Slashdot Mirror

I just work in power generation but here's the way I see it: They've been trying to build more capacity.

In my area we already have a nuclear plant that's been in operation for 38 years. There have been talks about building a coal plant, but it's met fierce opposition by just about everyone over air quality concerns.

While it's true that some new nuclear designs have been under review for quite some time http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/design-cert.html they'd still need to get approval for building locations to really get power where it's needed. Also, because no new reactors have been built in 30 years, we've completely lost our infrastructure to make many of the components necessary to complete building of any plants. Probably the most significant component, the vessel and head enclosure, In all of the world there are currently 3 plants (Japan, Russia, China) that can even build them. http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf122_heavy_manufacturing_of_power_plants.html

At this time, it's not just the USA that's building nuclear plants. Any plant that you want to build right now is still very likely 10 years away from being built.

There are also natural gas(good), wind(unreliable), and solar plants(not ready) of course. I'll just stop here to prevent tl:dr's.

Switching their fleet to plugin vehicles makes a lot of sense for GE, especially in the long run. If it actually helps accelerate the rate of plugin vehicle adoption, electricity demand could increase significantly. GE would absolutely love that... it would probably help them sell more nuclear reactors, like the ESBWR (near-term) and the PRISM (long-term).

(thus explaining why plutonium is highly toxic to humans even disregarding the radiation issues).

Citation needed, because the NRC says:

In general, however, plutonium isotopic mixtures that are commonly encountered in the nuclear fuel cycle, nuclear weapons programs, or thermoelectric generator applications exhibit much higher radiological toxicity than chemical toxicity.

I agree 100% regarding the futility of one-off designs; the industry also agrees with us, and are applying for type-acceptance on several reactor designs like the ESBWR and the US-APWR. (See the left sidebar for more issued and pending Design Certifications).

Pebble bed reactors, while novel and relatively safe, are not, IMHO, scalable enough or efficient enough for large-scale power production. There are other criticisms, as well.

I agree 100% regarding the futility of one-off designs; the industry also agrees with us, and are applying for type-acceptance on several reactor designs like the ESBWR and the US-APWR. (See the left sidebar for more issued and pending Design Certifications).

Pebble bed reactors, while novel and relatively safe, are not, IMHO, scalable enough or efficient enough for large-scale power production. There are other criticisms, as well.

A major part of the expense and construction delays are due to every reactor design being one-off and requiring individual approval by the government. The industry is now (finally) trying to get 'type acceptance' for a few well-engineered designs that can be built exactly to spec much quickly and for a lot less money.

My local utility had chosen (see legend) the GE ESBWR but has switched to the Mitsubishi US-APWR.

They are already trying to add two new reactors to the Turkey Point nuclear plant south of Miami. http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/col/turkey-point.html

There are new power plants under construction right now and plants have been coming online and being built for the last ten years.

http://www.netl.doe.gov/coal/refshelf/ncp.pdf
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/new-licensing-files/expected-new-rx-applications.pdf

Why hasn't there been a single nuclear powerplant in like the last 20 years in the US? The NRC.

or live in the mountains

Yes, the altitude exposes you to a great deal more radiation. The Rocky mountains in particular also have a higher than normal concentration of Uranium. The NRC sayeth:

people residing in Colorado are exposed to more natural radiation than residents of the east or west coast because Colorado has more cosmic radiation at a higher altitude and more terrestrial radiation from soils enriched in naturally occurring uranium.

Despite this, should you wish to encounter a large amount of scanner/TSA hysteria (or any other form of chronic malcontentery) one need only visit Boulder, CO, the San Francisco of the Rockies nestled beneath the Flatirons.

My home as a child was surrounded by trees, on one particularly stormy night a sizeable branch from an oak tree fell onto the roof of my house and nearly broke through the roof. I'll consider becoming concerned about trees long before I ever start worrying myself about nuclear.

My neighborhood has tons of trees, and we pay to have them trimmed and pruned properly each year, they make sure dead branches are removed and any tree that shows that it's in danger of falling is removed, immediately. To do it right, this costs money, the tree budget is quite high, but we like the trees.

Now, assume the people are in charge of the pruning think that they're not maximizing profits, so instead of trimming once a year, they do it every two years. Out of the 104 trees, only a few major branches fall, some cars are destroyed but no one is hurt. Is that a good record? Just think of how much more money they could make if they only trimmed every three years!

Utilities shouldn't be able to make profits any more than the fire department should. Take the greed out of the equation and things might run better.

Here's some reading on tritium leaks contaminating the local water supplies near plants, http://adamswebsearch2.nrc.gov/idmws/ViewDocByAccession.asp?AccessionNumber=ML101270439

The law you propose to limit liability has already been enacted. Its called the Price-Anderson act of 1957 (described in detail at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/funds-fs.html). It limits the liability of nuclear plant operators, but requires insurance. The current liability limit is about $10 billion. All the utilities pay into a common insurance pool that provides coverage for off site damages in case of an accident, currently up to $8.6 billion. Combined with $300 million in coverage for each reactor, the cost of any accident is insured up to $8.9 billion.

Despite this insurance being covered, it has been Wall Street that has been wary of the financial risk of nuclear plants due to massive cost overruns that occurred in nuclear plant construction in the 1970s along with demand for electricity that did not grow as projected by the utilities.

The NRC’s regulations focus on systems necessary to safely operate the plant or safely shut it down in case of an emergency. These safety systems’ buried piping is subject to inspection and testing requirements laid out in agency regulations and standards from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. These standards call for regular flow testing and other surveillance for buried safety-related pipes, and NRC reviews have confirmed nuclear plants perform these tests several times every year.

NRC page on tritium http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/tritium-radiation-fs.html. Even the levels at so called "contaminated wells", assuming you drink from it every day for a year, are negligible compared to other sources of background radiation and even potassium in your body.

Well, you can't measure the volume of a leak by the amount of radiation at the leak site, so who knows how much actually leaked...It probably wasn't THAT much, just because they don't USE that much.

Yea, I agree, it probably made it to the local water supply. It's just not a big deal. If you can assume that the highest concentration anywhere was at the leak site (which is reasonable) and that concentration was consistent with the lowest form of radio-medical imaging...It's extremely unlikely that it would be available in quantity anywhere outside of the immediate area of the plant.

The only people who'd be in danger would be people who had a well that was basically at the leak site. Any dilution would drop the exposure dramatically. If the spill made it to a river, it'd be basically indistinguishable from naturally occurring HTO (which is common enough that it's used like Carbon-14 to date liquids).

Nuclear plants are actually allowed to release a certain amount of it a year as part of normal operation, and the NRC calls it on their website, "...one of the least dangerous radioactive isotopes known."

First off, wind power is a great supplement, not a replacement. It suffers from too much variability to be a reliable power source, and therefore replace fossil fuels.

True but geothermal is a reliable and steady energy source. It's also available in many places. Iceland, in the Arctic, gets a lot of energy from geothermal sources. California gets 4.5% of it's energy from geothermal sources. In Hawaii the Big Island gets 20% of it's energy from the Puna Geothermal Venture which supplies geothermal energy. Heck even the Philippines harvests geothermal energy. Mexico has 853 MW of installed geothermal energy.

That energy does not depend of sunlight or the wind. It is a steady source of energy. New York state has the webpage Geothermal Heat Pumps with contacts that can install both commercial and residential systems.

at least with nuclear power, the pollution is contained.

No it's not. Mining is not contained. Neither are leaks, spills, and other releases. Such as the tritium spills at Exelon Nuclear-owned plants in IL.

As for your road tax solution, who cares if we pay it with income taxes or fuel taxes?

I do as do many others. Only those who use the roads should have to pay for them. If a person does not directly pay for something they have no idea how much it costs for one Now if you have to pay say 10 cents a mile, in addition to gas costs, unless you're wealthy you will pay attention. And I say that as someone who loves driving and will not give up my car unless I have to.

Everyone uses and benefits from the roads.

And they will pay for it, but not with income taxes. You may walk or ride a bike everywhere but as long as you buy items you will still pay for the roads. Sellers raise their prices to cover their expenses, they are in business to make money afterall. Heck even when you order a physical object online, you're paying. Say you order a printed book from Amazon you pay shipping and the shipper pays for the roads.

Falcon

Speaking as someone who works at a nuclear power plant,

What do you do there?

If by walk away you mean: 1) 2) 3)

Ok, lets say it means that, over a 60 year period there are still some quite radioactive isotopes. What types of radioactive isotopes would you expect an industrial facility of that size and age to contain in the core? Are you saying that we can expect no radioactive isotopes what-so-ever to to leak into the environment even though that facility would be well over fifty years old and the time of idling?

4) Store the dry casks on site until Yucca opens, or they can be re-processed

Isn't it the case that the life span of these engineered barriers has never been tested because it has never been funded?

but compared to actually operating a nuclear power plant, the safe long term shutdown of a plant requires minimal resources.

How do you define 'long term' and from what data do you base that premise?

The job of the people there is to promptly discover these sorts of things. There are loud alarms available to help them with just that. It's not a lucky happenstance that the leak was promptly discovered.

A Union of Concerned Scientists analysis of NRC data revealed that of the 563 design basis issues for 1997 only 238 were found due to a deliberate effort, the remainder were 'self revealing' and the bulk identified by 'luck'. If your statement is to be believed how does that explain the amount of corrosion allowed to happen to the reactor head at the Davis Besse Plant for so long? Shouldn't the operational processes discovered this was happening considering it was one of 250 odd issues occurring at the time?

1) The standards the plants have to meet are published, and not a secret.

When I searched for "NRC Nuclear power plant standards" I found this. I'd be interested in reading those standards if you could provide a link.

...the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 and the federal government only has the Yucca Mountain debacle to show for it

Are you refering to the DOE ignoring it's own 'Defense in depth' approach to evaluating the Yucca site or something else? I mean, I also remember reading the the geology of the region is mostly pumice and volcanic ash where even the Swedish test 'spent fuel containment facility' is made in the belly of a granite mountain. I think there was also the ingress of water into the facility which, because of the presence of chlorine-36 that could have only come from atmospheric nuclear tests, indicates that there is a very fast path for water (now containing radioactive isotopes) to enter and leave the facility? So, specifically, when you speak of a 'debacle', what are you refering to?

Also, with reference to the decommissioning of the actual reactors if it costs up to $900 million to decommission a reactor site now, isn't idling the reactors just putting the expense onto another generation the same way a carbon dioxide expense has been put on our generation? That whilst some of the more radioactive products have decayed there would still be highly radioactive daughter-products with longer half-lives that would still have to be dealt with? How has anything you have said here justified the subject title of your post, when nothing you have said actually addresses the issue of de-commissioning a Nuclear Reactor?

I mean the thing is, I'm open minded to the *possibility* that nuclear power may offer us, but I have concerns to and when I investigate them I find they have some basis. The problem is when I see someone, such as yourself, who is supposed to be a

I've worked as an Operator at a US Power Reactor ( North Anna Power Station in Virginia ) a long time ago. It is a Westinghouse pressurized water reactor and it's a completely different design than Chernobyl. The containment dome is of sufficient volume to maintain integrity during a complete meltdown. It's one of the biggest expenses. ( A description of the construction can be found in the license application in section 2.4.1 page 2-97 ).

The Unit 1 and Unit 2 Containments are Seismic Class I structures that house the reactor and other Nuclear Steam Supply System (NSSS) components for the respective unit. Each Containment consists of a reinforced concrete cylinder with a hemispherical dome and a flat, 10-foot-thick reinforced concrete mat foundation. A waterproof membrane is located below the Containment's structural mat and extends up the Containment wall to ground level.

In fact, it's such a large expense that this particular design keeps the interior of the containment dome at about 9 psia to allow for the expansion of Reactor Coolant during a meltdown in a smaller volume. Meaning a smaller containment dome. It also has the advantage that if there are any leaks, it leaks in, not out. If an accident did happen, the containment dome would probably been sealed and filled with concrete.

So why have nuclear plants? Why all the expense?

When I worked at that plant. Dominion Power ( Then Virginia Power ) had 4 reactors and about 17 coal fired plants and I think 2 natural gas plants. Those 4 reactors could at times supply about 40% of the power for the company's power grid covering almost all of Virginia and the northern part of North Carolina. This was usually at night when energy consumption dropped.

The coal plants also didn't operate at 100% all the time. They altered their power output increasing output during peak demand during the day and late evening and decreasing output as demand dropped during late night and early morning.

I hope you have noticed like I have that the standard operating procedure of the coal fired plants closely mirror what you would expect to see from a solar & battery power plant.

Also, I know how much coal ash is produced in a single day from a coal fired plant. I also know, for the nuclear plant I worked at, only one third of the fuel rods were replaced every 18 months. So, given the choice of fields covered in tons of low level waste or only a few tons of concentrated nastiness, I'd opt for the later because it is far easier to maintain stricter and safer control of it.

I wonder what that guy is doing now.

Probably making a shitload of money working for Westinghouse, GE, Hitachi, or Mitsubishi, Areva on the design side, or maybe Bechtel, Shaw Stone & Webster, Black & Veatch, etc. on the construction side. All of the old nuke guys are hitting retirement age, and new nuke plants are coming. There's a significant talent shortage out there right now.

ouch...call me the bus driver Tweenk, because im about to take your stupid ass to school.

http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/plant-specific-items/watts-bar/meeting-summary.html pay attention to the NRC meeting summary for march...particularly:

Ten critical case conduits were evaluated for
both Units. Provide the number of conduits
evaluated for each Unit.
Provide the total number of silicone
rubber cables in the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant
(WBN),
Unit 2, population.
Provide the process/justification used
to qualify the Unit 2 cables for a 40-year life.

now lets follow along and read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watts_Bar_Nuclear_Generating_Station

unit 2 is 80% complete.

in fact in the wiki article the reactor cooling tower is VISIBLE.

now, lets look at the subsection c.1.7.
under construction inspection information for the ICIR dated 4/30

In addition, the inspectors performed a walkdown of cables in the annulus area and held discussions with TVA on PERs (162649 and 163461) related to unprotected and potential damaged cables. Specific documents reviewed are listed in Attachment 1.

so yeah, in summation this thing WAS allowed to stand nearly fully operational, rats and rain, and will probably require a substantial investigation before it ever sees its first reactor rods inserted. if they hustle i predict everything can be reinspected in around a year, but since this has the odor of a recession stimulus project id imagine bringing reactor #2 online will take about 3 years or more (this isnt dads old woodfire stove after all.) by which time it will begin to generate electricity and repay its own costs. 10 years out or so, we might see it start to contribute to what little is left of the recession, using its power generation technology dated at this point by three decades..

and in fact, I still think they are fairly dangerous in the wrong hands--and I can think of no wronger hands than a corporation interested in profits, we've all seen what damage they are willing to do in the name of profits

In the name of profits, nuclear power plants like to keep their plants running as safely as possible. Every plant has inspectors from the http://www.nrc.gov/ on-site. They have the power to raise a hand and say "this looks wrong, shut the reactor down and take a closer look at it." If something ends up being wrong, the NRC will fine the plant appropriately and require all issues be fixed. Aside from that, every day that a plant is offline is another million dollars that the plant is not making.

These factors are very strong incentives for corporations to keep their nuclear power plants operating in tip-top condition with no problems. Plants schedule maintenance for replacing fuel and parts that are known to have shorter lifespans, and it is not unusual for those maintenance periods to extend past the original dates because they found other things that should be replaced/fixed. Due to hefty fines, it is in a plant's best interest to find their own issues rather than let the NRC find them.

The system (from my point of view) appears to be working rather well in this case.

I don't think supercritical means what you think WRT reactors.

http://www.euronuclear.org/info/encyclopedia/s/supercritical-reactor.htm
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/basic-ref/glossary/supercritical-reactor.html

Question: How do you start a reactor without going supercritical?

Here is a map of sites for which applications have been submitted to the NRC and are currently undergoing review. None of these will happen until the political will emerges to move the bureaucracy.

I thought the 3 mile incident was caused by someone falling asleep at the controls and knocking them over. Of course that's not the official wording, but what if "terrorists" feed you some time delayed release sleeping pill or better yet, a hallucinogen. If you were a control operator, you might all of a sudden see the knobs rotate in all kinds of directions, with you trying to compensate.

For some reason, I'm reminded of the simpsons here. From what I can understand, and someone just gave me a more detailed link then the PBA/History channels documentary on it and my 5 year old recollection that I was recalling from. Regardless of the cause of why the main feed water pumps stopped responding (which would be your guy asleep at the wheel), there are alarms that alert others to something being wrong and safety controls as well as backup systems to compensate. Anyways, it isn't as much the "crap, I did something wrong" as much as it is the "shit, this is wrong, lets make it work right" phase. In the Three mile island, a stuck valve that wasn't detected properly prevented water from cooling the core as it should have and presented a dangerous gas buildup scenario. Read the link for more. The lessons learned from that placed sweeping changes to the Nuke industry including changes in equipment design, new sensors, protocols and procedures, and so on.

You think the Gods of Olympus, or the powers that be today, don't get bored sometimes and play with real people's lives, to study and see what happens? In fact some unpracticed and unplanned-for "fire drill"-like candid camera exercises in nuclear plants might just be on the agenda of the Nuclear Safety Commission and the Dept of Fatherland Security. (Gotta love buzzwords.)

I'm sure there are training drills and accident scenario exercises in order to detect the weak spots and compensate. However, these couldn't be completely blind tests because of the level of awareness the public has now. Someone, if only a few people, have to know it's a test because of the evacuation standards and I doubt they would work with a live plant because real changes to equipment made by people correcting the issue will have real consequences and effects on the workings of the plant.

I'm sure as hell not gonna ever take a "control rod technician" job, that I was kind of ushered towards, in this unemployment economy, two months ago. Because of pretty much the above reasons. I get messed with too much as it is, don't need to enter situations where the potential is even greater for trouble. Quiet, peace and safety of others are golden. Self risk, such as rock climbing, is a personal choice, with the option to refuse or accept, that's up to yourself, but making that choice for others, that's quite different.

Your probably not qualified for the job but if you were, your attitude expressed right there would probably disqualify you. Certain jobs at a nuke facility can be done by drones who hate their job and life. However, other jobs are picked only for certain people who are both stable and willing. I'm sure some may have fallen through the cracks but there are other safeguards in place to override their mistakes.

as for the scenario above, I doubt anything would be presented as a real life scenario without everyone knowing it is a drill of some sort. Even if they attempted to sneak one in, they would have to intercept all of the electronic controls somehow and then present you with artificial readouts accurate enough to simulate everything you have seen in the last 20 years. In other words, we would almost have to be at star fleet and your scenario would be a simulation training test where the entire plant was simulated. I'm sure they have dummy rooms availible that can simulate the controls and feedback but I doubt they have entire plants where you can go to a valve and check it's position and all.

SDM,

I admire your effort and appreciate the apparent pro-nuclear stance. But please check out the NRC Fact Sheet on TMI Unit 2 (Unit 1 is doing just fine, thanks) for more precise details on the cause and sequence of events for the accident. You'll find some useful facts that will correct some of your misconceptions about the contributing factors and root causes of the event.

In my opinion, the most dominant root cause was inadequate operator training. The stuck-open primary valve (PORV) was misdiagnosed, with a faulty valve position indicator contributing to the misdiagnosis. Every operator action taken downstream of that led to the circus surrounding the event. It did not do to create emergency operating guidance on the fly. I contend that if there was no operator interference with the Emergency Core Cooling System(s) (yes, there are several), the core would have remained intact for some time (days).

BTW, SDM stands for Shutdown Margin - at least in the civilian side of the nuke industry. :D

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission
http://www.nrc.gov/

an excerpt:
"... Manufacturers of tritium EXIT signs are "specific licensees," meaning they are licensed by the NRC or an Agreement State..."

So they do actually license the use of radioactive devices.

Darn it all, now my insurance paperwork's disappeared.

Unfortunately the AP-1000's design still falls short.

Falls short by what standard? Don't forget that the AP-1000 is substantially SMALLER than the EPR design.

None of the designs incorporate features to ease the teardown and eventual decommissioning of the facility. For example, Yankee Rowe, was a controlled shutdown of a functioning reactor. It cost half a billion dollars to clean-up and it was only 137 Megawatts, less than a quarter of the size of TMI-2.

In the USA a levy per kwh goes towards a fund to pay for the eventual decommissioning. Any Yankee Rowe doesn't seem like a good example, little economy of scale for it's small size, and it's cost a lot more than many other reactor decommisioning. The NRC estimates $280-612 million.

Compare that to the costs to clean up a long running coal plant to those 'greenfield' standards.

Accident Sequence Precursors.

Thanks. I think part of the problem is that it's a very expensive and complicated thing to input an existing reactor into such a system.

Well this is actually one of those cases where I would put the government in charge, they already own the liability anyway and $100 million is chicken feed compared to almost a trillion dollars of damages in todays dollars.

It's still something. Each additional reactor piles more on the power companies and less on the government. That's how I'd get rid of the act - just keep increasing the private liability.

I think the Navy's certification process for subs would work if implemented for power reactors, they have best practices and it could work counter cyclical to the private economic cycle.

Is it really that relevant to a ground based commercial power nuclear plant? Besides, given the USA's track record over my lifespan, does it really NEED huge changes? Oh, and 'too cheap to meter' was always a wild idea.

Tough to just shut down a plant providing 35% of a state's electricity, but in the context that we've built the replacement first, acceptable.

I know I've mentioned in this thread that any extensive building of new nuclear plants would be to shut down older, inefficient, more dangerous plants, whether coal or nuclear, with safer modern plants.

' Cyberspies have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system, according to current and former national-security officials'

"There are intrusions, and they are growing .. There were a lot last year"

'Many of the intrusions were detected not by the companies in charge of the infrastructure but by U.S. intelligence agencies, officials said. Intelligence officials worry about cyber attackers taking control of electrical facilities, a nuclear power plant or financial networks via the Internet'

Given the great Northeast Blackout of Aug 14 2003 and a similar incident at a Davis-Besse nuclear power plant the previous January, why is the US still using the Internet to control the power grid? And that's assuming that any of the above is even true.
-------

PROTHERO: Do you believe this crap, Dascombe?

DASCOMBE: It's not our job to believe it, Lewis. Our job is to tell the people --

PROTHERO: "Exactly what they tell us." I Know but do you think that people will believe it?

DASCOMBE: They will if it's you that's telling it to them. Now let's try it again.

"The robustness of US power networks has been a hot-button issue after a technical glitch in 2003 caused a cascading power failure in the eastern United States and Canada that affected 55 million people"

The nature of the 'technical glitch' was using Windows NT SCADA units to relay info over the Internet in the middle of the Blaster worm infestation. As was demonstrated in the earlier MS SQL Server 2000 worm infestation of a nuclear power plant.

Yer, nice present for the grandchildren (sorry son, we where unable to live within our means so here is some deadly shit for you to either fix or look after for 100,000 years).

If you actually read the links you would have seen that the spent fuel for those reactors has half-lives in the tens of years, not thousands. Lets use some logic here, is it better to hand our grandchildren some radioactive stuff more or less safely and easily encased in concrete or some other capsule, or should we just pump it into the atmosphere and say, "oh, nature will handle it"? My vote is for the former.

The markets *have* spoken. E.g. when the power infrastructure in the UK was privatisied "the market" refused to take nuclear power so it was split off and kept by the government.
AFAIK the only way nuclear power can win in "the market" is through government subsidies: eg covering/exempting the insurance cost so that any accident is covered by the taxpayer or exempting companies from the full cleanup costs of normal (non-accident) waste.

That's why as soon as the U.S. NRC gave an early permit in 2007 companies have lined up to apply for so many reactors?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070319175743.htm/
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-licensing/new-licensing-files/expected-new-rx-applications.pdf/

And the permits cost tens of millions of dollars. Even if the market wouldn't bear it this instant, that is fine too. As the market recovers from the crash and fuel prices inevitably rise again it makes nuclear ever more attractive. Throw in a straight tax on carbon emissions to account for that externality, and it looks even better.

How about this?

http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/radiation.html

You could look at a nuclear engineering text if you wanted to know more.

http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/NE-39
http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/NE-101
http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/NE-124

The manufacturer has this chart showing that it's a variable thrust rocket - hence the name: Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (Vasimir).

Unsaid is where the power comes from to drive the rocket. To get the kind of thrust they're looking for, it'll most likely be a descendant of Admiral Rickover's reactors we use in submarines because they're compact power sources.

Unfortunately, we're talking about NASA which means they're not really planning on doing anything. Per the article, Griffin wouldn't commit to when any testing was to take place just that someday maybe they might test a scale model. The project started in 1979 so it's an old project that looks to be a great idea that isn't moving very quickly. For those of you who weren't alive back then, 1979 was the year Three Mile Island happened. That accident, and the resulting hysteria, put the kabosh on everything nuclear in the US for the past 30 years.

Technical data here...

Bluewater Wind agrees to build a 150 turbine, 450MW wind project 12-13 miles off of Rehoboth Beach. Delmarva Power agrees to buy up to 300MW at any one time. The cost to Delmarva ratepayers for energy and capacity will be 10.56 cents/kWh in 2007 dollars. Delmarva is also purchasing Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) associated with its energy purchases.

So evidently these are 150 x 3MW turbines. Generally turbines of this class have a blade space diameter of 100m.

It is interesting to note that while Delaware has no nuclear reactors, it is across the river from the Salem dual 1.1 MWe PWRs and the co-located Hope Creek 1.0 MWe BWR in New Jersey, for a total of 3.2 MWe of nuclear in the neighborhood.

Technical data here...

Bluewater Wind agrees to build a 150 turbine, 450MW wind project 12-13 miles off of Rehoboth Beach. Delmarva Power agrees to buy up to 300MW at any one time. The cost to Delmarva ratepayers for energy and capacity will be 10.56 cents/kWh in 2007 dollars. Delmarva is also purchasing Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) associated with its energy purchases.

So evidently these are 150 x 3MW turbines. Generally turbines of this class have a blade space diameter of 100m.

It is interesting to note that while Delaware has no nuclear reactors, it is across the river from the Salem dual 1.1 MWe PWRs and the co-located Hope Creek 1.0 MWe BWR in New Jersey, for a total of 3.2 MWe of nuclear in the neighborhood.

Wikipedia is lots of fun. Here's another article there that gives quite contradictory information about high level waste:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power#High_level_radioactive_waste

And here's one from the US NRC:

http://www.nrc.gov/waste/high-level-waste.html

I think the last one is more accurate than your Wikipedia article, which talks about vitrification at Sellafield. That may be done to some waste in the UK, but most waste in other countries is still stored on-site.

And for a bit more fun, here's an article on an anti-nuclear site:

http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/hlwfcst.htm

and one on a pro-nuclear site:

http://www.world-nuclear.org/education/wast.htm

Both of them mention that spent fuel is stored for several years underwater for cooling, but only the anti-nuclear one mentions what would happen if the coolant was removed.

I have nothing against nuclear power, I just do not trust deregulation-happy business criminals to run them.

That's a very good comment. We need more nuclear power, and we need downright Draconian inspection and regulation to make it work. This is to the advantage of the industry. Remember, it wasn't Chernoybl that killed the US nuclear industry. It was the meltdown at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, in 1979. That was contained, but it was a close thing.

A good start would be for the Obama administration to appoint several nuclear whistleblowers to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The US also might have an exchange arrangement with French nuclear regulators (France gets 80% of its electricity from nuclear power) to get an outside look into regulation.

Longer term, we need a less-volatile energy industry. Going back to rate-of-return regulation would be worth it for the stabilty. Deregulation didn't bring end user prices down.

"a leading trade group, said that U.S. intelligence officials have told him that the PLA in 2003 gained access to a network that controlled electric power systems serving the northeastern United States"

No, what really happened was the grid was overloaded and the SQL virus was playing havoc with connectivity, then a tree fell over and tripped out a line, which spread in a domino effect all the way to Canada. A similar virus tripped out the control system in a Nuclear power plant.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/cs_20080531_6948.php

"During the hour before the Aug. 14 blackout, engineers in the control center of an Ohio utility struggled to figure out why transmission lines were failing and complained that a computer failure was making it difficult to determine what was going on, transcripts of telephone communications released Wednesday show"

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2003/09/60285

"Software failure cited in August blackout investigation .. A malfunctioning alarm system may have played a big role in the outage Dan Verton Nov 20 2003"

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/gen-comm/info-notices/2003/in200314.pdf

http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/recovery/story/0,10801,87400,00.html

I'm unfamiliar with the nuclear power plants in Scotland, but I have to disagree with your statement that they go off-line unpredictably and for long periods (your case excluded). I surfed around the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission [http://www.nrc.gov/] website for half an hour, and the only failure of a reactor in the US was Three Mile Island [http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/3mile-isle.html]. Other than that, most reactors in the US hum away day and night, some for over 20 years. Nuclear is a low-carbon power source, and it's not that dangerous if handled properly. Unfortunately, renewables aren't going to be able to supply 100% of our power (at least here in the US), so luckily we can fall back on nuclear to provide our base load reliably.

I'm unfamiliar with the nuclear power plants in Scotland, but I have to disagree with your statement that they go off-line unpredictably and for long periods (your case excluded). I surfed around the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission [http://www.nrc.gov/] website for half an hour, and the only failure of a reactor in the US was Three Mile Island [http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/3mile-isle.html]. Other than that, most reactors in the US hum away day and night, some for over 20 years. Nuclear is a low-carbon power source, and it's not that dangerous if handled properly. Unfortunately, renewables aren't going to be able to supply 100% of our power (at least here in the US), so luckily we can fall back on nuclear to provide our base load reliably.

"these computer systems were not designed with the internet in mind. SCADA systems that control physical systems over a wide geographic area were built before the internet even existed"

I assume you mean by 'these computers' Microsoft Windows, and Windows was most certanly designed for the Internet and security at the very least from Windows NT. Connecting these 'computers' through the Internt was an economic measure, designed to save on maintaining a private network. What's mind boggling is that they are still connecting such 'computers' to the Internet in 2008. Have these 'computer' professionals learned nothing since the Blackout of 2003. See also SQL virus takes down Nuclear Power Plant SPDS system.

I strongly disagree. The Chernobyl explosion and resulting contamination was not designed to disperse radioactive material. It did a fairly good job of doing that *anyway*. I agree that the predicted effects are fortunately much less (20 years later) than previously predicted, but it was nonetheless extremely effective at effecting FEAR and Terror into that portion of the World. If Terrorists with high explosives expertise also had access to MORE deadly radioactive substances than Chernobyl contained, that would be VERY SCARY.

Terrorists are likely more interested the FEAR and the sensationalized terrifying concept of "Nuclear Fallout" rather than the actual scientific effects of such a dirty radiological High Explosive dispersion device (AKA Dirty Bomb).
Terrorists may actually target key water and food supplies or river systems with radiological explosive dispersion devices.

Any primary "Dirty Bomb" Victims that inhale, eat, drink, or consume into their bodies ANY energetically decaying radioisotopes (especially ones with relatively short half-lives) will have an *almost certain chance* of developing lung and/or bone cancers.
Plutonium-238, curium-244, strontium-90, polonium-210, promethium-147, cesium-137, cerium-144, ruthenium-106, cobalt-60, curium-242, and thulium isotopes all can produce oncogenic, teratogenic, and mutagenic effects on the human body (especially if ingested or inhaled). This happens if the initial exposure does not kill the primary victims.

In any case, it is very very unlikely that a citizen jury of peers would consider the passive monitoring of specific "hot" radioisotopes by US authorities to be a violation of the 4th Amendment's "unreasonable searches and seizures".
NOBODY should have any of the above in their possession unless they are professionals and they would have clearly marked DOT placards on their commercial vehicles as well as DOT, NRC (and probably DOE) approved possession and transportation paperwork and approved containment vessels. http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/basic-ref/teachers/11.pdf
Also, they would have to follow controlled HC (Hazardous Cargo) approved routes within the US highway system. http://orise.orau.gov/reacts/guide/hazard.htm

I agree that it is interesting some animal and human cancer patients (and other radiologically medicated persons) have been flagged "hot" by roadside sensors and detained by authorities. It is likely that those same sensors can determine the quantity and difference between the americium-241 (one gram is enough for 5000 smoke detectors) from the other more dangerous materials no civilian should never have. http://www.uic.com.au/nip35.htm

I am a US citizen, and I DO feel better knowing that these things ARE being actively screened for by our government. It would be terribly irresponsible for our government to NOT look for radioactive substances if technology would allow it to conducted as unobtrusively as it is from the side of a PUBLIC highway or port of entry. Americans don't have a right to own dangerous radioactive components.

OTOH, if they decide to screen for GUNS in the US... that's a Second Amendment right we DO have... and whole other issue.

Nuclear reactor pressure vessels are a real problem. Most of the larger ones are in fact built up from welded sections. This isn't an easy welding job, and inspection of welds is a big headache. Several Japanese nuclear plants have had problems with cracks in pressure vessel welds, although in internal reactor components welded to the shell, not the shell itself. So making the pressure vessel and its internal support structures from one big forging makes a better product.

The environment of a reactor pressure vessel is tough. First, there's "embrittlement". Neutrons are constantly blasting apart the atoms in the pressure vessel, and over a period of years, this structural damage adds up. Then there's corrosion. There have been major corrosion problems requiring reactor shutdowns from carbon dioxide and boric acid corrosion inside the pressure vessel. Remember, this is a steam pressure vessel; at steam temperatures and pressures, minor corrosive effects at room temperature become big problems.

High quality welding of thick steel sections is a tough problem. Many approaches have been tried. The general idea is to make a V-shaped notch and fill it in during the welding process. Doing this in a way that's no weaker than the surrounding material is hard. Electric arc welding under an inert gas is the usual approach. Electron beam welding and laser welding have been tried. Then there's the problem of approach angle - welding on a vertical surface is not easy. Quality control requires X-rays, ultrasonic tests, and regulators that aren't corrupt.

So there's much to be said for building the pressure vessel as one big forging. Of course, then there's the problem of delivering a 550-ton object to the job site. There are companies that can do that, if you can find them a clear path from a seaport.

Sword making technology is relevant to the making of big forgings. Swords are built-up forgings. This is unusual in modern metalworking; most modern forged objects, like tools, are banged out in one piece by equipment much larger than the thing being manufactured. Big pressure vessels are built-up forgings; the scale requires it. In Japan, it's considered a good doctoral thesis in metallurgy to improve on sword making technology. So smart people are still thinking about the technology of built-up forgings. Nobody else bothers much.

Here's a US NRC fact sheet. on pressure vessels, and a similar European document.

It was due to a distribution line that failed. For those not familiar with how nuclear reactors work, two of the fission products of concern are I-135 and Xe-135. I-135 will decay into Xe-135 and Xe-135 is a very strong neutron poison (absorbs neutrons). During normal operations Xe-135 is produced from fission or I-135 decay and it is removed by neutron absorption of Xe-135 or by beta decay of Xe-135. If you are operating at high power and have a significant amount of Xe-135 in the core and you suddenly drop power the neutron flux that is removing a significant fraction of your Xe-135 from neutron absorption is gone. But the I-135 in the core still remains and more than compensate the reduction of Xe-135 from direct fission. The result is a Xe-135 spike that will overwhelm certain types of reactors forcing a shutdown and a waiting period for the Xe-135 to decay. For those familiar with the Chernobyl disaster, the reason that the control rods in that core were fully withdrawn was because they were trying to compensate for a xenon transient (since they were operating at high power before they dropped to low power for the test). The Turkey Point reactors don't suffer from the flaws that the RBMKs had, but they will still be shutdown due to xenon transients.

Agreed. I found the NRC press release in about 2 seconds by simply going to their website. Perhaps people should 2 seconds of research before they begin jumping to conclusions about things.

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/news/2008/08-037.html

The US generated 787 billion KW/hours of nuclear power in 2006 out of 104 operating reactors according to a 2006 DOE report on their webpage and the NRC.

The high estimate on the NRC page places the total cost to decom all 104 at 38.7 billion; or 372 million each. The documentation available seems to suggest the NRC requires a report every 6 months on each reactor's decomission fund.

At that rate of generation, unless I misplaced a zero, it would cost half a cent per KW/h to provide for a decommission in 10 years.

DOE power chart
NRC 1999 report on decomissioning

Spy,

To address your points:

"...uranium is kept in small pebbles made of graphite, which is a neutron reflector material."

Technically, graphite is a neutron moderator, to allow the neutrons to slow down and interact with other nuclei in the fuel matrix. The Chicago Pile 1 used the graphite bricks as the moderator matrix. The downside of graphite is that if a graphite fire starts, it's very difficult to put out. So the pebble bed isn't quite the ideal, IMHO.

"Both reactor designs have a "negative temperature coefficient of reactivity" simply means that an increase in core temperature will cause a decrease in core power. "

This is but one part of current regulatory requirements. The General Design Criteria govern the design of nuclear plants in general, and cores in particular. The downside of having too strong of a negative temperature coefficient is that in an overcooling scenario, you get the opposite effect. This is why Main Steam Line Breaks are considered in the core design.

"More interesting facts: pebble-bed reactors use helium as coolant instead of water..."

Personally, I've always liked the gas-cooled (especially He) reactors. BTW, this has been done before at Fort St. Vrain in Colorado. Unfortunately, because it was a first of a kind (here in the US, anyway), it was plagued by more mundane issues, like seal leakage, etc. Nothing catastrophic, but a pain in the ass operationally.

Sodium on the other had was intended to minimize the impact of metal corrosion. Think about it: with a liquid metal coolant, the fuel, piping, etc. would maintain integrity pretty well. The bad thing is that yes, Na is a dangerous thing to deal with - especially on a large scale. The Experimental Breeder Reactor in Idaho was one such, I think. This is where a lot of the operational problems were discovered.

We learn by doing.

Hope this helps.

I agree, watching people mature through an infusion of reality is always good to see.

Her mention of "base load" is interesting. Here is a bit of back of the napkin computation to place the idea of replacing fossil fuel with atomic power in perspective:

At the moment about 50% of electrical energy in the US is coal. A bit less than 20% is atomic. The rest is natural gas and hydroelectric, with everything else safely labeled "other". A credible reference for this may be found here (pp. 224). Fossil fuel accounts for more than 70% of base load power generation.

At this moment there are 104 operational reactors at 65 sites in the US. To eliminate fossil fuel from electrical power generation, we must increase nuclear power from the current 20% of supply to 90%. That means the US will need a total of 540 operating reactors at approximately 330 sites (assuming equivalent reactor output and the ratio of reactors to sites, both of which are entirely probable.)

540 reactors, or more than 10 per state... Is that politically feasible? Not unless a whole mess of anti-nuke folks pull similar 180s and begin vigorously campaigning for nuclear power.

Now consider this; we have so far only examined electrical supply and consumption. Electricity does not directly serve transportation in the US to any significant degree. About 30% of the total energy consumed is attributable to transportation. Let's say two thirds of that could be supplanted by electricity if we all buy Chevy Volts in the next decade (because we probably won't live to see electric airliners...) Now we need several hundred more nukes.

In the end, you (unless you're a farmer living in b.f.e.) will be within driving distance of a 1-3GW nuclear facility. Yes, you. You'll probably pass it twice a day going to and from whatever server room you nurse burning all that power.

At this scale we'll need more than traditional natural Uranium burning reactors. We'll need an advanced fuel cycle involving true breeder reactors.

I think the best thing you can do right now is take this excitement and pursue it by reading. Go to the official sites and learn.