Can Any Country Achieve Net Zero Without Nuclear?

[Vanadium 50]

You blow up a reactor even a small one and you cordon off the surrounding area indefinitely.

Yes, but is this rational?

Bhopal killed many more people than Chernobyl. Bhopal is growing, and Chernobyl was evacuated.

 

[PeterDonis]

You blow up a reactor even a small one and you cordon off the surrounding area indefinitely.

If you're thinking of Chernobyl, that is not a good proxy for any possible accident with reactors now in service or planned. Chernobyl was, first, an insane design by an insane regime (the Soviet Union), and was operated in an insane way in order to cause the accident that happened there.

I think a better reasonable worst case would be Three Mile Island, which AFAIK did not harm any member of the general public, and which did not result in the surrounding area being cordoned off indefinitely. And even a TMI-style accident is basically impossible with newer reactor designs that have passive safety features that eliminate whole classes of operator errors like those that occurred at TMI.

 

[Vanadium 50]

If you're thinking of Chernobyl, that is not a good proxy for any possible accident with reactors now in service or planned. Chernobyl was, first, an insane design by an insane regime (the Soviet Union), and was operated in an insane way in order to cause the accident that happened there.

You could also add an insane response by the authorities.

Estimating Chernobyl fatalities is tricky, but to put in in some context, it's about the same as five months of coal mining in China alone.

 

[bhobba]

(Pauline Hanson, anyone?)

I am surprised anyone outside Australia knows about her. Those that dont might find reading about her on Wikipedia interesting.

Nice post, though.

Thanks
Bill

 

[Vanadium 50]

Just because I am a foreigner doesn't mean I am a barbarian.

 

[Astronuc]

There were a lot of new regs when 9/11 occurred for new security requirements. While I am pro nuc I feel that hundreds of reactors spread out across the country do present significant security issues.

Increased security preceded 9/11/2001 and actually began in the mid-90s after truck bombings in Africa and World Trade Center (NY City). I visited several plant sites in the mid to late 1990s, and we underwent screening. We had to arrange our visits in advance; cars were checked for bombs and weapons, and we got scanned for weapons. At one site, sitting down the road was a checkpoint with a guard holding an AR-15. Security was well armed, and we had to drive around multiple barriers to get near the reactor building. It was a lot more security than the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Safeguards also requires new reactor building to be resistant to commercial jet aircraft, notably the shaft of the jet engine. No penetration allowed.

 

[gleem]

Westinghouse is now developing a microreactor 5 MWe /13MWth that it calls eVinci. https://www.westinghousenuclear.com/canada/technology/evinci-microreactor



The first is going to Canada and the Saskatchewan Research Council to be completed in 2029.

https://info.westinghousenuclear.co...evinci-microreactor-targeted-for-saskatchewan

 

[Vanadium 50]

Interesting. 5 MW is tiny. I wonder what they are using to generate the electricity - presumably they don't use a full-sized turbine. That would be silly.

(And in a Saskatchewan winter 5 MW might be needed just to keep your house warm!)

 

[gmax137]

There were a lot of new regs when 9/11 occurred for new security requirements.

There were a lot of changes beyond security, much of which was not really made public. One chabge that was widely known is the "aircraft impact rule" (10CFR50.150). The NRC imposed this rule on the Westinghouse AP1000 design, which is why the Vogtle 3 & 4 and Summer 2 & 3 shield buildings look different than the Sanmen and Haiyang units in China. The re-design of the shield building was one (of many) contributors to the construction delay and failure of the Summer project.

On security, the US plants all have large security departments typically run by contractors such as Pinkerton or Wackenhut (G4S). When I first worked in the plants (1980s) the security guys were Barney Fifes with revolvers; today they look like SWAT. I've been told the security department is by far the biggest fraction of the plant payroll.

While I am pro nuc I feel that hundreds of reactors spread out across the country do present significant security issues. You blow up a conventional power plant and you sweep up the rubble and build another. You blow up a reactor even a small one and you cordon off the surrounding area indefinitely. Many small reactors clustered in one area might be easier to protect even though they might take up a lot of real estate. Thoughts?

Thoughts: If you assign the responsibility for protecting the plant against acts of war to the power company, you may as well kiss nuclear power goodbye. Do we do that to any other industry/facility?

As to clustering the units, I used to think this was a great idea:

Since the earthquake/tsunami at Fukushima, I think distributing the plants in different locations is a wiser choice.

 

[russ_watters]

Estimating Chernobyl fatalities is tricky, but to put in in some context, it's about the same as five months of coal mining in China alone.

More direct: Every coal power plant* is Chernobyling about 6x a year, based on the initial death toll for Chernobyl.

Or if we use the long-term death projection of about 4,000 people for Chernobyl we can simply say that every coal power plant* is Chernobyl.

And that's just the air pollution deaths - it doesn't include the impact of global warming.

*of similar power output to Chernobyl

 

[Vanadium 50]

Since the earthquake/tsunami at Fukushima, I think distributing the plants in different locations is a wiser choice.

Why? It increases the probability of a disaster in any one.

 

[gmax137]

I will have to think about that. But, the Fukushima event shows that the siting process is not always perfect.

 

[Algr]

There are geothermal plans that can work anywhere now. You just dig a pair of deep holes and connect them together. No fracking, so no earthquakes or environmental contamination. And these plants can be turned on and off quickly to balance irregular output from wind and solar.

A lot of the figures for the cost of wind and solar include the cost of storage. Be sure not to double count. The cost of energy storage is falling dramatically, much like the cost of renewables themselves. A forecast based on current prices is not reasonable.

That question about how much wind exists was asking about the environmental impact of renewables. In that context it is reasonable to include the entire atmosphere out into space. And wind energy originates with the sun, so making any noticeable dent in how the earth works is rather unlikely. Mountain ranges consume far more wind than any amount of turbines ever could.

=============================================
In the past the public has been injured by industry saying "This quantity is safe." Leaded gasoline, various food additives, toxic waste, medications, ect. To criticize the public's lack of understanding now denies the fact that the "experts" have been wrong, or brazenly dishonest, before. If we decide that "a little bit" of radiation is okay, we'll never know when a little bit becomes a lot, because the people in charge of measuring that will be highly influenced by industry. I've no doubt that we can do nuclear safely. What we can't do is choose to do nuclear safely. Someone somewhere is always going to get lazy, or greedy, or selfish. It is a human problem, not a technological one.

Solar and wind don't have the same long term risks. If you build a hundred wind turbines and one of them falls apart, it is unlikely to kill more than one or two people. It won't spread "safe" levels of poison around the globe. The danger of a fallen turbine will be over the instant the shrapnel stops moving. Compare that to Chernobyl, which will still be able to kill people a thousand years from now. If we keep building plants in our chaotic, war torn world, how many exclusion zones will we have in a thousand years? What will the sum total of all those atmospheric leaks be?

 

[bhobba]

And that's just the air pollution deaths - it doesn't include the impact of global warming.

My father was an electrical engineer who worked as an estimator for a major contracting company.

Although far from all he did, he has quoted for several coal power plants and knew their design intimately.

Where I grew up, we were near the Tennyson power plant in Brisbane (now the Queensland Tennis Centre), and I don't know why, but as a kid, I asked Dad what dangers were there near a power plant. He said it was very well engineered, had regular maintenance, and was unlikely to happen, but if the bearing on the turbine broke, watch out; he couldn't see much of anything withstanding its path of destruction. Knowledge makes you a bit paranoid, but he wasn't unhappy when we moved further away.

It happened at the Calide Power Station (investigators are still not 100% sure of the cause but Turbine failure is a leading contender) - please take a look at the attachment.

The general public doesn't know the dangers or, if they did, how to put it in context using stats. The following course examines why this is, amongst other things like why some believe in Astrology, Homeopathy, etc. Its quite interesting:

https://www.edx.org/learn/thinking/the-university-of-queensland-the-science-of-everyday-thinking

A book by a Nobel Prize winner I am reading now examines it in even more detail:
https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0385676514?tag=pfamazon01-20

Thanks
Bill

 

[bhobba]

What will the sum total of all those atmospheric leaks be?

This is something that makes this whole thing hard. We have climate change deniers here in Aus, just like everywhere. I am in the Tim Palmer camp, which says the best we can do is predict probabilities. His models show a probability of 90% that it will be between 1.5 degrees and 4.5 degrees celsius by 2100 - a mean of 2.5 degrees. It may be catastrophic - or it may not. Then, some believe we are heading for catastrophic change - some as early as 2030. The thing that has brought the three groups together is many now think zero emissions can be done without economic issues. If the technology is too expensive, then consensus may not be achievable.

Thanks
Bill

 

[gleem]

His models show a probability of 90% that it will be between 1.5 degrees and 4.5 degrees celsius by 2100

Crikey, 2023 is currently 1.4° C above preindustrial temps. The global temperature a couple of days in November reached 2.0°. I say he better raise his odds.

 

[bhobba]

Crikey, 2023 is currently 1.4° C above preindustrial temps. The global temperature a couple of days in November reached 2.0°. I say he better raise his odds.

He wants a Cern of Climate change to get the best probabilities possible. And yes, it is getting close to the lower end of his predictions. Some Climate scientists believe it is already too late. As I said society has difficult decisions to make.

Thanks
Bill

 

[Vanadium 50]

Or if we use the long-term death projection of about 4,000 people for Chernobyl we can simply say that every coal power plant* is Chernobyl.

And that's just the air pollution deaths - it doesn't include the impact of global warming.

Been thinking about that. Then playing with Gapminder. What I learned:

(1) Lack of energy kills more people than any source of energy. If you plot life expectancy vs. per capita energy use, you see it dropping once you get below about where Western Europe is.

(2) Energy use per capita tracks industrialization, obviously. But it also tracks how spread out a country's population is. Australia is pretty spread out (sorry, Bill, but Alice Springs is no Chicago). As an aside, population density is not a terribly useful number if your population is concentrated along the coast (Australia), the southern border (Canada), a major river (Egypt)

(3) CO2emissions and energy consumption are strongly correlated. France is an outlier, but we also know they want into nuclear in a big way. Lesser outliers are Sweden, Finland, and Belgium, also with a lot of nuclear.

 

[gleem]

(1) Lack of energy kills more people than any source of energy. If you plot life expectancy bs. per capita energy use, you see it dropping once you get below about where Western Europe is.

Energy (technology) lets you do things like save lives? OK, that seems reasonable.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Energy (technology) lets you do things like save lives?

Sure, it also lets you grow food, transport food, refrigerate food. It helps you maintain a water system that won't kill you. It lets you mine, manufacture and grow things that you can trade for medicine and other necessities.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Some facts from Worldometer:

The countries with the highest CO2 per capita are Qatar, Montenegro, Kuwait, UAE, Trinidad and Oman. Four of the six are Gulf states. I don't know why Montenegro is 5x higher than the largely surrounding Serbia. It may be that exporting fuel doesn't "count" but exporting electricity does. Trinidad has an energy-intensive chemicals industry and a small population, so may not be the outlier it first seems. Seventh on the list is Canada.

Auatralia and the US are 12th and 15th. The uncertainty on the US population from illegal immigration is not large enough to change this ranking.

On the bottom we have the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Mali, Burundi and Malawi. You need to go up 20 places to get out of Africa, where you have Nepal, Haiti and Afghanistan.

 

[256bits]

Another representation would be to account for trade.
Are you, or is your country, a net exporter or importer of CO2?
PS - Year 2021

Australia would be a net exporter 12% of domestic emissions.
If Australia eliminated some amount of exports of goods that the world wants, they could become a 'neutral' but not a 'zero' country of CO2 production. How much decrease in GNP this would entail would be another graph.
Quite a few blues seem to be energy producers, exporting the Co2 found in oil to other countries that do not have, but need. Others seem to be exporting finished products to the world of consumption.
https://ourworldindata.org/consumption-based-co2

 

[Bandersnatch]

Australia would be a net exporter 12% of domestic emissions

How do they calculate this, do you know? The energy.gov.au website shows energy exports amounting to over 2/3rds of total production. And that's mainly coal.

In any case, this is why hearing Aussies talk about net zero is like hearing Walter White talk about getting Jessie off heroin. It's nice and all, but can we talk about your drug coal empire first?

 

[256bits]

How do they calculate this, do you know?

probably quite complicated to determine the co2 value of a product and where it(co2) came from.
The graph is ( Exports - Imports ) / Domestic in terms of co2.

The energy.gov.au website shows energy exports amounting to over 2/3rds of total production. And that's mainly coal.

What if exports are to a country that uses all of that coal to make finished products that are imported back. The co2 is exported as fuel and imported back within the finished product.

this is why hearing Aussies talk about net zero is like hearing Walter White talk about getting Jessie off heroin. It's nice and all, but can we talk about your drug coal empire first

Sure. Cut out all export of coal from Australia.
But, imports still have co2 contents - a content still attributed to another countries usage of oil/coal to make the finished product. With no export of co2 as an offset , Australia becomes a net importer of co2.
The world co2 production has not changed, only redistributed to/from other countries.

Do not read read as bad, blue good, or vice versa, even though it could be that way/
Blue is not downloading co2 emmissions onto other countries, nor is red always being a glutinous nation.
It is trade of co2 emissions.

Net zero - what is that really?
If Australia went all nuclear all electric with no domestic production of co2 ( where's the beef ), could they still not have a coal industry to export to the world who wants and needs the fuel.

 

[Bandersnatch]

If Australia went all nuclear all electric with no domestic production of co2 ( where's the beef ), could they still not have a coal industry to export to the world who wants and needs the fuel.

I think they shouldn't. It's hypocritical. It undermines the ecological justification for going green.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Net zero - what is that really?

It's like "Organic" in the grocery store. It's marketing,

Sadly, gestures seem to count more than solving the actual problem. Look at how much fun actors and other celebrities have giving each other awards for "raising awareness" compared to awards give to engineers for "solving the actual problem." Anyway...

There is definitely an accounting problem. If Florin sells Guilder coal or oil, it counts as Guilder's CO2. If Florin burns it themselves and sells the electricity, who does it count against? If they make something energy intensive, and sell that to Guilder, we know that's counted against Florin. That's how Trinidad makes it to the top of the CO2 list.

The atmosphere, however, does not care.

 

[256bits]

There is definitely an accounting problem. If Florin sells Guilder coal or oil, it counts as Guilder's CO2. If Florin burns it themselves and sells the electricity, who does it count against? If they make something energy intensive, and sell that to Guilder, we know that's counted against Florin. That's how Trinidad makes it to the top of the CO2 list.

The atmosphere, however, does not care.

Countries can be rated in a manner of ways to make them look better or worse.

Which is why I put the graph of trade in co2 terms in this thread.
Cap and trade makes use if this from some type of calculation unknownst to average Joe.
Plant a tree - I feel better already.
Shuffing around the CO2 from country to country does not alter the global tally.

PS. As an aside
One thing most people are not aware is the contribution from the health care sector.
A somewhat minimal contribution, but they are working on it,

Anaesthetic gases represent 5% of the carbon footprint for all acute National Health Service (NHS) organisations, or 50% of gas emissions from the heating of acute NHS buildings and water.

Likewise, the use of desflurane or sevoflurane from a modern anaesthetic machine for 1 h is the same as 230 or 30 miles travelled in a modern car, respectively
...
if the land area of the UK represented global carbon dioxide emissions, desflurane would be a town the size of Bedford and nitrous oxide would be the size of the metropolitan area of Bristol.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(17)30040-2/fulltext

 

[Vanadium 50]

We could go back to cyclohexane and then burn it to heat our hospitals.

 

[difalcojr]

Thks to all for sharing the facts, insights, opinions, broad scope of topic, pictures and memories, etc. in this thread's posts! Wow! It took me a while to read them all and had to do it twice to try to grok all that info.

Par excellence.

3 Aussie problems. Think I might have very easy solutions for the two problems of toads and rabbits, slightly harebrained, but first topic first.

What about long-term, solar heat collection and storage systems? Those using only reflection and/or refraction. Not solar panels.

I know of the big, reflection collector in France, and the flat plate, hot water, roof collectors (was Japan the first to innovate those?). What other heat collection devices are in use? Online didn't show me anything. Just ordered a too-expensive, new solar technology textbook to see what the state of the art is, but it hasn't arrived yet.

Specifically, what about a daily collection of sunlight into a closed, well-insulated system? For an accumulation of the heat over a longer period than just one day. Water to steam. A long-term collection device in a high T, high P, underground, steam pot. That type of a system. A large-scale, steam storage system. Has that been proven non-feasible?

 

[gmax137]

I lived in south Florida many years ago and rooftop solar hot water heaters were common, on individual houses. The tanks had relief valves and I sometimes saw them relieving steam. I think in the right locations solar domestic hot water is an excellent idea. It bypasses the heat to electric to heat losses.