Slashdot Mirror

Yeah, extreme accidents like the 56 deaths from Chernobyl totally outweigh non-nuclear events such as the Bhopal chemical spill which killed a mere 3,800 people. Heck, it outweighs the average US death rate from coal mining of 45 a year.

In order to have a chernobyl style event in a modern, properly designed reactor*, more than 12 major systems have to simultaneously fail. Heck, 3MI, which was built before Chernobyl, was a better design.

*Chernobyl was more flawed than the Galaxy class's warp core ;)

I couldn't agree more.

Sydney, Australia is currently powered by several large coal plants. In fact 78% of the power generated in Australia is from coal. Every year we spread a ridiculous quantity of carbon dioxide and other emissions in to the atmosphere.

Australia has no nuclear power plants. None at all.

To makes things even more ridiculous, Australia even mines uranium!

The main concern anywhere about nuclear power stations is the chance of a catastrophe. People point at Chernobyl and say "We can't have one of THOSE near us!". This is obviously garbage, it's well documented how safe a modern nuclear plant can be and how badly you need to stuff up to end up with an event like the one at Chernobyl.

What's more - Australia has a LOT of empty space. While building a plant in the middle of the outback wouldn't make a great deal of sense (hard to maintain, expensive to carry the power so far to the city etc), we could certainly find a balance point between distance and cost if it really worries people (personally, I wouldn't care if it was in the next suburb over from me).

There has been some thought of getting nuclear power in Australia, however as yet, the protests of an uninformed public have stopped any serious efforts.

I couldn't agree more.

Sydney, Australia is currently powered by several large coal plants. In fact 78% of the power generated in Australia is from coal. Every year we spread a ridiculous quantity of carbon dioxide and other emissions in to the atmosphere.

Australia has no nuclear power plants. None at all.

To makes things even more ridiculous, Australia even mines uranium!

The main concern anywhere about nuclear power stations is the chance of a catastrophe. People point at Chernobyl and say "We can't have one of THOSE near us!". This is obviously garbage, it's well documented how safe a modern nuclear plant can be and how badly you need to stuff up to end up with an event like the one at Chernobyl.

What's more - Australia has a LOT of empty space. While building a plant in the middle of the outback wouldn't make a great deal of sense (hard to maintain, expensive to carry the power so far to the city etc), we could certainly find a balance point between distance and cost if it really worries people (personally, I wouldn't care if it was in the next suburb over from me).

There has been some thought of getting nuclear power in Australia, however as yet, the protests of an uninformed public have stopped any serious efforts.

I couldn't agree more.

Sydney, Australia is currently powered by several large coal plants. In fact 78% of the power generated in Australia is from coal. Every year we spread a ridiculous quantity of carbon dioxide and other emissions in to the atmosphere.

Australia has no nuclear power plants. None at all.

To makes things even more ridiculous, Australia even mines uranium!

The main concern anywhere about nuclear power stations is the chance of a catastrophe. People point at Chernobyl and say "We can't have one of THOSE near us!". This is obviously garbage, it's well documented how safe a modern nuclear plant can be and how badly you need to stuff up to end up with an event like the one at Chernobyl.

What's more - Australia has a LOT of empty space. While building a plant in the middle of the outback wouldn't make a great deal of sense (hard to maintain, expensive to carry the power so far to the city etc), we could certainly find a balance point between distance and cost if it really worries people (personally, I wouldn't care if it was in the next suburb over from me).

There has been some thought of getting nuclear power in Australia, however as yet, the protests of an uninformed public have stopped any serious efforts.

I couldn't agree more.

Sydney, Australia is currently powered by several large coal plants. In fact 78% of the power generated in Australia is from coal. Every year we spread a ridiculous quantity of carbon dioxide and other emissions in to the atmosphere.

Australia has no nuclear power plants. None at all.

To makes things even more ridiculous, Australia even mines uranium!

The main concern anywhere about nuclear power stations is the chance of a catastrophe. People point at Chernobyl and say "We can't have one of THOSE near us!". This is obviously garbage, it's well documented how safe a modern nuclear plant can be and how badly you need to stuff up to end up with an event like the one at Chernobyl.

What's more - Australia has a LOT of empty space. While building a plant in the middle of the outback wouldn't make a great deal of sense (hard to maintain, expensive to carry the power so far to the city etc), we could certainly find a balance point between distance and cost if it really worries people (personally, I wouldn't care if it was in the next suburb over from me).

There has been some thought of getting nuclear power in Australia, however as yet, the protests of an uninformed public have stopped any serious efforts.

France missed by far the Kyoto objectives...

Kyoto mandates a reduction of CO2 emissions below the level of 1990. In 1990 the French nukes were already operating for more than a decade. How could they further reduce emissions when their effect is included in the baseline?

crap ("nuke is the solution for greenhouse gas reduction")

What's wrong here? Could you be missing the difference between "reduction" and "elimination"? Would you care to explain how a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is a bad thing or how nuke plants emit greenhouse gases anyway?

"the Chernobyl disaster killed 4000 persons"

Well, no. Chernobyl killed 31 people directly, then another ~20 through thyroid cancer, with some more to come, maybe around 80 in total. Another 4000 are estimated to die from cancer. This is a conservative estimate, an upper bound, and these 4000 people are not dead yet, they are rather expected to live another 20 years or more. (http://www.uic.com.au/nip22.htm)

If you have different numbers, please quote a source. I'm genuinely interested.

The world has looked for uranium much harder than they have looked for any other naturally occurring substance.

Uranium is the most strategically important resource on this planet--far more important than oil or any precious metal. Governments directly fund exploration for it, and reward those who find it richly. As a result, uranium is a far more economically lucrative resource than oil (per unit) and has been for over 50 years. And unlike oil, it announces its presence...anyone can look for it with a cheap geiger counter.

Uranium has been looked for as hard as, if not harder, than oil. The problem is simply that there is just not very much of it in concentrations great enough to extract.

That is incorrect. In fact, many uranium mines have been closed in the US because there is a huge glut of uranium, and the price is just too low to make it worth extracting. In the 1970s, uranium cost over $40/lb. (not adjusted for inflation) [link] In 2001, it dipped down to $7/lb, and it's still a bit under $40/lb today, in today's dollars. [link]

So uranium is a more expensive by weight than lead or copper, but it is much cheaper than silver or gold.

It is true that uranium is strategically important. But this is not due to its rarity. It is because enriched uranium can be used to make nuclear weapons. It's still pretty easy to get uranium ore anyway. Enriching it enough to use in a weapon is a lot harder.

Humans currently use 321 TWH/day. Solar insolation at the equator is about 425 w/m^2. So 321,000,000,000,000 WH / 12H (sunlight per day at equator) and further / 425 W = 6.3 × 10E10 m^2 required for all human power needs, if located near the equator, and 100% efficiency.

Assuming 50% efficiency conversion gives 1.5 10E11 m^2 required, which would be a square 355 km (220 miles) on a side. This is about the distance between Washington, DC, and New York, NY.

So we need a photovoltaic array about the size of Pennsylvania (174 x 309 miles) at the Equator to produce 314 TWH/day.

Do you think that may have other environmental effects?

On the other hand, nuclear power reactors generally produce around 1 GW of electricity, so it would take 13,000 reactors to provide all human power. There currently are 441 producing 381 GW altogether (about 9 TWH if we assume they run 24 hours which most do while up).

Since the Earth's land area is 148 million km^2 / 13,000 = you can have 11,000 km^2 around each nuclear power plant, or one every 114 km or so. Or to make life easier, you can have more reactors per plant, there is no big reason why you couldn't have 10 per site and have only 1,300 installations (cooling is the only limitation, air cooling is possible but water cooling is cheaper and easier to build).

Current photovoltaic production is about 180 MW peak, keeping in mind that is probably around 1 GWH/day given average day length. That number is way up in the last few years, it was about half that in 2000. I imagine there is probably ~10 GWH/day being produced by solar now, compared to 9 TWH/day of nuclear, a factor of about around one thousand.

1) It's not cost efficient, even when compared to wind.
Wind and other renewables have recieved extensive subsidies that lower the price per kilowatt hour. Morover, wind is only cost effective at sites with semi-reliable medium-speed winds - and, as demand for wind power increases, the best available sites are used up and wind operators must use less coss-effective sites. Moreover, wind power sites are often not convenient to where power is needed - meaning greater losses in power transmission when compared to more mobile energy sources.

Nuclear power is similar in cost to coal power; this has been established from a 35+ year history of extensive production in the US. Nuclear provides more than 20% of our power already in the US, second only to coal.

2) It's dangerous. (That's a really good article, by the way. It should be required reading for anyone commenting on this Slashdot story.)

Dangerous compared to what? With all the "near misses" and accidents, nuclear power has resulted in fewer fatalities per kilowatt-hour than coal, hydro, or natural gas.

Describing nuclear power as dangerous is like describing air travel as dangerous - while accidents are absolutely possible and have certainly happened (and will likely continue to happen), serious accidents are infrequent enough in occurence that the technology, overall, is extremely safe. Nuclear power simply has not killed very many people in its 52-year history.

I think people are incredibly short sighted. I used to be pro-nuclear power until I realised something very fundabmental. How much does nuclear power cost when you factor in the full decommissioning of the power plant? Is it then economical? My conclusion was that it is not competitive. When I realised that I sold my uranium mine shares (no joke).

Nuclear combined with synroc has a future if it is economical, I just don't think it is economical at all.

In addition to what you said, it's also my understanding that '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
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
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.

Iv'e seen 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)

A little known fact is that it takes more energy to manufacture a turbine...

It's little-known because it's NOT a fact. Got a source? Here's what you're looking for. For every $1 you spend building and installing a wind turbine, you'll get $6-$80 worth of energy out of it over a lifetime. Compare that to $7-$29 for coal, $11-$60 for nuclear, and, contrary to popular myth, $4-$12 for solar. Then there's the fact that the Dutch found it economical to build turbines for centuries, long before the massive increases in efficiency we've seen in the past 20 years. Also, have a look at the graph on page 18 of the August, 2005 issue of National Geographic...

The cost estimate from the article is Very Bad. According to http://www10.antenna.nl/wise/index.html?http://www 10.antenna.nl/wise/456/4525.html

and http://www.uic.com.au/wns0729.htm

and as another poster mentioned,
http://eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/nuc_reactors /superla.html

the cost is around $200M (not including estimation errors, mismanagement costs and other overheads).

Editors should check some of the fantastic claims.

-

Would you like a Honda Accord for $1.95?

http://www.uic.com.au/wns0729.htm>

To be made in China.? Why not in Russa?

Umm, I had a bit of trouble trying to get your numbers to work. In particular 17.6kiloton/kg. I assumed you meant 17.6kJ/kilogram, but it looks like you mean kiloton of TNT. Even using 4.18E12 J/kiloton of TNT I still can't get the numbers to work quite correctly.

Anyway, I think the conversion factor your looking for is probably far more like 37kJ/kg based on figures in
http://www.uic.com.au/ueg.htm

do you have sources for the other figures (US coal usage, and ppm of uranium)?

The fears over Three Mile Island may be ignorance and yes it that didn't hurt anybody however it was not a minor incident and the consequences could have been disasterous. The core of the reactor was seriously damaged after being briefly exposed and the confinanment building was seriously contaminiated. "The cleanup of the damaged nuclear reactor system at TMI-2 took nearly 12 years and cost approximately $973 million." It was a relatively minor malfunction that caused the accident!! Have a gander at this link. http://www.uic.com.au/nip48.htm

Yeah. Because everyone wants a nuclear reactor that combines the wonderful properties of graphite (see "The graphite fire" subsection) as a moderator, with water (graphite generates explosive hydrogen with high temperature steam) often in the primary or secondary cooling loop (helium is the primary coolant), with safety features such as no containment structure (this list is just a start - there's many times more that didn't make the list)

Yes, PBMRs have a negative void coefficient (reaction slows as temperature increases); big deal, so does almost every reactor build in the west in the past three decades. Yes, helium is the primary coolant; that doesn't help when there's a jam or corrosion that leads to a rupture, in which case water and/or air enters the chamber (a much hotter chamber than PWRs) - and yes, this has already happened. Containment structures have saved our collective arses from the unexpected too many times to be omitted.

PBMR proponents talk about safety, but they're really about reactor cost. They're hardly the only innovative reactor design out there, but they're apparently the only one that your average slashdotter knows about. There are thorium breeders, reactors that run on unenriched fuel, and designs like my favorite, BREST - a lead-bismuth breeder which can cool itself with natural convection, uses the ground as shielding, has the fuel naturally encased in lead, and unlike most breeders, uses no liquid sodium.

As an aside, we really should move to safe breeder designs, either thorium or uranium based.
U-235 is only 0.7% of natural uranium, and natural uranium isn't incredibly plentiful in deposits concentrated enough to justify mining (I read once that known deposits would supply the world at current power consumption for only a few hundred years). It's a shame that most U-238 goes to waste (yes, some is used in things like armor, bullets, and weights, but we produce far more of it than is used for such tasks)

Two words: "thorium", and "breeders"

So what you're saying that after the "breeders" are through for the night, they're all "thorium"?

Anyway, there's more info on Thorium as a nuclear fuel here and here. Overall, it looks like the thorium fuel cycle has lots of potential (there's three times as much thorium in the ground as there is uranium), but the work to make a functional commercial reactor based on thorium has never been done.

People don't like nuclear power because of incidents like three mile island and Chernobly ,yet more damage is done each year by the cumulitive effects of coal/gas and oil plants.

I read somewhere that more people die in coal mines in russia every year than the total death toll (including long term cancer deaths) from chernobyl. And chernobyl was a crappy design that would not be allowed in the US. Cancer death estimates vary considerably, however. Additional eurasian cancer deaths would have to be compared to polution related deaths from power plants (which kills thousands every year). Directly attributable deaths for nuclear power, per terawatt years of power generated are 8 for nuclear power, 85 for natural gas, 342 for coal, and 883 for hydroelectric (dam's break). Add some cancer deaths for nuclear and pollution related deaths from fossil fuels. And add global warming related deaths to fossil fuels. Commercial power plants have 11000 reactor years of operation in over 30 countries with two major accidents. That is about one accident per 100 power plants over the projected life of the reactor and future accidents are likely to resemble three mile island rather than chernobyl. And coal plants release more radiation into the atmosphere than nuclear plants (yep, coal contains radioactive material).

Average radiation exposure to 2 million people around three mile island was 1mrem compared to 6mrem for a set of chest xrays. Exposure at the plant boundary was 100mrem which is less than the annual background exposure. So, even if you were standing near the plant, your total lifetime radiation exposure was increased by about 1.2%.

Studies indicate that US Nuclear reactors will survive a direct hit from a 767.

Nuclear waste disposal is an issue. Integral Fast Reactors have the potential to reduce the magnitude of this problem considerably.

About a year ago, James Lovelock, of Gaia fame, proposed nuclear power as the only alternative that could stem global warming in time

There is one new technology that is more suited for oil replacement and could be a decent alternative to nuclear as a fossil fuel replacement: Thermal Depolymerization . That is a new technology but a pilot plant is producing 400 barrels of oil per day. When run off of plant (or even animal) material, the net greenhouse emissions are zero and the process consumes waste (and a wider variety of waste than other technologies) rather than creating it.

I live about 30 miles from two nuclear power plants (and the site of what might be the first new power plant built in the US) and less than half a mile from a research reactor.

SYNROC was developed at the ANU in Canberra. I work there at the moment and have heard various tales about it's acceptance (or lack of) by the American government/economy. The story goes both ways, either the American's are stupid or the Aussies attempted to charge too much for the technology.

Anyone wanting to participate in reasonable discussions with anyone about the safety of nuclear energy *must* read about SYNROC and understand how it works. It would effectively _solve_ the nuclear waste "problem" for good. Exciting stuff!

http://www.uic.com.au/nip21.htm

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf58.htm

http://www.ansto.gov.au/info/press/pr9.html

I believe the material in smoke detectors is usually Americium. Some links:

http://www.uic.com.au/nip35.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americium

I don't know where you got your numbers, but this site

places total deaths at 41.

I'm sorry that your country is unable to build nuclear power plants, as they are very expensive. However, you have some of your facts wrong.

The US doesn't want Iran to have nuclear materials because they might build bombs with the material.

The main reason nuclear power plants have not been built is because of mass hysteria from the accident at the poorly designed Three Mile Island plant. PBS did a wonderful one-hour special on this accident. You can see info at their website. Also, the accident at the poorly operated Chernobyl plant didn't help things. Nuclear power plants take much care to operate correctly, but are much more enviromentally friendly than coal, oil, and gas.

The last constrution of a nuclear power plant in the US was completed in 1996. See US Dept. of Energy

Wind, waves, and solar are very expensive. Solar and wind power is more than $80/MWh compared with the average coal cost of $16/MWh (in US); this is not a good deal. A quick search on google for wind and solar costs will show you. Here is an example.

I know because of experience in the energy business that nuclear power is usually cheaper than power generated from other fuels, but this article has some good facts about that.

Yes, the USSR has many nuclear reactors (probably poorly maintained), but even without the USSR, there would be plenty more nuclear power plants in Europe than in the US. See this Dept. of Energy article.

According to the oft quoted ORNL report, there is 0.00427 millicuries/ton of coal, and each ton releases 6150 kilowatt-hours(kWh)/ton. This is therefore 6.9431e-7 mCi/kWh. The DOE's Energy Information Agency gives the world total of energy production for 2002 as 4.0512e17 BTU or 1.18699e14 kWh. Since only 9.756e16 BTU or 24.08% of the world energy production is coal for 2002, we can come to a total of 19.85 MCi/yr. Some estimates for Chernobyl put the radiation released at 1.2e19 Bq or 320 MCi. It would take coal plants at the 2002 rate of production 16 years to equal the release from Chernobyl. On the 26th of April, it will be the 19th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident! Is it really that intelligent to put the noose around the neck of our nuclear industry because a near bankrupt Cold War enemy with a poorly designed reactor had an accident that almost certainly could not happen with US reactors?

According to the Uranium Institute, known resources of economically recoverable U-235 are "enough to last for some 50 years" at today's rate of consumption. If prices go up significantly, we could mine other sources, but even so, "all conventional resources are considered - 14.4 million tonnes, ... is over 200 years' supply at today's rate of consumption"

Today, fission supplies 16% of the world's electricity. If we converted the world to using nuclear power for all our electricity, we would use up the uranium six times faster, so all known supplies would last somewhere around 35 years.

To go beyond this, we would need to resort to more exotic technology, such as breeder reactors or extracting uranium from seawater and phosphate deposits.

"yes the capital cost is very high, but the fuel is virtaully free"
The reason that Nuclear plants are so expensive to build is that the government often forced construction to be halted on nothing more than a letter complaining "something could happen", until a study could be done disproving the letter, just in time for the next letter to show up.

it is the most complicated steam engine on earth
Actually, they're not all that complicated in the newer designs. That's why, after I've shut down the coal plants, I'd be looking at updating/replacing the aging light water reactors.

All of those rare earth materials used in nuclear power compents are not common and cost money.
Sure, Uranium's expensive. But you don't need much of it. It's got something like 20,000 times the power density of coal. Even more if you take steps to 'burn' it better.

Wind generators in comparison are incredibly simple. Hydro is incredibly simple.
But they're also relatively low-density. You need a lot of wind generators to equal a full size nuke plant, and the construction cost adds up. And you don't get out of maintenance either. Those blades don't last forever.

but there has NEVER been a wind/hydro/tidal plant that has cost as much as a producing nuclear power plant

And are these plants generally measered in the thousands of megawatts? Can they operate just about 24/7/365? I've had trouble finding out what an averale wind turbine runs, installed.
The University of Chicago has determined that the cost per kilwatt of capacity for nuclear would run $1,200-$1,800. (Note: The "standard" 1000 megawatt plant would start at 1.2 billion). But in the end, once your economy of scale takes over, it would only cost 3.4 cents per kw/h. Versus 3.7 cents for non-backed up wind, or 5.4 cents with backup. Add 1.8 cents to go offshore.
Hydro: Well, we're pretty much getting all that we can already get.

Backup for wind power makes costs up to 3.5 times greater?
The economies of nuclear power
Only 20 suitable tidal sites? Only 10 hours of power a day?
You know, I didn't list geothermal due to the limited areas it can be done in...

Doing research finds that Coal/Nuclear has a cost of about 2.3 cents kw/h. Wind is 3.7 cents a kw/h. Wind has quite a ways to go. Solar at least provides power when people run AC the most.

Nuclear plants are run at just about 100% load, all the time.
For the other power sources, you'd need backup power. IE, you'd have to build two plants to provide the constant power 1 nuclear plant does.

• An international task force has agreed on six nuclear reactor technologies for deployment between 2010 and 2030.
• All of these operate at higher temperatures than today's reactors. Hence four are designated for hydrogen production.
• All six systems represent advances in sustainability, economics, safety, reliability and proliferation-resistance

Very high-temperature gas reactors. These are graphite-moderated, helium-cooled reactors, based on substantial experience . The core can be built of prismatic blocks such as the Japanese HTTR and the GTMHR under development by General Atomics and others in Russia, or it may be pebble bed such as the Chinese HTR-10 and the PBMR under development in South Africa, with international partners. Outlet temperature of 1000C enables thermochemical hydrogen production via an intermediate heat exchanger, with electricity cogeneration, or direct high-efficiency driving of a gas turbine (Brayton cycle). There is some flexibility in fuels, but no recycle. Modules of 600 MW thermal are envisaged

Unfortunately you wouldn't be putting back what was taken out in the first place. The uranium is enriched, plutonium exists in the waste, etc, etc. The uranium is extracted from rock and at that time isn't concentrated. Grinding the waste and releasing it in the atmosphere would just spread concentrated radioactive material across the globe and pretty much destroy us all ;)

See this link for a good intro to the nuclear cycle: http://www.uic.com.au/nfc.htm

And then you have the problem that the neutron flux inside the reactor makes _everything_ radioactive. And _everything_ in the fuel processing cycle becomes radioactive.

All that radioactive stuff is waste. It must be stored carefully, for long periods of time. And noone has a solution that works both politically, geologically, and medically.

One small correction, which alters the sense of your post quite a bit. Radioactive waste can be classified as high-, intermediate-, or low-level.

High-level radioactive waste loses it's radioactivity relatively quickly: "...a newly-discharged light water reactor fuel assembly is so radioactive that it emits several hundred kilowatts of heat, but after a year this is down to 5kW and after five years, to one kilowatt." (see reference below). Low-level waste can be disposed of in a shallow landfill.

People shouldn't think that an entire nuclear power-station needs to be buried under kilometres of rock - the bulk of the waste is not highly radioactive.

See http://www.uic.com.au/ne5.htm for some really good reading about nuclear waste disposal.

The parent poster claims "Even France has had a longtime stop to its nuclear program."

Then explain this: "In mid 2004 the board of EdF decided to build the first demonstration unit of an expected series of 1600 MWe Framatome ANP EPRs. Construction of France's first unit is expected to start in 2007, following public consultation which will include finalising the site, and licensing. Construction is then expected to take 57 months to start up in 2012. EdF is aiming to firm up an industrial partnership with other European utilities or power users for construction of the initial EPR before the end of 2004 - negotiations continue with German utilities. (Finland is also building an EPR unit at Olkiluoto.)
EdF is expected to announce its preference of sites following discussions with representatives from several places eager to have it. The leading candidates are apparently Penly and Flamanville in Normandy. After experience with the initial EPR units, a decision would be taken about 2015 on whether to build more of them over 30 years or so to replace the present EdF fleet, or switch to alternative designs such as Westinghouse's AP1000 or GE's ASBWR."

which can be found at: http://www.uic.com.au/nip28.htm/

Even though I'm a Bush-voting Republican (and proud of it!) and think the French are mainly cheese-eating surrender monkeys, I'll give France one thing: they have the best nuclear power program in the world.

Unlike the US which went with several designs for nuclear reactors, none of which was quite like the other, the French bought the design for Pressurized Water Reactors from Westinghouse in the US and built 56 reactors, all of the same design and all using interchangable parts and systems. That way problems in one reactor can be fixed systemwide using the same techniques.

France gets over 75% of their power from cheap nuclear energy. Electric power in France from nuclear sources is about 3 Euro cents/kWh, which is very competitive and less than half of the US average cost for electricity.

France reprocesses used nuclear fuel to create new fuel and maximize efficiency. That produces less waste and increases overall efficiency. The French also found that it's psychologically better to say that waste is being "stocked" rather than disposed of.

I don't give France credit for much, but the way in which the French have run their nuclear program is a model for the rest of the world. France is far less dependent on foreign energy for power than most countries, and their costs are lower - and there has not been a major nuclear accident in France since the program began.

If we did something similar with more efficient breeder reactors, we could reduce pollution, reduce energy costs, and reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

Besides, we can't let the French beat us, can we?

The point isn't that we can't be more efficient. It's that we can't be sufficiently more efficient to make much of a difference compared to what we can gain by taking advantage of nuclear power.

First of all "more efficent" isn't limited to a particular device, it is a combination of things that together will yield a higher efficency overall.

Yes Dorothy, that means changing for example the way we light our apartments, get to work, buy our food, but there is so much energy wasted right now on a day to day basis that we would gain a lot more than you might imagine right now.

Next time you are at your grocery store have a look at where all the vegetables, meats, "frozen dinners" and their ingridients are coming from, and then think about how much energy was used just by transporting all of this around, I am not even talking about processing and such.

If we (as a society) are serious about energy conservation we could do everything (as in standard of living) as we're doing it right now but with less energy and drawing it from different sources.

The big problem with nuclear power isn't that it produces waste. Everything produces waste. Nor is it the danger of meltdown or incorrect storage of fuel. Those things are very local risks, and statistically are sufficiently infrequent that the total 'cost' including lives and property damage, is still much much smaller than coal or oil.

With one huge difference.

When one of your "statistically sufficentily infrequent" accidents occurs the impact will be not quite so small.

Yes, coal and oil burning is poisioning us and the environment, but it is a lot smaller, by making changes now we can get rid of most of it in 10 - 20 years (assuming we have enough oil left).

And more importantly: Countries like China have to make those changes now, they are only now building their infrastructure and can prevent a lot of the mistakes that we have made.

The big problem with nuclear power is human psychology. People see something that they know was once used to kill millions, and are acutely aware of the times in which there have been nuclear accidents, and then immediately in their minds assume that every nuclear plant will fail, and that it will fail catastrophically. If you were to ask people (who do not live near a plant of any sort) whether they'd rather live next to a nuclear plant or a coal plant, I have to wonder what they'd say, compared to people who actually do live near either structure. People who live near a nuclear plant are going to have evidence which to them suggests that it is perfectly safe: the fact that they haven't experienced a meltdown or other disaster. Whereas people who have not done so are going to extrapolate based on the few cases they are aware of, which are entirely of the 'bad' variety (since who would make a news report that a nuclear plant operated perfectly this week?).

BTW, this page here lists some nuclear disasters over the past 50 years and even though (excluding Chernobyl) nothing really "bad" has happened I have my doubts.

And even if there would be no "real" danger. Stress in and on itself is a problem:

Several aspects regarding nuclear power plants and works of the chemical industry were assessed by self-report inventories. The inventories included items related to attitudes and mood. Subjects (N = 228) were divided according to living distance to a nuclear power plant (up to 5 km, 5-10 km, 10-15 km), age (18-39 versus 40-59 years) and sex. Results demonstrate different risk perception referring to nuclear power plants and works of the chemical industry. Women and older persons reported more negative attitudes. In addition, the results confirm th

Greens have moved beyond a lesser-evil approach to politics...

... I cannot under any circumstances accept nuclear power

...I cannot under any circumstances accept... genetically modified foods as a healthy alternative.

There are such simpler and more sensible ways to approach these issues. We could easily eliminate the need for nuclear power by conserving more energy.

We could replace nuclear power-and coal and other dirty forms of producing power-with the abundance of solar energy which shines on our country.

Yeah, uranium is scarce, and current mines might run out. That might be a problem, but I don't really know.

But take a look at this page. Speaking as a citizen of the United States, I'd much rather kiss some Canadian ass to get our energy source, than to deal with a bunch of enthusiastic Wahhabi nuts.

Even if the Canadians and the Australians run out, I submit that we are better off owing them and having cleaner air, than stumbling on like we are now. Who knows what kind of fun technology will come along in the next 50 years? That said, I'm not really wired into the nuclear materials world, but I don't hear a whole lot of panic over short supplies of the appropriate ores.

We might still need crude for specialty applications, and we'll probably still be worrying about what happens in the middle east, but I can't think of a huge downside to cutting down on our oil consumption.

The problem is factoring in the cost of running a nuclear waste compound for 200,000 years, into the price of the electricity generated today by nuclear power.

Nuclear waste has a half life of thousands of years. Plutonium is one of the most deadly substances on the planet. Waste is the problem and the proposed storage ideas are shakey at best.

I don't think it is as bad as you say. Read this. Do consider the source, but if you are going to claim this is full of lies or something I want to see your sources.

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

Little blurb on little reactors around the world.

I'll pre-emptively reply to this one. Smart people should not worry about nuclear waste. Unlike the waste from burning coal, wood, oil, and natural gass, nuclear waste isn't spread out in the atmosphere, it's stored in nice safe little containers and it has a neet trick: nuclear waste dissapears by itself over time. People look at how long it takes to degrade and worry about keeping it contained for that long. Wake up! How long does it take for lead to degrade? How about mercury? How long do you have to wait before it's not dangerous? Are you sure you can keep it safely contained in your lungs until that happens! Your environment is being poisoned today. People are dying today! Birth defects and neurological disorders are happening today and they are't from nuclear power, the power generation methods we have used instead.

Nuclear power can kill, but if you look at it carefully, it doesn't. Nuclear waste is not nearly as hard to deal with as somehting like mecury spewed out into the air.

pretty hard to generate electricity without steam

Nope, high pressure gas turbines work fine:

JAERI is developing the Gas Turbine High Temperature Reactor (GTHTR) of up to 600 MW thermal per module. It uses improved HTTR fuel elements with 14% enriched uranium achieving high burn-up (112 GWd/t). Helium at 850C drives a horizontal turbine at 47% efficiency to produce up to 300 MWe. The core consists of 90 hexagonal fuel columns 8 metres high arranged in a ring, with reflectors. Each column consists of eight one-metre high elements 0.4 m across and holding 57 fuel pins made up of fuel particles with 0.55 mm diameter kernels and 0.14 mm buffer layer. In each 2-yearly refuelling, alternate layers of elements are replaced so that each remains for 4 years.

A US design, the Gas Turbine - Modular Helium Reactor (GT-MHR), will be built as modules of 285 MWe each directly driving a gas turbine at 48% thermal efficiency. The cylindrical core consists of 102 hexagonal fuel element columns of graphite blocks with channels for helium and control rods. Graphite reflector blocks are both inside and around the core. Half the core is replaced every 18 months. Burn-up is about 100 GWd/t, and coolant outlet temperature is 850C with a target of 1000C. It is being developed by General Atomics in partnership with Russia's Minatom, supported by Fuji (Japan). Initially it will be used to burn pure ex-weapons plutonium at Tomsk in Russia.

A smaller version of this, the Remote-Site Modular Helium Reactor (RS-MHR) of 10-25 MWe has been proposed by General Atomics. The fuel would be 20% enriched and refuelling interval would be 6-8 years.

A third full-size HTR design is Areva's Very High Temperature Reactor (VHTR) being put forward by Framatome ANP. It is based on the GT-MHR and has also involved Fuji. Reference design is 600 MW (thermal) with prismatic block fuel like the GT-MHR. Target core outlet temperature is 1000C and it uses and indirect cycle, possibly with a helium-nitrogen mix in the secondary system. This removes the possibility of contaminating the generation or hydrogen production plant with radionuclides from the reactor core.

HTRs can potentially use thorium-based fuels, such as HEU with Th, U-233 with Th, and Pu with Th. Most of the experience with thorium fuels has been in HTRs.

"The only way you can bury it is to find container technology that will hold it for tens of thousands of years, unattended, and we simply don't have it"

Sorry, wrong. We do have it and it's called "SynRoc" and has been around for 20 years.

It was developed at the ANU in Canberra, Australia, and is considered by many to be the "perfect" solution for disposal of Nuclear waste.

Read this.

Despite being toxic both chemically and because of its ionising radiation, plutonium is far from being 'the most toxic substance on earth' or so hazardous that 'a speck can kill'.

On both counts there are substances in daily use that, per unit of mass, have equal or greater chemical toxicity (arsenic, cyanide, caffeine) and radiotoxicity (smoke detectors).

more: http://www.uic.com.au/nip18.htm

BTW, the amount of energy used to produce uranium fuel takes about 90% of a reactor's lifetime to win back...

Gas centrifuges require about 50 KWh per SWU, giving an electric consumption of about 6 GWH per fuel load. That's 4 load's worth of fuel for a day's reactor output; put another way, one reactor working 300 days per year could produce fuel for 2400 reactors.

And CO2? Same story: in the pre-energy-generating phase is at least as much CO2 released as a coal plant would have for the same amount of energy.

You're either a knowing participant or a willing dupe in a disinformation campaign. If the latter, reconsider your information sources; if the former, please jump off the nearest object more than 20 meters tall (the world doesn't need any more liars).

In other words, 6% of the contiguous US land area would have to be covered with windmill farms.

I'm don't claim to be an expert, but that's what it sounds like. Here's a reference within the paper itself that references the 6% figure again:

The amount of windy land available for power class 4 and above is approximately 460,000 square kilometers, or about 6% of the total land area in the contiguous United States. The potential average power from areas with class 4 and higher, which are suitable for development with advanced wind turbine technology, is estimated at 500,000 MW.

(The sizing assumptions fromt he study: 50-m hub height, 10 D x 5 D spacing, 25% efficiency, and 25% power losses.)

Another interesting figure:

Figure 4 shows the contribution that the wind energy of each state could make to meet the total electrical needs of the nation, assuming a moderate land exclusion scenario. North Dakota alone has enough potential energy from windy areas of class 4 and higher to supply 36% of the total 1990 electricity consumption of the 48 contiguous states.

How much does each windmill cost? (I don't know.) How much would a million of them cost?

The AWEA document includes basic information on cost. One of the charts tables shows a 1.65mW rated 71m diameter turbine to cost $1.3M in 2000. They give a capital cost estimate of building a class 4 50MW wind farm at about $1M/MW, with an annual power production (assuming 35% capacity factor) of 150M kWh.

Here's a 2001 study of Comparative Cost Of Wind And Other Energy Sources [PDF]. Citing a table from the California Energy Commission's 1996 Energy Technology Status Report (CEC calculations do not include subsidies or environmental costs), Wind is about even w/ coal (4.0-6.0c/kWh) and *much* cheaper than nuclear (not sure why the CEC's number differs so much from those floated by the Uranium Information Centre). Once externalities [PDF] are figured in of course, wind power is much cheaper than coal.

What would be the effect of taking that much energy out of wind patterns? Would rainfall in the region be affected? Regional temperatures? Flowering plant pollination rates?

I agree, the most common environmental problems seem to those affecting birds and aesthetic, etc. While I don't think that larger climactic changes are a significant concern at the scales we're talking about, it would be nice to see some numbers/empirical research. I haven't, however seen any such portential issues cited it anywhere, from the ANL's Wind EIS's concerns, the UCS, or any of the various reports I've read (I've done searching on Google and Citeseer), which you might expect to see if there were problems. What I have seen shows local net-positive effects in wildlife from reduced emissions in states implementing large-scale wind power. It might be worth doing more research on how Denmark is doing (they're at over 10%+ of their power being generated vy windmills, and aiming for 40-50% by 2030).

I haven't done enough research to actually nail down the numbers of whether it would be able to completely replace coal, but from the research I've done, wind power is actually something that is pretty close to viable in the US (unlike solar) and certainly very viable in other countries.

Of course getting rid of burning coal is great, but our oil consumption problem is really a totally different can of worms (w/ about 45% of the 20.0MMBD last year being gasoline).

Yeah, that was quite a power surge - those nuclear reactions are quick compared to chemical...

It should be pointed out that this type of problem cannot physically happen with well-designed reactors. New designs will self-regulate due to negative void coefficient. Here's a relevant page.

Wind power just doesn't cut it: reason being for one that it can't provide power all the time, and can't provide power when the wind is too slow or too hard.

True, but wind power is just one form of alternative energy. When you consider a multi-source system the the fact that one part is not producing at one time has less effect.

The greatest strain on the systems happens during peek demands say the advert break in Friends when everyone puts the kettle on. Neither wind power or nuclear can provide the "instant on" needed to meet peek demand. I'm aware of two different means of meeting this, coal/gas/oil fired stations which can be switched on quickly and an interesting hydro scheme I've seen in Wales (UK). The station has two large lakes, one at the top of a hill and one at the bottom. During times of low demand excess power in the system is used to pump water up the hill. At peek demand water flows down again powering generators.

And to boot, it's way more expensive than any other from of energy except solar.

Costs are going down as research improves. Theres been precious little money put into research of alternative energy sources, in UK its only about a tenth of research money in atomics. Yes they are a bit more 3.7 p/KWh as opposed to 2.5p/KWh but in the same ball park. (from Uranium Information Centre Ltd). Capital costs are less, decomisioning costs are less. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the risk of default on these loans [for new nuclear stations] is "very high--well above 50 percent." CBO also states that a new nuclear plant would be "uneconomic to operate because of its high construction costs relative to other electricity generation sources." The Congressional Research Service estimates the loan guarantees will cost between $14 and $16 billion. (from Friends of the Earth).

Solar. Has its place, basically two form; water heating; and ecletricity generating. Small scale water heeting can be very cheep, one old radiator, painted black, a few pipes and a pump. Can pre-heat your water reducing energy needed. Solar cells are an expensive solution and not very eco friendly considerning all the harmful effects of chip manfacture.

At the project I work on all our electricity needs come from wind and solar. A large battery bank provides backup storage for when its either not sunny, or not windy. Then again our electricity needs are small, laptops and a few lights.

Tidal. A very young technology. like reducing tides, or maybe removing so much energy from the ocean tides that certain ocean streams will stop/reverse/whatever. How much energy would tidal power consume? Very much less than the oceans produced, consider the energy from moving 1000km*1000km*1km of water back and forth twice a day! Yes there may be local effects but it won't make a dent in the global picture. There are some very exciting tidal solutions. New scientist reciently did a good review.

Small scale hydro. A few centries ago water mills ground most of the corn in the UK. Put some moden plants where the old mills were and thats a lot of energy.

Energy crops. A big push in the UK for growing energy crops at the moment. Basically carbon neutral. Short rotation willow coppice and certain grasses are used. Bio-gas, and bio-diesal can be produced. A lot of Brasils cars are run on suger cane.

Energy conservation. Most cost effective solution is actually to reduce energy demand. Loft insulation, low energy bulbs, more efficient fridges all help.

Pasive Solar. Theres a school in Liverpool (not noted for its sun) which is entirely heated by pasive solar. Smart building design with lots of south facing windows and thermal storage (say by storing water underground) can make a cost effective solution.

Combined Heat and Power. The idea here is that waste heat from electricity generation is used for heating. At Live

More than 2,800 coal mining accidents occurred in the first nine months of the year, killing more than 4,600 people.
In Dobrnja, Yugoslavia, 1990,178 people were killed in a coal mine accident.

I am somewhat bemused that despite sitting on something like 28% of the world's uranium, us Aussies don't have a reactor of our own (with the exception of the Lucas Heights HIFAR reactor opened in 1958). We even bitch about mining the stuff, the proceeds of which could be used to deal with real threats to the surrounding environment, like cane toads. We make over 10% of the world's supply of computer grade doped silicon, yet we bitch about upgrading the reactor facility too. Hopefully with some debate people will start pulling their heads out of their asses and making it happen before we end up with some serious problems on our hands. Before long chernobyl et al will end up being the most catastrophic events we've ever experienced - not because of the local effects but because of the resulting widespread misconception about nuclear power. Yes, where there are more plants nuclear fuel necessarily is more available so there is a greater need for security. However those linking the increased use of nuclear energy with foolish nuclear enabled governments and terrorists ought to spend more time worrying about who's got the weapons, why, who pays and what they are (or aren't) doing to protect them.

The accident destroyed the Chernobyl-4 reactor and killed 30 people, including 28 from radiation exposure. A further 209 on site were treated for acute radiation poisoning and among these, 134 cases were confirmed (all of whom recovered). Nobody off-site suffered from acute radiation effects. However, large areas of Belarus, Ukraine, Russia and beyond were contaminated in varying degrees.

...

Several organisations have reported on the impacts of the Chernobyl accident, but all have had problems assessing the significance of their observations because of the lack of reliable public health information before 1986. In 1989 the World Health Organisation (WHO) first raised concerns that local medical scientists had incorrectly attributed various biological and health effects to radiation exposure.

An International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) study involving more than 200 experts from 22 countries published in 1991 was more substantial. In the absence of pre-1986 data it compared a control population with those exposed to radiation. Significant health disorders were evident in both control and exposed groups, but, at that stage, none was radiation related.

Subsequent studies in the Ukraine, Russia and Belarus were based on national registers of over 1 million people possibly affected by radiation. These confirmed a rising incidence of thyroid cancer among exposed children. Late in 1995, the World Health Organisation linked nearly 7

Yes, the same public that tosses Americium-241 into the trash. Just because it's radioactive, doesn't mean it's a problem. Your backyard is radioactive. Your bar-b-que is probably more radioactive, as is the granite building you probably work in. The irrational fear of radiation has been holding back R&D for decades.

Even just using an alpha emitter like Americium, chemically bonded into a plastic and successively sandwiched between photo-electric cells to provide a "wireless" charger for existing battery technologies would be an immense (and safe) step forward. These technologies have been known and patented for a long time. Unfortunately, the monster movies of the 1950s have raised a generation that associates radiation with Godzilla, and prevents any rational use.

Synroc solves the second "Pain in The Arse" problem.

But you're right about the "not in my backyard" syndrome. I've studied Synroc and it really is the perfect solution (btw I work upstairs from where it was developed) but who in the world will listen to reason about it?