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Fusion-Fission System Burns Hot Radioactive Waste
An anonymous reader writes "A hybrid fission-fusion process has been developed that can be used in some traditional fission reactors to process radioactive waste and reduce the amount of waste produced by 99%. This process uses magnetic bottle techniques developed from fusion research. This seems like the first viable solution to the radioactive waste problem of traditional nuclear reactors. This could be a big breakthrough in the search for environmentally friendly energy sources. Lots of work remains to take the concept to an engineering prototype and then to a production reactor."
I want my Mr. Fusion!
from fantasy to reality. Perhaps there could be a technological solution to the coming extinction epoch.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
If at any point in this process (say you stop it at 50%) the 'waste' is now weapons grade this will never be allowed in the US.
If it's still 'radioactive' you can still get energy from it. You can refine it, clean it up and shove it back through again.
Generations ago we were masters of waste not want not. If you burned candles for light, you collected your drippings, remelted them into new candles. Imagine if the 13 Colonies outlawed this because you could also remelt them into canon wicks... absolute stupidity.
First, they have to get sustainable fusion working, then they can installed the Super-X Divertor to bleed off neutrons to burn fission waste.
Why not use safe, proven technology available TODAY to burn 99% of current fuel AND WASTE?
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Scientific American just had an article on fast neutron reactors that get around the waste issue and don't create any weapons grade material: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=smarter-use-of-nuclear-waste&page=1
So instead of reusing the waste in further fission, thereby prolonging our fissible materials supply & making energy cheaper, we're just going to be removing the ability for it to perform useful work.
Great.
This should only be used on radioactive waste that has absolutely no more useful applications (so that you don't have to store it).
This assumes they have a magnetic confinement ...What could go wrong?
fusion system already working. Then they add in
a surrounding layer of fission waste.
The Chrysler Patriot Lemans car planned to use
a turbine engine, a flywheel energy storage capacitor, and regnerative braking for a racecar.
Three technologies that had not succeeded on the racetrack... together. It was as successful as you might expect.
There's never going to be an energy source that will be environmentally friendly enough for the people that think nuclear is too dirty now. Should coal and nuclear be replaced with solar, wind and/or wave generation, these same people will begin complaining about the negative effects of removing energy from the environment with those methods, wildlife being killed in wind/wave farms or whatever other impact can be identified.
The fact will always remain that life, regardless of humanity or other life, impacts its environment. If we want to have zero impact for our energy needs, we have to get to zero energy need. The only way to have that is for the entire of humanity to become extinct.
Of course, that won't stop other species from also becoming extinct. It also won't stop the climate from changing. That's all been going on before us and will be long after we're gone.
If it keeps you feeling morally superior, though, keep fighting the fight. We, our planet, our solar system and our little galaxy are pretty insignificant in the whole grand scheme of things. There's nothing to save. It's all going to be destroyed anyway. You're not even going to be able to delay the inevitable.
Have a nice day! :)
I gotta hand it to Obama... I was skeptical that electing him would really solve our energy problems -- but he's been in office only ten days, and already you can see the practical results!
This is neat technology, and may some day be practical. But, i don't think that day is coming for 50-100 years.
Here's why : solar is getting cheap very rapidly. Today, you can pick up panels at $2.85 a watt off the shelf. Below $1 a watt, and it will be cheaper to put panels up than it will be to burn coal.
A fusion-fission hybrid system will cost a LOT. According to the wall street journal, nuclear fission plants are already deal-breaker expensive. It would be cheaper per watt to build more wind farms than new fission reactors. http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2008/05/12/its-the-economics-stupid-nuclear-powers-bogeyman/
Another way to look at it :
To operate a fusion-fission hybrid system, as well as dozens of large gigawatt fission reactors takes a lot of well trained and educated people working round the clock to make all of the technology work. There are very real dangers, and very expensive regulations that have to be followed.
To build more solar panels? You print some more off the reel and slap them on to glass. You park the panels in the desert and leave them alone for 25 years. Maybe a simple robot wipes them off occasionally.
There's no liability, or need for exhaustive quality control. If a panel fails prematurely, you pay a warranty claim.
Inherently, solar is going to always be cheaper for the foreseeable future.
Ah good old magnetic Bottles... is there anything they can't do?
For those of you who probably are not familiar with the nuclear industry, let me make a very simple description of how "Nuclear Waste" is classified.
Waste falls into three categories:<BR>
Low Level Waste (LLW)<BR>
High Level Waste (HLW)<BR>
Transuranic Waste (TRU)<BR><BR>
LLW is anything that has been exposed to a reasonably low level of radiation. This is typically things like gloves, towels, suits, etc. and their activity level is usually low enough to store in a temporary facility until the activity level in them dies off enough to be disposed of safely.<BR><BR>
HLW is primarily spent nuclear fuel that, in places like France, is usually reprocessed, but here it is typically either sent to be disposed of or onto research facilities, disposal, or weapons.<BR><BR>
TRU waste is what the article has been discussing, which is a big problem. TRU waste comes about as nuclear fuel is fissioned out into various fission products. Obviously these fission products are radioactive and all depend on the type of fuel, but for old LWR/BWRs, there is a significant amount of TRU waste coming out. If what they claim is actually true, then it will be a very big step in the right direction.
Most corporations diversify, and the smart ones don't waste money maintaining their infrastructure. (Federal bailouts FTW.) If I had oil production revenues, I'd be plowing all my profits into tying up all the alternative energy IP and buying legislation to benefit from the coming switch.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
This idea was (in some sense) around in the 1960's, believe it or not.
The high neutron flux produced means that the CFNS would itself become radioactive, and the steel of its construction weakened by neutron irradiation. I would like to see a life-cycle analysis to make sure that the total waste consumed was more than that produced by the CFNS itself.
This general issue is why I would like to see a lot more emphasis places on He3 fusion, and also on linear fusion devices. (He3 fusion, either He3 - Dt or He3-He3, produces much less neutron flux. To me, the end goal would be to have nuclear fusion power that did not produce radioactive waste, which ITER definitely will do. Linear fusion is for spacecraft propulsion, of course - it is thought to be much easier technically than making a tokomak work.)
whaa whaa whaa, nucular is eeeevel, nucular is bad boo hoo people we'll keep tanning our lungs with Coal slugde and the planet will keep getting warmer
thanks guys!!! NOT!
how long until
You don't seem to understand the environmentalist movement. Allow me to educate you:
NUCLEAR == BAD/EVIL/YUCKY
Until all of humanity lives like the Amish, we are all evil and destroying the Earth.
Thank you.
- Necron69
I remember when the post-Starbuck crew of BattleStar Galactica made it to Earth and solved this problem, too bad the computer went on the fritz
My other sig is extremely clever...
The article talks about reducing "transuranic" waste (plutonium, et. al.) It did say that this would greatly reduce the demand for space at Yucca Mountain (but also says that Yucca Mountain won't open until 2020 - and that the amount of waste produced by this country will fill it by 2010.)
What about other kinds of waste? Is Yucca Mountain only for spent fuel? What about decommissioned reactors, worn out parts, etc. that have been exposed to the nuclear reaction? What happens to that stuff?
Finally, it talks about these fusion-fission hybrids being "about room sized", and serving up to 15 LWRs each - and that the US has about 100 LWRs. Does that mean transporting spent nuclear fuel across the country in some form that can be "unpacked" at the fusion-fission site for consumption? People are already freaked out about transporting spent nuclear fuel in heavily armored containers - is the fuel already embedded in some stable substrate by the time it's currently moved?
Finally, can existing spent fuel be used in these hybrid reactors, or has it already been post-processed to make that impossible?
Sorry,
If this reduces the waste to a stable (somewhat non-radioactive state) then I'm all for it. But where does the energy come from to convert this? Is this going to require as much energy to render the "sludge" safe enough to dispose of? Or is this another 'Flash in the Pan'? (Sorry, couldn't help myself).
Don't spend your life lamenting your life.
Forgive my vast amounts of ignorance on the matter, but I thought breeder reactors were a viable way of burning nuclear waste down to nothing. Or is this the same thing? I'm confused.com.
Either way, it's good to know there are options to hush up them "ZOMGZ NEWKEELER HOLLERCAUST!" crowd that's so vehemently opposed to the cheapest and quickest to implement short- to mid-term solution we have to burning fossil fuels.
Today's weirdness is tomorrow's reason why. -- Hunter S. Thompson
"To burn this really hard to burn sludge, you really need to hit it with a sledgehammer, and that's what we have invented here," says Kotschenreuther.
I've been using a sledgehammer for years.
Mod points: Guaranteed to remove your sense of humor.
Side effects may include gullibility and temporary retardation
I'm also guess here. A decade ago, Los Alamos pioneered Accelerator Transmutation of Waste. There the idea was you bombard high level waste with a particle beam to, ironically, make it even higher level waste. The clever thing was this. The higher the radioactivity the shorter the half life.
The plan was to convert things with halflifes of 50,000 years to half lifes of hours. An insanely clever idea. But it never got much funding.
I'm guessing that this Fission/fussion system is probably playing the same game. Fusion makes for heavier nuclii, which if they are not stable, tend to be even short lived as a general trend.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
FTA:
So, the first step is to reprocess the fuel, which:
a) isn't allowed by an Executive Order
b) would alleviate the need for massive storage areas for spent fuel - the transuranic waste is smaller in volume to spent fuel by an order of magnitude. At that size, there are potentially more disposal options.
Nuclear waste is a political issue, not an engineering issue.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Fast breeder reactors turn out not to be as easy to make safe and reliable as their proponents think. Google for more recent literature. It's a pity, I personally like the idea, but both fast reactors and fuel reprocessing have turned out to be very difficult.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I see a couple of problems to start. First, it sounds like they want to reprocess spent fuel first. This does not fly in the US.
Second they want to have one of these for every dozen or so conventional reactors. This means transporting waste and an inevitable accident. They might be able to build one of these transmuters and take it around to each decommissioned power plant site to help with clean up, but what of the transmuter itself? How soon does it become radioactive waste?
I think I'd like to see something a little more controlled, like an accelerator, if we are going to go with transmutation. It might be costly in terms of energy, but it is more likely to be safe. We should have plenty of extra cheap energy once solar ramps up so the energy cost may not be a big deal. We probably don't have to pay back much more than we've already generated from nuclear power which is not all that much.
The liquid fluoride thorium reactor can burn existing nuclear waste just fine, and it's been available since the 50's.
Any system where cobalt is exposed to slow neutrons will yield Cobalt-60. That means any steel exposed to slow neutrons is going to yield Cobalt-60. Seeing as how I have yet to hear of a reactor that isn't built primarily out of steel, you will have Cobalt-60 in a nuclear reactor. Since it's not generally a good idea to nuke your core housing, they won't be disposing of Cobalt-60.
For those unfamiliar with Cobalt-60, it is a radioactive isotope of Cobalt. It decays via beta decay to Nickel-60. It emits 1 electron and 2 gamma rays.
While Cobalt-60 has some uses, the stuff can be quite deadly. It has a halflife of about 5 years so it emits some heavy amounts of radiation but takes decades to become relatively safe.
I'm not sure if Cobalt-60 is created in reactors which use Fast Neutrons though.
The push to go nuclear was nearly dead until Jim Hansen started agitating about global warming. Since then, as this article shows, the nuclear industry has revived. The mercury industry has also revived (thanks to compact fluorescents) and the lead industry has revived (thanks to electric cars). Now if we could only do something to promote asbestos and smoking, the environmental gains from the global warming industry would be complete.
Cheers
JE
It is an interesting technology, but lets be realistic here.
Building an existing 'off the shelf' LWR design requires roughly 10 years. Turning this technology into a standardized design which can be used by industry will require some amount of time, probably 10-20 years by the time all the safety engineering is complete and a prototype reactor is built, run for several years, and the bugs are worked out of it.
So, we're talking about OPTIMISTICALLY 2028 and possibly 2038-2048 before the first one of these reactors would come on line. By every indication solar PV and solar thermal power systems will be highly mature and widely deployed by that time. Why at that point is there a need for more nuclear reactors?
Nuclear power's time has come and gone. Regardless of any debate about its safety and efficacy as a power generation technology the time frames are just wrong. Had we made these advances 20 or 30 years ago it would maybe be a different story, but at this point nuclear power is irrelevant. The only thing nuclear power can do now is suck up investments which would be better made perfecting solar, wind, and dry geothermal power solutions, as well as the build out of the power grid which they will require.
So, with all due respect to nuclear power enthusiasts, please stop wasting our time and money on a dead technology which has relegated itself to irrelevance long ago.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
"[1st and 2nd generation Thermal] Nuclear power [are] a dead end. No new [1st or 2nd Generation Thermal] nuclear plants have been built in 25 years". . .
There, fixed it for you. Yes, old reactor designs are a dead end. They are prone to a risk of melt-down (though that risk has been, mostly, successfully managed for the past 30 years; yes, Three Mile Island was a problem, but, keep in mind that even with the TMI incident, the safety features of that reactor design prevented an escape of radiation when the melt-down did occur), they only extract a miniscule amount of the potential energy available in the fuel, and they create waste that "would have to be kept under armed guard forever".
Nuclear physicists and engineers have continued to do R&D for the past 30 years, and they are proposing *new* ideas. When new ideas are presented, you can't just assume that the same arguments that were valid criticisms of the previous designs continue to be valid for the new designs.
We have, right now, a Nuclear Waste problem, because of those previous generations of dead-end reactor designs, that must be dealt with. Putting the stuff into storage for 100000 years is not really a solution. The only real solution to the nuclear waste problem is to further process it to make the waste 'safe' and short lived.
Now, I do not really know if the design proposed in this article is "the solution" or not. Maybe it is. There was also a solution proposed in the 1990s, called the Integral Fast Reactor, which was essentially melt-down proof - not because of systems put in place to prevent a possible melt-down, but because it used a different Nuclear Reaction called a Fast Nuclear reaction, instead of the older Thermal Nuclear reaction, and was such that if the reactor increased in temperature beyond the normal operating temperature, the reaction actually choked itself, sort of like a candle sealed in a glass container. They even successfully tested the design, by purposefully cutting off the cooling to a prototype reactor that the DoE built out in the desert somewhere, and it did, in fact, shut itself down as it is designed to do.
The IFR design was also based around the concept of using our existing waste stockpiles as *fuel* for the reactor, producing hundreds of times more energy from that fuel, than older 'conventional' reactors do, which should have made it much more economically feasible.
The reason I mention the Integral Fast Reactor, is that is an example of a new design which I've studied more about than this new fission-fusion hybrid in the article, which demonstrates that the old arguments don't *necessarily* apply to new designs. Every proposal must be studied and evaluated on it's own merits - you can't just make a sweeping statement that Nuclear power is a dead end.
Unfortunately, the IFR project (which was being conducted by the Department of Energy) was canceled by the Clinton administration because of the same knee-jerk reaction to all Nuclear technology, exhibited by the parent, instead of really considering the IFR design on it's own merits or problems.
Also, in regards to this new technology, it sounds like they are not necessarily proposing to build new plants, but to 'upgrade' existing plants. If we can upgrade the already built plants in such a way as to reduce our existing waste stockpiles, where is the downside? True, this new design, as with any new design, needs to be thoroughly evaluated and proven, and also compared to other proposals (for example, we should consider if this proposed design is actually superior to the IFR design - if not, we should be restarting the IFR project instead, perhaps) before we role it out to any large scale.
*Maybe* we should have never gotten into the business of Nuclear Fission, but the fact remains that we have all this waste that we need to do something with. Why not 'burn' it in a new reactor type in such a way that we produce significantly less toxic, shorter lived waste? Environmentalists should be proponents of finding ways to deal with our nuclear waste problem, not object to every single proposal with a blanket statement that nuclear power is a dead end and re-hashing the same old tired arguments regardless of whether or not they apply to the new proposals.
Low and medium level waste is to be disposed of at a site in Carlsbad, NM. It is called Waste Isolation Pilot Plant - WIPP. Site here: http://www.wipp.energy.gov/
IIRC, they are open to (scheduled) visits.
Basically, it's a salt mine that doesn't produce any salt.
President Gerald Ford issued a Presidential directive (October 1976) to indefinitely suspend the commercial reprocessing and recycling of plutonium in the U.S. This was confirmed by President Jimmy Carter in 1977. Link.
-kgj
ROGUE dammit!
Rouge = Red
R - O - G - U - E
We've had it for decades. It has such a high burnup that spent fuel can be returned directly to the ground, because it is less radioactive than natural uranium ore. The submitter is uninformed, or a luddite moron shilling for the enviro-freaks.
Okay, is this freakishly close to the way a thermonuclear bomb works? Okay, it's not ignited by a primary nuclear explosion, but you are using the electricity partially generated by the primary nuclear plant to get fusion as a neutron source to get even more fission.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for increasing solar, wind, ocean-based, and other 'passive' power systems. But, all the people talking about wind and solar seem to always leave off some important problems - That solar panel which is producing 1kw (or whatever) at noon on a clear sunny day might only be producing 150W on a cloudy day, and nothing at night. That wind turbine which is producing 1kw on a nice windy day might be producing nothing on a stagnant day.
Now, I believe the counterargument to that is the idea that if you have enough wind farms and enough solar panels around the country and around the world, "It's always sunny/windy *somewhere*", but then you have problem of transmitting power from where you can produce it, to the place where it needs to be employed, and until we have high-temperature superconductors, that means we are suffering somewhat significant power losses during transmission. Also, you still need some way to ensure a stable baseline of power - power that you can count on producing a minimum amount, all hours of the day or night, every day of the year. Coal, oil, nuclear, and geothermal offer that - wind and solar really do not - they are spikey.
Finally, have environmentalists considered the impact of the land use necessary to produce electricity on the scale our nation needs using solar and wind? We're talking about putting arrays of turbines and solar panels (or other solar technologies - PhotoVoltaic panels aren't the only solar energy generation systems) on very large areas of land - what affects will that have on birds, insects, animals, native ecologies? How many birds will be hacked to death by wind turbines, or cooked alive by thermal solar systems? Maybe bird migrations will be confused by all the glare from PV panels? I mean, who knows what the impact will be of putting the enormous amounts of land necessary to power our nation to use as wind and solar farms?
Also, have you considered that, while the USA maybe has lots of undeveloped land in sunny deserts that are ideal for solar power, maybe other nations don't have such good conditions for solar power? Where are the UK, France, Germany, etc going to build their solar and wind farms? India? China? I suppose you can probably put lots of solar panels on roofs of buildings , so that does mean that you can use some already developed land as part of your solar farms, but I'm not sure you can get enough panels in place just doing that? Maybe, but I suspect that buildings will not be sufficient alone (I think about it this way - my understanding is that a solar panel on the roof of a typical house, commercial building, or skyscraper cannot provide enough power for that house, building or skyscraper, so it stands to reason that panels on the roof of every building cannot provide enough power for every building).
From the summary... "A hybrid fission-fusion process has been developed"
From the article: " ...a new system that, when fully developed, would use fusion..."
If it uses fusion, it hasn't been developed.
Never shake hands with a man you meet in a fertility clinic.
While this invention may mitigate some of the nuclear waster there is still the issue of contaminating the environment while extracting fuel. I don't think this fact should stop anyone from building this reactor or any nuclear reactor. After all, global warming is, uh, global and any incidental contamination due to mining is merely local. It's just another problem that needs to be solved.
2) Has anyone demonstrated and had repeated a fusion reactor that is net energy positive?
3) 99% reduction of waste still leaves the 1% of waste that lasts 10k to 1m years. You minimize the problem, but still don't reduce it to a human scale.
4) Transport. How do you get the waste from 10-15 LWR to one of these? Oh thats right you have to transport it by train and truck. Just dandy! That's not an accident waiting to happen at all!
5) How is this better than Thorium cycle based reactors? Liquid Thorium reactors apparently don't require mixing fission and fusion (KISS), produce waste that last 300 years not 1m, burn thorium for which we have supplies for ages and even mine from other planets, and can be started and stopped safely reacting to peak demand, and were safely demonstrated in the 60s.
I'll take a flyer, but I'm not going to tho
How are they going to run the fusion part? The article doesn't say. In fact it's not clear what the innovation is here. The LIFE proposal from LLNL would use ICF fusions.
http://lasers.llnl.gov/missions/energy_for_the_future/life/
-Carl
This idea has been under development at the Georgia Tech Fusion Research Center (http://www.frc.gatech.edu/tr.html) for about a decade. The link has several papers about the subject. But, given fusion based transmutation requires a working, steady state (and economically viable) fusion reactor, this is something that might work *after* ITER and a subsequent demonstration plant actually prove the technology.
JSBiff's comment is highly insightful
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
We all know that energy is proportional matter, the factor is the speed of light in vacuum squared.
Therefore, I assume we get rid of all that "bad, nuclear matter" by simply reorganising the equitation to m = e/cÂ.
I just solved the issue in theory, just get a bunch of engeneers to solve the details. I'm off golfing.
It's a variety of anal wart.
Unfortunately much (most?) of the US public thinks that:
Everything that's "natural" is good. (Umm... what about ricin? Perfectly respectable "natural" product...)
Everything "nuclear" is bad. (The parent is potentially a good counterexample).
Everything "renewable" is good. (Using corn-based ethanol as a fuel source is a really bad idea ... there are better sources that have less environmental and economic impact).
Etc. Unfortunately the state of science education in the US is in such a sorry state that too many people are unable to think rationally about many of the choices facing us - they'll pay more attention to what Oprah or Paris think about some scientific question than they would to the scientists and engineers who actually do know something about those choices.
For all those people, I've got a bridge for sale in Manhattan! Cheap!! Buy it now while you have the chance, because it'll sell fast!!!
:-( :-( :-( Our country is so screwed... hopefully some of the rest of the world can keep civilization going until the nitwits here die out ... :-( :-( :-(
If you want to convince environmentalists, you just need to show it's cost/benefit (where cost includes environmental damage) is significantly better than fossil fuel combustion.
But you do yourself a disservice if you claim it is sustainable. If we harvest the fuel faster than nature makes it, it's a finite resource.
I've seen some of that research as well. The prototypes have had some design flaws, sodium leaks and other problems. But you know what? EVERY large-scale clean source of energy is difficult to implement. Solar power is woefully inefficient, wind is very difficult to scale, massacres birds, and is prone to mechanical failures.
What's needed to overcome these difficulties? Research. Other clean technologies have had the benefit of research, huge government subsidies and all sort of propaganda. I would say they are all far less promising than AFR/IFR for large scale, sustainable base-load production. I think we should still pursue them, but not as a substitute for fast breeders.
In a time of oil wars, fuel shortages, mountaintop removal, coal mine catastrophes, coal ash catastrophes and global warming, it's incredibly irresponsible to get in the way of AFR/IFR research. But we do anyway, because we're idiots. No, it's not ready for mass deployment. We need a generation of test reactors before we are there. But we could have, and should have, long been there by now, if we didn't cancel this research in the 90's.
Ok, I get the concept that "burn" in this context has nothing to do with oxidation. TFA is a bit hard to follow when it uses value-added sanitizing sales jargon to describe gnarly policy conundrums as though they were immediately solved and only awaiting President Obama's SOA. But...
Can anyone say precisely what the final products of this so-called "burn" will be, since obviously plutonium oxide is nobody's friend? Is there a stable thorium isotope? Instead of radon, we get what, precisely? Do all these heavy metals and transironic elements play nice with Thumper and Bambi? Do you want them in your tomato soup?
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
Weed is natural and they hate that. I don't think the 'average' person has a pattern, they are just idiots.
I know nothing of nuclear energy and how it works. What I do care about is a sustainable energy solution with negligible environmental impact. What I mean by negligible is this:
Say it takes 100 years for X amount of waste created by the system to break down and disappear.
In any 100 year period, accounting for increases in demand, etc., the maximum amount of waste (in any form) produced should be less than 100X.
If nuclear power can promise this in a safe and reliable form, I will be all for it. Maybe the real problem here is that it is difficult for the average person to understand how nuclear power can be green.
I understand that solar/wind/etc. are not perfect, but it is easy for commoners like me to understand why their impact is small. I have some solar lights outside my house, and even now in the New England winter, they still last all night at a decent level of brightness.
that's something I've been thinking about, the costs/hazards of wind power, at least environmentally. I don't think solar will be a problem, but if there was a massive implementation of wind farms, what kind of impact would that have on the environment.
Other than a decrease in wind speed what hazards are these? Wind turbines, genies, can actually help some. Say I am a farmer, I can use a little bit of my land to cite wind genies. The concrete pads don't take up much space. If I own them I can sell the electricity produced to the power company. Another route, though I'm not sure I think it's actually done more often is that farmers lease the land to the power company and is paid a percentage for the power generated. This way the farmer doesn't have any out of pocket expenses and doesn't have to pay to maintain the genies. Because of the income I'm not pressured to farm as much of the land, I can leave some of in a natural state, er as close as it can get.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
There is a high quality neutron source existing. The fusion reactor that was push by Dr. Bussard a few year ago. For those that don't remember it was a reactor called a polywell.
Dr.Bussard was believing that it could break even and the remaining question was one of scaling and engineering not physics.
Depending on the fuel and the scaling you could have your combined fusion-fission reactor probably under a decade if you want to burn fission material. For net power the time frame was somewhat similar for commercial power plant that wouldn't produce neutron.
There was news of a review of a new set of experiment and the result where interesting enough that the navy is still interested in funding it.
If you want more info here a few links :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell
http://talk-polywell.org/bb/index.php
http://iecfusiontech.blogspot.com/
And then watch as the federal government steps in and takes your patents under eminent domain (or whole sale invalidates them). Don't think it's happened? Google for "patents national security". It's done quite often.
I would love to see every existing plant decommissioned and replaced with something that wasn't hip in the 70's. We need the power, it's cheaper and cleaner than coal and better for the environment.
Nuclear power only seems cheap. If all subsidies for nuclear power were eliminated nuclear power would not be profitable. Now that's not to say coal doesn't get subsidies, it does.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
My understanding is that the US does not reprocess waste for political reasons. Basically, it was a condition of some of the disarmament treaties designed to pacify some Russian concerns.
No, that's not why reprocessing was stopped. As president Jimmy Carter called for the halt to reprocessing. And every president since has kept it. A lot of people ridicule Carter because of it however he knew what he was doing. While in the Navy he was trained in nuclear power plant operations, his goal was to serve on a nuclear submarine.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
That's the dumbest fucking policy we've ever come up with and yet another reason that Jimmy Carter ranks up there with worst Presidents we've ever had.
Jimmy Carter was trained in Nuclear powerplant operations, were you? There have been 4, we're on the fifth, presidents of the US since then and not one has restarted reprocessing.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
All the manhours in the world won't be worth much when we run out of some critical resource.
I agree with the "waste not want not" however given enough manhours the only critical resource is brain power. Humans can figure how to deal with a shortage. Whether they will or not is another matter.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
My University does it on campus, kinda amusing the US can't. Go Canada? (home of candu reactors)
"reprocessing of used power reactor fuel is not currently practiced in Canada"
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
There are a multitude of answers to that and none of them require nuclear power.
First of all I'm not proposing, nor is anyone else who's opinion might be marginally worth listening to, that we rely on solar power exclusively. Solar may or may not generate the majority of our power at some point. Wind and dry geothermal power CAN provide perfectly fine base load power.
The wind may not blow in every location all of the time, but there is relatively little overall variation when you have facilities scattered all over the country. Dry geothermal energy stations can be sited practically anywhere and certainly aren't subject to any more variations than any other existing standard power plant design.
As suggestions for the uses of solar energy it could be utilized directly as process heat, which in turn can be used to reformulate biomass or hydrolyze water to produce hydrogen or carbon based fuels and feedstocks. Industrial applications of electricity can easily operate at times when such power is available.
In the likely case that much of our ground transportation infrastructure is switched over to electric vehicles that entire segment would also be provided with its power during the day.
Finally energy CAN be stored. There are well tested and long used methods of doing so, like pumping water into reservoirs for example, which has been used for the last 100 years at most larger hydroelectric facilities.
Sure, all of these things require money to build, but just the sheer time frames involved is much shorter and it is not a big deal to build a storage facility and find out that particular technology isn't so great. With nuclear technology you HAVE to do decades of safety work up front before you can even plan a deployment. The risks are much higher.
Nuclear power is a dead letter. I'll predict it now, not one single nuclear power plant will be constructed in the US from now on. It just isn't going to happen and it is pointless to waste money pretending it will. The cost of 10 new standard commercial LWRs is enough money to finance ALL the remaining R&D needed to start installing solar PV on a massive scale AND subsidize a good bit of the deployment. Its just a matter of economics. Nukes aren't economical.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
Yeah...
Actually if you just go pick up a back issue of Scientific American from a few months or a year back they had it all spelled out.
Assuming the type of PV arrays likely to be deployable in 10 years or so we can supply the required electricity for the entire country by covering one small area down in the corner of Nevada.
I don't know what the environmental impact of that would be, but it certainly doesn't seem out of order with the impact we've seen already with nuclear power.
When will the nuclear power advocates actually get an adding machine and add up the cost of all these plants they want to build, plus the cost of the waste transport, storage, disposal/reprocessing, decommissioning costs of the plants, etc and realize that its just way out of line with the benefits.
I'm not making ANY of my arguments on any kind of grounds of environmentalism. I've seen the numbers added up, it DOES NOT MAKE SENSE to build more nuclear power plants. It just doesn't! Not even the electric power industry in this country wants to build more nukes, they know better. If it was such a great deal why aren't they building them now? Because its a bad deal, thats why!
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
Except that there are not any safer viable alternatives.
BS, solar and wind are safer.
More radioactivity has been released into the atmosphere through burning coal than has ever been released by Nuclear means. More deaths have occurred due to Fossil fuels than nuclear energy.
I can imagine, just look at how many die in mining accidents. However uranium mining is also nasty.
No more than 20% of a countries supply can be powered by wind and have a stable grid (frequency fluctuations).
Improving energy storage can help. However increasing the efficiency of power plants can have a big impact. "American Scientist" has an article in the current issue, January-February 2009, about this. "Getting the Most from Energy: Recycling waste heat can keep carbon from going sky high" goes into how inefficient power generation is today in the US. Literally gigawatts of power go up smoke stacks, when a lot of that power can be captured.
That leaves 80% to be made up by Solar, Water and Geothermal.
SciAm had an article, "A Grand Solar Plan" about how solar power can provide 69% of the US's electricity by 2050. That's not enough? The Rocky Mountains alone has enough potential wind power to supply all 48 continuous states with electricity. Several places in NYC are already using geothermal power for heating and cooling. With a properly insulated building though body heat is enough to keep a room warm. Check out the "American Scientist" article linked to above. More than 100 years ago Thomas Edison's ConEd's power plants were more efficient than many plants are today. Not only did the plants produce electricity but they also provided heat to buildings with Combined Heat-power Plants, CHP, today called Cogeneration.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Instead of calling it "fly ash," we need to start calling it "carbon fallout"
http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
The reason manhours are so valuable is they can be used not only to extract a resource, or to extract any other resource, but to use it more effciently, invent new ways to use it, invent new ways to not use it, or even to invent new resources.
Tell me with a straight face the hours of your life don't feel finite. I never have enough time.
http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
to make a black hole. And simply throw all the waste into it ?
Nullius in verba
every existing plant decommissioned and replaced with something that wasn't hip in the 70's.
Could we Please build the new plants first?
Heck, can we replace the coal plants first, as well?
Step 1: Build a 1.X GW GenIII plant.
2: Shut down 1.X GW of coal plant. Preferably the dirtiest, least economical, most dangerous plant in operation.
3: Build 2-3 GW of nuclear plant on the same site or close if moving the site a bit makes sense.
Repeat 2-3 until you run out of coal or other dirty electrical sources. Start on the old, inefficient nuke plants.
While you're at it, put some encouragements in to make them Co/Trigeneration plants - let's get some economical activity out of the pure heat.
I don't read AC A human right
As I understand it, it's because breeder reactors haven't been developed to prime-time yet, and are perceived as more expensive/prone to failure than various light water reactors.
Personally, I'm very much for trying again - the French already figured out most of the problems, and we're much better at computer modeling today.
Like Chu, I fully believe that nuclear power does have issues/problems - it's just that, on the whole, they're a much better option than the other cheap source of power - coal.
I don't read AC A human right
Yes, it contiminates the area.
Only one of those 4 meltdowns contaminated the area - Chernobyl. Which, as it turned out, was like building a house with no roof then complaining when the rain gets in.
TMI and the others had containment buildings that would act as secondary containment if the reaction breached the reactor vessel. Heck, ALL of our plants have that.
I don't read AC A human right
all nuclear should be eliminated. Including that thing 91 million miles away.
It is not waste that is holding back nuclear power it's economics. There is a perfectly safe and valid solution for dealing with waste. Stick it in a (properly engineered) hole in the ground, go talk to the Swedes.
The problem is that while coal and gas are cheap no-one wants to stump up $2bn to build a nuclear power station which they won't see any return on for 5-10 years (depending on how many public enquiries delay construction and operation). Making the reactor twice as expensive and complicated by adding more technology to it just makes this problem worse. It's great science but it's never going to fly in the real world.
As a former nuclear engineer you must also be aware that nuclear material can and is frequently used with virtually no risk to anyone.
I'm not a former nuclear engineer, perhaps you meant you are one. And yes, I know nuclear material is used with little risk. They are used in Nuclear medicine.
I too am scared by unregulated, corner-cutting businesses working with the stuff. But no more afraid of a commercial farmer breeding a potentially lethal or ecologically dangerous super-crop though... and that's legal.
Surprise, surprise. I'm more concerned with, scared of, genetic engineering of crops than I am with nuclear power. I'm not opposed to GE but believe maximum precautions should be taken. Though GE haven't been done long super weeds are already being created.
The nuclear industry exists now, and there have been tremendous strides in the technology and safety. To suggest that we should not encourage an industry that may, with advances such as this article discusses, result in nearly zero net effect on the environment is pretty awesome if you ask me.
I'm not totally opposed to nuclear power or research but I don't want taxpayer money paying for it. If it is subsidized then I want alternative energy sources subsidized just as much. McCain campaigned saying he wanted to give the nuclear power industry billions of dollars, I say if you want to do that then give solar just as much, and wind, and tidal energy research. Otherwise let Wall Street pay for it. The Freemarket think-tank CATO Institute explains "Why conservatives should join the left's campaign against nuclear power." And CATO isn't some environmentalist hippies.
Honestly, nuclear fission is probably the best energy source we could pursue right now. Why, because we can do it now with virtually no waiting and no chance of finding out later that we rushed into something we shouldn't have (like corn ethanol).
I agree about corn ethanol, corn is a poor feedstock for ethanol. Sugarcane is better, but even better is switchgrass. Right now both solar and wind work. A 5 megawatt wind turbine should be able to be erected in less than a month. Erect 20 a month for a year and you'll add 1.2 gigawatts of power in that year. The last nuclea rpower plant to go online in the US was the Watts Bar Nuclear Generating Station. Construction started in 1973 and unit 1 of 2 units was compleated in 1996, it took 23 years. And how much does it generate? It has a generating capacity of 1,167 megawatts. Using wind genies that capacity could be done in one year.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Can't really do co/tri generation with wind/solar, you can with coal - but then you're back to the nasty pollution which is the reason they moved them out of the cities in the first place.
It is done in cities though. I don't know if it's still done in NYC but it used to be. Denmark get more than 50% of it's energy from cogeneration. Copenhagen, Denmark has 8 cogeneration power plants and more than 90% of the homes are heated by them.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
The ever-powerful eco-lobby that can't even get us to limit carbon emissions barely has the power to stop nuclear power plants. Many environmentalists, like myself, support nuclear power when it's properly regulated and well thought out. The problem is too many people can't get Chernobyl and 3 mile island out of their heads, despite the fact that the pollution from coal and oil is ultimately more destructive than nuclear power.
I agree the eco lobby doesn't have that much power, however it's not just Chernobyl that has people scared that's the problem. The freemarket doesn't support nuclear power either. Here's what the freemarket CATO Institute has to say:
"Hooked on Subsidies"
"Why conservatives should join the left's campaign against nuclear power."
CATO credits "Forbes magazine" for the article. And neither CATO nor Forbes are part of the "eco lobby" or scared of Chernobyl.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Scientific American just had an article on fast neutron reactors that get around the waste issue and don't create any weapons grade material: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=smarter-use-of-nuclear-waste&page=1
SciAm has another article, "A Solar Grand Plan" which along with Picken's Plan shows why nuclear power isn't needed.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Panels are now where close enough to be really economical. In fact they require massive taxpayer subsidies to make them even remotly desirable.
The same applies to nuclear power, without massive subsidies it would not be profitable. Heck even coal is subsidized.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
You ignore the fact that Solar requires massive amounts of land area in addition to erm... lots of Sun ...to be affective which is great if you have that, but in more densely populated countries which also have crap weather (e.g. the UK), well then Solar simply isn't an option.
Yea, it really depends on the location. In the US Oregon is considered the Saudi Arabia of solar power. In the UK though wind is good.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
you have problem of transmitting power from where you can produce it, to the place where it needs to be employed
HVDC, High Voltage DC powerlines can transmit electricity log distances.
Also, you still need some way to ensure a stable baseline of power - power that you can count on producing a minimum amount, all hours of the day or night, every day of the year. Coal, oil, nuclear, and geothermal offer that
As you say geothermal can provide at least some baseload as can natural gas. Geothermal provides power in California. Geothermal provides 13,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity. One geothermal power plant on the Big Island in Hawaii provides 25% of it's electricity. And in New York City geothermal energy is used to heat homes.
Finally, have environmentalists considered the impact of the land use necessary to produce electricity on the scale our nation needs using solar and wind?
Actually now many environmentalists now support nuclear power.
How many birds will be hacked to death by wind turbines
Cats are now a bigger threat to birds than wind turbines. Actually it was some of the older wind turbines that killed a lot of birds. Today they're made with bigger blades that spin slower, it was the fast spinning blades that killed birds.
Maybe bird migrations will be confused by all the glare from PV panels?
Birds are already confused by the windows on buildings.
Where are the UK, France, Germany, etc going to build their solar and wind farms?
Much of Germany has good potential wind energy. A German town is going 100% Renewable Power.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
for an average of 12 hrs/day.
You need to find a replacement for baseload power.
And in 20 or 30 years there may be enough storage to store energy. Or geothermal might be used.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
The good thing about solar/wind/wave etc. is that we can use it to lessen the need for more nuclear/coal energy, but even easier is to use less energy.
Define 'easier' please?
I' not sure if this is what you mean but here goes: Typically when people build homes Off the Grid the first thing they do is to reduce as much as they can how much power they will need. Instead of 10 or 20 incandescent light bulbs which are 60, 75, or 100 watts they'll use 12, 15, or 24 watt compact florescent light bulbs. Instead of building a home that requires a large heating and cooling system, they'll design it so it uses more insulation and the walls have a higher R value. With a good R value for the location little to no heating or cooling will be needed. For a clothes washing machine instead of using a top loading machine, they'll get a side loading machine which will only use half of the electricity the top loading ones use, as well as only half the water. To dry the clothes they'll use a clothesline.
There are a number of things those going off the grid do to reduce the energy they need. They go through all this because it's cheaper to reduce their energy needs than it is to build a larger solar, wind, or whatever energy system.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
not an engineering issue.
Tell that to the French who are gung ho about nuclear power.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Environmentalists should be proponents of finding ways to deal with our nuclear waste problem, not object to every single proposal with a blanket statement that nuclear power is a dead end and re-hashing the same old tired arguments regardless of whether or not they apply to the new proposals.
Actually environmentalists are supporting nuclear power. It's the freemarket and Wall Street that don't support it. Quite a switch from how it used to be isn't it?
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
In 2009 man went into unsentient and made super bomb technology rivalling the sun End of movie. Was it stupid? Yes, it was, because someone gave them the answer they needed back in 2003 => http://forums.signonsandiego.com/showpost.php?p=3472257&postcount=215 (San Diego Forums recent post).
I've bad news for you.
The idiocy is not limited to USA.
Actually, Mr AC has summed it up quite appropriately. Maybe the first part is a troll but the rest should be modded 'informative' - because it's actually true.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
The US was a rich country once. We aren't anymore. Making decisions like "no more reactors" got us here.
The basic deal here is that each U-235 atom that splits yield 170 MeV of energy; 1.7 x 10^8. The average chemical reaction yields a few eV. (Source: Los Alamos Primer, Robert Serber)
As a country we can't afford to throw away fuel which is that much more powerful. It's not only stupid, it's cruel.
For example, we have people working in coal mines because we won't build nuclear reactors. Coal mines are not very safe at all.
About 20% of our electricity now comes from 1st generation nuclear reactors. They're being run past their design life. We need to build more just to replace the old ones, and they need to be 1000 Megawatt size. We really should ask the French, because they have had a lot of success in this area.
People are talking about "conservation". They've been talking about that since the first Earth Day, which I remember. When you add a lot more people, you still need more electricity. Without electricity, we go back a hundred years as a civilization.
It's time to make the tough choices instead of letting them go to the next generation by taking no action.
-- Dave
There's a *big* difference between a bunch of miners (who choose to do their job in the full knowledge of the risks) being injured or killed and a large civilian population being injured or killed by a nuclear reactor going boom.
I never said there wasn't a difference, and if you look my previous posts I am decidedly pessimistic about nuclear power.
The media and "environmentalist groups", of course, play a large part in continuing the myth that another Chernobyl disaster
Except environmentalists are supporting nuclear power. It's businesses and the freemarket that doesn't. Without massive government subsidies nuclear power is not profitable.
proposed Sizewell C reactor will have an output of 1600MW - that's the equivalent of around 450 offshore wind turbines
What wind turbines are you talking about? To produce 1600MW all it takes is 320 5 megawatt turbines but there are bigger ones.
And that's before you've even built all the infrastructure for connecting the hundreds of turbines to the grid
Transmission is needed whether the generators and nuclear or wind turbines. However if the wind genies are cited locally then not as much is needed to transmit power.
and the stand-by power generation capacity (probably gas turbines) for when the wind doesn't blow.
Or storage can be used.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
You do need to keep ships away from both the turbines and the cables linking them to the power grid. They are also likely to be difficult and dangerous to service in a storm...
The same applies to oil rigs, bridges, and other structures.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Your construction project is also going to have to hardware to link up 240 generators to the grid. Also they probably arn't going to be able to generate their rated power at all times.
That's no problem, that's already being done. " U.S. Wind Energy Installations Top 20 Gigawatts". Here's a chart of how much each state generates: "10 Gigawatts of wind power (AWEA)".
I doubt it actually takes 23 years to construct a nuclear power plant.
Did you also read about the 5 megawatt wind turbines and how fast power capacity can be added?
Also you arn't restricted to windy places to build them
That's alright, some places are good for wind, others are good for geothermal, solar, or tidal. Geothermal energy produced produced 13,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity in California in 2007. On the Big Island of Hawaii geothermal energy produced 25% of the electricity. Houses in New York City are heated by geothermal energy. From British Columbia to Southern California along the Pacific Coast solar is widely available. Here's a list of states with good solar potential: "Solar takes no shine to Nevada". The title refers to the solar industry not wanting to go to Nevada because right across the state line in California the state has a number of incentives to encourage solar. Simply use whatever type of energy an area has.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Larger turbines are more efficient
Maybe not, bigger isn't always better, more efficient.
However it is, nuclear power would not be profitable and Wall Street would not pay for it if government did not subsidize it.
You do realize that you can say the exact same thing for wind/solar, right?
While solar and wind are subsidized, Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency has the incentives per state, it's individuals or those who have them installed who get the subsidies. And those subsidies aren't that much though it may cut the cost in half. Large corporations don't get them. If it was me, and I hope to install PVs myself, I could choose what company I buy the panels from.
The only power generation types that get less subsidies than nuclear is NG and dirty coal. Solar and wind generally get at least an order of magnitude more subsidy than nuclear.
Only if you don't cut the limited liability nuclear has. No other type of energy gets limited liability. Now if instead nuclear power plants had to pay for insurance then the price per kilowatthour would be high I bet.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I've read this whole mind-numbing thread (and the links). There have been some good and some bad arguments. I'll be upfront, I'm a big fan of nuclear (disclaimer: if it wasn't for medical isotopes, my mother wouldn't be alive today). After absorbing all this information, the choice is simple: CANDU, which works, or IFR which was working until they canned it. Any reactor where shutting down the cooling system means that the reactor becomes sub-critical is, for me, a major criterion.
This whole thread has missed the most important point. Heat. Everything we do, every process we engage, every time we press a button on the remote, the resultant activity involves the generation of heat. Let's say that we can provide ourselves with unlimited carbon-neutral energy. We still have the problem of inefficiency. Assuming zero methane and CO2, the heat we produce will remain a significant problem.
I wonder which car company will be the first to start producing boats?
C:\>
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a thumb.
Bah, accidentally hit submit earlier instead of preview. Makes me wish slashdot had an edit button.
On the subject of nuclear waste - only for a short term. You want to get technical, the toxic ash dumps coal power is generating will need to be stored a heck of a lot longer. There's also a huge amount more of it.
But then, you want to double our NG production, taking us from about ~50 years of capacity to less than 25.
With breeder reactors or proper reprocessing, we reduce the amount of waste by something like 90%, and the time we need to store it by current guidelines by about a factor of a hundred - something like 300 years total. Yucca mountain or a number of other sites can do that easily.
I don't read AC A human right
I moved from Florida. I really miss being within an hour of the coast. What is you latitude? Solar hot water works in Oregon and Washington state. It works in Maine as well. But maybe it's out of your financing.
North Dakota, just south of the border. I'm not arguing that it wouldn't work, it's just that I'd have to use vacuum tube radiators and a secondary loop w/antifreeze, and STILL get no benefit from it for 3 months out of the year. As a result my system would cost ~10X as much as one for my family down in Florida.
I've thought of that, using geothermal energy to provide hot water, but I think I'd use a tankless point of use water heater. Perhaps a solar hot water heater can be used to preheat the water.
You have to be careful, a number of those tankless jobs are actually LESS efficient than a well insulated tank. Most solar systems refit into a standard electric water heater. You WANT the tank to store hot water overnight, even if you never use the electric elements.
There's a personal tax credit, property tax exemption, sales tax exemption, state grant and loan programs, as well as others.
My grandparent's house is a lot like mine... Besides, they're on social security pretty much as their sole income. It'd have to make a LOT of sense and work well in order for me to recommend it. It'd pretty much have to start saving them money in year 1, because they'd have to finance the upgrade.
That $420 Billion would provide almost 3,000 gigawatts with PV technology, a lot more than even 400 Gigawatts.
Source? I was simply using the number quoted by the 'grand plan'.
I don't read AC A human right
I'm not sure if retrofitting or a tear down and rebuild is better, older buildings already have a lot of embedded energy.
My house also has things like cloth-wrapped electrical wiring, plaster and lathe walls, an overcomplicated roof, was already expanded three times, poorly laid out, etc...
It sounds like tear down and rebuild would be better for you. Maybe what you could do is keep the shell though.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I didn't exactly need links to such simple near universal construction materials as concrete, steel, cement, and such. I'm well aware of the nuclear cycle.
It's not like wind doesn't need them either - and a stand alone solar complex will use them as well. For solar, roof mounts would be the lightest, structural material wise, but photovoltaic panels use all sorts of nasty stuff anyways.
Nuclear has very low life-cycle CO2 emissions - scroll down a bit for the chart. Coal is 966-1306, Gas 439-688, Solar PV 100-280, Wind 10-48, Nuclear 9-21.
Interesting article on green nuclear power
I'd rather directly link the referenced UC Berkeley study - but This should do:
Wind: 460 Metric tons steel, 870 cubic meters concrete for 1 MW
Nuclear: 40 MT steel, 190 m^3 concrete
Coal: 98 MT, 160 m^3 (there only for comparison purposes)
Update - found it! - but doesn't want to download completely on my system.
While Uranium mining and refining is fairly nasty, the trick is that you need so little of it - You'd end up mining more cadmium and other rare and nasty minerals for photovoltaic panels.
Yes I have. "Hooked on Subsidies: Why conservatives should join the left's campaign against nuclear power" is one. CATO, a Freemarket Institute, also has articles that say something about coal subsidies.
But you lose the bonus points, my article still has relevance, since 'Hooked on Subsidies' only mentions putting it up against coal, which I don't consider a viable clean alternative, even with 'clean' and carbon sequestration. For the energy produced the subsidies on wind/solar are far, far higher than nuclear. And yes, I do consider 'rebates' subsidies.
Not that I necessarily object to all subsidies. For example, energy efficiency deductions. I don't think insulation and other energy saving measures should be factored into real estate taxes. Yes, I include solar panels and such in there. Call it my 'people shouldn't be penalized for owning a quality house'. Not a big house, not a fancy house, but a quality one - safe, efficient, well insulated, etc... People shouldn't be penalized for painting their shack and installing good windows.
Oh, and your syngas link brings up an interesting point. If I got my way, the building of the 300 or so plants needed to shut down our actively carbon emitting power plants would free up a LOT of coal for syngas activities. I know it can be done - the Germans did it during WWII. Economically? That's a better question. Personally, I prefer the idea of algae trays in the desert for biodiesel and biogasoline.
I don't read AC A human right