Belgium's Aging Nuclear Plants Worry Neighbors (phys.org)

Look on the bright side by Anonymous Coward · 2016-01-17 19:17 · Score: 1

At night, you won't have to turn on the lights.

Your,
Homer J. Simpson

Re:Look on the bright side by Creepy · 2016-01-18 05:00 · Score: 2

In the US the towers were specifically designed with the possibility of an aircraft impact in mind, and even if the tower were breached, very little nuclear radiation would likely be emitted. Studies suggest the likelihood of an aircraft collision with a US tower actually causing a breach are infinitesimal. If the Belgian towers were designed around similar parameters, I doubt terrorists could breach them and I imagine car bombs wouldn't have much better luck.
If you mean dirty bombs, you'd need to steal nuclear waste (to get the short lived Actinides, mainly - the long lived ones probably won't do enough tissue damage unless you're very near the blast, as in smoking a cigarette is worse because those contain short lived and dangerous polonium) and separate out some of the shorter half life/more toxic parts to have an effective dirty bomb. Uranium itself in fissile/fertile form would be a terrible choice if you are looking at creating radiation related fatalities. Something like polonium would be vastly more effective. You'd also need to build a large conventional explosive, probably a fertilizer bomb, to actually spread it to any reasonable range.
TL;DR - obsolete reactors don't really help terrorists. You'd probably do more damage blowing up a few hundred cartons of cigarettes in a dirty bomb than stolen nuclear waste, though neither would be particularly effective.
Re:Look on the bright side by Ol+Olsoc · 2016-01-19 15:32 · Score: 1

You'd probably do more damage blowing up a few hundred cartons of cigarettes in a dirty bomb than stolen nuclear waste,
You'd probably be wrong.

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Re:Look on the bright side by nessman · 2016-01-19 16:10 · Score: 1

Nuclear power plant cooling towers don't contain anything radioactive. All they do is expel excess heat from the turbine steam condensers via natural draft. In a pressurized water reactor (like the ones in Belgium) the steam isn't radioactive as it's heated via a closed-loop heat exchanger. Even if the cooling towers were destroyed, the reactors would instead be cooled by whatever water of body they're next to (some water is brought into the plant to make up for the water that's evaporated by the steam condenser).

Sweden worries about theirs too... by MindPrison · 2016-01-17 19:21 · Score: 4, Informative

...the Swedish reactors are some of the oldest and the least serviceable in the world.
http://www.thelocal.se/2015062...

Swedish reactors where considered the 2nd least upgradeable and amongst the worst in the world. Kinda interesting since their Finnish neighbour has one of the most efficient and upgradeable reactor designs in the world. Go figure.

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Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by Z00L00K · 2016-01-17 19:42 · Score: 5, Interesting

The reason is that after the referendum back around 1980 there was effectively a ban on all nuclear power research in Sweden.
That has effectively caused the situation we have where the upgrades of the reactors have been limited.
That said - the nuclear reactor technology is mostly a dead end because nuclear energy is very dirty - mines contaminating areas with radioactivity for millenia, mining and refining costing a lot of energy - producing CO2 in the process and post usage waste from the fuel and from the reactors when they are torn down.
It's just the power plants themselves that are reasonably clean unless there's an accident (Fukushima, Chernobyl, Kyshtym, Harrisburg, Sellafield)
Nuclear power is useful in special applications, but due to the long term effects of it if there's a problem it's not a good solution.

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Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by _merlin · 2016-01-17 20:31 · Score: 1, Informative

Sweden is Germanic while Finland is Uralic. Why would you expect them to be the same? ;)
Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by Firethorn · 2016-01-17 20:42 · Score: 4, Insightful

That said - the nuclear reactor technology is mostly a dead end because nuclear energy is very dirty - mines contaminating areas with radioactivity for millenia, mining and refining costing a lot of energy - producing CO2 in the process and post usage waste from the fuel and from the reactors when they are torn down.
Citation on the mines causing radioactive contamination? Do you have any idea how dirty other mining operations are? None of them are really 'clean'.
As for the energy cost of refining - I suppose you're one of the ones that argues that we shouldn't be using solar panels because making them involves mining and refining materials that creates nasty waste? Just like with solar power, nuclear power quickly becomes energy positive, and while it takes a relatively large amount of refining to get a fuel rod, it produces so much power over it's life, even in a wasteful US once-through system, that the energy costs are negligible, at least compared to the most frequent replacements - coal, natural gas, and such.
For reactors being torn down, yes it takes energy. But given that we should know how to make plants last 50 years at this point, minimum, it's not actually that big of a proportion. Hell, after 50 years you'll probably be replacing the solar panels as well.
On nuclear accidents - I'll give you that the earliest plants are dangerous. Fukushima, for example was older than Chernobyl or Three Mile Island. Newer plants would be safer.
Really, that's all I ask for - build new nuclear plants to replace the old ones, not coal or natural gas. Keep a healthy mix of sources going.

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Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by MrKaos · 2016-01-17 22:24 · Score: 3, Interesting

For reactors being torn down, yes it takes energy. But given that we should know how to make plants last 50 years at this point, minimum, it's not actually that big of a proportion. Hell, after 50 years you'll probably be replacing the solar panels as well.
The energy expenditure for *one* reactor decommissioning is around the 30-70TWh range [citing Vattenfal *and* Storm for lower and upper ranges] so with 400 odd reactors around the world we have a roughly 2800TWh energy *debt* pending from existing nuclear reactors in the nuclear industry a decade or two after they are decommissioned. An energy debt that will have to be paid by the great grand children of the baby boomers.

On nuclear accidents - I'll give you that the earliest plants are dangerous. Fukushima, for example was older than Chernobyl or Three Mile Island. Newer plants would be safer.
AP1000 plants have a lower thermal containment ratio (ie, the amount of energy the concrete dome structure can contain) than the installations at Three Mile Island. Additionally AP1000's concrete dome also doubles as a heat exchanger which is not a failure mode that has been tested in anything other than simulations of this type of reactor. So, they maybe newer and more modern, however we won't know for sure if the design changes made are improvements or flawed ideas that can go wrong.
The EPR reactors appear to be a better design over AP1000 for many reason, the most obvious one being a *double* containment building, i.e that massive dome gets *another* structure built over the top of it and main facilities buildings set up so that the whole reactor isn't completely disabled in the event of an emergency. IIRC these are the reactors that Finland is installing.

build new nuclear plants to replace the old ones
I think the economics of building them has really hit the nuclear industry, it's billions of dollars up front and a very long time for any return or value on investment. There is simply better places for money to go. Even if they were built and put online today, none of these new reactor facilities will be producing power for people in 40 to 60 years time because they will be at the end of their service life. The energy debt is to carefully disassemble those reactors so that the toxic elements they contain are captured without being released into the environment.

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Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by Christian+Smith · 2016-01-17 23:14 · Score: 4, Insightful

For reactors being torn down, yes it takes energy. But given that we should know how to make plants last 50 years at this point, minimum, it's not actually that big of a proportion. Hell, after 50 years you'll probably be replacing the solar panels as well.
The energy expenditure for *one* reactor decommissioning is around the 30-70TWh range [citing Vattenfal *and* Storm for lower and upper ranges] so with 400 odd reactors around the world we have a roughly 2800TWh energy *debt* pending from existing nuclear reactors in the nuclear industry a decade or two after they are decommissioned. An energy debt that will have to be paid by the great grand children of the baby boomers.
Why would you think new plants have the same energy debt as old plants? New plants are designed with decommissioning in mind, whereas old plants were not and are a bugger to decommission. Dounreay in the UK has had loads of contamination problems, including masses of asbestos contamination, as well as discharges to the local beach (now closed). But all these old reactor problems are lessons learnt for the newer generation of reactors and designs.
Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by Z00L00K · 2016-01-17 23:32 · Score: 4, Informative

Citation on the mines causing radioactive contamination? Do you have any idea how dirty other mining operations are? None of them are really 'clean'.
As for the energy cost of refining - I suppose you're one of the ones that argues that we shouldn't be using solar panels because making them involves mining and refining materials that creates nasty waste? Just like with solar power, nuclear power quickly becomes energy positive, and while it takes a relatively large amount of refining to get a fuel rod, it produces so much power over it's life, even in a wasteful US once-through system, that the energy costs are negligible, at least compared to the most frequent replacements - coal, natural gas, and such.

...
To produce the 25 tonnes or so of uranium fuel needed to keep your average reactor going for a year entails the extraction of half a million tonnes of waste rock and over 100,000 tonnes of mill tailings. These are toxic for hundreds of thousands of years. The conversion plant will generate another 144 tonnes of solid waste and 1343 cubic metres of liquid waste.
Contamination of local water supplies around uranium mines and processing plants has been documented in Brazil, Colorado, Texas, Australia, Namibia and many other sites. To supply even a fraction of the power stations the industry expects to be online worldwide in 2020 would mean generating 50 million tonnes of toxic radioactive residues every single year. ...
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/dec/05/nuclear-greenpolitics
The time factor involved for radioactive material being hazardous is what makes it bad compared to many other alternatives. The amount of energy needed to produce the fuel at a quality needed for the reactors is also pretty high, which easily can be translated to CO2 emissions.

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If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by BigZee · 2016-01-18 00:53 · Score: 1

I decided the parent was being sarcastic but I do think your questions are valid. I'm sure there is some issue of contamination from mining uranium-rich ore but this is no different to coal/tin/gold/silver mining and we don't reject those in favor of a a significantly more polluting alternative.
Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by AmiMoJo · 2016-01-18 01:01 · Score: 3, Insightful

Manufacturing solar PV isn't nearly as bad a nuclear energy, if you look at the entire lifecycle on a per watt generated basis.

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Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by Xyrus · 2016-01-18 01:18 · Score: 4, Insightful

The reason is that after the referendum back around 1980 there was effectively a ban on all nuclear power research in Sweden.
That has effectively caused the situation we have where the upgrades of the reactors have been limited.
That said - the nuclear reactor technology is mostly a dead end because nuclear energy is very dirty - mines contaminating areas with radioactivity for millenia, mining and refining costing a lot of energy - producing CO2 in the process and post usage waste from the fuel and from the reactors when they are torn down.
As opposed to coal, which is very clean to mine, have absolutely no radiological or toxicological contamination rendering sites into toxic waste dumps for millenia, produce no wastes whatsoever, and don't require any CO2 output because magical fairies and unicorns support it with their wings and horns.

It's just the power plants themselves that are reasonably clean unless there's an accident (Fukushima, Chernobyl, Kyshtym, Harrisburg, Sellafield)
Nuclear power is useful in special applications, but due to the long term effects of it if there's a problem it's not a good solution.
Yeah, just like all those clean happy underground coal fires, fly ash dumps, etc. that of course have no negative impacts whatsover. And coal doesn't produce massive amounts of CO2 either, that's just a red herring.
Oh you weren't talking about coal? You were talking about solar? Oh my bad. Rare earth mines are even cleaner. Those pictures of toxic wastelands in China as a result of open pit strip mines are just made up. And since rare earths are so plentiful and easy to get, ramping up production levels by several orders of magnitude to meet the global demand to make everything run on solar is completely feasible and has absolutely no negative repercussions, because reasons. And since solar power is fueled by hopes and dreams you can just put it everywhere and solve all the world's problems.
Nuclear is "dead end" because a lot of people have worked very hard over many decades to make it dead end.

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Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by jcdr · 2016-01-18 02:31 · Score: 1

Beznau 1 in Switzerland claim to be the oldest still in operation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by MrKaos · 2016-01-18 02:54 · Score: 1

Why would you think new plants have the same energy debt as old plants?

Because they are essentially the same machine. I agree that there has been improvements in some new designs, however the reactor vessel is the core component that is energy intensive to dispose of.

New plants are designed with decommissioning in mind,
Do you have something or somewhere specific in mind?

whereas old plants were not and are a bugger to decommission.

Indeed.

Dounreay in the UK has had loads of contamination problems, including masses of asbestos contamination, as well as discharges to the local beach (now closed). But all these old reactor problems are lessons learnt for the newer generation of reactors and designs.
Well you would expect design improvements to be made as experience was gained. The question being what type of improvements. I understand the (EU) EPR is the best option for safety, improvements in the Russian reactors from lessons about Chernobyl and American reactors for making them cheaper to build.

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Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by MrKaos · 2016-01-18 03:01 · Score: 1

Wow, pretty over sensitive if that's considered be a Troll. I've cited from finding used in IPCC and presented to the European parliament so I guess this must be a version of Nuclear shill censorship.

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Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by Z00L00K · 2016-01-18 03:22 · Score: 1

No I was not being sarcastic, see post above for further explanation.

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If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by Z00L00K · 2016-01-18 03:25 · Score: 1

Just look at the whole life cycle of uranium ore and waste as well as plant decommission as well as the over 100k years the radioactive contamination is a problem and you will realize that nuclear production is actually pretty dirty.
For further reading see: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/dec/05/nuclear-greenpolitics

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If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by MachineShedFred · 2016-01-18 03:28 · Score: 5, Informative

Whenever someone talks about something being 'radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years' it means they are trying to scare you. It's far worse if something is radioactive for only a couple hundred years, because it's far more radioactive.
There are isotopes of Iron that have a half-life in the tens of thousands of years, but I don't hear anyone clamoring to shut down the steel industry over it.

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Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by MachineShedFred · 2016-01-18 03:37 · Score: 4, Informative

You talk about Three Mile Island in the same sentence as Fukushima, Chernobyl, and Sellafield, but from the Wikipedia article YOU linked:

According to the Rogovin report, the vast majority of the radioisotopes released were the noble gases xenon and krypton. The report stated, "During the course of the accident, approximately 2.5 MCi (93 PBq) of radioactive noble gases and 15 Ci (560 GBq) of radioiodines were released." This resulted in an average dose of 1.4 mrem (14 Sv) to the two million people near the plant. The report compared this with the additional 80 mrem (800 Sv) per year received from living in a high altitude city such as Denver.
The safeties worked. There was fuel meltdown, but it was contained, and the radioactive release amounted to less of a radiation dose then you would receive from a round trip flight from New York to Los Angeles.
Was it a mess? Sure. Was it an expensive mess? Absolutely. Was the public in any danger at all? No.

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Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by thegarbz · 2016-01-18 05:04 · Score: 2

That article is feral FUD. It has all the hallmarks:
1. Claiming that someone is exempt from some critical safety guideline, when the summary of the guidelines are that all local regulatory requirements should be met, right from the Department of Redundancy Department.
2. Pulling numbers without a baseline comparison against alternatives, all those numbers look great compared to other mines.
3. Appealing to authority (Australian greens) as if they are an actual authority.
4. Talking about disregard for the locals (Aboriginals) of which there are very few and who are being compensated anyway.
5. Talking about something being close to cities (25km from Alice Springs), without mentioning that Alice Springs is a town of 25000 people and 25km away is the middle of a completely uninhabited desert, and then mentioning that winds *may* be able to carry radioactive dust.
Hey it worked, it has you scared.
Now excuse me while I lobby for an increase in the shift from Coal to Uranium since extracted power wise we could shut down 4 coal mines for an equivalent uranium mine built, and the coal industry is killing people at a constant rate while the uranium industry is not, and the coal industry is pumping radioactive plumes into the air at a constant rate while the uranium industry is not, unless it's a windy day and then you *may* get some radioactive dust according to the article.
Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by tnk1 · 2016-01-18 05:06 · Score: 2

Whatever ends up "winning" this debate will produce the best value per watt or least pollution per watt. Why? Because the winner will be the subject of research and improvements and the other will not. It almost doesn't even matter which source has the best absolute efficiency, because the improvements over what is currently possible will eclipse most of the arguments made either way.
And whoever wins will say, "see, I told you so," but I'm certain that given the right amount of time, we could make either one of these work.
That aside, there's too much FUD about nuclear out there. It is a power source we should be using and moving forward with design on, even if it isn't the solution to the global energy crisis. We need to keep researching and developing new and better designs. Nuclear power has a lot of uses and is a type of power generation that does not require specific environmental conditions in order to operate. That's why our farthest ranging space probes are using RTGs right now, and not solar panels. If anything, we need the option available, and to make it safe, we have to have good designs and experience operating those designs.
The reality is that there will be no single solution at all for the energy crisis until we're able to complete some sort of megaproject like a space-based solar collection swarm. We're only hurting ourselves pretending that we're going to be able to solve all our issues with one or two types of energy production.
Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by Creepy · 2016-01-18 05:09 · Score: 2

It doesn't have to be. Most 4th generation designs are breeder reactors. Anything labeled fast reactor here is a breeder reactor that converts either thorium to fissile uranium or "nuclear waste" uranium to fissile plutonium. In layman's terms, they actually run on what conventional nuclear calls nuclear waste. Furthermore, they tend to burn long lived actinides, leaving much shorter lived waste. All of these reactors are most effective with on-site reprocessing, but given that being a proliferation concern, you can have once-through designs and do reprocessing at a single (or two - I believe the US had 2) secure facility, just like the US did in the 1970s.
Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by AmiMoJo · 2016-01-18 05:10 · Score: 2

No, not really. It means they are pointing out that some waste has to be stored for that long because that's how long it is a danger to the environment and human health. That presents some unique challenges because it's hard to plan for that length of time. Is the area geologically stable enough for the next 100,000 years? Will any information you leave your descendants about it be intact and understood in 50,000 years times when there is still danger?
Trying to trivialize these issues just wakens your argument by demonstrating that the plan in many places is to just keep kicking the can down the road until someone else figures it out.

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Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by AmiMoJo · 2016-01-18 05:50 · Score: 1

Well, nuclear has already had vast sums of money poured into R&D, which is why claims that it just needs a little more to e.g. produce a viable commercial thorium reactor are hard to take seriously. Nuclear has already spent all the money it's due and didn't get very far, but renewables have made a lot of progress with much less investment.

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Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by tnk1 · 2016-01-18 06:40 · Score: 1

Well, a thorium reactor is its own beast. Even normal uranium or plutonium fission reactors of conventional design could have extensive improvements.
And I should point out, we have made reasonable steps forward in reactor design. At least one navy is using them to power submarines and capital ships. The problem is that naval designs are not built to scale to the levels we'd need.
It's hard to be unabashedly proud of the relative progress that certain sources have made while watching nuclear power proceeding forward with it's hands tied behind its back due to extra regulation, laws designed to stop research, inability to secure private funding due to all of that, and simple FUD. It's a power source that has really bad PR and that matters a lot when it comes to your ability to be efficient. I just can't be as rosy about the advance of solar or wind or whatever when I see that they just aren't competing on the same field.
Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by MachineShedFred · 2016-01-18 07:07 · Score: 2

The amount of radioactivity of an isotope is inversely proportionate to it's half life. I'm fine with waste that is radioactive for 300,000 years, because it's just not that radioactive. Also, the type of decay matters - Plutonium, with it's half life of 280,000 years, decays by ejecting an 'alpha' particle, which is blocked by your dead skin. It is only dangerous radiation if you eat it or breathe it.
And coal fly ash and released mercury is toxic FOREVER.

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Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by serviscope_minor · 2016-01-18 07:09 · Score: 1

It's just the power plants themselves that are reasonably clean unless there's an accident (Fukushima, Chernobyl, Kyshtym, Harrisburg, Sellafield)
Neither Kyshtym nor Windscale (Sellafield) accidents had anything to do with nuclear power. They were both facilities for making plutonium for bombs.
Harrisburg (TMI) released almost nothing.
So basically your list is down to two.
Of those, plants like Chernobyl have never ever at any point been legal to build outside the Soviet Union, because everyone lese regarded them as stupidly dangerous even at the time.
mining and refining costing a lot of energy - producing CO2 in the process
This is by far the silliest comment.
All mining and refining requires CO2. Renewables plants have to be built and they are truly vast. While much better than fossil fuels, they still require more CO2 than nukes because of the scale of the construction.

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Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by serviscope_minor · 2016-01-18 07:11 · Score: 1

Also the windscale fire was not in a nuclear power plant.
To put that down as a point against nuclear power is outright deceptive.

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Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by TangoMargarine · 2016-01-18 07:33 · Score: 1

It's called "sunk costs."

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Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by Cyberax · 2016-01-18 08:01 · Score: 1

So did Russia. Perhaps the key to good nuclear energy is to be conquered by Russia?
Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by Hognoxious · 2016-01-18 09:35 · Score: 2

Finland is Uralic.
Type mismatch near line 261. Expected country, got linguistic group. Bailing

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Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-01-18 11:13 · Score: 2, Interesting

> It is only dangerous radiation if you eat it or breathe it.
That's a bigger risk than people admit, especially over longer timescales. You breathe in dust all the time -- oops, this dust is plutonium-contaminated, and now the alpha emissions are inside your lungs. You pick some wild strawberries to eat on a picnic -- oops, the area is plutonium-contaminated, and now your stomach is getting the alpha emissions.
Sure, right now we have the plutonium-contaminated sites fenced off, but will we keep them fenced off for the next 100 years? The next 1000 years?
The part about nuclear that scares people like me is that dealing with the waste requires really long-term plans. How many programs started by the Roman Republic are still fulfilling their purpose today? For some types of nuclear waste, that's the kind of timeline we need for a management program.
You do make a good point about coal fly ash and mercury, though. Replacing all nuclear plants with coal plants would be a bad idea.
Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by ChrisMaple · 2016-01-18 12:27 · Score: 1

The results of mining lead or mercury are toxic forever. Do you have a point to make?

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Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by ChrisMaple · 2016-01-18 12:40 · Score: 1

Even if they aren't, solar cells can be made not only without rare earths, but even without heavy metals. Silicon is the basic material, boron and phosphorus are dopants, and aluminum is the conductor. Done.

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Re: Sweden worries about theirs too... by Hussman32 · 2016-01-18 13:28 · Score: 1

Studsvik in Nyokping is a world leader in nuclear reactor related research, and the Swedes are one of their biggest customers. They are one of the few places with the capability to do detailed nuclear fuel analysis.
Not to mention that the Swedish plants collect an enormous amount of data, test new technologies, and share the results with the world.

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Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by Firethorn · 2016-01-18 14:33 · Score: 1

Considering the number of 'overrated -1' I got, there's an anti-nuclear side to it as well.

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Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by Firethorn · 2016-01-18 14:48 · Score: 1

The energy expenditure for *one* reactor decommissioning is around the 30-70TWh range [citing Vattenfal *and* Storm for lower and upper ranges] so with 400 odd reactors around the world we have a roughly 2800TWh energy *debt* pending from existing nuclear reactors in the nuclear industry a decade or two after they are decommissioned. An energy debt that will have to be paid by the great grand children of the baby boomers.
Do you happen to have a link for that citation? I tried googling it. It's also less than a decade of operation energy for the plant. Still, it seems an odd metric, most everybody else uses money.
Makes me wonder how much energy it would take to recycle a solar panel...

AP1000 plants have a lower thermal containment ratio (ie, the amount of energy the concrete dome structure can contain) than the installations at Three Mile Island. Additionally AP1000's concrete dome also doubles as a heat exchanger which is not a failure mode that has been tested in anything other than simulations of this type of reactor. So, they maybe newer and more modern, however we won't know for sure if the design changes made are improvements or flawed ideas that can go wrong.
1. Who says TMI's thermal containment ratio is the important part? TMI's dome didn't fail. To my knowledge, the dome has never failed in any nuclear accident.
2. Are you seriously saying that having the concrete dome act as a heat exchanger isn't something we can simulate? I mean, by the same argument the outer walls of our houses are heat exchangers - it's just with them we want to minimize it, with the dome we want to maximize it.
Consider Fukushima - even with 'strong' domes they ended up with radioactive release because they had to pass water through the system in order to keep them cool enough to prevent problems. If you design the dome to be able to transmit enough heat OUT OF IT, without circulating water, that allows you to keep tighter control of the radioactive materials. Which is the important part.

The EPR reactors appear to be a better design over AP1000 for many reason, the most obvious one being a *double* containment building, i.e that massive dome gets *another* structure built over the top of it and main facilities buildings set up so that the whole reactor isn't completely disabled in the event of an emergency. IIRC these are the reactors that Finland is installing.
The important part is 'appears'. When I did the math on predicted core events, AP1000 was less likely to have an accident, but a fleet of AP1000 reactors with matching capacity to a fleet of EPRs would have a very slightly higher incident rate.
Still, in both cases we're looking at around a couple orders of magnitude less likelihood of an incident, which is my point. An AP1000 that gets built is better than and EPR that doesn't, leaving us with an ancient reactor or a replacement coal plant.

Even if they were built and put online today, none of these new reactor facilities will be producing power for people in 40 to 60 years time because they will be at the end of their service life.

Actually, they'd probably last a century or more at this point. Most of them, at least.

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Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by Firethorn · 2016-01-18 14:51 · Score: 1

The time factor involved for radioactive material being hazardous is what makes it bad compared to many other alternatives. The amount of energy needed to produce the fuel at a quality needed for the reactors is also pretty high, which easily can be translated to CO2 emissions.
Quick question: How long does it take for the mercury, arsenic, lead, and such released from coal power take to stop being toxic?
Answer: As stable isotopes, they don't. At least with nuclear power we have a chance - they actually become less dangerous over time. Mercury's effectively forever.

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Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by Firethorn · 2016-01-18 14:59 · Score: 1

'per watt generated' isn't a good metric either, because a watt of solar will only produce about 25% of the energy of a watt of nuclear, over the same extended period of time.
It would be better to look at it in terms of kWh over the lifetime of the system. Even then, for a true metric you'd have to include energy storage, and the waste of that storage, which hurts solar more than nuclear. When you try to include all that, nuclear looks a lot better.
In the end, I'll go back to my "keep a healthy mix of sources going". That means solar AND wind AND nuclear AND hydro AND geothermal AND ...
I'm not against solar. I'm for a mix.

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I don't read AC A human right
Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by Firethorn · 2016-01-18 15:12 · Score: 1

To produce the 25 tonnes or so of uranium fuel needed to keep your average reactor going for a year entails the extraction of half a million tonnes of waste rock and over 100,000 tonnes of mill tailings. These are toxic for hundreds of thousands of years. The conversion plant will generate another 144 tonnes of solid waste and 1343 cubic metres of liquid waste.
Your standard 1GW coal power plant will, in the meantime, consume approximately 4 Million tons of coal a year, just to keep that 1/8th as much rock figure in proportion. And, rather than being toxic for 'hundreds of thousands of years', they're toxic 'forever'.
Really, Nuclear radiation from things like the mill tailings would be considered a non-issue if we applied the same standards as coal mining and power.
Contamination of local water supplies around uranium mines and processing plants has been documented in Brazil, Colorado, Texas, Australia, Namibia and many other sites.
As another poster noted, this is citation without comparison - You'd need to look into how much pollution and contamination is caused by other forms of mining. Should I point out the entire towns that have had to be evacuated because of coal mining? The contamination from gold/silver mining? The pollution from iron mining?
To get '50 million tons' of 'toxic radioactive residue' a year you'd have to count every pound mined as such - when in reality you can dump most of the mine tailings back in when you're done.

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I don't read AC A human right
Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by MrKaos · 2016-01-18 17:24 · Score: 1

I think I have a troll, it was modded up and is headed down again. It's their problem.

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My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by david_thornley · 2016-01-19 05:22 · Score: 1

Please tell me what stays dangerously radioactive for 100K years. A radioactive isotope will decay at a certain rate, and that rate affects both its danger and its half-life. A particularly dangerous isotope will be one that decays fast, so there's a lot of reactions and emissions. That means that it gets its decay over faster, and has a shorter half-life.
Let's look at it with numbers. Radium is dangerous, OK? The usual isotope has a half-life of about 1600 years, which means that long before 100K years are up it will be gone, with no atom left. In only 16K years, there will be a thousandth as much left as we started with. If we take an isotope thats one-tenth as radioactive, in 100K years there will be 1-2% left, and after 50K years it will have about an eighth of the original left.
Please propose an isotope that will be seriously dangerous in a hundred thousand years, or even twenty thousand years. We're still talking about long periods of time, but 100K years is ridiculous.
Besides, there's two possibilities that I see. Either the human race is at a point where pretty much everybody knows what radioactivity is and where it is, or it will have failed, and a radioactive spot will become known to sicken people, and there won't be that much impact.

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"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by Areyoukiddingme · 2016-01-19 09:24 · Score: 1

That's a bigger risk than people admit, especially over longer timescales. You breathe in dust all the time -- oops, this dust is plutonium-contaminated, and now the alpha emissions are inside your lungs. You pick some wild strawberries to eat on a picnic -- oops, the area is plutonium-contaminated, and now your stomach is getting the alpha emissions.
Sure, right now we have the plutonium-contaminated sites fenced off, but will we keep them fenced off for the next 100 years? The next 1000 years?
The part about nuclear that scares people like me is that dealing with the waste requires really long-term plans. How many programs started by the Roman Republic are still fulfilling their purpose today? For some types of nuclear waste, that's the kind of timeline we need for a management program.
Yes, you do breathe in dust all the time, and that's worth remembering. Every time a volcano erupts and emits an ash cloud, some fraction of that cloud is radioactive. It's a relatively small number, and that's what they're leaving out of all the scare tactics around radioactive nuclear waste. It's the same order of magnitude as that ash cloud.
No, we do not ever need a waste storage program of the longevity required to reach back to the Roman Republic, unless we also need that same plan for the ash of every coal plant and for every volcano on Earth. People who claim outrageously long storage times for nuclear waste subscribe to the No Safe Dosage theory of radioactivity interaction with biology, a theory which has been completely discredited.
Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by ebvwfbw · 2016-01-19 13:14 · Score: 1

TMI was much ado over nothing. There's more radiation released from a typical coal plant at that time in one day than was sent out via the accident at TMI. If the dumbass working the reactor left it alone, it would have never happened in the first place.
Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by Ol+Olsoc · 2016-01-19 16:05 · Score: 1

Citation on the mines causing radioactive contamination?
Ask and ye shall receive. http://www.nti.org/analysis/ar...
http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/energy/...
http://toxtown.nlm.nih.gov/tex...
http://cumulis.epa.gov/supercp...
http://thestarphoenix.com/busi...
http://masecoalition.org/navaj...
http://worstpolluted.org/proje...
http://technology.infomine.com...
http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...
http://forgottennavajopeople.o...
http://www.sric.org/uranium/do...
https://www.researchgate.net/p...
http://nuclear-news.net/2011/0...
http://thestarphoenix.com/busi...

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The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by Firethorn · 2016-01-19 21:43 · Score: 1

Reading through them, it's mostly meh for the Uranium - keep in mind that I immediately also brought up other mining operations. Hell, a dam containing non-radioactive but still extremely dangerous heavy metals burst last year in the USA and contaminated a whole river.
I'm not saying that there aren't concerns, but I saw a combination of 'not really any danger from the radioactivity' and outright fear mongering.

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I don't read AC A human right
Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by Ol+Olsoc · 2016-01-20 03:17 · Score: 1

Reading through them, it's mostly meh for the Uranium - keep in mind that I immediately also brought up other mining operations. Hell, a dam containing non-radioactive but still extremely dangerous heavy metals burst last year in the USA and contaminated a whole river.
I'm not saying that there aren't concerns, but I saw a combination of 'not really any danger from the radioactivity' and outright fear mongering.
I missed a more technical and much more informative link: http://www.wise-uranium.org/uw... . Dismiss it as fearmongering if you like.
Your fixation on radiation noted, but recall that Uranium is a heavy metal as well, and Uranium Oxide especially is quite poisonous in the old fashioned sense - at least it is the most oftne observed poisoning compound of Uranium so if you are trying to diminish the importance of Uranium dumps, you probably shouldn't use Heavy metal waste ponds as an example.
U-238, which is the major unranium isotope, is no less toxic than the other isotopes. And just so you know, I am pro-nuclear power. But unlike the stereotypical "nothing to see here" slashdotter pro nuc, I do not dismiss people's concerns out of hand. I suspect that most pro nuc slashdotters would accidentally remove themselves from the gene pool in short order. A lot of unstable energy packed in that stuff - which is the very reason it is useful. It can be handled safely, but you gotta respect it. And you have to respect it for all it's qualities.

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The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by Firethorn · 2016-01-20 16:12 · Score: 1

Your fixation on radiation noted, but recall that Uranium is a heavy metal as well, and Uranium Oxide especially is quite poisonous in the old fashioned sense - at least it is the most oftne observed poisoning compound of Uranium so if you are trying to diminish the importance of Uranium dumps, you probably shouldn't use Heavy metal waste ponds as an example.

Uh, it's not my fixation. It's the GP's that I responded to that's fixated upon radiation. Notice how I mentioned other heavy metals? That no mining operation is 'really clean' even if there's no radiation? I could have probably mentioned the acids. The added radioactivity from Uranium tailings is trivial compared to the chemical hazard, as you mention, but the difference here is that pretty much all tailings are chemical hazards - but we can't just give up the various things we get from said mining.
That being said, you don't actually have to dig up that much when mining Uranium, and there are better ways to mine when it comes to doing it reasonably ecologically, it's just that we used to not do that.

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I don't read AC A human right
Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by MrKaos · 2016-01-31 01:12 · Score: 1

I'm pretty busy my tardy reply...

Do you happen to have a link for that citation?
To what figure? You have been provided with a citation for these before.

I tried googling it. It's also less than a decade of operation energy for the plant.
I think you mean the decommissioning figure. It comes in at just under a third of the lifetime output of an AP1000.

Still, it seems an odd metric, most everybody else uses money.
Yeah, I've seen that too. They use money to measure industrial energy consumption and convert that to petajoules.

1. Who says TMI's thermal containment ratio is the important part? TMI's dome didn't fail. To my knowledge, the dome has never failed in any nuclear accident.
So it's probably not a good idea to skimp on them. We've seen what happens when cooling fails on them.

2. Are you seriously saying that having the concrete dome act as a heat exchanger isn't something we can simulate?
No, I'm saying that reactor systems that get put into operation are based on operational experience and then built on. That incremental design in reactors is there for a reason and that there is no operational experience with containment domes acting as heat exchanges *and* containment facilities.
That means, the basis design issues have not been exposed and the failure modes are not known.

Consider Fukushima - even with 'strong' domes they ended up with radioactive release because they had to pass water through the system in order to keep them cool enough to prevent problems. If you design the dome to be able to transmit enough heat OUT OF IT, without circulating water, that allows you to keep tighter control of the radioactive materials. Which is the important part.
Since you mentioned Fukushima, it is a good illustration to compare to AP1000. American Society of Mechanical Engineers tested the GenII design and exposed it's two main failure modes by testing a full size reactor core that had not been fueled. They based the mathematical modelling to calculate predicted events based on the behavior of the reactor under certain circumstances, which led to process to operate the reactors for the owners to use.
Keep power to the cooling and to the gate pair seals for the cooling pools. That reactor failed exactly as predicted because there was a build up of reactor operating operation experiences that came from operating reactor systems and understanding them. How many tons of water were above the spent fuel, what pressure the reactor would be at when it started producing hydrogen.
AP1000 is a scaled up AP600 design, with a lot of missing changes that I lost interest in researching. So apart from the heat exchanger issue there is missing systems that should be present to suit the increased capacity, so it should be a larger reactor.
Testing a major new design like AP1000 would require a similar effort as the GenII, only on the dome instead of the reactor core, so you could understand the failure modes. You do that because you don't get a second chance. You need to know what it will do. How do you know what failure modes to expect. No, I don't think it is something we can simulate with enough certainty.

The important part is 'appears'. When I did the math on predicted core events, AP1000 was less likely to have an accident, but a fleet of AP1000 reactors with matching capacity to a fleet of EPRs would have a very slightly higher incident rate.
and that math is based on simulated experience instead of experience. So the predicted core events appear relevant.

Still, in both cases we're looking at around a couple orders of magnitude less likelihood of an incident, which is my point.
less likley of an incident in what?

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My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by Firethorn · 2016-01-31 14:49 · Score: 1

Yeah, I've seen that too. They use money to measure industrial energy consumption and convert that to petajoules.
Ah, problem is that this isn't a valid conversion. Electric energy is 'more valuable' than heat energy, just to start with.

less likley of an incident in what?
Than currently existing reactors. My view is that we're debating the safety differences between a Honda Civic and a Toyota Corolla when everybody currently on the road are driving Model T Fords.

I can't see it happening. Nuclear power is too expensive, there is no energetic return. It maybe fantastic and amazing but it is also pointless.
There's plenty of energetic return.

As decaying relics of a selfish era after being operated for 40 or maybe 60 years.
The way things are going, they'll still be around after 100, like the B-52.

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I don't read AC A human right
Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by MrKaos · 2016-01-31 23:01 · Score: 1

Ah, problem is that this isn't a valid conversion. Electric energy is 'more valuable' than heat energy, just to start with.
What isn't a valid conversion?
The conversion from petajoules a second to Terra Watt hours was to give those too lazy to make a conversion some context. If you are in possesion of the figures for the lifetime heat output of a AP1000 in petajoules then perhaps we can discuss it in that frame of reference?

Than currently existing reactors. My view is that we're debating the safety differences between a Honda Civic and a Toyota Corolla when everybody currently on the road are driving Model T Fords.
My veiw is we are debating two types of Nuclear Reactors, one (EPR) with systems that have been used and tested and one (AP1000) with a untested design compared to (GenII) established reactors.
Cars aren't highly radioactive at the end of their service life and they don't release radionuclides in an accident, so I think reactors are too complex to be compared to cars.
Even though aircraft still aren't as complex as a nuclear reactor, do you think aviation authorities would allow an untested aircraft design to make regular service routes with passengers?

There's plenty of energetic return.
I think I'll stick with the work of the Universities around the world and the work of the Nuclear Industry itself to base my opinion, that statement has been disproved by their work. I don't think you would be able to provide a citation to back that statement up.

The way things are going, they'll still be around after 100, like the B-52.
Not unless you can change the laws of physics and stop neutrons from bombarding the inside of the reactor vessel. That is what limits the service life of a nuclear reactor to 40-60 years.

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My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by Firethorn · 2016-02-01 08:01 · Score: 1

The conversion from petajoules a second to Terra Watt hours was to give those too lazy to make a conversion some context. If you are in possesion of the figures for the lifetime heat output of a AP1000 in petajoules then perhaps we can discuss it in that frame of reference?
Well yeah, given that you're converting watts(joules/second = watts) to joules improperly.

My veiw is we are debating two types of Nuclear Reactors, one (EPR) with systems that have been used and tested and one (AP1000) with a untested design compared to (GenII) established reactors.

Define 'tested'. At one point the EPR systems were untested. I've read the reports. There were some issues with the AP1000 dome at first, they redesigned it a bit and satisfied the regulators.
To repeat: I have read your numerous gripes about the AP1000 dome and found them wanting and petty. You say it's untested, it's not. The AP1000 design is a evolution of the AP600 design which is an evolution of even earlier designs. You complain there's not enough concrete in the dome. I point out that the amount of concrete is less important than the ability to remove heat. You say it's untested. I do the research and find that it is.
But to go a step further: I DON'T WANT TO BE DEBATING SPECIFIC REACTOR DESIGNS. I'm not trying to argue the benefits of one design over another. If I'm going to do that, I'd be pushing molten-salt Thorium.

Cars aren't highly radioactive at the end of their service life and they don't release radionuclides in an accident, so I think reactors are too complex to be compared to cars.
And I should listen to somebody who fails at analogies why? Hell, if it makes you happier, substitute 'EPR' and 'AP1000' for the modern cars and 'GenII reactors' for the Model-T. The point is either of the new reactors is a couple OOMs safer than the old reactors. We can't realistically get rid of the old reactors until we get new reactors built.

Even though aircraft still aren't as complex as a nuclear reactor, do you think aviation authorities would allow an untested aircraft design to make regular service routes with passengers?
Except it's not untested. You're just disregarding the testing. And if you think that aircraft aren't as complex as a nuclear reactor, I think you're full of it. Or maybe I'm more familiar with how complex modern(ish) aircraft are.

Not unless you can change the laws of physics and stop neutrons from bombarding the inside of the reactor vessel. That is what limits the service life of a nuclear reactor to 40-60 years.

Except of course that we now have a bunch of them still operating that are older than that.

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I don't read AC A human right
Re:Sweden worries about theirs too... by MrKaos · 2016-02-01 12:21 · Score: 1

You ask for citations but haven't provided them yourself. You freely admit to not reading the citations when that are provided. You can criticize my numbers but they were provided for people to lazy to do the work themselves. If you don't like the frame of reference I've provided, so that you have to do less thinking, provide the math yourself. You have the references, go dig out the peta joules figures for decommissioning and do the work for yourself.
Where are your numbers for AP1000 lifetime output in peta-joules?

Define 'tested'.
Go look up the NRC's definition.

We can't realistically get rid of the old reactors until we get new reactors built.
Why?

Or maybe I'm more familiar with how complex modern(ish) aircraft are.
And perhaps I am more familiar with the relevant aspects of how complex the Nuclear reactors are. You are the one who wants to talk in car analogies.

Except of course that we now have a bunch of them still operating that are older than that.
Citation please - where are this bunch of functioning 60 year old power reactors?

I think you're full of it.

Considering your last statement, that's quite ironic. If you have a valid argument, then back it up with some facts of your own.
I'm trying hard not to be as rude to you as your are being to me. Read my sig, I'm not talking about my ism's. Your welcome to your opinion however despite your numerous calls for citations, which were provided, you are yet to provide any of your own - or any work of your own whilst admitting you haven't even examine the citations you asked for in the first place.

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My ism, it's full of beliefs.

Lots of unwarranted concerns by Anonymous Coward · 2016-01-17 19:26 · Score: 4, Insightful

The move away from nuclear power in Europe is a knee-jerk reaction to the Fukushima Daiichi disaster. That the plants are old might be cause for concern, if the reactors don't meet modern safety standards. However, nuclear plants are very safe now and every disaster or near-disaster is thoroughly analyzed and changes are implemented at other plants so such incidents never occur again. For example, the United States' Nuclear Regulatory Commission carefully reviewed the Daiichi plant disaster and implemented changes in the US to make such an event even more unlikely at American nuclear plants. The phase out of nuclear power is based on largely unfounded fears, not science and logic. It's easy to ridicule Americans for attitudes about climate change and evolution. But there are equally foolish things in Europe, like the views on nuclear power and GMOs. I just wish people on both sides of the pond were more rational about some pretty important issues. I'm not opposed to phasing out nuclear power if superior technology becomes available, but I don't think there's really a superior alternative in many situations. Fossil fuels are awful and solar and wind aren't without their own problems.

Re:Lots of unwarranted concerns by EmperorArthur · 2016-01-17 19:29 · Score: 1

Fusion is the answer!!! That's why France is building ITER and no one complains. Never mind that much of the reactor vessel itself is going to be highly radioactive, and you could use it as a breeder reactor if you felt like it....

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So lets pretend that we've just completed writing this code, as opposed to having just completed sabotaging it -Altera
Re:Lots of unwarranted concerns by Anonymous Coward · 2016-01-17 19:40 · Score: 2, Informative

Part of the reason for building ITER is to determine how severe these concerns actually are. One of the counterarguments about the radioactivity is that fusion reactors won't produce much of the dangerous waste that comes from fission plants. Fusion power may not be viable in the near term, but ITER will hopefully answer those questions. That said, until there are real tests of fusion power, it can't be considered a viable alternative to fission plants.
Re: Lots of unwarranted concerns by prefec2 · 2016-01-17 19:55 · Score: 2

Independent from your preference for nuclear or regenerative energy, the nuclear plants in Belgium are broken. It is like one major accident per week in their plants. They are unable to run and maintain the present plants. And they only run, because they are unablento implement any alternative including getting electricity from their neighbors.
Re:Lots of unwarranted concerns by zAPPzAPP · 2016-01-17 20:30 · Score: 5, Informative

This has nothing to do with the move away from nuclear. I don't even know if Belgium is moving away from it. France certainly isn't, so it's not like 'Europe is moving away from nuclear'.
These particular reactors have a fail basicly each week. Just over new years weeks they shut down and restarted three times due to various problems. They have cracks in their containment. They are horribly outdated.
And not only is Belgium so small that any critical reactor failure would affect its neighbours directly anyway, they are also built right on the borders. So of course the neighbouring countries do have a word to say about these issues.
Re:Lots of unwarranted concerns by Anonymous Coward · 2016-01-17 20:38 · Score: 2, Informative

For the record, in Belgium, the law to go nuclear-free by 2015 was voted in 1999. Nothing to do with Fukushima.
At the time the government included ecologists who had had "stop nuclear" in their program since forever (funny thing is that they did argue that gas-based plants are a less-worse replacement for nuclear. Of course they'd prefer to go all solar and wind, but this is Belgium, not California).
When the ecologists got kicked out of government a few years later, the other parties did nothing to prepare alternate solutions to nuclear but didn't repel the law either and here we are now with ageing nuclear plants that get a last-minute 10-year extension. Besides the extension is probably a bit unconstitutional, but we cannot know because a part of it consists in a contract with the private firm owning the plants and said contract is confidential with huge penalties for the government if it's made public (or so they say).
Re: Lots of unwarranted concerns by cyber-vandal · 2016-01-17 21:07 · Score: 4, Insightful

The views on nuclear power are based on how polluting it is and how difficult it is to do it safely, especially when corners are cut as at Fukushima. The opposition to GMOs is based on a completely warranted distrust of large multinationals who are well known for delivering defective products while lying about doing so. Better behaviour and transparency is what's required, not just dismissing justified suspicion as stupidity.
Re: Lots of unwarranted concerns by Mashiki · 2016-01-17 21:18 · Score: 2

Maybe they should hang up the anti-nuke FUD and start building new nuclear power plants. Canada could even sell them some Gen3/3.5 or 4 if they're that desperate.

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Om, nomnomnom...
Re: Lots of unwarranted concerns by prefec2 · 2016-01-17 22:31 · Score: 4, Insightful

The real problem in Belgium is their lack of being organized. They cannot agree on anything in short term. Not in new nuclear plants (super expensive), grid improvements, or even a single wind turbine. The political factions in Belgium are unable to come to any agreements. Especially when a solution is not required at once. And the present plants did not blow up so far, so there is no imminent threat. For US Americans, imagine two tea parties (one from the south and one from the north) which hate each other and two moderate parties where one of the moderate parties is in favour for separation of the north and the other is not. And you need at least three parties to form a government. Forming governments have been hard in this environment. Lately, it took them over 500 days to come up with a coalition. They could also not mitigate their energy crisis by switching of highway illumination at night.
Re: Lots of unwarranted concerns by Mashiki · 2016-01-17 22:54 · Score: 1

Not being American, and living in Canada I already know what this is like. And still, somehow we manage to get our shit together most of the time.

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Om, nomnomnom...
Re:Lots of unwarranted concerns by Anonymous Coward · 2016-01-17 23:22 · Score: 1

The contract was leaked already months ago.
Part of the reasons why our dear government doesn't want to disclose it, is that is has a a section that says that if Electrabel would be unable to exploit the powerplants for whatever reason, the government needs to pay a hefty fine to them until the end of the foreseen exploitation period.
That's one of the reasons why the Belgian government is unwilling to close these powerplants.
Re: Lots of unwarranted concerns by goarilla · 2016-01-17 23:44 · Score: 2

Take those "accidents" with a grain of salt. Most of those malfunctions (transformers ?) happen all the time, even 30 years ago.
They just weren't reported back then like they are now. The one thing I do fear though is that they could've cycled through experts to find one
who was willing to say it was safe to put the one with ruptures in the vessel back online.
Because yes, we haven't build any new plants in a long time because the politicians can't make up their mind.
Re: Lots of unwarranted concerns by prefec2 · 2016-01-17 23:50 · Score: 1, Informative

The Belgians do not. Maybe you could help them. however, there are also some fundamental differences. First, your provinces have much more autonomy and are larger. Second, Belgium was patched together from different minor territories which where sometimes independent in history or belonged to France or the Dutch or Austria. All in all they have only the king as a common part. To solve this issue they constructed an elaborate balance of influence mechanism which is becoming more and more dysfunctional.
Re:Lots of unwarranted concerns by JaredOfEuropa · 2016-01-18 00:24 · Score: 3, Interesting

ITER is an international effort that happens to be built in France (Japan was the other candidate IIRC). Besides demonstrating a capability to sustain fusion at a significant net energy surplus, it should answer the question of to what degree the reactor vessel will become radioactive, and many other difficult questions as well. Sadly it'll be a while before we'll know more; realistically, ITER won't see first plasma before 2025, and will take years to demonstrate sustained fusion.

Meanwhile, interesting things are happening in Germany. The Wendelstein stellerator has seen first plasma last month and is going operational this year. This thing attempts to solve a number of issues with the classical Tokamak design, and the goals for this reactor are rather ambitious: to sustain plasma for up to 30 minutes.

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If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Re:Lots of unwarranted concerns by AmiMoJo · 2016-01-18 00:53 · Score: 2

France is slowly moving away from nuclear. For decades it was a cash cow for the companies running like, like EDF. They were sucking up tax money on the promise of cheap power, but it never came and they are now the biggest benefit queens in the country. The public is fed up of subsidising their for-profit business, and won't put up with it any more.
Interestingly EDF has just conned the UK government into doing the same thing with the new plant they are building, in partnership with Chinese companies. Guaranteed high prices for the lifetime of the plant, regardless of what the market will sustain.

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const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re: Lots of unwarranted concerns by Xyrus · 2016-01-18 01:21 · Score: 4, Informative

The views on nuclear power are based on how polluting it is and how difficult it is to do it safely, especially when corners are cut as at Fukushima. The opposition to GMOs is based on a completely warranted distrust of large multinationals who are well known for delivering defective products while lying about doing so. Better behaviour and transparency is what's required, not just dismissing justified suspicion as stupidity.
Nuclear power is far less polluting than any other traditional power source by many orders of magnitude. In fact, if people weren't so damn stupid it would be one of the least polluting power sources on the planet for the power density.

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~X~
Re: Lots of unwarranted concerns by goarilla · 2016-01-18 01:37 · Score: 1

And if your claims were correct, then nuke uptimes don't seem to reflect this "reality".

Most of those incidents don't really impact availability much and the "uptime" of a nuclear plant isn't nearly as high as people think (it's about ~80%).
They are super careful now with the unexpected extra ruptures in the containment vessels of Doel 3 and Tihange 2 and every incident related or not gets hyped up.
For those interested here is a list of the real (according to FANC - the control agency) nuclear incidents in Belgium of 2015: http://fanc.fgov.be/nl/page/in....
Personally I would like to see Doel 3 and Tihange 2 closed but that's not gonna happen this legislature.
Re:Lots of unwarranted concerns by budgenator · 2016-01-18 01:52 · Score: 2

I don't get why Fusion is given a free pass by the NIMBY everything nuclear is scary crowd. lithium is physically dangerous, deuterium is slightly toxic, and tritium is as much a nuclear hazard as anything coming out of a fission plants fuel rod and it's insanely difficult to contain as well. If you don't think that neutron activation isn't going to make the whole thing as radioactive as a fission reactor core, your delusional.
The only reason that I can think of why Greens prefer Fusion over Fission is Fission is always 30 years away and they would rather see humanity living in cave, huddled around a dung fire breathing dioxin laden smoke.

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Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Re: Lots of unwarranted concerns by Anonymous Coward · 2016-01-18 01:54 · Score: 1

And if we already predominantly had nuclear power around the globe, we'd be able to ramp up research into viable clean alternatives instead of fighting to get new plants built to replace fossil fuels. The anti-nuclear lobby are one of the biggest problems facing clean energy today.
Re:Lots of unwarranted concerns by budgenator · 2016-01-18 02:53 · Score: 1

Interestingly EDF has just conned the UK government into doing the same thing with the new plant they are building, in partnership with Chinese companies. Guaranteed high prices for the lifetime of the plant, regardless of what the market will sustain.
Now that is just wrong, I can see the Government Subsidising some of the R&D as basic science does have intrinsic value to the society, and some insurance subsidy (don't whine if you get regulated while your suckling the public tit), is probably better than the people getting stiffed for whole thing if something goes south; but if the technology isn't able to stand on it's own, maybe it's better to put a bullet into the lame horse's head and put it out of it's misery.

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Re: Lots of unwarranted concerns by MachineShedFred · 2016-01-18 03:49 · Score: 1

I didn't think it was possible to come up with a more dysfunctional clusterfuck of a government than the United States Congress, but leave it to the Europeans to prove me wrong...

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Re: Lots of unwarranted concerns by Anonymous Coward · 2016-01-18 04:37 · Score: 1

Nevertheless, Belgium has one of the best social security system in the world. And surely there are sometimes problems in Belgium but we solve them peacefully.
As for terrorism, as far as I know, attacks have been perpetrated elsewhere, not in Belgium.
Re:Lots of unwarranted concerns by Creepy · 2016-01-18 05:15 · Score: 1

Actually, the US had already banned placing emergency backup generators in a place that could potentially flood years before the Fukushima disaster. If Japan had the same regulations as the US, the meltdown would've never happened. I don't know what changes the US did after the disaster, but the main failure of having no backup power certainly wouldn't have needed to be one of them.
Re:Lots of unwarranted concerns by Creepy · 2016-01-18 05:21 · Score: 1

ITER also most certainly won't solve fusion being a usable energy generator. One of the biggest power with the Tokamak design of ITER is it can only sustain the plasma for about 30 seconds. Stellerators have come back into the picture after falling out of favor in the 1970s because they can sustain the plasma for longer. Not enough is known about other designs yet to know how long they can sustain the reaction (for instance, Lockheed's High Beta Fusion Reactor
Re: Lots of unwarranted concerns by Anonymous Coward · 2016-01-18 06:17 · Score: 1

Belgium already existed over 2000 years ago, Dutchie --
Re: Lots of unwarranted concerns by cyber-vandal · 2016-01-18 06:49 · Score: 1

You'd still have the trust issue which is far more significant. You're not going to address that by calling people stupid on the Internet. The answer won't be "oh yes I must be it" will be"fuck you" and you're then even less likely to get people to listen to you.
Re: Lots of unwarranted concerns by cyber-vandal · 2016-01-18 06:50 · Score: 1

Nuclear waste needs to be buried deep underground in concrete bunkers. Not exactly "clean" is it.
Re: Lots of unwarranted concerns by TangoMargarine · 2016-01-18 07:43 · Score: 1

Often the person who best understands how sucky J Random Thing is, is the one who has the most experience with it.
Not everything is bigotry FFS.

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Re:Lots of unwarranted concerns by Mike+Van+Pelt · 2016-01-18 07:53 · Score: 1

The Greens prefer fusion because it does not exist. Yet. If/when fusion does exist, it will get the full attention of the usual omni-obstructionists.
They're opposed to anything that produces energy on a scale sufficient to power industrial civilization. That's the issue. Energy that really is cheap, clean, and abundant? "Nothing short of a disaster" (Amory Lovins) "Like giving a machine gun to a retarded child" (Paul Ehrlich)
Re: Lots of unwarranted concerns by WindBourne · 2016-01-18 08:48 · Score: 1

France is NOT building ITER. International nations are. Hell, France is not even the largest source of money on it.

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Re: Lots of unwarranted concerns by Interfacer · 2016-01-18 10:07 · Score: 2

Speaking as a Belgian, living in Belgium since I was born, I'd say he is right. We have 5 different governments that partially overlap, we have 3 official languages, and the 2 major language groups can't stand each other. I think Belgium is a great place to live, but that doesn't mean I can't also acknowledge that our political system is pretty dysfunctional and nothing sensible gets done unless it is an emergency.
Re: Lots of unwarranted concerns by solidraven · 2016-01-18 12:40 · Score: 1

Ever looked at the uptime of other types of plants? Gas and coal is also pretty high maintenance. Comes with the terrain of pushing a few tens to hundreds of MW through a single metal shaft... Keep in mind Doel is 1000 MW electrical! The steam power before the turbine is far larger. If something goes wrong with the turbines or generators at those scales you slam the breaks? Imagine wat a few tons of steel turning at 50 rpm could cause if things go wrong with it. Transformers also blow up and catch fire all the time. These things are all normal for large scale power generation. Only reason wind doesn't have it is the relatively low power, so the stresses are lower. Stop following sensationalist media.
Re: Lots of unwarranted concerns by Hussman32 · 2016-01-18 13:33 · Score: 1

US capacity factor exceeds 90%.
http://www.nei.org/Knowledge-C...

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Cleaner energy? by Bearhouse · 2016-01-17 19:41 · Score: 3, Insightful

Nuclear is pretty clean, and low co2. Yes, it's more expensive than its boosters pretend, but then ago so are most of the other highly-subsidised alternatives. Disposal of the waste is not as difficult as people pretend, and in fact would be simple and cheap if successive generations of politicians not bowed to NIMBY pressure...

Running older reactors can be perfectly safe too; costs a bit more, since you have to model how the materials age and replacement can be tricky, but there are specialists who provide those services. The concern is that some organisations are moving away from the "safety first, money no object" mentality to squeeze more cash out of their already highly-profitable installations.

Re:Cleaner energy? by umghhh · 2016-01-17 20:46 · Score: 4, Insightful

'would'??? So you say we have no working waste disposal but 'would' be able to fix the problem if we 'could' fix NIMBY problem. Wow that is a small task. Go and fix it today cowboy!
As for cheap I do not know - the nuclear is subsidized only in different ways than say solar panels. The start of the panels were subsidized by Germans mostly. Once the production facilities were everywhere and forced prices down the subsidies were not needed anymore. Nuclear has been heavily subsidized by powers that be too. The only difference is that they never fixed this 'already fixed' waste problem and insurance is still subsidized. The price hikes on new reactors are faster then the building firms which means costs are almost out of control. Plus it is difficult to manage nuclear device when it works and when it goes out of control there is a huge problem what to do with the smoking pile of shit that remains. You may argue they are safe but if we build and use as much of them as you want then chances of accidents will multiply too. We may still be forced to use them but the way it looks like now - we can invest in so called renewables and in efficiency thus reducing the need for the nuclear besides special applications.
Re:Cleaner energy? by drinkypoo · 2016-01-17 22:33 · Score: 3, Insightful

"would be cheap" ... "can be perfectly safe" ... One thing you can count on is that there will be human actors who will act in bad faith. If your system can't survive that while still acting properly, then it's a bad system, unless your proposal includes a feasible means of altering human nature.

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Re:Cleaner energy? by MrKaos · 2016-01-18 00:07 · Score: 1, Interesting

Disposal of the waste is not as difficult as people pretend,
It's very difficult. Groundwater contaimination is a major issue. Stopping things like plutonium chloride from getting into the water table and finding the right geology to store this is a major challenge for geologists. There is some interesting work going on in tying transuranics up in some crystal types of rocks. The crystals are actually green and quite beautiful. Most importantly, they are impervious to water - so the hope is that it can become an industrial process.

and in fact would be simple and cheap if successive generations of politicians not bowed to NIMBY pressure...
Well NIMBY in the context of these reactors is next to some pretty densly populated cities and many millions of people.

Running older reactors can be perfectly safe too;
How old? Nothing is perfect.

costs a bit more,

How much is 'a bit'?

since you have to model how the materials age and replacement can be tricky, but there are specialists who provide those services.

I don't think so. Neutron bombardment of the reactor vessel, the main component of the reactor, is the main factor that limits the life of a nuclear reactor. These aren't exactly the kinds of thing you can call GE and arrange a feild tech to come out and replace.
Typically 40 years operation is the expected lifespan. Micro cracks and fissures are the type of thing expected to occur at the end of it's service life and it's not cost effective to repair. The reactors are approaching the end of their service life so it might be a good idea to gradually wind it down whilst they bring something else on line.

The concern is that some organisations are moving away from the "safety first, money no object" mentality to squeeze more cash out of their already highly-profitable installations.
That's exactly right. Reactors are at their most dangerous at the begining and at the end of their operational lifespan so it's proably a good idea to keep a close eye on these guys so they don't go taking any stupid risks.
Davis Besse Nuclear Power plant is a good example where management ignored signs the reactor wasn't behaving to specification when water filters had to be replaced more often than was normally required. It turned out to be a very fine jet of borated water was spraying onto the inside of the reactor head creating a hole the size of a football through six inchs of stainless steel. I think criminal charges were pressed against the management.
So if the Belgium authorities are keeping an eye on them, it's probably a good idea.

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Re:Cleaner energy? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-01-18 00:43 · Score: 2, Insightful

If you are thinking of fixing waste disposal in the US, start by changing the law. Reprocessing (to recover the pretty large fraction of fuel that hasn't been used up) is still illegal "for security reasons". Apparently the govt is afraid someone is going to make bombs.
Reprocessing = less mining and less waste, but the current 'open' fuel cycle - mine, use once, dispose - is easier to keep track of.
The current amount of waste stored in the US contains enough leftover fuel to power the entire nation's electricity grid for 100 years.
That is 48 years after the first commercial power plant started operating.
Don't let politicians decide on nuclear policies.
THEY are the ones who decided to keep reactors open to 25% above their planned life expectancy in Belgium, and IMO the only criterion that mattered was the amount of bad voter blood power outages would render them (outages being the result of their failure to provide an alternative to those shut down reactors).
The power companies didn;t have a choice in the matter.
Commerical organizations that can be expected to try cutting corners for profit shouldn't be trused either, but politicians are worse.
As to one of your other points: I don't agree that nuclear power has been heavily subsidized. Building a plant is expensive, but the operating cost per MWh makes them so much cheaper that subsidies were never necessary. There has been sponsored research, but that's not something that's limited to the nuclear sector.
Re:Cleaner energy? by MachineShedFred · 2016-01-18 03:58 · Score: 2

Even more ridiculous: the waste being stored that could be reprocessed into more reactor fuel is grade-A unsuitable for weapons production because there is far too much Pu-240 and Pu-241 in it. You could never make a working nuclear explosive out of it, but we needed to 'lead by example' even if we were leading the world to a stupider place.

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Re:Cleaner energy? by budgenator · 2016-01-18 03:59 · Score: 1

I don't think so. Neutron bombardment of the reactor vessel, the main component of the reactor, is the main factor that limits the life of a nuclear reactor. These aren't exactly the kinds of thing you can call GE and arrange a feild tech to come out and replace.
That's pretty much how they would do it with the NuScale design, everything is small and modular. The power modules can be "unhooked" and carried to a refueling area in the pool by crane, that's the whole thing, containment and all, it gets shipped in via barge, rail or truck, so if you need to, you could just ship the whole thing back to the factory too.

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Re:Cleaner energy? by MachineShedFred · 2016-01-18 04:06 · Score: 1

The same could be said of the incumbent technologies too - coal mine fires, fly ash ponds that breach and kill off entire rivers, natural gas reservoirs that leak and poison entire cities, etc.
Never underestimate the capacity of humans to completely fuck things up.

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Re:Cleaner energy? by MrKaos · 2016-01-18 11:11 · Score: 1

That's pretty much how they would do it with the NuScale design, everything is small and modular. The power modules can be "unhooked" and carried to a refueling area in the pool by crane, that's the whole thing, containment and all, it gets shipped in via barge, rail or truck, so if you need to, you could just ship the whole thing back to the factory too.
Moving a reactor like that when it is new and cold would be different from moving it after it has been running for a couple of decades and it is radioactive. The scope for accidents while the reactor core is in transit (as this would be the logistics of each move) would be quite a serious concern.
It's an interesting approach, I'd really like to see what their plans for transport at the *end* of the reactors lifetime. Thanks for the links!

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You can't build new ones because the old ones suck by bolt_the_dhampir · 2016-01-17 19:44 · Score: 4, Insightful

It's fascinating how the old reactors are still in service because the public is afraid of them. The collective fear of the old reactors and their flaws leads to new reactors not being a favorable political decision. Thus, we are stuck with the 40 year old old versions of the most efficient clean energy production we're aware of.

Re:Missing Time by Z00L00K · 2016-01-17 19:44 · Score: 1

I can see the time, this article has: "Posted by samzenpus on 2016-01-18 8:05 from the nothing-to-see-here dept."

So what's the problem?

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Ah Belgium Politcs by prefec2 · 2016-01-17 19:52 · Score: 4, Informative

Unfortunately Belgium is the most dysfunctional state in Europe's west. Sometimes their political cast is unable to form a government for years. Actually, it is like that after each election. So they are not properly governed for 1/4 to 1/2 of the time. Their police has no clue where their potential terrorists live, and their control and oversight of nuclear plants is not governed by safety concerns, but by the fact that their grid is not that well connected with neighboring countries. They also do not have any program to replace the old and broken reactors with anything not even new plants. It is necessary that they understand that it us not working and that they should dissolve their country.

Re:Ah Belgium Politcs by NaughtyNimitz · 2016-01-17 20:05 · Score: 4, Interesting

Exactlly: but that dissolving is met with fierce resistance from the French-speaking part of Belgium. Just recently, the leading party (a pro-secession Flemish party that has vowed to delay their already well known secession plans during their appointment in order to get the country back on track) has publicly announced they will look into the confederalistic matter INTERNALLY as a long-term strategy: just to make it clear they do not intend to do it now.
Immediately and will all guns blazing, the French-speaking parties except the Liberal Party talk of nothing short of a revolution in the Belgian Parliament. Of course, every Flemish person understands it is in their best interest to keep Belgium (an artificial country created by the imperial powers of the 19th century) together as they 'think' the fruits of Flemish labour (a.k.a. money transfers from Flemish to Walloon part) is their due payment for the past 2 centuries of pampering those peasant Flemish farmers with their Germanic-based language into the industrial age.
I for one think Europe should be about people in regions with their own culture but under the umbrella of a bigger organisation (EU) but without the blooper-government (Greece, Merkel-Migrants, ....)
Re:Ah Belgium Politcs by Anonymous Coward · 2016-01-17 20:34 · Score: 3, Informative

dissolving is met with fierce resistance from the French-speaking part of Belgium
Even in Dutch speaking Belgium, only 6% is in favour of dissolving Belgium. Source
The only ones in favour of splitting up Belgium is a minority in Belgium itself, and people from other countries who do not have a real clue about Belgium.
Re:Ah Belgium Politcs by hankwang · 2016-01-17 20:44 · Score: 1

"[Belgium's] police has no clue where their potential terrorists live"
Are you suggesting that that is different from other countries?

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Re:Ah Belgium Politcs by umghhh · 2016-01-17 20:54 · Score: 1

They can ask Merkel for help in that - she has the necessary experience and I am sure majority of Germans would agree with her leaving for good. She is also good in not saying anything meaningful so nobody will notice what has happened...
Re: Ah Belgium Politcs by prefec2 · 2016-01-17 21:03 · Score: 1

I assume that no country has a complete picture of radicals in their respective country. However, Belgium has a super fragmented police force. As shown recently in the aftermath of the Paris attacks, it became clear that they do not understand the structures in their own country. They had less insight than any other country. And it was almost impossible to communicate efficiently with Belgium police forces, as there is no well defined interface.
Re: Ah Belgium Politcs by prefec2 · 2016-01-17 21:09 · Score: 1

Asking the Germans. Hmm. Great idea. We both know this is not the way to go. Firstly, the Belgium mess can only be solved by themselves. And secondly, Merkel usually does not do politics. She waits until it is clear what the public opinion is and then she does that or she does what her friends in industry and media say. Therefore, we were puzzled to see her act out of compassion in the refugee crisis.
Anyway, politicians like Merkel are not good in providing solutions. They do not have a vision or idea.
Re:Ah Belgium Politcs by Ofloo · 2016-01-17 21:13 · Score: 1

I couldn't of said it better myself.
Re:Ah Belgium Politcs by Anonymous Coward · 2016-01-17 21:23 · Score: 1

You fail to mention that only 34% of Belgian people voted for that party (N-VA, nationalist separatist). 76% voted for parties that are against a separation between Flanders and the Walloon area. Unfortunately, the media attention is for 98% on that specific party (N-VA), only due to their current leader making bold statements every now and them, purely for electoral reasons. Those are the same guys that claimed 5 years of political stability but are the first to start a media campaign for the elections of 2018 ... 2018!!!!
And now you can all mod down the facts again to make only the heavily biased comments stick out :D :P
Re:Ah Belgium Politcs by Yoda222 · 2016-01-17 22:38 · Score: 1

You say that 34% of Belgian voted for N-VA, and 76% against (or not for them.) This does not add up to 100%. Just to fix that, here are the numbers (according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ): NVA had 20.4% at Belgian level, 32.2% of the Flemish part (if I understand correctly the table)
Re: Ah Belgium Politcs by Yoda222 · 2016-01-17 22:45 · Score: 1

However, Belgium has a super fragmented police force. As shown recently in the aftermath of the Paris attacks, it became clear that they do not understand the structures in their own country. They had less insight than any other country. And it was almost impossible to communicate efficiently with Belgium police forces, as there is no well defined interface.
I was only a teenager at that time, but isn't this almost the same conclusion that after the Dutroux case? Wasn't the police/gendarmerie merging supposed to resolve that? Looks like it fails...
Re: Ah Belgium Politcs by prefec2 · 2016-01-17 23:26 · Score: 1

I did not monitor the Dutroux case a lot, as it was so far away (then; nowadays the world seems to be much smaller). I recently read an article - I am not sure whether it was in the Guardian or another European newspaper - which stated that Beldium has multiple police organizations and head of police alone for Brussels. The metro region is 1.8 million and the core is 1.1 million people. Most other regions of similar size have one organization and well defined ways of communication. True other countries mess up too (like Germany and their Nazi terrorists from the NSU), but the magnitude of "unorganizedness" is so much bigger.
Re: Ah Belgium Politcs by goarilla · 2016-01-18 00:55 · Score: 1

This is also true for the different provinces. As a consequence the borders get ignored because nobody wants the extra work and the exact jurisdiction is unclear.
Police and justice have been fucked up in Belgium for a long time. Most lawyers decline government work because they "forget" to pay their bills repeatedly.
Having said all that, I don't think splitting up the country is easy. We've gotten more autonomy in the recent "sixth state reform" and the increase in bureaucracy and confusion this has lead to is staggering.
Divorcing is expensive !
Re: Ah Belgium Politcs by polar+red · 2016-01-18 02:17 · Score: 1

>Divorcing is expensive
and in this case would not change a thing. 'wat we zelf doen, doen we beter'(what we do ourselves, we do better) = BS, just look at flanders' government.

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Re:Ah Belgium Politcs by Yoda222 · 2016-01-18 02:18 · Score: 1

I am/was* from the other side (well in fact I'm from the border between the French speaking and the German speaking parts), but I also think going back to a simple unique government/parliament/... I've seen a few days ago a proposal from the NVA to reduce the number of politicians in order to cut spending. Simple solution: change the federal/region/community to a simple unique government/administration. But I don't think it was the idea that they had ;-)
But the belgian organization has one big advantage. It's a fun story to try to describe it to foreigners.
*I've been living outside of Belgium for the last 10 years, but I don't completely rule out the hypothesis to go back. And I'm still Belgian on my passport. I think my opinion should probably not count as much as people living there.
Re: Ah Belgium Politcs by prefec2 · 2016-01-18 02:19 · Score: 1

My proposition was mainly based on the frustration over the Belgian "government". So to see, as a measure of last resort. I am totally open to any other solution. Something that works. All in all we need to get our act together in the EU. Presently, more and more the idea of a collaborating Europe goes down the drain.
Re: Ah Belgium Politcs by prefec2 · 2016-01-18 02:24 · Score: 1

My proposition is driven mostly from frustration over the issues in Belgium. As an outsider I hate it that I can do nothing to end this unpleasant situation for Belgium. And concerning the nuclear plants, we might be affected when there is an major accident. I already have enough experience form the Chernobyl disaster. And that accident was thousands of kilometers away.
Re:Ah Belgium Politcs by pipingguy · 2016-01-18 04:19 · Score: 1

"Unfortunately Belgium is the most dysfunctional state in Europe's west."

And yet the center of EU government exists in its biggest city. Go figure.
Re: Ah Belgium Politcs by umghhh · 2016-01-20 03:42 · Score: 1

There was another German politician that had an opinion on visions - he meant to call a doctor if you have any. Kind of agree with him now even if I also see a need for a goal or vision if you will I also see where it leads in normal case.
Re: Ah Belgium Politcs by prefec2 · 2016-01-20 05:33 · Score: 1

Yes I know. Schmidt said that. While it is his best known quote, it is also the most stupid one. Essentially, his message is that it is better not to want to achieve anything. Merkel is exactly doing that for the most part. And most companies do not have a real goal which defines where they want to be in 10 or 20 years. However, most innovations will only appear if you reach high and have a long running goal.

There's no "groundswell" by johannesg · 2016-01-17 20:01 · Score: 2, Insightful

The thing may really be a problem, that I don't know. But I _can_ tell you that this whole affair has the stink of public manipulation heavily upon it. For months, we have been hearing about every little problem in that reactor ("the copying machine in the reactor ran out of paper. There was no risk of radioactive contamination."). Which would invariably be followed by "The paper in the copying machine in the reactor has been refilled. Experts say the risk of radioactive contamination is minimal." There have been 3-4 articles a week about things happening in that reactor, and most of them, at least to my non-expert eye, looked really rather like business as usual, while at the same time containing all the keywords that would set of alarm bells in everyone reading it.

As I said, I have no idea if there's anything wrong in that reactor, but public opinion is clearly being massaged. We are supposed to be afraid. It is not normal for every tiny problem to be made into a series of news articles, and I'm wondering what is really behind this story.

Re:There's no "groundswell" by zAPPzAPP · 2016-01-17 20:35 · Score: 1

So they shut down the reactor because of missing paper in the copying machine?
Because each time they reported about it, the reactor in question had undergone an emergency shutdown.
Re:There's no "groundswell" by AmiMoJo · 2016-01-17 21:23 · Score: 2

The articles are about things that are a little more serious than a lack of copier paper, in that they demonstrate that the plant operators are not being very pro-active in heading off problems before they happen. Rather they wait for stuff to fail before doing anything about it, because that's cheaper. Problem is that if something goes wrong and they are still waiting for that replacement part to come in and be fitted, bad things could happen.
The deal was that they get to operate something that is highly profitable but also capable of bankrupting the country and ruining hundreds of thousands of lives if it goes wrong, on the basis that they do it properly and always put safety first. Seems like over the decades they have become complacent and cheap. It's happened at many other plants too. The deal has been broken, and considering that they are still making vast profits out of the plant it doesn't seem unreasonable to ask that they at least hold of their end of the bargain.

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Re:There's no "groundswell" by houghi · 2016-01-17 22:46 · Score: 1

I can imagine this is because Electrabel had to pay back a lot of money due to overpricing. If the reactors close, they can claim, that as a loss, while at the same time increasing the cost of power.
However they can not just close it, as there is nothing wrong. They saw that the public can clse it for them, like what happend in Germany.
This would mean a closed power station that still costs money in maintenance and that means tax reductions.And all the while clai,ing that they would want it open, so they could sell cheaper energy.

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Re:There's no "groundswell" by Yoda222 · 2016-01-17 23:00 · Score: 2

The reactor are not really close to Germany. Well, they are close in absolute distance, but if you look at Belgium scale, not that close. And if wind push radioactive material to Germany, it will pass over Liège (Lüttich/Luik) If they had to chose a place with the less impact in Belgium with dominant winds coming from SW, still on the Meuse, they should have gone on the other side of Liège, like somewhere in Herstal or Visé, close to the Holland border. (they probably had good reasons not to go there, I don't know)
It's difficult to build anything far away from a border in Belgium. But when I look at the map of nuclear reactor in Germany, it's quite similar (at least according to this map https://upload.wikimedia.org/w... ), a lot close to the borders, less in the middle. France also has a similar pattern. (special prize for the Chooz plant)
Re:There's no "groundswell" by thegarbz · 2016-01-17 23:40 · Score: 2

Belgium has no faith in their reactors? Last I checked the one of most concern was no where near Germany (Netherlands maybe). But interestingly enough it's just as close to the Dutch border as it is to the largest city in Belgium, Antwerp.
But more interesting is that you think this is all some major conspiracy. Nuclear reactors are typically built next to large bodies of cooling water. You know what else is at large bodies of water in Europe? Country borders.
Your observations are correct, the conclusions you draw from them however do not reflect reality.
Re:There's no "groundswell" by chthon · 2016-01-18 01:31 · Score: 1

The main thing playing here is that originally the reactors were owned by the state, since a couple of years they are owned by the Groupe Suez, a holding which of course wants to do "money first, safety last".

Re: You can't build new ones because the old ones by prefec2 · 2016-01-17 20:01 · Score: 1

The alternative would be to (a) increase the capacity of the link between the Belgium grid and the grids of their neighbors, and (b) plan fully invest in windpower and storage solutions. However, Belgium is unable to do anything. In Belgium the people are not even against nuclear plants, they ate however unable to govern their country. Mainly because they are 2 and a half country. It would be better to break is up I'm pieces and connect the parts to France, the Netherlands and Luxemburg.

It's not just the neighbors that are worried by BDeblier · 2016-01-17 20:03 · Score: 5, Insightful

Speaking as a Belgian, I'm worried about a French multinational in control of the plants not giving a damn about anything but their own profit margins. We hear about incidents (so far in the non-nuclear parts of the plants) at least once per month. The problem is that unlike Chernobyl, Belgium's nuclear plants are in highly populated areas. In case of a real incident, we might have to evacuate and relocate several million people. Not to mention that the parts of our neighbors that could be affected are also pretty densely populated. The deal referred to exists purely to transfer a lot more money to said multinational. This money might be better spent either on a new generation of nuclear plant, or better, reusable energy. Unfortunately, said multinational also appears to have zero interest in investing in new power plants in Belgium.

Re:It's not just the neighbors that are worried by Pallas+Athena · 2016-01-17 22:31 · Score: 1

I believe that a well-build, well-managed nuclear reactor is one of the best options we have for producing the electricity our industry and population needs. And yet, as a Belgian, I do think we should close those old reactors ASAP, and don't even think about building new ones. Call it NIMBY, if you want, but I think there are good reasons in this case. Nowhere in the world there is another reactor where so many people live within a 30 km radius. Even worse, a tiny safety zone of just 3 km would render one of the most important ports in the world completely inaccessible - don't even start to calculate the economic consequences. Just last week, the agency that supervises nuclear safety advised on extending the zone for disaster plans to a 100 km radius - which effectively includes every square meter of the country. And, worst of all, the vowed purpose of the prolongation (avoid black-outs), probably won't even be gained. There were already lots of non-nuclear incidents in the past year that caused an emergency-shutdown. Exactly the kind of thing that easily could cause a black-out. And according to current plans, ALL nuclear reactors (7, producing about 50% of our electricity) should be closed in the same year, 2025. There is not even a start of a plan on how we can replace that much capacity in such a short period...

Re:Missing Time by Kunedog · 2016-01-17 20:04 · Score: 1

You're right; it was my fault. I had the page zoomed to a point that it adjusted by omitting the time. And I thought it started happening earlier today because earlier articles didn't seem to be affected, but that's only because "Soulskill" is shorter than "samzenpus."

better to invest in solar by Gravis+Zero · 2016-01-17 20:14 · Score: 1, Insightful

while nuclear is a great source of energy, it requires constant vigilant maintenance and an electrical distribution system. why not invest in solar+battery for your entire country? they are low maintenance power harvesting systems that use a naturally occurring nuclear power, a star. stars are fantastic power sources because one's like ours are stable for billions of years, require no maintenance, have perfect security and their own multi-planetary power distribution systems. making solar panels and sodium-ion batteries isn't beyond Belgium's capabilities and it would solve a lot of problems.

--
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.

Re:better to invest in solar by drinkypoo · 2016-01-17 22:39 · Score: 2

1) the reactors have had full inspections and are under constant control, this is not Japan
"this is not Japan"? What does that mean? Because Japan is known for having the absolutely finest process control and attention to detail in the world. Are you asserting that your people are somehow immune to corruption? Because I have a large, red bridge in which I would like to interest you in partial ownership. It generates substantial toll revenue...

Those suggesting solar and wind as alternative demonstrate their incompetence in math. Solar and wind will NEVER be sufficient in our region, just check the numbers of all countries investing a lot of money in them.
You talk about demonstrating their incompetence in math, then you demonstrate your incompetence in logic, upon which math is based? Hilarious! Or in light of your prior comment, perhaps I should say, hirarious!

batteries are very green, right? And efficient, right?
Batteries can be very green, only the small and lightweight ones are "necessarily" toxic and actually those are getting greener all the time, too.

solar/wind therefore requires an almost equal amount of production capacity from gas
WHAT? The word "therefore" is supposed to come after an argument which you haven't provided. Do you even English, bro?

last year we had a peak energy import du to unavailability of nuclear
No, due to unavailability of power. Nuclear is just one kind of power. Nobody should have to explain this to you.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:better to invest in solar by drinkypoo · 2016-01-17 22:45 · Score: 2

Because it has been proven many times over you would need to pepper most of the earth with solar panel
[citation needed]

and it is not as if colar panels
hee hee

are environmentally 'free' to manufacture either.
They are getting cleaner all the time, using less and less objectionable material. They don't need expensive, energy-intensive, and hazardous nuclear cleanup at the end of their service lives, either. Modern panels made in the first world are required to both be recyclable, and to not leach toxics if simply landfilled.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:better to invest in solar by thegarbz · 2016-01-17 23:43 · Score: 1

why not invest in solar+battery for your entire country?
Because Belgium doesn't see the sun for half the year, and when it isn't cloudy then it sees it only for a few hours in the day?
Look I point out a lot that solar isn't baseload energy, but in this case I'm going to expand on that by saying that it is the most retarded choice of technology given the climate and location.
Re:better to invest in solar by drinkypoo · 2016-01-18 02:12 · Score: 1

You're aware that solar panels use a lot of rare earths, right?
You're stuck in the past. They also use very small quantities of rare earths these days. And in the near future, we'll probably be using organics, which won't use any. It's at least as plausible as someone finally geting a fusion reactor online, although I will say that if someone can manage that, it does help eliminate the objections to nuclear power.

I do tend to think though that you're one of those that thinks that as long as you can't see the environmental damage, it didn't happen.
Actually, I think we should refuse to trade with countries which use slave labor or which don't meet basic environmental requirements. The problem is, we can find out-of-compliance power plants and other polluters right here in this country literally as fast as we can pay people to probe chimneys, so that's going to come off as a bit hypocritical. However, if solar panels do even a tiny percentage of the harm of other kinds of power, people like you will shout about how they are doing harm. They're still doing less harm, so fuck off.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:better to invest in solar by drinkypoo · 2016-01-18 02:18 · Score: 1

he's Belgian, as he first said, so picking on his English is pathetic!.
If you want to participate in an argument in English, you need to speak English. I don't try to participate in arguments in languages which I don't understand. I suggest others adopt the same policy.

and he's correct they are too far north to use solar efficiently,
[citation needed] and you will have to define specifically what percentage of maximum efficiency you find acceptable.

and batteries lol, you need way too many,
[citation needed] too many for what?

the energy density is too low
for what?

and whats supposed to charge the batteries, when you don't get enough from solar for even day to day use?
Enough by what measurement? Are you counting dollar per kWh or what? And are you accounting for the full lifecycle of your nuclear reactor, and not the wish-and-dream plan, but something realistic based on past experience?

Maths the important bit that eco-loons do very badly.
I find there are enough of them who can manage it that we are still able to move forward with things like solar panels in spite of people like you whining about all the reasons why they won't work.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"

Belgians worry about France and Holland reactors by chthon · 2016-01-17 20:20 · Score: 1

The reactor in Borssele is 3 years older than the ones in Tihange, and is built on the northern border (on the Schelde), the ones in Gravelines are not that old, but are built on the south border of Belgium.

It's more about media attention by tinkerton · 2016-01-17 20:49 · Score: 2

While the belgian reactors are old , I think the current worries are mostly a result of the tight regime they're being run at now. Strict safety procedures means lots of powerdowns and lots of news events. This constant media attention then leads the neighbors to start worrying. That's the main issue at work now. It's not due to inherent dangers becoming too high.

That aside, the fact that the reactors are old and still necessary is a symptom of the historical bad approach to nuclear energy that we had in the west. Nuclear energy boomed when the technology was immature, and lots of large scale plants were built with very long lifetime. This slowed down the evolution of the technology. For good evolution you need fast rotation of the plants and good diversity. Then enthusiasm waned and now the west is stuck with very old plants and no mature technology, and the technology here is as good as dead. We don't even have any experience in handling the end of the lifecycle of a plant. China, India and Iran are starting with better knowhow but the conditions are more dangerous (highly populated areas, earthquake prone..), so it looks like they have some disasters in the making too.

Re:You can't build new ones because the old ones s by umghhh · 2016-01-17 20:51 · Score: 1

There is more to it with nuclear reactors and fear of them. It is indeed Greens stupidity to 'fear' all new development in any area they consider untenable. That is a politically motivated decision - they just want to force certain things. So far so good but the friendship of government with the drunken plumbers associations of nuclear industry means that to get what Greens want they have to agree with letting old plants run and for longer than planned times. Everybody is happy because they achieve their goals - Greens 'got rid' of the nuclear energy and nuclear energy industry can concentrating on profit from existing plants which is good because building new ones is proven to be complex and very very expensive. The policy does not make too much sense but if all actors are happy pretending they won there is no way anything will change.

I saw the title... by bluegutang · 2016-01-17 21:56 · Score: 4, Insightful

and thought "This looks like another post by user 'mdsolar' spreading FUD about alternatives to solar power".

And guess what, that's exactly what is was.

Why does Slashdot tolerate his continual shilling and trolling? Does he pay them?

Re:Belgians worry about France and Holland reactor by Anonymous Coward · 2016-01-17 22:28 · Score: 1

Age in itself isn't a major concern. The fundamental problem is that when these plants were built, aging of reactors simply wasn't well understood. In hindsight, sometimes the designers choose to massively overengineer certain components, in others the margins were far smaller. Still, decent engineering all around in the West; no plant failed due to underengineered components.

As a result, it made a lot of sense to give these old plants a mid-life upgrade to replace the weaker components, and take advantage of the overengineering of the other parts. Borssele was upgraded in 1997. Tihange on the other hand did not receive such an update. So from a safety perspective, Borssele is just 19 years old.

"Electrabel Radiates, The Citizen Pays" by marienf · 2016-01-17 22:28 · Score: 1

"Doel, Tihange remain: Electrabel radiates, the citizen pays"

"The campaign manager of Greenpeace Energy, complains that the federal government (Michel I) failed, and will force obsolete nuclear plants to remain open.This choice creates new power shortages, it makes a transition to renewable energy impossible and offers Electrabel more profiteering that will be paid by the taxpayer. "

Mr Eloi names the Belgian minister of the Interior "Nuclear Ali". And given the state of the reactors, I fear this will turn out to be more accurate than intended. IMHO is it more to the point, already today, than the orginal nickname he's referring to.

Article (in Dutch)
http://www.dewereldmorgen.be/a...

Dodgy but serviceable Google Translation into English:
https://translate.google.com/t...

the real issue by N3wsByt3 · 2016-01-18 00:29 · Score: 1

The real issue is Belgian politics, where no true statesman exists any longer, and even if there were, wouldn't get anything done because of it's convoluted and absurd political systems anyhow. Fact is, for decades they are in the inability to have a grand or even major energy-policy. They just muddled on and on. And they currently leaning towards an unrealistic 'green revolution" with windmills and solar - which recently saw the energy-bill rise with 80%, because of equally absurd subsidies by the state, of the state - but which, ultimately, now has to be paid mainly by those that couldn't afford those solar-panels in the first place. That, and other things, have led to a total non-policy on energy.

What SHOULD have happened, is that back in the 90'ies, a totally new 3gen nuclear reactor should have been built(and this time, not squandered away to a monopolistic private company which charges us much too much, because they can afford to.

Instead, we now keep open very old 2gen reactors, longer and longer - also because we can't afford anything else, due to the lack of political will and economic reality.

If one had done that, we would now possess far more reliable, efficient and safe reactors who could provide all our energy-needs (Belgium is a small country) for the next 40 years in all comfort. Instead, we choose to keep fairly unreliable reactors open way past there due time. It doesn't make sense. Saying we can close them and replace the 51% share of electricity with our windmills is as equally absurd and unrealistic. the only thing remaining by 2025 will be mass import of electricity from abroad, and classical oil/coal derived plants, with all the pollution and CO2 that come with it.

Our next-to-non-existent energy policy is a disgrace, and it has been for the past 30 years.

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--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---

Re:I saw the title... by 110010001000 · 2016-01-18 00:32 · Score: 1

Yes, along with HughPickens and StartsWithABang and the rest. Every crackpot gets articles posted here as long as they come up with the cash.

Re:You can't build new ones because the old ones s by AmiMoJo · 2016-01-18 00:47 · Score: 2

It's fascinating how many people think the opposition is down to fear, and not money.

Take the UK as an example. The public doesn't seem to be afraid of nuclear power or nuclear weapons, based on two debates we are having about it right now. First you have the new nuclear plant being built. No-one is complaining about safety, it's all about the insane cost, and the fact that in order to get a French/Chinese partnership to build it for us we had to agree to pay them way over the odds for the power generated, for the lifetime of the plant.

Then you have the debate over our nuclear weapons system, Trident. Again, few concerns over the safety of the thing, it's all about the cost and if we really need it for defence.

The UK has a pretty terrible record on nuclear safety, but most people don't care. They just want cheap power, and nuclear doesn't offer it.

--
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC

Re: You can't build new ones because the old ones by Anonymous Coward · 2016-01-18 00:58 · Score: 1

I hope you meant "France, the Netherlands and Germany" :)
I wouldn't consider Luxemburg as one of the alternatives.

But you are right: Belgium is two and a half countries. It used to work well when it was still one (that's when those power plants were built), but today, our government structure is a dragon.
Two and a half times the original number of seats, spread out over 4 governments (1 national and 3 regional). Renaming some positions from "minister" to "secretary of state" and similar tricks to hide the truth, fool nobody.

And like 250 monkeys in a tree, try to get 150 of them to saw off the branches they're sitting on (and more importantly, feeding from, financially as well as in status) to return to the workable structure of lore.

Terrorism by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 01:13 · Score: 1

Apparently, physical security is poor. Bad for a place with active terrorist cells. 'And the Doel 4 reactor was also shut down urgently in August 2014 after a leak in the turbine hall, caused by tampering, gushed out 65,000 litres of oil lubricant. Belgian prosecutors told AFP the investigation into who was responsible is continuing, and they do not rule out terrorism or an "act of vengeance".'

Only actual plans are green by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 01:21 · Score: 1

Since all fuels except biofuels and deuterium run out, and deuterium tech is still undeployed, the green solutions are the only practical plans out there. http://thesolutionsproject.org...

Re:Only actual plans are green by N3wsByt3 · 2016-01-18 05:10 · Score: 1

What are you talking about? Thus deuterium accounts for approximately 0.0156% (or on a mass basis 0.0312%) of all the naturally occurring hydrogen in the oceans, which means in total amount of staggering proportions. Uranium is still plenty enough of to last us more than 200 years, especially when enrichment is used.
But regardless, it only really needs to breach the gap until we have Thorium plants, especially of the LFTR kind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... .
And that will get us going for 10000 years AND can diminish the nuclear waste of earlier, old nuclear plants (you would expect that the greens would be all for it, but no, because it still is 'nuclear', and that word alone makes all rational decisions fruitless).
The green solutions are NOT the answer: http://www.thecrimson.com/arti... . And as long as those systems are stochastic in nature (as wind and solar inherently is), it can NEVER replace stable electricity producing plants.
The constant push and BS-talk about how the alternative energy-sources are the solutions are nothing more than deliberately (at least, by some. others simply don't realise) confabulations and delusions. It is purely ideologically defined, and not rationally or even pragmatically analysed. I always find it pretty vexing whenever I see this kind of biased zealottery promoting these energy-forms, while it simply is NOT possible to provide a large scale, stable electricity with a base load, and load-following. You NEVER see the inherent drawbacks being mentioned, such as the fact that wind and solar ALWAYS need a backup (in the form of gas, oil or coal plants) that run constantly, to fill up the discrepancies between demand and production.
There is no real reason to have alternative ways as being the best solution to having a stable energy-network, but if you really HAVE to have it, because it is PC and gives politicians a good image, I wouldn't recommend going above 10%. It gets increasingly difficult to handle, after that. And if you really want alternatives, than geothermal or water(dam)power is far more stable.
I'm getting a bit fed up with all the nonsense some people tell about it. It's usually a mixture of ignorance and being wilful obtuse, but if one would put off the rosy ideological goggles, one would actually see windmills and solar are a VERY BAD alternative, if you want to be assured a stable and predictable source of electricity for your home, factory or company.

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--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Re:Only actual plans are green by david_thornley · 2016-01-19 05:59 · Score: 1

As far as I can tell, there are thorium enthusiasts partly because we don't have operating thorium reactors. Yes, it's a promising technology, but we won't know the gory details until we have some experience with them on an industrial scale. Since we don't, people can imagine that they'll be as good as the press releases say. I'm positive that they won't be. I do want to see research on them, since they would solve some real problems if they worked pretty much as envisioned, but I'm not going to count on thorium or fusion as the technology that will solve our energy problems.

--
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Re:Only actual plans are green by N3wsByt3 · 2016-01-19 07:48 · Score: 1

Well, we agree on the 'there should be research done on it", at least. ;-)
First of all, there is much confusion going on, because 'thorium plants' are a general term, but the one is not the same as the other. Some thorium-plants proposed (or actual) are not that much different or better than regular 3gen uranium reactors. But I'm speaking of the LFTR-version.
Granted, we have not much de facto experience with that. Not 'nothing' (the US had one in the 60'ies), but limited, true. So the relative novelty of it needs testing and what not. However, already back then, it had much going for it, except delivering weapon-grade uranium or plutonium. There were no major issues encountered back then neither. There is a lot of hogwash of how the pipes corroded, but that was already dealt with in that time. One complains about the beryllium, and - while true it's toxic - there are many factories and companies that deal with beryllium just fine. In the electro/chemo sector, many substances are highly toxic, it doesn't stop us from using it anyhow. It's far from being a show-stopper, thus. And, in fact, if they could come up with a solution back then, no-one is going to tell me we can't do it as well or better, with an additional 50 years of experience in material-development.
Quite possible it won't be as good as the most positive raving newspapers make it out, but it sure as hell won't be so negative as the ant-camp would want to make us believe. The only thing we can say now is, especially in the LFTR system, it seems very, very promising. This goes for the theoretical aspect as well as the limited practical experience we have with it. It even has the potential to starkly reduce the *current* nuclear waste, so one would expect the greens to be enthusiastic about it, but of course, they aren't. Since it has the word 'nuclear' in it. I guess they prefer having the waste sitting there for another 25000 years.
No, we should definitely start researching it. I agree with you we shouldn't suddenly mass-produce it out of the blue, but there is no reason not to research such promising technology.
But alas, the West just can't be bothered anymore. We've seem to slowly but surely loose our initiative. It's like we're socially decaying, or something. but of course, there ARE some countries who actually do some research on it and are building LFTR's. And it will be no surprise it's China. And that's with a lot of things the case. I'm thinking, while we're dawdling our thumbs and can't make any decisions, in another 50 years China will have surpassed us on literary every front.
The West, and especially Europe, doesn't have it's vigour, nor a long-term vision, anymore. It's lethargic as hell. It makes me sad and mad at the same time.
But well, that only means china will get the advantage on LFTR's as well.

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--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---

Give him this by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 01:32 · Score: 1

A plan for wind and solar has been worked out for Belgium: https://100.org/wp-addons/maps...

Here's the plan for Belgium by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 01:36 · Score: 1

https://100.org/wp-addons/maps... Just adopt it.

Re:Here's the plan for Belgium by ballpoint · 2016-01-18 04:46 · Score: 1

Stop spamming this thread by repeatedly posting the same nonsense link, you shill.

--
Flourescent (adj): smelling like ground wheat.
Re:Here's the plan for Belgium by N3wsByt3 · 2016-01-18 05:18 · Score: 1

Complete hogwash and nonsense.
Ok, let me ask: what are you going to do on a wind-still day when it's clouded?
Let me take your own example, then. You loose:
Residential rooftop solar -4.6%
Solar PV plant -62.4%
Onshore wind -10%
Offshore wind -18%
rooftop solar -4.8%
Is a total loss of 99,8% of your energy/electricity.
Great going! Let's just say to all homes, factories and companies, they loose there electricity and have to do with 0,2%.
I really get it on my nerves from such naive, ideologically coloured 'arguments'. It's nothing more than a delusion. as long as wind and solar remains stochastic in nature, they can NEVER replace the current traditional plants, if you want to have and remain to have a stable, predictable supply of energy.

--
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Re:Here's the plan for Belgium by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 05:21 · Score: 1

Peer reviewed work from Stanford isn't spam. Check a nuclear shill site for that kind of thing.
Re:Here's the plan for Belgium by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 05:38 · Score: 1

You get annoyed because you don't bother to be informed. http://m.pnas.org/content/112/...
Re:Here's the plan for Belgium by N3wsByt3 · 2016-01-18 08:02 · Score: 1

No, I get annoyed because one isn't addressing some key points. Which have been raised numerous times by criticis:
http://bravenewclimate.com/200...
http://www.resilience.org/stor...
http://bravenewclimate.com/201...
http://www.windaction.org/post...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
One of the key points, for instance, is the economical viability of it. Let me simplify the issue: say, you have country 1 and country 2. both have judged the way to go is 100% for renewable energy, like wind. say, there is no wind in country 1. What the authors now say is: no problem, we'll create a smart grid, and that will transport it from country 2.
HOWEVER... what they then don't realise is, that if country 2 has made more or less enough windmills to get going, it CAN NOT sustain a complete other country, unless they have double the amount needed to sustain their own (assuming both countries use roughly the same amount).
Thus they need far more capacity, if they are going to provide another country. However, this also means that for most of the time, there will be a HUGE overcompensation (namely all the times there is wind). Which means half of those windmills will have nothing to do at that time, while yet having been costly to built.
The same goes for country 2 in regard to country 1. Worse, if there is a large weather-front which is wind-poor, it could be that both countries need to get the electricity from a third or fourth country. Which in turn has to provide enough electricity for BOTH countries, then. so even more over-compensating must happen, to deal with this possibility.
Now, I don't know how things go in the USA, but that sure as hell wouldn't work in Europe, where the countries are much smaller, and much more heavily populated. And it would be quite economically unsound to have a windmill-park that is much larger than needed for ones' own demand, just in case another country would fall without.
Now, I read the rosy look that "storage of heat in soil and water" will deal with that, but I just don't think that's plausible. The current best systems, don't let you recuperate the stored energy for more than a couple of hours at best.
I find such claims, and especially the lack of answers and facts in these sort of papers wholly unsatisfactory. There have been many, many valid counterarguments and criticism on it, yet I see it nowhere addressed let alone refuted by the authors of any of those pro-renewable papers.

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--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Re:Here's the plan for Belgium by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 08:18 · Score: 1

So, again, your ignorance is on display. The plans for each country are independent. Your complaint is flawed from the outset. Further, costs are addressed and it turns out money is saved. And really, why link to nuclear industry shill sites? They really are trying to fool you.
Re:Here's the plan for Belgium by pastafazou · 2016-01-18 08:41 · Score: 1

What does that even mean, the plans for each country are independent? That is completely irrelevant to the example he laid out. In order for wind turbines to generate electricity, there needs to be wind. If there isn't any wind, they still need a source to generate the required electricity. Instead of posting more propaganda videos full of non-answers to this question, please answer it yourself. How does Europe, for example, produce the required electricity needed when there isn't any wind blowing?
Re:Here's the plan for Belgium by N3wsByt3 · 2016-01-18 08:41 · Score: 1

So, again, your logical fallacy is on display. https://yourlogicalfallacyis.c...
You think you rebutted anything by simply claiming something a 'shill site'? I don't have a problem looking at the pro- AND con- sides. I just look at the arguments and their logical validity. It's just that I find the pro- camp has far less of them.
The same goes for you. I gave you a clear example why it isn't economical viable if one claims a smart-super-grid will solve anything. You didn't counter it at all, nor gave some valid reasons for it. You merely say "The plans for each country are independent." and then conclude "Your complaint is flawed from the outset." that's NOT addressing the issue. At all. You didn't refute or give a rebuttal to anything, not even to anything of the links with criticism I gave you.
There you simply say "It's a shill site, so I don't have to look at the arguments."
Yes, good going. There sure is *someone* being fooled, true. But I think it's rather of the self-delusional kind.
You didn't even comprehend it doesn't need to be 'independent' countries. The same goes for any area where one is dependent on other area's. This can be States within a country, for instance: the same economics apply.

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--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Re:Here's the plan for Belgium by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 09:08 · Score: 1

Admit it, you didn't even look at the abstract of the peer reviewed study I linked. You have absolutely no idea what you are writing about.
Re:Here's the plan for Belgium by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 09:14 · Score: 1

One more time. Peer reviewed work demonstrates economic viability, indeed cost savings, working country by country. Internet troll link old shill site ravings that don't even address the new work. Why not simply call this what it is: foolishness?
Re:Here's the plan for Belgium by pastafazou · 2016-01-18 09:18 · Score: 1

From the BULLSHIT article you linked: "This paper couples numerical simulation of time- and space-dependent weather with simulation of time-dependent power demand, storage, and demand response" Yes, that's right, it's a peer reviewed article that is based entirely on SIMULATIONS, and not ACTUAL DATA. I'm certainly not going to pay any money to read the entire article.
Re:Here's the plan for Belgium by N3wsByt3 · 2016-01-18 09:26 · Score: 1

Once again, you did not address my criticism. Nor did the paper, for that matter. Or do you think because something is peer reviewed, it's above any criticism?
I've given you a clear example and argument why the claim that such a thing is economically viable, is highly doubtful. You, nor the paper, have given any retort, accept bland statements and using fallacies.
Feel free to actually give a rebuttal with logical arguments to what I said any time.

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--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Re:Here's the plan for Belgium by N3wsByt3 · 2016-01-18 09:45 · Score: 1

Again, this is not a rebuttal based on logical arguments.

--
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---

Try this by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 01:40 · Score: 1

Here is a plan worked out for Belgium: https://100.org/wp-addons/maps...

Re:Try this by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 05:09 · Score: 1

RTFA....
Re:Try this by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 05:12 · Score: 1

And yet it works. Cute your ignorance by reading.

Here is a nuclear free plan for Germany by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 01:53 · Score: 1

https://100.org/wp-addons/maps... This not the only one.

Re:Here is a nuclear free plan for Germany by pastafazou · 2016-01-18 02:28 · Score: 1

LMAO, what a joke! Over 50% of Germany's power is supposed to come from wind? What happens when the wind isn't blowing for a week? Everyone just stops using electricity? Or does the plan have fossil fuel backup generators? Here's a nice graphic summary of wind power generation in Europe: http://www.euanmearns.com/wp-c... Note how in a two month period, there are more days that produced less than 15,000MW than there are days that produced over 30,000MW. That's a HUGE variance in output, and you're going to need backup generation online and running to keep the power grid stable.
Re:Here is a nuclear free plan for Germany by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 03:31 · Score: 1

Euan was always a little panicky. Actully, going 100% RE is very stable. http://livestream.com/unfounda...
Re:Here is a nuclear free plan for Germany by pastafazou · 2016-01-18 05:50 · Score: 1

You're kidding me...you're linking to a bunch of renewable energy propaganda videos? I should believe the wind won't stop blowing because you linked to a speech by Alec Baldwin????? Sorry Mr. Propaganda, but I live in Ontario, where we've jumped over the cliff of renewables. We have a large pile of windmills now installed, and when they aren't spinning, we're burning gas to provide electricity. Oh, and when they are spinning, we're still burning gas because they can't shut down and reboot the gas fired generators fast enough to prevent the grid from collapsing. And when they're spinning too fast and producing too much electricity, We have to pay Michigan to take our surplus or risk the grid from collapsing. Our hydro rates are now double what they were 10 years ago, and still going up. The disaster of a government is now trying to sell off the hydro company to raise money and avoid the blame when the rates go up yet again this year. Sorry, but you're way out to lunch on this subject. Windmills were abandoned a century ago as a source of power because it's just not reliable enough. Unless there's a dramatic reduction of the earth's population, Nuclear is the only way to provide reliable, inexpensive energy for all our needs.
Re:Here is a nuclear free plan for Germany by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 06:07 · Score: 1

Sounds like your complaint is about natural gas. At 100% RE, that problem goes away.
Re:Here is a nuclear free plan for Germany by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 06:13 · Score: 1

Here's a nice video too https://youtu.be/CKRf3YkjwzQ
Re:Here is a nuclear free plan for Germany by pastafazou · 2016-01-18 06:27 · Score: 1

And at 100% nuclear, the problem of RE propaganda not living up to real world performance goes away too.
Re:Here is a nuclear free plan for Germany by pastafazou · 2016-01-18 06:33 · Score: 1

Oh, thanks for yet another propaganda video without any factual evidence. What kind of glue were they sniffing in Paris?
Re:Here is a nuclear free plan for Germany by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 06:41 · Score: 1

Nuclear is even more inflexible than the complaints you make against natural gas. I think you are confused.
Re:Here is a nuclear free plan for Germany by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 06:45 · Score: 1

You can check out his publications of course. The current issue of PNAS is one place to look.
Re:Here is a nuclear free plan for Germany by pastafazou · 2016-01-18 08:43 · Score: 1

How stupid are you? Nuclear doesn't need to be flexible, you turn it on, and you leave it on, and you get consistent, reliable, predictable power.
Re:Here is a nuclear free plan for Germany by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 08:58 · Score: 1

And business shuts down because it can't meet peak. You are very thick I think.
Re:Here is a nuclear free plan for Germany by Blaskowicz · 2016-01-20 03:45 · Score: 1

It works for every country, even this one : https://100.org/wp-addons/maps...
DPRK stands to save 19% of GDP in health costs each year.

Re: You can't build new ones because the old ones by goarilla · 2016-01-18 01:59 · Score: 1

The alternative would be to (a) increase the capacity of the link between the Belgium grid and the grids of their neighbors, and (b) plan fully invest in windpower and storage solutions.

I'm not sure our shore line is big enough for the amount of wind turbines we might need.
(a) might happen since it's been championned by a broadly respected economist, even though his socialist party (SPA) is part of the opposition now.

Re:Wrong. by pastafazou · 2016-01-18 02:18 · Score: 1

What total nonsense. Please define efficient versus inefficient regarding nuclear fission. And while you're at it, let's see some data backing up your claim that nuclear fission does not work as a feasible energy resource. There's plenty of data available showing it's producing plenty of energy.

Massachusetts was worried about Vermont Yankee by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 02:18 · Score: 1

Vermont Yankee was cracking up all the time and Massachusetts was concerned. http://nepr.net/news/2015/10/1...

They are good at math at Stanford by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 02:26 · Score: 1

Seem renewables work for Belgium https://100.org/wp-addons/maps...

Re:They are good at math at Stanford by MachineShedFred · 2016-01-18 04:41 · Score: 1

Yeah, they work so well that they are still running these creaky old nuclear plants. You don't get both sides of the coin.
Besides, you keep showing this 'plan' that has absolutely no reasoning posted behind it that I could see on that site. Where's the research that shows this plan as being even remotely feasible? What would it cost to implement? Would it bankrupt the country before seeing realization?

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Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Re:They are good at math at Stanford by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 05:18 · Score: 1

The financing is fully researched and, as shown, saves money. Links are provided leading to peer reviewed publications.

Re:Stupid to build new ones cause uranium is runni by pastafazou · 2016-01-18 02:41 · Score: 2

Oh, so now we have "peak uranium" being offered as a potential crisis? They said the same thing about oil 50 years ago, and here we are, still going strong with a glut of oil. Stop with your propaganda please. Here's the facts on Uranium as a power source: " Uranium-235 is a finite non-renewable resource.[1][3] However, the current reserves of uranium have the potential (assuming breeder reactor technology) to provide power for humanity for billions of years, until the death of our sun, so nuclear power can be termed sustainable energy.[4] " - from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Separation by phorm · 2016-01-18 02:46 · Score: 1

Sounds like Quebec in Canada.

Sim City anyone? by zerocool512 · 2016-01-18 02:52 · Score: 1

I saw the title of this story and had to comment. This is exactly what I remember seeing in the Sim City games (outside of the name being exact of course) and actually got a good laugh at it

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If techs didn't disagree with each other, then Microsoft would rule the world.

Re:Sim City anyone? by KatchooNJ · 2016-01-18 05:47 · Score: 1

OK... that made me laugh! lol :-D

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"Never give up, for that is just the time and place when the tide will change." -Harriet Beecher Stowe ^_^

Re:keep 'em separated by amiga3D · 2016-01-18 03:35 · Score: 1

slashdot.....home of anonymous idiots.

Re:Stupid to build new ones cause uranium is runni by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 03:36 · Score: 1

However, breeders are not practical.

Very stable RE grid without batteries by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 03:48 · Score: 1

Turns out that batteries are not much needed for a stable RE grid: http://livestream.com/unfounda...

Re:Very stable RE grid without batteries by drinkypoo · 2016-01-18 23:40 · Score: 1

Turns out people won't sit through a video without preamble, especially when whatever you wanted them to get from it could have been summarized in a short sentence, and double-especially when it's not hosted on a reputable site.

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"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"

Re: LFTR by MachineShedFred · 2016-01-18 04:04 · Score: 1

I know people here on Slashdot love to bring up Thorium-based reactors, but has anyone ever actually built one and turned it on? Even Wikipedia only has mention of research projects that have yet to go critical, with plans to scale to a tenth of what a traditional Uranium PWR can do, but not a single one has been built, much less taken critical.

There may be promise to the technology, but you need it to mature to something useable at a commercial scale. LFTR isn't there yet.

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Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.

Re:Stupid to build new ones cause uranium is runni by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 04:39 · Score: 1

Red Book would point out the that you misunderstand the situation.

Re:I saw the title... by MachineShedFred · 2016-01-18 04:49 · Score: 2

I just wonder why this guy is always trashing every technology not named solar. If we're serious about climate change, we should be building anything not named 'coal', 'oil', and 'natural gas'.

Solar is fantastic. I work for, and own stock in, a solar company. I would love to see panels on everyone's rooftops, especially if they were installed by my company. It's just not realistic without some form of energy storage technology that doesn't exist today. We still need to produce energy at night time. And, right now when it's snowing and 7 degrees (Fahrenheit) outside where I live, we need reliable energy for heating, and snow-covered panels aren't it.

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Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.

argumentum ad hominem by peon_a-z,A-Z,0-9$_+! · 2016-01-18 04:59 · Score: 4, Interesting

One of the rare times where, after many users have provided counterarguments against mdsolar's negative posts in the past, we as a group need to resort to directly attacking the character and motive of all posts by mdsolar.

http://slashdot.org/submission/5458403/20-nations-nuclear-facilities-said-to-be-vulnerable-to-cyberattack

http://slashdot.org/submission/5439281/why-james-hansen-is-wrong-about-nuclear-power

http://slashdot.org/submission/5415059/portions-of-land-at-san-onofre-nuclear-plant-may-be-contaminated-navy

http://slashdot.org/submission/5373577/the-attack-of-the-nuclear-hucksters

Why are we still accepting such biased submissions from mdsolar?

afraid of clouds? by plcurechax · 2016-01-18 05:22 · Score: 1

... Belgium's Doel nuclear power belch thick white steam into a wintry sky, people [...] are on edge

I honestly can't take the fears of steam vapour, containing nothing more than water, that serious.

Re:afraid of clouds? by Mike+Van+Pelt · 2016-01-18 07:42 · Score: 1

Oh noes, they're contaminating our precious bodily fluids with deadly dihydrogen monoxide!

Student newspaper by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 05:34 · Score: 1

Student newspapers are fun, but look at peer reviewed publications if you want to avoid your kind of confusion. http://m.pnas.org/content/112/...

Re:Student newspaper by N3wsByt3 · 2016-01-18 07:30 · Score: 1

And also look at the critique of such peer-reviewed publications: http://bravenewclimate.com/200...
Otherwise, one could be confused into thinking that being peer reviewed means the conclusions are all correct.

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--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Re:Student newspaper by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 07:56 · Score: 1

C'mon, a shill site, really?
Re:Student newspaper by N3wsByt3 · 2016-01-18 08:30 · Score: 1

It seems the term 'shill' has become mainstream as a response in slashdot. Of course, if everyone starts using that to counter everyone else one does not agree with, one gets nowhere...
Let's try it this way: instead of dishing or ignoring an argument or reasoning for ad hominem reasons (aka, where it comes from), why not look and debate the arguments itself, instead?
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.c...
A valid argument remains valid, nomatter WHO said it, after all. One should focus on the arguments, thus.

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--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Re:Student newspaper by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 09:01 · Score: 1

How about, don't offer a shill site to counter published peer reviewed work. It is a waste of time.
Re:Student newspaper by pastafazou · 2016-01-18 09:05 · Score: 1

You've been posting crap links from renewable shills all day, and now you complain about someone's sources?
Re:Student newspaper by N3wsByt3 · 2016-01-18 09:20 · Score: 1

You remain with your ad hominem fallacy, thus.
If you change your mind and actually start giving valid counter-arguments, let me know.

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--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Re:Student newspaper by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 09:24 · Score: 1

One more time. http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
Re:Student newspaper by N3wsByt3 · 2016-01-18 09:39 · Score: 1

Ah, yes... I became aware half way that he was nothing more than a pro-green troll. Nothing worthwhile ever comes out of it. He'd rather be inconsistent and annoying - as you point out - than actually ever seriously debate anything using valid arguments.
I've seen that attitude before. He can't look objectively at things, it's always through ideologically coloured goggles he sees things. A more nuanced person would realise that, while LFTR are not a "magical bullet" which will solve everything, there are at least good arguments why the benefits far outweighs the disadvantages.
But its no use debating this with him. He's already in the "ignore everything else and call it shill'-mode. One can't have an open discussion with someone whom doesn't even want to try.
He's just trolling.

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--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---

Re:Can't be found by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 05:36 · Score: 1

As well informed...

Re:Stupid to build new ones cause uranium is runni by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 05:46 · Score: 1

It is common knowledge that they are more expensive.

Re:Wrong. by budgenator · 2016-01-18 05:47 · Score: 1

The Fukushima reactors were an excellent example of three things,
Firstly sub-standard Generation II, especially Boiling Water Reactors power plants need to be replaced with properly designed Generation III reactor like the Westinghouse AP1000 and
Secondly we need some rationality to the spent to the spent fuel situation that doesn't involve it that crap being scattered all over hell and creation.
Thirdly the Japanese are complete fucktards with nuclear, amazingly even worse than the Russians.

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Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds

Re:Stupid to build new ones cause uranium is runni by pastafazou · 2016-01-18 06:38 · Score: 1

It is also common knowledge that solar is even more expensive. It is also common knowledge that the wind is not reliable, and therefore not a good source of RELIABLE energy production. Now please stop trolling /. Most of us are smart enough to know the difference between facts and propaganda. You, however, are not.

Re:Stupid to build new ones cause uranium is runni by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 06:51 · Score: 1

Actually, no, you are mistaken. Both wind and solar are less expensive and some Midwest nuclear plants are becoming impractical owing to this.

Re:Stupid to build new ones cause uranium is runni by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 07:03 · Score: 1

How ignorant....

Thorium is fools erand by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 07:22 · Score: 1

http://science.slashdot.org/co...

Re:Thorium is fools erand by N3wsByt3 · 2016-01-18 08:14 · Score: 1

Rebuttals:
http://pche-sts.blogspot.be/20...
http://energyfromthorium.com/2...
Many of those counter-arguments in that slasdot-post you link to, have been brought up before, and equally as much has it been shown to be largely complete nonsense.

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--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Re:Thorium is fools erand by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 08:22 · Score: 1

Rave on....
Re:Thorium is fools erand by N3wsByt3 · 2016-01-18 08:43 · Score: 1

Great rebuttal...

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--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Re:Thorium is fools erand by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 09:17 · Score: 1

Best one for thorium fanbois.
Re:Thorium is fools erand by N3wsByt3 · 2016-01-18 09:29 · Score: 1

Well, thank you for your valuable input. It's refreshing to see nothing changed in the ideological self-delusion of green fanboys.

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--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---

Re:You can't build new ones because the old ones s by serviscope_minor · 2016-01-18 07:26 · Score: 1

The UK has a pretty terrible record on nuclear safety, but most people don't care.

Do we have a bad record on nuclear power safety? There have been no accidents above level 4 (local consequences) related to nuclear power and not many of them either.

The worst accidents (Windscale fire) have nothing to do with nuclear power and should not therefore be lumped in with it.

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SJW n. One who posts facts.

Re:Stupid to build new ones cause uranium is runni by pastafazou · 2016-01-18 08:29 · Score: 1

No, I'm not mistaken. It's common knowledge that solar is much more expensive than nuclear. You can refer to Wikipedia or the EIA for specific numbers. Now go away troll.

Re:Stupid to build new ones cause uranium is runni by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 08:38 · Score: 1

Average price for utility scale solar is $0.05/kwh and still dropping. http://www.energybiz.com/magaz... Less than nuclear.

Re:Stupid to build new ones cause uranium is runni by pastafazou · 2016-01-18 09:01 · Score: 1

Sorry, I'm not going to trust a Renewable Energy Shill as a source. Here's some real numbers... Levelized Cost of Electricity for new generation sources entering service in 2020: Advanced Nuclear: $95.2/MWh Solar PV: $125.3/MWh Solar Thermal: $239.7/MWh source: https://www.eia.gov/forecasts/... And this is ONLY cost, it doesn't factor in that Solar is restricted to sunlight hours, is variable and unpredictable, and therefore it's not a reliable source.

Re:Stupid to build new ones cause uranium is runni by mdsolar · 2016-01-18 09:22 · Score: 1

And the news differs from government projections. Never happened before. That's why oil us over $80/bbl these days.

Slashdot Mirror

Belgium's Aging Nuclear Plants Worry Neighbors (phys.org)

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