The Nuclear Power Thread

[russ_watters]

I'd like to start a discussion/debate of nuclear power for the purpose of informing people about it. I am participating in a thread in another forum HERE (http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=9370) where we are discussing an article about Germany planning to phase out nuclear power. Under the 2002 law, Germany’s 19 nuclear reactors will close down after reaching 32 years of operation. Stade is the first reactor to be removed from the grid. When the last reactor goes off the grid in around 2020, nuclear and coal power, which currently provide the country with 80 percent of its electricity, will have bowed out in favor of renewable energy. I am STRONGLY against this. It is bad for scientific, economic, political, and environmental reasons.

In the course of discussions of the nuclear power issue, it seems to me that the arguements against nuclear power are based primarily on ignorance and emotion. I'm all for open scientific debate, but on this particular subject, I tend to take the approach of educating, not strictly debating. If that comes off as arrogant, I apologize, but this is a remarkably straightforward issue when you get down to the science of it.

So, to start off, a few facts:
-The US has roughly 98 million kW of nuclear generation capacity in roughly 100 plants and runs at about 90% load.
-For comparison, the US has about 4 thousand kW of wind capacity and that doubles about every other year.
-Virtually all new generation capacity in the US is from oil.
-The US has not started construction on a single nuclear plant since Three Mile Island about 20 years ago.
-According to the WHO, air pollution kills 70,000 people in the US every year and affects virtually everyone.
-electric power generation is the leading producer of air pollution in the US.
-HALF of the electricity in the US comes from COAL.
-No civilian has ever been killed as a result of nuclear power in the US (TMI was the worst accident and a long term study produced no statistically significant increase in cancer rates).
-Chernobyl killed roughly 50 people and injured/sickened maybe 1000, including long-after cancers (I had no idea it was that low, so HERE (http://www.vanderbilt.edu/radsafe/9604/msg00651.html) is where I found that).

To me, the evidence is so enormously strong in favor of re-activating our nuclear power program, it should be self-evident. Clearly however, nuclear power is all but dead in the US and indeed much of the world.

I'd also like to discuss research. There has been nuclear power research done over the past 20 years (though not much because of TMI). Pebble-bed reactors for example have potential to be both easy to service and virtually melt-down proof. I'd like to hear of other technologies.

[mathman]

There is at least one major unsolved problem with nuclear power. What do you do with the spent fuel? Right now it just accumulates at the various plant sites. Yucca mountain is still iffy as a long term solution.

[Njorl]

Spent fuel is not as big a problem as you might think. The vast majority of nuclear waste, even today, is from the weapons industry.

If we went to a very large scale production of nuclear energy, it would be a problem. It is not a matter of scale though. Spent fuel could still be removed, transported and stowed with less loss of life and health than fossil fuel effects, but the fuel production would be dirtier. Large scale use of enriched uranium is not feasible for a long period. We would need to implement plutonium use as a fuel. Plutonium is inherently dirtier. I'm not saying it is a problem that can't be solved, just saying the waste situation does not scale linearly with energy production.

I think one problem is people don't want to discuss death. Death from fossil fuels is OK, because it's always been that way. Death from nuclear power is weird and unnatural. If we had always used nuclear power, and never burned anything for fuel, and somebody decided to try burning oil, the first housefire would be seen as a horrifying bizarre incident resulting in pointless destruction.

I have always been frustrated by those who are too pure and good to put a pricetag on a life. They think I'm ghoulish for equating lives to things like money, or in this case power generation. When I ask "What do you give up to save a life?", they usually answer, "whatever it takes." I then ask, "Then what do you give up to save the next life?" That's when the namecalling usually starts.

Njorl

[RuiMonteiro]

First, thanks to russ_watters for starting this thread as i find this to be a very intersting subject that will be debated for many years to come for sure
Here are some of my thoughts:

Nuclear Power is certanly a very cheap resource that can be very helpfull for any country, the problem arises on what its the effective consequence on the environment.

The nuclear usine itself doesn´t release any CO2, but does release some very dangerous radioactive elements for the atmosphere and nearest river, lake...(depending on the case), even if it´s in a small quantities, and this is officially recognized by the responsible authorities and most of the public doesn´t know this. What the general public doesn´t no either is that the process to enrich uranium releases vaste amounts of green house gases.
So, nuclear energy isn´t as "earth-friendly" as we are made to believe.
And even if, at this time, the pollution released during the process to enrich uranium is much smaller then the fossil fuel pollution (wich represents the biggest part of the US air pollution - wich is what russ_watters statment -"-electric power generation is the leading producer of air pollution in the US"- implies because clean energy doesn´t release any green house gases and the enrichment of uranium is never taken into account in the pollution studies on energy production), let´s just take a look at the number of nuclear plants that the US has - wich is around 100 unites - and the 20% that nuclear energy represents on the total of energy suplly to the US, so how much more nuclear usines are needed to compensate a big part of the fossil usines? And how much more pollution would that bring?
(Let´s also not forget the new nuclear usines being build at this precise time in several countrys in Asia)

But what i find to be the main problem is the spent fuel. The problem isn´t obviously easy, because if there is a solution it must be very expensive wich makes it impracticable, or, on the other hand, there isn´t a solution yet. And there hadn´t been any viable solution for the last decades.

As for nuclear disasters, like Chernobyl, i believe that nuclear plants are safe. The only problem that could occur right now is human incompetence like on Chernobyl, but i find it hard to happen now, and i also think that that human incompetence was in some way because of the sovietic regime (not directly). And let´s not forget that a terrorist attack could happen, even if its very unlikely - i don´t want to sound like those extremists that say this could be the end of the world lol but taking into account the latest events it doesn´t seem very difficult.
But just because this is very unlikly to happen it is not a strong argument against the pollution generated.

And as for economical reasons the only ones to take profit from it are the eletric companies, not the consumer.
In terms of scientific research the decline of nuclear power isn´t a big problem, because the US is responsible to develop the fusion reactor (this accoring to a treaty signed some years ago), so there will be a vaste and profound research and big investments.


With this, i´m still not sure what we should do in terms of energy supply, on one hand we have the pollution, but on the other hand we have the need of energy. So, i think that waiting for a better solution to the spent fuel and for the development of the fusion reactor is probably the best choice considering all facts, even if this is the easy way, but we need to be realistic and i don´t see the governments spending big money on studies on what to do with the pollution, neither they seem intersted in that, so, in some time, when the ambiental problems are more and more discussed perhaps the governments are forced to do something.


I hope i made myself clear, as my english isn´t exactly the best.


Rui.

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by RuiMonteiro
The nuclear usine itself doesn´t release any CO2, but does release some very dangerous radioactive elements for the atmosphere and nearest river, lake...(depending on the case), even if it´s in a small quantities, and this is officially recognized by the responsible authorities and most of the public doesn´t know this. That just plain isn't true - in the US (and I would venture to say Western Europe) anyway. In terms of scientific research the decline of nuclear power isn´t a big problem, because the US is responsible to develop the fusion reactor (this accoring to a treaty signed some years ago), so there will be a vaste and profound research and big investments. Unfortunately, fusion power is still a very long way off.Originally posted by Njorl
I have always been frustrated by those who are too pure and good to put a pricetag on a life. They think I'm ghoulish for equating lives to things like money, or in this case power generation. When I ask "What do you give up to save a life?", they usually answer, "whatever it takes." I then ask, "Then what do you give up to save the next life?" That's when the namecalling usually starts. I've been thinking about this one for a day now. In engineering ethics, the Ford Pinto (I think) case was discussed in detail. There, the execs weighed the cost of fixing the fuel tank flaw against cost of dealing with all the lawsuits and other backlash resulting from people burning to death. They miscalculated and lost a lot of money and got a lot of bad press.

The usual conclusion is that you can't put a price on a human life. But you can - you must. And EVERYONE, even those who won't admit it, do it all the time. Whether its actual money or just plain convenience (your overall odds of dying in a car crash are 10%), people weigh risks and make choices based on those risks. As an engineer, my designs are governed by laws and standards, so that reduces the choice for me and therefore my liability, but its always going to be there.

Whenever someone asks me about the value of a human life - (ie, we should spend $XXX to make YYY safer), I ask them how many immunizations that money would buy for children in Africa. Or pre-natal care for pregnant inner city women in the US. You get to a point where spending a whole lot of money will only gain you a very small improvement in health/safety when it comes to engineering issues.

[HAVOC451]

Ahhh clean energy too cheap to meter. What a whopper that was.

From mining the uranium to disposing the spent fuel nuclear power is expensive and carries a small but significant risk of monumental disaster. Find a uranium mine that hasn't caused a groundwater problem. Find a plant that's never sprung a leak in it's primary cooling system and had to let off a little steam. Find fuel pool that hasn't been racked and re-racked so many times that the plant it serves isn't a few re-fuels from shutting down simply because there is no other place to put the spent rods.
Pointing to the (debatable) fact that nuclear power hasn't killed anyone in the U.S. doesn't reduce the risk. If a big ugly earthquake knocks Diablo canyon into the ocean (it does sit on a fault)the death toll would be huge and the San Joaquine vally will be useless for agriculture for two hundred thousand years. Small risk? Perhaps, but risk indeed. If the worst happens at any reactor all the advocates of the industry will be able to do is stand by and weep with the rest of us.

Nuclear energy looked good on paper but failed miserably in a practical sense. When it all said an done splitting atoms to boil water is overkill on a scale like slicing tomatos with a chainsaw. If the effort to resurect the nuclear industry was put into photovoltaic technology we'd take a big step toward ending our dependence on coal and oil. Nuclear power is dying out in the U.S. Let it go.

[theroyprocess]

Guest Article: Making Nuclear Waste Less Harmful
Friday, 29 August 2003, 12:36 pm
Opinion: Guest Opinion

A Process To Render Nuclear Weapons & Waste Less Harmful

By Dennis F. Nester,
special for NuclearNo.com,
Originally published 20 June 2003
- Recycling plutonium from warheads into MOX nuclear reactor fuel only perpetuates the security and environmental problems of bomb grade elements
- There is a better way which will completely transmute plutonium and other high level nuclear waste known as the Roy Process

It was the TMI partial meltdown that moved Dr. Roy to spend the summer school break proving calculations to see if it was possible to transmute high level nuclear waste cost effectively. He found it could be done with existing infrastructure, commercially available machinery and current supporting technology.

Estimated cost to build a pilot facility was $80 million dollars. A newspaper editor persuaded Dr. Roy to release his Roy Process to the press which was published in November of 1979. (see article on web site below).

The Roy Process Brief Description
from the web site: http://members.cox.net/theroyprocess

Is there a safe process to get rid of nuclear waste? Maybe! One possible solution is a process invented by Dr. Radha R. Roy, former professor of Physics at Arizona State University, and designer and former director of the nuclear physics research facilities at the University of Brussels in Belgium and at Pennsylvania State University.

Dr. Roy is an internationally known nuclear physicist, consultant, and the author of over 60 articles and several books. He is also a contributing author of many invited articles in a prestigious encyclopedia. He is cited in American Men and Women of Science, Who`s Who in America, Who`s Who in the World and the International Biographical Centre, England. He has spent 52 years in European and American universities researching and writing recognized books on nuclear physics. He has supervised many doctoral students.

Roy invented a process for transmuting radioactive nuclear isotopes to harmless, stable isotopes. This process is viable not only for nuclear waste from reactors but also for low-level radioactive waste products.

In 1979, Roy announced his transmutation process and received international attention. The Roy process does not require storage of radioactive materials. No new equipment is required. In fact, all of the equipment and the chemical separation processes needed are well known.

What`s the basis for the Roy Process? If you examine radioactive elements such as strontium 90, cesium 137 and plutonium 239, you will see that they all have too many neutrons. To put it very simply, the Roy process transmutes these unstable isotopes to stable ones by knocking out the extra neutrons. When a neutron is removed, the resulting isotope has a considerably shorter half-life which then decays to a stable form in a reasonable amount of time.

How do we knock out neutrons? By bombarding them with photons (produced as x-rays) in a high- powered electron linear accelerator. Before this process, the isotopes must be separated by a well-known chemical process.

It is feasible that portable units could be built and transported to hazardous sites for on-site transmutation of nuclear wastes and radioactive wastes.

To give an example, cesium 137 with a half-life of 30.17 years is transformed into cesium 136 with a half-life of 13 days. Plutonium 239 with a half-life of 24,300 years is transformed into plutonium 237 with a half-life of 45.6 days. Subsequent radioactive elements which will be produced from the decay of plutonium 237 can be treated in the same way as above until the stable element is formed.

The Roy Process could be developed in three distinct phases, according to Roy. Phase I consists of a theoretical feasibility study of the process to obtain needed parameters for the construction of a prototype machine. Phase II will involve the construction of a prototype machine and supporting facilities for demonstrating the process. Phase Ill will consist of the construction of large scale commercial plants based on the data obtained from Phase II.

Cost estimates for Phase I and II are in the neighborhood of $10 million. For Phase Ill, Roy estimates a cost of $70 million. Says Roy, `It will be interesting to do a cost analysis of eliminating nuclear waste by using my process and by burying it for 240,000 years - ten half-lives of plutonium - under strict scientific control. There is also an ethical question: can we really burden the thousands of generations yet to come with problems which we have created? There is no God among human beings who can guarantee how the geological structure of waste burial regions will change even after ten thousand years, not to mention 240,000 years."

If you are interested in finding out more about this process, please contact Dennis Nester, Roy`s agent, whose address is listed below.

A final note

To those who say that a process for transforming nuclear wastes is an invitation to keep making them, I ask, when we find a cure for cancer, shall we say it`s okay to continue to eat, drink and breathe carcinogens?

"There is no way one can change nuclear structure other than by nuclear reaction. Burial of nuclear waste is not a solution." Radha Roy, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus

"Do not be surprised if you learn that the nuclear industry makes billions of dollars by being a part of government`s policy of burial of nuclear wastes. It is not in their financial interest to try any other process. They are not idealists. Radha R. Roy, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus

The below includes the Patent application claim.....describing other uses for the Roy Process transmutation method

http://members.cox.net/theroyprocess/additional-uses-royprocess.html




*************
AUTHOR CONTACT DETAILS

Dennis F. Nester 4510 E. Willow Ave. Phoenix, AZ 85032 USA (602) 494-9361 theroyprocess@cox.net

[theroyprocess]

Subject: RADIATION BIOLOGICAL EFFECT--DR. BERTELL


http://www.ratical.com/radiation/NRBE/NRadBioEffects.html

Radiation and thyroid disease:

http://www.rabble.ca/everyones_a_critic.shtml?x=26069

TWO BULLET ROULETTE

http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20030922&s=bivens

[RuiMonteiro]

That just plain isn't true - in the US (and I would venture to say Western Europe) anyway.

It is true. The responsible authorities say this quantities are safe for the human body. But how safe are they? Considering all the pressure that nuclear industry does, it doesn´t seems very safe to me.


Unfortunately, fusion power is still a very long way off.


Yes, the treaty agreeded that the US should present the fusion reactor around 2050, but a vaste and profound research will exist. And the research related to nuclear power will have to continue, the spent fuel isn´t solved yet. But this (in terms of scientific research) is not a strong argument in my opinion, there are inumerous areas to do research, whether it´s physics related or medical care related.


theroyprocess, thanks for all the articles. I still haven´t read them all, and the ones i did weren´t on their entirity, but they seem very intersting.



Rui.

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by HAVOC451
From mining the uranium to disposing the spent fuel nuclear power is expensive and carries a small but significant risk of monumental disaster. Find a uranium mine that hasn't caused a groundwater problem. Find a plant that's never sprung a leak in it's primary cooling system and had to let off a little steam. Find fuel pool that hasn't been racked and re-racked so many times that the plant it serves isn't a few re-fuels from shutting down simply because there is no other place to put the spent rods.
Pointing to the (debatable) fact that nuclear power hasn't killed anyone in the U.S. doesn't reduce the risk. If a big ugly earthquake knocks Diablo canyon into the ocean (it does sit on a fault)the death toll would be huge and the San Joaquine vally will be useless for agriculture for two hundred thousand years. Small risk? Perhaps, but risk indeed. If the worst happens at any reactor all the advocates of the industry will be able to do is stand by and weep with the rest of us. Yes, there is no such thing as a perfect plant. Its true. But unless you want to allege (and PROVE) a vast conspiracy to hide evidence, at the end of the day all of what you just posted is evidence of how safe nuclear power is. The fact that nuclear power hasn't killed anyone in the US (or I'll allow - hasn't been SHOWN to have killed anyone) doesn't DECREASE the risk, it ILLUSTRATES what the risk is: extrordinarily low. And while those risks you speak of are measurable and quantifiable, the scenarios you describe are simply not in the realm of possibility. Chernobyl (for example) was orders of magnitude worse than anything that has ever happend in the US and what you describe is orders of magnitude worse than Chernobyl. And the the actual risk of something like that is extrordinarily low.

Your statement "Small risk? Perhaps, but risk indeed" implies that that any risk no matter how small needs to be guarded against. That simply isn't true. For example, there is a very real, measurable, and quantifiable risk that you will be struck and killed by a meteor. Do you worry about that risk? I sure hope not.

I kinda hinted at this in my last post, but the whole idea of probability and risk management just isn't understood (or maybe just not accepted) by the general public: Not every risk is worth doing something about. And this is one of the reasons for the lack of public support of nuclear power. The risks you speak of are too low to be considered worth ditching nuclear power - especially in the face of the alternative risks: a virtually guaranteed 70,000 deaths a year.

[theroyprocess]

Here is a web site that dispels nuclear power 'safety'.

http://www.mothersalert.org/moreinfo.html

[enigma]

Theroyprocess,

quite frankly, I don't trust your sources.

In the thread I started in the hosted forums, you posted "evidence" that more people than have been alive since the Manhattan project have died as a result of nuclear power. That's not only a silly assertion, it's physically impossible.

Every site you post is not an unbiased account, they are all hyper-reactionary sites with no clear grasp on reality.

There have been NO, count 'em, NO deaths specifically attributed to nuclear accidents in the US. Is a coverup possible? Sure. Anything's possible, but why bother?

Each and every year there are tens of thousands of deaths due to coal plants in the US alone. That's not including the detremental effects to health caused by belching tons of smoke into the air.

There is Uranium in trace amounts in sea water, and there has been from soil runoff long before we started mining the stuff out of the ground. We get blasted by rads from the Sun 24/7/365 and have been since the solar system formed. Coal burning is making more of those rads actually getting through the ozone hole to hit us.

Quite frankly, you're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't use nuclear power. The only way around it is to return to the a middle ages aggrarian society, and I doubt you'll attempt to make the case that the mean quality of life or lifespan were higher back then.

The unbiased facts are that unless you're detonating nuclear bombs in the atmosphere, the effect on quality of life on this planet is statistically insignificant.

It's the reactionaries with their heads in the clouds who obfusciate the issue, causing thousands of extra people each year to die from breathing related afflictions from the coal plants.

Give me the nuclear plant in my backyard over a coal plant any day.

[RuiMonteiro]

There is one determinant aspect that is crucial for this thread, the fossil fuel power plants won´t be closed just because the number of nuclear plants is increased (if increased, in the US at least), there´s still large reservs of fossil fuels, where petroleum is estimated to end around 2050 (wich, ironically is around the same time the US should present the fusion reactor) and coal in about 200 years. And this is just because the energetic demands are still growing, this is the reality. So, an increase on the number of nuclear powrs will just increase the air pollution.



Rui.

[theroyprocess]

The only thing unbiased in this world...is a corpse.
Nuclear power will kill us all in time by slow burn or
nuclear war. NPPs were devised to make electric rate payers
pay for the high cost of weapons grade elements. The 'big
lie' was Nukes would provide FREE electric power..."too cheap
to meter" ! Now there are 441 NPPs worldwide, 103 in the USA.
There is so much plutonium and 'dirty bomb'elements out there
it's an international security risk. Nukes was the biggest
mistake of the industrial age.

Half-Life: Living With Nuclear Waste

http://archive.greenpeace.org/mayak/index.html


Dr. Rosalie Bertell...new book,

http://www.iicph.org/planet_earth.htm


NIRS URL

http://www.nirs.org/

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by enigma
Theroyprocess,

quite frankly, I don't trust your sources. Sorry, Theoryprocess, I agreee. That site can best be described as an enviro-conspiracy theory site. It doesn't provide evidence but rather claims the evidence is covered up. Convenient. Also, Theoryprocess, you lump together nuclear power and nuclear weapons. They are similar but not the same thing and the politics and risks of nuclear weapons doesn't change the benefits of nuclear power. Your opinion on this subject quite simply isn't based on the facts.

Also, I will wholeheartedly agree that nuclear power isn't a perfect solution. Such a thing does not exist. But if you want to argue against it, you need to first substantiate your claims of its problems and second, suggest a VIABLE ALTERNATIVE. You have done neither.Give me the nuclear plant in my backyard over a coal plant any day. Ditto. Incidentally, I live about 20 miles from the Limerick nuclear power plant in Pottstown, PA. And I spent a year in a prep school in Pottstown less than 5 miles from the plant. Except for an extra hand growing out of the middle of my chest, I'm just fine.[:D] And chalk up a few hundred more deaths today to the type of ignorance I'm trying to change. Though maybe there is more to it than just ignorance. Fear is a powerful force at work here. But either way, the solution is KNOWLEDGE. There is one determinant aspect that is crucial for this thread, the fossil fuel power plants won´t be closed just because the number of nuclear plants is increased...So, an increase on the number of nuclear powrs will just increase the air pollution. What I would support is adding nuclear plants to REPLACE existing coal plants. Obviously if we only add new plants to handle new capacity, we don't reduce pollution. But yes, coal is cheap and abundant so thats why we use it. So that makes it tough economically to justify. But call me a sappy environmentalist - I think its worth the money to save a hundred thousand lives a year and increase the quality of life for everyone.[:))]

[HAVOC451]

Originally posted by russ_watters
I will wholeheartedly agree that nuclear power isn't a perfect solution. Such a thing does not exist. But if you want to argue against it, you need to first substantiate your claims of its problems and second, suggest a VIABLE ALTERNATIVE. You have done neither. Ditto. Incidentally, I live about 20 miles from the Limerick nuclear power plant in Pottstown, PA. And I spent a year in a prep school in Pottstown less than 5 miles from the plant. Except for an extra hand growing out of the middle of my chest, I'm just fine.[:D] And chalk up a few hundred more deaths today to the type of ignorance I'm trying to change. Though maybe there is more to it than just ignorance. Fear is a powerful force at work here. But either way, the solution is KNOWLEDGE. What I would support is adding nuclear plants to REPLACE existing coal plants. Obviously if we only add new plants to handle new capacity, we don't reduce pollution. But yes, coal is cheap and abundant so thats why we use it. So that makes it tough economically to justify. But call me a sappy environmentalist - I think its worth the money to save a hundred thousand lives a year and increase the quality of life for everyone.[:))]

I don't think that's sappy at all. But, in the time it would take to design, license, and build a few nukers, (Add extra time to deal with the courts while every anti-nuke protester in the country trys to stop construction.) the photovoltaic industry could provide a better solution. As demand grows the technology improves and the cost comes down. Lots of good paying jobs are created. There's really no reason why there couldn't be 2 or 3 kilowatts of PV cells on 2 million roofs through the sun belt in just 2 years.
Just a thought.

[theroyprocess]

I knew the late Dr. Roy for the last ten years of his astounding
career as a world leading pioneer in nuclear physics. Click on BIO
and career highlights on the web site:
http://members.cox.net/theroyprocess
During that time I typed up the first manuscript of his yet
unpublished autobiography. It was such a privilege to hear his
memories and quite instructive about the political and racial
realities of science.

Obviously most people's political favor goes to whomever signs their
paychecks.

The next Chernobyl magnitude meltdown will put an end to the nuclear
experiment. The Union of Concerned Scientists predicts a 1 in 3 chance
of a meltdown in the USA in the next 5 years due to sumps plugging
up.

The FDA has approved anti-radiation drugs. You can't fool mother
nature forever with rhetoric. The bill comes due at some point.

http://www.nukepills.com/contentbuilder/layout.php3?contentPath=content/00/01/08/65/98/userdirectory6.content

[enigma]

Want to place a bet then?

I'll give you 3 to 1 odds.

If there is a meltdown in the US in the next 5 years, you get $300 of my money.

If there isn't, you owe me $100.

How about it?

[RuiMonteiro]

What I would support is adding nuclear plants to REPLACE existing coal plants. Obviously if we only add new plants to handle new capacity, we don't reduce pollution. But yes, coal is cheap and abundant so thats why we use it. So that makes it tough economically to justify. But call me a sappy environmentalist - I think its worth the money to save a hundred thousand lives a year and increase the quality of life for everyone.

But that´s a solution, i´m talking about the reality. If there´s still large reservs of fossil fuel they will be used till the end of them. My post was one more fact that needs to be considered, on paper all the ideas to reduce the pollution are only valid if the governments are willing to spend big money when they can use cheaper solutions, it would be very expensive to replace fossil fuel plants by nuclear plants, just consider the number of nuclear usines in the US and the 20% of energetic resources they represent there, so, i ask again, how more nuclear powers would be needed? It´s more chepear to just add more plants (any type of plant) instead of replacing them. It´s all about money.
With this, i´m not validating or invalidating your reply, i´m just stating on happens.


Rui.

[theroyprocess]

Dr. Roy estimated cost at 80 million dollars in 1979 to
construct a Roy Process pilot plant. You could shut down the
aging nuclear power reactors and use the transmutation of the
spent fuel as the heat source to make steam and power the
existing generators. Forever eliminate high level isotopes, prevent
bomb grade and 'dirty bomb' element theft, and generate electric
power....what more could you ask for?

Bet on a nuclear meltdown? It's already too late! Atmospheric
atom bomb 'testing' fallout has forever adulterated the genetic
fabric of all life on earth. I believe first cited in Rachel Carson's
book SILENT SPRING. Man made, long lived radioactive elements are in
our DNA, our bones, muscles, teeth...and will affect the health of
future generations who will add to their body burden of toxics.


Pressure Reactor Sump Failure.

http://www.nirs.org/reactors/ucspwrsumpbrief.pdf

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by theroyprocess
The next Chernobyl magnitude meltdown will put an end to the nuclear
experiment. The Union of Concerned Scientists predicts a 1 in 3 chance
of a meltdown in the USA in the next 5 years due to sumps plugging
up. Remember, the magnitude of Chernobyl was TINY. Like I said before, if EVERY nuclear power plant in the US has a Chernobly magnitude meltdown, air pollution would STILL kill more people in a month. The biggest cost would be the money and energy lost.

And I'd take the bet too. I'd give 100 to 1 odds. Because of the differences in design, a Chernobyl style meltdown would require something like a meteor strike to happen - the odds really are that low.

Another risk management analogy I like to use is cars vs planes. I know a whole lot of people who are afraid to fly. Many really do even think that cars are safer than planes. I actaully had an aunt and uncle who for a while would drive to the airport together, then take separate flights so that if one of them died, the other would be able to take care of the kids. Never mind that they were several orders of magnitude more likely to die on the car ride than on the plane. And these were otherwise intelligent people. Maybe its just emotion overriding logic. Dunno, but its a very dangerous thing.

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by RuiMonteiro
...just consider the number of nuclear usines in the US and the 20% of energetic resources they represent there, so, i ask again, how more nuclear powers would be needed? It´s more chepear to just add more plants (any type of plant) instead of replacing them. It´s all about money. True. And assuming your 20% number is right (sounds about right) it would require about 150 more nuclear plants to replace our existing coal plants. With this, i´m not validating or invalidating your reply, i´m just stating on happens. Given the political climate, you are probably right - it won't be a realistic possibility any time soon. You never know though - if New York style blackouts start happening every week ten years from now (a real possibility), that just might change the political climate.

The difference between what I propose and what the "environmentalists" propose however is that my solution is real, would work, would reduce pollution, would not require massive changes in our energy usage, and would save lives. Environmentalist's plans don't even get to the "would work" stage.

[theroyprocess]

[spam deleted]

Don't do that.

-Russ

[chroot]

Originally posted by theroyprocess
Atmospheric
atom bomb 'testing' fallout has forever adulterated the genetic
fabric of all life on earth. I believe first cited in Rachel Carson's
book SILENT SPRING. Man made, long lived radioactive elements are in
our DNA, our bones, muscles, teeth...and will affect the health of
future generations who will add to their body burden of toxics.
Boy, you bring alarmism to new heights. No, really, you're basically insane.

Do you realize that radioactive carbon, radioactive nitrogen, radioactive oxygen, radioactive silicon, radioactive potassium, radioactive sodium, and radioactive calcium are all in your body right now, all from completely natural sources? These radioisotopes are already in your DNA, your bones, your muscles and your teeth! When you go out and sit on the beach, the UV light from the Sun is causing some tens of thousands of lesions (bonded thymine bases, causing the separation of the two strands of DNA) per second per cell. This is no sweat for your cellular defenses.

Why do you not grasp the concept that radioactivity is natural, and is all around us, every day? Why do you think a plutonium atom in your breakfast cereal is going to kill you instantly?

- Warren

[chroot]

By the way, your continued alarmism re: long half-life radioisotopes begs the comment:

Nearly all heavy metals have a biological half-life of less than six months. This means the half-life of the radioisotope is not a big deal, assuming that the people in the contaminated area are moved elsewhere so their consumption of the material stops.

Let's take an example: Cs-137, one of the most dangerous radioisotopes due to its chemical similarity to potassium.

1) The biological half-life of Cs-137 is about 115 days. (Source: CDC, http://www.bt.cdc.gov/radiation/prussianblue.asp)

2) The radiological half-life of Cs-137 is 30.17 years. (Source: DOE)

3) The specific activity of Cs-137 is 86.4 curies/g, or 3.2 x 1012 beta decays per second per gram. (Source: DOE)

Let's say a very unlucky person ingests an entire milligram of pure Cs-137. How many decays will his body experience in the time period until the concentration of Cs-137 is his body is 1% of the original dose?

This takes 6.64 biological half-lives, or about two years.

After two years, about 95% of the Cs-137 is still active.

The total dose received by the subject is 1.42429 x 1012 decays over those two years.

If the radiological half-life for Cs-137 were instead 10,000 years, 330 times longer, the total dose would be 1.43842 x 1012 decays, or just about 1% more decays.

- Warren

[theroyprocess]

I have heard that at the beginning of the industrial age
200 years ago..the cancer rate was estimated at 1 in 100
died from cancer. It is almost 1 in 2 today. Dr. Jay Gould's book
ENEMY WITHIN cites breast cancer rates were going down prior
to 1945...then with the first atom bomb explosion, breast cancer
went up about 2% each year till now 1 in 9 women with get it.
Here is more on radiation and biology.

http://www.ratical.com/radiation/NRBE/NRadBioEffects.html

[chroot]

Originally posted by theroyprocess
I have heard that at the beginning of the industrial age
200 years ago..the cancer rate was estimated at 1 in 100
died from cancer.
You've heard this? Do you have any statistical evidence? I don't think this is true at all. I'm not even sure if people knew how many different illnesses were in fact all just different forms of cancer 200 years ago.

Besides, you have blinders on. What did these people die from then, if not from cancer? Was the life expectancy the same then as it was today?

If you're really so paranoid, you can buy or build you own Geiger counter for less than $100. Then you can personally monitor your dose 24 hours a day, and you can compare it to the dose received on average by people living 200 years ago.

I think you'll eventually learn the following: the Earth is an absolutely immensely large place. If you take a pound of plutonium-239 and distribute it evenly over the entire planet -- which is apparently your conception of the worst case -- each square meter receives 5.56470179 × 10^-22 kg of plutonium, or about 1400 atoms of plutonium.

1400 atoms of plutonium has a specific activity of 3.40828 x 10^-20 curies, or about 1.2610636 x 10^-09 decays per second. That's right, that's about one decay in 25 years.

You could go further and calculate the chances of those decay products actually hitting people -- most of them will go right into the earth or right up into the atmosphere. Only a very very few will be emitted at the correct angle to strike a person. I could calculate this factor, but what's the point?

I'll let you extrapolate the figures for 100 pounds, or 10,000 pounds of plutonium released. Observe the trend:

It's utterly insignificant.

- Warren

[theroyprocess]

6/3/02
5:32:18 PM


16th Anniversary of Chernobyl

2002 marked the 16th anniversary of worst nuclear power plant accident in history. On April 26, 1986 at 1:23 am technicians at the Chernobyl Power Plant in the Ukraine allowed the power in the fourth reactor to fall to low levels as part of a "controlled" experiment. The reactor overheated causing a meltdown of the core. Two explosions blew the top off the reactor building releasing clouds of deadly radioactive material in the atmosphere for over ten days. People living near Chernobyl were exposed to radioactivity 100 times greater than the Hiroshima bomb. People in other parts of the world were also exposed to radioactive material blown northward by the wind. Seventy percent of the radiation is estimated to have fallen on Belarus. Ten years after the accident, babies were still being born with no arms, no eyes, or only stumps for limbs. Some 15 million people have been victims of the disaster in some way. More than 600,000 people were involved with the cleanup, many of whom are now sick or dead. The Chernobyl Plant is made up of four graphite reactors; Number 4 exploded in 1986, Number 2 was shut down due to a fire in 1991.

Remembering the 16th anniversary of Chernobyl, Ecodefense! and the Youth Human Rights Movement in Russia organized a demonstration in front of the Kremlin. Activists from 30 Russian cities gathered to speak out against the government's intention to import nuclear waste into Russia and against the country's plan to develop nuclear energy. Dressed in white jumpsuits with radiation symbols on the front, many activists experienced violence from police, and both activists and journalists alike were arrested at the demonstration. Many individuals and organizations oppose the plans of the Russian Ministry of Atomic Power (MINATOM) to import spent nuclear fuel from other countries, plans that were approved by both the Russian Parliament and President Vladimir Putin in 2001. Environmentalists say their country cannot even handle its own nuclear waste safely, and until problems with Russian waste are solved, waste from anywhere else should not be imported. (source: Environmental News Service; 26 April)

In London, Irish protesters commemorated the 16th anniversary of Chernobyl by bombarding Prime Minister Tony Blair and Prince Charles with postcards demanding the closure of Britain's Sellafield nuclear plant. Ali Hewson, the wife of Irish rock star Bono of the band U2 stated, "Sellafield has the potential to be 80 times the size of the Chernobyl accident." More than 1.2 million postcards reading "Tony, look me in the eye and tell me I'm safe," were sent from Irish households for delivery on 26 April. Sellafield, which houses some 75 tons of plutonium, has been an ongoing source of tension between Ireland and Britain because it is a source of pollution on the Irish coast and prone to accident.

>From 6-8 May, Norway will host talks with 20 countries on how to cooperate in the case of a Chernobyl-style nuclear disaster. Experts discuss ways to implement conventions on early notification and assistance in nuclear accidents. Countries attending include Brazil, Canada, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Nordic nations, the US. Russia has said it is unable to attend but is willing to contribute to later work.

Resources on Chernobyl:

Graph of Chernobyl Fallout

http://www.nea.fr/html/rp/chernobyl/c02.html

Chernobyl Children's Project

http://www.adiccp.org/

Chernobyl: Ten Years On Radiological and Health Impact

http://www.nea.fr/html/rp/chernobyl/welcome.html

Chernobyl radiation disaster information

http://www.chernobyl.com/

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by chroot
You've heard this? Do you have any statistical evidence? I don't think this is true at all. I'm not even sure if people knew how many different illnesses were in fact all just different forms of cancer 200 years ago. On the contrary, it likely IS true - for the reason you stated: Besides, you have blinders on. What did these people die from then, if not from cancer? Was the life expectancy the same then as it was today? People didn't die from cancer 100 years ago because they quite simply didn't live long enough to get it.

Thats a pretty basic error, theoryprocess - as, quite frankly, are most of your errors.

[chroot]

Originally posted by russ_watters
People didn't die from cancer 100 years ago because they quite simply didn't live long enough to get it.
Precisely, that's what I was leading him to see...

- Warren

[theroyprocess]

So far as the cancer rate estimate of 200 years ago I
remember from decades ago....why do you presume the
study did not take into account death from other causes?
There is no safe level for radiation...avoid it if you can.

[chroot]

Originally posted by theroyprocess
So far as the cancer rate estimate of 200 years ago I
remember from decades ago....why do you presume the
study did not take into account death from other causes?
Because, as a scientist, I cannot trust someone else's assumptions -- ever. If you can't provide evidence that the researchers actually performed their analysis correctly, their conclusions are useless. I'm sorry, but you remembering something from a paper you read decades ago just won't cut it for "scientific evidence."
There is no safe level for radiation...avoid it if you can.
Of course. In industry, people strive for doses that are ALAP -- As Low As Possible. This is just common sense.

- Warren

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by theroyprocess
There is no safe level for radiation...avoid it if you can. Clearly. But you don't understand what that means: Virtually all of the radiation you are exposed to you CAN'T avoid. And the amount of that radiation that comes from man-made sources is too low to measure. So wear sunscreen. Heck, wear lead underwear. It won't keep you from getting colon cancer.

Though I won't say it as bluntly as Warren, I too wonder where you get your misconceptions. I said in the beginning of the thread that I hoped to help educate the ignorant. But that isn't you. You have clearly made a great effort to gather all of the INCORRECT information you can on the subject. Through the course of your research, I am CERTAIN you must have accidentally stumbled upon mountains of correct information and conclusions. Why you choose to believe wrong information and wrong conclusions, I can't begin to understand, much less help you fix. Is it conscious - do you know the truth but have an adjenda you want to pursue so you consciously choose to ignore the truth? Or is it unconscious - do you have some sort of bias or blindness or fear that doesn't allow you to recognize the truth when you see it or reach logical conclusions when you do have correct information (you even cited information that supports what I said - your 10 years after Chernobyl link)? I just don't know.

Those who are ignorant and willing to learn or have incorrect ideas and are willing to learn I can help. Those who have incorrect ideas and are not willing to learn, I can do nothing for. Fortunately, there are a lot more of the former than the latter.

[theroyprocess]

Go to Chernobyl...talk to the people...go to the hospitals,
talk to the doctors if they arn't too afraid to speak.
Have a nice mushroom omelette...and check it with your
Geiger counter.

It will happen again...somewhere.

[chroot]

Originally posted by theroyprocess
Go to Chernobyl...talk to the people...go to the hospitals,
talk to the doctors if they arn't too afraid to speak.
Have a nice mushroom omelette...and check it with your
Geiger counter.

It will happen again...somewhere.
Oh no! Boogedy-boogedy! Beep, beep, Ritchie!

- Warren

[theroyprocess]

Can't fool mother nature...and get away with it !

Human Sperm In Dramatic Decline Scientists Warn
By Aaron Derfel Montreal Gazette
http://www.montrealgazette.com 7-3-1

Scientists from around the world are alarmed by a
dramatic increase in genetically damaged human sperm -
a trend that is not only causing infertility in men,
but also childhood cancers in the offspring of those
who can reproduce.

It's now estimated that up to 85 per cent of the
sperm produced by a healthy male is DNA-damaged, a
leading authority on the subject revealed yesterday at
an international conference being held in Montreal.

"That's very unusual," said John Aitken, head of
biological sciences at the University of Newcastle in
Australia.

"If you were to take a rat or a mouse or a rabbit,
usually more than 80 per cent of their sperm would be
normal."

For the last 20 years, scientists have known about
declining sperm counts. But researchers are now
learning that the quality of human sperm is steadily
eroding, and might be causing birth defects as well
as brain cancer and leukemia in children.

Abnormal sperm is also being blamed for a global
increase in testicular cancer - a disease that strikes
men in their 30s. Scientists believe that when a
DNA-damaged sperm fertilizes a woman's egg, it can
trigger a mutation of a key gene in the embryo.

And even if men today can reproduce, their damaged
sperm might lead to infertility in their male progeny,
Aitken suggested. "You're likely to see lots of
diseases that are related to poorer semen quality."

Scientists suspect a wide range of environmental
causes for the abnormal sperm - from exposure to
pesticides and heavy metals to electromagnetic
radiation.

"We're all exposed to 10 times more electromagnetic
radiation than our forefathers," Aitken said. "It's
all the electrical appliances we use, including
microwave phones."

There is a consensus in the scientific community
that men who smoke cause damage to their sperm, and
that this might be responsible for childhood cancers.
"If you are a man and you smoke, your semen profile
won't be obviously affected," Aitken said. "You'll
still have lots of sperm swimming around and you'll be
fertile. But the DNA in your sperm
nucleus will be fragmented."

The average ejaculate of human sperm contains 80
million spermatazoa, each genetically programmed to
fertilize a woman's egg. Scientists examining human
sperm have discovered that not only are sperm counts
on
the decline, but that the vast majority of sperm is
sluggish, poorly structured, their DNA fragmented and
that they generate a lot of cellular waste called free
radicals.

"Generally speaking, everything is bad with the
sperm," Aitken said.

Fortunately for most couples, it's the undamaged
or least damaged sperm that tends to fertilize the
egg.

As a result of increasing male infertility,
scientists have developed a new technique to help
couples conceive. It's called Intra-Cytoplasmic
Sperm Injection (ICSI). In the lab, a technologist
will take from the would-be father a single sperm, or
even a cell that is on its way to becoming a sperm,
and fertilize it in the test tube with the woman's
egg. The resulting embryo is then transferred to the
woman's uterus.

Dr. Keith Jarvi, of the University of Toronto-Mount
Sinai Hospital, said the ICSI technique has
revolutionized the treatment of male infertility. But
he wondered about the health outcomes of the ICSI
children.

That human sperm is of poorer quality than that of
other mammals is not surprising. The human species is
the only one that wears clothes, and healthy sperm
need to be kept a couple of degrees cooler than the
full body temperature. But clothing alone is not
responsible for the extent of abnormal human sperm,
Aitken argued.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/pages/010622/5081326.html

Aaron Derfel's E-mail address is
<aderfel@thegazette.southam.ca>
______________________________
(c) 2001, The Montreal Gazette
http://www.montrealgazette.com


=====
"We're all downwinders!" Check
out http://www.downwinders.org

[chroot]

Uh right... my cell phone is making my nuts sick? This is retarded. Where do you find this crap?

- Warren

[theroyprocess]

FYI

MANIFESTO FOR PR. BANDAZHEVSKY'S RELEASE AND
FREEDOM OF RESEARCH

Pr. Yury Bandazhevsky is currently imprisoned
in Minsk, Belarus since
June 2001. As a Doctor and an Expert on radiation
exposure caused by the
Chernobyl accident he was appointed in 1990 as
Rector of the Gomel Medical
institute. Gomel has been the hardest hit area by
nuclear releases. From
1990 to 1999, along with his wife Galina, also a
Doctor, Pr. Bandazhevsky
studied damages caused by Caesium 137: heart
diseases, cataracts, early
aging, etc.. He has discovered a measurable
relationship between nuclear
doses and various symptoms. In 1999, he published
his results at a time
when many people wanted to turn a blind eye to the
problems and wish to send
Belarus inhabitants back to the lands that are
still contaminated. Before his
arrest in July 1999 he had written a report
critical of the Belarus Government
official research conducted with international
funds regarding Chernobyl
after effects. Pr. Bandazhevsky was arrested
shortly after the issuance of
this report on the basis of a Presidential Decree
" for the Combat of
terrorism."

In 2001, he stood accused of having received
money from students
seeking admission to Gomel Medical Institute.
After a trial held before a
Military Tribunal he was sentenced to eight years
imprisonment. Expert
witnesses who attended the trial have noted at
least 8 infringements of the
Belarussian Criminal Code and the main prosecution
witness had retracted his
statement against Pr. Bandazhevsky. Pr.
Bandazhevsky is currently jailed in
a penal colony with harsh conditions tantamount to
a Gulag.

But we think that the right to a fair trial
is not the only one to have
been thwarted. Beside people's opinions about
things nuclear, what is at stake is
the RIGHT TO KNOW THE TRUTH, the right to conduct
research and the scientist's
right to communicate data. Also the right for
people to know it without
interference that is politically or economically
motivated.

THE INDEPENDENCE OF ALL RESEARCH in the
services of Humanity is as
important a principle as the independence of
Justice. Pr. Bandazhevsky's
imprisonment flouts both these principles.
Therefore, we, the undersigned,
ask for the immediate and unconditional release
of Pr. Bandazhevsky in
order that he can carry on his research without
interference at his
Institute.

We suggest that all scientists, researchers,
scholars and citizens
stand for these principles:

- Sign this manifesto for freedom of research
and Pr. Bandazhevsky's
unconditional and immediate release.
- But also to have Pr. Bandazhevsky appointed as
a Best Man (or Honourable
Citizen) of their cities, such as Paris and
Clermont-Ferrand (France)
- Or have him appointed as Doctor Honoris
Causa in their universities

We wish to publish this Manifesto in a large
newspaper and send it to the
Belarus Government. Please sign it and pass it
to all parties interested in justice, freedom of
speech, freedom to conduct objective research and
human rights asking them to sign it, too. Your
help is greatly appreciated and will go a long way
in helping to free Dr. Bandazhevsky and promote
accurate research and publication of the radiation
induced effects of Chernobyl on humanity.

[theroyprocess]

RF radiation health threat news story from Scotland.

http://www.sundayherald.com/print32689

[theroyprocess]

NewScientist.com


Sea birds drop radioactivity on land


19:00 02 January 03
Andy Coghlan


Droppings from seabirds could be introducing radioactive isotopes into the food chain. That is the conclusion of researchers who found high levels of radioactivity in droppings and plants on an island close to the Arctic.

If tests confirm that the guano is bringing radioactivity ashore, it will need to be factored into pollution assessments that gauge radiation risks to human health and ecosystems. The risk is probably low at temperate latitudes, but could be much greater in the fragile wastes of the Arctic. There, guano is a major source of nutrients for plants, which are then eaten by animals.

Radioactive material gets into the oceans from natural geological processes on the sea floor, but radioactive isotopes from human nuclear activity can add to this. In the Arctic, radioactive material has been dumped in the Kara Sea to the east of the Barents Sea.

And radioactive material from nuclear accidents such as the 1986 Chernobyl disaster has reached the seas, along with particles from atmospheric tests of nuclear weapons.


Vast piles


The evidence that bird droppings are bringing radioactivity ashore comes from Mark Dowdall and his team at the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority in Tromsø. They spent two years between 2000 and 2002 collecting soil, vegetation and guano samples from a remote coastal inlet called Kongsfjord on the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, about halfway between the northern tip of Norway and the North Pole.

The samples of bird droppings were from vast piles produced by two colonies of seabirds supporting kittiwakes, puffins and fulmars. Tests showed the guano contained 10 times the concentration of radioactive isotopes found at other sites on the island.

The researchers found unusually high concentrations of the natural radioisotopes uranium-238 and radium-226, which decay to form more hazardous isotopes. But they also found high concentrations of the isotope caesium-137, which does not occur naturally. Dowdall suspects this is from the fallout of atmospheric nuclear tests carried out decades ago.

Tests on vegetation growing near the guano also revealed high concentrations of radioactive material. "It means that low levels in the Arctic environment don't stay low, they become concentrated," he says.


Fish and crustaceans


Dowdall believes the birds eat contaminated fish and crustaceans, and the radioactive material is then concentrated in their faeces. The extra nutrients the droppings provide encourage plants to grow, and the plants take up and concentrate the radioactive material.

This poses a problem, because plants make up the bulk of the diet of many animals, especially that of indigenous reindeer. "We're talking about a very vulnerable environment, and when reindeer eat the [contaminated] vegetation, it's in the food chain," says Dowdall.

Environmental researchers are intrigued by the finding. "I don't think people have looked at this particular pathway before," says Scott Fowler at the International Atomic Energy Authority's Marine Environmental Lab in Monaco.

However, in 1999, pigeons roosting in contaminated buildings on the site of British Nuclear Fuels' Sellafield reprocessing complex in Cumbria were found to contain 40 times the European Union's safe limit of caesium-137.


19:00 02 January 03

[russ_watters]

Ok theoryprocess, enough with the flooding. It isn't helping you any. And why don't you read your own link - the one titled "Chernobyl: Ten Years On Radiological and Health Impact." It confirms what I said about the [LACK OF] severetiy of the accident. 38 deaths from acute (immediate) radiation sickness (several other people died in the accident, but they were killed by the fire) and a statistically significant increase in only ONE type of cancer in the immediate area of the accident (several hundred cases of a curable form of thyroid cancer).

Now: could you PLEASE tell me how you can think that is worse than the 70,000 people who are killed by air pollution in the US EVERY YEAR.

With the radio tower thing, I'm also getting a much clearer picture of where you are coming from - you're a "dark ages" environmentalist. Someone who is anti-technology in general. Well, my friend, the first place to start is always with yourself - you posted all those floods with a computer. And [gasp] it uses electricity. There are several "dark ages" environmentalists who I have heard of who have gotten rid of all of their technology and gone to live in national parks. Those at least I respect - they aren't hypocrites.

[enigma]

Originally posted by russ_watters
Now: could you PLEASE tell me how you can think that is worse than the 70,000 people who are killed by air pollution in the US EVERY YEAR.


I'll second that. This is not your personal soapbox. Unless and until you can answer that question, anymore of your "articles" will be deleted.

This thread did have a point before you took it upon yourself to derail it.

[theroyprocess]

Causing premature involuntary death is homicide whether
its some 200,000 a year from routine care in hospitals
Ralph Nader cites....or any other cause. But to say
Chernobyl only killed 38 people and to minimize the
worst industrial catastrophe in human history is like
saying the Holocaust never happened ! One Chernobyl
should have been enough.

http://www.mothersalert.org/victims.html

[enigma]

But there has only been one Chernobyl, and 70,000 die each year from hacking death due to coal plants. Chernobyl happened once, killing far less than 70K per year. Which is the greater evil?!?

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by theroyprocess
Causing premature involuntary death is homicide whether
its some 200,000 a year from routine care in hospitals
Ralph Nader cites....or any other cause. But to say
Chernobyl only killed 38 people and to minimize the
worst industrial catastrophe in human history is like
saying the Holocaust never happened ! One Chernobyl
should have been enough. On rereading the article YOU PROVIDED, I must correct myself - the number is 31, not 38. And that includes those who burned to death (ie died from causes other than radiation).

In any case, your answer is insufficient. Feel free to explain yourself and answer the question I posed, but further rants will be deleted.

And congratulations - in the two months I have been a mentor, your post was the first I have felt the need to edit.

Also, the last article you posted sounds complicated and technical enough to fool people who don't read it closely enough (thats probably why it is made to sound so complicated and technical), but it contains glaring errors in the assumptions and calculations. I would hope though that most lay people picked up on the fact that the title doesn't match the later statements - 1.2 vs 1.3 billion (overall casualties).

Also using the rate of 10 million and doing a reality check on how it relates to the 1.2 billion number brings up a glaring mismatch, seeing as how nuclear power/weapons have only been around for about 50 years. If the injury/death rate scaled linearly (it wouldn't - it would scale geometrically, reducing the total further) and the earth's population doubled since 1950, that would equal a total of 125 million casualties. Her own calculations don't match each other by an order of magnitude.

Further, such numbers are so high we would see them - clustered around nuclear power plants. The assumption of a uniform exposure of the entire earths population besides being preposterous allows her to ignore the fact that there is no statistically relevant increase in cancers in the vicinity of nuclear power plants.

[theroyprocess]

Not technical enough...or too technical...here is a
good source of material that the layman can understand
but no doubt you will find some reason to dismiss it.
It is very rare for scientists to get enough funding to
do proper 'independent' studies.


EDITED by enigma


*flooding deleted*

I wasn't kidding. No more links, no more articles. Not until you answer this:


Now: could you PLEASE tell me how you can think that is worse than the 70,000 people who are killed by air pollution in the US EVERY YEAR.

The remote chance to kill a few hundred people and the chance to increase the probability of getting cancer by a fraction of a percent for a few hundred people

vs.

A guaranteed mortality rate of 70,000 per year plus a dramatic increase in asthma and other breathing related illnesses.

How is the first one worse?

[theroyprocess]

I hope this answers your question. I think death by radiation
is worse [BECAUSE RADIATION IS INVISABLE, ODERLESS AND HAPPENS
WITHOUT INITIAL SENSATION] by the time a victim gets cancer 20
years more or less...it is impossible to prove a direct cause
and effect. It may take hundreds of years of studies to show
good evidence...by that time mankind will be extinct.

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by theroyprocess
I hope this answers your question. I think death by radiation
is worse [BECAUSE RADIATION IS INVISABLE, ODERLESS AND HAPPENS
WITHOUT INITIAL SENSATION] by the time a victim gets cancer 20
years more or less...it is impossible to prove a direct cause
and effect. It may take hundreds of years of studies to show
good evidence...by that time mankind will be extinct. That is illogical, but I thank you for finally providing your opinion.

[HAVOC451]

While it's comendable to be concerned about the terribly high rate of respiratoy disease due to air pollution in the U.S., I'm not sure beating theroyprocess up over it is quite fair. It's illogical to say that to be anti-nuke is to be pro athsma. Were you guys equally insenced when the Bush administration gutted (http://www.nrdc.org/media/pressreleases/030822.asp) the Clean Air Act? Are you just as concerned with the problems many native american peoples are having with uranium mining ? (http://www.greens.org/s-r/10/10-07.html)

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by HAVOC451
While it's comendable to be concerned about the terribly high rate of respiratoy disease due to air pollution in the U.S., I'm not sure beating theroyprocess up over it is quite fair. It's illogical to say that to be anti-nuke is to be pro athsma. Were you guys equally insenced when the Bush administration gutted (http://www.nrdc.org/media/pressreleases/030822.asp) the Clean Air Act? Are you just as concerned with the problems many native american peoples are having with uranium mining ? (http://www.greens.org/s-r/10/10-07.html) The part of this issue that has me most upset is the 50% of the electricity in the US that comes from COAL. This is the leading cause of air pollution and the leading cause of those 70,000 deaths, not to mention global warming and all the other effects of air pollution.

As far as the Clean Air Act goes, we should immediately do some more sweeping things such as require MASSIVE reductions in emissions by coal plants. Such things are possible, but expensive. And I think expensive is good - it will help the general public see the issue in terms they care more about since clearly people don't care enough about air pollution alone. The same goes for blackouts - blackouts are good because they show people the importance of making sound energy policy decisions.

The US is a "squeaky wheel" democracy. People only care about the issues that they percieve to be doing them immediate harm. Coal power isn't even on the radar for most people.

[RuiMonteiro]

Originally posted by russ_watters
True. And assuming your 20% number is right (sounds about right) it would require about 150 more nuclear plants to replace our existing coal plants.


So, there would be around 250 nuclear plants. So the quantities of radioactive elements released to the environment would increase a lot (and this only considering the quantities released officially, not counting accidents, like happened on norway (i think it´s norway) where a nuclear usine over there released, illegaly, to the environment radioactive elements during nine years directy to the environment, and at the end of this time, they said it was an 'accident'), and if there are more nuclear plants there is a need for more enriched uranium, and as i already said, the process to enrich uranium releases great amounts of green house gases, plus all the unnecessary elements.



Given the political climate, you are probably right - it won't be a realistic possibility any time soon. You never know though - if New York style blackouts start happening every week ten years from now (a real possibility), that just might change the political climate.
The difference between what I propose and what the "environmentalists" propose however is that my solution is real, would work, would reduce pollution, would not require massive changes in our energy usage, and would save lives. Environmentalist's plans don't even get to the "would work" stage.

The New York blackout happened due to bad managment on the energetic network. The US does not have a good energetic network and a simple failure in a power plant is enought to put milions in the dark.

There are several countrys with a very good energetic network like France or the country i live - Portugal - and our energetic resources are quite different, where France energetic resources are around 80% supplied by nuclear plants, while Portugal doesn´t have a nuclear plant, my point with this is that just because blackouts happen that doesn´t implie that the solution is to increase nuclear powers, an investment in the energetic network supply would do the work in the US (and this has nothing to do with the energetic needs of each country, it´s just a matter of organisation on the network supply).
I´m not saying the political climate would never change, but having in mind that it´s all about money, it´s very hard to happen, at least serious investments and dramatic changes would not happen, and considering this facts on how the New York blackout could have been prevented is just to say there isn´t a linear relation between the energetic production and the blackouts.



Rui.

[Greg Bernhardt]

Here are some articles on coal pollution:
http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/press/2002/tl_lownoxcombustors.html
http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/powersystems/pollutioncontrols/
http://www.ceednet.org/cct_brochure/page03.asp
http://www.careenergy.com/news/articleview.asp?iArticle=75

[enigma]

Originally posted by HAVOC451
While it's comendable to be concerned about the terribly high rate of respiratoy disease due to air pollution in the U.S., I'm not sure beating theroyprocess up over it is quite fair.


I'm angry with theroyprocess not because of his beliefs, but because instead of stating his points, he's cutting and pasting pages and pages from all over the web to make his points for him without addressing any points made by the alternate viewpoint.


It's illogical to say that to be anti-nuke is to be pro athsma. Were you guys equally insenced when the Bush administration gutted (http://www.nrdc.org/media/pressreleases/030822.asp) the Clean Air Act?


Yes. I'm furious with Bush, and the Clean Air Act is one of the many reasons why.


Are you just as concerned with the problems many native american peoples are having with uranium mining ? (http://www.greens.org/s-r/10/10-07.html)

I didn't know about that issue, but there are major issues with the health of coal miners as well.

However, anecdotal evidence does not prove a case. No data, no case. My mother had breast cancer as well, and she's never been anywhere near a Uranium mine.

[theroyprocess]

If this isn't premeditated murder...I don't know what is !

More to my point that the "invisibility" of radiation makes
the control and strict regulation of radiation a priority
above all else.

http://www.nirs.org/radrecycle/recycleupdate31303.htm

[enigma]

OH NO!!!!!!

You mean they're putting radioactive material into our consumer products!?!?!?!?!

You mean radioactive materials like CARBON-14!?!?!?!?!?!

Damn, that stuff is present in EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!

Better get started on the regulation of that stuff.

Ignorant knee-jerk reactionary babble is what your links are. Each and every one of them.

[enigma]

OHMIGOD, I forgot about that awful radiating sunlight!!!!!!

Sunlight causes more cancer each year than all the pollution ever caused by man. We need to get started with the regulation of that EVIL, EVIL, premeditated-murdering Sun.

If you are exposed to X (plus or minus 1%) amount of background radiation every single day of your life, then increasing that amount by X*10^-6 is not going to make one lick of difference. The definition of 'statistically insignificant'. You should learn some statistics. Seriously.

[enigma]

We need to ban Dihydrogen Monoxide!

That stuff is in everything... even our FOOD SUPPLY.

It causes frequent urination. It is a major component in acid rain. It is present in septic systems and they have no problem putting it in baby food.
It's possible to die from it if you are given too much of it.
Massive amounts have even been known to destroy the infrastructure of houses!
Certain isotopes of it are radioactive as well...

Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide!

*sheesh*

[theroyprocess]

Back on topic....is nuclear power more dependable...
not in Japan.

http://www.economist.com/business/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1928646

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by RuiMonteiro
The New York blackout happened due to bad managment on the energetic network. The US does not have a good energetic network and a simple failure in a power plant is enought to put milions in the dark. Thats only the trigger. The root cause is that our power grid is very near maximum capacity. Windstorms and breaking tree branches happen all the time. The cascade failure is a result of one failure leaving the next piece of the grid underpowered. That piece goes offline to keep from damaging the equipment. Then the next piece has to carry the extra load and it goes offline to keep from damaging its equipment. Et cetera, et cetera. What you probably didn't read about unless you live near Philly is that the cascade was stopped by PECO - a control center in Southeastern PA saw the cascade coming and disconnected the umbilicals connecting PECO's section to the rest of the grid. Otherwise the cascade would have continued down the eastern seaboard.

Anyway, an overloaded grid is what keeps a cascade going. Heck, read it in the link theroyprocess just provided about Japan. The ministry, which oversees the electricity industry, is gearing up for a power shortage that could leave Tokyo facing unprecedented blackouts this summer, when demand for electricity reaches its peak. The reason: Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), the world's largest private electricity company, had to close its 17 nuclear reactors... Think its bad now? Its only going to get worse unless we do something about it.

I'll find you the stats, but the demand for electricity virtually everywhere in the western world is growing faster than the generating capacity and has been for some time. The primary cause is the lack of new nuclear power plants. So, there would be around 250 nuclear plants. So the quantities of radioactive elements released to the environment would increase a lot Rui, "so small its not detectable above background radiation" - times 2.5 - is still "so small its not detectable above background radiation."

[Nereid]

Hey enigma (and theroyprocess, if she's listening),

You should also recommend that folk abandon Denver, ski resorts, and other high places and move into the New York subway (people in England, Paris, Shanghai, etc ... please choose your favourite underground rail system). There will be a reduction in the exposure of humans to ionising radiation - from cosmic rays - many million (billion?) times greater than that which would result from closing all nuclear power plants.

[HAVOC451]

Originally posted by russ_watters
The part of this issue that has me most upset is the 50% of the electricity in the US that comes from COAL. This is the leading cause of air pollution and the leading cause of those 70,000 deaths, not to mention global warming and all the other effects of air pollution.

As far as the Clean Air Act goes, we should immediately do some more sweeping things such as require MASSIVE reductions in emissions by coal plants. Such things are possible, but expensive.

Quite right. This leads directly to why I brought up the Clean Air Act in the first place. The law was changed specifically to exempt those coal burning powerplants from having to install the systems that would make them operate cleanly. Many of the monied interests that lobbied the government for changes in the Clean Air Act are the the very same interests "helping" Dick Cheny write the nations energy policy. Those interests would love to resurect their nuclear power divisions.

Originally posted by enigma
Yes. I'm furious with Bush, and the Clean Air Act is one of the many reasons why.

Kudos, I'm encouraged.

Originally posted by enigma
I didn't know about that issue, but there are major issues with the health of coal miners as well.

However, anecdotal evidence does not prove a case. No data, no case.

I didn't link that anecdote to prove the case, I only note that the case is there.
Coal miners have been taking it in the teeth (http://members.tripod.com/~RedRobin2/index-29.html) for a long time. In many ways the only group more marginalised and ignored than coal miners are native americans living down wind/stream from a uranium mine.

[Nereid]

HAVOC451 wrote: I didn't link that anecdote to prove the case, I only note that the case is there. While not exactly a group in the sense of coal miners and native Americans, have you considered those with particularly vulnerable respiratory systems? IIRC, there are a really nasty class of diesel emissions (very fine particulates) that Big Oil is trying to have everyone ignore. It'd be no surprise to learn there is legislation in many countries (not only the US) which exempts Big Oil (and Big Auto) from accepting responsibility for these emissions.

[theroyprocess]

If the Russians were dumping their nuclear waste into commercial
products like industry wants to here in the USA...we would smirk
at them and say "it could never happen here!". BUT IT IS!

Activists Make Nuclear Waste a Russian Election Issue

MOSCOW, Russia, November 18, 2003 (ENS)

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/nov2003/2003-11-18-19.asp#anchor3

[flood deleted]

See also http://nucnews.net - NucNews Links and Archives

[HAVOC451]

Nereid,
I have.
I agree with you on this.
Diesel emissions have been exempted far too long. This is slowly beginning to changs.

[RuiMonteiro]

Originally posted by russ_watters
Thats only the trigger. The root cause is that our power grid is very near maximum capacity. Windstorms and breaking tree branches happen all the time. The cascade failure is a result of one failure leaving the next piece of the grid underpowered. That piece goes offline to keep from damaging the equipment. Then the next piece has to carry the extra load and it goes offline to keep from damaging its equipment. Et cetera, et cetera. What you probably didn't read about unless you live near Philly is that the cascade was stopped by PECO - a control center in Southeastern PA saw the cascade coming and disconnected the umbilicals connecting PECO's section to the rest of the grid. Otherwise the cascade would have continued down the eastern seaboard.

Anyway, an overloaded grid is what keeps a cascade going. Heck, read it in the link theroyprocess just provided about Japan. Think its bad now? Its only going to get worse unless we do something about it.



Exactly because there was a cascade failure it shows that the energetic network supply isn´t very good. When, for some reason, a power plant stops instantanly it should be enough (that is with the proper systems) that there wouldn´t happen a cascade failure. This is possible if a great number of power plants are interconnected in a way to prevent this, there are modern systems that can do this.

And by the way, what you probably didn´t read is that i don´t live near Philly or any other place in the US, i live in Portugal, you probably didn´t even read the entirity of my post...



Rui.

[Nereid]

IMHO, the root cause is bad regulation and wilful ignorance of economics. Behind that there is, without a doubt, the hand of Big Oil.

A good infrastructure should be able to isolate local failures, irrespective of how heavily loaded it is; it's surely not a very challenging technical problem.

A competitive market should be able to meet demand, unless the regulatory barriers are inefficient.

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by Nereid
A good infrastructure should be able to isolate local failures, irrespective of how heavily loaded it is; it's surely not a very challenging technical problem. The power grid actually presents an enormously complicated technical problem. There are a hundred or so suppliers, a thousand or so power plants, and around a billion services (est). And the resilience of the grid is directly related to the excess capacity.

Think about it - if you have a 96% load factor and 10 power plants of equal size, what happens if you lose a plant? Now you are 6% over capacity. The grid is designed so in this situation, you pull the extra power for the adjacent sections of the grid. But what happens if THEY are at 96% capacity? Now they don't have enough power either.

Thats a very conservative illustration of how our power grid works. The load factor is roughly correct, but the power plants - well, there are more of them, but the few nuclear power plants are what produce the vast majority of the power (in the northeast anyway). Trip a single line coming off of one plant and you're screwed. The grid will try to adjust and fail because it can't adjust fast enough. The laws of physics are against it - once you have detected the spike, its too late.

That said, there is a design issue there: when there is enough spare capacity, a grid system is a good thing - you CAN get power from elsewhere to cover your failure. Thats what its designed for. And thats the reason why major blackouts are so rare in the US. But load the grid to its limits and the grid works against itself - it causes the cascade failures we have seen recently and makes the rare power failure epic in scale.

[Nereid]

Originally posted by russ_watters
The power grid actually presents an enormously complicated technical problem. There are a hundred or so suppliers, a thousand or so power plants, and around a billion services (est). And the resilience of the grid is directly related to the excess capacity.

Think about it - if you have a 96% load factor and 10 power plants of equal size, what happens if you lose a plant? Now you are 6% over capacity. The grid is designed so in this situation, you pull the extra power for the adjacent sections of the grid. But what happens if THEY are at 96% capacity? Now they don't have enough power either.

Thats a very conservative illustration of how our power grid works. The load factor is roughly correct, but the power plants - well, there are more of them, but the few nuclear power plants are what produce the vast majority of the power (in the northeast anyway). Trip a single line coming off of one plant and you're screwed. The grid will try to adjust and fail because it can't adjust fast enough. The laws of physics are against it - once you have detected the spike, its too late.

That said, there is a design issue there: when there is enough spare capacity, a grid system is a good thing - you CAN get power from elsewhere to cover your failure. Thats what its designed for. And thats the reason why major blackouts are so rare in the US. But load the grid to its limits and the grid works against itself - it causes the cascade failures we have seen recently and makes the rare power failure epic in scale. Been thinking about this a bit. A telecoms network is considerably more complex than a power grid, and subject to all kinds of nasty shocks. Yet a great deal has been done to make them very resilient. Of course, the analogy is quite imperfect at the direct-comparison level (there's no equivalent to IP in power grids, for example), but perhaps at a meta-level some lessons could be learned?

For example, to what extent are the key generators and main parts of the grid under constant surveillance by AI/neural network-based systems looking for incipient failure? IIRC, some US airline maintenance department built such a system for detecting failures in jet engines. After some time, they not only substantially reduced the amount of maintenance that needed to be done, but were able to turn the service into a profit centre, by offering it to other airlines.

Presumably planned shutdowns would cause considerably less disruption than unplanned ones; a good grid-wide fault management system may result in more planned shutdowns, but that'd be a small price to pay for avoidance of the kind of east coast disruption earlier this year. Indeed windstorms and tree branches are somewhat unpredictable, but if they constitute the majority of root causes, then remedial action (and proactive reduction of future likelihood) is pretty easy to characterise. After all, it's not as if we don't know where trees grow, or the seasonal distribution of wind strength (including variance), or the short-term (hours, minutes) likelihood of windstorms.

once you have detected the spike, its too late andWhat you probably didn't read about unless you live near Philly is that the cascade was stopped by PECO - a control center in Southeastern PA saw the cascade coming and disconnected the umbilicals connecting PECO's section to the rest of the grid. Otherwise the cascade would have continued down the eastern seaboard. If PECO (a.k.a. 'the white knight'?) saw it coming, why couldn't the same sort of control systems be installed elsewhere? How about building a more distributed type of control system, better able to make local disconnections?

If there's one thing engineers are good at it's solving problems, often very creatively. Russ, do you know if a tiger team of top engineers has been tasked to look at solving the 'grid failure' problem, with broad terms of reference?

[wimms]

Telecoms network is not comparison at all. It doesn't fail when there is lack of capacity, it just slows down. With overload, it just drops some of calls. With energy this doesn't work, some things just physically blow up if overloaded, and no way to selectively drop few electrons, if it goes, so goes whole branch.

And, telecoms solved their quality issues very straightforward - they design in at least 2 times overcapacity.

Actually, being somewhat from telecom industry (networking) and having seen issues that grids have to face, i can say that telecoms networks are completely piece of cake compared to issues grids have to face. It is SO much easier to deal with issues in telecom.

[Nereid]

I did say: Of course, the analogy is quite imperfect at the direct-comparison level (there's no equivalent to IP in power grids, for example), but perhaps at a meta-level some lessons could be learned? Just an example: what use of AI/neural networks is there in the fault/performance/assignment/configuration components of the grid companies' network management systems? AFAIK, that in IP network systems (e.g. from Cisco) is trivial compared with what's in a modern system from Lucent, MetaSolv, Telcordia ... even TTI, which were developed in an era of scarce resourses and much higher cost of failure than today's IP-based data networks.

You're right, the answer to unpredictable resource demand in IP networks is massive over-provisioning (how else could it be done, given the wildly unpredictable nature of the traffic?), and graceful degredation, with some serious work going into SLAs and contracts.

What, essentially, are the key differences between a telecoms network and an electricity grid, in terms of OOM greater difficulty re fault management?

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by Nereid
... and If PECO (a.k.a. 'the white knight'?) saw it coming, why couldn't the same sort of control systems be installed elsewhere? I had a conversation with my dad about this last weekend and I wasn't quite right on this. He's a utility cost consultant and just so happened to take a tour of the facility I was talking about. He said it was pretty cool - reminded him of what NORAD is supposed to look like: high security, underground, and set up like a war room with big displays in the front of a theater shaped control room.

The name escapes me right now and I can't find it on Google, but its not just PECO - its a joint effort of a number of power companies in PA - the PA power cooperative or something like that. Basically, it monitors a portion of the grid and allows the companies to transfer energy between them. Supposedly people from other countries (and the DOE) are studying it as a model for how to control a power grid.

In any case, yes, other people could have done the same thing as this control center did and pulled the plug on their sections of the grid. No one wants to do that though - if you're First Energy (the company that started the cascade) and you have a choice between blacking out your part of the grid and trying to get it from the adjacent parts, what are you going to do? It was too late for them either way, but in a failed effort to help themselves (and by others trying to help them), they let the failure spread. So maybe its just a matter of upgrading the decision making process (the people) to deal with that type of situation.If there's one thing engineers are good at it's solving problems, often very creatively. Russ, do you know if a tiger team of top engineers has been tasked to look at solving the 'grid failure' problem, with broad terms of reference? Doubt it. Certainly the government is looking at the issue, but we all know how effective they are. The thing in PA exists for economic reasons - it makes it easier for the companies to swap power. Its only a biproduct of that that it is such a good grid control station.

For that phone analogy, its the same and its not. For one thing, the phone system runs at a fraction of its capacity. And when it does get filled, they have the same sort of problems as the power grid has - calls don't go through, systems crash, etc. Usually though, its like wimms said - you just drop a few calls. And think about your cell phone: what kind of absolute reliability do you have, ie how often do you get a dropped call or call that doesn't go through. Imagine if the power grid had the same (lack of) reliability. It would be crippling. Despite things like the NY blackout, the reliability of power grids in the western world is absolutely extrordinary.

[wimms]

Originally posted by Nereid
AFAIK, that in IP network systems (e.g. from Cisco) is trivial compared with what's in a modern system from Lucent, MetaSolv, Trivial isn't necessarily bad/undeveloped. Its a sign that issues to be dealt with are much simpler.

You're right, the answer to unpredictable resource demand in IP networks is massive over-provisioning (how else could it be done, given the wildly unpredictable nature of the traffic?)Actually this isn't necessary answer. IP traffic can be very well oversubscribed and priotisation of traffic type is easy. Thus in case of network degradation, first to suffer would be least important traffic. Telecoms overprovision just to avoid the hassle, it makes life so much easier. Often, they are forced to due to completely unrelated issues, for eg. you can buy equipment and lines in specific bunches, and you need to make investments so that they can cope with growing traffic in few years aswell. 2 times overcapacity because they plan for loosing half of their capacity in case of major cable failure.

What, essentially, are the key differences between a telecoms network and an electricity grid, in terms of OOM greater difficulty re fault management?There is one essential key difference thats behind all others. When you switch on consumer device, power starts to flow, and grid has no control over it other than cutting off completely. In telecom, every single node can control exactly how much traffic, what traffic and when does it flow. It throttles back traffic. Thats the main reason why overloads are "soft" in telecom. Nothing really bad happens with overload. With power, every single overload is critical event, because you can't really limit power consumption, you can either attach another power source or shut down the branch (or face physical destruction). One can lead to cascade of overloads as Russ explained, another is basically blackout of area.

So, the only way to deal with overloads in grid is to AVOID the overload. That needs ideally complete knowledge of all main lines and their load, and is quite computationally intensive to make right decisions, that in addition has to be made damn fast. In IP networks, each node is independant and quite safe, capacity steering is merely a quality issue of monthly capacity planning, not critical survival issue.
In IP, you have huge network and rough estimates of capacity planning. In grid, you have even larger network, and requirement for instant and precise decisions.

I'm not sure, but isn't grid actually implemented after successful example of telecom networks?

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by wimms
So, the only way to deal with overloads in grid is to AVOID the overload. That needs ideally complete knowledge of all main lines and their load, and is quite computationally intensive to make right decisions, that in addition has to be made damn fast. Well, either that or what I said before: have enough excess capacity that you don't have to make those decisions and can handle a little hickup without taking any action. The drop in excess capacity is the key difference between the way the grid handles fluctuations today and the way it did 10 years ago. And the solution as I said before is obvious....

.....get back to nuclear power!!

[Nereid]

Russ, wimms,

Many thanks for your replies to my ignorant posts. I see now that introducing telecoms was, on balance, more of a distraction than a benefit.

Back to my original comment ("A good infrastructure should be able to isolate local failures, irrespective of how heavily loaded it is; it's surely not a very challenging technical problem."), and a (hopefully!) wiser re-casting of it.

this is a 0-th order take; many devils - a.k.a. details - are licking their lips in anticipation of ambushes on the road ahead

Demand varies seasonally (~100 days characteristic time), weekly (~10 days), daily, and hourly. A significant part of this demand is predictable; much detailed historical data is available to characterise variance about (modelled) means within all periods.

Broadly speaking, supply is available to meet all but peak hourly demand. However, there are unplanned supply failures, and the characteristic time for indications of incipient failure ranges from days ("that unit sure has been acting strange!") to milliseconds (or less). Further, a great deal of historical data is available to characterise the root causes, frequency, and 'phenomenology' of all failure modes.

Technology to detect, analyse, and transmit useful information about demand, supply, and failure already exists. As long as the response times are greater than 1 second, 'pre-canned' or algorithmically-based automatic response decisions can be implemented. These automatic decisions can, in principle, be optimised according to a wide range of equipment, supply, demand, down-stream impact, ... conditions. These optimisations can be performed both 'off-line' (independent of the particulars of the event) or 'on-line'.

... and that's as far as technology could take us, in a reactive sense.

Proactively, we could fairly accurately characterise future demand, supply, and improvements in failure detection and remediation capabilities. Through risk analyses (crudely, prioritisation by the 'impact' metric - probability of event x cost of event), main areas to be addressed can be confidently identified (and research investment targeted to improving the probability and cost estimates of the top 3 risks, say). Installing, testing, and refining equipment, maintenance schedules, operations proceedures, etc then follows, using standard QA methodologies.

Finally, the key dimension, economics. Crudely, economics is all about how to better match supply and demand, though price. In the case of grid-supplied electricity, IMHO, there is enormous opportunity for basic economic principles to be better applied. For example, as wimms said "When you switch on consumer device, power starts to flow, and grid has no control over it other than cutting off completely". Yet no (residential) consumer has ever been asked what price they would be prepared to pay for 99% (or four/five/six/seven 9s) availability. With today's technology, I would guess, a multi-tiered set of service contracts could be easily implemented - from 'el-cheapo' electricity (but can have supply cut for up to 10 hours with no notice), to guarranteed 99.9999% availability and 10 seconds restoration in the event of failure (for a VERY large fee).

This is the kind of thing I was referring to when I said "the root cause is bad regulation and wilful ignorance of economics. Behind that there is, without a doubt, the hand of Big Oil [...]
A competitive market should be able to meet demand, unless the regulatory barriers are inefficient."

[xeguy]

Interesting thread. I think the Germans are shooting themselves in the foot if they continue with this policy. The nuclear bogeyman looms large over everything thanks to the scaremongers. There's a reason why they dropped the "nuclear" from MRI!

Nuclear power = good. Let it power our space probes and homes.

Fusion will be here...eventually...

It's only a few years overdue. ;-)

[wimms]

Nereid,

what you described, looks good on paper, with 15 minutes of thought put into it. After you put about 1000 hours of thought into it, it would look like total nightmare to you. I don't think we can come up with something top people of energetics haven't thought of. Lets mean no disrespect to them. There are soo many things we can't even imagine _needs_ to be thought about.

Reality checks. Technology exists, on paper, but it doesn't think. People do. To program all that people can costs more than its worth. To install all the needed technology is too expensive, and consumer isn't willing to pay for it. Rare epic blackouts cost less. Economics? Case closed.

As to historical data, yeah, there is plenty of it. So plenty, that no blody mortal can make any sense of it anymore. For statistical analysis it isn't precise, structured nor standardised enough. Its best output is a "gut feeling" of experienced dudes.

No residental customer is ever asked because residental customer exists only because of regulation. As always, its business where money is, and it needs all the nines. To install residential cut-off switches is insane, and only adds to costs, because individual households matter nothing in any of the events, and ability to switch off zillions of homes as per individual sla isn't easy nor cheap. The "el-cheapo" electricity would cost more to electric companies than "el-normo" one. Guess why they aren't eager to offer choice?

For a VERY large fee, electricity providers are not needed. There are factories that build their own nuclear plants nearby and sell excess energy to the grid, and use grid as a backup. no ****. They have all the nines, and even get PAYED for it.

Well, yeah, looks like I'm arguing. Infact, basic idea is that the whole thing is too damn complex, that its cheaper to live with it than to fix it. And the cheapest way to fix it is to "take the larger hammer".

[Nereid]

Thanks wimms, these kinds of reality checks are very welcome! No residental customer is ever asked because residental customer exists only because of regulation. [...] To install residential cut-off switches is insane, and only adds to costs, because individual households matter nothing in any of the events, and ability to switch off zillions of homes as per individual sla isn't easy nor cheap. The "el-cheapo" electricity would cost more to electric companies than "el-normo" one. The sooner we get the regulations changed the better! Let's start charging 'residential' customers a fee that's closer to the marginal cost of producing the electricity they consume, and offer them choices. With the cost of technology decline (courtesy of Moore's law and globalisation), how long before it becomes cost effective? With entrepreneurial suppliers - perhaps 'virtual' - when will biz cases that offer differentiated residential services begin to make sense? With the extraordinary inefficiencies in the industry, re-regulation (soundely based in economics) would surely open a number of juicy niches to creative capitalists?As always, its business where money is, and it needs all the nines. Hmm, perhaps they need all the nines because they've never had any real choices? If there were a competitive supply market, with a rich range of nines/time-of-day/etc choices, how many CFOs would start suggesting to their CEOs that they seriously consider re-engineering their processes to take advantage of the cost-saving opportunities that have just opened up? Bet we'll never find out until the possibility becomes real enough [;)] Technology exists, on paper, but it doesn't think. People do. To program all that people can costs more than its worth. To install all the needed technology is too expensive, and consumer isn't willing to pay for it. Well, it has happened in airline reservations (when's the last time you spoke with a profitable travel agent?), banking, telecoms ([6)] ), quite a lot of B2B commerce, [8)] ... what is unique about the energy sector?Its best output is a "gut feeling" of experienced dudes. So let's you and I hire them as our technical advisors, once we have the VC funding to start VirtuEnergy [t)]

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by Nereid
If there were a competitive supply market... Maybe I'm missing the context here, but in most states now there IS a competitive supply market as a result of "deregulation." I put "deregulation" in quotes because it requires new regulations of course. If done well (Pennsylvania), it leads to a small reduction in energy costs for customers. If done poorly (California) it leads to Enron, doubling of energy prices, and region-wide blackouts. Either way it makes electric power supply a pretty complicated issue for consumers - and thats a pretty lucrative thing for my dad...

[wimms]

Originally posted by Nereid
The sooner we get the regulations changed the better! Let's start charging 'residential' customers a fee that's closer to the marginal cost of producing the electricity they consume, and offer them choices. No problemo. They can offer you electricity closer to the marginal cost of producing it .. AT their plant. You are free to take it somehow and deliver it where you want, the way you want, at costs you want. If it hadn't occured to you yet, then crucial function of regulation is to force development and maintenance of distribution network, that means wires to your home, your town, your area, country, and protecting you from paying insane money to get your electricity to your home.

when will biz cases that offer differentiated residential services begin to make sense?When costs begin to relate to differentiated pricing. Already the case. To get the nines, you pay extra. What you have by default, is a free lunch, payed for by someone who needs the nines. No room for whining, be it down for a week if they like. Epic blackouts impact whole economy, thats why they get the front page.

Hmm, perhaps they need all the nines because they've never had any real choices? Have you ever owned UPS? They need all the nines because downtime costs them money, much more than all the nines they pay for. Please name one crucial business that can run without energy in todays world.

If there were a competitive supply market, with a rich range of nines/time-of-day/etc choices, how many CFOs would start suggesting to their CEOs that they seriously consider re-engineering their processes to take advantage of the cost-saving opportunities that have just opened up? Bet we'll never find out until the possibility becomes real enough How many CFOs today seriously consider building nuclear plant to SELL electricity instead of buying it? Who cares what it costs if its compensated? The only "CFOs" who will seriously consider re-engineering their processes are residential losers who will take advantage of the cost-saving choices to find more opportunities in whining about the choices. Perhaps also that it has damn rare major blackouts.

And, seems its not obvious to you that "nines" are not function of production of energy, but of reliable distribution of it. By competitive supply market, you are implying alternate distribution network, grid. You are welcome to build your own nationwide grid thats better, cheaper, more flexible. There are thousands of energy suppliers waiting for you.

Well, it has happened in airline reservations (when's the last time you spoke with a profitable travel agent?), banking, telecoms ([6)] ), quite a lot of B2B commerce, [8)] ... what is unique about the energy sector? Nothing has happened there. Planes are crashing, banks are robbed, telecoms have outages. Unique to energy sector is that every damn business stops without energy.

[russ_watters]

Nines?

[wimms]

99.9999% uptime guarantee - 6 nines

[Nereid]

Reading the lead News Scan article in the November 2003 Scientific American, I learned that:

-> a significant contributory factor in the August 14 blackout is likely to be the fact that degulation of the industry left transmission "lagg[ing] behind [generation systems] because of the patchwork of interstate regulations and jurisdictions. Many policy and grid experts say that in the short term, the [FEMC] should enact nationwide policies covering transmission systems operation, capacity and investment."

-> "Once the government decides how the grid should operate, 'we have the technology to implement it almost on the shelf or coming down the pipe,' says Paul Grant, science fellow at [EPRI] ..."

-> technologies mentioned include installation of more heat-resistant lines; better communication systems among power stations (e.g. dedicated fibre optics, and GPS-based time-stamps); faster, smarter switches; a master transmission control computer; and automatic, adaptive 'islanding'.

-> on the über-computer, the article notes "[p]ostmortem studies by the industry suggest that such a global view would have prevented about 95 percent of customers losing power during the 1996 blackouts in the western U.S."{I wonder who said this:} A good infrastructure should be able to isolate local failures, irrespective of how heavily loaded it is; it's surely not a very challenging technical problem.

A competitive market should be able to meet demand, unless the regulatory barriers are inefficient. The SciAm article did not mention a need to increase generating capacity.

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by Nereid
-> a significant contributory factor in the August 14 blackout is likely to be the fact that degulation of the industry left transmission "lagg[ing] behind [generation systems] because of the patchwork of interstate regulations and jurisdictions. Many policy and grid experts say that in the short term, the [FEMC] should enact nationwide policies covering transmission systems operation, capacity and investment."

The SciAm article did not mention a need to increase generating capacity. I guess the implicaton there is that regardless of the actual generation capacity, the transmission capacity isn't where it needs to be. So even IF there is enough generation capacity, the lack of adequate transmission capacity will prevent the power from getting where it needs to go.

Sounds like an interesting article - maybe they have it up on their website...

When I was discussing that command center with my dad a month or so ago, we also talked about transmission lines. Near as we can tell there are only 3 lines going from Limerick into Philadelphia and the surrounding counties (I've actually hit one of them several times with a golf ball as its strung over the 5th fairway of a course I frequent). A bad car accident could black out a million people just by knocking down one pole. And a guy with a handful of backpacks of C-4 could take down most of SE PA for a while.

[Nereid]

Sounds like an interesting article - maybe they have it up on their website... try this:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=5&articleID=000784B6-E5FB-1F86-9B8C83414B7FFE87

[Argentum Vulpes]

I'm slightly disappointed that I did not get on this thread before it turned into a power distribution network debate, so I'll play catch up and address some things that I think need to be added.

First briefly on the subject of coal, there is another reason to not want coal in this day in age. Besides the fact that it pumps CO2, NOx, SO2, and Hg into the atmosphere, one fact that is not discussed is it also puts uranium into the air. Now if we are going to get all huffy about Nuclear power because it uses uranium and might put some extra amount of it into the environment, could we please look at the entire power industry and judge it all by the same standards.


Give me the nuclear plant in my backyard over a coal plant any day.


I totaly agree with this statement

As for all of the talk of Chernobyl there remains a vary important fact about Chernobyl that everyone seems to overlook. This fact is that Chernobyl was a RBMK type of reactor, whos main purpose in life was to create bomb grade Pu. The fact that it produced electric power was a happy side-effect for its main mode of operation. This type of reactor would never be allowed to be open in the US, or for that fact most of the world because of its main purpose and its many deadly design flaws. Two of the flaws are that it operates with a positive void coefficient, and because the fuel needs to be constantly changed there is no secondary containment structure. This info came from www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/nuclear-faq.html (http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/nuclear-faq.html), and this also explains what a positive void coefficient is.

So this is my two cents on this debate. Hopefully if this debate will get back on track of the original post.

[i_wish_i_was_smart]

Argentum, i agree with you on everycount, the fact that Chernobyl was poorly maintained and that it used carbonfiber(which can overheat and cause damage and so on) and not HeavyWater as a moderater is a major design flaw, not counting it had no containment structure, he have learned on others mistakes and we have vastly improved the design and operation of Nuclear facilities. If only people weren't so quick to judge half of Canada would be Nuclear powered, Uranium is a source we have plenty of, and we are one of the leaders in nuclear powerplant technology, i'm sure mostly everyone has heard of Candu reactors, and they are currently designing a "next-generation" reactor, many of the Candus were sold all over the world(including *cough*korea*cough*)

but our reactors do produce Trinium, a big part of the hydrogen bomb is made out of trinium (for those reading this that dont know what trinium is, its an isotope of hydrogen) but there is a good side to that, we sell it to you guys for a pretty penny

[russ_watters]

Besides all that, there is the fact that as bad as Chernobyl was, it killed only about 40 people, most of them firefighters (that said, we wouldn't want to have to evacuate Pittsburgh).

[i_wish_i_was_smart]

which is why, to keep people content, and to keep it on the safe side, we put nuclear reactors in more desolate areas, well i guess the US cant really do that

[Morbius]

I'm slightly disappointed that I did not get on this thread before it turned into a power distribution network debate, so I'll play catch up and address some things that I think need to be added.

First briefly on the subject of coal, there is another reason to not want coal in this day in age. Besides the fact that it pumps CO2, NOx, SO2, and Hg into the atmosphere, one fact that is not discussed is it also puts uranium into the air. Now if we are going to get all huffy about Nuclear power because it uses uranium and might put some extra amount of it into the environment, could we please look at the entire power industry and judge it all by the same standards.



I totaly agree with this statement

As for all of the talk of Chernobyl there remains a vary important fact about Chernobyl that everyone seems to overlook. This fact is that Chernobyl was a RBMK type of reactor, whos main purpose in life was to create bomb grade Pu. The fact that it produced electric power was a happy side-effect for its main mode of operation. This type of reactor would never be allowed to be open in the US, or for that fact most of the world because of its main purpose and its many deadly design flaws. Two of the flaws are that it operates with a positive void coefficient, and because the fuel needs to be constantly changed there is no secondary containment structure. This info came from www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/nuclear-faq.html (http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/nuclear-faq.html), and this also explains what a positive void coefficient is.

So this is my two cents on this debate. Hopefully if this debate will get back on track of the original post.


Argentum Vulpe,

I also agree with you - and with enigma about the coal plants. See:

http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html

from scientists at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory who state,

"Americans living near coal-fired power plants are exposed to
higher radiation doses than those living near nuclear power plants
that meet government regulations".

and

"The population effective dose equivalent from coal plants is
100 times that from nuclear plants."

The population receives more radiation exposure from coal plants
than nuclear plants because coal contains trace amounts of uranium
and thorium which gets tossed into the atmosphere when the coal is
burned.

Because the USA burns billions of tons of coal per year - the amount of
uranium and thorium tossed into the air amounts to a few thousand tons
per year.

As I stated in another post - the Chernobyl reactor is "over-moderated" -
it has too much moderator. When one removes water - either by heating
it so that it is less dense - or by boiling or "voiding" the water - one is
reducing the amount of moderator. Since the RBMK is over-moderated -
reducing the amount of moderator shifts the amount of moderator
closer to the optimal point - and the reactor GAINS reactivity - which
is the "positive void coefficient" that Argentum Vulpes speaks of.

Yes - many people get "bent out of shape" if someone were to suggest
siting a nuclear power plant next to them - but wouldn't mind a coal
plant as much - all because of a fear of radiation.

They are the ones that need to be informed that they get 100 times as
much radiation exposure from the coal plant than they would from the
nuclear power plant as the scientists from Oak Ridge point out.

Dr. Gregory Greenman
Physicist LLNL

[Argentum Vulpes]

Thanks for pointing out the web site Morbius. I couldn't find that again when I was typing up my last post (I had used it about ten years ago for a debate on energy production in the US). As for nuclear reactors out in the middle of no where there are plenty of areas in the US that count as that. Montana, The Dakotas, and Wyoming, this I will say for certain as I lived in Montana and traveled across the Dakotas and the north eastern part Wyoming several times.

[CharlesP]

A note of caution: Many power plants are situated on rivers to use their water for cooling. Rivers are populated areas. Some site out in the desert will have to use air cooling which is not as efficient-or cheap.

I saw the website of John McCarthy and it looks far fetched. Before the population is allowed to increase further, the rest of the world should be brought up to US living standards. Right now I see a rush to lower the US population to third world conditions.

I had a Motorola pager with six sigma reliability and it kept failing. A contact corrosion/ alignment problem, probably rare. Reliability is proved in the field.

What happened to all that talk about thresholds in radiation hazards below which the hazard was zero?

[Morbius]

What happened to all that talk about thresholds in radiation hazards below which the hazard was zero?

Charles,

Using the techniques and results of the Human Genome Project, biologists
at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have conclusively
demonstrated the threshold effect.

In fact, they have found that low levels of radiation actually trigger a
cellular response to make the cells resistant to subsequent larger doses of
radiation. In effect, the response of the cell to low levels of radiation is
similar to the response to a vaccine. The vaccine inoculates the cell to
a larger onslaught of a pathogen. Similarly, low doses of radiation
induce a protective response in the cell. One can read about it here:

http://www.llnl.gov/str/JulAug03/Wyrobek.html

Dr. Gregory Greenman
Physicist

[CharlesP]

Next question. Has anyone ever studied what happens if one tries to make a nuclear battery by putting a beta source on the head of a pin and surrounding it with a conducting sphere? I expect the current would be small but what mechanisms would prevent a high voltage? I suspect that there is no nice beta emitter that does not also produce gamma?

[hitssquad]

Has anyone ever studied what happens if one tries to make a nuclear battery by putting a beta source on the head of a pin and surrounding it with a conducting sphere?I believe a device like that may have been constructed using tritium as the beta emitter. The engineering/physics article databases should have write-ups of any experiments that have been done along those lines.



I suspect that there is no nice beta emitter that does not also produce gamma?Tritium does not emit gamma radiation.
http://www.triumf.ca/safety/rpt/rpt_8/node8.html

[mohamed helmy]

dear all. please i need help of expert prof .iam working in industrial dealing with machinery
installed with nucler head to do kind of quality check since 2001, ihave marreid in aprial 2006 idid not get chlidren up to now so my doctor asked me to do sperms analysis for sprems quantity the result was to bad its zero sperms so later i had to do operation to get some sperms to do ivf operation and iam luky because doctor found some sperms so please informe me if the nucler source which iam working with has effect or not in my case.
the source is isolated but i have got the power rate of this source its (843mbq) thanks alot

[daveb]

It depends on the source. An 843 MBq (~ 23 mCi) low energy gamma emitter (such as Tc-99m) is nothing compared to a high gamma energy 843 MBq Co-60 source. If it's Tc-99m, the activity is the activity of a standard diagnostic imaging procedure, so I doubt that would be the cause.

[katchum]

How much uranium/plutonium is there left in the world? I like nuclear energy, but is it sustainable for 100 years?

[Astronuc]

How much uranium/plutonium is there left in the world? I like nuclear energy, but is it sustainable for 100 years? Certainly 100 yrs. There is limited production of Pu, which essentially absent in nature due to it's relatively short (geologically speaking) half-life.

Nuclear energy is produced primarily from the fission of U-235, with fissioning of some Pu which is produced through transmutation reactions involving U-238 in the UO2-based fuel. Converting more U-238 to Pu-239/240/241 could extend the U-resources, and then there is Th-232, which can be transmuted to U-233, which is fissionable.

So there is potentially hundreds of years of energy resources based on fission.

One key issue is where to put all the fission products, which must be isolated from the biosphere.

[Azael]

For all practical purposes the ammounts of uranium is unlimited.
http://nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/UraniuamDistribution

[James Carroll]

It seems to me that no one on here has really hit the main problem, and that is peak oil. Yes we have coal, yes it is dirty, yes it causes death, yes it releases more radioactive material than does nuclear plants... but what happens when we run out of oil? Of course we won't just run out, but eventually the oil that remains will become more and more difficult to get at, and therefore more and more expensive. People disagree about when this will happen, but it will happen. When it does there will be problems. Infrastructure will have to change to support electric cars, and that will be a nightmare in and of itself unless it happens gradually enough. But then where will all that electricity come from?

You have to realize that electricity demand will increase dramatically in the future, how near is again up for debate, but it is coming.

Now figure that into your discussion and it changes things doesn't it? Can we increase our electric needs sufficiently with coal only? Can we do it without producing enough pollutants that people don't begin to agree that enough is enough?

We will need nuclear. It is inevitable and will happen. One day the environmental wackos will flip on their light switch and nothing will happen... they will try to drive their car, and there will be no electricity and gas will be too expensive. One day. Then they will be yelling at us and asking us why we didn't build all those power plants back before it was too late... and we will look at them and say... THIS IS YOUR FAULT.

My father once did a back of the envilope calculation on solar power, and determined that to supply the US with power BACK IN THE 60'S, even if we could collect solar power 100% efficiently, we would have to turn the state of Arizona into a solar collector. (I would love to see one of you actually crunch those numbers and verify his results, remember that you need to include gas usage, not just electric) It won't work... give it up... Solar isn't the solution, we need Nuclear

On the other hand....

Given that it is inevitable, the question is, what should we do about it? My work is in Decision Theory, and I believe that the probability of a nuclear accident associated with Nuclear power is low... unfortunately the cost is high. Utility is the product of the probability * the cost. There is a good reason to be cautious about Nuclear power. I think that we need a balanced middle of the road approach. The "it's ok, there are no risks" or "the risks are so small" thing is not necessarily the best response. But the argument that the risks are lower than those of coal (as so many of you have nicely made) works better.

Furthermore research is needed to make those risks smaller. Thus it is my belief that research into safer Nuclear energy is the solution. We need to spend the bucks, and get it done. This research needs to focus on making the process safer and on dealing with the waste. We have done a lot on the first one, but can do more.

I truly believe that we can also do much better on the second one. We can find better ways of dealing with the waste that we have. Some have been discussed above but there are others. There is energy in that waste. Decays=energy... perhaps not very much, especially in the stuff that takes forever to decay, but it is in there, and there should be good ways of getting it out and making it useful instead of a scourge. Next we can find better ways of reprocessing (I know proliferation rears its ugly head) but there are ways of reprocessing that can be internationally monitored and where the reprocessed materials can be used immediately... or something... so we aren't stockpiling weapons grade materials. That's the point of research, we don't know what solutions will be found, but we should look for them. Finally we can produce reactors that produce less waste.

These are the research areas. Some solutions already exist in these areas, but we just can't use them for political reasons etc. Some better solutions are in the works, and some even better solutions are sure to come out of some good investments in research.

[russ_watters]

My father once did a back of the envilope calculation on solar power, and determined that to supply the US with power BACK IN THE 60'S, even if we could collect solar power 100% efficiently, we would have to turn the state of Arizona into a solar collector. (I would love to see one of you actually crunch those numbers and verify his results, remember that you need to include gas usage, not just electric) It won't work... give it up... Solar isn't the solution, we need Nuclear. Welcome to PF.

I agree with pretty much everything you said. I believe that nuclear is going to make a dramatic comeback in the next 20 years because there simply is no other option (the fact that it is the best option, unfortunatly, isn't enough for today).

There may be a thread around here somewhere about it, but a few years ago, I did some calculations about solar and concluded that with good solar panels, we'd nee to cover an area of about 300 miles square - similar to your father's calculation of the entire state of Arizona.

Strictly speaking, area isn't the issue - money is. Right now, the per-watt cost of solar is far too high to make it viable. If it can drop by an order of magnitude, then it could be a real solution.

[vanesch]

Certainly 100 yrs. There is limited production of Pu, which essentially absent in nature due to it's relatively short (geologically speaking) half-life.

Nuclear energy is produced primarily from the fission of U-235, with fissioning of some Pu which is produced through transmutation reactions involving U-238 in the UO2-based fuel. Converting more U-238 to Pu-239/240/241 could extend the U-resources, and then there is Th-232, which can be transmuted to U-233, which is fissionable.

So there is potentially hundreds of years of energy resources based on fission.

One key issue is where to put all the fission products, which must be isolated from the biosphere.

I would like to add to this. Current thermal-spectrum reactors use MAINLY U-235 in the power production. U-235 is 0.7% of the natural content of uranium on earth. In fact, at high burnup, SOME U-238 (the 99.3% remaining if we neglect some traces) is converted into Pu-239 and is burned up ; about 30% of the energy that is extracted in a reactor comes from this Pu-burning, and 70% comes from the original U-235 burning.

So that means that currently, we use effectively ONE PERCENT of the energetic content of the uranium that has been extracted.

In a fast reactor, we can use ALL of it, because U-238, through conversion in Pu-239, can become a nuclear fuel. We can use all the U-238 that we already DUG UP, and partially discarded (in the "enrichment" of uranium, which is nothing else but removing 3/4 of the U-238 from the original ore), and MOST of the "burned fuel" which consists mainly of passive U-238.

So, by switching to fast breeders, we can extract in principle ONE HUNDRED TIMES MORE ENERGY from the EXISTING waste than we already extracted. In principle without any more uranium input. Just by using the "waste" correctly.

If some powerplants have been working for 30 years, this means, in principle, that we can extract the same power for another 3000 years, just by using its "waste".

[vanesch]

On the other hand....

Given that it is inevitable, the question is, what should we do about it? My work is in Decision Theory, and I believe that the probability of a nuclear accident associated with Nuclear power is low... unfortunately the cost is high. Utility is the product of the probability * the cost. There is a good reason to be cautious about Nuclear power. I think that we need a balanced middle of the road approach. The "it's ok, there are no risks" or "the risks are so small" thing is not necessarily the best response. But the argument that the risks are lower than those of coal (as so many of you have nicely made) works better.



The point really is that the risks ARE already really small in the West. The objective risk (as you point out: risk = probability x cost(lives, land...) ) of nuclear activities is about a million times lower than driving cars, and even lower than making shoes (just by comparing the number of yearly dead). The "maximum disaster" is Chernobyl, which is a serious catastrophy, but much less so than many accidents in other branches of human activity (for instance, the Chernobyl disaster is way less terrible than the Bhopal disaster, and a Chernobyl accident in the west is way way way less likely - for fundamental reasons - than another Bhopal).


Furthermore research is needed to make those risks smaller. Thus it is my belief that research into safer Nuclear energy is the solution. We need to spend the bucks, and get it done. This research needs to focus on making the process safer and on dealing with the waste. We have done a lot on the first one, but can do more.


There are good solutions for the waste. It is not as catastrophic as eco wackos want us to believe. There are in fact 3 timescales in nuclear waste:

- fission products: about harmless after 300 years
- minor actinides: about harmless after 10 000 years
- plutonium: about harmless after 100 000 years.

Now, reprocessing can remove the plutonium (to be re-used as fuel!), and there's a lot of work going on - and prototype processes such as DIAMEX have been set up - to remove also the minor actinides. This leaves us with the main ash from nuclear power: the inevitable fission products. Well, there life time is of the order of 300 years.
That's not the "millions of years" that is usually talked about.

The minor actinides can be considered as waste, but they can also be burned in fast reactors. There are experiments under way to burn them in subcritical accelerator-driven reactors, but I think that this is overkill. Even considering them as waste is not such a problem, because geological storage can be made secure for 10 000 years with high reliability. Also, if there's a leak after, say, 1000 years, that's not a major disaster. There will be a minor polution of a relatively local area, much less of a danger than most waste storages of today.


I truly believe that we can also do much better on the second one. We can find better ways of dealing with the waste that we have. Some have been discussed above but there are others. There is energy in that waste. Decays=energy... perhaps not very much, especially in the stuff that takes forever to decay, but it is in there, and there should be good ways of getting it out and making it useful instead of a scourge. Next we can find better ways of reprocessing (I know proliferation rears its ugly head) but there are ways of reprocessing that can be internationally monitored and where the reprocessed materials can be used immediately... or something... so we aren't stockpiling weapons grade materials. That's the point of research, we don't know what solutions will be found, but we should look for them. Finally we can produce reactors that produce less waste.


Most of this is already well-studied. There have been 18 fast breeder reactors active in the world ; only two of them are still working, most of them were closed down for political reasons. So this is not a dream on paper. Prototypes have been build and made working. One just needs to improve a bit on the engineering to optimise the design. There are no known difficulties of principle. This stuff has been working before.


These are the research areas. Some solutions already exist in these areas, but we just can't use them for political reasons etc. Some better solutions are in the works, and some even better solutions are sure to come out of some good investments in research.

In fact, France has the ambition to put its first Gen-IV reactor, with closed fuel cycle, up and running by about 2020. If the green party didn't ask for drilling a hole in the reactor vessel of super-phenix in 1998 or so, it would probably already be up and running.

[Astronuc]

Re: Fast Reactors - this would be of interest.

The status of Fast Reactors programme in France in 2005
http://www-ist.cea.fr/publicea/exl-doc/200600003924.pdf

I attended a lecture by the program manager of the US fast reactor program 25 years ago. At the time, he had just dismissed 300 people from the program! He likened a fast reactor to building a supersonic aircraft out of balsa wood. My colleagues and I were rather shocked at the statement.

Fast reactor technology has been rather problematic, not so much from the standpoint of the nuclear physics and fuel design, but from the aspect of balance of plant and operational issues. FR's are complicated because the fuel handling has to be done under liquid sodium. Traditionally, electrical generation has been accomplished by large steam turbines, but the problem there would be the basic incompatibility of water and sodium.

Superphenix was plagued with problems, and the Japanese MONJU had its own set of problems, including some deficiencies in design.

Perhaps the better alternative is a gas-cooled fast reactor.

I'm not arguing that fast reactor technology is impossible, but rather, it is not so easy.

[vanesch]

I attended a lecture by the program manager of the US fast reactor program 25 years ago. At the time, he had just dismissed 300 people from the program! He likened a fast reactor to building a supersonic aircraft out of balsa wood. My colleagues and I were rather shocked at the statement.


This is more kind of emotional rethoric than based upon any technological assessment. I attended a lot of seminars in Karlsruhe a few months ago, and had the opportunity to have a dinner with one of the CEA responsibles for the former Superphenix programme, which seemed to claim exactly the opposite: that liquid sodium cooling is technologically mastered and that the closedown of it was purely political. It is true that Superphenix had a lot of problems in its first years, but in its last years it ran without many troubles, and it was also a prototype: you expect difficulties in a prototype.
Let's not forget that Phenix has been running for over 30 years without problems.
So according to him, one can always improve upon robustness and one can always improve upon engineering, but there wasn't any fundamental objective technological obstacle to building liquid sodium cooled reactors.


Fast reactor technology has been rather problematic, not so much from the standpoint of the nuclear physics and fuel design, but from the aspect of balance of plant and operational issues. FR's are complicated because the fuel handling has to be done under liquid sodium. Traditionally, electrical generation has been accomplished by large steam turbines, but the problem there would be the basic incompatibility of water and sodium.


Nobody will deny that a FR is a bit more complicated than a LWR, but that's more because a LWR is *extremely simple*. The problem with steam turbines - in as much as that is a problem - is the low Carnot efficiency, because you cannot use steam much above 400 degrees Celcius (critical point of water). It would of course be dangerous to have a direct Sodium/water heat exchanger, but nothing stops you from having an intermediate fluid which is compatible with both.


Superphenix was plagued with problems, and the Japanese MONJU had its own set of problems, including some deficiencies in design.


Sure, but these are prototypes, exactly to learn from. If one would have built a few tens of prototypes, the experience gathered would make this technology probably just as robust as LWR are now.


Perhaps the better alternative is a gas-cooled fast reactor.

I'm not arguing that fast reactor technology is impossible, but rather, it is not so easy.

There are essentially 4 types of fast reactors:
- liquid sodium
- liquid lead
- gas
- salt

Sodium makes people nervous because of its reactivity with water, but all the other properties of sodium are OK, which makes it less of a problem than people think. For instance, a liquid sodium reactor is NOT under pressure, which relieves a lot of safety, materials and mechanics issues. In that respect, a liquid sodium reactor is "easier" than a LWR which is under high pressure. Also, one can, as with the IFR, use a "buffer bath" of sodium to make the reactor entirely passively safe. The only true engineering challenge is to keep the water out in all circumstances.

Liquid lead seems to address this, but is actually worse. Yes, liquid lead is less reactive towards water, but: 1) it is very corrosive, which puts a strong materials engineering challenge - which isn't the case for sodium and 2) you generate radioisotopes such as polonium.

Gas cooled reactors seem better in this respect, but, again, they are under pressure, and they are difficult to make passively safe. A loss of pressure for instance means a big challenge to restore the cooling.

Salt cooled reactors seem to address many issues, and are very promising. Only difficulty: almost no experience with it!

So, everything in a row, technologically, sodium cooled reactors are "closest to operational commercially". If we are serious in installing MANY production FR by 2030, we better start with a technology where experience exists.

[Astronuc]

With respect to fast reactor technology, this might be of interest -

Fast Reactors and Accelerator Driven Systems Knowledge Base
Working Materials of the Technical Working Group on Fast Reactors
http://www.iaea.org/inisnkm/nkm/aws/fnss/twgfr/working_materials.html

and - http://www.iaea.org/inisnkm/nkm/aws/frdb/index.html


Phenix has had its problems - e.g. shutdown between 1998 to 2003, which is similar to long shutdowns seen at some US LWRs. I think the problems with Superphenix were related to scaling up the technology. The fact that Phenix was shutdown for upgrades didn't help the cause.

French nuclear safety authority has granted permission to restart the Phenix breeder reactor. Phenix, a 250 MW fast reactor using liquid sodium as coolant, has been idle since 1998 for inspection, repairs and safety upgrades. All work is expected to be completed by March, 2003 when the reactor is scheduled for restart.

In addition to its work as a prototype fast reactor, Phenix is also to be instrumental for study on the potential for transmutation of nuclear wastes. Phenix first started up in 1973.

Last year, I attended a conference on Gen VI materials, and I'll be involved with the next one coming up next year. While there has been much research with a broad range of materials, and there are some promising ones, none of the presentations and literature addressed the performance of these materials in a radiation environment nor for any time close to intended service life. I'm not cynical (except in a few cases such as molten lead systems), just very cautious when it comes to claims regarding nuclear energy and technology.

BTW, there is a concept for a superheated water reactor.

[daveb]

Salt cooled reactors seem to address many issues, and are very promising. Only difficulty: almost no experience with it!

In our reactor design class ( a team based design course) we continued work that the previous classes had done with regards to the lquid fluoride reactor (using a 2 salt FLiBe material) originally developed by ORNL. I imagine the next several years' classes will build upon our work, so maybe in several years' time there may be some experience.

[Astronuc]

One of the former ANS presidents recommended this site for topics on Nuclear Energy and Power Systems.

http://www.atomicinsights.com/AEI_Topics.html

[gdsandkes]

The Duke Energy plant near Charlotte NC was in trouble during the recent drought due to unprecedented low water levels, and came very close to shutting down because of a lack of cooling water from the intake pipe. The sun is available with no lingering waste or pollution. Thermal solar http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_IMRLi8HdY
can be scaled to work with current mature technology large scale turbine generators and water can be split effeciently with this MIT catalyst.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/oxygen-0731.html

If we are to go nuclear we need to have a plan to deal with the 55,000 tons of radioactive material already on hand. We currently use only 5 percent of the energy available in the stored material. Let's reproccess the available material, as the French do, and use 95 percent of the available energy.

[vanesch]

The Duke Energy plant near Charlotte NC was in trouble during the recent drought due to unprecedented low water levels, and came very close to shutting down because of a lack of cooling water from the intake pipe. The sun is available with no lingering waste or pollution. Thermal solar ...


Every thermal-to-electricity conversion will need external cooling, that's Carnot who dictates that. So there's no point in pointing out "lack of cooling" with a nuclear power plant, and propose any other thermal process in its place (thermal solar, biofuels, coal, gas,....) They all need a heat sink in the environment. It's elementary thermodynamics.

It is only wind, hydro, photovoltaic, and tidal sources that don't need any thermal dump.


If we are to go nuclear we need to have a plan to deal with the 55,000 tons of radioactive material already on hand. We currently use only 5 percent of the energy available in the stored material. Let's reproccess the available material, as the French do, and use 95 percent of the available energy.

There is a simple plan to deal with the waste. Compare 55 000 tons (world-wide some 170 000 tons I think) of waste accumulated over 30 years or more with the 2.8 MILLION tons of coal a single 1 GWe coal fired plant needs in one year, and you will see the smallness of the actual amount of waste. I'm not talking about its toxicity, I'm talking about its amount. If it is possible to mine tens of millions of tons of coal, then it is also possible to burry 55 000 tons of high level waste, which looses its "high level" status after a few centuries. We can also sit on it for as long as we want to as the total quantity is small. If we need to keep it as of yet some 50 more years to find out whether really there is not any problem with burying it, then that's no big deal. It is a few acres of land storage for the waste of a whole continent, for several decades. To bury it deeply under the surface is very feasible, given the smallness of the quantity compared to what one digs up from deep within the earth. So really, the waste is a non-issue. It is a small amount, and one knows what to do with it, and it is feasible.

Reprocessing is also a good idea as it separates the inert and useful (U and to a lesser extend, Pu) from the radioactive (fission products and minor actinides). The active part only represents 5% of the total spend fuel, so as a matter of volume (but not of activity and toxicity) it is a good idea to reprocess. It diminishes the volume of the waste to be buried and hence optimizes the use of the final repository.

However, it is a misunderstanding that - right at this moment - one can re-use the inert part. In thermal reactors such as light-water reactors, the plutonium can only be re-used once (MOX), because it gets a worse and worse isotopic composition, and the conversion of uranium into plutonium is only marginal. What is really needed, are fast (breeder) reactors, which can use *all* the plutonium, which can convert *all* the uranium and which can even burn all the minor actinides and don't produce many of them.

While it is true that LWR currently burn about 5% of the *enriched* uranium, that corresponds to about 0.5% of the natural uranium from which this enriched uranium was made. So overall, we only use about 0.5% of the energetic potential of natural uranium. With fast reactors, this can be in principle 100% (although in practice probably lower). That means a gain of about 50-100 in fuel efficiency.

Or, put differently: if you have the "waste" of 30 years of LWR operation, you can re-use this for about 1500 - 3000 years of equivalent energy output with fast reactors. Without any new natural uranium. Just by reprocessing the current waste and using the depleted uranium.

But all this is only possible in fast reactors. Not in LWR.

[Astronuc]

U.S. Decides One Nuclear Dump Is Enough
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/washington/07yucca.html
By MATTHEW L. WALD
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration will recommend that Congress give up the idea of a second nuclear waste dump, dropping a grand bargain struck in the 1980s, and instead vote to enlarge the repository now proposed in Nevada, the director of the Energy Department’s civilian radioactive waste management program said on Thursday.

The director, Edward F. Sproat III, who is in charge of work on the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, said that the process of trying to open one repository had been so slow and expensive that this was not a good time to start looking for another.

The future of the entire repository program may be in flux anyway because President-elect Barack Obama has called for finding another solution. But Mr. Sproat noted that the law called for his department to pursue the opening of the Yucca site.

Originally, the government promised utility companies that it would begin accepting nuclear waste in 1998 and began accepting payments from them of one-tenth of a cent per kilowatt-hour generated at their reactors. The government now predicts that a waste repository will open by 2020 at the earliest, and clearing the backlog could take many decades. Because of the delay, the government will owe commercial damages to the utilities of $11 billion or more.

When Congress sent the Energy Department to look for places to bury waste from civilian reactors and the nuclear weapons program in the 1980s, the idea was for two repositories, one in the West and one in the East, and the Energy Department listed a dozen sites in seven states, ranging from Maine to Minnesota and Mississippi. Congress eventually ordered the department to focus on Yucca Mountain, but set a limit of 70,000 metric tons of uranium and plutonium wastes, and to report back if another was needed.

Mr. Sproat, who spoke Thursday at a conference on nuclear waste held by the Center for Strategic and International Studies here, said that the inventory of waste would reach 70,000 tons by 2010.

. . . . It certainly keeps changing.

[Astronuc]

FYI,

Nuclear Energy Papers/Presentations (https://inlportal.inl.gov/portal/server.pt?open=514&objID=3052&parentname=CommunityPage&parentid=25&mode=2&in_hi_userid=200&cached=true)

EBR-II (https://inlportal.inl.gov/portal/server.pt/gateway/PTARGS_0_200_3005_257_2460_43/http%3B/inlpublisher%3B7087/publishedcontent/publish/communities/inl_gov/newsroom/publicationsarchive/ebr_ii.pdf) (link to pdf - use 'save target as')

[Astronuc]

Can Nuclear Power Compete?
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=can-nuclear-power-compete
Newly approved reactor designs could reduce global warming and fossil-fuel dependence, but utilities are grappling with whether better nukes make market sense
By Matthew L. Wald (Science Writer at NYTimes)

. . . . Wallace announced that his company, UniStar Nuclear Energy, a partnership between Constellation Energy and the European nuclear consortium Areva, was looking to build a new kind of nuclear power plant in the U.S. and elsewhere. “I’m pleased to say I played a role in the last round of nuclear power plant development, and I’m really pleased to be involved,” the chairman said, calling to mind a graying astronaut who walked on the moon years ago and now wanted to do it again.

That was in 2006. Since then, Wallace has intermittently made new announcements about incremental progress toward building a new reactor about 45 miles south of Washington, which could be the first U.S. nuclear plant put on order and built since 1973. Wallace’s original feat was leading the start-up of two of the nation’s last big nuclear plants, completed in 1987 in Illinois. Like another moon shot, the launch of new reactors after a 35-year hiatus in orders is certainly possible, though not a sure bet. It would be easier this time, the experts say, because of technological progress over the intervening decades. But as with a project as large as a moon landing, there is another question: Would it be worthwhile?

A variety of companies, including Wallace’s, say the answer may be yes. Manufacturers have submitted new designs to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s safety engineers, and that agency has already approved some as ready for construction, if they are built on a previously approved site. Utilities, reactor manufacturers and architecture/engineering firms have formed partnerships to build plants, pending final approvals. Swarms of students are enrolling in college-level nuclear engineering programs. And rosy *projections from industry and government predict a surge in construction.

. . . .

Sciam produced several articles on the current and future trends of nuclear power.
http://www.sciam.com/report.cfm?id=nuclear-future

[Sriram.S]

Is it possible to recreate the happenings on the sun on earth? Well, what is happening in the sun is fusion and there still isn't a solution to controlled fusion, but why not uncontrolled fusion by supplying extremely little fuel(i.e, what is going to fuse, for example hydrogen and helium in the sun).

Sriram

[Vals509]

i feel that people shoul install breeder nuclear reactors as they can re use fuel instead of the conventional reactors. i know that congress has banned/blocked the building of such a source but believe that it is a viable alternative and that it should be brought up again.

another thing is that the only thing scaring people to death about nuclear reactors are accidents like chernobyl. what needs to be done is informing people of the latest safety features of current reactors and we must remember is that chernobyl occured because of several stupid mistakes. sure stupid mistakes can still happed but we are a lot more educated to respond to such accidents.

finally research into fusion rather than fission reactors must be accelerated. i know that it is still taking place but more attention must be given to it. also reactors need to be built in areas with a cordoned off area of whatever kilometeres needed and people around should be trained to respond in emergency.

or the simplest solution is to invest into other sources of energy like solar and wind???????

[Vals509]

Is it possible to recreate the happenings on the sun on earth? Well, what is happening in the sun is fusion and there still isn't a solution to controlled fusion, but why not uncontrolled fusion by supplying extremely little fuel(i.e, what is going to fuse, for example hydrogen and helium in the sun).

Sriram

well fusion reactions can take place and they are controlled but however they are theoretically possible. examples like the TOKAMAK have i believe achieved fusion but are financially bad.

[Astronuc]

The Westinghouse AP-1000 is one of the modern Gen 3+ plants that are proposed near future NPPs.

http://www.ne.doe.gov/pdfFiles/AP1000_Plant_Description.pdf

Other plants under consideration:

US APWR - Mitsubishi
AP600 - Westinghouse
System 80+ - Westinghouse
AP600 - Westinghouse
EPR - AREVA

ABWR - GE/Hitachi
ESBWR - GE

GT-MHR - General Atomics
ACR - AECL
PMBR - Westinghouse/ESKOM
4S - Toshiba
IRIS - Westinghouse


EPRI has established the Advanced Nuclear Technology program regarding the new NPP designs.
www.epri.com/ant

[Astronuc]

The Future of Nuclear Power - An interdisciplinary study by MIT.

http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpower/

The original study was completed in 2003, and the situation has changed. There is a large (~29 MB pdf file).

There is an update for 2009.

[sloughter]

I met a nuclear physicist/engineer who was the go to guy for Army Intelligcnce when Chernoble went south. He was asked to give his opinion of impending casualties. He told the Army brass, "You are going to lose some firefighers and some of the helicopter pilots who flew through the radioactive plume. That should be about 35-40 people. That's it" A recent World Health Organization Report came out indicating 23 years later that 40 people had died because of Chernoble, just as the nuclear expert predicted.

What is not appreciated in the American public is that equating American Nuclear Plants to Chernoble is comparable to comparing the safety features of a Lexus to a Model T. Chernoble consisted of vertical concrete walls 2-3 feet thick with a tarpaper roof. We have reactor domes over a foot thick with rebar.

When the radioactive cloud took off, the vertical walls acted like a chimney and the cloud rose vertically, traveled about 30 miles and then descended into an unpopulated area. Unfortunately, the Russian Government forgot to tell the peasants not to drink milk from cows eating grass tainted with radioactive iodine (Only the volatiles, radioactive cesium and iodine were released when the reactor burned, and some of the peasants came down with thyroid cancer---they also used graphite as a moderator which also burns).

Don't eat striped bass from the Hudson River unless you like the taste of PCB's. Don't eat predatory fish from the Atlantic three times a day, unless you like mercury-induced insanity. Don't drink milk from cows eating radioactive grass. Duh.

The studies relating low levels of exposure to radiation used to predict thousands of casualites at Chernoble are based on bogus extrapolation of high doses of radiation to low doses (I was exposed to more radiation digging for pyrite nodules in black shales than most Cheronobleites were exposed to from the radioactive cloud.)

If I eat 1000 aspirin at once and die, does this mean if 1,000,000 people eat one aspirin/day for a year that 1000 will die of aspirin poisoning? This is great science if you want to start a new industry getting radon out of the basements of people's homes, but it is low quality science. Greenpeace and the Union of Concerned Scientists are little more than scare mongers. If they wished to do something useful, they should try to get kids not to start smoking or drinking and driving, they'd save a lot more lives, but it is not nearly as exciting as being in an organization going after those big bad nuclear power plants.

As far as nuclear research, check out the websites by George S. Stanford and Charles E. Till on the Integral Fast Reactor. It promises to provide clean, safe, proliferation-resistant, weapons-incompatible fast breeder technology. It was shut down by Senator John Kerry in 1994 presumably because it competed with MIT's hot fusion program (The research was about to be completed within three years; completing the research cost no more than shutting it down. Commercial viability was inevitable and MIT stood to lose billions of dollars in research grants if the program was completed.I'd like to start a discussion/debate of nuclear power for the purpose of informing people about it. I am participating in a thread in another forum HERE (http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=9370) where we are discussing an article about Germany planning to phase out nuclear power. I am STRONGLY against this. It is bad for scientific, economic, political, and environmental reasons.

In the course of discussions of the nuclear power issue, it seems to me that the arguements against nuclear power are based primarily on ignorance and emotion. I'm all for open scientific debate, but on this particular subject, I tend to take the approach of educating, not strictly debating. If that comes off as arrogant, I apologize, but this is a remarkably straightforward issue when you get down to the science of it.

So, to start off, a few facts:
-The US has roughly 98 million kW of nuclear generation capacity in roughly 100 plants and runs at about 90% load.
-For comparison, the US has about 4 thousand kW of wind capacity and that doubles about every other year.
-Virtually all new generation capacity in the US is from oil.
-The US has not started construction on a single nuclear plant since Three Mile Island about 20 years ago.
-According to the WHO, air pollution kills 70,000 people in the US every year and affects virtually everyone.
-electric power generation is the leading producer of air pollution in the US.
-HALF of the electricity in the US comes from COAL.
-No civilian has ever been killed as a result of nuclear power in the US (TMI was the worst accident and a long term study produced no statistically significant increase in cancer rates).
-Chernobyl killed roughly 50 people and injured/sickened maybe 1000, including long-after cancers (I had no idea it was that low, so HERE (http://www.vanderbilt.edu/radsafe/9604/msg00651.html) is where I found that).

To me, the evidence is so enormously strong in favor of re-activating our nuclear power program, it should be self-evident. Clearly however, nuclear power is all but dead in the US and indeed much of the world.

I'd also like to discuss research. There has been nuclear power research done over the past 20 years (though not much because of TMI). Pebble-bed reactors for example have potential to be both easy to service and virtually melt-down proof. I'd like to hear of other technologies.

[sloughter]

Financially bad is an understatement. If you consider Inertial Confinement Fusion at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, you are probably talking electricity at over $10/kWh. Here's why. For openers, we are told that they must detonate at least the equivalent of one gallon of gasoline/sec. with a repetition rate of one repetition/sec i.e. not over multiple chambers (as presented in a cartoon on Charlie Gibson).

Let me get this straight hmm 100,000,000 degrees C (The temperature of implosion fusion by lasers) going to -260 degrees C in less than one second (the temperature of a deuterium/tritium sand grain). Sounds realistic doesn't it?

Let's take that measly one gallon of gasoline/sec. For openers, a big coal fired plant may need as much as 17,000 tons of coal/day. That works out to 400 pounds/sec. Sounds like a lot more energy than a gallon of gasoline, so that gallon of gasoline/sec. is a pretty small base load plant. As for the gallon of gasoline: One pound of gasoline has the explosive equivalent of 15 pounds of dynamite. So a gallon of gasoline going off every second is the explosive equivalent of 100 pounds of dynamite going off every second.

How do we capture the explosive power of 100 pounds of dynamite going off every second? Here are the steps: 1)Input, 2)Compression, 3)Ignition, 4)Exhaust. Doesn't this sound like an internal combusion engine?

Now for the engineering details conveniently omitted by the LLNL people. How do you isolate the lasers from the force of a 100 pound stick of dynamite going off a few feet away? Suppose the laser zigs when it should zag and the implosion front of the pellet is all screwed up. One second it is a 100 pound stick of dynamite, the next a 10 pound stick of dynamite. This would require going to some kind of 1000 ton + flywheel to even out the detonations just like on a John Deere tractor.

The next thing that is required is that you will need Star Wars in a bottle. How do you get a particle the size of a sand grain into the chamber, then lock onto a moving target and detonate it with 196 lasers simultaneously? We can't even hit something as big as a missile yet we can lock onto a moving sand grain and hit it synchronously with 196 lasers!

Each chamber will need at least a minute to cool off and the need to damp the lasers motion, so that the sand grain doesn't vaporize upon entering the chamber. This means that there will need to be at least 60 times the numbers of lasers and chambers suggested by LLNL.

Toroidal fusion will never be practical because it requires enormously expensive, incredibly complicated machinery (Murphy's Law considerations) that requires fuel so expensive that it is cheaper to burn one carat diamonds in the reactor with enormous numbers of cooling towers. This competes with simple, rapidly improving technology with free fuel and no cooling towers (Wind, solar and geothermal---bio fuels are cheap and the Integral Fast Reactor is far more competitive).

After 30 years, they can barely sustain the plasma and they still haven't reached break ever when the energy of the magnets is considered. News Flash! They don't know how to deal with the exhaust from the plasma fusion products!

Did the Department Of Energy do a Draft Environmental Impact Statement and a Final Environmental Impact Statement when they decided to fund the hot fusion program at MIT as required by the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969?

Who wanted the hot fusion program? As a geologist, I'd love to spend billions of dollars putting a geothermal system in every single family residence having over 1/2 acre. This would put a whole lot of geologists to work. If I was a chemist, I'd like to build better batteries, more fuel efficient cars, better insulation, high temperature superconductivity and such things as better insulators, semiconductors, etc. If I was a biologist, I'd love to build cellulose bio fuel plants all over the US and have thousands of ponds producing hydrogen-producing algae. If I was an atmospheric scientist, I'd love to put wind mills everywhere.

Did the DOE get input from other branches of the sciences when they decided to fund the hot fusion program at MIT?

So why do we have a hot fusion program? Because the gool 'ole boys network at DOE decided to provide the underfunded physicists at MIT with a gravy train lasting 35 years with another 35 years in the offing (Ask any hot fusion scientist when hot fusion will be commericially viable, it is always, "Thirty years from now."well fusion reactions can take place and they are controlled but however they are theoretically possible. examples like the TOKAMAK have i believe achieved fusion but are financially bad.

[Astronuc]

Archive of Previous Symposia
http://www.world-nuclear.org/sym/subindex.htm

The papers are fairly general and deal with the industry, trends, fuel cycle issues, waste and other related topics.

[Astronuc]

If one is studying nuclear engineering, or is planning to do so, or planning a career in nuclear engineering, then this is relevant.

http://www.ne.doe.gov/pdfFiles/rpt_NEFutureRequiredRDCapabilities_Sep2008.pdf

Lot's of other good reports here - http://www.ne.doe.gov/


An overview of new and proposed NPPs
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf08.html

[oldsloguy]

I would like to add to this. Current thermal-spectrum reactors use MAINLY U-235 in the power production. U-235 is 0.7% of the natural content of uranium on earth. In fact, at high burnup, SOME U-238 (the 99.3% remaining if we neglect some traces) is converted into Pu-239 and is burned up ; about 30% of the energy that is extracted in a reactor comes from this Pu-burning, and 70% comes from the original U-235 burning.

So that means that currently, we use effectively ONE PERCENT of the energetic content of the uranium that has been extracted.

In a fast reactor, we can use ALL of it, because U-238, through conversion in Pu-239, can become a nuclear fuel. We can use all the U-238 that we already DUG UP, and partially discarded (in the "enrichment" of uranium, which is nothing else but removing 3/4 of the U-238 from the original ore), and MOST of the "burned fuel" which consists mainly of passive U-238.

So, by switching to fast breeders, we can extract in principle ONE HUNDRED TIMES MORE ENERGY from the EXISTING waste than we already extracted. In principle without any more uranium input. Just by using the "waste" correctly.

If some powerplants have been working for 30 years, this means, in principle, that we can extract the same power for another 3000 years, just by using its "waste".

Yes, and you have not even mentioned thorium which I understand is 3 to 5 times more plentiful in the earths crust than uranium. Is there some reason that you did not mention thorium or were you just addressing uranium issues only!

[oldsloguy]

Sodium makes people nervous because of its reactivity with water, but all the other properties of sodium are OK, which makes it less of a problem than people think. For instance, a liquid sodium reactor is NOT under pressure, which relieves a lot of safety, materials and mechanics issues. In that respect, a liquid sodium reactor is "easier" than a LWR which is under high pressure. Also, one can, as with the IFR, use a "buffer bath" of sodium to make the reactor entirely passively safe. The only true engineering challenge is to keep the water out in all circumstances.

I’m not very familiar with hot liquid sodium, but you seem really comfortable with the idea of handling hot liquid sodium in and accident which might expose it to air. Does it not burn very vigorously or is it easily controlled?

[oldsloguy]

I believe that the probability of a nuclear accident associated with Nuclear power is low... unfortunately the cost is high. Utility is the product of the probability * the cost. There is a good reason to be cautious about Nuclear power.

I remember reading somewhere in the past that the cost of cleaning and decommissioning TMI was about 900 million dollars and that the initial construction cost was about 4 billion dollars. I'm not sure if those cost were adjusted for inflation over the intervening time differential between them or not, but I don't think it really matters for the purposes of this discussion.

It seems to me that TMI is about the worst possible accident that can happen to a modern LWR. Am I correct in that or can anyone reasonably postulate a worse accident?

If so, agreed that the risk is low, but when you have over 100 commercial plants operating 30+ years each and the worst case accident, which occurs only once over that period, is ¼ the value of one plant, how can you argue that “unfortunately the cost is high”?

[joelupchurch]

I remember reading somewhere in the past that the cost of cleaning and decommissioning TMI was about 900 million dollars and that the initial construction cost was about 4 billion dollars. I'm not sure if those cost were adjusted for inflation over the intervening time differential between them or not, but I don't think it really matters for the purposes of this discussion.

It seems to me that TMI is about the worst possible accident that can happen to a modern LWR. Am I correct in that or can anyone reasonably postulate a worse accident?

If so, agreed that the risk is low, but when you have over 100 commercial plants operating 30+ years each and the worst case accident, which occurs only once over that period, is ¼ the value of one plant, how can you argue that “unfortunately the cost is high”?

The construction cost on TMI-2 was 800 million in 1978, which is 2.5 billion in 2007 dollars. Here is a table with construction costs of various reactors adjusted to 2007 dollars:
http://depletedcranium.com/why-i-hate-the-nrc/#more-2748

Also you should note that the Probabilistic Risk Assessment on the new Westinghouse Ap1000 is hundred times less likely to have a core meltdown than a 2nd generation plant.
http://www.asmeconferences.org/ICONE16/pdfs/NewPlantsBeBuilt.pdf
The PRA starts on page 23.

[oldsloguy]

The construction cost on TMI-2 was 800 million in 1978, which is 2.5 billion in 2007 dollars. Here is a table with construction costs of various reactors adjusted to 2007 dollars:
http://depletedcranium.com/why-i-hate-the-nrc/#more-2748

Also you should note that the Probabilistic Risk Assessment on the new Westinghouse Ap1000 is hundred times less likely to have a core meltdown than a 2nd generation plant.
http://www.asmeconferences.org/ICONE16/pdfs/NewPlantsBeBuilt.pdf
The PRA starts on page 23.

Thanks, that is an interesting. TMI-I cost the 400 million dollars and TMI-2 800 million dollars. So, doing the correction more accurately would yield:

Assumptions, using 2007 $:
Cost TMI-2 = 2544 million $
Cost of clean up = $973, over 12 years, use 1985 for adjustment
http://www.ans.org/pi/resources/sptopics/tmi/cleanup.html
Inflation adjustment from 1985 = 1.93
http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

Clean-up of TMI-2 as a fraction of plant cost = 973*1.93/2544 = 0.74

So, restating my earlier post:

If so, agreed that the risk is low, but when you have over 100 commercial plants operating 30+ years each and the worst case accident, which occurs only once over that period, is 3/4 the value of one plant, how can you argue that “unfortunately the cost is high”?

And as you point out, and my gut feeling is, even that small overhead loss is way over stated.

[vanesch]

I’m not very familiar with hot liquid sodium, but you seem really comfortable with the idea of handling hot liquid sodium in and accident which might expose it to air. Does it not burn very vigorously or is it easily controlled?

I think it is the main worry: the confinement has to be double. In a thermal reactor, you want the stuff not to get out in any case, and in a sodium-cooled reactor, on top of that, you don't want water or air to get in in any case. That's why people look into other types of coolant such as liquid lead or gas. But most experience is nevertheless with sodium (and yes, there have been minor problems with it). I think it is the main challenge in the design of a fast reactor. But it is not necessarily so terribly more difficult than a PWR, because there's no pressure.

[mheslep]

Special section on in the Sept 8 edition titled "The New Nukes"
Temp link: (http://online.wsj.com/wsjgate?subURI=%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052970204409 904574350342705855178-email.html&nonsubURI=%2Farticle_email%2FSB1000142405297020440 9904574350342705855178-lMyQjAxMDA5MDAwODEwNDgyWj.html)

The article is lengthy, covering many of the topics up thread. To start, I wanted to summarize the various cost figures cited through the article:


Gen III plants in general, i.e. all designs: $4k to $6.5k per kw
Small, modular nuclear, i.e. Hyperion or B&W: $3.5k to $5k per kw, add $50 to $100m licensing costs per site.
Gen IV Ge-Hatachi Prism design: $10k per kw (small size ~300 MW)


Summary of experts quoted in the article:
Revis James, EPRI
Ronaldo Szilard, Idaho National labs
Amir Shakarami, Exelon VP
Tom Cochrane, NRDC

[joelupchurch]

Special section on in the Sept 8 edition titled "The New Nukes"
Temp link: (http://online.wsj.com/wsjgate?subURI=%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052970204409 904574350342705855178-email.html&nonsubURI=%2Farticle_email%2FSB1000142405297020440 9904574350342705855178-lMyQjAxMDA5MDAwODEwNDgyWj.html)

The article is lengthy, covering many of the topics up thread. To start, I wanted to summarize the various cost figures cited through the article:


Gen III plants in general, i.e. all designs: $4k to $6.5k per kw
Small, modular nuclear, i.e. Hyperion or B&W: $3.5k to $5k per kw, add $50 to $100m licensing costs per site.
Gen IV Ge-Hatachi Prism design: $10k per kw (small size ~300 MW)


Summary of experts quoted in the article:
Revis James, EPRI
Ronaldo Szilard, Idaho National labs
Amir Shakarami, Exelon VP
Tom Cochrane, NRDC

I read the article and it was pretty good except for the comments by Tom Cochrane. My biggest disagreement would be with implicit assumption that US construction costs are facts of nature rather than products of our regulatory environment. The Chinese are building AP1000 reactors for about $2K per KWh. The World Nuclear Association has better information. http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf02.html

I have been very pleased with the construction updates I've seen from Sanmen. I was inclined to write off the modular design stuff as Westinghouse marketing hype, but the actual results are impressive. As I recall, one of the pictures I saw was the whole control room being lifted in place as a single module. By the time we start building our AP1000s, we will be dealing with a proven design and not have to deal with FOAK issues.

[Astronuc]

I read the article and it was pretty good except for the comments by Tom Cochrane. My biggest disagreement would be with implicit assumption that US construction costs are facts of nature rather than products of our regulatory environment. The Chinese are building AP1000 reactors for about $2K per KWh. The World Nuclear Association has better information. http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf02.html The Chinese didn't have to pay the development costs that Westinghouse did. Westinghouse sold an essentially off-the-shelf design at a relatively huge discount. The Chinese did however buy the first 4 which are now under various stages of construction.

I have been very pleased with the construction updates I've seen from Sanmen. I was inclined to write off the modular design stuff as Westinghouse marketing hype, but the actual results are impressive. As I recall, one of the pictures I saw was the whole control room being lifted in place as a single module. By the time we start building our AP1000s, we will be dealing with a proven design and not have to deal with FOAK issues. Modular construction is relatively new. Designs like the AP1000 were on the drawing boards before modular construction techniques has matured.

The cost of concrete and steel is a big factor in current capital costs, as well as labor, as is interest. The Chinese government would certainly be more inclined to subsidize NPPs than would the US government.

[mheslep]

The Chinese didn't have to pay the development costs that Westinghouse did. Westinghouse sold an essentially off-the-shelf design at a relatively huge discount...Any idea why Westinghouse would do that? To what end? Are you suggesting that the several AP1000 sites on the NRC proposal list would enjoy Chinese construction costs?

[Astronuc]

Any idea why Westinghouse would do that? To what end? Are you suggesting that the several AP1000 sites on the NRC proposal list would enjoy Chinese construction costs? Money. Short term gain. After W assumed CBS, the nuclear (WN) part got sold to BNFL, who in turn sold WN to a partnership with Toshiba (majority) and Shaw (minority), and some others, IIRC.

The nuclear industry is very competitive, but it is very expensive and the margins are often thin.

[mheslep]

Money. Short term gain. ...I'm referring to your statement "at a relatively huge discount", implying they did it for any other reason but short term money. So 1. Why the huge discount? 2. Can the US get the same deal?

[Astronuc]

I'm referring to your statement "at a relatively huge discount", implying they did it for any other reason but short term money. So 1. Why the huge discount? 2. Can the US get the same deal? From a relative who negotiates gas contracts in China, the Chinese are tough negotiators - and the market is competitive. W competes with AREVA and others in the Chinese market. The W deal also involved technology transfer.

The US market is different. I don't see the same deals being done in the US, because W, AREVA and Mitsuibishi are the primary PWR suppliers - and they can't afford to lose money here.

Besides the US DOE (Uncle Sam) is supposed to kick in some subsidies (direct and indirect).

[joelupchurch]

The cost of concrete and steel is a big factor in current capital costs, as well as labor, as is interest. The Chinese government would certainly be more inclined to subsidize NPPs than would the US government.

Actually Westinghouse is also claiming the AP1000 uses a lot less concrete and steel than other designs also. They are claiming 100,000 cubic meters of concrete compared to 520,000 for the Sizewell B reactor. I assume Sizewell B must be a bad design, but they are showing a very small footprint even compared to their own 2nd generation plants. (Page 30-31)

http://amgroupes.fr/admin/compte_rendus/195_compte_rendu.pdf (http://amgroupes.fr/admin/compte_rendus/195_compte_rendu.pdf)

The reason that the Chinese got a good deal on the AP1000 is that they ordered a 100 of them. The most any US utility company ordered is 2. I've suggested on my blog that Congress change the charter of the TVA so they can build nuclear power plants anywhere in the United States. Maybe they could get some economies of scale also.

BTW on the question of what government is providing loan guarantees for these reactors, the answer is the United States.

http://www.world-nuclear.org
/info/inf63.html (http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf63.html)

The US, French and Russian governments were reported to be giving firm support as finance and support arrangements were put in place. The US Export-Import bank approved $5 billion in loan guarantees for the Westinghouse bid

[mheslep]

Actually Westinghouse is also claiming the AP1000 uses a lot less concrete and steel than other designs also. They are claiming 100,000 cubic meters of concrete compared to 520,000 for the Sizewell B reactor. I assume Sizewell B must be a bad design, but they are showing a very small footprint even compared to their own 2nd generation plants. (Page 30-31)

http://amgroupes.fr/admin/compte_rendus/195_compte_rendu.pdf (http://amgroupes.fr/admin/compte_rendus/195_compte_rendu.pdf)

The reason that the Chinese got a good deal on the AP1000 is that they ordered a 100 of them. The most any US utility company ordered is 2.
I don't think 'ordered' is the correct word, as the implies a contract to build, and I'm unaware of a final go ahead on any US nuclear units. Design and services contracts have no doubt been placed.

Where did you get the number 100 for China?

[Astronuc]

The reason that the Chinese got a good deal on the AP1000 is that they ordered a 100 of them. The most any US utility company ordered is 2. I've suggested on my blog that Congress change the charter of the TVA so they can build nuclear power plants anywhere in the United States. Maybe they could get some economies of scale also. Please cite sources. Checking the World Nuclear link - China has plans for about 100 1 GWe units - not all of which are AP1000. And China negotiated a technology transfer program, so after the first 4, CNNC (and perhaps CGNPC and China Power Investment Corporation (CPI)) will likely build most of them. They are also contemplating CPR-1000 and EPRs.

Sizewell B was based on standard 4-loop Westinghouse design like Wolf Creek or Callaway. The essentially used the requirements of the time, given the limited experience (less than 20 years.) Now with 40+ years experience, the plant and reactor designs can be optimized.

[joelupchurch]

I don't think 'ordered' is the correct word, as the implies a contract to build, and I'm unaware of a final go ahead on any US nuclear units. Design and services contracts have no doubt been placed.

Where did you get the number 100 for China?

That is what it says in Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AP1000

I checked the reference and the Westinghouse CEO did say that:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_575073.html

I also found an article repeating what Wikipedia said about the AP1000 being the standard for Inland nuclear power plants.
http://www.neimagazine.com/story.asp?storyCode=2053048

I would interpret that to mean that they will use something else for plants that don't require a cooling tower.

US AP1000 Orders.

http://www.nucpros.com/?q=node/4313
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/newsarticle.aspx?id=24250

[Astronuc]

The AP-1000 is a simplified design with a simplified ECCS. It will require cooling towers in some areas where the site would not have adequate river or ocean volumes.

See also
Westinghouse, Shaw to provide four reactors to China
http://www.neimagazine.com/story.asp?storyCode=2046380

from the Candris article:
Last year the company beat out French rival Areva to win a $5.3 billion contract to build four AP1000s in China. Although Westinghouse will transfer the technology to Chinese licensees over the next few years, Candris said, it will build several additional plants with partner The Shaw Group, of Baton Rouge, La. http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_575073.html

The AP1000 has a core size of 157 17x17 assemblies with a 14-ft (4.27 m) active fuel length (core height) with a thermal output of ~3400 MWt, which is about the same thermal output from a standard 4-loop 193-assembly core with a core height of 12 ft (3.66 m) before they were uprated. The fuel rods in the AP-1000 uses a 9.5 mm cladding OD.

[mheslep]

I checked the reference and the Westinghouse CEO did say that:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_575073.html..I only check this reference - it says China wants 100, not bought. I've never gotten a volume discount for wanting anything (so far)

Regards the US plants, even Vogle in Georgia is bit early to call an order. The utility and the state utility commission have given the go ahead, but the NRC doesn't give final signoff until 2011, if then. So ground breaking is several years away, if if happens.
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/col/vogtle/review-schedule.html
I hope it does go ahead, but I expect this administration won't let it happen - not in 2011 anyway.

[joelupchurch]

I only check this reference - it says China wants 100, not bought. I've never gotten a volume discount for wanting anything (so far)

Regards the US plants, even Vogle in Georgia is bit early to call an order. The utility and the state utility commission have given the go ahead, but the NRC doesn't give final signoff until 2011, if then. So ground breaking is several years away, if if happens.
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/col/vogtle/review-schedule.html
I hope it does go ahead, but I expect this administration won't let it happen - not in 2011 anyway.

If the Chinese build 100 AP1000 plants, I'm not sure if Westinghouse cares if they see much money from them. There is a whole international supply chain being built for the AP1000. This gives them a lot of leverage when they are bidding against Areva and GE. That's assuming that Westinghouse only licensed the design for construction in China.

The second point is probably valid. The NRC just announced a delay in licensing the AP1000 because Westinghouse hadn't answered all their questions about the sump design.

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/a-nuclear-renaissance-stumbles-forward/

[Equate]

DOE Has $40M for Design and Development of Next Gen Nuclear Plants

The $40 million funding announcement made today will support phase one activities including the development of cost-shared conceptual designs, cost and schedule estimates and a business plan for integrating Phase 2 activities. The data gathered in Phase 1 will be used to determine if Phase 2 should continue. Applications for receiving funds from the $40 million are due by November 16 and the DOE expects to make two awards in February 2010 with each supporting a unique reactor concept.

A demonstration plant is expected to be produced by 2021.

Source: http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=16304

$40 million to be split in half for two separate research projects? They are spending billions to bail out dubious investors and then they are giving out jump change for the development of NGNPs?

That's a slap in the face...

[tmyer2107]

I was wondering what everyone's thoughts were on gas turbine modular helium reactors (GT-MHR). I recently came across the technology and found it very interesting but wasn't able to find many details on it. Some details can be found here, http://gt-mhr.ga.com/. How does this technology compare to AP1000 reactors?