The Nuclear Power Thread

[mheslep]

I think that article summary is a bit off target about nuclear. Intermittent renewables plus storage can work technically, but as Bill Gates said recently, the cost would be "astronomical", leaving nuclear as the only affordable energy path.

 

[nikkkom]

That's a narrative designed to end discussion.

Indeed you are right. No amount of talk will persuade me. What could have persuaded me is if US plants had been proactive in heeding all the Fukushima warnings/lessons. Such as filtering on vent lines, additional power generators, battery-powered lights, additional water and pumps added on site. I did not see that. I see a willing disregard to act.

In the US where all the coal plants have scrubbers, as of http://www.catf.us/fossil/problems/power_plants/ emissions from plants, not from mining. The non-lethal impact rates from asthma, heart attack, and lost work days are far higher.

Heart attack because of the coal power plant is a LOL of the day for me, but more importantly, *why do you think I am a proponent of coal power plants?* I'm not!

With respect to Chernobyl's so called exclusion zone, the plant had three other reactors that were in part operated and manned daily for 23 years after the '86 accident in Unit 4 (i.e. until 2009). A labor force of thousands works in the area performing decommissioning.

How is all this helping us Ukrainians reclaim the lost economic value of these hundreds of square kilometers? Indeed, thousands still has to work on the plant, and be paid, even though it generated exactly $0 worth of electricity for the last 20 years.

 

[jim hardy]

Such as filtering on vent lines, additional power generators, battery-powered lights, additional water and pumps added on site. I did not see that.

I asked my not-yet retired friends about that, actually as a result of this thread.
I don't know if my old plant is typical
but they did all the above, and built a new building to house the stuff, and built a new hill for the building several feet higher than the rest of the site.

I don't know if that's widespread practice. There may be reasons not to advertise such preparations.

We're not heartless profiteers. We live downwind too.

old jim

 

[mheslep]

Indeed you are right. No amount of talk will persuade me.

That is to be in the grip of self righteous dogma, immune to contrary evidence. That's all fine, the world has room for such via guys standing on the corner holding a sign and chanting. Not very useful in this space.

but more importantly, *why do you think I am a proponent of coal power plants?* I'm not!

Enough with the strawmen, I said no such thing. I responded to what you did say, which was that coal victims signed up for the danger. Nonsense.

How is all this helping us Ukrainians...

Like the Indians in Bhopal, they insure that nobody is allowed to build a ready-to-blow-up industrial operation ever again.

though it generated exactly $0 worth of electricity for the last 20 years.

Nonsense. The *other* units continued operating for decades, saving the cost of millions of tons of coal or tcf of gas from Putin, all shouldered by a poor economy.

 

[Astronuc]

Assigning wisdom to the fast spectrum breeder cancellation for safety reasons requires the assumption that breeders are somehow more dangerous than light water thermal reactors with no spent fuel solution. Do you believe that's the case?

At the time, a commercial fast breeder reactor may have been problematic for the reasons cited by the Kemeny report. One potential problem would be failure of a steam generator and potential for a sodium-water reaction leading to ignition of hydrogen, whether a deflagration or explosion. Even at that point in the commercial industry, we hadn't yet experience the widespread degradation of steam generators that lead to their replacement - at significant cost to the utilities.

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/steam-gen.html

TMI-2 was only about 62 effective full power days (efpd) into is first cycle when it the accident happened. The unit had achieved initial criticality in March 1978, and was placed in commercial operation during December 1978. The accident could have been a lot worse with respect to radiological consequences had it been in its third or fourth cycle with higher burnup fuel. As it was, TMI-2 was the initial core at the time when plants typically did annual cycles and fuel was discharged after it's third cycle. During the 1980s, plants began to transition to 18-month cycles, and then to 24-month cycles during the 1990s.

There were a lot of things that went wrong, including the lack of training on the part of the plant personnel.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/tmi/stories/chrono032889.htm

Anyway, the US did continue operation of EBR-II (1964-1994), which generated electricity, and FFTF (1980-1992), which generated a lot of heat that was dissipated into the air. Some folks wanted to produce electricity, but that was apparently at odds with various agencies.

http://www.ne.anl.gov/About/reactors/frt.shtml
http://www.ne.anl.gov/About/reactors/EBR2-NN-2004-2-2.pdf

http://www.hanford.gov/page.cfm/400areafftf

Quite a few of my friends, associates and colleagues worked at FFTF, and some at EBR-II.

 

[nikkkom]

Nonsense. The *other* units continued operating for decades

Wrong. By 1996, all units except Unit 3 were shut down. Unit 3 was shut down in 2000.

saving the cost of millions of tons of coal or tcf of gas from Putin, all shouldered by a poor economy.

It is estimated that the cost of Chernobyl cleanup is *larger* than the profit from all nuclear power generation in the USSR over its entire history. Thanks, we really appreciated "cheap" and "safe" electricity. My grandchildren will still need to pay for it, when I'm long dead.

 

[nikkkom]

That is to be in the grip of self righteous dogma, immune to contrary evidence.

I waited for the contrary evidence since 2011. Words are not evidence. Deeds are.

 

[mheslep]

One potential problem would be failure of a steam generator and potential for a sodium-water reaction leading to ignition of hydrogen, whether a deflagration or explosion.

Assuming you are referring to sodium cooled fast spectrum design something like this, how does any kind of failure of the remote steam generator off the secondary loop lead to a sodium - water reaction? I would think the hydrogen formation problem is many times more likely in the existing water cooled BWR/PWR designs with water and zirc rods under pressure in the pressure in the primary.

 

[mheslep]

Wrong. By 1996, all units except Unit 3 were shut down. Unit 3 was shut down in 2000...

Unit 1 ran 11 years after the accident closing at the end of '97, Unit 2 ran 5 years after the accident closing in '91, Unit 3 ran 14 years closing in late 2000.

 

[russ_watters]

Wrong. By 1996, all units except Unit 3 were shut down. Unit 3 was shut down in 2000.

Dial it back, nikkom: you carefully selected a 20 year time frame for your claim rather than the ~30 years since the meltdown in order to avoid acknowledging the power production that happened in the other ten years. That is not an open-minded, dispassionate analysis, it is twisting and misleading about facts to support a pre-selected conclusion. That sort of intellectual chicanery is not acceptable here. Perhaps more to the point, since you did that on purpose, it means you know that your position/analysis is flawed.

The date of when the plant was shut down isn't even the relevant issue: the issue is why. The plant was not, contrary to your implications, shut down because the area was uninhabitable, it was shut down because it was a flawed plant design and the international community pressured them to shut it down.

An even finer point on the issue: since Chernobyl was a known flawed plant design even before it melted down, it is not very relevant to the overall safety analysis and prospects moving forward.

 

[mheslep]

It is estimated that the cost of Chernobyl cleanup is *larger* than the profit from all nuclear power generation in the USSR over its entire history. Thanks, we really appreciated "cheap" and "safe" electricity. My grandchildren will still need to pay for it, when I'm long dead...

The NYT estimated the cost of the four jumbo aircraft deliberately crashed on 9/11/2001 cost $55 B in direct physical damage, $123 B in economic impacts, another $100 B in lost time at airports and so on. If the case was made that jumbo aircraft could never be made modestly safe, that these kinds of city-wrecking, catastrophic accidents are bound to happen every couple years, then perhaps some drastic reduction in aviation transport would be required. There is no such case. So too for nuclear power.

 

[Astronuc]

Assuming you are referring to sodium cooled fast spectrum design something like this, how does any kind of failure of the remote steam generator off the secondary loop lead to a sodium - water reaction? I would think the hydrogen formation problem is many times more likely in the existing water cooled BWR/PWR designs with water and zirc rods under pressure in the pressure in the primary.

I was referring to the Clinch River Breeder Reactor as it was designed in the 1970s, which did have two sodium loops and a pressurized-water loop (Rankine cycle).

Under normal conditions, the Zr-water reaction takes place slowly over the life of the fuel, which was 3 years, but now more like 4 to 6 years, or up to 8 in some cases. The corrosion produces a relatively small amount of hydrogen. The concern over aggressive hydrogen production applies under accident conditions where the fuel is overheated. I should also add that in PWRs, hydrogen is added to the water (~30-35 cc/kg) to suppress radiolysis of the coolant (water) in the core, and it is also added to BWRs under so-called hydrogen water chemistry, but that has been modified with the use of noble metals with so-called noble metal chemical addition.

In the case of Na-water, that could happen under normal operating conditions. See the link to the NRC backgrounder on steam generator replacement. During the 1970s, it was discovered that Inconel-600 tubes were eroding/corroding faster than anticipated, and occasional tube failure was a part of normal operation at a number of plants. Rather than serving 40 years as designed, many steam generators had to be replaced.

Another article on steam generators - http://www.power-eng.com/articles/print/volume-100/issue-1/features/steam-generator-replacement-overview.html

In the case of the Na-water heat exchanger, the water is necessarily under pressure. It was likely that a tube would fail on the waterside, and if water infiltrated the secondary Na loop, the concern was the vigorous hydrogen production. Now there was a concept that had a double tube (tube-in-tube) design. Nevertheless, the CRBR was cancelled.

I'm not sure about the EBR-II system, so I'll have to look into it.

When I entered graduate school in the early 1980s, I was enthusiastic about fast reactors and fusion. Then we had a visit from a manager of a fast reactor program who informed us that he was letting 300 people go and cancelling a fast reactor project. And fusion was always 10 or so years away. Nevertheless, some my research was on small compact fast reactors for space power applications.

 

[jim hardy]

Chernobyl was a known flawed plant design

i'd say more 'obsolete' than 'flawed'.

As i understand it's a scaled up version of our original Manhattan Project plutonium makers.

With their huge moderator void coefficient ($+4) there's some things you should never do like allow a mismatch between heat production and heat removal. Yet in the wee hours, somebody with incomplete understanding of that principle let it happen during an experiment and the reactor of course took off .
That's not the fault of the reactor. It's dilettantes tinkering with something they don't understand, which is a people failure.

That officialdom tried for days to cover it up speaks to the health of the organizations responsible ; same shortcomings as Kemeny described over here.

 

[mheslep]

That's not the fault of the reactor.

I disagree. Designs meant for regular, everyday operation and which inevitably result in catastrophic outcomes from the slightest deviation from textbook operation are flawed, and I submit this was the case with the early Soviet RBMKs. The positive void coefficient magnifies the slightest mistake rather than the other way around. The same concept applies in many other fields, aviation comes to mind via building aircraft that enter unstable control profiles with the slightest perturbation, and then blaming accidents on pilot error.

 

[jim hardy]

Designs meant for regular, everyday operation and which inevitably result in catastrophic outcomes from anything less than textbook operation are flawed,

That depends on who's going to operate them.
Are you also opposed to high performance aircraft ?

"Stay away from that wheelbarrow - you don't know nothin' about machinery" doesn't apply to properly trained folks.

 

[jim hardy]

I'm not sure about the EBR-II system, so I'll have to look into it.

more than anybody could want here...
http://www.redinc.com/examples/Docs-Images/EBR-II.pdf

 

[nikkkom]

Unit 1 ran 11 years after the accident closing at the end of '97, Unit 2 ran 5 years after the accident closing in '91, Unit 3 ran 14 years closing in late 2000.

Correction.
Unit 1 was stopped on November 30, 1996. Not 1997.

 

[nikkkom]

The date of when the plant was shut down isn't even the relevant issue: the issue is why. The plant was not, contrary to your implications, shut down because the area was uninhabitable

I did not say, and never meant, that plant was shut down because the area was uninhabitable. I talked about shutdown since after shutdown, the plant become purely a money sink pit, with not a dollar of revenue produced.

I am talking about this area because it has *other* economic value beside having nuclear plant standing on it. It's hundreds of square kilometers, the plant was just a tiny portion of it. The rest were towns, villages, farmland, forests.

Or rather, it HAD economic value. Most of that value is gone now. Now it needs to be guarded, which costs $$$ (and even with guards, people enter, steal and sell radioactive wood and scrap metal).

 

[mheslep]

I talked about shutdown since after shutdown, the plant become purely a money sink pit, with not a dollar of revenue produced.

As per above, only the Unit 4 accident-reactor was destroyed, not the entire plant as the balance went on to produce more electricity.

 

[mheslep]

That depends on who's going to operate them.
Are you also opposed to high performance aircraft ?

"Stay away from that wheelbarrow - you don't know nothin' about machinery" doesn't apply to properly trained folks.

If the goal is mass production of aircraft or nuclear reactors so that they can serve more than the niche needs of test pilots then the design requires some amount of resilience. The more walk-away safe that's built in the greater the benefit. Also, even with the best trained people running against a design as flawed as Chernobyl (no sec containment, positive void, graphite) sooner or later there will a human caused accident with enormous consequences. See the Challenger and Columbia accidents.

 

[QuantumPion]

I disagree. Designs meant for regular, everyday operation and which inevitably result in catastrophic outcomes from the slightest deviation from textbook operation are flawed, and I submit this was the case with the early Soviet RBMKs. The positive void coefficient magnifies the slightest mistake rather than the other way around. The same concept applies in many other fields, aviation comes to mind via building aircraft that enter unstable control profiles with the slightest perturbation, and then blaming accidents on pilot error.

If you operate any machinery contrary to how it was designed, against all operator instructions, bypassing all safety equipment and procedures, you can't very well blame the equipment when bad things happen. Chernobyl was the result of human error, not design flaw. If you run your car engine in the garage you will die of CO poisoning. That does not mean internal combustion engines are recklessly dangerous or inherently flawed.

 

[mheslep]

If machinery is incorrectly operated as you suggest, and entire range of outcomes is possible. A good design should i) make operation as intuitive and simple as possible, and ii) attempt to minimize the bad outcomes. Yes running the car in the garage is a bad move, but that does not make it ok to mount the gas tank on the front bumper with electrical wiring running through it, so that a would be fender-bender turns into death by fire.

 

[nikkkom]

It's hundreds of square kilometers, the plant was just a tiny portion of it. The rest were towns, villages, farmland, forests. Or rather, it HAD economic value. Most of that value is gone now.

Correction: not "hundreds of sq.km.", thousands.

The Exclusion Zone, where evacuation is mandatory to this day, is 2600 km^2

 

[Zackary Miller]

i'd say more 'obsolete' than 'flawed'.

As i understand it's a scaled up version of our original Manhattan Project plutonium makers.

With their huge moderator void coefficient ($+4) there's some things you should never do like allow a mismatch between heat production and heat removal. Yet in the wee hours, somebody with incomplete understanding of that principle let it happen during an experiment and the reactor of course took off .
That's not the fault of the reactor. It's dilettantes tinkering with something they don't understand, which is a people failure.

That officialdom tried for days to cover it up speaks to the health of the organizations responsible ; same shortcomings as Kemeny described over here.

Let's see, when you are designing something, whatever it might be, you generally make certain that idiots will not damage it. Yes, nothing can be completely fool proof, but you can make something fool resistant, as in making it so that if someone shuts down all safeties, brings it to a low power level so that the negative reactivity added by the water filling the pressure tubes has to be compensated with through control rod removal, that it does not cause widespread contamination.

Now, you may wonder, how was the RBMK stupidly designed? Well you do not have to look any farther than the lack of containment, positive void coefficient at low power levels, control rods that were graphite tipped as to cause minor voiding on reactor startup, and the fact that anything regarding the nuclear industry was automatically a state secret. It was an accident waiting to happen.

You do not simply design a airplane for example and make it so that moving it even slightly away from normal conditions will cause disaster, and with a nuclear reactor you do not design it so that a group of bumbling incompetents will not leave a large amount of land evacuated.

It is also interesting to note that the Hanford B reactor did not boil water or generate any electricity, rather the RBMK is a scaled up version of the Obninsk APS-1 reactor. Now, mind, there are definitely similarities between all of them, just the RBMK, from my limited understanding, appears to succeed in being even less safe than the Hanford reactors.

 

[QuantumPion]

Let's see, when you are designing something, whatever it might be, you generally make certain that idiots will not damage it. Yes, nothing can be completely fool proof, but you can make something fool resistant, as in making it so that if someone shuts down all safeties, brings it to a low power level so that the negative reactivity added by the water filling the pressure tubes has to be compensated with through control rod removal, that it does not cause widespread contamination.

That's not how things works in the real world. Things designed for the general public should be pretty idiotproof. But things designed to be operated by trained professionals are different. You could not design an airplane to be crashproof under all possible circumstances. That's why pilots require lots of training, practice, and certifications. The same goes for nuclear reactors. If an airline has a pilot shortage and tells someone untrained in how to fly a jumbo jet to make the next flight, and that flight ends up crashing due to his error, the fault is primarily with the airline. That does not mean airplanes are inherently too dangerous to fly.

 

[Astronuc]

Now, you may wonder, how was the RBMK stupidly designed? Well you do not have to look any farther than the lack of containment, positive void coefficient at low power levels, control rods that were graphite tipped as to cause minor voiding on reactor startup, and the fact that anything regarding the nuclear industry was automatically a state secret. It was an accident waiting to happen.

You do not simply design a airplane for example and make it so that moving it even slightly away from normal conditions will cause disaster, and with a nuclear reactor you do not design it so that a group of bumbling incompetents will not leave a large amount of land evacuated.

It is also interesting to note that the Hanford B reactor did not boil water or generate any electricity, rather the RBMK is a scaled up version of the Obninsk APS-1 reactor. Now, mind, there are definitely similarities between all of them, just the RBMK, from my limited understanding, appears to succeed in being even less safe than the Hanford reactors.

The RBMK was designed to produce Pu and electricity.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle/Power-Reactors/Appendices/RBMK-Reactors/

It is a pressurized water reactor, not designed to boil water in the core. I can be operated safely, but it was taken outside of it's design/performance envelope prior to the experiment that precipitated the accident. The experiment should never have been performed as conducted. Safety features should not have been deactivated. Such conduct is illegal, at least in the west and probably elsewhere as well.

The Hanford reactors were quite different from the RBMK design. Incidentally, "the last of Hanford’s nine plutonium production reactors to be built was the N Reactor. This reactor was called a dual purpose reactor in that it not only produced plutonium for America’s defense program, but it also generated electricity. It was the only reactor of its kind in the country."
http://www.hanford.gov/page.cfm/NReactor

 

[jim hardy]

Also, even with the best trained people running against a design as flawed as Chernobyl (no sec containment, positive void, graphite) sooner or later there will a human caused accident with enormous consequences. See the Challenger and Columbia accidents.

Doesn't change the fact that Chernobyl reactor was mis-operated.

Not that i like the RMBK design, and I'm on record saying it's bad enough to build such a contraption let alone turn it over to civilians.

Bad design played into Three Mile Island too, where somebody programmed the plant computer to print out question marks instead of the readings whenever the reactor's internal thermocouples measured higher than the program expected, something like 650 degF.. So operators were deprived of the reactor's temperature measurements exactly where and when they were needed most.
But the real culprit there was misdirection provided to operators; somebody went Obsessive-Compulsive about "Pressurized Thermal Shock" and directed plant operators to never let their pressurizer fill up. So they didn't. And that's mis-operation, and it was by procedure.

Ever seen a 707 do a Barrel Roll ?
www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Ra_khhzuFlE

 

[jim hardy]

just the RBMK, from my limited understanding, appears to succeed in being even less safe than the Hanford reactors.

They heated river water in a once-through cycle (Except N as noted by Astro).
Doubtless the marine life liked it in winter.

and with a nuclear reactor you do not design it so that a group of bumbling incompetents will not leave a large amount of land evacuated.

Double negative aside,
Anyone who turns such a machine over to such a group is too irresponsibile to own it..

 

[Astronuc]

Something to consider when developing an exotic nuclear fuel system.
https://www-nds.iaea.org/sgnucdat/a6.htm

 

[Astronuc]

Useful, and dated (1981) report, but some relevant background experience.

Control Rod Materials and Burnable Poisons
http://www.epri.com/abstracts/Pages/ProductAbstract.aspx?ProductId=NP-1974

I worked with both authors and one of the contributors.