Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

10% of US Energy Derived From Old Soviet Nukes

Posted by timothy on from the what-about-the-peak-nukes-problem dept.

Nrbelex writes "The New York Times reports that about 10 percent of electricity generated in the United States comes from fuel from dismantled nuclear bombs, mostly Russian. 'It's a great, easy source' of fuel, said Marina V. Alekseyenkova, an analyst at Renaissance Bank and an expert in the Russian nuclear industry that has profited from the arrangement since the end of the cold war. But if more diluted weapons-grade uranium isn't secured soon, the pipeline could run dry, with ramifications for consumers, as well as some American utilities and their Russian suppliers.'"

24 of 213 comments (clear)

  1. In Soviet Russia... by RobertB-DC · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... oh my goodness, I can't bring myself to do it. Go on without me! For great justice!

    --
    Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
    1. Re:In Soviet Russia... by Gothic_Walrus · · Score: 4, Funny

      Don't worry - I'll take one for the team.

      In Soviet Russia, nukes derive energy from you!

      --
      Goo goo g'joob.
    2. Re:In Soviet Russia... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      In Soviet Russia, nuclear weapons disassemble YOU!

  2. So... the solution is more nukes? by Kenja · · Score: 5, Funny

    So the solution to the energy problems we face, is to stockpile more nukes so we can use them for fuel when they get past their "best used by" date?

    --

    "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
    1. Re:So... the solution is more nukes? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      No. In the path uranium -> nukes -> nuclear fuel, it is cheaper to go directly from A to C. This is talking about going from B to C only because people already went overbroad going from A to B as a solution to "security" problems. You can't justify going from A to B from an energy standpoint.

    2. Re:So... the solution is more nukes? by twistedsymphony · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Considering that we have between the US and Russia close to TWENTY thousand warheads, if we take even 20% of that collectively, that'd be enough for another 15-20 years. By which time one would think we'd have gotten our act together on these other more renewable resources.

      sounds quite optimistic to me.

      --
      Collector's Edition
    3. Re:So... the solution is more nukes? by ShakaUVM · · Score: 4, Interesting

      >>So the solution to the energy problems we face

      We have energy problems? I guess we did have rolling brownouts a while back here in California, but California has had its collective head up its butt for a long time when it comes to power infrastructure.

      And no, I'm serious. There's no real looming crisis when it comes to power. Even if we move to a completely carbon neutral energy grid, it'll raise prices by about 50% across the board if we stick with coal, but would remain around the same if we start switching more to nuclear.

      Since making a statement like that tends to draw out the Greens on Slashdot, I'll post the prices of different sources of energy. I looked at four different sources: ClimateProgress.org, a tidal power company survey of power costs, the California Energy Commission study on what wholesale prices would be for new plants built today, and the Federal DoE energy costs estimates. There's quite a bit of discrepancy between the four sources, so I'll give the range of prices between the four.

      There's also subsidies and carbon/social cost adjustments, which I'll also list.

      Summarizing from cheapest to most expensive:
      1) Coal (currently 49% of our power production): 3.15c to 9.4c/KWH. Carbon Capture or Reduction systems raise the price to around 10c to 12c/KWH.

      2) Natural Gas (20% of current production): 4.95c to 9.15c/KWH. Produces half the CO2 of coal. Carbon Capture or Reduction raises the price to 8c - 11.5c/KWH.

      3) Nuclear (19% of current production): 2.16c - 11.5c/KWH. No CO2 production. Price includes decommissioning and lawsuit costs. Federal subsidies knock about 1c/KWH off. Actual wholesale costs from existing plants runs around 4c/KWH these days.

      4) Hydro (7% of current production): 8.7c to 19.5c/KWH. No CO2 production. Federal subsidies knock off about 2c/KWH. Dams have recently become non-politically correct, with some being dynamited to free up fish runs.

      5) Oil (1.7% of current production): Roughly twice as much as natural gas, but prices have fluctuated massively in the last few years. Mainly used as a power backstop. Also puts some pressure on consumer fuel costs.

      6) Biofuel (0.93% of current production): 7.5c - 20c/KWH. No CO2 production, but produces other pollutants. Federal subsidies are large, knocking the price to 5c-15c/KWH for biofuel. Can put pressure on consumer food costs if they do something stupid like burning edible food products for power. (Braindead plans like Ethanol.)

      7) Wind (0.78% of current production): 6.5c - 14.1c/KWH. Offshore adds another 5c-10c/KWH. No CO2 production. Wind farms run into NIMBY resistance from people like the late Sen. Kennedy (who didn't want offshore wind near his estate because it'd ruin the view - what a great environmentalist, no?) Subsidies would knock the price from 13.9c/KWH to 9.9c/KWH, so it's likely the low end estimates (which came from the hippie sources) already include the subsidies.

      8) Metropolitan Solid Waste (0.4% of current production): 6.5c - 8.6c/KWH. No CO2 production. Somewhat limited sources of fuel. Subsidies reduce price to 5.4c/KWH.

      9) Geothermal (0.36% of current production): 5.5c - 13c/KWH. No CO2 production. Somewhat limited sources. Federal subsidies knock the 13c/KWH price to 9c/KWH. (It's likely the 5.5c price from the Hippie groups include the subsidies already.)

      10) Solar (0.03% of current production): 12c - 98c/KWH; discarding high and low: around 18c - 39c/KWH (counting subsidies, 36c-60c/KWH or so without). No CO2 production. Sierra Club has been blocking development of solar power in deserts for environmental reasons.

      11) Wave Power (~0% of current production): 6.5c - 137c/KWH. Note the 6.5c estimate came from a wave power company. The 137c estimate came from the State of California's estimated costs of actually building one. No CO2 production. Some people dislike tidal power plants.

      Knowledge is power. Hopefully, with these numbers out there (which, again, were drawn half from hippie sources, and half fr

  3. Correction by bongey · · Score: 5, Informative

    For about 10 percent of electricity in the United States, it's fuel from dismantled nuclear bombs, INCLUDING Russian ones.

    10% from all not all from Russia . Dammit it is the first sentence.

  4. What a waste... by parlancex · · Score: 4, Funny

    Think of all the countries they could have incinerated with those nukes!

    1. Re:What a waste... by Conchobair · · Score: 5, Funny

      If we are sending it to Glen Beck the question is:

      Why hasn't Obama denied he is powering America's future with his secret Communist/Soviet nuclear power? What is he hiding?

  5. There would BE no supply problem... by DesScorp · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... if we'd use common sense and recycle the fuel, as many other nuclear nations already do. The whole terrorist argument against this was bogus from the start. Recycle the damn fuel, and you can reuse 93 percent of it.

    --
    Life is hard, and the world is cruel
    1. Re:There would BE no supply problem... by ColdWetDog · · Score: 5, Funny

      Better yet bring radium back to popular use. When Curie first discovered it they made makeup out of the stuff.

      So that's where the term 'hot chick' came from. Thanks, always wondered about that.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    2. Re:There would BE no supply problem... by SWPadnos · · Score: 4, Informative

      That type of breeder reactor isn't the only alternative.

      Try this one instead:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor

      The IFR (Integral Fast Reactor) would be able to extract 99% of the energy in the fuel, rather than the 1% we get from the types of reactor used today.

      --
      - The Sigless Wonder
    3. Re:There would BE no supply problem... by careysub · · Score: 4, Informative

      ... if we'd use common sense and recycle the fuel, as many other nuclear nations already do. The whole terrorist argument against this was bogus from the start. Recycle the damn fuel, and you can reuse 93 percent of it.

      Not in any existing reactor you can't. The fissile content (U235+Pu) going into a reactor in fresh fuel is about 4%, the rest is unusable U-238. Burning the fuel fissions about 4% of the actinide nuclei present, and leaves a fissile content of something slightly under 1% (due to plutonium breeding) at the end. Recycling this spent fuel would extend existing fuel supplies by only 25%.

      The fundamental problem with doing this is that it is extremely expensive. The cost of plutonium extracted from spent fuel is equivalent to natural uranium costing $700/kg or so. The actual market price of natural uranium is about $100/kg and for $300/kg you could extract natural uranium from seawater and have a 1000 year supply. Even if the extracted plutonium were free (instead of being far more expensive than the uranium) the cost of fabricating and handling plutonium-bearing fuel is so high that it would still be more expensive that uranium-only fuel. In fact the DOE has to pay utilities to use the mixed plutonium/uranium MOX fuel it makes from ex-Soviet weapons.

      France has conclusively proven that a nuclear fuel cycle with recycling is more expensive than one without it. See: http://www.fas.org/press/_docs/021507PlutoniumRecycle3L.pdf.

      Reprocessed plutonium is that rarest of industrial products: one that it worth less than nothing (even if the extravagant production cost is completely written off).

      Now a breeder reactor fuel cycle could use the U-238 to produce power in principle, but the cost would be much more than conventional nuclear power, and it is hampered by the fact that every breeder reactor project thus built has failed. It may be possible to build a workable breeder pwer reactor, but no one has yet succeeded in doing it.

      --
      Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
    4. Re:There would BE no supply problem... by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Looks like the main drawback is the liquid sodium coolant, because sodium is so reactive. What other metals might work?

      It's reactive if you let it out. We know how to handle liquid sodium.

      Otherwise, I don't see a downside here, at least not compared to traditional reactors. If there is one, someone kindly pipe up.

      It's nookulur. Clinton defunded it with one of his first executive orders, and Gore and Kerry lead the fight to kill it in the Congress the next year. At the time the speculation was it was payback to environmental lobbyists - Sierra Club is against anything nuclear, for instance.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  6. I feel I must apologies by jocks · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Right up until now I thought US foreign policy was extremely poor. I feel I must apologise for thinking that, in fact US foreign policy is an act of unparalleled genius! North Korea is being largely ignored by the US as is Iran, not because they are not dangerous (they are) but you are simply employing them to gather enough nulear armaments together that you will later use to generate power, whilst silmutaneously reducing your dependency on fossil fuel and also creating world stabalisation. Outstanding work, forward thinking and downright cunning. I salute you!

  7. Let's not bicker and argue about who killed who by AlpineR · · Score: 4, Funny

    There were nukes built by Soviets. And there were nukes built for delivery to Soviets. (Intercontinental ballistic missiles: When it absolutely, positively has to be there in twenty minutes.) Whether most of that material would belong to Soviets or Americans depends on who launched first.

  8. They aren't wasted. by pavon · · Score: 5, Informative

    I don't know about Russia, but the US military frequently uses it's old launch vehicles (or at least the engines) for suborbital weapons tests and satellite launches. For example, the Minotaur series of rockets by Orbital Sciences use old Minuteman and Peacekeeper engines. I'm sure there are many other examples.

  9. Re:What a waste of launch vehicles by tokul · · Score: 4, Informative

    The real waste is the dismantling of the launch vehicles (from both countries).

    Dnepr_rocket reuses SS-18 Satan.

  10. Re:We should do more by kevinNCSU · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm a big supporter of nuclear power but to be fair Nuclear power kills fish too nearly any way you wing it. Those puppies need water cooling so most are built near large bodies of water. Even if they cool their water properly (cooling towers or canals) so that they don't mess the fish up by raising the temperature of the body of water at all there's no getting around the fact that those intake pipes are going to suck in some fish and other larger animals can often get stuck on the mesh.

    I know one plant was required to build a "slide for life" to get some of the fish out of the intake. Got the fish out all-right, but their fate wasn't much delayed. The birds on the other hand, thought it was the best fucking invention ever.

  11. "You can't recycle nuclear fuel" by DesScorp · · Score: 4, Informative

    The problem is that you can't recycle nuclear fuel. There are always residual byproducts that last for long and have a potential to pollute eveything around them.

    Well that's funny. France has recycled their fuel for years, and Japan is following suit.

    --
    Life is hard, and the world is cruel
  12. Re:In Post-Soviet Russia... by Zordak · · Score: 4, Insightful

    FTFA "But if more diluted weapons-grade uranium isn't secured soon, the pipeline could run dry, with ramifications for consumers, as well as some American utilities and their Russian suppliers."

    Gotta end sometime, but was fun while it lasted

    Yeah, too bad we can't, you know, mine the stuff or something.

    --

    Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
  13. This proves the old saying... by Burning1 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Dismantle a nuclear bomb, and you can light a city for a year. Drop a nuclear bomb...

  14. Re:In Post-Soviet Russia... by lagomorpha2 · · Score: 4, Funny

    But what happens when we encounter a situation where we need our over 10,000 nuclear warheads?