Nuclear Power Stations - Yes or No

[Rogue1stclass]

Yes. Totally.

And I'd also like to point out that the only nuclear weapons ever used for violence were created without benefit of any kind of reactor. One of those, incidentally, was a plutonium bomb.

 

[Fiona]

Fiona, you can't bubble wrap the world. If that is your standard, then it is best to assume the fetal position and not leave the house.

The process of risk identification and neutralization is not fixed, it is iterative. If you have any faith in science and the scientific method applied, then there is ample opportunity for better and improved risk reduction and improved processes for each of these concerns. For example, don't store nuclear waste on fault lines.

Wars that dismantle society to the point that the waste is lost track of are such an outlier as to be an exercise in paranoia. That level of immense, and far broad reaching a war brings with it a mountain of problems for us all that render the nuclear waste storage problem microscopic in comparison. Given our security level as of this morning, the nuclear waste seems a risk to our high level of comfort and infrastructure, as well as social cohesion. With the utter breakdown of social structure, the risks of significantly more mundane and simple issues force that risk management problem into the basement until the orderly nature of social structure recovers.

DR

Dont' be insulting Darth: it suits you, I grant, but just goanny no do that

I am well aware that risks have to be taken. I am also aware that nothing im this thread so far has given me any confidence that anyone has a good basis for assessing those risks. If we cannot tell whether the benefits of the nuclear option will last 40 years or 400 years or 4000 years then the most fundamental facts which would inform those decisions are not available to us. I would like to see a scientific consensus on what we are getting in return for the risk and it is not there: or if it is nobody here has shown that it is, so far.

This speaks to your point about the iterative nature of science. Nice word but what it really amounts to is "something will turn up". Possibly. It is more likely that "something will turn up" in 800 years than it will in 40 years. This looks like faith to me.

But if you take the view that "something will turn up" then I am entitled to take the view that that something might be a catastrophic war: or an unpredicted geographical disaster: or a weapon which will make all these cosy assurances obsolete overnight.

You might be right: I might be worrying for nothing. But you have offered precisely nothing to demonstrate that in this or any previous post.

You may also be right that any conceivable kind of war which would render our secure waste storage no longer safe would bring with it bigger problems: and if you mean in the short term I agree. But assuming we survive it it will end at some point: and that nuclear waste will not go away if it is scattered. So your proposition makes no sense to me

 

[Darth Rotor]

Dont' be insulting Darth: it suits you, I grant, but just goanny no do that

I am well aware that risks have to be taken. I am also aware that nothing im this thread so far has given me any confidence that anyone has a good basis for assessing those risks.

Then you and I have not been reading the same thread.

If we cannot tell whether the benefits of the nuclear option will last 40 years or 400 years or 4000 years then the most fundamental facts which would inform those decisions are not available to us.

Tell you what, Fiona. After putting up with about thirty five years of emotionally based fear of nuclear power, in my country, I have lost patience with the paranoia. No further comment, beyond noting that the quest for and occasional implementation of better and improved processes continues.

I would like to see a scientific consensus on what we are getting in return for the risk and it is not there: or if it is nobody here has shown that it is, so far.

You are mixing science and politics. You are asking for bubble wrap.

This speaks to your point about the iterative nature of science. Nice word but what it really amounts to is "something will turn up".

Possibly. True for most human endeavour. You/we have been shown, in the posts between my last and this, a number of areas where process improvement in nuclear waste management have been made, yet you have chosen to remain afraid.

It is more likely that "something will turn up" in 800 years than it will in 40 years. This looks like faith to me.

I disagree with "something turn up" as a dishonest usage on your part. The scientific method is the continuum that I was referring to, where in x is examined, y tried, and either something discovered or rejected, and then the cycle repeats itself. That iterative process, that scientific method. If you consider reliance on hard work and the scientific method faith-woo, I do not know what to say to you.

But if you take the view that "something will turn up"

NO. That was again dishonest. I take the view that using the scientific method, people can figure out a better way. That is what the last five hundred years of human history shows us often happens, but no, not in all ways, and not with cosmic bubble wrap.

then I am entitled to take the view that that something might be a catastrophic war: or an unpredicted geographical disaster: or a weapon which will make all these cosy assurances obsolete overnight.

At least two posters have pointed out to you that the catastrophic war that you envision renders nuclear waste as waaaaaaaay down the list of problems.

You might be right: I might be worrying for nothing. But you have offered precisely nothing to demonstrate that in this or any previous post.

Did you read anything between my last reply to you and this one? Some very good, and to me reassuring, info on how much progress has been made since I last studied this formally. Hooray for the French, among other things.

You may also be right that any conceivable kind of war which would render our secure waste storage no longer safe would bring with it bigger problems: and if you mean in the short term I agree. But assuming we survive it it will end at some point: and that nuclear waste will not go away if it is scattered. So your proposition makes no sense to me

Then spend your life afraid, and presume that scientists and engineers are bloody incompetents who can't find solutions to problems.

I won't try to stop you. I regret that my tone has been a bit acid to you, and apologize for not being more patient. The no nukes morons in my own country have been wrong, blinders-on wearing fools for three decades, and that sustained damage to my nation's energy policy for over three decades annoys the blazes out of me. Sorry the shrapnel flew in your direction.

DR

 

[Fiona]

Coal plants produce toxic waste. Lots more of it than nuclear plants. And toxic material remains toxic forever, whereas radioactive waste eventually stops being radioactive (for all intents and purposes).

Besides, coal plants also produce radioactive waste:

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

Hmmm. I do not see where it talks about toxic waste from coal plants so I am no further forward on that.

Your link about radioactive waste is interesting but it does nothing at all to convince me of the accuracy of what I am reading here. For example, per that article it is quite true that coal plants produce radioactive waste.

What it says is

Coal
Coal contains a small amount of radioactive uranium, barium, thorium and potassium, but, in the case of pure coal, this is significantly less than the average concentration of those elements in the Earth's crust. However, the surrounding strata, if shale or mudstone, often contains slightly more than average and this may also be reflected in the ash content of 'dirty' coals[17].[18] The more active ash minerals become concentrated in the fly ash precisely because they do not burn well.[18] However, the radioactivity of fly ash is still very low. It is about the same as black shale and is less than phosphate rocks, but is more of a concern because a small amount of the fly ash ends up in the atmosphere where it can be inhaled.[19]
[edit]Oil and gas

For a person who knows little or nothing about this your original statement did not lead me to expect what this shows: it led me to think there was something comparable about the problem of coal and nuclear. That is not the case, however. Not saying there is no problem but it is really not of the same order so far as I can see.

As I said, I am willing to be persuaded: but that kind of statement is not persuasive and in fact it is this kind of thing which generates distrust in those of us who do not have the knowledge, and must rely on experts. What you meant may well have been perfectly obvious to insiders: but I do not think it is very helpful to those of us who are trying to understand the issues

Similarly I had picked up the figure of 300 years in this thread and it surprised me because I thought stuff stayed radioactive for much longer. Turns out from your link that some does last much longer: for certain kinds of waste

The timeframe in question when dealing with radioactive waste ranges from 10,000 to 1,000,000 years,[35] according to studies based on the effect of estimated radiation doses.

A 1983 review of the Swedish radioactive waste disposal program by the National Academy of Sciences found that country’s estimate of several hundred thousand years—perhaps up to one million years—being necessary for waste isolation “fully justified.”[42]

It may be strictly accurate to say that most decays in 300 years or less: a time scale I still think is beyond our ability to control or predict: but it is not the whole picture, and again this tends to make me suspicious that I am being snowed.

Nor am I reassured to find that the longer we keep it the more radioactive it gets. I had assumed that it steadily decayed, however slowly. But that is not true of waste, according to your article. While the time frame over which this occurs is very long and makes little difference to the basic argument it is not the kind of detail which should be omitted if one is trying to explain fundamentally difficult problems and the proposed solutions.

In this context I was also interested to see:

Practical studies only consider up to 100 years as far as effective planning[38] and cost evaluations[39] are concerned. Long term behavior of radioactive wastes remains a subject for ongoing research projects.

If that is correct we have no idea what we are going to do beyond 100 years; and nor do we know what we will be dealing with after that. While there are some lovely ideas in there they are none of them well developed and none of them tested

So thanks for your input but it has not helped to reassure me, I am sorry to say

 

[Belz...]

Hmmm. I do not see where it talks about toxic waste from coal plants so I am no further forward on that.

I linked the article as ADDED information, as in "not only that, but it ALSO produces radioactive waste. See:"

 

[Fiona]

Usable high grade material for reactors is not the same as usable high grade material for weapons. To be clear, I was talking about dirty bombs and not fission bombs.

And to be clear I was not talking about bombs at all. Though proliferation is certainly a concern

What Hindmost is saying is perfectly compatible with what I'm saying because we are using relative terms. If we go with waste recycling and breeders, then we have already created most of the waste we are ever going to create.

Now that is interesting. How can that be? I can see it might be true if you are talking about the american context because you happen to have chosen to store rather than reprocess, as I understand it. Belz's link talks about that an it is interesting to note that

In the United States alone, the Department of Energy states there are "millions of gallons of radioactive waste" as well as "thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel and material" and also "huge quantities of contaminated soil and water."[1]

I note that there is a laudable goal of cleaning this all up by 2025. Unfortunately it also says

it acknowledges that some may never be completely remediated. In just one of these 108 larger designations, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, there were for example at least "167 known contaminant release sites" in one of the three subdivisions of the 37,000-acre (150 km2) site.[1] Some of the U.S. sites were smaller in nature, however, cleanup issues were simpler to address, and DOE has successfully completed cleanup, or at least closure, of several sites.[1]

It would be nice if they had actually managed to clean up even one of the larger sites, IMO.

Other parts of the world have not stored and therefore I do not understand why you think they will not produce more waste if we go the nuclear route. Do you argue that the stored waste in the USA will provide all the nuclear power for the world? That will be very persuasive if it is true.

So we already have 'a lot' in terms of how much there could be. Hindmost is saying we a a little on a different scale. That is, that the physical amount and effort needed store or manage that amount makes it a little.

Sorry I do not understand this part. Perhaps you can rephrase?

Otherwise DR is making good points as well. In figuring out how to make things better, we also learn how to make things worse. This has always been the case and it is the case with nuclear power. The thing is, how can you complain that there will be waste for a few hundred years when coal is already doing that and already putting those toxins and carbon into the air? I don't think anyone is saying that nuclear is a perfect solution. Perfect solutions don't exist though.

I am not looking for a perfect solution: I am looking for facts and evidence which underpin the risk assessment and the claimed benefits. As noted in my previous post what I have learned so far is that we are not talking about a few hundred years; we are not talking about a firm and tested plan; and while it is perfectly true that fossil fuels are doing immense and unanticipated damage it would be folly indeed to make the same mistake with nuclear when we now know such a mistake is possible.

 

[Fiona]

the stuff they're considering putting into that repository is Low Level Waste, which isn't (for the most part) highly radioactive, and which is stored at pretty low stocking density to boot. A concentrated bombing campaign could liberate some of this material, but it wouldn't be a cataclysmic release - not like scattering spent fuel rods around the countryside.

Yes. If I did not say it was LLW, I intended to; sorry about that.

So what would be the effects of scattering that around the countryside?

Things that are highly radioactive should get a much more secure storage option - like, for example, disused Anhydrite mines for the UK which are 1500 feet down in solid rock and in France they're considering something in Granite, but I'm not quite sure what. (Quite a lot of the plans haven't gone ahead, mind you).

Yes: there are lots of options being considered.

So people aren't quite as casual about the really dicey stuff as it may seem. If you've not read about the plans the Americans had to warn future generations 10,000 years hence about the dangers of nuclear waste storage sites, they're worth checking out since they're rather interesting. (Check the PDFs at the end, too).

Interesting read indeed: it is reassuring to know that I am not the only person who sees this as a real problem in the terms I have been talking; about only on the longer time frame than the one I was discussing. It seems I am not crazy after all: or that the people who are doing that stuff are also crazy. Crazy loves company

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

That's the pie in the sky figure, and then you've added another helping of thorium pie in the sky.

Eighty-five hundred years is actually a minimum estimate. The addition of thorium to the equation extends our potential nuclear fuel reserves to between thirty-five thousand and fifty thousand years. I've seen one estimate of at least two million years but that one strikes me as a little dodgy.

One of the main reasons it's so hard to nail down a firm estimate past the ten thousand year mark is because there is so little work done in prospecting or development of unconventional reserves. I live in Alberta Canada (which makes having this conversation with you rather ironic as the name "Kevin Lowe" is revered and respected around here) where the biggest single sector of the economy is oil. Alberta is the largest single foreign supplier of oil to the United States. Bigger than Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq or Venezuela (and bigger than a couple of them put together).

But the problem with Albertas oil is that it is tied up in the Athabasca Tar Sands. Tar sands oil is difficult to recover and refine and has only become economically viable in the last 20 years. In fact, tar sand processing is so energy intensive, that a plans are on the table to build a nuclear reactor to supply the energy for further recovery efforts.

More than a hundred years ago, at the dawn of the oil age, no one imagined that we would be scooping up dirt and blasting it with high pressure steam to get the oil out. Today, at the dawn of a new nuclear age, experiments have already been done that show uranium extraction from seawater is viable at a price of 300$ per kg of Uranium. A kilogram of uranium is roughly equivelant to 25,000 liters of oil. Which places the cost well below current oil prices and far below the 2008 oil shock price of 147 dollars a barrel.

The 20 ton 30 year estimate by anti-nuke kooks has never been anything blatantly dishonest and willfully ignorant.

If that's the figure you want to focus on, global solar reserves are sufficient to provide all of Earth's energy needs for billions of years.

This statement is nonsensical.

This photograph was taken out my front window less than ten minutes ago (1315 hrs local time).

That white crap you see is about 6 or 7 inches deep by now. Solar energy isn't enough to clear our streets or warm our houses let alone fuel our cars, provide light or wash clothes and dishes, power TVs and computers or hospital medical equipment, traffic lights or... shall I go on?

Oh yeah, the flakes are coming straight down... so there's no wind energy available either.

Nuclear power advocates have this myth that nuclear power is absolutely wonderful and it's only fear, ignorance and NIMBYism that stops us from entering a glorious era of free energy. In other words everyone is irrational but them, and they are persecuted prophets.

Yes, you are. But this is a critical thinkers forum and we can help you with that.

The fact is that when governments do an even-handed appraisal of the pros and cons of nuclear power, particularly fast breeder technology, they usually end up figuring out that they are better off putting their money elsewhere.

Fear and NIMBYism cost money.

but as a solution to the global need for electricity existing nuclear technologies are inferior to existing renewables overall,

Pickering Nuclear power plant cost (multiplied due to work stoppages due to government getting cold feet) : 12 to 15 billion dollars
Replacing Pickerings output entirely with wind turbines: 40+ billion dollars for the turbines, 10+ billion dollars for the battery arrays and load management systems

 

[richardm]

So what would be the effects of scattering that around the countryside?

Not a scooby, really But I think the point has been made that even reaching down to it would be a considerable amount of effort, and scattering it around would be even more so; the amount of high explosive needed would be very large indeed. My feeling is that the overall spread of and danger posed by the radioactive material would be small with respect to the amount of sheer physical damage that the bombing would cause to the surface (google camouflet to see how most of the deep-penetration bombs work - they do not fling things around, much). In terms of targets there would probably be much better ways to spend that amound of ordnance.

Crazy loves company

Yeah

 

[Fiona]

Bunker buster bombs generally penetrate on the order of a couple of metres. The most extreme ones get to around 6m. If you're looking at the kind of war where people are using bombs big enough to not only penetrate a 15m deep storage facility, but also with enough explosives to send significant amounts of material back up through that 15m of ground, the existence of nuclear waste is really the least of your problems.

As I said above: it may be the least of my short term problems but that says nothing about after any such war: and since the time frame I am now considering is far longer, I think the possibilities of weapons development are at least as real as the possibilities of better storage. Again I may be wrong

Actually, Hiroshima and Nagasaki demonstrate quite nicely how people's fears over things nuclear are mostly extremely exaggerated. The cancer rate is far lower than people expect, and unless you were actually there at the time of the blast or very shorty after, there's essentially no increased risk at all.

Interesting. Certainly if one was directly exposed to radiation it is my understanding that there are delayed effects, and that excess cancers in that population are still in evidence more than 50 years later.

I have read several source which state that it is too early to say much about the effect on subsequent generations, if any: though effects have been observed in animals. I gather that despite the large sample the statistics are unreliable: not being numerate I cannot understand why that should be so but it is what I have read

I do not know how to compare what actually happened in that case because I do not know enough to say whether scattering of waste radioactivity from an underground storage facility would produce the same kind of contamination as was seen in hiroshima. Was the contamination and the effects of it the same at chernobyl? Is it the case that the area is now open on the basis that people who move there some time after have no increased risks?

See above. The most powerful bombs specifically designed to penetrate the ground could not cause a serious problem to a facility that far underground. Flying a plane into the ground results in a broken plane and a rather small dent in the ground. Incidentally, flying a plane into the concrete reinforcement around a nuclear power plant results in a broken plane and essentially no damage to the concrete at all. That's actually been tested.

Fair enough: it was a trivial example because, as I said, I do not have the imagination of a determined terrorist

But again, this is the same kind of worry as the war involving bombs bigger than anything that has ever been used. If you're already postulating a post-apocalyptic scenario, why would a bit of waste stored in an out of the way place be your primary concern?

I think I have answered this above but if not we can come back to it

Bolding mine. Exactly. No one could even conceive of the idea that humans could affect the environment. But clearly people are aware of the problems nuclear waste could cause, and are actively trying to come up with solutions. The situations are not even remotely comparable.

So long as we do not go ahead until we have solutions you are, of course, correct. But in view of the fact that the potential problem is known to subsist for hundreds of years yet the actual plans and cost projections go no further than 100 (if Belz's article is correct) the situations do not look that different to me. They certainly should be, though

What happens all the time? Massive wars involving the biggest bombs ever created? Terrorist attacks on nuclear facilities? The collapse of civilisation as we know it leading to people forgetting about radiation? When has anything you suggested actually happened?

War happens all the time, Cuddles. Terrorism happens all the time. Judging from our less than complete knowledge of various sophisticated early civilisations forgetting about stuff happens fairly regularly. At least over the time scales we are talking about. Complacency happens all the time too. You may feel that disaster of any kind on the requisite scale is impossible: maybe you are right. I don't see any reason to suppose you are but there it is

Actually, climate change is not, or at least shouldn't be, the major factor for nuclear. Far more important is the simple fact that fossil fuels are a finite resource. No matter which estimates you believe, we will run out of fossil fuels well before we run out of nuclear fuel. Even if you ignore any issues with climate change, pollution, and anything else, nuclear is pretty much the only option we currently have for providing baseload power in the medium term.

Well no. If the nuclear fuel will only last 40 years then I do not think we will run out of fossil fuel first, though I am open to evidence on that. Of course if we use both it will last longer and if there is truly no alternative then that settles it. I do not know.

What I do know is that there is a great deal we could do to reduce our consumption of fossil fuel and it is not being done. I have no idea how much difference we could make or how the costs compare. But before I can accept the blithe assertion that there is no alternative I would like to see at least some of those figures. Cos I have heard that phrase before and it was a big, fat lie

 

[Fiona]

Then you and I have not been reading the same thread.

OK.

Tell you what, Fiona. After putting up with about thirty five years of emotionally based fear of nuclear power, in my country, I have lost patience with the paranoia. No further comment, beyond noting that the quest for and occasional implementation of better and improved processes continues.

Well that is of course your (emotional) privilege.

You are mixing science and politics. You are asking for bubble wrap.

Nope. I am asking for an evidence based risk assessment. You, on the other hand, are asking me to accept an article of faith

Possibly. True for most human endeavour. You/we have been shown, in the posts between my last and this, a number of areas where process improvement in nuclear waste management have been made, yet you have chosen to remain afraid.

No. I have been shown a lot of ideas which might meet some of the concerns but which are not certain to do so and which do not lead the scientists involved to claim they can deal with this problem. That is not to say some of those ideas might not work: it is not to say better ideas might not come along. But they are not there yet and they are far less sanguine than you

I disagree with "something turn up" as a dishonest usage on your part. The scientific method is the continuum that I was referring to, where in x is examined, y tried, and either something discovered or rejected, and then the cycle repeats itself. That iterative process, that scientific method. If you consider reliance on hard work and the scientific method faith-woo, I do not know what to say to you.

Well I rather think it is you who is dishonest, Darth: but we will not dwell on that either way.

I am as wedded to the scientific method as you are if what you mean is the proposing of falsifiable hypothesis; the testing of those hypotheses; and the acceptance of the results of those tests together with the replicability of them as a good basis for finding things out. What I am not prepared to do is to assert that the results of adopting that method will always be what we wish them to be. What you are doing is presuming that this method can find answers that we like even if no such answers are there to be found. And that is woo

NO. That was again dishonest.

See above

I take the view that using the scientific method, people can figure out a better way. That is what the last five hundred years of human history shows us often happens, but no, not in all ways, and not with cosmic bubble wrap.

Precisely: not in all ways and not for every problem: that is a matter for scientific investigation in itself: it is not a matter for a priori assumption.

At least two posters have pointed out to you that the catastrophic war that you envision renders nuclear waste as waaaaaaaay down the list of problems.

I have answered this, though not before you posted. You may disagree with my answer (which has been modified to take account of the longer time scale) but the fact that any such catastrophic event is relatively short term: and the scattering of HLW with a very long half life is a long term problem means there is more to it than their answers provide. Though I am very glad to know that such an attack could not very likely succeed with the weaponry which can be deployed tomorrow

Did you read anything between my last reply to you and this one? Some very good, and to me reassuring, info on how much progress has been made since I last studied this formally. Hooray for the French, among other things.

No, I hadn't at that point. I have now as you see

Then spend your life afraid, and presume that scientists and engineers are bloody incompetents who can't find solutions to problems I won't try to stop you.

Nice strawman you have there.

I won't try to stop you. I regret that my tone has been a bit acid to you, and apologize for not being more patient. The no nukes morons in my own country have been wrong, blinders-on wearing fools for three decades, and that sustained damage to my nation's energy policy for over three decades annoys the blazes out of me. Sorry the shrapnel flew in your direction.

DR

Not bothered by it, DR. It is your usual approach and it does not particularly faze me. It will be nice if you stop it though

 

[Hindmost]

You will typically find that the people advocating this as a solution can't demonstrate that it's cost-effective, and it indeed adds a significant cost to the already questionable economics of fission reactors. There's a world of difference between what is possible and what is financially sound and when pro-nuclear speakers slide from talking about what is cost-effective to what is possible you need to get on your guard very quickly.

I linked to the French experience specifically on the issue of reprocessing since they have been doing so for a long time. It is economical enough for them to continue the program and will continue to gain strength as energy becomes more scarce.

It would take the US a bit of time and lots of money to achieve reprocessing capability again. However, it was done in the past.

Salt domes (whatever they are) may have been, but civilizations have not been unfortunately. Nuclear advocates also tend to gloss right over the moral issue of leaving behind us wastes that will be dangerous long after the people who benefited from their creation are dead. Yes, our civilization does lots of things that are not in the best interests of future generations, but that doesn't make it okay to do some more.

I agree that leaving waste behind for a fallen civilization would be a problem. However, the dangerous part....if the stuff is buried in a salt dome with proper cautions added, it would likely be safe. Can't guarantee that however.

I'm not at all sure what this oft-repeated line of argument is supposed to prove. So it's small... what follows?

The energy density of uranium is very large...therefore the waste is less...smaller amount of waste, smaller problem.

As I said, breeders are an extra expense which needs to be accounted for before conventional fission is a long-term prospect. Nuclear advocates tend to skate over this. They like to try to establish that conventional fission is cost-effective (which takes some doing), and then very quickly pass over the fact that if conventional fission is to be a long-term, large-scale proposition we are also going to need breeders to fuel them with all their associated problems.

I've seen some people - apparently seriously - suggest that the nuclear club should have an enforced monopoly on breeders and the rest of the world should build fission reactors and be dependant on the nuclear club for fuel for them. I can't see that being sold to the world.

Breeders are only needed if we want reactors around past about 100 years or so. They could extend energy availability to about 1000 years based on reasonable calcs.

Many countries on the planet are inquiring about new LW reactors...they are not asking for breeders as there is no licensed design and they would have to have a fairly large fleet for breeders to be needed. In addition, the cost would be prohibitive for most countries. They would rather have a standard LWR as the techology is proven.

That's assuming we can make this technology widespread without anybody we don't like adapting it to weapons production. Also nobody ever said that breeders were the only proliferation risk, merely that they were one.

Again, there would be no reason to use a commercial breeder to be used for weapons production. It would be the most difficult method, the most costly and the easiest to discover. Enriching Uranium is easy in general.

That was a 62.5MW experimental breeder designed to do exactly that stunt. It has not been demonstrated that this scales up to 1000+MW reactors, although it's a promising demonstration, since the US government killed that project. The fast breeder designs actually in use today do not have this safety feature to the best of my knowledge.

This is wrong. EBRII was not designed to test inherently safe fuel. It was designed to test breeding, the feasiblity of a swimming pool type of LWFBR, and to test onsite reprocessing of fuel. It passed on all accounts. Later in life it was used as a fast flux test facility and then finally tested inherent fuel safety. The fuel safety testing was very cool. They took the reactor to 100 percent power and then pulled the plug on the sodium. The reactor shut itself down and the fuel didn't melt down or experience failure.

I was the one that pointed that last issue out in a prior thread...but there was more to the reactor than the "stunt" you mentioned--I will endeavor to be more thorough in the future.

glenn

 

[Hindmost]

What are the obstacles to US nuclear industry developing, implementing, the techniques the French use for fuel disposa/recycling?

DR

Money. This would require a govt subsidy and maybe some tech transfer back from the French. Sadly, the US started the game with EBR I and EBRII. As I stated before, we didn't know how much Uranium was available, so, breeders were first. EBRII was specifically tasked with reprocessing in mind. I toured EBRII--the pumps for the coolant....no moving parts except the sodium. Magnetic fields. The pump just was a box that hummed.

The US Navy used to reprocess cores because there would be a bunch of uranium left at the end of life....but they stopped as well since there was enough uranium around and it is expensive to reprocess fuel. That process was very nasty, so I can see why it was stopped.

I like to take a fairly long term view and hope that civilization remains past the fossil fuel limit. So, I think breeders are needed.

glenn

 

[Hindmost]

As I said I know nothing about this Robaramma: it is very possible I am worrying for no good reason and I am happy to be set straight

The reason that I do not think it can be guaranteed to stay where it is put and intact, is because wars and revolutions (and earthquakes and heavy rain and all kinds of things) cause major disruption and major damage. In desperate conflicts we already know that people can decide that any action which will shorten a war can be justified. So as an example, can you tell me why it is impossible for an enemy in war to bomb open a storage facility buried 15 metres down in clay? Can you tell me why such an attack would not lead to the scattering of radioactive material across a very large area and why wind would not make that scattering unpredictable?. Can you show me why a government at war would not decide that this "very small" amount of material would primarily kill or maim the enemy and would not have significant adverse impact in their own country (being far way): and could not be wrong about that? Or could be right but why the consequences woulld not be the same as in hiroshoma in the long term?

Can you tell me why we could not have desperate insurgents, perhaps of a suicidal mindset, who would not be prepared to attack such a storage facility by any imaginable means (fly a plane into them perhaps- I haven't the imagination really) with same result

Can you tell me why, over the course of 300 years, it is not possible for a government which currently seems secure could not be utterly overthrown and a country thrown into total chaos whereby the records of where and what such facilities are could not be lost? Perhaps we can detect radiation using technology: but in a country fallen into lawlessness who will do that? who will ensure that whoever does it will not use what they find to some purpose which threatens us all?

It is 300 years, Robaramma. I am told that we have changed the climate in less time than that to quite a significant extent. We did not mean to. But does this not say we are not great at predicting the impact of what we do? At least for global warming there is the excuse we did not know because the problem had not arisen before: but my concern is based on things that have happened before: in fact they happen all the time.

And while this technology is desirable if it truly can reverse the climate change we have brought about I do not see that is certain: it can arrest it perhaps: but meantime what changes are still to work through? what effects if any will those changes have on our "safe and stable" regions over 300 years?

Ok, this is tough to answer...terrorism and wars and extreme hypotheticals are difficult to reconsile. Sure, weird stuff can happen in the future. I am hoping the war thing is the last of the problems as it would mean a fairly large breakdown in the world.

glenn

 

[Hindmost]

Dont' be insulting Darth: it suits you, I grant, but just goanny no do that

I am well aware that risks have to be taken. I am also aware that nothing im this thread so far has given me any confidence that anyone has a good basis for assessing those risks. If we cannot tell whether the benefits of the nuclear option will last 40 years or 400 years or 4000 years then the most fundamental facts which would inform those decisions are not available to us. I would like to see a scientific consensus on what we are getting in return for the risk and it is not there: or if it is nobody here has shown that it is, so far.

This speaks to your point about the iterative nature of science. Nice word but what it really amounts to is "something will turn up". Possibly. It is more likely that "something will turn up" in 800 years than it will in 40 years. This looks like faith to me.

But if you take the view that "something will turn up" then I am entitled to take the view that that something might be a catastrophic war: or an unpredicted geographical disaster: or a weapon which will make all these cosy assurances obsolete overnight.

You might be right: I might be worrying for nothing. But you have offered precisely nothing to demonstrate that in this or any previous post.

You may also be right that any conceivable kind of war which would render our secure waste storage no longer safe would bring with it bigger problems: and if you mean in the short term I agree. But assuming we survive it it will end at some point: and that nuclear waste will not go away if it is scattered. So your proposition makes no sense to me

We can tell how long the nuclear option. Without reprocessing fuel, MIT concluded that we have enough uranium for 1000 reactor for 50 years.

http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpower/pdf/nuclearpower-update2009.pdf

If we add reprocessing that number would be about 100 times greater as we only get about 1% of the energy out of the once through uranium cycle.

glenn

 

[Cynic]

I was thinking about those hypotheticals today. They are, of course, hard to dismiss easily, though I tend to think they should be anyway. I don't know about bubblewrap, but it seems unhealthy for a society to always conduct its affairs as if it might collapse next week. Of course, it's equally unhealthy to avoid looking ahead altogether.

So while I was thinking, it occured to me that any significantly industrial place has dangerous material lying all over the place as it is. Oil, gas, chemicals, fertilizer, virus stocks, radioactive coal droppings, etc. I don't really know how dangerous any of it is in comparison to spent uranium pellets, though Neal Stephenson assures us they'd make kick-ass rail gun ammunition. Of couse, no one currenly owns a rail gun (that I'm aware of) and most don't even know what that is.

In the case of America, at least, one has to assume that by the time we're worried about mauders raiding our depots, the **** has already hit the fan pretty hard. It might be useful to remember that we actually own quite a large number of actual nuclear warheads a hell of a lot more powerful than anything you're going to cobble out of nuclear waste. I think I'd worry about those first. In fact, most scenarios I can imagine involving America getting ransacked for scraps has a more than a few of those bad boys loosed already. I would assume that might go for any number of nations with nuclear arms. The whole idea behind them is to prevent such an occassion, after all.

Maybe a more likely concern would be the smaller, sort of portable nuclear plants being considered for third-world nations. I don't know much about them, but they seem like better targets. And otherwise, nuclear is a seriously good idea for those kinds of country. If we're so worried about the environment, can we really afford to allow the billions of people coming into their own to make all the same horrible environmental mistakes the USA and Europe did?

 

[lionking]

If we're so worried about the environment, can we really afford to allow the billions of people coming into their own to make all the same horrible environmental mistakes the USA and Europe did?

That is a very good point, but my major, parochial concern is that a first world nation which has already made a large number of environmental mistakes is too terrified to even debate nuclear power. This drives me to dispair.

 

[daenku32]

Just the other day I received the current issue of IEEE Spectrum magazine in the mail.

It has an excellent article on the nuclear waste disposal project going on at a site near the new nuclear reactor.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/nuclear/finlands-nuclear-waste-solution

They are not just planning it for holding the waste safe for 300 years, but have a plan that goes all the way past the next presumed ice age in 20,000 years.

 

[Ausmerican]

I would say yes to Oz using nuclear power. I also think that a lot of the public's trepidation could be overcome pretty simply.

We already have a reactor in Australia. Our second in fact. The original HIFAR reactor at Lucas Heights was used for research for 50 years before being decomissioned and the new OPAL one that replaced it in the same area is about 200kw, capable of powering a small town. However it is only used for research. Use it to power a town, charge said residents what it costs. Let the public know eventually. If it is cheaper than what others are paying for electricity there will be many people suddenly a lot more open to it.

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

Just the other day I received the current issue of IEEE Spectrum magazine in the mail.

It has an excellent article on the nuclear waste disposal project going on at a site near the new nuclear reactor.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/nuclear/finlands-nuclear-waste-solution

They are not just planning it for holding the waste safe for 300 years, but have a plan that goes all the way past the next presumed ice age in 20,000 years.

I think that is perhaps one of the most moronic, asinine and wasteful disposal plans I've ever heard of.

More than 90% of so-called "spent" nuclear fuel is actually fertile U-238. It can be converted into Pu-239 and sent back to the reactor for another round. And this can be done to almost any nuclear fuel 10 to 20 times over.

There's no mention in that article of reprocessing, recycling or breeder reactors. Instead they talk of taking fuel on a once-through cycle and then just throwing it away.

The thought of having such a tremendous abundance in your hands and then just tossing it aside is the one thing in the nuclear industry that truly is insane.