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UK's Chief Scientist Backs Nuclear Power Revival
Timbotronic writes "The UK government's chief scientific adviser has sent his clearest signal that Britain will need to revive its nuclear power industry in the face of a looming energy crisis and the threat of global warming. In an interview with the Guardian, Sir David King said there were economic as well as environmental reasons for a new generation of reactors." From the article: "His remarks come in the build-up to international talks in Montreal on how to address the threat of climate change when the Kyoto protocol expires in 2012. He denied suggestions - sparked by comments from Mr Blair that he was changing his mind on whether international treaties were the best way to tackle global warming - that Britain was moving closer to the stance of the US, which has refused to back Kyoto-style emission reductions."
Radioactive waste can be contained. A trick we haven't figured out with air pollution yet.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Which brings up a question that's been on my mind. How much nuclear fuel is on earth. If we replaced all the fossil fuels we use, with nuclear fuel, how long would our supplies last? And how much nuclear waste would be created as a result? If nuclear fuel just replaces fossil fuels, and ends up creating the same problems in another 100 years, then we really should be thinking of a solution that works out better in the long term. Like wind, geothermal, and other types of clean, renewable, energy.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Have you ever been to Nevada? I'm pretty sure that's why God made it.
Power in the future isn't going to be wind, geothermal, etc, because it doesn't produce enough power. Obviously, the more we can get that way the better, but they are highly inefficient, and require specific placement. That means you have a limited amount that you can put online.
We have a very large amount of uranium ore around, but it isn't easy to get. The process of creating fuel from it is also complicated. Our best bet is to use fission while we refine the passive generation (solar, hydro, etc) and research fusion. If we figure fusion out, then we don't have to worry about the other forms, though solar is a good idea to continue researching.
How much nuclear fuel is on earth. If we replaced all the fossil fuels we use, with nuclear fuel, how long would our supplies last?
There's about 50 years of uranium reserves right now, a bit over 2 million tons.
Reserves are ores that are economically exploitable. In other words, reserves increase when you find a less expensive way to get the ore, or when the price of ore rises. If the price of ore goes up by 50%, we more than double our reserves to 5 million tons. If it goes up much more than that, oceanic reserves come into play, and there are 4.5 *billion* tons in the oceans.
Now, that's talking about U235 burned in a PWR. There are other things you can do which vastly increase reserves. There are reactor designs that can breed U238 into U235. That presents a proliferation concern, but you can also just burn U238 in a CANDU reactor or other design. You can breed thorium into U233 and burn that.
And the thing is that nuclear fuel is so much more energy-dense than chemical fuel. Coal has an energy content of about 24 MJ per kilogram, assuming perfect conversion to electricity, and I think good coal plants with top-of-the-line turbines and boilers and everything can get up to about 70% overall thermal efficiency, but hell, let's say 90%. Figures I found for the US in 1982 indicate that all the nuclear power plants in the US consumed 540 tons of fuel and produced 1.1E12 kilowatt-hours of electricity, which means *after* all those efficiency losses (PWRs are less thermally efficient because you've got to transfer heat across coolant loops), we were getting 8 million megajoules per kilogram of fuel.
8 million megajoules per kilogram, versus 21.6 megajoules per kilogram. What that means is that your *fuel* cost can rise significantly, but your cost per kilowatt-hour at your meter will see only a very small rise.
So to sum up, there's a hella lot of nuclear fuel available.
Modern reactors are far safer than their more temperamental counterparts of the 70s and 80s (Chernobyl? Three Mile Island?).
It's ridiculous to even mention Chernobyl and Three Mile Island in the same breath. What people seem to ignore is that the reactor at TMI functioned exactly as designed in the event of a meltdown - it shut itself down. I'd also point out that Three Mile Island is still in operation. Only one reactor was affected. The rest of the facility has been humming along quite nicely ever since.
Three Mile Island isn't an example of how dangerous nuclear technology is, it's an example of how safe it is.
Progressivism: Parasites helping parasites to help themselves - to other people's stuff.
There is a reactor designed called an advanced breeder reactor. It's as close to an energy machine as I've ever seen... This type of reactor uses U238, which we (the US) are currently storing as waste (at huge expense). As a by-product of the consumption of this fuel it creates plutonium (the downside), as well as enough fuel to 'seed' another reactor (breeding, in a sense). This reactor was slated to be built, but due to the weapons-grade plutonium by-product, it was deemed unsafe and discontinued. According to people that I know (I used to work at the Idaho National Lab-- a cornerstone of US nuclear reactor design and development) there is enough U238 in storage-- as waste-- that we would could provide the energy needs for the US for several hundred years.
So, to answer one question, there's plenty of fuel. This is just the tip of the iceberg, as far as I'm concerned. This technology has been known for 30 years. There are bound to be technological leaps and bounds in the science of nuclear energy, but collectively we're afraid to try. As evidence of our collective fear, I point to the, IMO, over-zealous regulation/legislation, which makes it impossibly expensive to investigate making nuclear power *more* safe (I believe that it's safer/healthier than coal now).
Okay, having said that... there is a problem with our ability to improve our nuclear technology. That problem is the last 30 years-- where nothing was done in the field (due to FUD). In those 30 years the leading minds have forgottem and gotten old and sometimes have left the US in favor of work in more reasonable countries. In essence, I'm not sure that we have the expertise any longer. It will be expensive and difficult to get the US nuclear programs working again. I only guess that the UK is the same.
Is it worth it for the US, or any country? Yes. I think so. However, you've got an oil industry crony in the W.H. and trillions of lobby dollars spent by US energy corps and, according to many, the old KGB and other foreign govs, which have instilled a real fear about nuclear energy (according to the stories the old USSR didn't want us to develop *infinite* energy to feed our economy).
There is currently an initiative to build what they call the Gen 4 reactor. There has been some discussion as to which design to try. 'Pebble Bed' was discussed, but there are cooling issues to overcome (I can't speak intelligently on that... I wrote the software which tracked the nuclear waste-- IANANE). El Presidente seems enamored with hydrogen reactors, last I heard. My bets on whether we actually do it are placed on 'no.' The current project is woefully under-funded and crazily mis-managed.
Regarding waste... I know a bit about what is stored as waste... Mainly, it's PPE (personal protective equipment-- rubber gloves and the like) and junk. Anytime something even remotely (and I mean REMOTELY) connected with nuclear fuel, or waste, or contamination is discarded it becomes waste. The VAST majority (99%) of waste isn't nasty. Quite a lot can be permanently disposed of in a safe manner, but people start to freak out (FUD again). The other 1% can be stored until we figure out a cost-effective manner to send it to the sun. Right now, we store it all, and that contributes to more FUD.
I probably sound a bit like a fanboy... maybe I am. There IS an energy crisis. Renewables are nowhere near (at least as far as I know) ready to produce the amount of energy that nuclear does/can; it has been operationally tested worldwide.
Solving the political problems... That's another matter.
Even though I am a fan of nukes, I have to say that is patently false. In fact, just read some of the earlier articles here to find out that wind alone can put out more than double what we use (That is total energy, not electricity), let alone the other alternative energy (solar, geo, wave, etc).
In fact, you will find a number of companies who are creating wind energy plants all over the world and then selling the energy. More importantly, they are making LOTS of profit at it.
The real issue is how to deal with varying power. Instead of focusing on power generation, we should focus on how to store it. Right now, Colorado is testing conversion of electricity to H2 and then use the H2 to drive an internal combustion engine to drive a generator (how inefficient can you get). The one nice advantage of researching storage is that it will allow a mixture of alternative a nukes to generate electricty/other energy that is stored close to the site of usage.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.