Nuclear energy: for or against?

[QuantumPion]

Very good points about all energy soures being subsidized.

I don't think the storage and decommissioning costs are fully accounted for, yes in the design stage they are accounted for but I think the real cost are vastly understated. No different from the enviromental damage done by Fracking, deep water drilling , see BP Deewater Horizon, the tar sands or other mining operations.

The real costs are passed on to future taxpayers.

Is it possible that the cost to clean up Fukushima will be greater than all the income generated by all the NPP's in Japan combined?

I am hearing that no insurers /reinsures will underwrite new Plants without liability restrictions.

If Tepco had to pay for all the costs post Fukushima they would be completely bankrupt.

Storage and decommissioning costs are fully accounted for, by law, into a fund paid for by the plant owner. The costs are paid for by electricity customers and company investors, as is the case with all other power sources. Surely you don't believe the enormous subsidies granted to wind and solar (in terms of dollars AND favorable regulations) are not eventually borne out by the public as well?

 

[jadair1]

Storage and decommissioning costs are fully accounted for, by law, into a fund paid for by the plant owner. The costs are paid for by electricity customers and company investors, as is the case with all other power sources. Surely you don't believe the enormous subsidies granted to wind and solar (in terms of dollars AND favorable regulations) are not eventually borne out by the public as well?

Oh give me a break of course I know all energy sources are subsidized. But none more so than Nuclear with the Price-Anderson Act.

It will cost trillions of US Dollars to clean up Fukashima, if it can be done.

What happens if Indian Point melts down and explodes as Fukashima did, yes I know the probability is small, but what if?

It is only 38 miles from NYC, what would be the cost of that? It would be astronomical, Fukushima would be like a pimple on a pigs butt compared to that.

We really need Fusion power, it is the only possible clean energy, all those enviromentalists touting green power such as solar ignore the mining for rare Earth elements neccesary to build them.

Last I heard a few years ago the Tokamak Fusion Reactor was almost net energy efficient.

Interesting, I just read up on Fusion reactors and they say we could be 30 or 40 years away from commercial production.

 

[nikkkom]

We really need Fusion power, it is the only possible clean energy, all those enviromentalists touting green power such as solar ignore the mining for rare Earth elements neccesary to build them.

Amazing depth of economical analysis.
Fusion plans don't need rare Earth metals, right?

 

[Thermalne]

Oh give me a break of course I know all energy sources are subsidized. But none more so than Nuclear with the Price-Anderson Act.

It will cost trillions of US Dollars to clean up Fukashima, if it can be done.

What happens if Indian Point melts down and explodes as Fukashima did, yes I know the probability is small, but what if?

It is only 38 miles from NYC, what would be the cost of that? It would be astronomical, Fukushima would be like a pimple on a pigs butt compared to that.

We really need Fusion power, it is the only possible clean energy, all those enviromentalists touting green power such as solar ignore the mining for rare Earth elements neccesary to build them.

Last I heard a few years ago the Tokamak Fusion Reactor was almost net energy efficient.

Interesting, I just read up on Fusion reactors and they say we could be 30 or 40 years away from commercial production.

Do you have any sources for this information? Otherwise you sound like any other anti-nuke.

 

[etudiant]

My guess is that the Price Anderson liability cover has done more to impede nuclear power than any other single factor.
If liability had been a central concern for the industry, it would never have embraced the thinly modified military reactor technology that is the basis of the current reactor designs, nor the absurd product customization that is the bane of economic production and learning curve improvement.
There were more forgiving alternatives, the General Atomics gas cooled designs for example or the concept of multiple small reactors, but they were never given adequate engineering support to become mainstream.

On a separate note, it is somewhat inconsistent imho to wax indignant about the dreadful threat of radiation pollution from spent nuclear fuel while ignoring the massive environmental damage done by coal mining and the concomitant extensive and near eternal mercury and thorium pollution created by the emissions from these facilities.

 

[jadair1]

Amazing depth of economical analysis.
Fusion plans don't need rare Earth metals, right?

Darn, I competely ignored that fact! Nor did I consider the cost of decomissioning and storing the plants as they became too radioactive to operate.

I've always considered Fusion as the holy grail of energy production.

 

[Thermalne]

Darn, I competely ignored that fact! Nor did I consider the cost of decomissioning and storing the plants as they became too radioactive to operate.

I've always considered Fusion as the holy grail of energy production.

Except that's not the reason why they decommission plants. They decommission end of life plants from the components reaching the end of their usefulness in regards to structural integrity and dropping in efficiency. They same reason why they decommission coal or natural gas or any other type of plant. You need to start looking things up before you start talking about it. I'd recommend http://world-nuclear.org/, http://nuclearliteracy.org/, and http://www.iaea.org/ as starter resources.

(I'll acknowlegde that other factors do play into the decision to decommission a generic power plant, but a nuclear power plant is not decommissioned for being "too" radioactive.")

 

[jadair1]

Do you have any sources for this information? Otherwise you sound like any other anti-nuke.

None that you would believe, but it has been reported Gorbachev stating that the cost of Chernobyl was responsible for the fall of the Soviet Union. I do not know if that is true or not.

It has been two and a half years since the triple meltdown at Fukushima and has anybody gone into inspect the conditions inside reactors 1 to 3, can they?

How much has it cost to date for the minimal work they have done and how much will it cost over the next 40, 50 years or more to clean this mess up?

Yes I am just another anti-nuke, funny even after Three Mile Island and Chernobyl I was staunchly pro nuke but Fukashima has turned me to the dark side!

 

[etudiant]

The Japanese have somewhere around 5000 workers at Fukushima and the long term plans are for about a 30-50 year clean up effort. So assuming at least 3 support people for every guy on the front line, about 20,000 man years for 50 years, or about a million man years at probably $200,000/man year fully loaded cost.
So about $200 billion plus equipment costs, maybe another $100 billion at a rough guess.
That puts the eventual cost at about a third of a trillion, or about half a months GNP for Japan equivalent, spread over 50 years.
It is a disaster, but on a much lesser scale than the USs housing bubble for example, which was perhaps 10 times bigger and wrecked many more lives.

 

[jadair1]

From Wikapedia

"Even if these goals are met, there are a number of major engineering problems remaining, notably finding suitable "low activity" materials for reactor construction, demonstrating secondary systems including practical tritium extraction, and building reactor designs that allow their reactor core to be removed when its materials becomes embrittled due to the neutron flux"

Also:

"Developing materials for fusion reactors has long been recognized as a problem nearly as difficult and important as that of plasma confinement, but it has received only a fraction of the attention. The neutron flux in a fusion reactor is expected to be about 100 times that in existing pressurized water reactors (PWR). Each atom in the blanket of a fusion reactor is expected to be hit by a neutron and displaced about a hundred times before the material is replaced. Furthermore the high-energy neutrons will produce hydrogen and helium by way of various nuclear reactions that tends to form bubbles at grain boundaries and result in swelling, blistering or embrittlement. There is also a need for materials whose primary components and impurities do not result in long-lived radioactive wastes. Finally, the mechanical forces and temperatures are large, and there may be frequent cycling of both".

Also this:

"Carbon[edit]If graphite is used, the gross erosion rates due to physical and chemical sputtering would be many meters per year, so one must rely on redeposition of the sputtered material. The location of the redeposition will not exactly coincide with the location of the sputtering, so one is still left with erosion rates that may be prohibitive. An even larger problem is the tritium co-deposited with the redeposited graphite. The tritium inventory in graphite layers and dust in a reactor could quickly build up to many kilograms, representing a waste of resources and a serious radiological hazard in case of an accident. The consensus of the fusion community seems to be that graphite, although a very attractive material for fusion experiments, cannot be the primary PFC material in a commercial reactor.

Tungsten[edit]The sputtering rate of tungsten can be orders of magnitude smaller than that of carbon, and tritium is not so easily incorporated into redeposited tungsten, making this a more attractive choice. On the other hand, tungsten impurities in a plasma are much more damaging than carbon impurities, and self-sputtering of tungsten can be high, so it will be necessary to ensure that the plasma in contact with the tungsten is not too hot (a few tens of eV rather than hundreds of eV). Tungsten also has disadvantages in terms of eddy currents and melting in off-normal events, as well as some radiological issues.[1]"

Someone here last night sugested I check Wikipedia for information, so I did.

 

[etudiant]

It may be that the materials issues that must be dealt with to build a durable fusion reactor are so difficult that a different approach will be needed.
One such approach is to focus on fusion reactions whose energy is emitted primarily as charged particles, rather than as neutrons. That would greatly simplify the system, as the charged particles could generate electricity directly. The idea would be to brake them electrostatically, which also limits the material damage from particles plowing through the reactor structure.
Of course, such fusion reactions are much more difficult to achieve, requiring much higher plasma temperatures and confinement performance, so they have been back burner efforts thus far. However, serious money is beginning to go into the fusion reactor engineering and the problems are becoming manifest. It is possible that there may be a road map reassessment in the relatively near future, especially if there is further progress with the plasma confinement work.

 

[mheslep]

Many of the fission products are good neutron absorbers. With time the fission products build up and absorb more and more neutrons. So, there are fewer and fewer neutrons available to maintain the chain reaction.

You could take the fuel out of the core and process the material to remove the fission products and then re-use the uranium to make new fuel. This "re-processing" is not done here in the US.

On the subject of alternatives: a molten fuel reactor design would build the reprocessing into the loop, removing fission products on the fly which enables a very high theoretical burn-up, thus low waste, long periods between refueling and so on.

 

[mheslep]

...
It is a disaster, but on a much lesser scale than the USs housing bubble for example, which was perhaps 10 times bigger and wrecked many more lives.

How many lives were "wrecked" by the nuclear aspect of Fukushima versus those actually displaced and killed or grievously injured by the Tsunami?

 

[mheslep]

In Sahara, you hardly ever need a backup.

In addition to night time, in January and December mostly cloudy days are 10%, and 20-25% mostly cloudy (Cairo), at least.

 

[jadair1]

In addition to night time, in January and December mostly cloudy days are 10%, and 20-25% mostly cloudy (Cairo), at least.

I wonder if supercapacitor technology has advanced enough to store excess electricity during peak generation times to store enough energy for low generation times?

I guess that would be a question for the Electrical Engineering forum.

 

[etudiant]

I wonder if supercapacitor technology has advanced enough to store excess electricity during peak generation times to store enough energy for low generation times?

I guess that would be a question for the Electrical Engineering forum.

Not a chance.
Supercapacitors are still well short of the performance level needed to replace the auto battery.
Storing enough to run a city for hours or days is not in sight.
There may however be applications to level the output of wind turbines, which fluctuates even on a second to second time frame, to the discomfort of the overall electric grid.

 

[jadair1]

Not a chance.
Supercapacitors are still well short of the performance level needed to replace the auto battery.
Storing enough to run a city for hours or days is not in sight.
There may however be applications to level the output of wind turbines, which fluctuates even on a second to second time frame, to the discomfort of the overall electric grid.

Thanks, I wasn't aware of where the present technology was, my knowledge of this stuff is 10 - 15 years or so out of date.

An alternative could possible be liberating hydrogen and oxygen during peak producing times to run a generator at off times, although I think this would be very inneficient.

Now that I think about it you may be correct in that the supercapacitor application was to smooth the output of wind turbines.

Geothermal and tidal power generation may be the best bet for continuos and relatively stable power generation in areas where they are feasable.

I live on Vancouver Island and both these forms of generation are very feasable, not sure how economical they would be though.

 

[mfb]

An alternative could possible be liberating hydrogen and oxygen during peak producing times to run a generator at off times, although I think this would be very inneficient.

It is very efficient if you have cars that run with hydrogen. To use overproduction in that way, you need much more electrolysis capacity than you'll actually use (as it does not run 24/7 at its capacity limit).

How many lives were "wrecked" by the nuclear aspect of Fukushima versus those actually displaced and killed or grievously injured by the Tsunami?

I saw an upper limit of 200, compared to 20000 from the Tsunami.

The alternative coal is actually killing people. Even if that number is off by a factor of 10, that's way more than all nuclear accidents combined.

If these costs are factored into the price of the power I think Nuclear Power is to expensive to produce without massive government subsides and that doesn't even factor in the economic cost of a Chernoble or Fukushima type disaster!

If you divide the costs of Chernobyl and Fukushima by the amount of electricity generated by all power plants worldwide, you get a small number. And I am not sure if that is a fair way to include results from natural accidents.

Sure, nuclear power is not as cheap as the electricity market prices - but that's not a fair comparison. No source is as cheap as that.

Amazing depth of economical analysis.
Fusion plans don't need rare Earth metals, right?

Probably not as much as photovoltaics and wind energy, but that is just a guess.

 

[jadair1]

If you divide the costs of Chernobyl and Fukushima by the amount of electricity generated by all power plants worldwide, you get a small number. And I am not sure if that is a fair way to include results from natural accidents.

Sure, nuclear power is not as cheap as the electricity market prices - but that's not a fair comparison. No source is as cheap as that.


Probably not as much as photovoltaics and wind energy, but that is just a guess.

I do not believe the Fukashima disaster was entirely a result of a natural disaster, rather it was a failure of management, for gods sake upper management actualy talked about abondoning the plant.

In 2008, I believe it was, the engineers postulated an earthquake and tsunami very close to the one that hit. Nothing was done about it due to the cost!

Yes 20,000 some odd people lost there lives due to the natural disaster, this is horrible indeed but those of us that live in areas prone to these type of natural disasters are playing the odds that it will not happen in our lifetimes.

What I have a problem with Fukushima is that it is a man made disaster not a natural one.

And it has the potential to get much worse, if Tepco, those incompatent twits, lose control of SFP 4 and need to evacuate Daichi AND Daini Japan is toast!

By the way I live in BC and power generated by dams is some of the cheapest in the world.

I will ignore the 100's of thousands of square miles flooded for the resevoires behind them, I prefer fishing to hiking in a forest or farming valley bottoms.

Nothing is perfect, we just need to keep on working on energy systems that do the least damage, whatever they are!

 

[mfb]

I do not believe the Fukashima disaster was entirely a result of a natural disaster, rather it was a failure of management, for gods sake upper management actualy talked about abondoning the plant.

It was certainly not entirely due to a natural disaster, but it wouldn't have happened without that.

In 2008, I believe it was, the engineers postulated an earthquake and tsunami very close to the one that hit. Nothing was done about it due to the cost!

Yes 20,000 some odd people lost there lives due to the natural disaster, this is horrible indeed but those of us that live in areas prone to these type of natural disasters are playing the odds that it will not happen in our lifetimes.

There is always a trade-off between risk and costs. How expensive would it have been to lower the death toll of the tsunami? Which probability did the tsunami have?

By the way I live in BC and power generated by dams is some of the cheapest in the world.

Regions where this is viable on a large scale are rare.

I will ignore the 100's of thousands of square miles flooded for the resevoires behind them

In which way are they better than similar areas ruined for other reasons?

I prefer fishing to hiking in a forest or farming valley bottoms.

Some people (and other animals and plants and so on) prefer living there, see the massive environmental impact of the Three Gorges Dam for example.

Nothing is perfect, we just need to keep on working on energy systems that do the least damage, whatever they are!

Sure.

 

[etudiant]

Geothermal and tidal power generation may be the best bet for continuos and relatively stable power generation in areas where they are feasable.

I live on Vancouver Island and both these forms of generation are very feasable, not sure how economical they would be though.

Tidal power has been studied since at least the 1950s and France built a practical demonstrator at Rance, using a tidal basin with low speed turbines to tap the water flow energy. There has not been a larger unit built since afaik, so clearly the economics are hard to justify.

Geothermal is extensively used in Iceland, but has not had much success elsewhere, largely because managing the fluid flows is so hard.
Tapping deep reservoirs of very hot water is complicated by the associated dissolved minerals, that crud up the steam generators and are environmental headaches to dispose of.
Pumping clean water into deep areas of hot dry rock limits the mineral loads, but experience thus far is that the rocks fissure and the hot fluid gets lost, rather than returning to the surface to power a generator. Earthquakes are also a hazard from fluid injections, so there are few clear success stories here either.
There have been efforts to use the ocean heat differential between cold deep water and warm surface water to drive power plants, most recently by Lockheed Martin in Hawaii. No commercial business was born from these initiatives.

 

[jadair1]

Some people (and other animals and plants and so on) prefer living there, see the massive environmental impact of the Three Gorges Dam for example.
.

Not to mention if a massive landslide causes the dam to be breached and this is a very real possibility.

The same with the site 3 dam proposed for the Peace River in BC, in the Peace River region north of Hudson Hope.

The area is prone to massive sldes every 50 to 100 years, there is a standing joke in the area: Q: What is a mobile home? A: A house built on a hill!

I worked in the area for a few years and every year going up the hill to get out of the valley the Highways department was repairing a slide , not big ones mind you but still I think it is insanity to build a dam where there is such potential for disasterous consequences.

I am not against dams per say but to build them in places that disaster is almost garaunteed it is insanity.

 

[nikkkom]

How many lives were "wrecked" by the nuclear aspect of Fukushima versus those actually displaced and killed or grievously injured by the Tsunami?

Tsunami damage will be repaired, coastal defences beefed up, and life will continue.

Housing bust is even less destructive.

Whereas the area northwest of Fukushima, a "tongue" about 20 km long, several 100s of km^2, will be uninhabitable for 30-50 years. Most people who lived there will never return.

 

[etudiant]

Tsunami damage will be repaired, coastal defences beefed up, and life will continue.

Housing bust is even less destructive.

Whereas the area northwest of Fukushima, a "tongue" about 20 km long, several 100s of km^2, will be uninhabitable for 30-50 years. Most people who lived there will never return.

The housing bust ruined the lives of millions of Americans through foreclosures and evictions and the effects are ongoing with a derelict real estate market. The people hit by the effects are just as displaced and dispossessed as the Fukushima evacuees, forced from their homes by the consequences of failed government policies.

 

[QuantumPion]

There is a town in Pennsylvania that had to be evacuated and made off-limits (even had to demolish and re-route highways and railroad lines) due to an underground coal fire projected to burn for hundreds of years. There are similar incidents in other countries, particularly China.

 

[mheslep]

Tsunami damage will be repaired, coastal defences beefed up, and life will continue.

Housing bust is even less destructive.

Whereas the area northwest of Fukushima, a "tongue" about 20 km long, several 100s of km^2, will be uninhabitable for 30-50 years. Most people who lived there will never return.

Life will continue for the ~20,000 not actually killed or orphaned, and for those that avoided the obliteration of their homes, businesses, schools, hospitals, roads, agriculture, and utilities by the earthquake and tsunami. If concern for the future were applied objectively with regard only to prevention of likely harm, regardless of cause, then top priority must be a 20 meter sea wall along the Pacific coast of Japan or perhaps evacuation of population within five miles of the Pacific coastline. After those steps are taken, then one might consider how to avoid a radiation dose that could likewise be received by living on the Colorado Plateau for a year (up to 140 mrem/year)

 

[mheslep]

The housing bust ruined the lives of millions of Americans through foreclosures and evictions and the effects are ongoing with a derelict real estate market. The people hit by the effects are just as displaced and dispossessed as the Fukushima evacuees, forced from their homes by the consequences of failed government policies.

While tragic, how are any number of these foreclosures

http://www.csmonitor.com/var/archive/storage/images/media/images/102210-foreclosure-auction/8860858-1-eng-US/102210-foreclosure-auction_full_600.jpg


in any way comparable with this?http://ksj.mit.edu/sites/default/files/images/tracker/2011/TsunamiJapanAftermath.jpg

 

[nikkkom]

Life will continue for the ~20,000 not actually killed or orphaned, and for those that avoided the obliteration of their homes, businesses, schools, hospitals, roads, agriculture, and utilities by the earthquake and tsunami.

First, earthquake per se did not destroy much (a testament to Japanese building codes and quality).

Second, tsunamis aren't designs of men - reactors *are*, therefore, those men should be held accountable for their designs.

Third. As I already said, and you failed to see the distinction, tsunami-devastated area *will be rebuilt* and will return to normal life relatively quickly (~5 years), whereas contaminated areas will be economically dead for 10 times longer period.

 

[mheslep]

...Second, tsunamis aren't designs of men - reactors *are*, therefore, those men should be held accountable for their designs.

I understand that's a distinction you draw, but stating 'therefore' does not make an otherwise arbitrary assertion into an argument.

Though the tsunami was unavoidable, the damage from the tsunami arguably was not: 20-30m sea walls, elevated structures, or even coastal exclusion zones were possible preventative measures. Though with great cost, these could have drastically reduced and perhaps even eliminated the damage from the tsunami. The Japanese chose not to do so, as have most other peoples living on coasts throughout the world.

No human design is guaranteed perfectly safe, not in this world. Liability is commonly assigned where a design falls short of what was promised due to either negligence or fraud. Liability is not assigned simply because of a truism, i.e. it was designed by people. To do so would be an exercise in misanthropy.

Third. As I already said, and you failed to see the distinction, tsunami-devastated area *will be rebuilt* and will return to normal life relatively quickly (~5 years), whereas contaminated areas will be economically dead for 10 times longer period.

Nobody knows exactly what *will* be done. We can only know the past. Hiroshima was rebuilt, so was Nagasaki, largely within five years.

As for the contaminated areas, the exclusion zone has already been relaxed a bit two years after the incident. Predictions five decades out seem dubious, at least.

At midnight on 1 April [2012] the restrictions on several areas within 20 kilometres of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant were revised. A significant part of these had shown dose rates caused by ambient radioactivity to be below 20 millisieverts per year - the government's benchmark for the return.
Evacuated residents of Kawauchi village and Tamura City previously needed a police permit to visit the homes they were forced to abandon last year during the Fukushima nuclear accident. Now, they may return to homes and businesses without the use of protective equipment.

Note that several parts of the world have background radiation levels around 150 millisieverts per year.

 

[the_wolfman]

Second, tsunamis aren't designs of men - reactors *are*, therefore, those men should be held accountable for their designs.

Yes, as an engineer I agree that we are accountable for our designs. But there are real philosophical questions when it comes to designing for natural disaster. In particular how safe is safe enough.

On this question, there are many different schools of thought. Here are mine. First, you have to be prepared for any and all natural disasters that has a reasonable likelihood of occurring. Second, for the rare or unpredictable disaster, the consequences of a design failing should be small compared consequences of the disaster that caused the design to fail.

In the case of Fukushima, its arguable that a Tsunami of the magnitude had a reasonable likelihood of striking Japan. By this measure the power plant failed. But in truth, all of Japan failed on this part. This wasn't a failure one nuclear company, this was a failure of the entire society.

However, by the second measure, I believe the Fukushima did not fail. In total 16,000 people died due to the disaster, but not one person died from exposure to radiation. Furthermore if you look at the exposers that the workers received, only a few received a significant enough does to raise the chances of getting cancer. And even then, its not a guarantee that they will get cancer, nor that they will die from it if they do get sick. The general public received even smaller doses than that. In all the total health effect from exposer to radiation is going to be a lot smaller that 16,000 deaths.