The Nuclear Power Thread

Joseph Chikva

Quote by Dmytry

the worst thing about Fukushima is that (no idea why) Japanese were seen by many as the world best or second best industrial culture when it comes to safety. That's despite stuff like that:
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-b...0070323a3.html
http://www.aip.org/pt/dec99/toka2.htm
Everyone looks at Fukushima, and nobody believes it is one in 10 000 years quake, or even one in 1000. Now when someone says - the reactor is very safe, the accident probability is one in 50 000 years event - nobody's going to be impressed, after the pro nuclear crowd been advocating TEPCO with arguments like 'it was one in 1000 years quake' and "you can't predict such disasters", echoing precisely some of the Greenpeace anti-nuclear arguments from before Fukushima.
The pro-nuclear crowd been really stupid. It is as if when Chernobyl happened they said "you can't prevent such accidents". Putting a nail into the coffin.

My perspective: Fukushima accident happened in a country with very bad nuclear safety record of the past 15 years, at a plant operated by a company that was previously found guilty of major coverups, at a plant built using a really old, really stupid reactor design where even the control rods are inserted upwards and are prone to falling out during maintenance, worse than this, on the version of this reactor that was never even upgraded since TMI. The plant that was built with no considerations for the tsunamis (unlike Onagawa plant which survived stronger tsunami and provided shelter to the people who lost their homes! A real example of nuclear industry being good!). In a country which haven't even got anything similar to Kerntechnische Hilfsdienst, or any nuclear military. Where the plants are operated by regional utility companies, not by something like Areva (which designs, builds, and operates reactors and reprocessing plants, and got an accident response team)
Fukushima level disaster can not happen anywhere else. Not even in Russia that still operates RBMKs. Well, maybe in Russia, but if it happened in Russia nobody else would be scraping reactor plans.

You are talking about mistakes in Fikushima design and also mistakes during of its exploiting. I do not know, may be.
But I only said that even in case of the best design and best industrial safety there is nonzero probability of accidents.
But we need energy and nuke plants have not any alternative. Especially in Japan.

Dmytry

Quote by Joseph Chikva

You are talking about mistakes in Fikushima design and also mistakes during of its exploiting. I do not know, may be.
But I only said that even in case of the best design and best industrial safety there is nonzero probability of accidents.
But we need energy and nuke plants have not any alternative. Especially in Japan.

come on, they make what, 25..30% of energy with nuclear? They can switch it off. At least the worst of the reactors.
France can't switch off nuclear.

Joseph Chikva

Quote by Dmytry

come on, they make what, 25..30% of energy with nuclear? They can switch it off. At least the worst of the reactors.
France can't switch off nuclear.

25-30%? Ok. Is this not significant? Recall that we talk about the second-third world economics and their 25% may be much more than 100% of others.
Percentage of those "worst" reactors?

JaredJames

Quote by Dmytry

come on, they make what, 25..30% of energy with nuclear? They can switch it off. At least the worst of the reactors.

That is not an insignificant amount. That's nearly a third of their energy needs.

Dmytry

I'm not saying they can switch it off without cutting consumption. I'm saying, when the non-nuclear powerplants and powerlines are repaired back to capacity, they can switch off nuclear power, and cut down some on the usage. There has to be overcapacity for AC in the summer, and other stuff.

For example of country that cannot switch nuclear off, you have to use France. More nuclear power total than Japan, and 75..80% of power total. 30% power cuts, that's higher prices & decreased consumption (and its not 30% as most of the time there's overcapacity). 80% power cut, that's sitting in the dark.

edit: And no. I'm not advocating switching off nuclear power. I just disagree with this optimistic thinking by the nuclear industry that it can't be switched off there, when it can.
They should, in my opinion, switch off worst 10% of reactors or so. Old non upgraded crap.
They probably have substantial % of reactors in north Japan in shutdown right now anyway due to quakes and aftershocks.

It totally blows my mind that control rods can fall out during maintenance and cause a criticality, and that every reactor of that type is not shut down until there's upgrade that absolutely, positively makes this impossible. With this approach - I am strongly against nuclear power. I'm pro nuclear in principle, when if something unplanned happens, it is fixed immediately. If control rods can fall out during maintenance and cause criticality, and that is not fixed, for me that is a total assurance that if it is discovered stronger quakes than originally anticipated are possible, or taller tsunamis, nothing is going to be fixed either.

JaredJames

Quote by Dmytry

I'm not saying they can switch it off without cutting consumption. I'm saying, when the non-nuclear powerplants and powerlines are repaired back to capacity, they can switch off nuclear power, and cut down some on the usage. There has to be overcapacity for AC in the summer, and other stuff.

There's a bit too much assumption here.

I have no idea about the Japanese grid, but if it's run like Britain / America you can't just "switch off" a bunch of plants at any time and expect the grid to maintain a usable supply.

Dmytry

Quote by jarednjames

There's a bit too much assumption here.

I have no idea about the Japanese grid, but if it's run like Britain / America you can't just "switch off" a bunch of plants at any time and expect the grid to maintain a usable supply.

you raise prices high enough for consumption to go down, then you may need to add power lines, then you shut off bunch of plants. A bunch of plants, incidentally, ARE shut down due to quakes, so don't tell its impossible. There's nothing impossible about it. Inconvenient, yes, but if wind starts blowing inland from Fukushima, that's going to seriously piss people off.

You guys are probably working in nuclear industry. or are supportive of, and you're being real optimistic about your industry's future. I'm being realistic.

JaredJames

Quote by Dmytry

you raise prices high enough for consumption to go down, then you may need to add power lines, then you shut off bunch of plants.

You lower consumption and add power lines? That makes no sense at all.

A bunch of plants, incidentally, ARE shut down due to quakes, so don't tell its impossible.

Ah, so they're down and a full supply is being maintained? Nope.

You can't shut down 25% of power production and expect to a) maintain a full supply as usual and b) have the redundancy you currently have.

You guys are probably working in nuclear industry. or are supportive of, and you're being real optimistic about your industry's future. I'm being realistic.

I'm seeing no realism. I see fear from the news and public, but that isn't going to bring nuclear down. Whether people like it or not, we need nuclear and it's incredibly safe compared to other forms.

See here: http://www.physicsforums.com/showpos...22&postcount=8

Dmytry

Quote by jarednjames

You lower consumption and add power lines? That makes no sense at all.

Yes, you need extra power lines to the places that were powered by plants that were previously shut down. To the local places where the mix is much more than 30% nuclear.

Ah, so they're down and a full supply is being maintained? Nope.

Supply and demand man, supply and demand. You have a cut in supply, you have same demand, you raise the price, that leads to decrease in consumption, to match the supply. Raise the price 2x and a lot of stupid uses of electricity (like heating) will rather quickly disappear, while the more energy efficient things will get huge edge over less energy efficient things.

I'm seeing no realism. I see fear from the news and public, but that isn't going to bring nuclear down. Whether people like it or not, we need nuclear and it's incredibly safe compared to other forms.

See here: http://www.physicsforums.com/showpos...22&postcount=8

Germany's phasing out nuclear. Not overnight, but over the time. A shame really, they're probably the best on safety.

JaredJames

Quote by Dmytry

Yes, you need extra power lines to the places that were powered by plants that were previously shut down. To the local places where the mix is much more than 30% nuclear.

That's neither how the grid is designed or works.

Supply and demand man, supply and demand. You have a cut in supply, you have same demand, you raise the price, that leads to decrease in consumption, to match the supply. Raise the price 2x and a lot of stupid uses of electricity (like heating) will rather quickly disappear, while the more energy efficient things will get huge edge over less energy efficient things.

That has nothing to do with what I said or was commenting on.

Regardless, you can't just "cut people off" or raise prices so no one can afford it.

In modern day terms, that's barbaric. I think you are bordering on trolling now, claiming heating is a "stupid use" of electricity - it is an essential use.

Joseph Chikva

Quote by Dmytry

you raise prices high enough for consumption to go down, then you may need to add power lines, then you shut off bunch of plants. A bunch of plants, incidentally, ARE shut down due to quakes, so don't tell its impossible. There's nothing impossible about it. Inconvenient, yes, but if wind starts blowing inland from Fukushima, that's going to seriously piss people off.

You guys are probably working in nuclear industry. or are supportive of, and you're being real optimistic about your industry's future. I'm being realistic.

I do not work in nuclear industry. But together with raising prices on 1kWh you would get economics growth down. Accordingly you will get unemployment, competitiveness lowering etc.
Because there are some energy intensive industries being very critical to price on electricity. Do you propose to annihilate e.g. steel production industry in Japan?
When consumption will go down for what are you going to add power lines?
Earthquakes in Japan are happening permanently. But Fukushima is only the first serious accident with such aftereffects.

Dmytry

Quote by jarednjames

In modern day terms, that's barbaric. I think you are bordering on trolling now, claiming heating is a "stupid use" of electricity - it is an essential use.

See, man, using primarily fossil electricity for heating is immensely ineffective versus using the heat from fossil fuels directly. HOWEVER it is attractive due to simplicity (laying and maintaining pipe for centralized heating costs money). My house is heated using centralized heating.

On topic of extra lines: You two want to assume that i am some sort of moron who thinks that power lines make extra electricity or something? Nevermind that I gave you two huge benefit of the doubt, assuming that you had some sort of intelligent argument, such as - the 30% is the national average, suppose that southern japan has 40% nuclear and northern has 20%, then you may need extra capacity for long range transmission. Thats especially clear in case of european union. Then the renewables like wind, which require long range transmission to minimize downtime.

Barbaric, yeah, nowadays it is totally barbaric not to have advertisements lit up all the time, or to use centralized heating, or to opt for more efficient air conditioning that is also more expensive to install.

Whenever they actually will or wont get rid of nuclear, that's open question. I would guess that they won't get rid of nuclear. But you guys better don't assume that nuclear is here to stay no matter how many regulations you violate on any given day or how badly the reactors are designed (rods falling out resulting in criticality. what the hell?!)

Joseph Chikva

Quote by Dmytry

See, man, using primarily fossil electricity for heating is immensely ineffective versus using the heat from fossil fuels directly. HOWEVER it is attractive due to simplicity (laying and maintaining pipe for centralized heating costs money). My house is heated using centralized heating.

On topic of extra lines: You two want to assume that i am some sort of moron who thinks that power lines make extra electricity or something? Nevermind that I gave you two huge benefit of the doubt, assuming that you had some sort of intelligent argument, such as - the 30% is the national average, suppose that southern japan has 40% nuclear and northern has 20%, you may need extra capacity for long range transmission. Then the renewables like wind, which require long range transmission to minimize downtime.

I think nobody spoke anything offensive.
But your idea about rising of prices for electricity consumption reduction doesn't withstand criticism.
I would like to recall you that world economics is very critical to changing of interbank interest rate even only on a few tenths of percents. And you are proposing to increase the prices in Japan on order of magnitude.
And I do not understand if we should decrease power output why new power lines are required? Existing lines have not enough capacity? What additional transmission capacity will be demanded when generation will decrease?

Dmytry

Long range transmission is typically done differently (HVDC) to minimize the losses.
Really, I don't know why I even bother. I go as far as to think for your side and mention a problem with switching off nuclear power - that you may first need extra lines for long range transmission. Turns out its an issue you don't understand.

Joseph Chikva

Quote by Dmytry

Long range transmission is typically done differently (HVDC) to minimize the losses.
Really, I don't know why I even bother. I go as far as to think for your side and mention a problem with switching off nuclear power - that you may first need extra lines for long range transmission. Turns out its an issue you don't understand.

Dear Dmytry, if we have a task of optimization (minimization) of energy losses, yes, I do not understand why the line constructed for transmitting of higher generation would not transmit the lower. I admit that in case of change of generation schedule when some plants won't work, the existing transmitting lines network can become nonoptimal. But it isn't obvious to me yet.
And it does absolutely not required to me “your staying on my side”. As your proposal to reduce power generation in Japan is unacceptable firstly for Japanese (not for me). Because it will no doubt kill many branches of their industry.

Borek

Quote by Dmytry

A bunch of plants, incidentally, ARE shut down due to quakes, so don't tell its impossible.

At the moment that means rolling outages (or have they already stopped), plus substantial part of the industry and housing is destroyed (so they don't consume electricity). I see your point, but you are oversimplifying to the absurd level just to support it.

That being said I agree we are in general wasting energy and it is possible to get the use down, there were threads at PF where these things have been discussed (even on a household level).

Joseph Chikva

Quote by Borek

That being said I agree we are in general wasting energy and it is possible to get the use down, there were threads at PF where these things have been discussed (even on a household level).

Yes, we are wasting energy and can use less for the same job. But how to use less when for one metric ton of aluminum production as I remember about 13'000 kWh required?
Dmytry proposes to increase prices on electricity for reducing consumption.

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Dmytry	Long range transmission is typically done differently (HVDC) to minimize the losses. Really, I don't know why I even bother. I go as far as to think for your side and mention a problem with switching off nuclear power - that you may first need extra lines for long range transmission. Turns out its an issue you don't understand.