (Ukraine), Technology Department, Turkish Atomic Energy Authority, Ankara (Turkey), Institute for Experimental Physics, University of Vienna, and the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow.
http://www.iaea.org/inisnkm/nekr/fnss/abstracts/abst_te_1319_web.html
Finally two major business organizations, Thorium Power Ltd., and Thorium Energy, Inc., are actively engaged in selling thorium based fuel to reactor operators and manufactures.
http://www.thoriumpower.com/default2.asp?nav=our_company
http://www.thoriumenergy.com/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1
The German 300 MWe THTR (Thorium High-Temperature Reactor) reactor in Germany was developed from the AVR and operated between 1983 and 1989 shut down in 1988 because of the crazy political opposition of anti-nuclear fanatics.
That thing had an upfront capital cost of more than $ 10,000 per kW in today's USD. It wouldn't have been financially viable anyway, and it was a large plant ie it already benefited from economics of plant size. Cost reductions would have had to come from technology development, which is risky.
Cyril R, the THTR was an experimental prototype. A lot of money was spent on R&D. The decision to scrap it had nothing to do with the R&D costs, or excessive cost of further units, it was strictly political. I don't think that the South Africans or the Chinese would be continuing R&D on the Pebble Bed Reactor concept if they regarded the technology as too expensive to use in commercial power production units.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_modular_reactor
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s1854362.htm
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.09/china.html?pg=1&topic=china&top...
Yes, it was experimental. And no, it wasn't just about politics. Among other things, the use of thorium yielded some issues. The THTR concept was found to be unworkable as a commercial design, and was dismissed in favour of the PBMR. The public resistance to the project was not completely unfounded; the THTR wasn't nearly as safe as existing nuclear plants. The PBMR has had some development succes, but is not yet fully commercialized. So we cannot yet discuss it's potential objectively.
I didn't realise that was Barton's aim.
His claim was that politics were the sole cause for the failure of the project, thereby suggesting that the design itself had potential. You have to read between the lines. My point is that the technical and economical potential is unproven; what is proven is that it released much more radioactivity into the environment than PWRs or BWRs, and that is was also really expensive, in the order of $ 10,000 per kWe. Although it was a prototype, it was also a full size commercial plant (300 MWe).
Making these comparisons for a prototype reactor just isn't fair. For instance, they used gasseous diffusion to deplete the lithium for purposes of expediency where any larger reactor project would be far more likely to invest in centrifuge enrichment or chemical methods (possible at such low z-values) What is telling about the MSBR experiment is that it was far more successful than most other prototype reactors of the era. While LMFBRs suffered criticality excursions, sodium fires, and other rather unfortunate learning experiences, the MSBR showed minor problems with tellurium interaction with hastelloy that was easily addressed. The only major problem came decades after funding was cut with salt disposition because they didn't fluoridate it for storage.
Reading between the lines is a polite euphamism for a strawman. While I believe the MSR has far more potential after development than light water reactors, what killed the MSR research was politics, while funding continued to pour into silly things like liquid metal fast breeder reactors and light water breeders.
I was talking about the THTR not the MSR and especially not the LFTR. LFTR has great potential. Much better than THTR.
Before you start reading between the lines, you might want to consider actually reading the lines themselves first.
Since you mention my name, it is incorrect to assume that I am not aware of time constraints- already detailed in this thread is a link to my web page detailing come of the conservation efforts I think we should be making as a matter of urgency.
It is also rather difficult to see how my response would be more tardy than another's, as I also favour the utilisation of renewables wherever practical, so the only difference between myself and some others is that they would have less options as they rule out nuclear.
Where we do disagree is that I feel that it is relatively unclear what consequences will ensue in what time order, but that makes no essential difference to the argument as my proposals would be more speedy, not less than alternatives as I retain more options.
You have to make the renewables actually work though - a lot of the initiatives like some of the proposals for solar thermal in Algeria are mainly about burning fossil fuel, in Algeria's case natural gas, with a light veneer of renewables on top.
I must have missed your webpage. Could you put a link in your profile, so we can always find it?
Here is the meat of it:
http://energy-futures.blogspot.com/2008/02/conservationour-best-route-to...
Please note the following information which was not to hand when I wrote this web-page:
The cost of the 33GW nameplate build for UK offshore wind is not estimated at around £66bn, not the £45bn I gave on this page - I like to give any proposition I wish to argue about the best possible chance, and give the best figures for them that I can come up with, but unfortunately estimates are now much higher.
OTOH, Wind power in the UK tracks use very well, as this report indicates:
http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/publications/downloads/sinden05-dtiwindreport.pdf
sinden05-dtiwindreport.pdf
I am afraid that unlike you, I do worry about cost, so the tracking ability makes me more favourably inclined, but the total cost still horrifies me.
Please note also that my remarks are specific to the UK - renewables by their nature are location specific, and in Australia for instance I would be much more enthused by solar power - I understand that many areas there are even sunnier than the UK! ;-)
Unfortunately it seems that water use is far more of a problem for solar thermal than I had imagined, and without breakthroughs would use water for cooling on the same scale as a coal or nuclear plant, which is difficult as the best places for it are hot, dry, cloudless areas.
Residential solar thermal is though a great idea, at least for sunny areas like much of Australia, and debateably for areas like the UK - I really waver on that one for here.
However, PV will hopefully shortly provide a substantial input to Australia's needs, in my view almost certainly for peak power at least.
I just object to putting PV installations where it ain't sunny!
Finally, in reference to wind power, it should be noted that my objections to it are in relation to offshore wind, which costs around half off-shore, and will certainly provide a lot of power in many areas of the US, for instance.
This piffle from the fellow who has failed to EVER address my evidence and suggested approach individual and community-based massively distributed systems?
Nuclear for the US: 1000 x 5,000,000,000 = 5,000,000,000,000. (5 trillion)
Distributed systems made with at hand/purchased materials: 105,000,000 hh x $1,000 to $5,000 = $105,000,000,000 - 525,000,000,000. (105 to 525 billion)
Hell, give every household $30,000 (3 trillion, 150 billion) and it is STILL cheaper, faster, more effective and safer.
And don't say, at least in relation to me, that you consider more options because you are lying when saying so. I have said clearly the current backbone can be maintained in the short term to cover the massively distributed build-out then shifted, and that nuclear is part of the solution. But I ALSO add in the personal, i.e. distributed, network. So, the one exploring the most options friend, is not you.
Pull your head out and address these points or be quiet already.
You are far beyond any reasoned debate, nor should I dignify your ad hominen attacks and accusations of lying with a response.
I passed over your 'ideas' out of kindness, because you patently have no idea of what you are talking about, but whilst you were in a relatively lucid phase I actually read and to some degree entered into dialogue with you - I should have just accepted that rational discourse with you is impossible, after all, you have amply demonstrated that in the past, as well as in your present ill-mannered and ill-informed rant.
The reason I don't usually respond to you is because I don't usually bother to read your posts.
As for your latest figures, I gather they are based on some fantasy that everyone generates a substantial proportion of their own power by means, presumably, usually of solar power and wind power.
Let us assume that we are going to generate all power by renewables, what is the best means of doing this?
If you placed a PV panel on the roof of a house in England, in the winter when you need it most you would get a tiny fraction of the amount in the summer - a typical 5kw nameplate installation would generate on average per hour during Dec, Jan and Feb only around 300 watts or so.
If you placed the same power in the Sahara in massive installations and built power lines to transport it you might get 600 watts or so, minus transmission losses which are small for DC lines.
For your housetop wind turbine, you suffer from ground effects, and much lower average wind speed than at the 80 meters height of a typical modern turbine, so are vastly more inefficient.
So even on their own terms you ideas make no kind of sense whatsoever, and show that you have no knowledge at all of the subjects you purport to address.
If you would stop fantasising you might have the time to research properly, and be able to make some comment which it is worth while responding to.
There are vulnerabilities in all kinds of infrastructure.
Oil refineries, pipelines, coal plants, gas plants, hydro dams, industrial plants, the grids, high rise buildings, hospitals, bridges, sports stadiums.
Even during all out war (WW2) how much successful sabotage was there.
Where is the realistic scenario where the US or Europe sits back and allows sabotage/terrorism to go unchallenged ?
Meanwhile more deaths, more environmental damage and property damage, more costs from air pollution.
60,000 deaths per year in the USA and over 200,000 death per year in Europe. 3 million per year worldwide (World health organization statistics)
Way more than the terrorists have ever done. Way more than Cherobyl. Way more than the Iraq war. Way more than Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Bad plans are made if you are unable to distinguish a rabbit from a bear.
You are ignoring the bear. Air pollution, acid rain etc... which kills more.
And focusing on the rabbit (nuclear power) and pretending it is more vulnerable to sabotage or will kill more people under various scenarios when it does not.
You scream about the rabbit while the bear kills all around you.
Of course it isn't sustainable. When finite resources are consumed, the amount decreases. Clearly consumption of the resource is unsustainable. Didn't we learn that with fossil fuels and fossil water?
What you hope is that the right kind of reactor becomes the norm and that the fuel needed can be economically (in both financial and energy terms) mined at the required rate for as long as you want to worry about, and without significant environmental consequences.
That might be a reasonable position (though I don't, personally, think it is) but it relies on estimates being correct and it most certainly doesn't amount to sustainability.
Its not sustainable in the way that solar power isn't sustainable. Eventually the sun dies.
The timescales are likely very different, though I know that you don't think so.
"The timescales are likely very different"
Not exactly. Even geothermal is powered by the radiation of uranium & thorium. It is almost everywhere in low-grade ores, granite, coal, even ocean water. And the energy-density is on the order of 7 magnitudes higher than a carbon atom.
http://www.sustainablenuclear.org/PADs/pad11983cohen.pdf