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Nuclear is Our Future Monthly Newsletter
March 20, 2007
This is Your Planet on Coal
$23.99
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- Introduction
- February 2007 Archive
Welcome to our newsletter! Contained here is the February 2007 Nuclear is Our Future weblog archive. Given that it is in plain text format, the HTML has been removed and thus many posts do not look the same as when they were posted. If you want more information, please check the February 2007 online archive at blog.niof.org/2007_02_01_archive.html. Link: http://blog.niof.org/2007_02_01_archive.html
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Learning from Patrick Moore's Attempt to Talk to Californians
In a flippant moment last August, I commented offhand after only a few seconds' thought that charging admission was one of the dumbest things you can do.
And, oh boy, was I right.
Regarding the rest of the article, the basic problem is too much irrelevant information about how the EPR works and not enough basic information. I suspect the something along the lines of the following was provided:
Nuclear power is really safe because it has a lot of backup systems. A meltdown really isn't all that likely in the old reactors, and the EPR is even better. It has more redundant systems, and it was all designed by computer. And there's a four-foot-thick concrete dome instead of a three-foot-thick one. It will be cheaper this time; trust me. It's different, you know. We're Americans (even though the reactor was designed in France)! We can do anything if we set our minds to it! And we're smart, too. We're good at this.
This is not what people want or need to know. Unfortunately, Patrick Moore is not reading that editorial. I don't believe he knows what Joe Six-Pack thinks about nuclear power. I don't believe he's assessing the real impact of his talks and fixing the weak points. I didn't see it, but given that editorial, it seems to me like the whole thing is missing the point. Here's what people want to know about reactors:
There has been a lot of misinformation about nuclear power, spun by zealous conservatives intent on curtailing development of technology--using liberal language. We pro-nuclear people have dropped the ball on this, by not providing this information in the first place. I'm here today to tell you how it works.
During the Manhattan project, the first simple reactors--canisters of uranium metal inside a block of graphite, with a couple of boron rods to reduce the reaction rate when inserted--morphed into high-powered plutonium-239-production reactors with the addition of water-filled channels for cooling, into which uranium metal rods were placed. The first reactor designers knew that there were simpler ways to build a reactor than this, but other designs produced contaminated plutonium that didn't work in bombs. Later on, the Soviets stole this design, which they converted into a power plant by using water boiled out of the cooling channels to run a steam engine. This type of reactor--literally a bomb factory--was used at Chernobyl, and the basic problem came from the fact that the water interfered with the block of graphite's effect on the nuclear reaction. When you remove the water, the reaction actually sped up--and very quickly.
Now, it turns out no other reactor design has that characteristic; it's a problem unique to weapons-grade plutonium production. But that problem scared the hell out of the reactor designers, since it was present in the first systems they had ever worked with, and they started to approach all future reactors as though they were inherently unsafe. In the 1950s to 1970s, they included dozens of backup systems to reduce the number of unknowns, which they simply could not analyze because they didn't have enough computing power. They did not know what was going to be necessary and what wasn't, and ended up including many systems "just in case." That might sound good, but the problem is that operators and maintenance personnel have to work around the unnecessary systems in order to keep critical ones running.
An American-style nuclear power plant is not mechanically complicated at all. It's basically a tank of water with uranium rods suspended in it; the complicated part is the physics that goes into determining what the geometry and materials are going to be. If you don't have that computing power, you can simplify the physics--if you're willing to accept a small probability of the device overheating, and if you're willing to install backup cooling systems to prevent that from happening.
Importantly, though, if the water drains out of an American-style nuclear reactor, it doesn't cause a power spike like it does in a Chernobyl-style one, because the water has the same effect on the nuclear reaction as Chernobyl's block of graphite--and is the coolant. So if the water coolant drains out, the reaction physically cannot occur; the reactor shuts down without any human intervention. It's foolproof; an American-style nuclear reactor cannot experience a Chernobyl-style accident. It's physically impossible.
However, without the water, an American-style nuclear reactor can overheat, and the uranium rods can melt and collect in the bottom of the tank. And if you have enough unnecessary backup systems to hinder maintenance and oversight, you can have a cooling system leak drain the water from the reactor.
That's Three Mile Island in a nutshell. Unfortunately, 95% of the US population doesn't know the difference between the Chernobyl bomb factory and the rods-in-a-tank design, which was originally used in submarine engines, and people think that Three Mile Island was a less-severe version of Chernobyl, or that we somehow "just missed" another Chernobyl. It's not a progression; they're two entirely different physical phenomena.
And the kicker is that we don't even have to accept the slight probability of another inconsequential Three-Mile-Island-style overheating accident in order to have nuclear power. Computers are capable of analyzing all the variables in a nuclear reactor, so a modern reactor would use complex physics in place of complex engineering and multiple backup systems. If a reactor can be designed to absorb failures using physics, instead of active backup systems, why bother to include components that you know don't do anything?
Here we come to the other 800-pound gorilla in the nuclear debate: waste. Both of the reactor types that I've mentioned use less than 1% of the uranium available to them, meaning that the split atoms are mixed in with both unused fuel and atoms that were supposed to split but actually got bigger (the latter posing the vast majority of the long-term radiation hazard). To more fully use this material--and get rid of the half-used fuel that poses the most danger--we have a few options. We can directly run it through a more efficient reactor, like Canadian designs that use the rods-in-a-tank approach (except the tank is full of heavy water, not ordinary water), we can remove the split atoms and some of the unused uranium, then run it through again up to twice (as the French and Japanese do), or we can use an entirely different type of reactor that is capable of using it all.
This reactor type is known as an Integral Fast Reactor (or IFR), and is an assembly of uranium rods suspended in a tank of molten sodium. The sodium does not have an effect on the reaction at all, so the reaction is more efficient and can consume literally anything heavier than 89 on the periodic table (uranium is 92). IFRs consume approximately 20% of their fuel at a time instead of 1%; five cycles of removing the split atoms and placing the rest of the fuel back into the reactor completely consumes the fuel, plus the long-lived waste. Unfortunately, there are no operating IFRs in the United States today because of anti-nuclear pressure.
And finally, to cover one of the most pervasive myths about nuclear power, you don't have to be rich or a genius to safely operate a nuclear power plant. Physics works, whether you want it to or not. A safe reactor is safe, even under massive abuse. Engineers in 1986 tried to cause a meltdown in an IFR prototype, and they couldn't do it; it wasn't their personality that made hot metal expand. Osama bin Laden and Homer Simpson could have been at the controls and nothing would have happened.
I know that's an awful talk, and it's not very clear and uses too many technical terms and not enough soundbites, but the final product should be something along those lines. People are worried about accidents and waste, with proliferation a distant third, not how many jobs a reactor will bring to somewhere else. We've got to press it: nuclear power is a good idea in the abstract, just like solar and wind. There's no risk in reducing risk; nuclear power, especially waste-eating reactors, is better than what we've currently got and should thus be used. Anything that does not address the core concerns of the general public is a waste of time and helps bring us closer to the train wreck that we've got coming if we don't shape up as a political movement.
There were a couple of other things that he didn't do, as well: he picked his audience very, very poorly. You don't see Al Gore get heckled during his global warming presentation; that's because he has a network that gets his supporters and neutral people out to the presentations and avoids his opponents: phone trees, word-of-mouth, email, and such. Bringing people to rallies/lectures/talks/presentations is such an unbelievably basic part of organizing that it's inexcusable for someone as experienced as Moore to screw it up. If you do get a heckler, as a supporter of the speaker in the audience, Jason Salzman suggests starting a chant. I would suggest "no gas, no oil, no coal, no choice;" it applies almost everywhere, and is easy for a lot of people to pick up quickly. I however wouldn't suggest a Reaganesque response (e.g., "ah, shut up") on the part of the speaker; you can only get away with that if you're popular, which we aren't. We might have to start thinking about ourselves as similar to the women's suffrage movement in about 1865; we're unpopular and people might not want to hear what we're saying, but we've got a good case, and we've got to keep pressing to the goal. It's going to take a long time. It might not happen in any of our lifetimes. And it won't happen unless we start kicking butt. But if we do, the results will be profound, long-lasting, and positive.
Let's get going.
Labels: Activism, Basic Physics
posted by Stewart Peterson at 11:41 PM | 9 comments | links
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day
"Despite so-far hollow nuclear industry claims of a "resurgence," the reality is that the world’s nuclear reactors continue to decline in number."
-Nuclear Information and Resource Service
Four of those seven reactors were some of the oldest in the world, and the other three were shut down for political reasons because they were made by the Russians. What about the reactors being built in Finland, Japan, and China, or the ones about to be built in many other places?
Ultimately, though, this statement is meaningless; it amounts to "nuclear power is unpopular because we've made it that way, so it's a bad idea."
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Fun With Statistics, Industry Performance, New Build, Non Sequitur
posted by Stewart Peterson at 4:10 AM | 2 comments | links
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Store Update
I'm starting to experiment with Photoshop, and so far I'm thrilled with the results (especially compared to MS Paint). I've done some work on the "this is your planet on coal" items (t-shirt, long-sleeved t-shirt, women's t-shirt, women's long-sleeved t-shirt, women's v-neck t-shirt), and removed the black background (it's now transparent, so the real black of the shirt comes through) and made the text bigger. I haven't added the "safe. clean. reliable. cheap. nuclear. www.niof.org" back in, but I will, and yes, I'm working on the new red TicTac template for NRCWatch.
If all goes according to plan, I'll be able to overhaul the store to include more colors, multiple designs per item, a better page layout, and more designs by early April.
Labels: Site
posted by Stewart Peterson at 11:52 PM | 0 comments | links
Weekly Nuclear Poll: Please Vote
Given that there are only three votes on the poll, apparently no one has noticed that it changed. I felt that I had to leave the previous poll--the voting on the Gofman Award--up longer to give more people a chance to vote. That may have been a mistake.
Please vote!
Update 4:05 PM 2/28/07: Thank you very much to those who voted; I'll put a new one up on Friday.
Labels: Site
posted by Stewart Peterson at 11:07 PM | 0 comments | links
Kaiga Unit 3 Goes Online
It's a 220-megawatt heavy-water reactor in southwest India, built in about five years.
They're talking about exporting this design to the Third World, where countries do not necessarily need larger conventional nuclear power plants.
Link.
Labels: Economics, Industry Performance, New Build
posted by Stewart Peterson at 10:24 PM | 1 comments | links
TXU Cancels Eight Cokes
They've recently been bought out by an investment group led by the famed junk-bond speculators Kohlberg Kravis Roberts. Canceling eight of eleven planned cokes and reaffirming an "environmental focus," they've apparently bought off the concerted environmentalist attack that was threatening their business. Although they say that the plans for three other cokes and up to five nukes are "unaffected," I doubt that seriously.
We're going to see these tactics used on nuclear power. Be warned.
Link.
Labels: Activism, Alternatives, Environment, New Build, Their Actions
posted by Stewart Peterson at 10:12 PM | 2 comments | links
Poll Data Backs "Polluter Pays"
Big news, I know. But that doesn't help our case until people know how nuclear power plants actually work; they think nuclear power is one of the worst polluting processes in the world, whereas it is actually clean enough to run inside sealed submarines.
I'd like to remind people of all the times in An Inconvenient Truth that cooling towers were cited as greenhouse gas emitters. And that one of the voice-overs was a statement along the lines of "technology is going beyond the limits of humans to manage it," which is a direct swipe at nuclear power to assure the audience that, obviously, Al Gore would not endorse anything like that as it's such an enemy of the environment. No, they see this as their issue, and they don't want anyone "hijacking" it.
Update 3:27 PM 2/28/07: broken link fixed.
Link.
Labels: Activism, Environment
posted by Stewart Peterson at 10:03 PM | 0 comments | links
Ever See a Long-Term Oil Contract?
Especially one that protects consumers from 850% price increases? This precise situation is happening in Australia--just replace "oil" with "uranium."
The key here is that uranium is a non-combustible, non-hazardous (before it is put in the reactor) solid that is two million times more energy dense than oil, and is routinely stored. Remember also that only about 1% of it is used at a time with current reactors, and with the US government's once-through-use policy, we've built up enough unused uranium to last 500 years if uranium mining stopped today. If the price of oil went up 850%, it would be indicative of some real supply problems, but if the price of uranium goes up 850%, consumers don't even really see it--and we've got all those reserves as an option.
In related news, similar circumstances as well as some initial investments in enrichment capacity caused USEC to predict a net loss for 2007.
Link.
Labels: Economics, Fuel Cycle, Security and Terrorism
posted by Stewart Peterson at 9:53 PM | 0 comments | links
Flamanville Unit 3 Power to Go to France
EDF is backtracking on a previous agreement that 12.5% of it go to Italy.
I wonder if that will get Italy going on new build. Probably not, but one can dream.
Labels: Industry Performance, New Build
posted by Stewart Peterson at 9:49 PM | 0 comments | links
THORP Rehashed
Blah, blah, blah. Nothing leaked, nobody was killed, nothing got out, and the system that ended up absorbing the failure was specifically designed to absorb precisely this failure. The overkill over this inconsequential non-problem is completely indicative of everything that's wrong with nuclear regulation just about everywhere; I ask you, does the FAA do this with airplanes? The nuclear industry will have "structure" and "rigor" and lose sight of the forest for the trees--it always has, and it probably always will--which will result in zilch public safety improvement, layers of added bureaucracy and costs, and a more entrenched fortress mentality. This outside observer believes that what they need is to trim down, take some risks, and get some butt-kicking engineers and managers to expand in areas and ways they haven't even thought about.
Link to news article.
Labels: Clueless, Industry Performance, Non Sequitur, Safety, Their Actions
posted by Stewart Peterson at 9:21 PM | 2 comments | links
Switzerland to Retain Nuclear
..and replace the existing plants at the ends of their lives. This is certainly good news in such a volatile political situation that has seen the official stance on nuclear power change at least three times; Rod Adams has more.
Link.
Labels: New Build, Politics and Regulation
posted by Stewart Peterson at 9:07 PM | 0 comments | links
Opportunity for Advocacy in Europe
This is big news. 76% of Europeans feel uninformed about nuclear safety. I believe that this is a great opportunity to jump in with the actual information that we are capable of distributing, as opposed to anti-nuclear scare tactics. If they actually do want to hear real information, we've got a shot.
The reason I believe this result as opposed to the many industry-generated polls of dubious statistical value is the other questions' results, which are consistent with the well-known fact that most of the general public is anti-nuclear: 14% of respondents are in favor of new build and 39% are for closing plants; 46% believe that nuclear power "helps to limit global warming" whatever that means to the respondents (it is important to remember that most people do not see global warming as an issue of the emission of greenhouse gases, but rather as a general indicator of the environment; when the scientific community says that global warming is happening--and they do and it is--there's a disconnect in that public takes that to mean that scientists are siding with the environmentalist mainstream on every issue); 67% said the media is biased (meaning towards industry); 41% thought that nuclear power can be replaced easily by piddle power, as opposed to 45% who thought it could not; 31% said that nuclear power plants are inherently unsafe; yet only 50% thought that nuclear waste couldn't be managed safely and only 53% thought that nuclear power was too unsafe for them to support. I would expect numbers in the neighborhood of 70% for the last three numbers and around 90% for whether nuclear power could be replaced, so I'd still go with my gut feeling on the popularity of nuclear power until proven otherwise.
The idiots conducting the poll unfortunately said that nuclear power emits carbon dioxide, which is not true, that nuclear power "helps to fight against climate change and thereby contribute to the goal of sustainable development" (eyeroll), and that "European public opinion remains reticent towards nuclear energy and, in order to develop, the nuclear industry would need to achieve a concensus among the population," which pretty much establishes this as a push poll and suggests to me that the numbers are overstated a bit towards the positive. Still, it doesn't explain away 76%, which is why I am cautiously optimistic, even though it doesn't contain the word "care."
Link to poll.
Labels: Activism
posted by Stewart Peterson at 8:41 PM | 0 comments | links
South Africa Update
They're considering restarting their enrichment program. The difference this time is that they have nuclear power plants to feed, particularly the 24 proposed pebble-bed reactors (equivalent to about three conventional reactors in power output).
Apparently, also, the Russians are moving in. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: NEI, or NuStart, or some American reactor manufacturer association had better get moving, or else the world standard will be cheap Russian knockoffs of a technology they invented.
Labels: Fuel Cycle, New Build, Proliferation
posted by Stewart Peterson at 8:15 PM | 0 comments | links
New British Research Facility Makes Step Forward
INL has joined the project.
Link.
Labels: Fuel Cycle, New Build
posted by Stewart Peterson at 8:00 PM | 0 comments | links
Iran Update
First, obviously, they haven't stopped enriching uranium by the deadline. Good for them. It's their right; the only thing that's missing from an American-style nuclear infrastructure in Iran is American-style nuclear power plants. Let's build them a couple of AP-1000s to use the uranium produced by their enrichment facility (and get some construction experience for the US).
Second, the Russians are apparently demanding payment for the completion of the Bushehr Unit 1 nuclear power plant in dollars; the Iranians want to pay in euros. The Russians may suspend construction and/or delay fuel loading if this isn't resolved. Classic.
And to clarify another statement in the linked article, Bushehr is "exempt" (their words) from the Security Council's illegal demands to stop enriching uranium because it doesn't enrich uranium. It does almost exactly the opposite; Bushehr is an American-style (light-water) reactor, and light-water reactors degrade enriched uranium.
Labels: International, Iran, Proliferation
posted by Stewart Peterson at 7:34 PM | 0 comments | links
Japanese Energy Policy to Back More Fuel Cycle Work
In addition to Rokkasho, the draft document supposedly supports advanced reactors, a MOX plant, and MOX use in existing LWRs.
No mention was made of the uranium-from-seawater extraction process developed in Japan.
Labels: Fuel Cycle, New Build
posted by Stewart Peterson at 7:27 PM | 0 comments | links
Namibia Uranium Mine's Output Estimate Revised
Upward--significantly. So much for "no more uranium." With efficient use of this uranium, it would be enough to run the world's reactors for about fifty years. Try saying that about a single coal mine or oil well.
Link.
Labels: End Times, Fuel Cycle
posted by Stewart Peterson at 7:18 PM | 0 comments | links
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day
"The industry points out that there are naturally occurring levels of 'background' radiation. Indeed, humans have evolved in an environment that contains some forms of radiation, but this has not prepared us for the various forms of radioactive contamination coming from nuclear fuel production, plant operation and waste management."
-Earthlife Africa
First, there's a difference between radiation and 'radioactive contamination.' Radiation does not spill, or spread, or stay in the environment. It radiates, behaving in exactly the same way as light (except, of course, that large amounts of it can cause damage on the way through). Nuclear-process-based devices are usually radioactive, meaning they radiate radiation, but do not emit radioactive materials. Most of the urban myths that nuclear-process-based devices pick up are based on the idea that has apparently gotten into the public's mind that radiation is somehow a substance.
Now, radiation obviously comes from radioactive materials--things, usually metals, that are unstable and emit radiation when they decay to a more stable state--and if those materials are emitted into the environment, they can irradiate things that under other circumstances don't get irradiated, like the internal organs of people that ingest them. But there are a lot of important caveats:
1. There are naturally radioactive materials in human bodies, too, like potassium-40 and carbon-14. It is extremely important to remember at all times that people can't magically make new kinds of radiation. Even artificial radioactive materials emit the same types of radiation as natural ones.
2. The travel time of the material has to be low enough that it doesn't decay before it gets to the person.
3. The chemical toxicity of the material is almost always much more important. For example, uranium takes about four and a half billion years for half of it to decay--meaning that it gives off very little radiation, or else it would decay more quickly--but is about as chemically toxic to adults as lead (lead causes kidney failure in adults, as uranium does; however, lead causes developmental problems in children and uranium does not). Saying that eating uranium is bad is correct; saying that eating uranium is bad because it's radioactive is not correct. Eating uranium is bad because it's a kidney toxin.
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Basic Physics, Environment, Health, Radiation
posted by Stewart Peterson at 4:34 PM | 0 comments | links
Monday, February 26, 2007
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day
"Converting warhead plutonium into fuel for generating electricity would stimulate commerce in this extremely toxic, weapons-usable material."
-Nuclear Control Institute
How? By destroying it? By combining it with things that make it impossible to use in a nuclear weapon?
And the term "weapons-usable" actually means that it is not physically impossible to use it in a nuclear weapon--if a detonation mechanism were developed that could use it. Weapons-grade means that it could be used in bombs with today's most-advanced technology. That technology--or, in fact, any plutonium bomb--is far out of the reach of terrorist groups that sometimes can't make a nail bomb go off correctly. You can't exactly build these things with tinfoil and wire from the hardware store.
While nuclear weapons states are ambiguous about whether it is possible to build a nuclear weapon with plutonium from commercial reactors, the fact that they have never done it and that the reactors they do use (Chernobyl-style reactors) are extraordinarily complicated compared to commercial ones suggests that the bomb designers know something that NCI doesn't.
If these think it's such a problem, they should support destroying it permanently--and the only way to do that is with a nuclear reactor. Burying it with highly-radioactive material only allows the highly-radioactive material to decay away, leaving a "plutonium mine" for future generations. Worse still, the part of reactor-grade plutonium that makes it non-weapons-grade decays faster than the part that works in bombs, so while there's no way to separate the two artificially, allowing the non-weapons-grade component to decay underground does that quite well. On the contrary, their disposal method does not enhance security: given enough time, it's a surefire way to turn non-weapons-grade material into weapons-grade material.
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Basic Physics, Clueless, Non Sequitur, Plutonium, Proliferation, Terminology
posted by Stewart Peterson at 5:27 PM | 0 comments | links
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Doing My Part to Ensure the Cancellation of Clinton Unit 2
One of the reasons that my posting has been sporadic over the last week or so is that I have recently acquired a TV tuner card, for three main reasons:
1. It's better than the old TV, which had no functioning TV tuner or power switch.
2. I need to convert approximately 500 VHS tapes, some of which date to the late 1980s and many of which aren't labeled, to MPEGs.
3. It saves electricity. Don't get me wrong, conservation works very well; it very effectively delays the need for new power plants. If you believe that it is not possible to come up with anything better than what we already have, that nothing new will ever be discovered, and that alternatives to fossil fuels are not worth pursuing, go ahead and conserve. If you think that there's something wrong with humanity's great technological journey that began in the trees of Africa and has brought us to modern civilization, go ahead and conserve. Conservation is also cheap--that's why I would take an action that I know is a bad idea and that's why it is a proven market winner--but that doesn't make it good policy. It's not a source of energy, either: not doing something is not to be confused with progress.
Labels: Economics, Site
posted by Stewart Peterson at 3:42 PM | 1 comments | links
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day
"Many parts of Europe and Asia are still (in 2005) affected by Chernobyl fallout deposited in 1986. Originally many scientists believed that fallout would be washed away in a few months. Nuclear enthusiasm meets reality, again."
-Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility
Oh, yeah, kill all the scientists. The Republic has no need of scientists, eh?
More to the point, it is possible to detect levels of radiation that have no effect (read: are tens of thousands of times lower than natural radiation from things like tree nuts). This is the case here.
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Chernobyl, Environment, Scientific Method
posted by Stewart Peterson at 6:21 AM | 4 comments | links
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day
"The evacuation zones resulting from the Chernobyl accident have been copied onto a map of California, with the point representing the Chernobyl nuclear power plant placed over San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station."
-Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility
That assumes that a Chernobyl-style accident is physically possible at San Onofre; it is not. Chernobyl was a scaled-up bomb factory, and San Onofre is a scaled-up submarine engine. They're completely different designs.
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Basic Physics, Chernobyl, Non Sequitur, Safety
posted by Stewart Peterson at 6:13 AM | 0 comments | links
Friday, February 23, 2007
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day
"The Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility Legal fund will lobby for California legislation to limit the production and storage of high-level radioactive waste on California's coast to current license terms and to prohibit license renewals for California's nuclear plants until there is a permanent safe and operating solution to the storage of high-level radioactive waste."
-Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility
I bet that doesn't include waste-eating reactors.
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Politics and Regulation, Waste
posted by Stewart Peterson at 6:06 AM | 1 comments | links
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day
"They have approved this property for nuclear fission and then they decided they are not going to build it. Now they simply want to put an industrial park in. What kind of environmental study could they do that would exceed what they did to approve a nuclear power plant?!"
-Assassination Science
Amazingly, they have to redo the environmental impact statement each time to do the same things on the same property. They aren't kept on file.
And a nuclear power plant treads surprisingly lightly on its surroundings, so something that takes up a lot of space or pollutes would require another environmental impact statement. Nuclear power plants don't do those things.
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Conspiracy, Environment
posted by Stewart Peterson at 5:24 AM | 0 comments | links
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day
Nuclear Power Plant. Photo: Tennessee Valley Authority
-CorpWatch
Hmm. What kind of nuclear power plant has smokestacks and coal handling facilities? They said it was a Tennessee Valley Authority facility, so let's check some pictures:
Bellafonte. Nope.
Browns Ferry. Nope.
Hartsville. Nope.
Phipps Bend. Nope.
Sequoyah. Nope.
Watts Bar. Nope.
Yellow Creek was demolished. Not there, either.
Review: most power plants generate electricity by boiling water to run a steam engine (vastly simplified). They can't convert all the heat into electricity, so the water that is returned to the river, lake, or ocean from whence it came is warmer . To reduce the amount of heat that the body of water has to absorb--and to increase plant efficiency--some plants have cooling towers, which allow some of the water to turn into vapor. The rest of it is significantly cooler and is returned to the source.
Notice how the word "nuclear" did not appear in the above sentence. Some coal-fired power plants also have cooling towers; the plant in the picture appears to be one. In short, cooling towers do not necessarily mean a nuclear power plant. It's simply a matter of when they were built: most nuclear power plants were built in the 1970s and 1980s, when governments started requiring cooling towers to lower the impact of power plants on water ecosystems, whereas most coal plants were built in the 1940s to 1960s. Some were built in the 1970s and 1980s; those mostly have cooling towers. It's not a type-of-heat-source issue, it's a cooling system issue. Cooling towers are part of the cooling system.
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Basic Physics, Environment, Non Sequitur
posted by Stewart Peterson at 4:37 AM | 0 comments | links
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day
""You know that thing when you don't invite an annoying friend to your party, and then, on the night of the party, an acquaintance from work brings that friend as a date?" said Project Awry researcher Hideko Manabe of Kyoto University. "That's on the list."
Manabe added: "I believe it's right after 'neglecting the maintenance of reactor cooling system, leading to core meltdown.'""
-Everything That Can Go Wrong Listed, The Onion
First, yes, I know it's a joke.
Second, if they got rid of unnecessary backups and "safety systems"--or replaced the uncertainty that caused them to install the system in the first place with the ability to computer-model a reactor and the associated powerplant engineering--that wouldn't happen. Fortunately, that problem was solved in the mid-1980s when computers reached the point where they could model nuclear reactors, eliminating the need for the design shortcuts that made those backups necessary. The quote would not apply to a reactor designed with methods available after 1985 (read: every reactor currently on the US market).
Why is it necessary to eliminate these systems? Three Mile Island happened because these systems that were installed "just in case" divided the attention of safety and maintenance personnel and operators. A device that erodes safety margins by interfering with personnel can hardly be called a "safety system." It is equally bad to include clutter as it is to exclude safety equipment.
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Basic Physics, Humor, Safety
posted by Stewart Peterson at 1:01 PM | 0 comments | links
Monday, February 19, 2007
Japan Imposes Sanctions on Iran
For following the rules, of course. This sends the message that acting like North Korea is the only way to get any respect.
Link.
Labels: International, Iran, Politics and Regulation, Proliferation
posted by Stewart Peterson at 10:10 PM | 0 comments | links
NPR on McGaffigan
They recently did a profile on NRC Commissioner Edward McGaffigan, who has terminal cancer and is retiring.
Go read it.
Labels: Politics and Regulation
posted by Stewart Peterson at 10:09 PM | 0 comments | links
North Korea Agreement and Iran
There has been some recent speculation that the recent agreement with North Korea might have an effect on Iran.
Why should it? People forget that the Iranians haven't broken any rules, whereas North Korea has detonated an atomic bomb (or at least tried to). Let's offer to build the Iranians a couple of light-water reactors to use their enrichment facility's output. If they really want nuclear power, they'll accept.
Link.
Labels: International, Iran, Proliferation
posted by Stewart Peterson at 10:08 PM | 0 comments | links
Sweden Requests International Assistance with Forsmark Safety Inspections
They should occur by the fall.
Link.
Labels: Politics and Regulation, Safety
posted by Stewart Peterson at 10:06 PM | 0 comments | links
New Radiation Symbol?
Here it is:
It's supposed to be used for industrial sources like gauges, not to replace the traditional radiation symbol.
Comments?
Labels: Politics and Regulation, Radiation
posted by Stewart Peterson at 10:06 PM | 0 comments | links
Nuclear for Ireland?
It is apparently being discussed, although Ireland is officially anti-nuclear (largely due to a long dispute over the Sellafield converted military plutonium extraction facility, now used to recover non-weapons-grade plutonium from commercial reactors' spent fuel). A conventional nuclear power plant is probably too big for the grid in Ireland (if the plant goes offline, there may not be enough backup power to keep the lights on), but a PRISM or Pebble-Bed Modular Reactor would certainly work.
The most optimistic estimates are to begin planning in approximately 20 years. I wouldn't hold my breath.
Link.
Labels: New Build, Politics and Regulation
posted by Stewart Peterson at 10:05 PM | 0 comments | links
Cernavoda Unit 2 Fuel Loading
They're aiming for first criticality in April and commercial operation in September.
Units 3 and 4 will be completed as well; all four are CANDU-6 heavy-water reactors.
Link.
Labels: Industry Performance, New Build
posted by Stewart Peterson at 10:05 PM | 0 comments | links
March 2007 Popular Science
They have an interesting article on waste-to-energy.
Labels: Alternatives
posted by Stewart Peterson at 7:06 PM | 0 comments | links
Pacific Northwest New Build?
The Arizona Republic doubts that it will happen.
1. Public acceptance is given as a "factor." However, if the public acceptance doesn't manifest itself in a form that affects a utility financially, it won't affect a project. In Rod Adams' words, "nuclear projects that work financially can overcome opposition." There are of course ways to turn opposition into a financial impact--tactical lawsuits for example.
2. They say that it will take time to learn how to build Generation III/III+ plants. While this is obviously true, much of that experience is happening in foreign countries. For example, the EPR will be built in at least two places--Olkiluoto in Finland and Flamanville in France--before it is built in the United States. Olkiluoto may even be online before the NRC gets done processing the first applications. Plus, these reactors aren't radically different; they're mainly refinements of 1960s designs using computer modeling and better knowledge of how reactors work in place of ballpark estimates and dozens of backup systems. Plus, all new technologies--including so-called "clean coal"--face this uncertainty; if people never tried anything new, we would still be swinging in trees.
3. Is there a shortage of nuclear engineers? Not really; most of the actual nuclear engineering necessary to support a nuclear renaissance is already done. It's not like the early years of nuclear power when the technology used in American nuclear power plants (the light-water reactor--an assembly of uranium rods suspended in a tank of water) was changing fairly rapidly; the amount of new engineering to be done in an evolutionary design is smaller as opposed to a revolutionary one. Nuclear engineering is a specialization of mechanical engineering; if there really is a shortage, mechanical engineers can be trained in nuclear engineering.
4. Is there a shortage of skilled workers? Perhaps, but most non-nuclear-engineer skilled workers would be required for any power plant project. I'm not saying the problem doesn't exist, but it wouldn't change much if the project were coal instead of nuclear.
5. Waste disposal is not a problem, especially if the reactors that are constructed are Canadian-style heavy water reactors that can run directly on American nuclear waste or more-efficient 1980s designs using sodium coolant (that might not sound modern, but consider that the nuclear power plants currently operating were designed in the 1960s). Spent nuclear fuel is only about 3%-5% nuclear waste, but in the US is treated as though it were 100% waste. Combining that unused material with material in storage elsewhere, approximately 1% of American "nuclear waste" is actually nuclear waste. Furthermore, the spent nuclear fuel in its current state contains a mixture of fully-used, half-used, and unused fuel--with the half-used part being the most dangerous. Reusing this material actually lowers the long-term radiological hazard; full use of the material brings its effective lifetime down from 10,000 years to 300. As such, nuclear waste is really a 500-year uranium stockpile. That brings us to #6:
6. The uranium supply is in no danger. The US has 500 years' worth of it in storage, there's no shortage of conventional uranium in the market, and there's enough of it dissolved in seawater to last until the Sun dies. It's not a problem. And it's not really difficult to process into fuel rods--that's an established industrial system. The current uranium processing infrastructure was designed with the assumption that there would be between two and ten times more nuclear power plants than there are today.
7. They term municipal bonds "subsidies." A similar financing method, the Construction Work in Progress Surcharge (CWIP), allows the utility to pass on construction costs while the plant is still being built. This method would actually be the cheapest; when this is not allowed and the utility is only allowed to recover costs when the plant goes online, ratepayers have to pay everything back plus interest since the utility has to take out a loan, and rates jump when the plant goes online instead of gradually increasing to the same point. In no other business is this ever an issue; the normal way for a company to buy things is a combination of financing and price increases. Where do you expect them to get money from? In fact, anti-nuclear activists actively opposed CWIP because it made nuclear power plants more attractive than gas-fired plants, which are cheaper but have astronomically high fuel costs. If the cost of constructing a plant cannot be passed on to ratepayers but the cost of fuel can (the normal situation in most states), it puts initial investments at a distinct competitive disadvantage--and that means any clean energy source. Anti-CWIP provisions harm wind and solar power, too.
8. CWIP does not equal "Whoops." "Whoops" refers to the Washington Public Power Supply System's nuclear power plants (WPPSS 1 to 5; 2 was the only one completed, now known as the Columbia Generating Station), which was plagued by mismanagement. Had it been a private-financing-based project, ratepayers would still have had to pay for it all--plus interest. There's no free lunch. (Incidentally, one of the four partially-completed "Whoops" reactors still has a construction permit. Problems with NRC-induced delays in approving a new plant wouldn't really apply.)
9. Trojan was shut down instead of repaired because of cheap gas in the early 90s, not anything inherently wrong with the plant. The same situation occurred at several other plants; had they replaced the steam generators, the plant would still be operating and today would be a money tree.
10. The actual cost to build a nuclear power plant per kilowatt of capacity is subject to many different factors, especially including opponents' tactical legal action. These people usually turn around and complain about how expensive nuclear power is. Be warned.
11. In order to have a nuclear renaissance, the economic case needs to be there. The two other conditions given--fuel and "regulatory support"--merely affect the economic case. Personally, I don't think the economic case is there--not because there's something inherently uneconomic about nuclear power, but because (a) the federal regulations governing nuclear power were first written in 1954 and have not been systematically reviewed since, leaving things in place that aren't needed and using outdated analytical methods, (b) the utility rate structure was built around plants that use a lot of fuel and is biased towards them, (c) anti-nuclear activists have ruthless and almost entirely unregulated lawyers, (d) the industry's project management is still a wild card, (e) the federal government wants to help, which almost always ends in a major screwup, (f) volatile oil prices could induce massive energy conservation and/or economic problems instead of new power plant construction, and (g) a lot can happen in six to eight years.
Labels: Economics, Fuel Cycle, Industry Performance, New Build, Waste
posted by Stewart Peterson at 4:03 PM | 0 comments | links
German Nuclear Phaseout Update
The head of Siemens AG has pointed out that replacing nuclear reactors with pollution-belching coal burners would not exactly be in line with good environmental policy.
Who could have guessed?
Labels: Environment, Politics and Regulation
posted by Stewart Peterson at 10:40 AM | 0 comments | links
GCC-Russia Nuclear Cooperation?
They are "exploring" it.
The US had better get going in a similar manner if we don't want the world standard to be VVERs.
Labels: New Build, Politics and Regulation
posted by Stewart Peterson at 10:40 AM | 0 comments | links
China New Build Update
A joint venture has been formed to proceed with two 600-MWe Chinese-designed reactors and (later) four 1000-MWe reactors; the timeline has been given only as post-2010. This will be the first inland nuclear power plant in China; it will presumably use cooling towers.
A dent will be made in greenhouse gas emissions from China only when nuclear power is treated on an equal basis with chemical power and not as a special project. Currently, the choice is coal, not coal or nuclear; expansion of nuclear power to them does not mean expansion of generating capacity but rather expansion of nuclear power, as though it were some magical industrial process that is somehow different from other ways to generate electricity. Nuclear power is the best way we have to generate baseload electricity, and that's it. If it's seen as anything special, the industry has a big problem.
Labels: Industry Performance, New Build
posted by Stewart Peterson at 10:39 AM | 0 comments | links
Suez to Build EPR?
It would be the first non-EDF nuclear power plant in France (at Tricastin), and a share may be sold to Belgian utilities.
Link.
Labels: New Build
posted by Stewart Peterson at 10:39 AM | 0 comments | links
British Energy Review Ruled Illegal
A procedural violation. So they've got to either do it again or change the "consultation" policies.
Consultation, at its core, doesn't mean a whole lot. Greenpeace is going to be against everything, we're going to be against the way they choose to do it, the industry's going to be an enthusiastic supporter of any proposal that allows them to collect paychecks for another 60 years, and the UK government is going to ignore all three groups and do whatever they were going to do in the first place. At no point is there even a process that allows the three groups to air their differences or make an impact on policy; the whole process seems to be designed to induce delays. What's the point?
Link.
Labels: Politics and Regulation
posted by Stewart Peterson at 10:38 AM | 0 comments | links
Forsmark Shut Down Again
This time, it's a drywell seal in one reactor--and the Swedish government ordered a different reactor shut down.
Notice, anti-nuclear people, that the one thing that ex-Navy types who operate light-water reactors (and those that they've trained) are always good at is keeping every single part up to spec. Nuclear power plants (outside the Soviet Union) always operate as specified--whether or not that has anything to do with safety, which it usually doesn't. Do not take the bait and assume that since part failures are aggressively prevented (and corrected when they do happen), a part failure is thus a safety problem. It isn't. Nuclear power plants are designed to absorb part failures without having a safety problem.
The real problem here is SKI's decision to shut down a different reactor for procedural reasons when no real problems were present.
Labels: Safety
posted by Stewart Peterson at 10:37 AM | 0 comments | links
Namibia Freezes New Uranium Exploration Licenses
They weren't expecting proposals to come in this quickly and want to get everything organized on the regulatory side so that exploration can proceed in an orderly manner.
Seems understandable.
Link.
Labels: Fuel Cycle, Politics and Regulation
posted by Stewart Peterson at 10:35 AM | 0 comments | links
US Uranium Output Up; Canadian Output Down
Something undisclosed is apparently wrong with the McClean Lake mine in Saskatchewan; the increased US output is due to the opening of new mines ahead of an expected wave of new nuclear power plants. Personally, I don't see the business case; my expectation is one new plant with a second plant being a definite possibility. There's also a significant likelihood that new plants would run on reprocessed fuel to reduce or eliminate the amount of material that has to go to Yucca Mountain, so a "nuclear renaissance" is no guarantee of an expanded market for uranium.
Exercise caution. A nuclear renaissance is a good idea on technical, environmental, public health, proliferation and economic grounds; that doesn't mean it will actually happen in a political system run by people who don't know what they're talking about when it comes to the technology. The champagne-poppers have been talking about it since 1994 or so and nothing has happened. I wouldn't invest my money at this point.
Labels: Economics, Fuel Cycle, Industry Performance
posted by Stewart Peterson at 10:22 AM | 3 comments | links
UKAEA Fined £140,000 for Dounreay Incidents
I wish to point out that the problems came from the Dounreay fast breeder's attached PUREX facility, not the reactor itself. PUREX is a military-surplus technology used to extract plutonium for nuclear weapons; a fast breeder built today would use pyroprocessing, which does not extract plutonium (reactors never use pure plutonium; there's no reason to extract it and a recycling process that doesn't is not only better suited to its purpose but cheaper).
Link.
Labels: Environment, Fuel Cycle, Industry Performance
posted by Stewart Peterson at 10:19 AM | 0 comments | links
AEHI to Order EPR?
Up to this point, it had been assumed to be an ESBWR, since the plant's capacity was quoted at 1500 MWe; EPRs are 1600 MWe.
Link.
Labels: Industry Performance, New Build
posted by Stewart Peterson at 10:17 AM | 0 comments | links
South African Champagne-Poppers Predict 30% Nuclear by 2030
The country's electricity supply is currently 85% coal.
Link.
Labels: Industry Performance, New Build
posted by Stewart Peterson at 10:10 AM | 0 comments | links
Discussion Board Posting Changes
At Kirk Sorensen's suggestion, I'm trying manual approval of accounts for a while to try to combat spam on the discussion board.
Please comment on this change if you have any problems.
Labels: Site
posted by Stewart Peterson at 10:06 AM | 0 comments | links
Letter to Popular Science
I wrote the following in response to an article about "clean coal" in this month's issue of Popular Science:
To Whom It May Concern:
I read with interest your recent article on FutureGen (“Turning Black Coal Green,” February 2007, p.27). I found it interesting that you believe that there is no alternative to continued burning of coal—especially at a time where utilities are considering building over 30 nuclear power plants, similar to the number of FutureGen-style IGCC plants on the drawing board. It is doubly interesting that coal ash—slightly radioactive itself—can simply be buried along with millions of tons of gases, while we are always told that waste from nuclear power plants is an intractable problem. Before digging ourselves deeper into the fossil fuel hole, we should at least recycle and fully use the 500 years’ worth of unused uranium and plutonium currently branded as “waste” and sitting in underwater racks at America’s nuclear power plants.
-Stewart Peterson
Nuclear is Our Future
Link to article
Link to letter
Labels: Alternatives, Industry Performance, Waste
posted by Stewart Peterson at 7:05 AM | 0 comments | links
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day
"Southern Nuclear Company of Georgia wants to build additional nuclear power plants near Waynesboro."
-Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League
They actually want to expand an existing facility to the capacity for which it was designed (going from two reactors to four).
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, New Build, Non Sequitur
posted by Stewart Peterson at 12:05 AM | 0 comments | links
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day
"Three Mile Island Unit 2 Middletown, PA
Peak Early Fatalities|Peak Early Injuries|Peak Cancer Deaths|Property Damage
Unit 2 - 42,000 Unit 2 - 57,000 Unit 2 - 28,000 Unit 2 - 122 Billion "
-Consequences of a Reactor Accident
So much for the sky falling. Three Mile Island Unit 2 experienced the worst possible accident for an American reactor and nothing anywhere close to that happened.
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, End Times, Safety, Three Mile Island
posted by Stewart Peterson at 8:46 AM | 0 comments | links
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day
"The authors of the Reactor Safety Study concluded that changing some of the criteria for data gathering would actually increase the number of early fatalities by a factor of 3 to 4 depending upon circumstances [NUREG-0340]."
-Consequences of a Reactor Accident
It's amazing how the results can change when you don't care about the integrity of the data.
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Safety, Scientific Method
posted by Stewart Peterson at 8:42 AM | 0 comments | links
Friday, February 16, 2007
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day
"Early fatalities are deaths due to radiation exposure from causes other than cancer occurring within one year of the accident. However, fatalities will continue over hundreds, possibly thousands of years."
-Consequences of a Reactor Accident
Um, yes, that's the column for "delayed fatalities." They go down over time because the radioactive materials that are producing the radiation decay--and if you're talking about genetic effects, Japan had two atomic bombs dropped on it and experienced many cases of Acute Radiation Syndrome and cancer but not genetic effects.
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Health, Safety
posted by Stewart Peterson at 8:20 AM | 0 comments | links
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day
""Peak" does not necessarily mean worst case results because the CRAC-2 model is acknowledged by its authors to have uncertainties in its meteorological modeling capability."
-Consequences of a Reactor Accident
Well, what is a worst-case scenario?
A worst-case scenario is a tool used by engineers to "surround" a problem so that they can figure out what they don't need to study. It is never intended to be an actual projection of the real result or even of a probability of a real result. Giving a worst-case scenario in place of a result is illiterate and misleading at best.
And yes, CRAC-2 is not a worst-case scenario; it shouldn't be. But the authors responded to every "uncertainty in the meteorological model" by assuming the worst possible events--rain happens when it is the most inconvenient, stops when it isn't, and suddenly restarts, the wind blows only from the reactor to the nearest city and then stops, etc.
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Basic Physics, Safety
posted by Stewart Peterson at 7:49 AM | 0 comments | links
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
EPR for Vietnam?
The French Senate President has suggested that Vietnam's proposed nuclear power plant be an EPR.
Link.
Labels: New Build
posted by Stewart Peterson at 6:29 AM | 0 comments | links
Last La Hague Waste Shipment Heads to Japan
Japan's Rokkasho reprocessing facility will be used in the future.
Link.
Labels: Fuel Cycle
posted by Stewart Peterson at 6:26 AM | 0 comments | links
British Energy Looking for New Build Partners
They're looking at the 2016-2018 timeframe. RWE, EDF, and E.ON are being mentioned as partners; Sizewell C and Hinkley C as possible sites.
Link.
Labels: Industry Performance, New Build
posted by Stewart Peterson at 5:57 AM | 0 comments | links
European Policy Panel Suggests More Nuclear Power
A member of the Italian cabinet has endorsed new build; this would mean a reversal of the 1987 referendum. Apparently, another Italian member of the panel was a major supporter of the 1987 referendum but is now open to new build.
Link.
Labels: New Build, Politics and Regulation
posted by Stewart Peterson at 5:50 AM | 0 comments | links
USEC Piketon Enrichment Plant Cost Overrun
A 35% cost increase (largely due to price increases for components) is apparently partially offset by an unexpected 10% performance increase.
Link.
Labels: Economics, Fuel Cycle, Industry Performance, New Build
posted by Stewart Peterson at 5:46 AM | 0 comments | links
"Korean Nuclear Deal Delays Disarmament"
So says the Unsinkable Yahoo News.
I'd complete the above with "...but means that it eventually probably will happen, which is better than the way it used to be."
Labels: Proliferation
posted by Stewart Peterson at 5:43 AM | 0 comments | links
China EPRs Update
The International Herald-Tribune reports that it is a politically-motivated order that is designed to improve relations with France.
(Background on this issue)
Labels: New Build, Politics and Regulation
posted by Stewart Peterson at 5:36 AM | 0 comments | links
EU: Iran Can Enrich Uranium with Sanctions In Place
This is surprising people for some reason. The sanctions are an attempt to alter the cost-benefit analysis that Iran would make in choosing to enrich its own uranium, not an attempt to shut it down.
What can we do? How about we build them LWRs and make them provide the fuel?
Labels: International, Iran, Proliferation
posted by Stewart Peterson at 5:29 AM | 0 comments | links
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day
"The Bush Adminstration's dangerous Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) program would expand global nuclear energy production by creating plutonium fuel to be used in a new generation of nuclear power plants through the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel."
-Alliance for Nuclear Accountability
The reprocessing process used by GNEP would not separate plutonium.
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Fuel Cycle, Plutonium
posted by Stewart Peterson at 5:25 AM | 0 comments | links
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
A Grand Compromise?
Can we keep as many key interests as happy as possible while still making progress towards an improved standard of living and reducing pollution? It's a question that everyone asks and everyone answers; below is my own modest idea. Note: as an advocate for nuclear energy, I have laid out the reasons why I believe it to be the best available energy source; policymakers cannot do this, as they are judges, not advocates. My task is to make sure that nuclear energy gets a fair shake, but just as bias on the part of policymakers toward fission is unwise, waffling on the issue on my part with the effect of becoming an advocate for an "energy mix" reduces our negotiating potential. This doesn't mean that I lie about anything; rather, I attempt to fill a hole in the information available to the public and policymakers. There's nothing wrong with that, and it has a lot more effect than being a policy analyst.
1. A complete overhaul of nuclear policy and regulations that builds on 50 years of operating experience would be the first step. This would involve an Atomic Energy Act, which would overhaul regulations and more clearly establish the NRC's mission, an Energy Policy Act, which would emphasize research (especially into all forms of emissions reduction) over market manipulation, a Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which would kill Yucca Mountain and enforce a 100%-privately-owned closed fuel cycle by capping annual spent fuel production at 130% of current levels, an Energy Reorganization Act that implements the Energy Policy Act for the Department of Energy, a National Environmental Policy Act that standardizes the environmental impact assessment process, and a Public Utility Restructuring Act that creates a standard market-based (and hopefully more efficient) electric utility structure. Below would be the general framework of an Energy Policy Act.
2. It would be United States government policy to support research into any energy source that receives favorable technical review, funding permitting, with emphasis on the reduction of emissions.
3. It would be United States government policy to refrain from market manipulation in the form of subsidization of operations.
4. The further construction of power generating facilities using fossil fuels would be prohibited. Construction of power generating facilities that do not use fossil fuels on the same sites as replacements would be encouraged (to take advantage of as much existing infrastructure as possible) and a 25-year legislated phaseout of coal-fired power generating facilities would begin immediately.
5. A cap would be placed on the consumption of oil and the importation of natural gas effective eighteen months after the passage of the Act.
6. It would be United States government policy to encourage the construction of coal-to-liquids facilities for the production of petroleum substitutes. These facilities must sequester and/or sell the slag produced and must obtain their required process heat from either waste heat from clean power generating facilities described in part 4 or other non-fossil-fuel-based processes. All increases in CTL production capacity would be converted into barrels of oil equivalent and that value subtracted from the oil cap. The main policy objective of parts 4, 5, and 6 would be to maintain the economic value of the domestic coal and rail industries, while eliminating foreign oil imports and eliminating the use of coal in power generating facilities.
7. It would be United States government policy to place no priorities among non-fossil power generating facilities; nuclear power would not be prioritized over renewables and vice versa.
8. In exchange for these emissions reduction mandates, there would be no taxation of carbon dioxide emissions.
9. It would be United States government policy to encourage consumption of energy concurrent with the mandated emissions reductions.
The net effect would be to overhaul the nuclear industry around sustainability, replace coal-fired power plants with the best available non-fossil facilities (which I believe will be Integral Fast Reactors, but there's nothing in the proposal that would disadvantage windmills or even biomass burners if they performed well enough), eliminate oil use, cap natural gas use, and maintain the integrity of the coal and rail industries while jump-starting manufacturing and construction, thus keeping the economy strong while slashing emissions. It would give us about 50-80 years to get battery technology above the key EV threshold (or develop something entirely different, like fusion), in order to completely eliminate the use of fossil fuels.
What do you think?
Labels: Politics and Regulation
posted by Stewart Peterson at 6:45 AM | 7 comments | links
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day
"Few of us want a nuclear plant in our community--we've heard about Three Mile Island and Chernobyl and know that accidents can happen anywhere."
-Greenpeace
I think this is a great opportunity to explain some of the basics of how nuclear power works. Bear with me for a bit of nuclear history.
During the Manhattan Project, three different approaches to atomic bomb design were tried: the uranium gun, the plutonium gun, and the plutonium implosion device. The uranium gun (which was evenually used at Hiroshima) propelled one piece of weapons-grade uranium into another. Weapons-grade uranium--more than 93% uranium-235, as opposed to natural uranium's 0.71%--was extremely difficult to make. They didn't have centrifuges or lasers or diffusion systems at the time, and had to pass a gaseous uranium compound through electromagnets that would separate it by weight; as the weight difference was only 1.26%, this obviously used quite a bit of energy and took a lot of time. Since they needed to produce many more atomic bombs than their enrichment capacity would allow, they turned to plutonium.
Weapons-grade plutonium (94%+ plutonium-239), by comparison, is easier to make but much harder to use; it must be produced in a reactor by allowing neutrons to hit uranium-238 atoms to produce plutonium-239. Natural uranium will not support a chain reaction out in the open; the neutrons that hit uranium atoms and cause them to split must be slowed down in order to be effectively absorbed. At the same time, the substance that slows down the neutrons must not absorb large amounts of neutrons itself, preventing them from simply using ordinary water. Heavy water is almost as good as water at slowing down neutrons yet absorbs far fewer neutrons than water does, allowing a chain reaction to occur in natural uranium--but it's difficult to make, defeating the original purpose (another option, enriching the uranium to about 3% so that it will support a chain reaction in ordinary water, combines the difficult parts of both uranium and plutonium approaches and also defeats the purpose of building a plutonium bomb, which is to not use uranium enrichment). This left them with graphite, which was fairly easy to make; however, it had one problem: the process used at the time left residues of the neutron-absorbing metal boron in the graphite, rendering it useless. Altering the process fixed this problem in the US, but the Nazis never figured it out, consequently had to use heavy water, and ran out of time while trying to produce it. But anyway:
From this point, it's all reactor design. The first artificial nuclear reactor was a carefully-constructed "pile" of graphite and natural uranium; it was used only as a proof-of-concept. If they were going to produce large amounts of weapons-grade plutonium, they would need bigger reactors, and with bigger reactors came two problems. First, the proof-of-concept was a "zero-power" reactor, meaning that it produced a negligible amount of heat, but larger ones would require cooling systems; water was an excellent coolant, so why not use it? Second, only plutonium-239 works in bombs, and significant amounts of plutonium-240 form after a short time in the reactor. Taking the uranium out before it is even close to being fully used is the only way around this and the only way to do that with any semblance of efficiency is to do it while the reactor is still operating. Thus it made sense to have vertical water pipes running under pressure through a block of graphite; when enough plutonium-239 had been produced, a refueling machine would be attached to the top of a particular pipe, equalize the pressure, remove the uranium rod, and insert a new one. This is where they ran into problems.
Recall the tendency of water to absorb many more neutrons than graphite does. This means that losing the coolant decreases neutron absorption--which increases the reaction rate, technically known as a positive void coefficient. This is the opposite of what should happen; a reduction in coolant levels should mean a reduction in power. For several years, they used these reactors to produce large amounts of weapons-grade plutonium without using heavy water or uranium enrichment, but they always had this problem of a positive void coefficient. If a particular reactor of this type had a sudden reduction in coolant level, depending on the reactor's specific design, the reactor's heat output could suddenly spike, causing first the fuel rods' cladding and then the cooling system to overheat and burst. If there is no sealed concrete dome over the reactor to absorb this pressure wave, some of the light already-split atoms can be ejected from the reactor building by the pressure wave, and if this all happens to a reactor that is near an urban area and the reactor is large enough, many people can be exposed to large radiation doses from the ejected materials. Clearly this is unacceptable; unfortunately, the Soviets had spies in the Manhattan Project who gave them this reactor design but were discovered before they could tell the Soviets about the positive void coefficient. The positive void coefficient was treated as a military secret when it was discovered by Edward Teller, even though the fact of its existence had essentially no relevance to a bomb program but quite a lot of relevance to safety. In retrospect, the US government should have told the Soviets about it and offered to cooperate on the development of civilian nuclear power, but it was kept secret, and the Soviets built their nuclear power program around this specific reactor design, known as the RBMK, by converting their waste heat into electricity. Chernobyl was an RBMK, and experienced the same type of accident as described above during a "safety test" that involved draining the reactor's cooling water.
It turns out that no other reactor design has this characteristic.
While it is possible to operate an RBMK safely, and there are measures that can be taken to mitigate the problems that an RBMK inherently has, many (like enriching the RBMK's uranium fuel) defeat the original purpose. But the basic problem is that the RBMK stinks as a power plant; it goes incredibly far out of the way to explicitly produce plutonium-239, but in a power plant, why is that necessary? Nuclear reactors are much less picky about their fuel than nuclear weapons; the requirement that the device go out of control and fly apart at high speeds creating a blast wave and high temperatures is no longer there (and in fact is heavily discouraged!)--and with it goes any need to use or produce weapons-grade materials. So why do it at all? In designing a power reactor--a nuclear reactor specifically designed for electricity production--it is actually desirable to cut a few corners in that department for the sake of cost and safety; at the time, waste was not considered to be a problem, and everything was assumed to be a proliferation hazard and kept secret. The experience with the positive void coefficient scared the hell out of nuclear physicists, however, and further development of nuclear reactors always assumed that they were inherently dangerous, never attempted to honestly assess the impact of an accident (substituting an exaggerated worst-case scenario, an exaggerated best-case scenario, and a set of probabilities for everything in between), and did not allow the technology to develop through trial and error as all others have. Strangely, however, they did not think much towards the future; any future hardship would be accepted so long as a design did not have a negative impact on current operations. Accordingly, the RBMK was banned in the United States before any nuclear power plants were ever built, and the search for a reactor that was safe (meaning it cannot go out of control), relatively simple, cheap, and used as much existing infrastructure as possible, with little regard for waste (it was known to be a smaller problem than coal's waste output), proliferation (everything's secret, so why bother separating anything), or the environment (it was rarely a concern in the 1950s). Under such a system, the Light Water Reactor (LWR) leapt to the fore.
The LWR is, in principle, extremely simple. Uranium is enriched to between 3% and 5% uranium-235 and fabricated into ceramic pellets. The pellets are stacked to make rods, which are then lowered into a tank of water. The tank is closed up and pressurized, and boron rods are then withdrawn. The reaction can control itself from this point; the additional uranium-235 overcomes the water's tendency to absorb neutrons but is not enough to support a chain reaction without the water, so if all else fails and the reactor overheats, the water boils off and the reaction stops. Sixteen natural nuclear reactors--all LWRs--have been found in ancient uranium deposits that date from approximately two billion years ago, when the level of uranium-235 in natural uranium was higher, and they all operated on this inherent physical principle.
An artificial LWR produces more energy, however, and its fuel would melt if exposed while operating. Accordingly, LWRs are designed to never expose their fuel; even though it would not result in a Chernobyl-style accident in which the reaction rate accelerates, it would result in a puddle of melted uranium at the bottom of the tank, a ruined reactor, and an expensive cleanup job. There are still important physical effects that can be exploited in an artificial LWR, however, including convection, gravity, or the fact that hot metal and ceramic expand, and these in principle allow a passively-safe LWR to be built (one that changes its reaction rate based on pure physics).
Without computers, the early nuclear engineers could not juggle the thousands of variables necessary to design a passively-safe nuclear power plant, but they knew that pumps, valves, and other active systems were good enough for cooling if a small probability of a core melt were accepted and a huge concrete dome were installed to keep everything in if such an accident happened. They had the choice to either do complex physics while designing an LWR or do complex engineering to minimize the failure rate of an active system. They chose complex engineering; they really had very little choice. In doing so, they substituted reliability (the failure rate) for safety (the effects of a failure). All major models assumed that nuclear power was inherently unsafe and that the worst conceivable accident was in fact possible (with no data to back this up), and that overconservatism was ironically the basic flaw in early safety estimates. This assumption led them to over-apply backup systems--and those backup systems have been the source of problems ever since. This culminated in Three Mile Island: a government-ordered "safety valve" stuck open and drained the reactor's coolant. The uranium fuel rods melted and formed a puddle at the bottom of the reactor, which solidified back into solid ceramic when enough of the short-lived already-split atoms had decayed. Three gases--krypton, xenon, and iodine--got out of the reactor through the stuck-open valve and into the concrete containment structure, and some were released out of a misplaced fear that they were hydrogen and were going to explode. Nobody was killed; the radiation emitted by the released materials was no more than the radiation levels at a coal plant.
Had Three Mile Island been designed with passive safety in mind, this accident would have been physically impossible and would not have happened.
Overheating accidents have been induced in modern inherently-safe reactors such as the waste-eating Integral Fast Reactor (IFR); since the reaction rate decreases with increases in temperature, it stopped running based on pure physics alone. A Chernobyl-style accident cannot happen everywhere; it can only happen at a Chernobyl-style bomb factory. A Three-Mile-Island-style accident cannot happen everywhere; it can only happen at a Three-Mile-Island-style reactor that used 1950s-era engineering assumptions that mistakenly tried to be conservative to the point of causing additional safety problems. And that is the key lesson to learn: honest assessment is better than exaggeration either way.
Statements that lump all nuclear power plants together are incredibly irresponsible, just as irresponsible as statements that lump all chemical power plants together. Each plant design must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis; in a sane society, sloganeering does not take the place of asking:
1. How do these accidents happen?
2. Are the conditions that cause these accidents present "everywhere?"
3. If not, how is an accident supposed to happen?
Remember that it is not the presence of an effect that is important; we can argue forever about whether there are effects that we don't know about (and there undoubtedly are). The matter that should be discussed is whether the technology's unintended consequences have less impact than clear and present dangers that the technology will solve. If we know that the technology will solve more problems than it will cause, or that it will minimize problems without solving them per se, we've found a way to improve society and we should implement it. Why should we abandon a perfectly good solution to three or four problems because it does not solve six or seven? We're not taking a risk here; there's no risk in reducing risk!
One extremely important piece of information can be derived from the quote: whenever you hear something like this--a political slogan about a matter of physical fact that does not employ or refer to a physical analysis--run like hell. This tactic is the same thing that religious fundamentalists do, and that other politically-motivated crackpots (e.g., no-Moonies) also do. The same requirement for action applies: kick their butts, kick 'em hard, and keep up the pressure. The wackos are coming, and they will destroy the sciences if we let them.
It's time to get going, people.
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Basic Physics, Chernobyl, Proliferation, Safety, Three Mile Island
posted by Stewart Peterson at 5:32 AM | 3 comments | links
Monday, February 12, 2007
Finnish President on Nuclear Power
This article from The Australian documents her opposition to a sixth reactor, and repeats several common myths:
1. That nuclear power is not a long-term solution. Even the uranium already mined is enough to last approximately 500 years if used correctly; consequently, waste storage is not a problem (if the uranium already mined is being safely stored, why can't the resulting waste of equal volume be safely stored?).
2. That nuclear power uses resources that otherwise would be used to conserve and build "soft energy" sources like windmills. First, windmills have been in the energy market for almost 800 years; if they were going to provide significant amounts of energy they already would have. Industry converted to coal-fired steam engines when demand outpaced windmills' ability to produce energy, which occurred in the 17th Century. While the technology has obviously changed, the limits to growth haven't (read: is the wind blowing?), and performance improvements are simply not enough to beat the laws of physics. Essentially, solar energy is more than we could ever use--spread out over an area bigger than we could ever collect it from. Conservation is slightly different; while it would work to obviate new build, it is counterproductive in that it obviates new build of all types. Coal plants won't get built--but windmills won't either. Plus, why would we want to take policy actions that specifically are designed to prevent the development of technology?
3. That nuclear power allows us to gloss over fundamental problems. I don't see what fundamental problem there is with the great technological journey that started with us swinging in trees and has brought us to modern civilization. Civilization is the societal reflection of technology, technology runs on energy, and if we're going to keep going we need more energy (and more highly-concentrated energy if we're interested in treading lightly on our surroundings).
4. That nuclear power has "side effects" that weren't present before and to a greater extent. Sure, sequestering waste as opposed to dumping it into the environment presents a technical challenge, but there's ten million times less waste than there would be if a coal plant were built. Safety? Well, no other energy source is self-regulating; a nuclear power plant's reaction rate decreases with increases in temperature (with the exception of bomb factories like Chernobyl, but they don't really count, since they aren't purpose-designed nuclear power plants). Nothing is perfect, but even comparatively "bad" nuclear power is better than what we've got. If we have an option available that's better than what we've got, why shouldn't we take it?
5. That nuclear power requires perfection, constant human intervention, and cannot tolerate abuse. Nothing could be more incorrect. Nuclear power plants have been abused to no end, from Three Mile Island (had the operators gotten up and left, there would have been no accident) to the inherently-safe waste-eating Integral Fast Reactor (the cooling system was shut off at full power, and the reactor shut itself down when its metal fuel expanded due to the heat into a non-critical configuration). It's all physics; the reason why a Chernobyl-style accident hasn't happened anywhere else (and why Chernobyl wasn't any worse) is that it's physically impossible.
6. That the nuclear waste problem is unsolved. I've identified eleven viable solutions, some of which aren't good policy, but all of which work on a technical level. One thing that's extremely important to remember is that the aforementioned 500 years' worth of already-mined uranium is mainly the unused uranium that remains in spent fuel rods, which are more dangerous and long-lived than they would be if they had been used efficiently. Solving the waste problem should really be done with waste-eating reactors like the Integral Fast Reactor; as such, an aggressive expansion of nuclear power using waste-eating reactors is actually the best way to solve the waste problem.
7. That there's no such thing as a civil nuclear program. It is possible to design a reactor--and infrastructure for that reactor--that have no conceivable use in a weapons program (one of the main successes of the Integral Fast Reactor project), but the main reactor design in use today (the Light Water Reactor, basically a tank of water with uranium rods suspended in it) is "connected" to weapons programs by requiring the services of uranium enrichment plants, which can also be used to make weapons-grade uranium. In fact, a Light Water Reactor poses negative proliferation risk (i.e., it actively hinders a bomb program by requiring that dual-use facilities be used for peaceful purposes). It's a bit of a specious argument to say that nuclear power is a proliferation risk because some nuclear power plants require dual-use facilities--when those facilities are a proliferation risk if and only if there are no nuclear power plants.
Labels: Access to Energy, Alternatives, Basic Physics, New Build, Proliferation, Waste
posted by Stewart Peterson at 11:07 PM | 0 comments | links
Swiss Compromise?
Iran is open to considering a compromise proposal reportedly offered by Switzerland. No other details are forthcoming.
Link.
Labels: International, Iran, Proliferation
posted by Stewart Peterson at 11:06 PM | 0 comments | links
Possible Advertising Weasel Words
Since it's illegal to say that nuclear power is clean on TV in the United States as it constitutes "false advertising" (read: hitting people with unpopular opinions over the head with truth-in-advertising laws), how about this:
Tread Lightly. Go Nuclear.
Just a random idea. Any feedback?
Labels: Activism, Environment
posted by Stewart Peterson at 10:42 PM | 3 comments | links
BNFL Sells Decommissioning Unit
It is not expected to affect MAGNOX decommissioning efforts.
Link.
Labels: Decommissioning, Industry Performance
posted by Stewart Peterson at 10:00 PM | 0 comments | links
NIOF.org Update #54
1. The Gofman Award poll results are up; so is the next poll, and the polls index and awards page have been changed to reflect that.
2. I've fixed the title of the December 2006 Newsletter and uploaded the January 2007 Newsletter, and updated the newsletter index to reflect that.
3. I've created a new section for one-pagers on hot-button issues; the first article in this new section is about reprocessing.
4. As for the store's eagerly-awaited new products, the blue t-shirts (along with a few other colors) are theoretically available; however, they appear only as an option for dark t-shirts, which would mean that I would have to stop selling the "this is your planet on coal" t-shirts in order to use the "ask me about whole ecology" design. Furthermore, the "ask me about whole ecology" design appears with a white background instead of a transparent one, so I will have to use Photoshop (which I neither have nor know how to use) to change it and any other design that I would want to use on a dark t-shirt. CafePress does not allow free service users to offer more than one design per shirt; once I finish all the designs that I'd like to use, I'll take the store down for probably about a week while I switch to the paid service and upload everything. Note: many of the items in the current store say that more colors are available. This is true for some of them and not others. However, there are two new products available: the Go Nuclear Women's V-Neck T-Shirt and the this is your planet on coal Women's Dark V-Neck T-Shirt.
Labels: Site
posted by Stewart Peterson at 10:00 PM | 0 comments | links
January 2007 Newsletter
I sent it earlier today; it should be out by early tomorrow morning. The bold text bug is back; the CafePress line-break-converter algorithm turned "br" (break) into "b" (bold), but there's nothing I can really do about it, so I sent it anyway, since it was already two weeks late. This really puzzles me; the preview didn't do it, but the test newsletter (and I'm assuming the newsletter sent to the list) did.
If you haven't already subscribed, you can find it on the news side of the site here or subscribe using the box on the upper right of the blog home page.
Labels: Site
posted by Stewart Peterson at 9:37 PM | 0 comments | links
And the 2006 Gofman Award Goes to...
Helen Caldicott, for her unbelievably screwy book, Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer.
(vote results and a backgrounder on the Gofman Award)
Labels: Humor
posted by Stewart Peterson at 8:42 PM | 0 comments | links
Israel Going Nuclear?
There have recently been discussions about building a nuclear power plant in Israel at a previously-identified site. It may be an EPR, although it's way too early to tell.
Link.
Labels: New Build
posted by Stewart Peterson at 8:39 PM | 0 comments | links
Gulf Cooperation Council to Meet with IAEA
This follows December's announcement that the GCC (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) are exploring nuclear power for desalination and to diversify their energy supply.
Rod Adams recently posted a thorough piece on this issue.
Link.
Labels: New Build
posted by Stewart Peterson at 8:32 PM | 0 comments | links
China Builds 102 GWe of Capacity in 2006
...99% of it coal-fired. Ouch.
When will people figure out that creating a permitting process that does not treat nuclear power plants on an equal basis with other commercial durable goods has environmental consequences? We don't need China to lower its rate of growth in energy use; that would obviate new plants and lock them into coal permanently. We need someone to design an IFR- or MSR-type reactor that's cheaper than a coal plant and get it certified, then sell it overseas as a coal alternative as fast as they can. Bonus points for modular ones.
Everybody breathes the same air; we all have an interest in China going nuclear.
Link.
Labels: Alternatives, Environment, New Build
posted by Stewart Peterson at 8:25 PM | 0 comments | links
Iran Update
Link.
The Iranians are repeating that they have a right to do what they're doing, and, well, they're right. If we really want to make sure that they're not going to produce weapons-grade uranium, we should aim to have them use the facility's output instead of trying to stop them from operating the facility at all. Let them have their prestige project. It's not going to hurt anyone, and will pull resources away from any speculated "clandestine enrichment programs."
And why was Natanz concealed, to answer an objection in the article? They perceive the governments of Israel and the US to be irrational and trigger-happy; they're not going to risk everything they've done on the international community holding up its end of the NPT.
Labels: International, Iran, Proliferation
posted by Stewart Peterson at 8:12 PM | 0 comments | links
South Africa to Build Second LWR-Based Nuclear Power Plant
It will apparently be either AP-1000s or EPRs built on one of the alternative sites considered for Koeberg; a final decision is coming in March. This is in addition to the 24 pebble-bed reactors that are planned after the pilot PBMR is operational.
Link.
Labels: New Build
posted by Stewart Peterson at 8:07 PM | 0 comments | links
Fermi Unit 3 on the Drawing Board
The announcement sounds like DTE Energy is actually pursuing it, not just "keeping an option open" (even though that is their phrasing). While they obviously haven't committed to building anything, it sounds a bit more concrete than some other proposals.
Hat tip: NEI.
Labels: New Build
posted by Stewart Peterson at 8:01 PM | 0 comments | links
Weekly Nuclear Poll #7
Here or in the sidebar:
Do you support a return to the 1994 agreement with North Korea?
Yes
No
Undecided
View Vote Stats
Discuss this Poll
Labels: Politics and Regulation, Proliferation
posted by Stewart Peterson at 7:57 PM | 0 comments | links
GNEP Public Meeting Coming Up
"People are encouraged to come to the North Augusta Community Center on Thursday, Feb. 15, at 6 p.m."
-Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Please try to attend.
(See this post for a rebuttal of everything else in that article)
Labels: Activism, Fuel Cycle
posted by Stewart Peterson at 7:55 PM | 0 comments | links
Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Reprocessing
The reliably anti-nuclear Atlanta Journal-Constitution has published an opinion piece (Google cache) by the executive director of the Atlanta branch of Women's Action for New Directions--which is fairly predictable in its ignorance of the subject.
The individual points are detailed below; I've prepared a one-pager on reprocessing for general reference.
1. Apparently there's some vast conspiracy in which everybody who advocates for reprocessing is paid off by President Bush to do so. Hey, why didn't anybody tell me about it?
2. GNEP is not being "heavily marketed by the nuclear industry." The Department of Energy is pushing GNEP; all the industry wants is to get spent fuel off their hands, which means Yucca Mountain, not GNEP.
3. The writer confuses the old reprocessing process (PUREX, a military-surplus technology used for extracting weapons-grade plutonium at bomb factories) with the new process that GNEP would use (UREX+, which is designed specifically for recycling). UREX+ does not produce liquid waste.
4. The writer apparently also thinks that we don't know the difference between reprocessing and recycling; recycling is the reuse of materials from spent fuel in reactors, and recycling must involve reprocessing, which is a broad label applied to anything that recovers materials from fuel rods. Recycling involves reprocessing, but reprocessing does not necessarily involve recycling.
5. The US used the PUREX plutonium-extraction process at Hanford and the Savannah River Site to (surprise, surprise) extract plutonium for use in nuclear weapons. Horror stories from those two sites do not apply to GNEP because those sites did not use UREX+.
6. I don't know where she gets the idea that PUREX reprocessing has anything to do with producing highly-enriched uranium (which itself is not necessarily weapons-grade)--highly-enriched uranium is produced at a uranium enrichment facility, which separates isotopes of uranium by weight. A PUREX facility uses a chemical process to separate plutonium from the rest of the spent fuel.
7. Even if PUREX were used for reprocessing prior to recycling, it would not result in weapons-grade plutonium because nuclear power plants do not produce weapons-grade plutonium, and PUREX only separates plutonium, whatever type of plutonium you have. To make weapons-grade plutonium, a country would need specialized weapons-production reactors similar to the one used at Chernobyl; no nuclear power plant outside of the former Soviet Union works like that. In fact, the author (deliberately?) obscures this by saying that the sites reprocessed fuel during the Cold War, without mentioning that the spent fuel involved came from military reactors.
8. There's no such thing as a "simple" plutonium-based nuclear weapon.
9. The extracted uranium would be reused if these people wouldn't get in the way; furthermore, UREX+ never separates the uranium from the plutonium, so we would have to. This is the subtle difference between what the French do with their military-surplus PUREX facility (separating the plutonium from everything else, separating the uranium from the remainder, storing some of the uranium, mixing the rest of it in with the plutonium, and using it once and only once more in their current reactors) and what GNEP proposes (separating the unused fuel--uranium and plutonium together--storing the highly-radioactive but short-lived already-split atoms, and reusing it as many times as necessary in an advanced reactor). That's what we mean when we say that we advocate recycling: to reuse as much of it as possible, including some of the already-split atoms that are useful as industrial catalysts.
10. There will be no stockpiles of separated plutonium because UREX+ does not separate plutonium. Furthermore, the type of reactors that use fresh uranium are not the type of reactors that would reuse fuel from GNEP, so the industry's preference vis a vis the cost of each type of fuel does not really apply--the two fuel types are not competing against each other. And if storing spent fuel gets expensive enough, they will recycle on economic grounds.
11. Once again, reprocessing does not involve enrichment, so I don't know what she means by "newly-enriched" (emphasis mine).
12. Something else that is not clear to this person is that the plutonium isotope that makes reactor-grade plutonium reactor-grade and not weapons-grade decays faster than the weapons-grade isotope. While it is not possible to separate them mechanically or chemically, waiting several centuries will produce that result. Their standard response is that it is possible to use reactor-grade plutonium in weapons; it isn't, but that's not the point. If it were possible, it would be to our advantage to get rid of the plutonium by splitting its atoms in half in reactors rather than burying it for someone to find later. We have to do something with it, and burying it as though it were waste is a lose-lose option.
13. The advanced reactors that would be built under GNEP are actually much, much safer than the ones operating today (read: ones designed in the 1960s). These reactors control their reaction rate with physics, not active pumps and valves; prototypes of these reactors have had their cooling systems shut off while at full power without incident. A Chernobyl-style accident is physically impossible in these reactors--a key engineering factor that describes the response of the reactor to temperature increases is positive at Chernobyl-type reactors and negative in these reactors, meaning that their reaction rate goes down when the temperature goes up. It's all physics. It doesn't depend on the good intentions of operators or whether George Bush is dumb; these reactors are safe. Period. Osama bin Laden and Homer Simpson could both be at the controls. It doesn't matter.
14. GNEP is untested. Guilty as charged. But if we only did things that had already been tested, we'd still be swinging in trees.
15. GNEP, contrary to what she says, is actually a cleanup program. The "waste" that we've already made, if reprocessed and recycled, contains enough unused fuel to power the US for 500 years--and the actual waste itself decays within 300 (as opposed to 10,000 for current "waste"). If we want to clean up the legacy of the 1950s, we should turn long-lived materials into short-lived ones, and generate electricity while we're doing it, as soon as possible.
16. GNEP will require billions of dollars; so will everything else. What's the cost of guarding 500 years' worth of fuel for 10,000 years instead of using it?
I hope I'm not the only one to see parallels between the tactics used here and the tactics of creationists and "Moon hoax" conspiracy theorists; dear scientists and engineers, they're one and the same, and need to be fought as hard as the creationists. Plain and simple, they are trying to destroy science for political purposes. We've gotta kick their butts, or there won't be science and engineering professions for our kids.
Labels: Basic Physics, Conspiracy, Economics, Fuel Cycle, Plutonium, Proliferation
posted by Stewart Peterson at 6:26 PM | 0 comments | links
Russia Announces Six New Nukes
Novovoronezh II Units 1-2 and Leningrad II Units 1-4. They're going to be AES-2006 VVER-1000 derivatives (essentially VVER-1200s).
Link.
Labels: New Build
posted by Stewart Peterson at 5:09 AM | 0 comments | links
Forsmark and Public Opinion in Sweden
Ah, more fun with statistics...
"Forsmark fiasco turns Swedes off nuclear power," screams a headline in The Local, but when the data is revealed, it turns out that:
1. 25% of people want more nuclear power plants to be built, up from 16% four years ago. I don't see a "surge" of negative opinion there.
2. "Shut em down" is down five percent from 41% to 36%. Not there, either.
3. I don't know why they couldn't have printed the statistic on "no new nukes," but they give the following hint:
The number of people who would prefer to maintain today's levels of nuclear power has fallen by 6 percent. But at the same time more people - 58 percent, compared to 55 percent three years ago - want to keep at least the ten existing reactors in Sweden.
Do you see anything there?
4. An amazing 20% of people said that the Forsmark non-incident in which one of the backup generators failed to start after an inconsequential amount of time had made them more skeptical of nuclear power. Well I'll be. What a dramatic surge, and you see from the numbers given above that it sure turned people off nuclear power.
5. Who knows if it was a push poll or what the error range is.
I'm not a champagne-popper when it comes to public acceptance (or much of anything), but I can't abide an incorrect conclusion the other way, either. We have to honestly assess the situation to find out what people have a problem with, and then address those concerns. Polling is supposed to be assessment, not propaganda. Taking a poll for the express purpose of using the result as a soundbite is dishonest to say the least.
Labels: Fun With Statistics, Safety
posted by Stewart Peterson at 4:06 AM | 0 comments | links
The Best Technology Available?
This recent article in The Day (New London, CT) contains a statement that would make lawyers drool: that Millstone's cooling system would have to use "the best technology available" to prevent fish kills. I don't know how much of that statement was taken out of context, or how much is simply a clarification request, but if taken literally that's obviously an unbelievable can of worms.
Please keep an eye out for comment periods.
Labels: Activism, Environment
posted by Stewart Peterson at 3:58 AM | 0 comments | links
Belarus Update
When I suggested that Russia's gas policies may be cutting them off from foreign reactor markets and that a GE Super-PRISM waste-eating reactor would be best for Belarus's planned nuclear power plant, I did not know that the US and EU governments have placed trade restrictions on Belarus because of human rights violations.
Oh well. I suppose that is a little bit more important than energy policy, although having them semi-dependent on spent fuel shipments might allow us a modicum of influence (although in practice it would be very small and they could easily turn to practically anyone for a new supply), and Soviet-era coal burners pollute the air that everyone breathes. Turns out we're cutting off our foreign reactor markets, not the Russians, with an unwillingness to use energy as a foreign policy tool. Ironic, isn't it?
They apparently intend to order two Russian or French nuclear power plants with a total output of 1000 MWe--which doesn't make any sense, since French nuclear power plants are 1600 MWe each (and France is part of the EU, so I would think they couldn't do it anyway), and Russia has the most to lose via lost gas sales (and don't make 500 MWe reactors either!). The Russians, strangely, may intend to cooperate according to this RIA Novosti article. Iran has already announced its intention to cooperate, probably with lessons learned from Bushehr if a VVER-1000 is selected (although I don't know how much they actually learned; the Russians are building the plant). That the EPR is even apparently under consideration is surprising; recalling the recent news about possible EPR orders, it's interesting how much of a difference a three-year head start makes, even for a technically mediocre reactor like the EPR.
Looks like this proposal is headed straight for the toilet, too.
Labels: New Build
posted by Stewart Peterson at 3:03 AM | 0 comments | links
North Anna Hearing Turnout
Apparently there was a significantly lower number of pro-nuclear people at Thursday's hearing. Can anyone confirm this? Does anyone know why it happened?
The article mentions another hearing coming up; if this is true, we'd better get going.
Labels: Activism, New Build
posted by Stewart Peterson at 2:56 AM | 1 comments | links
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day
"There are compelling reasons to challenge the entire idea of resuming the reprocessing of nuclear waste, which proponents benignly describe as "recycling." Actually, reprocessing--extracting fissile materials--is the necessary step between a nuclear reactor and a nuclear bomb."
-Hanford Watch
There is a difference between reprocessing and recycling; reprocessing is merely the recovery of materials from spent fuel, whereas recycling is the use of some of those materials in a reactor. Recycling involves reprocessing, but reprocessing does not necessarily involve recycling.
Also, reprocessing doesn't separate fissile material; the most that the old process can do is separate plutonium (and not all plutonium is either fissile or weapons-grade); newer processes designed specifically for recycling don't even do that.
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Fuel Cycle, Proliferation
posted by Stewart Peterson at 2:55 AM | 0 comments | links
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day
"[T]here are no firm proposals in the U.S. for any new nuclear plants. The reason is simple: new nuclear plants are twice the cost of natural gas plants."
-Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout
And the fuel for nuclear plants is much cheaper than the fuel for gas plants, so the overall cost is similar if not lower, depending on the price of natural gas and what nuclear regulators feel like ordering reactor designers to do. But if utility rate structures allow the recovery of fuel costs and not the recovery of construction costs, the gas plant will get built because it's cheaper to build.
Details, details.
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Economics
posted by Stewart Peterson at 1:17 AM | 0 comments | links
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day
"Reality: after a 50 year track record of technical and financial failure, it’s safe to assume this pattern will not change."
-Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout
Are the conditions the same? The fact that something has happened in the past under certain conditions implies that it will happen in the future under only those conditions. Assuming that the conditions will stay the same (the implication) is a soundbite, not an analysis.
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Industry Performance
posted by Stewart Peterson at 1:10 AM | 0 comments | links
Friday, February 09, 2007
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day
"Third generation Westinghouse AP1000 reactors proposed by BNFL are untried and untested, omit safety features regarded as essential for Sizewell B, and introduce new 'passive' features such as a huge tank of water on the roof. These do not actually prevent accidents, but merely assist the conduction of heat from the containment of the reactor after an accident. The AP1000 violates the basic safety principles of Britain's nuclear regulators22."
-Campaign For Nuclear Disarmament
They're essential for Sizewell B, but not for the AP-1000. Nuclear reactor designers have the choice of simplifying the physics (if they do not have the computing power to consider all the variables involved, as was the case in the 1960s when Sizewell B was designed) at the cost of complex engineering for backup systems to prevent the reactor from overheating, or designing the reactor to passively respond to temperature changes by changing its reaction rate, which is fairly difficult to do but very possible. The designers of Sizewell B chose the first route and the designers of the AP-1000 chose the second; thus, backup systems that were required in Sizewell B are not required in the AP-1000.
If overheating is the problem (and it is--extreme overheating can cause the uranium fuel to melt), why wouldn't a huge tank of water on the roof prevent accidents? The accident is the fuel melting (a meltdown), not the accident precursors that cause overheating.
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Basic Physics, New Build, Safety
posted by Stewart Peterson at 12:53 AM | 0 comments | links
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day
"Nuclear power is inherently unsafe."
-Ecotricity
Sounds nice, but what does it mean?
Being inherently unsafe means that the system, upon the failure of a critical component, doesn't restore itself to a safer state but instead becomes more dangerous. An airplane, for example, is inherently unsafe: if a wing falls off at 35,000 feet, you're toast. However, an inherently unsafe system can be made to be safe enough (meaning safer than other options, not "perfectly safe") with enough backup systems, rigorous enough regulation, and correct operation; in other words, if reliability is substituted for safety. It works for airplanes: there has been a grand total of one fatal airliner crash since 1998 in the United States.
How does that apply to nuclear power? A nuclear reactor is simply a device capable of supporting a nuclear reaction; there are almost as many ways to get energy from nuclear reactions as there are to get energy from chemical reactions. Accordingly, there are many different reactor designs, so a broad statement that "nuclear power is inherently unsafe" is oversimplified to the point of being wrong. In fact, it only applies to one major reactor design: the RBMK, used at Chernobyl.
Since every possible nuclear reactor accident is caused by overheating, it is in fact quite easy to measure whether a nuclear power plant will automatically restore itself to a safer state after a critical failure: the relationship between the temperature and the reaction rate. If the reaction rate increases with temperature, it's inherently unsafe, because a loss of coolant will cause the reactor to increase its heat output. On the other hand, if the relationship is inverse, the reactor can be designed to never reach the temperature necessary to melt the uranium fuel.
The above method is grossly oversimplified, since it does not take into account any of the numerous practical problems. For instance, why is the melting of fuel necessarily a public safety threat? If the reactor is designed to manage molten fuel, it should be able to keep molten fuel from exiting the device and dispersing into the environment.
While the RBMK could have been made to be safe and been operated safely relative to the deaths and environmental impact caused by other energy sources, it is not inherently safe, because a sudden loss of coolant at low power in an RBMK results in a power spike that in turn bursts the cooling system open (Chernobyl in a nutshell). I also wish to remind you that every other energy source has gone through a point where a major problem was discovered the hard way and fixed. However, while the inherent risk posed by the RBMK could have been brought down to an acceptable level, it does not apply to other nuclear reactors that have an inverse relationship between reaction rate and temperature. The RBMK was never built in the United States because of precisely this problem.
All currently-operating American reactors are Light Water Reactors--essentially an assembly of enriched uranium ceramic rods suspended in a tank of "light" water (ordinary water as opposed to heavy water). The reactor is configured (and the uranium enrichment level is also kept between 3% and 5%) to make a nuclear reaction physically impossible without the water present. Since the water is used as the coolant, a loss of coolant stops the reaction. Very simple, and inherently safe.
Note how inherent safety means that an off-nominal event cannot cause a public safety impact, not that it could not happen. For example, the Three Mile Island accident was the draining of water from a Light Water Reactor; the reaction stopped, but while uranium is not very radioactive, already-split atoms are, and the heat given off by the absorption of their radiation caused the fuel rods to overheat and melt. But there was no mechanism to disperse it, so the melted fuel rods formed a puddle in the bottom of the reactor. Once enough of the material had decayed--highly radioactive materials decay faster because they give off their radiation at a higher rate--the ceramic puddle "froze." There was no public safety impact; yet until very recently, designers of nuclear power plants worried about lowering the effects of accidents instead of making them physically impossible. They assumed that nuclear power was inherently unsafe; their first experience was with the RBMK, and they had no way of knowing that no other reactor has its operating characteristics. Fifty years of operating experience taught an important lesson that the industry has finally learned: it's better to honestly assess a situation than to exaggerate it either way. Government regulations that ordered nuclear power plant designers to include thousands of valves, pumps, and other active components in Light Water Reactors' cooling systems were supposed to protect against accidents that turned out to be physically impossible were not "better safe than sorry"--they distracted maintenance personnel and operators from ensuring that essential equipment operated. As such, overzealous regulation caused more safety problems than it solved--Three Mile Island's coolant was drained by a stuck-open government-ordered "safety valve."
So what does this all mean?
1. An inherently unsafe system can be made acceptably safe (i.e., safer than the alternatives).
2. There is exactly one type of nuclear power plant that is inherently unsafe--the RBMK--which was never built anywhere but the Soviet Union.
3. Other nuclear power plants are inherently safe, so this discussion of "safe enough" doesn't apply to them.
4. The term "inherently safe" describes the response of a system to failures and is not a risk-benefit analysis of whether said system should be used in place of alternatives.
Labels: Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Basic Physics, Chernobyl, Safety, Three Mile Island
posted by Stewart Peterson at 11:03 PM | 0 comments | links
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
So Much for That
Essentially everybody in Thailand is up in arms about the planned nuclear power plant there.
This was fairly predictable, wasn't it?
Link.
Labels: Activism, New Build, Their Actions
posted by Stewart Peterson at 6:17 PM | 2 comments | links
Reuters Apparently Gives Editors Day Off
1. Reuters, via the Unsinkable Yahoo News, confuses a chemical process used for plutonium recovery from weapons-grade-plutonium-production reactors with uranium enrichment. North Korea is using plutonium weapons (incidentally, the extreme difficulty of actually building one is illustrated by their first test--a dud). The issue in any case is the production of weapons-grade fissile material that doesn't predetonate--which nuclear power plants do not require. North Korea has no nuclear power plants.
2. Same source, same venue: apparently the research reactor at Lucas Heights in Australia is now a "nuclear power station." It doesn't generate electricity and the one they're talking about (which no longer operates) is over 100 times smaller than a nuclear power plant. There's a "nuclear station" but no "power"--a big difference. I've also never heard of the "September 11, 2003 attacks."
Labels: Basic Physics, Clueless, Proliferation, Security and Terrorism
posted by Stewart Peterson at 5:55 PM | 0 comments | links
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day
"The IEA's approach to energy has lacked imagination for as long as it has existed and its analysis perpetuates antiquated thinking."
-Greenpeace
Just imagine...what would it be like if magic wiffle dust fell from the sky, and all we had to do was kiss the Magic Enchanted Earthworm and the magic wiffle dust would make itself into gasoline, and we would burn it bit by bit, and the emissions from the gasoline would be under a spell from the tooth fairy, and all the carbon dioxide would turn into diamonds at midnight?
The Magic Enchanted Earthworm asks in return only that evil humans stop stepping on his/her relatives. If we don't stop this heartless murder, the Magic Enchanted Earthworm will become very, very depressed, refuse to drink any more water, and shrivel up and die. Earthworms...dear masters...forgive us lowly creatures...
Meanwhile, back in reality, basic physics still applies.
[A side note: I do carefully avoid stepping on earthworms and make a habit of lifting as many of them as possible off sidewalks and into grass when I encounter them. I don't understand how people can look at a fellow creature that is moving and living and just stomp on it and kill it for fun.]
Labels: Alternatives, Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Basic Physics, Clueless
posted by Stewart Peterson at 5:28 PM | 1 comments | links
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Posts Reindexing Update
I can't label any more posts for a couple of days because Blogger thinks I've been editing too many posts and from this has drawn the conclusion that I'm a spammer. What editing posts that have already been written has to do with spamming (which generally involves creating many new posts) I cannot determine.
A quiet improvement in Blogger Beta has been the addition of the spam whitelisting request form that they always claimed was there. I have submitted a request and hope to be able to resume reindexing shortly. In the interim, I will be trying out some code for the upcoming switch from template to layout format (which will be hardly noticeable except for some sidebar improvements if I do it correctly).
PS: A respectful note to about 60% of the Blogger-using blogosphere: Blogger Beta's labels aren't technorati tags. They're supposed to be used for categorization of posts and do not help your place in search engines. In fact, if you stop using technorati tags in the belief that labels |