No more nuclear power for the US?

[WildCat]

BTW wikipedia lists two thorium cycle reactors in the US, five on the planet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium_fuel_cycle

I'm talking about actual power-generating reactors, not small experimental ones in a laboratory.

And btw, none of those in the US is still in existence.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

I'm talking about actual power-generating reactors, not small experimental ones in a laboratory.

And btw, none of those in the US is still in existence.

Yes, you're right about some of those being previous reactors. Still, what's your point? Can you list all the pilot projects that have contained nuclear waste for 10,000 years?

And one of those reactors (the German one) was connected to the grid. It too is out of service now.

 

[WildCat]

Yes, you're right about some of those being previous reactors. Still, what's your point? Can you list all the pilot projects that have contained nuclear waste for 10,000 years?

Apparently there are hundreds of them in place right now, all over the country!

And does it occur to you that the bar is being set too high as far as storage of waste goes? Worrying about how people will handle nuclear waste 5,000 years from now is as silly as us relying on the ancient Sumerians to help us overcome a technical hurdle.

People in the future will be able to handle it just fine.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

Apparently there are hundreds of them in place right now, all over the country!

You were arguing they were inadequate.

And does it occur to you that the bar is being set too high as far as storage of waste goes? Worrying about how people will handle nuclear waste 5,000 years from now is as silly as us relying on the ancient Sumerians to help us overcome a technical hurdle.

People in the future will be able to handle it just fine.

Yeah. I mostly agree with that. If they can't handle it, then that future civilization probably has bigger problems to worry about.

Still, back to the point, I don't see an iron clad argument that being anti Yucca is being anti nuclear. I could also argue that making our current "waste" less accessible to reprocessing at Yucca is anti-nuclear because it would lead us to underestimate how much uranium fuel we actually have (because most "waste" is unused fuel).

 

[Dr Adequate]

Here is the totality of Chu's statement on Yucca Mtn. from your link:

So his objections are:
1. Yucca Mtn. isn't big enough. To which I'd reply "then build another once it's filled".

Hooray! The process of getting it buried has only taken twenty-five years so far, and now it's failed, and even if it succeeded, it would take another twelve years at least (that's the minimum estimate, imagine how long it might really take) and I'll ask you again, where are the IMBYs. Are we going to try putting the next hole in Nevada again? I guess they might have gotten used to it, or they might get really pissed ... try googling on the phrase "Screw Nevada Bill".

And besides, we're talking about the waste from nuke plants, not other radioactive waste from hospitals and such.

I'm not sure that I follow you. Something has to be done with all the other waste.

2. The casings will only last for 5,000 years. This has nothing at all to do with Yucca Mtn., it will be an issue no matter what site is chosen.

But it will not be an issue if we find something else to do with the waste other than dumping it in a big hole and waiting a million years.

Chu isn't arguing against the site. He's worried about the method.

3. We need to reduce the lifetime of the waste. Once again, nothing to do with Yucca Mtn. If a way to process the waste is found in the future the stuff in Yucca Mtn could always be removed and processed.

But again, you seem to be off at a tangent.

It is possible that if the whole "dump it in a big hole and wait for a million years" approach is good, and then Yucca Mountain might be a good hole that might last us a million years, and then all the other million-year holes might be perfectly fine. But it seems like new technology might offer us an alternative.

Now, completing the Yucca Mountain project alone is said to take a vast sum of money (I'm not going to look it up, 'cos I'm sleepy. But lots.) It might be worth it, if that was the best we can do. But if some new technology will exist in the next decade or so that will solve the problem, then what is the point of spending money on a million-year project?

So I'll ask you again Dr. A, what exactly is the problem with Yucca Mtn?

Simply, there might be a better alternative. That's all.

The Russians are already hiring a US company (go USA!) to incinerate their waste in a thorium reactor. But some people in the US are still thinking in terms of digging hole after hole in the ground --- with an enormous price tag per hole --- to build something that requires government oversight for the next million years.

---

To summarize: if the only option is the "big expensive hole in the ground that must last a million years ... followed by another big expensive hole in the ground that must last a million years ... followed by another big expensive hole in the ground that must last a million years" option, then so be it. But if there's a better way, that takes within an order of magnitude of the time that it would take to build the first hole in the ground, then that alternative has much to recommend it.

 

[Furcifer]

snip..never mind that nuclear power has been around for half a century and the French have it down to a routine.snip..

tsk. tsk.

The two Areva EPR reactors being built in Finland and England are way behind schedule and over budget (50%) last I heard.

The last 2 CANDU-6 were built in 5 years and on budget.

Who has it down to a routine?

 

[Dr Adequate]

Dr. A seems to think that there are scientific reasons to be against Yucca Mtn. He claims Chu cited them, but either Dr. A isn't much in the reading comprehension department or he lied.

Or there is another alternative, which, as I have shown, is your blithering drooling incomprehension of Chu.

Don't jump to conclusions.

The only reason Yucca Mtn isn't up and running is because of political opposition. That's what this thread is about actually.

Oh, that's what this thread is about "actually", is it?

Golly gosh, I'd never have guessed that from the title, or the OP, or the discussion that has ensued from them, or the fact that no-one in this entire debate has ever denied that. We've got to five pages now, and every time you mention this fact, no-one disagrees with you, and I say that it is very true. So ... somehow this whole thread has "actually" been about you agreeing with me?

Once more, I would be indebted to you for your preternatural powers ... this time of understanding the "actual" meanings of threads ... except that I doubt that these powers exist.

 

[Dr Adequate]

And does it occur to you that the bar is being set too high as far as storage of waste goes? Worrying about how people will handle nuclear waste 5,000 years from now is as silly as us relying on the ancient Sumerians to help us overcome a technical hurdle.

I was going to ask a Sumerian for a comment on that statement, but apparently their culture became extinct due to their inability to cope with the pollutants that accumulated over the long term as a by-product of their civilization.

No, I didn't make that up.

Their civilization lasted for 3000 years, but imagine if they had been able to plan for the long term ...

 

[WildCat]

Problem for you is that neither Chu nor Obama has said they are going to study how to reuse the waste material, they are going to try to find another site!

Now the utility companies are likely to sue to demand that the $22 billion they paid to the Federal government to fund Yucca mountain be returned to them, as well as compensate them for the storage of waste since 1998, since they had a contract to have the Feds take control of the waste then.

And apparently I'm not the only one with the "psychic ability" to see what's really going on. From the Washington Poist:

BY STRIPPING the funding for the nuclear repository at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, President Obama has succeeded in killing the contentious project that remains unfinished 22 years after Congress selected the site. He compounds the error by not offering an alternative. If the president's vision for a clean energy future is to be believed or is to come to fruition, nuclear energy must be a part of the mix, and the safe disposal of its radioactive waste must be given more serious consideration.

...There's more than a modicum of politics at play in Mr. Obama's decision. The president keeps a campaign promise to shut the site down. By doing so, he pleases Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.). And he potentially secures the swing state's place in the blue column; the Silver State hadn't voted for the Democratic presidential nominee since 1996 until it went to Mr. Obama in 2008.

And the New York Times:

Opponents of nuclear power contend that the nation’s failure to find a permanent repository for the waste is a reason to shut down nuclear reactors and forget about building more.

Abandonment of the Yucca Mountain depository would be a blow for the nuclear industry, which is hoping to begin work on new reactors for the first time in 30 years.

No new nuclear plants will be built as long as Obama is POTUS. Even with Bush gone, politics trumps science when a conflict emerges.

 

[Roadtoad]

No new nuclear plants will be built as long as Obama is POTUS. Even with Bush gone, politics trumps science when a conflict emerges.

And this is different... how? Name one President who didn't operate in that fashion. (And before you say it, no, Clinton didn't, either.)

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

Problem for you is that neither Chu nor Obama has said they are going to study how to reuse the waste material, they are going to try to find another site!

There have been several citations in this thread to programs to recycle fuel.

 

[BPSCG]

But I know of a project called SEGS in the Mojave desert that is putting out 350 MW from 3 locations.

That's not incorrect, but it's not completely accurate either. It puts out 354 MW from nine plants in three separate locations. Five mirror arrays that are all located in the same area count as five of those plants. Those five arrays take about 1.5 square miles of space, and put out a collective 150 MW.

By contrast, the two nuclear reactors at Flamanville, France, put out 2600 MW - almost twenty times as much - in about half the space.

And they operate rain or shine - and on the English Channel, where they're located, there's a lot of rain.

 

[BPSCG]

There have been several citations in this thread to programs to recycle fuel.

Uh-huh. Is there a citation in the federal budget for a program to recycle it?

You have to give the anti-nuclear crowd credit. They were able to stall Yucca Mountain for twenty years, until they got a president who decided to finally kill it.

In the "you read it here first" department - the anti-nuclear people will do everything in their power to stall recycling spent fuel.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

That's not incorrect, but it's not completely accurate either. It puts out 354 MW from nine plants in three separate locations. Five mirror arrays that are all located in the same area count as five of those plants. Those five arrays take about 1.5 square miles of space, and put out a collective 150 MW.

By contrast, the two nuclear reactors at Flamanville, France, put out 2600 MW - almost twenty times as much - in about half the space.

And they operate rain or shine - and on the English Channel, where they're located, there's a lot of rain.

All that is accurate. You might want to note that I'm pro-nuke. No need to tell me that nuclear has a big role. But I definitely dispute that solar and biofuels have near zero credibility. My point, made earler, was simply that bio is likely to have an important small niche and that solar can play a large (but who knows exactly how large) role.

Uh-huh. Is there a citation in the federal budget for a program to recycle it?

There were in the budget I cited earlier. Not sure why you ask though, we're discussing Obama's intentions and he hasn't authored a budget yet, right?

 

[WildCat]

There have been several citations in this thread to programs to recycle fuel.

Unfortunately, none of them came from Obama and Chu as a reason to kill Yucca Mtn.

 

[Furcifer]

All that is accurate. You might want to note that I'm pro-nuke. No need to tell me that nuclear has a big role. But I definitely dispute that solar and biofuels have near zero credibility. My point, made earler, was simply that bio is likely to have an important small niche and that solar can play a large (but who knows exactly how large) role.

Don't sell Biomass short. By current estimates there is something like 300 years of coal reserves at current rates of use. Given the number of coal fired plants, how cheap it is, and improvements in technology, there doesn't appear to be a reason to simply shut them down and build reactors.

All of the literature that I have read seems to indicate coal fired plants can be easily converted to burn biomass and waste, while reducing emissions.

Why start building Nuclear now before weighing the options? If we can solve the problems now with clean coal,biomass and solar we don't have to deal with the enrichment and disposal problems. Wait for the Gen IIII or even Gen IV reactors.

 

[WildCat]

All of the literature that I have read seems to indicate coal fired plants can be easily converted to burn biomass and waste, while reducing emissions.

Where will all this biomass come from? If you're talking about corn stalks and such then you are just increasing the amount of chemical fertilizers you have to use, and that has its own host of environmental problems.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

Unfortunately, none of them came from Obama and Chu as a reason to kill Yucca Mtn.

Some of the research cited was done at Chu's laboratory and both Chu and Obama have said they favor recycling. I suppose you're entitled to a convoluted opinion that Chu and Obama aren't saying what they mean. Hell, they're politicians so that is entirely understable. But claiming that they haven't even said it, is just plain out of touch with reality.

 

[BenBurch]

The ONLY biofuel that makes sense is algae. And as it stands a barrel of algae-derived diesel fuel is about $300, so it either has to come down through selective breeding of oil-algae strains or the invention of some way to grow it in an open trough without worry that wild strains will take over.

And still we will have to cover about 12,000 square miles with algae farms...

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

All of the literature that I have read seems to indicate coal fired plants can be easily converted to burn biomass and waste, while reducing emissions.

While there are a few things left to debate about biomass, there are some pretty hard numbers arguing against biomass having a large role. Current human energy needs are well within an order of magnitude of all the energy captured by all the biomass on Earth and they are rising rapidly. Sometime in this century we will likely overtake all other life on Earth as consumers of energy. We can't burn every lifeform on Earth.

Human energy needs are already dozens of times greater than human nutritional needs. We can't expand our farms by dozens of times.