The Nuclear Power Thread

[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 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 ?

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]

Recycling Nuclear Waste In Consumer Goods

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]

Japan's Blackout Caused by Nukes

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]

And don't forget cosmic rays

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 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]

Nuclear Waste Issue in Russian Elections

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]

To Russ, re US powergrid failure

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 that's 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 that's 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

and

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.

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]

They're both large-scale networks!

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 that's 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]

Please be gentle

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[/color]

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. Let's 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]

Reality bites; devils taste first blood?

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 ( ), quite a lot of B2B commerce, ... 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

 

[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 that's 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 occurred 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, that's 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 that's 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 ( ), quite a lot of B2B commerce, ... 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]

SciAm article

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, 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 don't 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 can't 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, 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 website 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]

quate for pof.

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]

The Real Problem

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.