Setting up nuclear plants far away from human populations

[wasteofo2]

Hello all,

Im no expert on the subject, but it has always seemed to me that for nuclear power to be safe, they should simply set up power plants far away from human populations.

This seems very simplistic, so I am just curious to know what problems there are with this idea.

Say for instance, there were a law that any nuclear power plant had to be set up X miles from any human population, in an area that doesn´t have strong winds that would blow radiation towards humans and with water supplies that don´t lead to cities etc.

The biggest problem, I´d assume, is finding a river or water source that isn´t utilized downstream by humans.

Obviously setting up something 50, 100 miles from human population would be hard for workers to get to, but a long commute isn´t the worst thing possible.

Bassically, what problems exist with simply setting up nuclear power plants FAR away from people?

 

[misnderstudge]

why? why are we more important then OTHER animals. if we push it out there they will have less space and will suffer if something was to go wrong. plus the higher background radiation as well. we can understand what that is and live with the effects of it they cant. plus we have ALL the benefits of the power. i am not a vege but think about it

 

[promecheng]

Hello all,

Im no expert on the subject, but it has always seemed to me that for nuclear power to be safe, they should simply set up power plants far away from human populations.

This seems very simplistic, so I am just curious to know what problems there are with this idea.

Say for instance, there were a law that any nuclear power plant had to be set up X miles from any human population, in an area that doesn´t have strong winds that would blow radiation towards humans and with water supplies that don´t lead to cities etc.

The biggest problem, I´d assume, is finding a river or water source that isn´t utilized downstream by humans.

Obviously setting up something 50, 100 miles from human population would be hard for workers to get to, but a long commute isn´t the worst thing possible.

Bassically, what problems exist with simply setting up nuclear power plants FAR away from people?

The paradox is that while we would like to locate nuclear power plants far away from high-population areas, the high-population areas are where the electricity is needed most. Losses from transmission lines are significant and increase with distance. I believe here in the U.S. they account for approx. 30% energy loss. The balance point is locating nuclear power plants a reasonable distance from population dense areas, without being so far as to incur unacceptable transmission losses.

 

[Drakkith]

I'd like to point out that nuclear power plants, in general, are extremely safe. The #1 reactor in the Japan incident had been operational since 1971. Thats FORTY YEARS of operation and it took the biggest earthquake ever recorded in Japan, AND a Tsunamai to give them any major problems.

 

[DR13]

why? why are we more important then OTHER animals. if we push it out there they will have less space and will suffer if something was to go wrong. plus the higher background radiation as well. we can understand what that is and live with the effects of it they cant. plus we have ALL the benefits of the power. i am not a vege but think about it

Seriously?

Hello all,

Im no expert on the subject, but it has always seemed to me that for nuclear power to be safe, they should simply set up power plants far away from human populations.

This seems very simplistic, so I am just curious to know what problems there are with this idea.

Say for instance, there were a law that any nuclear power plant had to be set up X miles from any human population, in an area that doesn´t have strong winds that would blow radiation towards humans and with water supplies that don´t lead to cities etc.

The biggest problem, I´d assume, is finding a river or water source that isn´t utilized downstream by humans.

Obviously setting up something 50, 100 miles from human population would be hard for workers to get to, but a long commute isn´t the worst thing possible.

Bassically, what problems exist with simply setting up nuclear power plants FAR away from people?

If you are talking about the US I agree with Drakkith.
For Japan, the problem is also that there is not enough room (along with what Drakkith said). They have over 125 million people on a small island with 51 nuclear plants. It would be difficult to find enough available land that is far away from civilization.

 

[Astronuc]

The paradox is that while we would like to locate nuclear power plants far away from high-population areas, the high-population areas are where the electricity is needed most. Losses from transmission lines are significant and increase with distance. I believe here in the U.S. they account for approx. 30% energy loss. The balance point is locating nuclear power plants a reasonable distance from population dense areas, without being so far as to incur unacceptable transmission losses.

That's part of the issue. I don't believe the T&D losses are necessarily 30% though - but perhaps a few % depending on the load and power factor (proportions of real and reactive power). There are certainly inefficiencies where electronics or lights are left on while not in use.

 

[Thermalne]

From my understanding, most reactors in the United States are placed well outside population areas while still close enough for power to get to those areas.

Example: Watts Bar and Plant Hatch

 

[DR13]

From my understanding, most reactors in the United States are placed well outside population areas while still close enough for power to get to those areas.

Example: Watts Bar and Plant Hatch

That is what I thought too. But I took the OP to mean out totally in the middle of nowhere. If they are too far out, it would be a pain for the people who have to work on the plant or if they need to bring in an outside company to do any sort of work.

 

[Thermalne]

That is what I thought too. But I took the OP to mean out totally in the middle of nowhere. If they are too far out, it would be a pain for the people who have to work on the plant or if they need to bring in an outside company to do any sort of work.

They already are in the middle of nowhere!

 

[misnderstudge]

first i know they are safe very safe and yes i am serious

 

[Thermalne]

first i know they are safe very safe and yes i am serious

If you are going to state something like that, do you mind actually proving your creditability towards this issue?

 

[DR13]

They already are in the middle of nowhere!

Yes and no. Some are actually in the middle of nowhere. Some are kinda in the middle of nowhere (small towns nearby).

Just for the record, I think that the current placement of nuclear power plants is fine.

 

[Astronuc]

From my understanding, most reactors in the United States are placed well outside population areas while still close enough for power to get to those areas.

Example: Watts Bar and Plant Hatch

In the 1950s and 1960s, Indian Point station on the Hudson River about 45 miles N of NYCity was 'away' from populated areas. Then over 5 decades, millions of people moved closer to it - because it was then affordable and it's up in the hills and forests along the Hudson River Valley.

Other plants were built with lakes for cooling. Well, folks from the region the come to the lake to boat, camp and/or fish.

Interestingly, there are coal and oil plants along the River. One evening, I noticed a plume of brown clouds drifting across the county where I live. I'm sure most folks didn't notice the pollution, and have no idea to what they are exposed. Ignorance is bliss. Epidiemologially, there could be cancers, neuro-degenerative diseases and auto-immune diseases that may very well occur due to such chronic exposure. But since no one looks, it would not be noticed. Of course, there are artificial chemicals, including agricultural products, that would have a similar impact.

Many plants are built out in low population density rural or agricultural areas, e.g., east and central US. Discerning the health effects from nuclear power is complicated by those effects attributed to agriculture.

 

[promecheng]

That's part of the issue. I don't believe the T&D losses are necessarily 30% though - but perhaps a few % depending on the load and power factor (proportions of real and reactive power). There are certainly inefficiencies where electronics or lights are left on while not in use.

You are right Astronuc. According to the U.S. EIA http://www.eia.gov/cneaf/electricity/st_profiles/us.html estimated losses in the U.S. for 2008 were approximately 6%.

 

[russ_watters]

The 25 mile radius around the Limerick, Pa plant includes about 4 million people.

 

[kojit9]

I was thinking the same thing - why not put nuclear power plants where we tested the nuclear bombs in Nevada - I mean 50 - 100 miles away from populated areas does not really matter - the radiated plum will still leak out.

It is to bad we have transmission lost if the plant is too far away - would adding more power lines help this issue?

I mean - its a great a plant can run 40-60 years - but its not really if - but when the power plant fails - it will permanently ruins that area. Build it in an area where its already contaminated BUT with mountains around it - aka the Nevada desert test sites for nuclear weapons. So WHEN it fails - it is not as catastrophic. The nevada desert was chosen for nuking I believe because its isolated - and the radioactive dust would stay in that area.

Plus... no population is ever going to build there anyway - EVER.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Why stop at nuclear power? Why not move everything to the desert?

Four questions:
1) How many people died at Chernobyl?
2) How many people died at Bhopal?
3) How many nuclear plants has the US built since Chernobyl? (Or TMI)
4) How many chemical plants has the US built since Bhopal?

 

[kojit9]

Really?

The death rate from Chernobyl was small in that area - but no one is going to be able to use that land again for several hundred years + the higher rate of cancer in the surrounding areas when the crisis did happen.

What does Bhopal have anything to do with this? Nuclear power when it fails it makes the area perm. unusable for a very very very very long time. You honestly think there is never going to be another nuclear power plant failures in the future?

I'm all for a renewal of nuclear power - but the locations they choice for existing sites where not that bright. Located it in area with mountains on all sides in an already unusable area seems smarter.

If Chernobyl where located where the nukes where tested in Nevada for instance - would it really of been such a huge issue with it failed?

 

[russ_watters]

The death rate from Chernobyl was small in that area - but no one is going to be able to use that land again for several hundred years + the higher rate of cancer in the surrounding areas when the crisis did happen.

I'd be surprised if anything but the immediate area (a few miles radius) around the plant is currently uninhabitable. Remember, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were never uninhabited (though realistically, they probably should have been for a few years).

What does Bhopal have anything to do with this? Nuclear power when it fails it makes the area perm. unusable for a very very very very long time. You honestly think there is never going to be another nuclear power plant failures in the future?

"Failures" come in many forms and in many different levels of severity. For example, Three Mile Island destroyed the reactor, but didn't do any environmental damage or kill any people. Certainly there will be more failures, but Chernobyl had some major design flaws that make future accidents of that magnitude (or even past accidents in other countries) unlikely.

I live in a town called Collegeville, PA, which is 5 miles from the Limerick nuclear plant. It has two Superfund sites and has air with elevated levels of toxic chemicals (significantly improved since the Superfund cleanup) as a result of a manufacturing plant and chemicals dumped in a local landfill. Has it killed people? Maybe. And there are hundreds of these types of issues around the country and we live with them... and we're a step or two above what it's like in Russia. I'm not sure I'd want to live anywhere in Russia due to the environmental damage the Soviets did.

Point being, we live with chemical plants, coal power (which kills on the order of 100,000 people a year, globally) and other industry-caused health disasters without shutting down or halting the expansion of any other industry but nuclear power.

If Chernobyl where located where the nukes where tested in Nevada for instance - would it really of been such a huge issue with it failed?

Well, it still would have killed ~40 people and destroyed a multi-billion dollar plant, but sure, it would mean a roughly 20 mile radius (no longer circular...) wouldn't have been turned into a game preserve. But Chernobyl is a pretty low bar to set.

 

[kocthu]

I've not a sufficient knowledge. But I'd like to suggest. "Take the nuclear fuel under the nearest deeply ground. Robots can dance inside the radioactive area".

 

[Thermalne]

Really?

The death rate from Chernobyl was small in that area - but no one is going to be able to use that land again for several hundred years + the higher rate of cancer in the surrounding areas when the crisis did happen.

What does Bhopal have anything to do with this? Nuclear power when it fails it makes the area perm. unusable for a very very very very long time. You honestly think there is never going to be another nuclear power plant failures in the future?

I'm all for a renewal of nuclear power - but the locations they choice for existing sites where not that bright. Located it in area with mountains on all sides in an already unusable area seems smarter.

If Chernobyl where located where the nukes where tested in Nevada for instance - would it really of been such a huge issue with it failed?

Chernobyl would have had an effect wherever it had been placed. It blew radiative isotopes up in the air that was read as far away as Sweden. I believe even further.

All plants build without Russian influence have at least a containment dome (Something Chernobyl did not have). No incident should end up like Chernobyl in the present or future.

His reasoning for mentioning Bhopal is the fact that there are more death caused industrial and other energy sources than nuclear has in it's lifetime. Nuclear energy is a very safe resource we can not go without at this point. Is it a long term solution perhaps not, but it can fix our energy problems for an indeterminate (very long) time to come.

 

[FishmanGeertz]

Hello all,

Im no expert on the subject, but it has always seemed to me that for nuclear power to be safe, they should simply set up power plants far away from human populations.

This seems very simplistic, so I am just curious to know what problems there are with this idea.

Say for instance, there were a law that any nuclear power plant had to be set up X miles from any human population, in an area that doesn´t have strong winds that would blow radiation towards humans and with water supplies that don´t lead to cities etc.

The biggest problem, I´d assume, is finding a river or water source that isn´t utilized downstream by humans.

Obviously setting up something 50, 100 miles from human population would be hard for workers to get to, but a long commute isn´t the worst thing possible.

Bassically, what problems exist with simply setting up nuclear power plants FAR away from people?

They should also be built as far away as possible from fault lines and places prone to earthquakes and other natural disasters.

There should not be ANY nuclear power plants anywhere in California. When CA eventually has the San Adreas fault 9.5 or 10.0 mega-quake sometime in the future, what is happening at the quake-damaged Fukashima plant could repeat itself.

 

[MadRocketSci2]

"His reasoning for mentioning Bhopal is the fact that there are more death caused industrial and other energy sources than nuclear has in it's lifetime. Nuclear energy is a very safe resource we can not go without at this point. Is it a long term solution perhaps not, but it can fix our energy problems for an indeterminate (very long) time to come. "

I've often said that I would build my house over a properly constructed nuclear waste dump, if I would ever be allowed to run such an enterprise. It would be mindlessly easy way to earn all kinds of rent from power companies who at this point have nowhere to send their spent fuel due to our government's dereliction of duty.

Step 1 - build concrete bunker in a salt dome
Step 2 - store dry-casks, tied down, in appropriately spaced locations
Step 3 - profit!

Alas, the neighbors would go apegarbage. Better to leave all the spent fuel in the roofs of the reactor buildings that used it.

 

[Reno Deano]

Nevada, bring them on. Ooops, can't do Harry Ried-NIMBY

 

[russ_watters]

There should not be ANY nuclear power plants anywhere in California. When CA eventually has the San Adreas fault 9.5 or 10.0 mega-quake sometime in the future, what is happening at the quake-damaged Fukashima plant could repeat itself.

Not quite: What is happening in Japan happened because of the tsunami, not because of the earthquake. The nature of the failure here should be telling you the opposite of what yous said: if properly designed, a nuclear plant can stand up to one of the worst earthquake/tsunami natural disasters ever recorded.

 

[MadRocketSci2]

Also, keep in mind - I don't know of any other industrial accident that would give people days to evacuate before anything dangerous was taken up. You would have to go into bullet time to stop your local natural gas plant from levelling a city block if something went wrong there.

As far as radionucleides go - I don't see why these are more difficult to clean up than other types of chemical spills.

If we were to require that all potentially dangerous industrial processes go on away from human habitation - it wouldn't work. The cities would follow the industry. People concentrate in cities in the first place because of it.

 

[Bob S]

I was thinking the same thing - why not put nuclear power plants where we tested the nuclear bombs in Nevada - I mean 50 - 100 miles away from populated areas does not really matter - the radiated plum will still leak out.

It is to bad we have transmission lost if the plant is too far away - would adding more power lines help this issue?

I mean - its a great a plant can run 40-60 years - but its not really if - but when the power plant fails - it will permanently ruins that area. Build it in an area where its already contaminated BUT with mountains around it - aka the Nevada desert test sites for nuclear weapons. So WHEN it fails - it is not as catastrophic. The nevada desert was chosen for nuking I believe because its isolated - and the radioactive dust would stay in that area.

The NTS (Nevata Test Site) would be ideal, except for two things:

1) No cooling water. Where would it come from? A 1000 MW(e) reactor would require ≈ 20,000 gpm of water. Nevada is already short of water to supply Las Vegas.

Plus... no population is ever going to build there anyway - EVER.

2) Where do employees live? Mercury (the village at NTS) was a dump when I was there (1958). Las Vegas is a 70-mile drive each way from Mercury, and perhaps another 20 miles to the proposed power plant site (Yucca Flat).

Bob S

 

[Reno Deano]

The NTS (Nevada Test Site) would be ideal, except for two things:

1) No cooling water. Where would it come from? A 1000 MW(e) reactor would require ≈ 20,000 gpm of water. Nevada is already short of water to supply Las Vegas.

2) Where do employees live? Mercury (the village at NTS) was a dump when I was there (1958). Las Vegas is a 70-mile drive each way from Mercury, and perhaps another 20 miles to the proposed power plant site (Yucca Flat).

Bob S

Its possible to use NTS for large reactors or any of the other site in the area (bombing range, etc). Check out the Palo Verde Nuclear site (largest in US) outside of Phoenix, AZ. They too had a water problem. They get waste water from Phoenix (45 mile pipe) and purify it.

Excerpt: Due to its location in the Arizona desert, Palo Verde is the only nuclear generating facility in the world that is not located adjacent to a large body of above-ground water. The facility evaporates water from the treated sewage of several nearby municipalities to meet its cooling needs. 20 billion US gallons (76,000,000 m³) of treated water are evaporated each year.[8][9] This water represents about 25% of the annual overdraft of the Arizona Department of Water Resources Phoenix Active Management Area.[10] At the nuclear plant site, the wastewater is further treated and stored in an 80 acre (324,000 m²) reservoir for use in the plant's cooling towers.

Palo Verde: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Verde_Nuclear_Generating_Station"

 

[kocthu]

How to control the radiation first & fast ? I think this question is important for this circumstance of Fukushima. Peoples are going to dangerous as time goes by.

 

[Drakkith]

How to control the radiation first & fast ? I think this question is important for this circumstance of Fukushima. Peoples are going to dangerous as time goes by.

I can't understand you kocthu. Is english a second language for you? If not then you really need to work on your writing skills. What exactly do you mean by this?

 

[Repairman]

I live in Utah. There has been talk about building a reactor here, near Green River, which is pretty isolated. It was iffy before and now it probably won't happen. But the basic problem is, worldwide, where you have cooling water you have people. Moving the power a long distance isn't that big of a deal. There's a giant coal-fired power plant near Delta, Utah (Intermountain Power Project) that sends its juice to California.
And yeah, Nevada has no water.
The main problem is the NIMBYs. They will not let a plant be built. Of any kind. The next big political fights will be over wind and solar, which are already running into major resistance.
My take on this location thing is this, though: Fukushima is located in the middle of a huge population, and they are going to face immeasurably tiny health effects even if this gets a whole lot worse. If you could build a plant, you might as well build it in a populated area, because the last month has proven that in any natural disaster nasty enough to could cause a nuclear disaster, the nuclear plant will be the least of your problems and the least deadly factor.

 

[kocthu]

I can't understand you kocthu. Is english a second language for you? If not then you really need to work on your writing skills. What exactly do you mean by this?

May be English is my final language or I might missunderstand the Topic. This is the last reply for Fukushima, "Effects are done by causes". Thanks for your reading.