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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.

• http://www.uic.com.au/nip28.htm
• http://www.uic.com.au/nip08.htm
• http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/readings/french.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France
• http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/nuc_generation/gensum2.html

• http://www.uic.com.au/nip07.htm
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_new_nuclear_power_plants
• http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/nuc_generation/gensum2.html

• http://www.uic.com.au/nip28.htm
• http://www.uic.com.au/nip08.htm
• http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/readings/french.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France
• http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/nuc_generation/gensum2.html

• http://www.uic.com.au/nip07.htm
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_new_nuclear_power_plants
• http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/nuc_generation/gensum2.html

• http://www.uic.com.au/nip28.htm
• http://www.uic.com.au/nip08.htm
• http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/readings/french.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France
• http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/nuc_generation/gensum2.html

• http://www.uic.com.au/nip07.htm
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_new_nuclear_power_plants
• http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/nuc_generation/gensum2.html

Start by reading this:

http://www.uic.com.au/nip08.htm It cites $0.0172/kW-hr for nuclear and $0.0221/kW-hr for coal. And because this raises a common question about waste costs, I'm quoting this line from the article, "For nuclear power plants any cost figures normally include spent fuel management, plant decommissioning and final waste disposal. These costs, while usually external for other technologies, are internal for nuclear power."

Please note this is by the Nuclear Energy Institute, which by policy promotes nuclear power. However, I am unaware of figures that deviate significantly from theirs.

http://www.vestas.com/en/about-vestas/sustainability/wind-turbines-and-the-environment/life-cycle-assessment-(lca) There is a pdf at the bottom about the V80 onshore and offshore. Not a lot of money details since they will vary between locations and countries, but it does cover a lot of the other details.

Overall, cost of wind power vs other power sources vary a lot depending on who's talking about it and that's if they're in the same country.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4631737.stm

Here's some nuclear vs the rest economics.
http://www.uic.com.au/nip08.htm

Actually, the most obvious way to get past petroleum is not dirty, insecure, expensive nukes, but clean, safe, cheap wind turbines.

All I can say though is I hope we can easily convert fission nuke plants to fusion when we perfect it cuz fission isn't going to last much longer.

She does not mention the dead city,

That still have people living around it.

and the thousands of people who died from cancers in surrounding areas.

That would have happened even without the accident. Cancer is one of the leading causes of death today, Chernobyl or no Chernobyl. Cancer rates have been worse for several neighboring areas with not particularly clean chemical production facilities.

She has exactly zero credibility.

Because she isn't quoting numbers that you like? She specifically mentions in the article that the accident wouldn't have had the nasty effects if it'd had a containment structure like what's required in western nations.

She also doesn't mention the huge cost per MWh of nuke, and ignores methods (that do really exist!) for "green" replacement of baseload.

Name some. Nuclear power is estimated at $1-2 per watt today, 90% capacity factor.

High energy radio active waste is an energy source. The vast majority of this so called waste is fuel. We extract around 2% of the available energy because that's the cheep part but the idea of high energy waste is silly if it's really hot then we can extract energy from it. If it's going to be around for million's of years then it's safe.

Read up on breeder reactors and take a real look at this issue.

The other issue is the extreme levels nuke plants are regulated. For an idea just how silly this is: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE2DA1F3AF935A15751C1A966958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print

http://www.uic.com.au/ral.htm

PS: I seem to recall an issue where the concrete was producing more radiation than the "acceptable dose" before the plant went into operation. I can't find the details but background radiation is often well above the "acceptable" level inside a power plant and nobody bothers to tell people living in the area.

Really?

I have a few quick responses to your response:

Cooling: this is not necessarily inherent to either. Cooling can also be accomplished via evaporation or (not really economically at that scale) air heat exchangers.

Uranium emissions: I'm not convinced this is a big issue with coal either because uranium is only barely radioactive, although the decay products are more radioactive (think radon). USGS says the radiation exposure to resident within 1 km of a coal plant is 1 to 5% above background levels, and I've heard similar numbers for nuclear. However, in nuclear, the waste is generally carefully contained as opposed to released into the air. Also, since you mentioned it specifically, Iodine-131 has a half life of 8 days. It's radioactivity decreases by 99.9% every 3 months.

Carbon from concrete: The GP's numbers state 3.7 million tons of CO2 per year from a 500 MW coal plant. In contrast, the Crystal River Nuclear Plant (one of the newest in the nation) produces 838 MW and used about 220,000 tons of concrete. Production of cement releases about 0.9 pounds of CO2 for every pound of cement, but concrete is only about 10% cement, so Crystal River reduces emissions by 99.4% compared to coal. Furthermore, CO2 is released during production, but absorbed as the concrete cures. Recent studies suggest that within 100 years after concrete is disposed of, as it would be after reactor retirement, it has reabsorbed 86% of the original CO2 emitted.

Running out of fuel: The 85 year number only accounts for known, currently economical reserves. The IAEA estimates the unidentified reserves extend that to over 200 years of supply. Additionally, it completely ignores expansion of reprocessing practices. Quote: "Widespread use of the fast breeder reactor could increase the utilisation of uranium 50-fold or more." It also ignores the use of thorium, which is 3 times as abundant as uranium.

I'm pretty sure building a new coal or natural gas isn't pocket change, either... With a 8-10X reduction in cost of production, I think you'll make up a few hundred million well before the lifespan of the powerplant expires.

You may be interested in this summary of Fossil vs Nuclear cost studies, among others.

Regarding the cost of wind versus nuclear power (coincidentally, I was just reading NREL's annual report on wind energy the other day): While wind costs about $1.50/Watt (your number was right for 2005) to install, it has a much lower capacity factor; how much it generates on average divided by how much it could generate if it were possible to run at rated load 100% of the time.

The best wind farms have capacity factors around 0.35. US Nuclear plants have a capacity factor of 0.87 on average (1999 number...and remember this is from a previous generation of designs). So adjusting for the capacity factor in capital costs, that works out to be $4.30/Watt for wind and $2.50/Watt for the GE ABWR. Of course, wind has a bonus of extremely low operating costs, but it can not be adjusted to demand, which is one of the main factors that relegates it to a minor role in the US power portfolio. It doesn't matter how many windmills you have if the weather is calm.

I expect anyone with concerns about nuclear power will sensibly mention decommissioning costs. These are now factored into the project at the beginning, and the NRC requires utilities to report their decommissioning fund status. Typically it's equivalent to roughly $0.50/W of capacity (source). Also, all of the GE PBWR's that have been built have been on-budget and on-time, which was one of the reasons this design was chosen, so I wouldn't expect huge unplanned costs to start appearing.

Additionally, a 5 meter sea rise is at the silly extreme end of predictions. The IPCC's estimate (from your link) is half a meter for the century. Regardless, while this could cause operability concerns, I could hardly imagine it causing any added danger of radioactive release, and the sea level rise would be observable over a period of decades.

A last point I'd like to present is that roughly half of the US nuclear power plants, representing 10% of our nation's power production and 10 times our entire installed wind capacity, are scheduled to reach the end of their operating licenses over the next few years. They are going to need to be replaced somehow or another, in addition to meeting the growing demand. Currently most utilities are planning on doing this with coal.

If I'm understanding your post correctly, you have two main gripes here.

First, you think comparing deaths involved with the admittedly dangerous process of extracting and transporting coal to operating a power plant isn't fair? Why not, exactly? If you want to compare the two industries fairly, you would need to tally ALL accidents at all points in the fuel cycle, otherwise it isn't really fair.

Total deaths in the coal cycle (mining/transport/accidents/etc): 10,000-15,000/year
Total deaths involving nuclear power (transport/disposal/accidents/etc): less than 100 EVER, including TMI (zero injuries) and Chernobyl (56)

That doesn't even include the mentioned estimates for direct deaths from coal pollution (30,000-1,000,000/year).

How is that not fair, exactly?

The second point I think you're trying to make is that you've heard FUD about the nuclear power cycle having higher CO2 emissions. Well, that's just wrong. Do a quick google search and you'll see nothing but proof against that. For example:

http://www.uic.com.au/ComparativeCO2.htm

And they even have a nice graph if it's tl;dr:

http://www.uic.com.au/graphics/CO2.gif

You should note that nuclear even has lower emissions than solar, hydro, and wind power.

If I'm understanding your post correctly, you have two main gripes here.

First, you think comparing deaths involved with the admittedly dangerous process of extracting and transporting coal to operating a power plant isn't fair? Why not, exactly? If you want to compare the two industries fairly, you would need to tally ALL accidents at all points in the fuel cycle, otherwise it isn't really fair.

Total deaths in the coal cycle (mining/transport/accidents/etc): 10,000-15,000/year
Total deaths involving nuclear power (transport/disposal/accidents/etc): less than 100 EVER, including TMI (zero injuries) and Chernobyl (56)

That doesn't even include the mentioned estimates for direct deaths from coal pollution (30,000-1,000,000/year).

How is that not fair, exactly?

The second point I think you're trying to make is that you've heard FUD about the nuclear power cycle having higher CO2 emissions. Well, that's just wrong. Do a quick google search and you'll see nothing but proof against that. For example:

http://www.uic.com.au/ComparativeCO2.htm

And they even have a nice graph if it's tl;dr:

http://www.uic.com.au/graphics/CO2.gif

You should note that nuclear even has lower emissions than solar, hydro, and wind power.

for reference, i'm referring to the newer, more sleekly designed turbines than the older scaffold-looking eyesores (i'll agree with you there)

given an estimated total build cost of $1.60/watt, that's roughly equivalent to nuclear, but without all of the ongoing costs of large security forces, fuel cycles, decommissioning, and all of the nasty waste left over. let's not forget that uranium is getting more expensive and the spent fuel is piling up.

Now, i'm not anti-nuclear, in fact i think we should be building breeders as fast as wen can, but to discount wind, which is economically similar to nuclear in build cost per watt, is cheaper to maintain, and doesn't have a lot of the nasty side effects because of someone as subjective as "it's ugly".... seems silly to me>

how pretty are a bunch more nuclear reactors all over the place?

how much beautiful habitat will your kids miss out on because there's a power plant there?

how much land will be restricted from your babies eyes because of the countless acres around the waste storage facility that are cordoned off for national security?

wind turbines can be put right where power is needed if the location has a steady breeze, the're high enough off the ground that the land underneath is still usable for farming or.... whatever.

it's not nearly as ugly as it used to be, is it really worth discounting?

As for costs - you can't just conveniently ignore capital costs.

Who says that I'm ignoring them? Referenced site is for European power, and nuclear comes in cheaper at 23.7 E/MWh, vs 28.1 for coal. That's including capital costs, but not including CO2 tax, which raises coal to 44.3.

If you could hydro, wind, solar etc would win every time even in those places where it would be a stupid idea or where the capital costs are far too large for the return.

In the USA, hydro is considered 'overutilized' IE we can't install much more hydro power without negative ecological effects. Solar is orders of magnitude more expensive. A recent thread showed that they expected costs to be $300 million for a 40MW plant. Ten plants and you haven't even gotten half a GW, yet for the same capital you could have 3GW of nuclear plant going. Even wind has limited areas where it's truly usefull - You need a fairly strong and steady wind for it to work, and areas like that aren't everywhere. While you can ship power a long ways, you try to limit that.

Personally, I find the pebble bed to be missing a couple points - Personally, I want the fuel to be easy to recycle, or better yet burned more or less completely in the reactor, such as an IFR(yes, more research needed).

The mainstream is just chasing taxpayer supplied pork. If they were after more than a handout they would be putting in some effort - instead they spend orders of magnitaude in PR, advertising and outright bribes than R&D.

Hmmm.... Haven't seem much PR. Sure, there's a number of websites, but that's peanuts in comparison with nuclear research costs. On the other hand, at least in the USA they need the PR. NIMBY, nuke scares and outright stupidity* have stopped plant construction for years(well, high interest rates for a while helped). Today, they should be able to get lower interest rate loans, which makes the whole thing much more affordable.

As for the research, you do realize that we've managed to keep increasing the power produced by our reactors to the point it's been like building three new plants a decade?

and the "new generation" designs from companies like Westinghouse are just tweaked 1950s designs painted green.

In some ways that's like saying a Ford Focus is a Model-T painted green. The new generation designs, while still using the same basic technology, are far safer, more productive, and hopefully cheaper to build, since one of the 'safety' features was design simplification; fewer parts that can break.

*Why are we trying to build a million year shelter for stuff that's still 90+% fuel?

As for costs - you can't just conveniently ignore capital costs.

Who says that I'm ignoring them? Referenced site is for European power, and nuclear comes in cheaper at 23.7 E/MWh, vs 28.1 for coal. That's including capital costs, but not including CO2 tax, which raises coal to 44.3.

If you could hydro, wind, solar etc would win every time even in those places where it would be a stupid idea or where the capital costs are far too large for the return.

In the USA, hydro is considered 'overutilized' IE we can't install much more hydro power without negative ecological effects. Solar is orders of magnitude more expensive. A recent thread showed that they expected costs to be $300 million for a 40MW plant. Ten plants and you haven't even gotten half a GW, yet for the same capital you could have 3GW of nuclear plant going. Even wind has limited areas where it's truly usefull - You need a fairly strong and steady wind for it to work, and areas like that aren't everywhere. While you can ship power a long ways, you try to limit that.

Personally, I find the pebble bed to be missing a couple points - Personally, I want the fuel to be easy to recycle, or better yet burned more or less completely in the reactor, such as an IFR(yes, more research needed).

The mainstream is just chasing taxpayer supplied pork. If they were after more than a handout they would be putting in some effort - instead they spend orders of magnitaude in PR, advertising and outright bribes than R&D.

Hmmm.... Haven't seem much PR. Sure, there's a number of websites, but that's peanuts in comparison with nuclear research costs. On the other hand, at least in the USA they need the PR. NIMBY, nuke scares and outright stupidity* have stopped plant construction for years(well, high interest rates for a while helped). Today, they should be able to get lower interest rate loans, which makes the whole thing much more affordable.

As for the research, you do realize that we've managed to keep increasing the power produced by our reactors to the point it's been like building three new plants a decade?

and the "new generation" designs from companies like Westinghouse are just tweaked 1950s designs painted green.

In some ways that's like saying a Ford Focus is a Model-T painted green. The new generation designs, while still using the same basic technology, are far safer, more productive, and hopefully cheaper to build, since one of the 'safety' features was design simplification; fewer parts that can break.

*Why are we trying to build a million year shelter for stuff that's still 90+% fuel?

Why isn't the electric utility installing large solar panels to generate electricity during peak hours? Because that takes more money than burning fossil fuels in power plants?

Exactly. Burning fossil fuels in power plants is an extremely cheap method of power. It can generate power at a cost of ~4cents/kwh. Nuclear is something like 3.9 average. This includes production and capital costs, from the chart on this page(scroll down), actual production costs are only ~2 cents, with nuclear edging below coal in 2000.

What kills solar is the install cost. There was an article about a canadian plant on slasdot recently, they were expecting it to cost $300 million for 40MW. Now, $300 million at 5% interest is 15 million a year. That's capital cost. I estimate that it'd produce 140 million kwh* a year. That's 10.7 cents per kwh for the capital costs alone, this does not include any plant costs.

10.7 cents vs. 4 cents? Tough sell

They could get creative e.g. leasing rooftop space from homeowners.

That would be a huge hassle, as they'd then be liable for everybody's roofs whenever a good storm comes through, as well as having to worry about climbing on 10k roofs to make repairs. It ends up being cheaper to buy property out somewhere and building a massive plant. Building owners can make it pay for such small installs because they're paying retail for electricity, not wholesale. Personally, I'd be installing a solar water heating system, preferably capable of heating the house as well. That's currently far more economical. Doesn't take much roof space either. If solar panels were a tenth of their current cost, it'd make far more sense.

*40MW plant, 40% load factor

Not sure about GP's claim of 3000% but the general idea is correct. Electricity from oil does cost much more than nuclear.

See for example http://www.uic.com.au/nip08.htm where US costs per kWh are stated as 8 cents for oil and 2 cents for nuclear. For a country that can purify their own uranium, the costs would be 0.2 cents per kWh (US currently does not operate any centrifuges, just a single antiquated, underpowered and highly inefficient diffusion facility; we have to pay high import costs for our uranium fuel, hence the 2 cents quote, which is still cheaper than coal at 4 cents)

Currently, Iran is operating at their maximum extraction capacity, which means that they have to chose between exporting their oil, or burning it up, losing $50/bl. The costs of building fossil- or nuclear-stoked plants is about the same (actually less for nuclear). Also, Iran has massive uranium ore deposits that are essentially free for the taking, so it's a no-brainer that they want to invest into nuclear.

Hence on their face value, Iranian claims of wanting nuclear technology for power production are credible.

Of course, a nuclear reactor has multiple other benefits, such as stimulating research, producing radioactive isotopes, and even allowing for development of dual-use technology (nuclear weapons).

Nuclear power is around 2 cents/kwh at wholesale.

US nuclear reactors average something around 98-99%

As for the waste - build breeder and integral fast reactors. They're more expensive to build, but cheaper to run, as their fuel can be all the 'waste' fuel rods sitting around. Eliminate two birds with one stone.

http://www.uic.com.au/nip75.htm

estimates 70 years based on the resources that we know of, noting that, unlike with oil, we haven't been looking for Uranium for most of the last 25 years.

Hell, it's my understanding that a lot of the Uranium being used, currently, is coming from dismantled WMDs.

Other estimates I'm finding have the supply on the order of 200 years. /shrug. No one really knows how much Uranium is out there, we simply stopped looking because we have enough either on hand, or easily available, literally for a lifetime.

Obviously, that will change, but Uranium (and it's cousin Thorium) aren't exactly hard to come by.

Actually it is likely to be Australia. Until relatively recently Uranium mining in Australia has tended to be unpopular, so there is a lot of it there.

Your advice to buy mining stocks is warranted: demand for Au and U are increasing much faster than supply, pressing the need for more agressive exploration and exploitation of lower grade deposits. However, your justification for buying U/Au company stocks is not. There are really only two types of U deposits worth mentioning that also are associated with gold: the quartz-pebble conglomerates of the Witwatersrand Basin, South Africa and the Olympic Dam deposit in Australia.

The U in the Witwatersrand is mined as a byproduct of Au mining. The Witswatersrand Basin is, by far, the highest gold producing region in the world, and if you move enough rock, pretty much anything can be recovered economically. The sedimentary rocks that host the placer gold were deposited >2 billion years ago, before the atmosphere was oxidizing. Uranium is very soluble under oxidizing conditions. Consequently, U minerals were stable at the earth's surface >2 billion years ago, and some grains of U minerals are found in the conglomerates in the Wits.

The Olympic Dam deposit is somewhat of a freek of nature. Geologists still aren't quite sure what to make of it; it doesn't fall nicely into any ore deposit category. Economically recoverable elements include Au, Ag, Cu, and U. Rare Earth Elements (lanthanides) are present in high concentrations (~0.5%), but they are not favorable for economic extraction.

Most U comes from unconformity-hosted deposits in Canada and Australia. Most of the US's U is found in sandstone-hosted uranium deposits on the Colorado plateau. These are much lower grade (by about an order of magnitude) than the unconformity-type deposits, but are becoming econmoical again, owing to the high prices mentioned in the article.

See here for more information.

Hmmm, you got to wonder if that's a fortuitous coincidence or if that amazing ability to survive was spurred by something in their environment. Now that I think of it, any organism that can exist in an indefinite "cryptobiosis" state (ie, when all metabolic processes stop for a possibly long period of time) would do better if it had some of the above properties. In particular, the ability to survive extreme genetic damage is necessary IMHO. Suppose humans had similar abilities. If I entered cryptobiosis say in an "average" North American location, I'd receive a whole body dose of perhaps 3 millisievert per year (maybe much less since I'm no longer breathing carbon 14 and radon). Since I'm in cryptobiosis, I have no ability to repair radiation damage, it's like I experience this huge pulse of radiation damage.

Hmm, well, I guess you're right. As for your initial question, yes, France's energy is 78% nuclear. As a matter, their the world's largest net exporter of electricity(one of their biggest clients being London). Even then, I think they'd have to increase their nuclear power output drastically in order to have all or most of their cars being electric, never mind all the other obstacles to doing such a thing. Not that would disagree with such a thing, but its no small task.

I think you may be confused with the % of power generation in New Zealand that comes from /all/ renewable resources. I've been struggling to find a first-hand authoritative reference (someone else may be able to help here), but this page gives the split as approximately 60% hydro, 25% gas, 7.5% coal, 7% geothermal & 2% wind, which is more in line with my recollection.

This url: http://www.uic.com.au/nip58.htm points shows a list of new nuclear plants being built in the US. Most of the building is happening in the Southeast. Nothing in CA.

Most night scopes are just IR LEDs coupled with a high-sensitivity CCD with significant gain feeding an LCD panel.

Glow-in-the-dark keychains are just phosphorus.

AFAIK, that has been illegal to sell for many, many years.

A level gauge (assuming you mean a bubble level) is just an air bubble in a liquid, which is usually colored ethanol (alcohol).

Ironic as Australia is swimming in Uranium, with the largest reserves in the world.

Funny how we'd go from digging up one type of fossil fuel (coal - remenents of old biological matter) to another (uranium - remenents of exceedingly old supernovae).

The icebreaker Lenin was the world's first nuclear-powered surface vessel (20,000 dwt) and remained in service for 30 years, though new reactors were fitted in 1970. It led to a series of larger icebreakers, the six 23,500 dwt Arktika-class, launched from 1975. These powerful vessels have two reactors delivering 56 MW at the propellers and are used in deep Arctic waters. The Arktika was the first surface vessel to reach the North Pole, in 1977.

(see http://www.uic.com.au/nip32.htm)

let's see... 56 MW on an icebreaker, vs. 60 MW for these floating platforms. Doesn't seem like much difference to me. BTW, nuclear subs have MORE powerful reactors. And FWIW, 60 MW is less than 10% the power of a modern domestic nuclear power plant reactor, so this is not a "full scale reactor", and could not supply a whole city unless that city were some sort of extremely remote northern settlement (perhaps with a population comparable to the crew of a military submarine...)

Ok. For the year 2006, the total amount of Uranium required by all world nuclear power reactors combined will be about 65,000 tons, assuming a density of 19.1 g.cm^-3, this is equivalent to a cubic container measuring 40 feet x 40 feet x 40 feet (40 feet =~ 15 meters). Of course Uranium waste is never stored like that in huge containers but even assuming it is stored while filling only 10% of the raw volume of a container, it is still much better than releasing millions of tons of polluting gases in the atmosphere, better than polluting rivers and seas, etc.

Until something replaces Coal power plants as the main method of generating electricity

Has already happened in my home country, which generates 79% of its energy in nuclear power plants. Now can I get my electric car ? ;-)

Solar could provide much more energy then was actualy needed

Using http://www.greenandgoldenergy.com.au/images/Direct BeamAustraliaandNewZealand.GIF (5kWh/m2/day = 1825 kWh/m2/year

From http://uic.com.au/nip37.htm (In 2003-04 Australia's power stations produced 237 billion kilowatt hours)

237,000,000,000 / 1,825 = 129.86 km2 (1,000,000 m2 in 1 km2)

assuming 10% efficency =1298.63 km2

20-21 km wide circle , .0169 % total area of australia

assuming 100% efficency =129.86 km2

6-7 km wide circle , .00169 % total area of australia

Using projected (http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/world.html) worldwide energy (all include electricity and ransport) use in 2015 is 162,068,301,805,239 kilowatt hours (per year)

690 times the energy

10% efficency = 11.660% the area of australia , 896,054.70km2 , 534km - 535km circle
100% efficency = 1.166% the area of australia , 89,605.47km2 , 168km - 169km circle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Solar_land_area .png

Or are are you talking about a diffrent problem then land area?

What the article neglects is that fuel cost is an almost insignificant problem for nuclear power generation. Most of the cost is in building the actual power plant and the concrete containment building. It takes years before a reactor is finished and generating power. This also means the cost of nuclear power is very sensitive to construction delays, or loan rates. When you see environmentalists mention CO2 generation from nuclear reactors, they usually are accounting for the CO2 emmitted by the concrete (any concrete will emit CO2... perhaps by that measure we should chop down all the forests and go back to using plain wood for building construction).

Some new 3rd generation designs are supposedly faster and hence cheap to build because they use less parts. On one note, the Koreans actually manage to build their nuclear reactors much faster than the USA using the same technology and I have not heard of accidents yet, so perhaps the delays are due to socio-political problems. Dunno.

It's been around for over 20 years. What's new is that the Aussies appear to be commercialising it.

Another story is how safe is living in the zone right now. And based on the natural level of radiation around the world, it is safe. Or put in another way, there are places around the world that are much more "contaminated" by natural radiation and no journalists care. Apart from Ramsar which bears the world record in natural radiation there are large areas with elevated background radiation larger than the Chernobyl zone. And "people living in these HBRAs [high background radiation areas] do not appear to suffer any adverse health effects as a result of their high exposures to radiation".

Canada is the current largest producer at ... hmm ... 30%. 8-)

It is known (although ignored in strict radiation regulations) that the same dose received in short time is much more harmful than the dose received during longer times. It is probably because the cells have repair mechanism that can cope with small damage over long time while cannot efectively repair large damage in short time. There are even indications that small doses can be beneficial by "training" the repair mechanism.

Its amazing what you can find with google. I'm using this as a reference: http://www.uic.com.au/nip75.htm. 3.5 million tons known reserves, will last about 50 years. Estimated reserves (in addition to known): 9.7 million tons. Phosophate extraction: 22 million tons, seawater extraction: 4 BILLION tons. So fuel will not be a problem.

Its been a few years, but I think that Pu239 is the only isotope that is useful in a bomb. Everything else takes away. If anyone can confirm or deny this I'd appreciate it.

I like fusion, but after 50 years it seems like a Don Quiote type quest. Frankly, I hope we get it some year. With lots of energy we can start doing fun stuff like breaking down garbage into individual atoms and start doing recycling on a tremendous scale.

http://www.uic.com.au/nip07.htm

Today, only eight countries are known to have a nuclear weapons capability. By contrast, 56 operate civil research reactors, and 30 have some 440 commercial nuclear power reactors with a total installed capacity of over 360 000 MWe (see table)

Article defines civil research reactors as "a source of neutron beams for scientific research and the production of medical and industrial isotopes."

Ah ha. This is the kind of report I was looking for:

http://www.uic.com.au/nip100.htm

Old post of mine:

'uranium reserves' only includes discovered resources: The more good locations we discover, the more our reserves increase.

From http://www.uic.com.au/nip75.htm [uic.com.au] Current usage is about 68,000 tU/yr. Thus the world's present measured resources of uranium in the lower cost category (3.5 Mt) and used only in conventional reactors, are enough to last for some 50 years. This represents a higher level of assured resources than is normal for most minerals. Further exploration and higher prices will certainly, on the basis of present geological knowledge, yield further resources as present ones are used up. There was very little uranium exploration between 1985 and 2005, so a significant increase in exploration effort could readily double the known economic resources, and a doubling of price from present levels could be expected to create about a tenfold increase in measured resources, over time.

From http://www.magma.ca/~jalrober/Chapter14c.htm [magma.ca] Large amounts of uranium exist: it is about as abundant as tin. At the current rate of consumption (35,000 tonnes per year) and prices, known uranium resources of four million tonnes represent about 65 years consumption at current rates, comparable with about 42 years for oil and 62 years for natural gas.

I read a lot of estimates of the 'true' amount of uranium, so I'm not sure anyone really knows. Most estimates are around a couple hundred years (more than fossil fuel, but still not a long term solution)

If you want to see why graphite in a reactor isn't the best of ideas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windscale_fire or http://www.uic.com.au/Chernosequence.htm.
Sure, it makes a nice moderator, runs at a high temp without loss of structure, but when it goes up in flame, it burn hot. And long. The Chernobyl graphite fires took *days* to put out. To me, a fire in a reactor that melts things constitutes a meltdown. Sure, with pebble-bed it's harder than, say, the RBMK designs, but it's still possible. I'll deal with high-pressure steam before I'd like to deal with flaming graphite.

Before someone says it, the Graphite Reactor at ORNL was operated completely safely, but that was never used for power generation, and was tended to by some of the best and brightest of the time.

Coal power is still dirtier by pretty much any metric but waste toxicity by density. And that simply means that it's easy to contain nuclear waste.

but then wikipedia gets stupid: if it's released, it's not nuclear waste. The proper claim is that, while operating as designed

Ah, it's not waste, it's POLLUTION. Nuclear power plant waste isn't pollution because it's not released into the enviroment. Coal pollutes, because it releases a good portion of it's waste products into the atmosphere, including hazardous ones.

Here's the deal: You take the 24 tons of nuclear waste produced by a nuclear plant, grind it up, and mix it with 200,000 tons of something more or less inert, like sand.

Now compare it with the 200,000 tons of fly ash contaminated with such things as toxic metals, including arsenic, cadmium and mercury, organic carcinogens and mutagens (substances that can cause cancer and genetic changes) as well as naturally-occurring radioactive substances.

Which is more dangerous at that point?

There's no need for the whole decommisioning process with lots of radioactive material

How often have we extended the life of current nuclear reactors? Most of them seem to have a longer actual service life than their rated 20-40 years. Think of it like a driver's license. They operate for that long, then are re-examined before an extension is granted. Besides, it's just an additional expense. It's not like coal mining that both destroys the enviroment, pollutes, and costs hundreds of miners their lives each year.

Large numbers of windmills in the sparsely populated Midwest could produce a good portion of our power needs, and are nearing cost-effectiveness

I'll tell you what, we get some new nuclear plants up, multiples of the same type so we can get some economy of scale going, and we'll see how competitive windpower, and solar for that matter, is.

Oh, and Lincoln, NE's power company, right in the middle of the Midwest, decided to stop expanding wind power, because their mills were only producing usable electricity about 25% of the time. So it's not like it was saving them generation capacity.

As for Yucca Mountain, that's what you get when you let the government mess with the economy. They're horrible at it. Let the power companies figure something out. For that matter, let them reprocess the stuff.

It's for a simple reason. It's a low grade source. It's not economically feasable to do it. We're better off mining uranium out of high grade mines, at least currently.

I was talking in a sense of 'we magically pull all the uranium out of the coal/ash without significant effort or cost'. It's like pointing out that there's more gold dissolved in ocean water than all the gold mines combined. Why aren't we mining the ocean? Not worth it, it's too dispersed.

It's all a matter of scale. Good quality Black Coal is 24-30 MJ/kg, Uranium is 500,000 MJ/kg in a light water reactor. That's better than 16,000 times the energy density, best case scenario. That's 16 kilotons of coal burned for every ton of uranium.

A 1 thousand megawatt station will burn 3.1 million tons of black coal, versus 24 tons of uranium. For that matter, some 97% of the nuclear 'waste' is recyclable.

Meanwhile:

The 1,000 MWe coal-fired power station produces about 7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year, plus perhaps 200,000 tonnes of sulfur dioxide which in many cases remains a major source of atmospheric pollution. Other waste products from the burning of coal include large quantities of fly ash (typically 200,000 tonnes per year), containing toxic metals, including arsenic, cadmium and mercury, organic carcinogens and mutagens (substances that can cause cancer and genetic changes) as well as naturally-occurring radioactive substances.

It would take more energy than your reactors were producing to run the vast desalinisation plants needed to get the salts out of the sea water. And it would still be needle in a haystack time getting the uranium atoms out of the huge pile of salt. And I bet the "3.3 parts per billion" is by mass so in terms of particles, which is what matters when you are trying to separate it, it is over a magnitude lower than that already tiny number. If we could magically extract uranium from sea water in violation of the second law of thermodynamics we wouldn't need nuclear reactors or any other energy source in the first place.

The facts are that uranium mine production peaked in the early eighties and while demand from reactors continues to grow and prices are rising steeply most uranium used in reactors comes from stockpiles built up during the cold war, which are now being steadily depleted.

Here's a good reference. http://www.uic.com.au/opinion6.html