Nuclear Energy - I need to vent/rant

[Lonewulf]

Well, if you're going to talk about Chernobyl, maybe it would be best if you actually read what went wrong, first.

http://www.freedomforfission.org.uk/acc/chernobyl.html

As for countries "we" deem to be safe or not, I think that you're overestimating our power to tell every other country what to do and what not to do. Quite frankly, many countries are building nuclear power plants whether we like it or not.

The major developed countries, the U.S. and the European Union, have the biggest energy needs, I think, outside of China. And China, we can't touch. If China decides to build nuclear power plants, then we're SOL if we want them not to.

As for countries like Africa, I'm not sure about. I'd have to give some thought to that one. I honestly think that we should offer nuclear engineers from other countries to help them set up any nuclear power plants, and use foreign scientists to know how to run them. Africa could definitely use the energy, if certain areas ever plan to pull themselves up into a post-developed country. Although that's definitely a political hotspot, so any venture there will be perilous.

however, in the meantime, we can build nuclear power plants in the countries that have the biggest requirement for them, are able to actually afford them, and can be "trusted" to have them, etc.

This would have a side effect: We would use up less fossil fuels, making what we have in fossil fuels last even longer than before.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

I'm not suggesting the the same thing might go wrong elsewhere, but that something else unforseen (as it seems Chernobyl was at the time) could happen. But I will read it all the same, thanks.

 

[Lonewulf]

I'm not suggesting the the same thing might go wrong elsewhere, but that something else unforseen (as it seems Chernobyl was at the time) could happen. But I will read it all the same, thanks.

Well, ****, "unforeseen" things could happen with fossil fuel power plants. It could happen with solar panels. It could happen with wind mills. If you want to talk about the "unforeseen", then I can't touch you. I can't say that Hazard X that we don't know about won't spontaneously pop out of nowhere and bite us in the butt. But you'd be much better talking about the various chemical factories that produce and store hazardous waste that could wipe out an entire city block if they're destroyed.

It seems like Nuclear Energy gets the special treatment in the safety concerns category in the opposite way Religion gets the special treatment in the philosophy category.

 

[mhaze]

South Africa has had two nuclear reactors operating since 1984.

 

[Lonewulf]

Yeah, but I'm thinking places like North Africa.

 

[pvt1863]

Chernobyl was not unforeseen. The United States and most other non-Soviet nuclear nations were well aware of the dangers inherent in many of the design features in that design. The NRC had long prohibited any design that used graphite, had a positive moderator temperature coefficient, had no containment, or lacked an immediate SCRAM feature. They also never would have licensed a plant or allowed one to continue operating with wandering criticality problems, nor would they have permitted the bypassing of safety features or the operation of hazardous experiments on site. Most of these decisions were made two decades in advance of the accident, and American engineers who knew about these features were not quiet about the problems in Soviet designs (the only reason concern was not widespread was because the Soviets were secretive about their designs). Based on what I have heard from my professors and some of my older coworkers, the question about an accident at a Soviet reactor was not "if," but rather "when" and "how bad." The ones who did not know enough about Soviet reactors ahead of time to be concerned were floored when they found out about the design. My graduate advisor remembered learning about the Chernobyl accident at a seminar shortly after the accident. He said that he and every other engineers who found out about the design there could not believe that the Soviets would build something so obviously dangerous.

The problem is that people tend to lump all nuclear together. "Nuclear" is not automatically or always safe. Like all technologies, there are safe ways to run it, and there are unsafe ways to run it. When people say nuclear is safe, they are usually implying that western designs are safe, not that all designs are safe. American reactors, by contrast to Soviet ones, have a safety record that is the envy of other industries.

You can't judge technology by simply saying "what if" without any rational basis for the question. Using the accident at Chernobyl to frame such a question for a western nuclear plant where such an accident is physically impossible is a good example of letting fear cloud rational judgment.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I'm afraid I have not read the thread as a whole, and I apologise if I am repeating things already said.

The nuclear lobby has a history of bald-faced lying, and independent examinations of the viability of nuclear power agree that it's not the technology we should be pursuing. It's not particularly "clean" in terms of net greenhouse gas emissions, because you have to mine and transport and refine huge amounts of ore, and because the high-grade ore is going to run out in fifty years or so at the current rate. If we build more reactors we'll just run out of high-grade ore faster, and mining low-grade ore for nuclear power plants produces more net greenhouse gas than the equivalent gas power plant does per unit energy.

It would also take ten to twenty years to get reactors on-line, and we can get renewable sources ready much faster. So solar, geothermal, wave, wind and so on will be solving problems in the real world before nuclear can get its socks on. That's why there has been only one nuclear plant I know of commissioned this century, in Finland, while wind and solar power systems are growing in number and net production by leaps and bounds. [Edit: I checked that claim, and I was actually wrong. It turns out Finland is the only European country to have commissioned a new nuke plant lately, but non-European nations have of course been at it too. Apologies for passing on a mis-remembered factoid].

It's also a bit cheeky to dismiss the waste problem and the proliferation problem as some of the people quoted in this thread have done. Nuclear waste does decay rapidly at first, but it's still going to be a danger for tens of thousands of years and it's a bit irresponsible to manufacture it when that's much longer than the likely lifespan of existing nations. We also don't particularly need more nations with nuclear weapons, let alone terrorist groups with nuclear weapons. (I consider the terrorist nuke scenario fairly far-fetched, but you can't make a nuke out of solar panels).

Lastly, I think a few people have an irrational reaction to the idea that they should cut down their energy use. It's just common sense that if we want to improve our lifestyle, we can either make more useable energy, or we can use the energy we have more efficiently. Increasing energy efficiency is just as good as building more power stations. We don't all have to go live in sackcloth in candle-lit communes, we just need to figure out more energy-efficient ways of heating our hot water, transporting people from point A to point B and so forth. If we can find ways of using energy more efficiently there's no reason we can't enjoy our current quality of life by using 20% less energy.

 

[luddite]

Well, ****, "unforeseen" things could happen with fossil fuel power plants. It could happen with solar panels. It could happen with wind mills. If you want to talk about the "unforeseen", then I can't touch you. I can't say that Hazard X that we don't know about won't spontaneously pop out of nowhere and bite us in the butt. But you'd be much better talking about the various chemical factories that produce and store hazardous waste that could wipe out an entire city block if they're destroyed.

Unforeseen accidents with a coal plant just can't cause the sort of problems an unforeseen nuclear accident can cause. You can blow up a coal plant and you'll probably reduce the toxins released overall while the coal plant is not running. My mom is Ukrainian, and we have many acquaintances near Chernobyl. Their kids are still getting cancers and reproductive dysfunctions today.

People who work at nuclear plants get careless. I have a friend whose husband works at the Bruce reactor, and they live in an area where 80% of the families have a member working in the industry. Power workers have tags which indicate the level of radiation they've been exposed to. There is a black market in these tags so that workers can keep going to work even after they've passed the "safe" zone. Another friend, whose husband worked for years in the industry, spoke about an accident that required cleaning. The public was told it was perfectly safe and the incident was never exposed, but the workers who were sent in got 6 hour shifts followed by 2 years paid leave on condition they never exposed it. I know a nuclear engineer from India, who came to Canada confident that Canadian reactors would operate with much higher safety standards than the Indian ones, which were frightening. To his horror, he found the same flaws in the Canadian system.

I think it's really optimistic to say "it can't happen". I won't deny that Chernobyl was an accident waiting to happen but I'm not confident that there aren't others, and I'm really not sure that a meltdown couldn't happen even with a much safer design. As I mentioned before, during the big blackout, only two of Ontario's reactors shut down properly.

 

[Lonewulf]

Unforeseen accidents with a coal plant just can't cause the sort of problems an unforeseen nuclear accident can cause. You can blow up a coal plant and you'll probably reduce the toxins released overall while the coal plant is not running. My mom is Ukrainian, and we have many acquaintances near Chernobyl. Their kids are still getting cancers and reproductive dysfunctions today.

It must be nice when you comment out of ignorance. At least, it must be... ignorance is bliss or somesuch. Must be blissful when you really think that nuclear power plants today are even somewhat equivalent to Chernobyl.

I think it's really optimistic to say "it can't happen".

I am willing to say that the chances of an accident is so low as to be perfectly acceptable.

I won't deny that Chernobyl was an accident waiting to happen but I'm not confident that there aren't others, and I'm really not sure that a meltdown couldn't happen even with a much safer design. As I mentioned before, during the big blackout, only two of Ontario's reactors shut down properly.

A melt down is possible, but unlikely. But even a melt down is not equivalent to what happened at Chernobyl. A "melt down" has to do with a lack of coolant and material melting through the plant and into the earth. It's not the equivalent to a huge explosion.

Sure, something to be worried about, but not something to equate to Chernobyl at all.

 

[luddite]

Not according to this chart: goldpactpower.com/chart.jpg

It seems that nuclear is on the range of coal in costs, and "green" solutions are far more costly.

The costs quoted do not include decommissioning costs, which are very high. They do not include the costs of containment, storage and protection for centuries. And nuclear plants are all uninsured, whereas all other types of generation include insurance in the costs listed. Then there are the corresponding health and environmental costs of normal operations, which would probably dramatically increase the costs of coal and somewhat increase the costs of nuclear.

Here's a link to a view that nuclear is pretty expensive.
energyprobe.org/energyprobe/images/NuclearCost/NuclearCost_files/v3_document.htm

In response to the Ontario Power Authority's proposal to rebuild Ontario's nuclear fleet, the Pembina Institute commissioned a study from the same economists that assessed the government plan with the same proposed costs for various power sources, but eliminated the plan for nuclear in favour of diverse renewable sources. They came to the conclusion that even excluding the incidental costs of nuclear, investments in conservation and renewables come up cheaper and more greenhouse gas emissions are prevented.
pembina.org/pub/1509

 

[Lonewulf]

t is a pleasant suggestion and as such is great for use in the sound-bite media. It only works if one accepts an underlying straw man that the two are mutually exclusive. In fact, there is no real reason to not expect that we will see increasing use of nuclear and renewable electricity together in the future. Both the World Nuclear Association and the British Wind Energy Association have said as much.

It is also important to recognise the reality that popular renewables such as wind and solar are not sufficiently developed to contribute as large a fraction as nuclear is capable of doing for short to medium term. According to the recent IEA report, Key World Energy Statistics 2006 (2MB pdf), nuclear energy accounts for 6.5% of supply worldwide. Conversely, it lists a category labelled "other" which accounts for a mere 0.4%. This other not only includes solar and wind, but also geothermal as well. To even begin to match the nuclear contribution, would require a 15 fold expansion, even ignoring the fact that geothermal likely accounts for a significant fraction of that 0.4%. Clearly, there is a long way to go before these renewables can substitute significantly for either nuclear or fossil fuels.

If the argument is followed to its logical conclusion, or at least the conclusion implied by many of its proponents, no further nuclear development will be allowed on the basis that this "other" category is the preferred choice.

However, this means that the nuclear sector will be allowed to decay and before renewables can start substituting for fossil fuels, they must first replace nuclear. Even if they did so, several decades-worth of effort will have done nothing to achieve the original objective. Moreover, the importance of nuclear power presently means that it is more likely that renewables will not succeed in filling the void a nuclear phase-out will leave, and the end result will be an increase in the use of fossil fuels, proportionally as well as in real terms.

As far as energy efficiency is concerned, it is a form of energy as much as dieting of agriculture. While it is possible to mitigate the growth in energy consumption through energy efficiency methods, it still leaves the issue of deciding the mix of sources to supply the energy we do consume. If it is argued that energy efficiency can reduce consumption in real terms leading to an elimination of the need for nuclear (and the IEA forecasts go against this), then it could be equally argued that if the nuclear sector was maintained or expanded, the energy savings could be transferred to reduced dependence on fossil fuels, which is, after all, the objective.

Considered realistically, ruling out nuclear because renewables and energy efficiency are preferred, will in reality be counterproductive to substituting for fossil fuels. The concept is driven more by wishful thinking. It is a slogan, not a coherent energy policy.

http://www.freedomforfission.org.uk/deb/alternative.html

http://www.iea.org/Textbase/nppdf/free/2006/Key2006.pdf

 

[luddite]

It must be nice when you comment out of ignorance. At least, it must be... ignorance is bliss or somesuch. Must be blissful when you really think that nuclear power plants today are even somewhat equivalent to Chernobyl.

First of all, I explicitly didn't equate all current power plants to Chernobyl. I accepted that Chernobyl was particularly problematic. But saying that Chernobyl was more likely to have an accident than another reactor doesn't change the fact that Chernobyl demonstrates what sorts of things can happen when an accident occurs. My point is that we can't get those kinds of results from an "accident" with a solar installation.

I did, however, leave open the question that unusual as it was, Chernobyl might not be entirely unique. Can you say with complete confidence that every single reactor in the world is safe? And can you say with equal confidence that a nuclear renaissance will retain the same safety throughout?

 

[luddite]

It is also important to recognise the reality that popular renewables such as wind and solar are not sufficiently developed to contribute as large a fraction as nuclear is capable of doing for short to medium term.

Because nuclear takes 10-20 years for a buildout, I would argue that it is incapable of delivering any power at all in the short to medium term.

 

[Lonewulf]

First of all, I explicitly didn't equate all current power plants to Chernobyl. I accepted that Chernobyl was particularly problematic. But saying that Chernobyl was more likely to have an accident than another reactor doesn't change the fact that Chernobyl demonstrates what sorts of things can happen when an accident occurs.

An accident with a powerplant of that design, yes. We don't make power plants with that design.

An accident with the procedures that were done, yes. We have different procedures now.

My point is that we can't get those kinds of results from an "accident" with a solar installation.

The creation of solar panels involves some pretty toxic chemicals. I'm pretty sure releasing those on a populace would be harmful.

Also, coal is even more toxic. You have an accident with coal, or with certain chemical plants, and you have an issue. Unless you're saying that solar power somehow has the ability to entirely replace all of coal?

I did, however, leave open the question that unusual as it was, Chernobyl might not be entirely unique. Can you say with complete confidence that every single reactor in the world is safe?

I can say that the margins of safety are far higher than that of Chernobyl. Yes.

I can also say with near-certainty that if there is an accident with a nuclear power plant, it's very very very highly unlikely to be quite as explosive as Chernobyl is. Of course, if you can give me a single accident or evidence of one with a nuclear power plant on that scale, I might change my mind.

And can you say with equal confidence that a nuclear renaissance will retain the same safety throughout?

I can say that safety procedures are fairly routine, yes.

Now, let me ask you a question:

Are fossil fuel-powered power plants the same as they were 100 years ago?

Are the methods of digging up fossil fuel the same as it was 100 years ago?

Have we gotten better at processing fossil fuel?

Has processing fossil fuel gotten safer?

If your answer is "no" to any of the above, please go into details.

 

[luddite]

The creation of solar panels involves some pretty toxic chemicals. I'm pretty sure releasing those on a populace would be harmful.

Well, if you're going to go into manufacture, then mining uranium is fair game. The toxic tailings routinely left behind are far more hazardous than anything involved in refining sand.

 

[Lonewulf]

You mean this waste?

For an idea of what this means, consider the American nuclear power output for 2005, which amounted to around 90 GW.yr. The volume of high level waste as spent fuel produced is therefore around 90m³. This means that almost a decades worth of high level waste from the entire American civil reactor fleet could fit into a single Boeing 777 freighter such as one based on the medium capacity aircraft shown in figure 1 (getting the aircraft airborne with that load is another matter however). So Air France's order for 5 Boeing 777Fs is sufficient to store the spent fuel produced by the US reactor fleet over its entire lifetime.

EDIT: Ah, no you didn't.

Oh well. Now you just have to demonstrate that solar energy can catch up with and replace nuclear energy easily or inexpensively. You up to it?

 

[luddite]

Also, coal is even more toxic. You have an accident with coal, or with certain chemical plants, and you have an issue. Unless you're saying that solar power somehow has the ability to entirely replace all of coal?

Interesting question. I think wind is a lot more promising for baseload power than solar. I don't think any one thing is going to be the silver bullet. But coal is toxic due to constant exposure. Kids get asthma because of nearby coal plants over decades. Explode a coal plant and you'll get the powder from the coal that was in the plant at the time. It's probably a net benefit to the local asthmatic as it takes a couple of years to rebuild the plant during which time the air is clearer. Explode a nuclear plant and you release toxins that were designed to be contained because they are far too dangerous to be released. It's a different sort of thing.

You can eat coal, even that with a high sulfur content. I wouldn't recommend ingesting depleted uranium.

Coal is more dangerous than nuclear when things are running as they're intended. I didn't think I was saying anything controversial when I suggested that when things don't go as intended, the potential problems from nuclear are higher. I think the question is about the probability that problems can occur.

 

[robinson]

Solar energy has already replaced nuclear energy in many areas. While Nuclear power plants are being cried over, solar power just keeps increasing in use.

I think the issue with some people is they still think solar is limited to solar panels creating electricity. The most costly method of using solar power.

 

[Lonewulf]

Solar energy has already replaced nuclear energy in many areas. While Nuclear power plants are being cried over, solar power just keeps increasing in use.

Evidence?

Seriously, I want some serious evidence that any country is using only 100% solar panels and have entirely replaced fossil fuels and nuclear energy. If you can, I'd eat my hat and praise solar.

Especially if you could demonstrate that wind, solar, and geothermal could go from 0.4% of the world's energy supply to even some number like 20% to 30%...

...But as long as it can't replace it 100%, there's still a place for nuclear energy, I'm sorry to say. Sorry, but that's how it is.

 

[luddite]

Now, let me ask you a question:

Are fossil fuel-powered power plants the same as they were 100 years ago?

Are the methods of digging up fossil fuel the same as it was 100 years ago?

Have we gotten better at processing fossil fuel?

Has processing fossil fuel gotten safer?

If your answer is "no" to any of the above, please go into details.

I'm not sure where this is going, and I'm no expert, but I'll try to answer.

In Ontario, the main difference between today's coal plants and those of the last century is that they've recently had scrubbers installed. That and they're a lot bigger. I would say that on the whole, the technology is remarkably similar. So if I have to answer Yes or No about whether fossil fuel powered plants are the same, I'd have to say Yes.

The methods of digging up fossil fuels have changed somewhat, yes. Certainly fewer coal miners die underground, though exceptions occur. On the other hand we decapitate mountains and expose the surrounding populations to environmental toxins. While the methods of extracting oil, natural gas and coal are all more efficient, these gains are more than offset by the declines in the quality of the resources available. Advanced oil recovery hastens extraction, but is now thought to actually decrease the proportion of resource ultimately extractable. So there are some changes to a basic process. In some ways they can be viewed as progress, in other ways not.

Have we gotten better at processing fossil fuel. Yes. Again the gains in efficiency of processing are more than offset by the reductions in resource quality. It takes more energy to recover the average barrel of oil now than it did 50 years ago.

Has processing fuel gotten safer? Yes.