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TechnoratiMoney Is the Real Green Power: The Hoax of Eco-Friendly Nuclear Energy
Nuclear advocates in government and the nuclear industry are engaged in a massive, heavily financed drive to revive atomic power in the United States-with most of the mainstream media either not questioning or actually assisting in the promotion.
"With a very few notable exceptions, such as the Los Angeles Times, the U.S. media have turned the same sort of blind, uncritical eye on the nuclear industry's claims that led an earlier generation of Americans to believe atomic energy would be too cheap to meter," comments Michael Mariotte, executive director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service. "The nuclear industry's public relations effort has improved over the past 50 years, while the natural skepticism of reporters toward corporate claims seems to have disappeared."
The New York Times continues to be, as it was a half-century ago when nuclear technology was first advanced, a media leader in pushing the technology, which collapsed in the U.S. with the 1979 Three Mile Island and 1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant accidents. The Times has showered readers with a variety of pieces advocating a nuclear revival, all marbled with omissions and untruths. A lead editorial headlined "The Greening of Nuclear Power" (5/13/06) opened:
Not so many years ago, nuclear energy was a hobgoblin to environmentalists, who feared the potential for catastrophic accidents and long-term radiation contamination. . . . But this is a new era, dominated by fears of tight energy supplies and global warming. Suddenly nuclear power is looking better.
Nukes add to greenhouse
Parroting a central atomic industry theme these days, the Times editors declared, "Nuclear energy can replace fossil-fuel power plants for generating electricity, reducing the carbon dioxide emissions that contribute heavily to global warming." As a TV commercial frequently aired by the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), the nuclear industry trade group, states: "Nuclear power plants don't emit greenhouses gases, so they protect our environment."
What is left unmentioned by the NEI, the Times and other mainstream media making this claim is that the overall "nuclear cycle"-which includes uranium mining and milling, enrichment, fuel fabrication and disposal of radioactive waste-has significant greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming.
As Michel Lee, chair of the Council on Intelligent Energy & Conservation Policy, wrote in an (unpublished) letter to the Times, the
dirty secret is that nuclear power makes a substantial contribution to global warming. Nuclear power is actually a chain of highly energy-intensive industrial processes. These include uranium mining, conversion, enrichment and fabrication of nuclear fuel; construction and deconstruction of the massive nuclear facility structures; and the disposition of high-level nuclear waste.
She included information on "independent studies that document in detail the extent to which the entire nuclear cycle generates greenhouse emissions."
Separately, Lee wrote to a Times journalist stating that the "fiction" that nuclear power does not contribute to global warming "has been a prime feature of the nuclear industry's and Bush administration's PR campaign" that "unfortunately . . . has been swallowed by a number of New York Times reporters, op-ed columnists and editors."
Greens for hire
In "The Greening of Nuclear Power," the Times, like other mainstream media touting a nuclear restart, also spoke of environmentalists changing their stance on nuclear power. "Two new leaders" have emerged "to encourage the building of new nuclear reactors," according to the editorial. They happen to be Christine Todd Whitman, George W. Bush's first Environmental Protection Agency administrator, and Patrick Moore, "a co-founder of Greenpeace." The Times heralded this as "the latest sign that nuclear power is getting a more welcome reception from some environmentalists."
However, "both Whitman and Moore . . . are being paid to do so by the Nuclear Energy Institute," noted the Center for Media and Democracy's Diane Farsetta (PRWatch.org, 3/14/07). In her piece "Moore Spin: Or, How Reporters Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Nuclear Front Groups," Farsetta also reported:
A Nexis news database search on March 1, 2007 identified 302 news items about nuclear power that cite Moore since April 2006. Only 37 of those pieces-12 percent of the total-mention his financial relationship with NEI.
Whitman and Moore were hired as part of NEI's "Clean and Safe Energy Coalition" in 2006, which is "fully funded" by the institute, Farsetta noted. As for Moore and Greenpeace, his "association . . . ended in 1986," and he "has now spent more time working as a PR consultant to the logging, mining, biotech, nuclear and other industries . . . than he did as an environmental activist."
According to Harvey Wasserman, senior advisor to Greenpeace USA and co-author of Killing Our Own: The Disaster of America's Experience With Atomic Radiation (Brattleboro Reformer, 2/24/07), "Moore sailed on the first Greenpeace campaign, but he did not actually found the organization." Wasserman went on to cite an actual founder of the organization, Bob Hunter, describing Moore as "the Judas of the ecology movement."
Scarce high-grade fuel
Insisting that "there is good reason to give nuclear power a fresh look," "The Greening of Nuclear Power" further claimed, "It can diversify our sources of energy with a fuel-uranium-that is both abundant and inexpensive."
This, too, was bogus. The uranium from which fuel used in nuclear power plants is made-so-called "high-grade" ore containing substantial amounts of fissionable uranium-235-is, in fact, not "abundant." As Andrew Simms of the New Economics Foundation told BBC News (11/29/05), another "dirty little secret" of nuclear power is that "startlingly, there's only a few decades left of the proven high-grade uranium ore it needs for fuel." This has been the projection for years.
Indeed, this limit on "high-grade" uranium ore is why the industry projects that, in the long-term, nuclear power will need to be based on breeder reactors running on manmade plutonium. But use of plutonium-fueled reactors has been stymied because they can explode like atomic bombs-they contain tons of plutonium fuel, while the first bomb using plutonium, dropped on Nagasaki, contained 15 pounds. Because it takes only a few pounds of plutonium to make an atomic bomb, they also constitute an enormous proliferation risk.
Blaming Jane Fonda
"The Jane Fonda Effect" (9/16/07), a Times Magazine column by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt, blamed nuclear power's stall on the 1979 film The China Syndrome, starring Jane Fonda, which opened days before the Three Mile Island partial meltdown. "Stoked by The China Syndrome," it caused "widespread panic," wrote Dubner and Levitt, even though, they maintained, the accident did not "produce any deaths, injuries or significant damage."
In fact, the utility that owned Three Mile Island has for years been quietly paying people whose family members died, contracted cancer or were otherwise impacted by the accident. While settlements range up to $1 million, the utility company continues to insist this does not acknowledge fault. The toll of Three Mile Island is chronicled in my television documentary Three Mile Island Revisited (EnviroVideo, 1993) and Wasserman's book Killing Our Own (which includes a devastating chapter, "People Died at Three Mile Island"), among other works.
But Dubner and Levitt continue undeterred, declaring, "The big news is that nuclear power may be making a comeback in the United States." They acknowledge the Chernobyl accident, stating that it "killed at least a few dozen people directly." They admit that it "exposed millions more to radiation," but keep silent about the consequences of this in terms of illness and death. This atomic version of Holocaust denial flies in the face of voluminous research on the disaster that puts the number of dead in the hundreds of thousands.
"At least 500,000 people-perhaps more-have already died out of the 2 million people who were officially classed as victims of Chernobyl in Ukraine," said Nikolai Omelyanets, deputy head of the National Commission for Radiation Protection in Ukraine (Guardian, 3/25/06). Dr. Alexey Yablokov, president of the Center for Russian Environmental Policy, calculates a death toll of 300,000. In the book Chernobyl: 20 Years On, which he co-edited, Yablokov writes, "In 20 years it has become clear that not tens, hundreds of thousands, but millions of people in the Northern Hemisphere have suffered and will suffer from the Chernobyl catastrophe."
The New York Times Magazine also published "Atomic Balm?" (7/16/06), by Jon Gertner; the subhead read, "For the first time in decades, increasing the role of nuclear power in the United States may be starting to make political, environmental and even economic sense." Gertner used the term nuclear "renaissance," and again forwarded the claim that "the supply [of uranium] is abundant."
Gertner told of how the "lifespan" for nuclear plants was set at 40 years because this was considered "how long a large nuclear plant could safely operate." This has "proved a conservative estimate," he states-without providing a factual basis. So the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been "granting 20-year extensions" to the 103 U.S. nuclear plants so they "can run for a total of 60 years." (Consider the safety and reliability of 60-year-old cars speeding down highways.)
"Even with such licensing renewals, though, it's doubtful the current fleet of plants will run for, say, 80 years," he continued, and "that means the industry, in a way, is in a race against time." It needs to build new plants because the "absence" of nuclear power "would probably pose tremendous challenges for the United States."
The New York Times also allows its nuclear advocacy to slip into its news stories. In an article (11/27/07) about the French nuclear power company Areva signing a deal with a Chinese atomic corporation, Times reporter John Tagliabue wrote of Areva chief executive Anne Lauvergeon's "long path from dirty hands to clean energy." The "dirty hands" referred to a youthful interest in archaeology; that nuclear power is "clean energy" appears to require no explanation.
Another story, datelined Fort Collins, Colorado (11/19/07), reported on two energy projects proposed for what the paper calls "a deeply green city." Describing the plans as "exposing the hard place that communities like this across the country are likely to confront," Times reporter Kirk Johnson wrote:
Both projects would do exactly what the city proclaims it wants, helping to produce zero-carbon energy. But one involves crowd-pleasing, feel-good solar power, and the other is a uranium mine, which has a base of support here about as big as a pinkie. Environmentalism and local politics have collided with a broader ethical and moral debate about the good of the planet, and whether some places could or should be called upon to sacrifice for their high-minded goals.
Other revivalists
Other media promoting a nuclear revival-their words prominently featured on NEI's website-include USA Today (3/5/06): "The facts are straightforward: Nuclear power . . . creates virtually none of the pollution that causes climate change and delivers electricity cheaper than other forms of generation do." And the Augusta Chronicle (8/21/06): "Nuclear power-for decades perceived as an environmental scourge-is emerging as the cleanest and most cost-efficient source of energy available, a fact conceded even by environmentalists." And Investor's Business Daily (12/1/06): "We can worry about imaginary threats of nuclear energy or the real dangers of fossil fuel pollution."
Glenn Beck of CNN Headline News also joined the chorus of support (5/2/07): "Look, America should embrace nuclear power, even if it's [just] to get off the foreign oil bandwagon." This is also common nuclear disinformation, that nuclear power is needed to displace foreign oil. The only energy produced by nuclear power is electricity-and only 3 percent of electricity in the U.S. is generated with oil.
There are a few exceptions in the mainstream media, notably the other Times, the Los Angeles Times. "The dream that nuclear power would turn atomic fission into a force for good rather than destruction unraveled with the Three Mile Island disaster in 1979 and the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986," the paper stated (7/23/07) in an editorial headlined: "No to Nukes: It's Tempting to Turn to Nuclear Plants to Combat Climate Change, but Alternatives Are Safer and Cheaper." Those who claim nuclear power "must be part of any solution" to global warming or climate change "make a weak case," said the L.A. Times, citing
the enormous cost of building nuclear plants, the reluctance of investors to fund them, community opposition and an endless controversy over what to do with the waste. . . . What's more, there are cleaner, cheaper, faster alternatives that come with none of the risks.
Staggering numbers
As to the risks, the mainstream media's handling-or non-handling-of the U.S. government's most comprehensive study on the consequences of a nuclear plant accident is instructive. Calculation of Reactor Accident Consequences 2 (known as CRAC-2) was done by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the 1980s. Bill Smirnow, an anti-nuclear activist, has tried for years to interest media in reporting on it-sending out information about it continually.
The study estimates the impacts from a meltdown at each nuclear plant in the U.S. in categories of "peak early fatalities," "peak early injuries," "peak cancer deaths" and "costs [in] billions." ("Peak" refers to the highest calculated value-not a "worst case scenario," as worse assumptions could have been chosen.) For the Indian Point 3 plant north of New York City, for example, the projection is that a meltdown would cause 50,000 "peak early fatalities," 141,000 "peak early injuries," 13,000 "peak cancer deaths," and $314 billion in property damage-and that's based on the dollar's value in 1980, so the cost today would be nearly $1 trillion. For the Salem 2 nuclear plant in New Jersey, the study projects 100,000 "peak early fatalities," 70,000 "peak early injuries," 40,000 "peak cancer deaths," and $155 billion in property damage. The study provides similarly staggering numbers across the country.
"I've sent the CRAC-2 material out for years to media and have never heard a thing," Smirnow told Extra!:
Not anyone in the media ever even asked me a question. There's no excuse for this media inattention to such an important subject, and it shows how they're falling flat on their faces in not performing their purported mission of educating and informing the public. Whatever their reason or reasons for not informing their readers and listeners, the effect is one of helping the nuclear power industry and hurting the public. If the public was informed, this new big pro-nuke push would never happen.
Also in the way of sins of omission is the media silence on "routine emissions"-the amount of radioactivity the U.S. government allows to be routinely released by nuclear plants. "It doesn't take an accident for a nuclear power plant to release radioactivity into our air, water and soil," says Kay Drey of Beyond Nuclear at the Nuclear Policy Research Institute. "All it takes is the plant's everyday routine operation, and federal regulations permit these radioactive releases. Rarely, if ever, is this reported by media." The radioactive substances regularly emitted include tritium, krypton and xenon. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission sets a "permissible" level for these "routine emissions," but, as Drey states, "permissible does not mean safe."
Hidden subsidies
Another lonely voice amid the media nuclear cheerleaders is the Las Vegas Sun, which recently has been especially outraged by $50 billion in loan guarantees for the nuclear industry to build new nuclear plants included in the 2007 Energy Bill. The Sun demanded (8/1/07): "Pull the Plug Already."
In reporting on the economics of nuclear power, mainstream media virtually never mention the many government subsidies for it, while continuing to claim that it's "cost-effective" (Augusta Chronicle, 8/21/06). One such giveaway is the Price-Anderson Act, which shields the nuclear industry from liability for catastrophic accidents. Price-Anderson, supposed to be temporary when first enacted in 1957, has been extended repeatedly and now limits liability in the event of an accident to $10 billion, despite CRAC-2's projections of consequences far worse than that.
Writing on CommonDreams.org (9/11/07), Ralph Nader explored the economic issue. "Taxpayers alert!" he declared:
The atomic power corporations are beating on the doors in Washington to make you guarantee their financing for more giant nuclear plants. They are pouring money and applying political muscle to Congress for up to $50 billion in loan guarantees to persuade an uninterested Wall Street that Uncle Sam will pay for any defaults on industry construction loans. . . . The atomic power industry does not give up. Not as long as Uncle Sam can be dragooned to be its subsidizing, immunizing partner. Ever since the first of 100 plants opened in 1957, corporate socialism has fed this insatiable atomic goliath with many types of subsidies.
Ignored alternatives
Yet another claim by mainstream media in pushing for a nuclear revival is the "success" of the French nuclear program. 60 Minutes (4/8/07) did it in a segment called "Vive Les Nukes." (See FAIR Action Alert, 4/18/07.) Correspondent Steve Kroft started with the nuclear-power-doesn't-contribute-to-global-warming myth:
With power demands rising and concerns over global warming increasing, what the world needs now is an efficient means of producing carbon-free energy. And one of the few available options is nuclear, a technology whose time seemed to come and go, and may now be coming again. . . . With zero greenhouse gas emissions, the U.S. government, public utilities and even some environmental groups are taking a second look at nuclear power, and one of the first places they're looking to is France, where it's been a resounding success.
Though she was totally ignored, Linda Gunter of Beyond Nuclear told 60 Minutes of radioactive contamination in the marine life off Normandy where the French reprocessing center sits, leukemia clusters in people living along that coast, and massive demonstrations in French cities earlier in the year protesting construction of new nuclear power plants.
The Union of Concerned Scientists was upset by 60 Minutes' downplaying of alternative energy technologies such as wind and solar. UCS's Alden Meyer wrote to 60 Minutes:
In fact, wind power could supply more energy to the U.S. grid than nuclear does today, and when combined with a mix of energy efficiency and other renewable energy sources, could provide a continuous energy supply that would help us make dramatic reductions in global warming.
Dismissal of renewable energy forms is another major facet of mainstream media's drive for a nuclear power revival. As the St. Petersburg Times put it (12/08/06), "While renewable sources of energy such as solar power are still in the developmental stage, nuclear is the new green." Renewables Are Ready was the title of a 1999 book written by two UCS staffers. Today, they are more than ready. "Wind is the cheapest form of new generation now being built," wrote Greenpeace advisor Wasserman (Free Press, 4/10/07). He pointed to an "array of wind, solar, bio-fuels, geothermal, ocean thermal and increased conservation and efficiency."
Wasserman has also written about another element ignored by most mainstream media (Free Press, 7/9/07): "The switch to renewables defunds global terrorism. Atomic reactors are pre-deployed weapons of radioactive mass destruction. Shutting them down ends the fear of apocalyptic disaster by both terror and error." He stressed, again, that safe, clean energy is here and "we could replace everything with available technology that could easily supply all our needs while allowing a sustainable planet to survive and thrive."
The one green thing
What are the causes of the media nuclear dysfunction? The obvious problem is media ownership. General Electric, for one, is both a leading nuclear plant manufacturer and a media mogul, owning NBC and other outlets. (For years, CBS was owned by Westinghouse; Westinghouse and GE are the Coke and Pepsi of nuclear power.) There have been board and financial interlocks between the media and nuclear industries. There is the long-held pro-nuclear faith at media such as the New York Times. (See sidebar.)
There is also the giant public relations operation-both corporate, led by the NEI, and government, involving the Department of Energy and its national nuclear laboratories. "You have the NEI and the nuclear industry propagandizing on nuclear power, and journalists taking down what the industry is saying and not looking at the veracity of their claims," Greenpeace USA nuclear policy analyst Jim Riccio told Extra!.
And then there's lots of money. FAIR recently exposed (Action Alert, 8/22/07) how National Public Radio, which broadcasts many pro-nuclear pieces, has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from "nuclear operator Sempra Energy" and Constellation Energy, "which belongs to Nustart Energy, a 10-company consortium pushing for new nuclear power plant construction."
The only thing green about nuclear power is the nuclear establishment's dollars.
Karl Grossman is a professor of journalism at the State University of New York College at Old Westbury. Books he has written about nuclear technology include Cover Up: What You ARE NOT Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power. He has hosted many television programs on nuclear technology on EnviroVideo.com
167 Comments so far
Show AllFirst, geothermal is *limited* per your remarks to 2500 MWs. That's a lot, but it's only about the size of California's Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. It should be exploited to the FULLEST.
It save LITTLE water over nuclear, however, as it is the EXACT same steam cycle as a nuclear plant. The same kind of turbines using the same kind of cooling are what ties geothermal and nuclear together.
It saves hardly any water at all: you need 'vast quantities' of water to cool the tubines on a geothermal unit exactly like that on a nucelar plant.
David
For the one that likes wind power as I do. There was a picture of the compress air system, but I have not been able to paste it here.
SIM
As some have noted a primary problem with relying on electricity generated by wind power has been the intermittent nature of winds. Here is yet another concept being brought to market to turn wind to an on demand generation system by buffering the primary generation system (wind turbines), with an efficient green storage system, advance compressed air. This will make wind a much more versatile source for electricity, which is significant as wind power, as recent experiance has shown, can be brought on line very rapidly compared to coal or nukes.
Regards,
Greg
Ricardo Helps Develop Next-Generation Wind Energy
Chart showing the new process.
by Staff Writers
Van Buren Twp MI (SPX) Feb 11, 2008
Massachusetts-based wind energy company General Compression and its compressor technology partner Mechanology are using Ricardo's automotive engineering and development expertise to develop technology which aims to make wind power as reliable as conventional power.
With energy security and global warming at the very top of the political agenda in all parts of the world, renewable energy resources are increasingly seen as an important contributor to the future of regional and national grid power supplies. Of the potentially large-scale renewable energy resources wind is perhaps the most universally available, as virtually every part of the earth's surface experiences the natural force of the wind.
However, as the wind is subject to the vagaries of the weather and as such is inherently unpredictable, wind energy has traditionally been seen as an intermittent source of electrical power. General Compression's proprietary Dispatchable Wind system carries the descriptive tagline 'wind energy on demand' because it decouples wind energy capture from electrical power generation by substituting the electric generators in its wind turbines with advanced compressor systems linked to a central high pressure compressed air reservoir at each wind farm.
The reservoir acts as an energy buffer, storing compressed air which can be passed through an expander plant in order to generate electricity whenever it's needed - not just when the wind is blowing.
Dispatchable Wind is based on the use of the innovative, high energy density Dragonfly compressor under development by Mechanology, Inc. Ricardo has been chosen by Mechanology to be one of its key product development partners to assist in developing the Dragonfly such that it will meet or exceed the rigours of round-the-clock operation with an expected life in excess of 20 years.
Ricardo is applying its well-proven product engineering skills and practices in areas such as design optimization and material selection, performance modelling and analysis, mechanical dynamic analysis, reliability and robustness engineering, design for manufacture and cost optimization.
"Increasing energy efficiency has been a prime focus at Ricardo for many years," said Ricardo Inc. President Dean Harlow.
"Our deep engineering experience places us in an ideal position to assist in the development of the high energy density Dragonfly compressor. General Compression's goal of making wind power available on-demand with its Dispatchable Wind system signals a major advancement in the practical application of this important renewable energy source.
"For Ricardo, it is yet another opportunity to apply our advanced engineering skills and technology to address global energy issues in a range of rapidly developing industrial sectors."
Ricardo, the Eco-Innovation Technology Company, is a leading independent provider of technology, product innovation, engineering solutions and strategic consulting to the world's automotive, transport and new energy industries. The company's skill base represents the state-of-the-art in low emissions and fuel-efficient powertrain technology, and can be best summarized: "Ricardo is Fuel Economy."
Water cooling for nuclear plants could become a problem with fast water evaporation. No nuclear reactor designs = no problems, money for thiose new reactors = no problems, cooling = ? My friend Greg has it's own way of looking at the problem.
I have seen on those comments a person that was interested in Geothermal, and I think this project here seems prometting. 2500 MW is not nothing but if 240 mw are already on grid, adding others plant could be eseaer in future.
SIM
One of the newest geothermal projects in Nevada. Not only is it on-line quickly, it is spurring investment in an improved grid, gets ready investment from the private sector (unlike nukes, which rely on government investment), and is going to save an estimated 2 billion gallons of water a year, and will provide power for 2.5 million people. Compared to how much water is used by 2,500 MW of nuke power this is a fairly persuasive arguement for dumping nukes, especially in drought stricken areas like the American SW.
Regards,
Greg
ENERGY TECH
New Geothermal Power Supply On Steam For Millions In Northwest Nevada
Natural geothermal steam well at Carson Lake, NV.
by Staff Writers
Bend NV (SPX) Feb 11, 2008
Vulcan Power Company has announced the G3 Power Plan, a preliminary plan for green grid transmission upgrades to deliver a "green gigawatt" (1,000 megawatts) of clean geothermal power to Los Angeles and Las Vegas from massive natural steam zones located in northwest Nevada.
Scientists at the Great Basin Center for Geothermal Energy at University Nevada Reno estimate that 2,500 megawatts (MW) of geothermal natural steam exists in northern Nevada, according to the recent press release of director Dr. Lisa Shevenell. This clean steam fuel could generate power for 2.5 million people, corroborating the US Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) observation that Nevada is the "Saudi Arabia of Geothermal".
There has already been about 240 MW of geothermal online in Nevada for 15 years, which is evenly split between Nevada and California utility buyers Sierra Pacific Resources and Southern California Edison Company, the nation's largest renewable power purchaser.
But new green grid upgrades are needed for Nevada steamfields to grow up to 2,500 MW, supplying a "green gigawatt" (1,000 MW) each to California and Nevada. Seven companies with advanced sites have been selected to supply progressive Nevada and California utilities with about 500 MW of geothermal, with over half utilizing these grid upgrades.
"The geothermal genie," said Vulcan board member Sandy Lonsdale, "is being held hostage by antiquated transmission lines from northern Nevada to California and southern Nevada."
Lonsdale is also the former president of the Juniper Chapter of the Sierra Club. He is Chairman of Vulcan's Native Restoration Fund (NRF) which plans to give 5% of Vulcan project income back to fund habitat restoration and tribal restoration projects. NRF was the brainchild of the Vulcan CEO and Jon Wellinghoff, a former Vulcan board member and current Commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. "The green grid can be a win-win for the land and Americans both in rural areas and our cities," he added.
Vulcan's CFO, Bryan Urban, has previously managed large power and transmission projects as CFO of Panda Energy, who financed and built $5.5 billion of successful power projects. "New geothermal projects are attracting finance community support," Mr. Urban said.
He added, "Merrill Lynch Commodities invested $35 million in Vulcan. Vulcan now has a $100 million institutional private placement underway. Vulcan has a large portfolio of geothermal contracts and owns one of the largest geothermal property positions in the nation, with resources independently rated at over 700 MW."
"G3 Plan transmission economics are very compelling," said Vulcan board member Richard Rodgers, a former senior banker at Bank of America. "Geothermal is a bargain for California, particularly when compared to new gas fired power, believed to cost $0.096 per kWh. The first 1,000 MW of new geothermal could justify building about $4 billion worth of grid upgrades and doubling that output justifies $8 billion in upgrades."
Cost estimates for the G3 Plan are expected in the second quarter of 2008 while very preliminary "Green Tap" budget estimates have been received. Electranix recently estimated a 500 MW tap on the 3,100 MW Pacific DC Intertie line in Nevada will cost $125 to $180 million and a 1,000 MW tap from $170 to $250 million, depending on design, location and if it connects with Sierra Pacific to provide counterflow power to Nevada.
G3 benefits also include the economic and environmental benefits of clean power, which exceed $18 billion and nearly 2 billion gallons of groundwater savings per year.
The G3 Plan team includes former transmission planning executives Jim Kritikson of SCE and Robert Jackson of SDG and E, DC line specialist Electranix and Ed Evatz, former deputy director Nevada USBLM. Ed Evatz said, "the G3 Power Plan welcomes stakeholder comments, ideas and questions by email or shared at local small town meetings that G3 will be scheduling. The team has held meetings and is contacting other stakeholders in both states."
This is a good discussion, isn't it? Sort of rare in any comments section on energy...or any topic for that matter.
I wanted to address SIM's comment because it raises some very important societal issues. Generally, I am for conservation...I don't believe in 'waste': energy, food, whatever. But I don't think we have to, nor should we think in terms of using "less energy". I mean, it makes sense to use CFL because it *cheaper* for the user. But I don't believe that energy, limitless energy in fact, is that far away. I think the scenarios some of us who are pro nuclear hear have laid out show that freezing in winter and overheating in summer (for us southern Yankees this is AS important as heat in the winter is to Canadians) is an option. Or even necessary.
My view is that we should, world wide, build as many reliable, inherently safe and cheap to run nuclear power plants as we need. Alvin Weinberg, the man who actually held the patent on the light water reactor and wrote the papers on Molten Salt Reactors that Bill and I have talked about, believed that that world wide we would need about 12,000 reactors to satisfy all our energy needs: agricultural, transport, heating, industry, residential and commercial. I think this is close to true especially as we talk about, and see, India and China rushing to improve their citizens standard of living.
http://nucleargreen.blogspot.com/
The above link is to the most sophisticated nuclear blog you will find anywhere. it reflects the politics and scientific sensibility of Charles Bolton whose father was a leader at Oak Ridge National Labortory for 3 decades. In it will be links to Wienbergs Nuclear Grand plan, problems with MSR technology and compirsons betwen coal and nuclear health issues. I highly recommend a looksee here.
David
SIM,
Even if demand does not increase, if we are to address global warming we must replace the fossil generated power.
In the US, 70% of our electricity is generated with fossil fuel. If you are going to shut that down or say cut it by 75% you are going to need a lot of replacement power from somewhere.
In Canada, I don't think you have as high a percentage generated with fossil fuels because you are blessed with a lot of hydroelectric resources but you still do use a lot of coal and gas. I believe you have a lot higher percentage of residential heating with natural gas than we do. Incentives to replace that with geothermal heatpumps would be a good idea (except maybe in the Northern Terrritories.)
Bill
Bill
What do you think of using less energy in first place ? Why are we so sure that we will not be having enough energy for our populations ? Here in Quebec, we are loosing many companies that are returning in their countries and their load to fill will need several thouzands houses. Why are we so certain that we will be continuing using electricity the way they have familiarised us, the citizens to do. Electrifiing transportations means is certainly a way to let oil behind. But I am for less heat to be generated from all our houses, from all the gouverment buildings. I imagine an infrared detector on a satelite can find out where the energy is the most wasted.
SIM
Kem,
David and I are using a different vocabulary for the same thing. I mentioned a reactor with the fuel melted in salt. The salt that was used is the fluoride that David mentioned in his post.
When the reactor is operating, the fuel and salt are all a liquid melted together. It is really a very different concept from any of the power reactors operating today.
Sim,
I don't think nuclear energy is obsolete. I think we may not even recognize it 50 years from now.
I have no difficulty with renewable energy. I do think some people have unrealistic expectations of renewable energy. Today it is far more expensive than nuclear power and is generally not suited for base load electricity generation. Where the environmental impact is acceptable, I believe it should be developed and deployed in parallel with nuclear power.
I believe that both the US and Canada should have urgent programs to replace all fossil power generation without carbon sequestering with non or minimally emitting technologies. We also need electrification of surface transport.
Bill
When a radioactive substance decays, it emits particles from the nucleus in a effort to become a stable atom. Arent'n we going in the wrong direction? All those radioactive substances they want to become stable and we want them unstable. To our unstable childrens we give ''Ritalin'' so they become stable. I think something is wrong somewhere. Anyway I have fun to mention it that way on one of my YouTube clip. Like said KEM, we should be putting our effort on clean energy plants. But it is the first time that nuclear technology is so well explained to me from the experts here. I like technology. I had a laboratory of high vacuum and did 20 years of full fun with plasma and adding my own sputtering desigh, magnetrons and microwave for the work. Dont you think that nuclear is an old technology? It is nearly too old for our ingenious childrens that as for our music prefer theirs.
WOW! Great answers "Billy and DWalters", they're short enough. I'll be ready for the test anytime Bill.
You know what I like? I like the idea of NO nuclear reactors at all, except for perhaps enough of the fast reactors to burn up the plutonium we already have stashed around the world. Put those in Japan or France. When all of the plutonium is gone, shut them all down.
Meanwhile, have a massive effort to build clean energy plants, great big ones __ geo-thermal, tidal, solar and wind powered. With those, we don't have a lot of radioactive waste to worry about, or a possible meltdown of a reactor and the fuel for clean energy plants is free.
BTW, aren't we all pleased that none of those 40 tornadoes that hit Tennessee Wednesday didn't hit one of the nuke plants or nuke storage areas.
Thorium Power is a US company working with the Russians in making thorium fuel for the current fleet of light water reactors. This is the hard blanket method and not the liquid fuel method. It can also be used to burn plutonium. The plutonium does decay to other products but there is, as a total, less volume of it. There is shrinkage, if people care about this.
There are lot of people who do not like sodium reactors (fast or thermal spectrum) because of the issue Bill raised above. None of this happens with fluoride cooled reactors and in fact they run at 1 atmosphere so they don't even cost a lot to build relative to LWR and heavy water reactors. And...no plutonium is created that is usable in weapons. Only U233 which is what is reinjected into the fuel mix after it bread from decaying thorium. This is a No. "10" on the "coolness index". Overall waste is reduced in volume by 100 times.
See: energyfromthorium.com. There are 3 section to this web site. The Blog. The discussion forum (where tons of people a lot smarter than me talk about LFTRs) and the document index which has the complete history of LFTR and MSR as they were developed in the 1950s. The uranium industry and the US military pretty much squashed the use of thorium (4 times abundent as U and no enrichment is necessary, it is used in it's natural state). In fact, there is already enough thorium mined burried in barrels in the desert to power the US for 3,000 years!
Oh...for a REALLY GOOD description that is basically very brief, look up "liquid fluoride reactor" in wiki...it sort of explains the whole thing.
David
Kem,
You asked about getting rid of plutonium.
Yes, plutonium will 'burn' or fission in a reactor pretty much the same way that uranium does. When you fission either uranium or plutonium you get fission fragments but the plutonium or uranium atom is gone-poof.
The fission fragments are a different type of waste problem. They are intensely radioactive and give off a lot of heat but most are very short lived.
When plutonium is burned in a water cooled reactor like the commercial power reactors we have in the US and Canada, it needs to be mixed in with uranium. Undiluted plutonium is too powerful a fuel to be used by itself in a water cooled reactor. When you burn the plutonium mixed with uranium, some of the uranium is converted to plutonium. Some of this new plutonium gets burned also but you end up making more plutonium than you burn. The take home message from this paragraph is that you can't get rid of plutonium by mixing it with ordinary uranium in a water cooled reactor and burning it.
In principle, you can take the plutonium and dilute it with thorium rather than uranium and run it in a water cooled reactor. (I am not aware of this actually having been done in the West. India's nuclear program has a very different focus and they probably have done it.) If you do this, you will not be making more plutonium and you probably can get close to getting rid of your plutonium inventory. If you do this, you will be making a couple of artificial isotopes of uranium (U-232 and U-233) instead of plutonium. These isotopes have their own problems and, in some ways, they are worse to deal with than plutonium.
If you are willing to use a water free (and a graphite free) reactor, you can burn plutonium without creating more fuel inventory. In a water free reactor the neutrons have not been cooled down by the water and have much more energy. When these much more energetic neutrons smack into U-238 atoms they are more likely to fission the atom than convert it into plutonium.
Water and graphite free reactors are called fast reactors and they can burn nuclear fuel without making more of it. (If you want, you can also use a fast reactor to make more fuel than you start with. These fast reactors are called breeder reactors.) Because fast reactors can burn the U-238 as well as the U-235, they are very much more fuel efficient than our current water cooled reactors.
Water free reactors are not without there own set of problems. They are more expensive to build and operate than our water cooled reactors.
All reactors have to have a coolant. If not water, then something else.
Most of the fast reactors that have been built in the past and those that are now operating in other countries are cooled by liquid sodium. This is a very flammable material.
The Russians have used liquid lead as a coolant in some of their reactors (including some of their submarines). The Russians have had some corrosion problems with the lead cooled reactors. The West does not have any experience that I know of in operating a lead cooled reactor.
In the early days of reactor experimentation a test reactor was made with the fuel melted in with salt. This reactor was operated for a couple of years in Oak Ridge. This reactor concept has a lot of promise as a way to burn plutonium and other long lived radioactive materials. There has not been much experimentation on this type of reactor in the last 50 years so this is much more speculative than the lead and sodium cooled approaches.
To get back to your question: Can we get rid of plutonium rather than having to store it for millenia? Yes, in a fast reactor.
(There will be a quiz next week on Thursday and you are likely to see this again on the final exam. Turn in your homework at the end of class.)-Perfesser Bill.
PS. Maybe someday I will actually write a short answer.
There are several areas of the United States where geo-thermal is readily available withot pumping water into the rocks.
Google geo-thermal energy.
I have said geo-thermal was perhaps the best and mentioned it several tmes.
Sim:"What they did find is that miners who smoked had a *higher* cancer rate than *other miners* who smoked. It is as if the radon enhanced, but large numbers, the subsecptability of smokers to cancer."
Yes. But I'll go back and read the book where I recently saw this. Radon is most definetly a cause of cancer but only in very high concentration. ABout half the uranium mined in the US, was, and is mined not "as uranium" but as a byproduct of copper, maganese and other multi-ore heavy metal mining that takes place in the American west. So you can chart by taking samples of radon at these mines, the exact rate of cancer contraction. But I'll check. BTW...in the general areas, and I'm talkng about whole states like New Mexico, the radon eminating from decaying *natural* uranium causes background radition to be about 3 times the normal national US average (which is 350 milirem/year). What they have NOT found is that this is necessarily more cancer causing than not being in these areas. It gives pause to those that think *any* radiation is bad for the human body. I'll go back an look this stuff up over the next few days.
On geothermal. Great stuff! IF you can get it. I've worked at PG&E's geothermal plants in California...the largest in the world. but the steam pack is going away...no one knows for sure if the water pumped into the hot rocks below actually gets turned into recoverable steam.
If gothermal was readily available...it would end ALL energy discussions, period. But it's not. It hard to get to and the engineering is expensive. But if you CAN get it...I'm all for it.
David
Dear Dave Walters and others. How is it that none of the contributers here are speaking about geothermal power?
David,
I just found this article about this doctor, he was Edward Martell. I think it was around 1975, He said: '' If I'm right, it means that natural low-level radiation from insoluble alpha particles in the body may be the principal agent of human cancer, especially lung cancer among cigarette smokers, as well as heart disease and strokes''.
And I am sorry for having asking you about radon225 desintegration chart, it is kendpotter that have anwered me about this question on emanations from am241. Sorry kendpotter.
SIM
What they did find is that miners who smoked had a *higher* cancer rate than *other miners* who smoked. It is as if the radon enhanced, but large numbers, the subsecptability of smokers to cancer.
David,
Are you saying that miners that are uranium miners that smoked, had a higher cancer rate than other miners that were not from uranium mines that smoked also ? Are you saying that radon could be increasing the risk to cancers to miners ? So miners in coal mines as an example dont inhale as mutch radon as miners from uranium mines. Do you believe the assertion from this doctor that mentioned that cigatettes, meaning here tobacco, could be itself concentrating radionuclides on its leafs, as phosphates in soils and other radioactivity from previous nuclear tests ?
You are a very interesting person to hear and learn from, and I will have an additionnal question about radon 225, how from am241 it become radon 225 ? I must say I let behind some of my souvenir in nuclear.
Sim,
I am not sure that is true about Radon being the second highest cause of cancer. It's very hard to prove that assertion. The issue of Miners smoking is important. The studies they did in New Mexico from miners mining uranium, where radon is particular high, found that *in general* uranium miners had no more cancer than other miners in similiar hard rock mining. What they did find is that miners who smoked had a *higher* cancer rate than *other miners* who smoked. It is as if the radon enhanced, but large numbers, the subsecptability of smokers to cancer.
David
KEM,
You have convinced me,
Thanks
SIM
I'm not a scientist or an expert either SIM. I just happen to trust the words of the 2,500 plus atmospheric and geologists, who have spent their entire adult lives studying the issue. They agree that the global warming problem is from burning fossil fuels. Mega corporations such as Exxon, offered $10,000 to other so called scientists to argue against them. So you I and everone else, will have to believe whatever they desire.
KEM
Again it is about what we can see. From nuclear we dont see too mutch. We know that radioactivity was in natural gas so radon must be in pipeline. And what about oil from the time it was used, again radioactivity was in. But we had no means to detect it ultil Marie Curie and her Husband found minute amount of radium and thorium and else in pechblende. What if at all the time oil was used there was radioactivity with it ? That could possibly be corresponding to your 200 year you are mentionning here for CO2 to be observed. There were also amount of radon in coal but it was eseaer to put blame on the miners that were smoking. Since coal was extracted from the earth, what 300 years ago may be, they had thsi kind of sickness that they called otherwise than cancer, but it was cancer there appearing and increasing in number, it was coal sickness may be they called that. Today radon is the second reason to all cancers of the respiratory system that are occuring. I think we should realy be looking for more dollars as you said for researches in alternative energy power systems than they put presently on each Depleted Uranium shells they are using in those wars.
SIM, I'm not an expert on this but...the biggest sorce of radon is the earth itself. It is the natural decay product of uranium that exists everwhere. It is used as you point out a 'canerry in a coal mine' way to see if there is a unusual amout of leakage in a plant.
David
~SIM~ according to the proven data derived from the ice core samples taken from our poles, the planet's atmosphere can be perfectly read back for more than 50 billion years. The major change of Co2 in those readings began near 200 years ago, the start of the industrial revolution.
That's when burning coal began in ernest for ships, trains, manufacturng plants and of course for developing electrical power. We also began using oil then and as the years progressed have burned more and more, with millions of vehicles and aircraft.
I don't believe nuclear energy is a major contributor to the greenhouse effect at all. In fact, if we would stop burning coal to produce electrical power and replaced it with nuclear, it would be far better for everyone.
However, the potential and horrific dangers of nuclear accidents is very real, we also have to tend to the nuclear waste piling up. Why gamble with it? It is possible and sensible to replace all coal fired and nuclear plants with clean renuable energy sources. Our National budget will spend $88 for war and the military for every $1 to promote and develop clean energy.
Kem you deserve my question!
Why isn't it the nuclear that have done such a fast change on our planet climate ? Why the faulf should be on CO2 only ? How could we be saying for sure that after a certain desintegration nothing is going up and away where it is accumulated and destroying the ozone layer or something like so that is protecting some rays to reach us? I am not saying that fossil fuel should not be controled but why suddenly nuclear is the green cousin that will save us? I have brought an experience where kenpotter found that a daughter produc as radon 225 was possibly the emanation that goes out of a 1 microcurie and could be detected esealy. We are talking of one millionth of a curie. How curies are there in just one nuclear plant fuel when it is full of neutrons bombarding ? And after, how many million of curies remain in the fuel that have been used ? To this, multiplied by the number of plant there is on the planet and all gabages that are sending emanations somewhere. If only one gram or 10 grams of uranium is giving energy that is coresponding to 2000 pounds of coal, I understand that thre will be no smoke that we can see from the nuclear reactions, but where all this energy go ? Not only in work? Lot's of garbages we can see, but may be lot's of emanations we dont see. How come I have recorded at a place 1000 km from TMI, a radioactive cloud of radioactivity I could say it was not from our plant? It must have been enormous, and at what height it was travelling this distance ? I believe this is not simple as some thinks, I believe that there is a reaction, possibly some kind of a chain reaction that is taking place somewhere at high altitude even if this look as science fiction . Taking my simple experience that I will put on YouTube, at one feet of my alpha detector and blowing very lightly over a 1 microcurie source, I have there enough ionisation taking place to discharge an electrode and this even if I am doing this experience where water vapours are present. I think you can take me for a fool but I have doubt that nuclear is not free from consequences we dont even think presently as Einstein was just guessing that his calculation would not make a bigger part of the sky to ionise and put into plasma, the A bomb.
Sim
SIM, the British have had teams studying the ocean water temperatures beneath that southern Anarctic ice shelf for the past ten years. They also have thousands of ice core samples, which prove beyond any argument, the global warming problem we are now experiencing is caused from humanity burning fossil fuels, unlike the global warming which occurred some 50 billion years ago.
That last 'major' global warming episode was caused by the impact of a huge asteroid and subsequent massive earthquakes. Almost all life on our planet was eradicated at that time. It will be again in a few short years, when the arctic methane gas erupts into our atmosphere. Of course over the following eons, the planet will have the necessary time for the "man made" nuclear waste to decay. Hopefully the oceans phytoplankton will live through it and life may once again surface on this unique, one of a kind water planet in the universe.
Fine
So Radon 225 is the emanation that my detector is recording ! Does it have the same proprieties than radon 222 ? If it is radon I am detectin my detector is more sensible than I think. Just a little push of air over the source and I have an instant reading of nearly full scale. I have a ''rad owl from Eberline '' and I am making comparizon but my detector is more sensible than this rad owl to witch I have been removing 4 thickness of metallized mylar. Now with your indications I will be making experimentation knowing what I am doing.
Very interesting kenpotter
Below is the TMI accident reported from hour to hour. How could it be so easy for an operator to make such a enormous mistake ? Frightening isn't it?
TMI Accident Summary
Washington Office: 1616 P Street NW Suite 310 • Washington DC 20036-1495 • 202-332-0900 • FAX: 202-332-0905
Cambridge Headquarters: Two Brattle Square • Cambridge MA 02238-9105 • 617-547-5552 • FAX: 617-864-9405
California Office: 2397 Shattuck Avenue Suite 203 • Berkeley CA 94704-1567 • 510-843-1872 • FAX: 510-843-3785
The Three Mile Island accident began about 4:00 a.m. on March 28, 1979 – exactly one year to the hour after the
plant first achieved nuclear criticality – when the main feedwater pumps stopped running. The main feedwater
pumps are shown in the lower right corner of the turbine building. Valves in the piping between the demineralizers
and the main feedwater pumps inadvertently closed while workers performed maintenance. The main feedwater
pumps automatically stopped because they no longer had any water to pump.
The water level in the steam generators dropped after the main feedwater pumps stopped. The decreasing level
automatically started the emergency feedwater pumps, shown to the left of the demineralizers. The emergency
feedwater pumps are not intended to allow the plant to continue making electricity. Instead, they ensure that heat
continues to be removed from the reactor core. The emergency feedwater pumps started, but water did not get to the
steam generators because block valves located downstream of the pumps were closed. The backup system had been
tested two days earlier. When the test was completed, the block valves were mistakenly left in the closed position.
The loss of main and emergency feedwater flow to the steam generators meant that the heat produced by the reactor
core was not transferred to the secondary loop and carried away as steam. The pressure of the primary loop water
increased as it absorbed the energy released by the reactor core. Plants like Three Mile Island are equipped with a
pressurizer attached to the primary loop piping between the reactor vessel and the steam generators. The pressurizer
– shown just to the right of the center of the reactor building – is a large metal tank. Like the overflow reservoir for a
car radiator, it permits water to expand and contract due to temperature changes while keeping the primary loop
piping, or engine cooling system, filled with water. The rising pressure in the primary loop caused the pilot-operated
relief valve on the pressurizer to automatically open. Seconds later, the reactor automatically shut down and the
primary loop pressure decreased. The pilot-operated relief valve was designed to automatically re-close, but it failed
to do so. As a result, water from the primary loop continued to flow out the open valve.
Two minutes after the accident began, the high pressure injection pumps – shown in the auxiliary building –
automatically began supplying cooling water to the reactor vessel. This makeup flow rate was more than enough to
compensate for the water leaving through the stuck-open relief valve. Unfortunately, the operators manually stopped
the high pressure injection pumps two minutes later. They mistakenly thought there was too much water in the
primary loop. As the primary loop pressure dropped after the reactor shut down, a lot of bubbles formed similar to a
March 22, 1999 Page 2
Oops, I meant a bit __ LESS __ than the amount I had first stated. I quoted a very good book for my figures Mr. Potter. What do you use for yours, __ imagination?
On the contrary ~KENDPOTTER~, the amount of plutonium produced by a 1,000 reactors with the figures Billy and Rocky cited, is close to the amount I stated and far, far, far more than the amount you stated. Apparantly you have a reading disabilty, along with being a rude and obnoxious person when you disagree with an honest opinon I offer.
Sim 754,
Radon 225 is a daughter product of Am 241. They are both part of the Neptunium series (4n +1 chain).
Looking at the website Bill put up, it looks like worldwide production of plutonium is 120,000 pounds about half of which is Pu-239 (fissle). That is a hell of a lot more than I thought was being produced and a hell of a lot less then Kem's citation. We need some fast-flux reactors built to burn that crap up.
KEM
Very interesting, I could even add those informations to the book about Belle-Isle,
You know what should be fun? Having a bunch of experts like you to imagine virtualy what could realy happen if part of this 10 miles or so of water separating Labrador from New-Foundland was blocked, remaining about 1000 feet opening in the center. They even mentioned that Boston and New-England could have a change in temperature. THis was way back in 1870 or so.
Imagining billions of gallons of very cold water not entering in the Gulf is may be science fiction, but they made the Panama Canal in the beginning of last century when no instruments such as we have now were used.
Dont you worry, I will not start the projet right now, just later.
Sim
Having fun is the principal,
One of the huge ice shelfs in Anarctica, perhaps the most important, is responsible for having the most influence over our climate. That shelf goes out into the ocean for more than 400 miles and is about three miles thick. It acts like a huge suction pump, the water sucks in under it, billions of gallons an hour, the water cools and then flows out into the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. That very important ice shelf, is now melting and breaking up at an alarming rate.
Just for fun I will put this project on YouTube to have more answers like yours, that are already very interesting.
And David or Kem or Bill, I have been working on an alpha detector that is quite simple and not expensive at all that I will also be putting on YouTube so you can see the parts needed to buid it and try it at different places in the world. I am sure it could be put modified to measure very small amount of radioactivity alpha as I already can detect 100 time less than one microcurie of am241 with witch I am making experiences.
Only a cmos integrated circuit is needed and of course an ionisation chamber.
I have a question here: If I blow over the one microcurie source and send the radioactive gas to the détector, I have a nearly intantaneous response on a 25 microamp meter. My question is : This is not radon I am pushing to the detector, as I am not using radium or uranium, so how can we be calling this ionisatin clouds coming from the am241 ? Is it the daughter product of am241 ? I am missing interesting details that would be giving me answers I lok for since a certain time.
For you my three atomic experts, what emanation is this over the americium 241 sources, and could my detector be able to sniff radon in a few hours periods, as I am approching of being able to detect 1000 pci.
I will put the schematic of my detector on YouTube and possibly an experience on camera.
Sim
Hi Kem, Hi Sim. On the sci fi project...well, I would argue also as an avid sci-fi fan that sci-fi LEADS applied science by decades AND with sci-fi to stimulate ideas, we would be worse off for it. The project you mentioned sounds like an interesting way to...stem global warming...or bring on a new ice age!!! Whoaaaaa!! The Gulf Stream is what keeps Europe like New Engliand and not the northern parts of Quebec...even though they are on the same latitude.
Many of the theories on global iceages stem from this since dovetail with global warming. Sea level rises from general warming, this causes the colder, denser water in the artic to barrel down through the Greenland/Iceland gap, cooling the Atlantic and disrupting the Gulf Stream causing first European temperatures to plundge, then the rest of the northern hemisphere. Scary, huh?
Yes, plutonium can be 'totally changed'. Matter can be coverted to energy and/or through nuclear 'alchemy' change it's composition to other more safer...or dangerous...elements. This is a basic aspect of nuclear physics. If you think of the thorium fuel cycle..you are litterally taking thorium, changing it to an *completely different element*, protractium, and then AGAIN *completely changing it* into a different element, U233.
The idea is there is already several thousand tons of plutonium...if we burn it in breeder reactors or evan the current fleet of ligth or heavy water reactors, we would reduced *it's volume*. This is a good thing, isn't it Kem?
David
Thank you David. Can plutonium be totally destroyed by man, after man has manufactured it? We cannot use totally clean energy, unless we develop all types, geo-thermal, solar, tidal, and wind, combined with hydro, not just wind generation.
I forgot to mention David, that helped me also.
Thank you David
Sim
Bill and Kem; I never had so mutch talking of nuclear and wind power and E=mc2.
I want to bring you on a very special subject that is kind of science fiction but imaginable. In 1989 I found a book in a University in Quebec.
This book was about a person that have been reading some reports of a captain that had imagined in the past that it could be feasable (possible), to close in part The Belle-Isle (détroit) to stop the freezing water coming from Labrador or from the Artic from cooling those regions in the Saint-Laurence Gulf. (sorry I still have to practice my english). Those gentlemen from the beginning of last century though that by stoping the iceberg and cool water below the surface by installing a big dam, a big wall, we could be controling the climate of New-Foundland and regions of the north coast of Quebec. The work they had imagined was as big as nothing habe been done like it before so that is why I am talking of science fiction. When I said the idea was to close this section separating Labrador from New-Foundland, I must be adding, leaving 500 feet in the center of the rock wall to let the ships passing and all what is travelling in water as well as fishs. Of course this is not very easy to explain you here what exactly those men had in their head, the book that is explaining their idea is 300 pages long with all calculations to support their vue. I am refering to you two because this is not to anybody to understand, like how the water is entering in the Saint-Laucence river, (the Gulf), and what is the Coriolis movement because of the direction the earth is turning that is producing a centrifugal action that is pushing the water to enter in the gulf. Like I said, this is more a science fiction idea but if one day we are in very bad shape here on earth because everything is melting up in the north and we are freezing or the contrary we dont know, we may have to think to control the climate this way.
I will have a YouTube clip that will try to explain what I am bringing here. The person that have wrtten the book is from Quebec, La Beauce, his name is René Carrier, and the book that is selling on the net has this unusual title''( FERMEZ LA PORTE ON GÈLE'').
Thank yo and if you succeed in reading my bad english you will have fun imagining all of what those gentlemen had in their heads.
Imagine 100,000 miles sqare of water increasing by 6 degree of temperature.
If you look for sim754 in the researche engine on youtube you will find this clip I will be making soon.
Sim
"Is it possible for anything to be totally destroyed? I understand that everything, down to the microbal level, is composed of atoms. Can any and everything be burned to such a crisp, that the atoms are all gone, as if they never existed? If the atoms of a substance were deadly to life, would they be vaporized, gone forever, like magic? Just a question from one who isn't so smart."
This turned out to be an interesing discussion. To question above...matter can change 'state'. Matter can be coverted to energy. That's what fission does. Accelerators and fusion torches (in theory) can turn any element into another element close to it on the periodic table.
Quebec/NB. If I were a Canadian I would be jumping for joy to export such a valuble commodity as energy to the Yankees South of the Border. If New Brunswick wants to build a set of ACEL 1200's...it's a win-win situation for the Province...and at many levels we can discuss if you are interested.
Solar/Wind. For every KW produced by either, burning fossil fuel goes down. That's always a good thing. But...there are huge reliability issues with both. With wind, when you build "4000 MWs" of wind for 4 billion dollars Canadian, you don't "get 4000 MWs" you only get about 1500 MWs because wind only gives you a 30% availability/capacity factor. So those 1500 MWs cost more like 4 billion dollars Canadian and that's what you are paying for.
I'm only "against" wind because you have to have backup/on-demand energy available for the *instant* the wind dies down...economies of scale suggest strongly that one could, in theory, build out to 20% your load. Anything more than that means you have to have fossil/hydro/nuclear to take up the slack...so investing over 20% you will be wasting one's money.
I could live with this to make everyone 'feel good': 80% nuclear (like the French have) and 20% 'renewables'. That would work.
Anyone yet figure out how to get rid of all the waste that exists at nuclear power plants?
David
Thank you once again ~Billy~. BTW, before your head blows up, I think DWALTERS is probably a bit smarter than you are. But then you're smarter than Kendpotter, but that I suppose isn't exactly a compliment.
I'm sure your post was correct, What I was sneaking at with my last question is, some have said, plutonium can be "burned" as nuclear fuel and then it doesn't require us to store it away for millions of years. I can see where the atoms can be split up and then the seperate end products may weigh less, but isn't it still deadly plutonium, or does it convert to a less deadly by-product, or a totally safe product?
It was my understnding, that once plutonium is manufactured, from using uranium for fuel in a nuclear reactor, the plutonium is indestructable.
Kem,
A guy a whole lot smarter than me (he had more hair too) said E=mc^2. Matter is not destroyed but converted to energy. My post at 6:54 is correct. That is where nuclear power comes from. When you split a uranium atom the resulting pieces weigh less than the atom you started with.
(There is an equivalent mass loss with burning coal or oil also but that is a different story. Good luck measuring it.)
Regards,
Bill
OBTW, you and SIM are giving me a swelled head. Thanks.
Wind and solar power have their drawbacks, however there are wind power generators being developed which will function in all types of wind speeds, gusts, etc, by use of divergent and convergent ducting and the use of heavy flywheels, all located at ground level. Geo-thermal is one of the best sources of clean and re-nuable energy, as is tidal reliable. The tides are predicted for years in advance. No waste, no cost for fuel and no deadly emissions. The technology for a massive worldwide program to use those sources is already available, the money is not.
"If sunbeams were viable weapons of war, we would have had solar energy centuries ago."
~Sir George Porter~ __ ~Nobel Lauerate in Chemistry~
Is it possible for anything to be totally destroyed? I understand that everything, down to the microbal level, is composed of atoms. Can any and everything be burned to such a crisp, that the atoms are all gone, as if they never existed? If the atoms of a substance were deadly to life, would they be vaporized, gone forever, like magic? Just a question from one who isn't so smart.
A neat guy isn't he. he's smart too.
Bill
You are realy well informed,
Pleasure learning from you,
Sim
SIM,
The additional reactor in New Brunswick would be to meet growing demand in the province and to export power to the US. Point Lepreau is near the border with Maine and already exports power to the northeast US. The northeast has a severe problem with NIMBY on all forms of power generation.
If Quebec can meet all its electric power needs with renewables that is great. I understand that Quebec also exports electricity to the US.
Bill
Bill,
I understand New-Brunswick is looking for a second Candu, but for Quebec the last message from the President of Hydro-Quebec that is at the same time the conclusion of my Provincial Gouvernment in Quebec, is that 4500Mw will be added in hydroelectric power and 4000Mw of wind power. There was not a single word on nuclear. If New-Brunswick is situated far from available water falls, they may be obligated to use something else to cover their needs. We dont have this problem in Quebec so why should we bother with nuclear to sell Candu ? To be used as show room only?
Thank You Billy, then my comment about the amount of plutonium produced anually is correct, not made up as Ken so rudely stated.
We did have bees we ordered from a place in Oregon, we've had them for years also zillions of wild honey bees, whic we must be wary about as they are all killer bees in our area, had a neighbor stung to death two years ago. Ours lived in small hollow stick like houses that came with them. We had to order a lot more of those houses over the years. They weren't honey bees, no stingers. There are over 20,000 specie of bees. We didn't have any last year. They just disappeared and no one around here for miles uses pesticides andour garden is organic.
This is the first year in the recorded history of this county that the oak trees had no acorns. Our entire half million acre valley is full of red and white oaks.__ NO acorns. That's the primary food for the wildlife here. __ Not good.
David,
It is so interesting what you are explaining here that I will take additional informations from the welders and I will come back. May be I did not explained as I should have the way they were performing the job and metal they have been welding.
Thank's for now, you must have been working in a very specialized place.
SIM754:
I don't have an answer for you directly as I'm have surface knowledge of the CANDUs you use in Canada. They are a great value right now, as for upgrading them, I really don't have answer I'm sorry.
On wind...no...you don't need *strong* winds, you need *steady* winds. All wind turbines shutdown at speeds greated than manufacturers specs. Generally, in the winter, everwhere, during these gail force storms, there is very *little* wind power in fact.
kenpotter: yes and no. Thorium was also used a shippingport *very sucessfully*, in fact they ended up, by accident, with more fuel than they started with. The process, simply put, is the th decays to protractium and in 24 days, decays to U-233. During this period, the protractium is essentially has to be shield from neutron or it will *not* decay into usable fissionable uranium (the "poisons" you mentioned). So methods have to be developed to use thorium in a way that allows it to decay fully to U-233. There are different ways, with both solid and liquid fuels.
Serge, on the issue of welding. First, welding stainless is nasty to begin with as your welders will attest. Maybe welding galvanized steel is worse. I've done both (not well, and in class). I do not know about the cases you mention. I know Dr. John Southerland who has worked a nuclear health physicist on your CANDUs. He's told me that any such dossage that is big enough to cause *any* harm would of been all over the plant, with alarms going off everywhere. So...only based on what you said, and having welded myself (Tig/mig and stick) that it's the welding of SS that is the problem.
D
David
SIM,
The operators of the Gentilly site will have to pay the cleanup costs sooner or later. If Gentilly is not retubed, they will pay it sooner. Also, if it is not refurbished, an alternative source of that power must be available to replace it. (Alternative power will also have to be available during the refurbishment.)
I don't know the power situation in Ontario but New Brunswick is studying adding a second reactor at Point Lepreau.
Bill
Kem,
Using a 1GW reactor as an example (this is bigger than most of the US reactors currently in operation but smaller than the new ones being proposed): your used fuel removed per year would be about 27 metric tons (2200 pounds). Most of this removed fuel is still uranium. About 4% would be fission fragments. About 1% would be plutonium or about 600 pounds per year. This plutonium would be a mixture of various isotopes. About 60% of the plutonium would be Pu-239. About 35% would be Pu-240 which would make this material unsatisfactory for weapons use. The rest would be a mixture of other isotopes. Here is a link which gives close but not identical numbers: http://www.uic.com.au/nip09.htm.
Just as an aside, if you very carefully weighed a ton of that used fuel, about 2/3 of an ounce would be missing (the equivalent of about 2 tablespoons of water). E=mc^2 in the real world.
Kem, a Davy Crockett with depleted uranium would make a lousy weapon. Depleted uranium weapons depend on the kinetic energy (ie both high speed and heavy) to penetrate armor. The Davy Crockett, like other mortars and recoiless rifles is a very low velocity weapon. For practice, however, a depleted uranium warhead would have the same trajectory as a real one.
Regards,
Bill
PS. It is time to order a bee colony for your garden.
There was a thorium reactor built at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory. The neutron flux was at much higher energy levels than a uranium reactor and thus more difficult to shield against. Additionally, some of the fission products from the thorium reaction turned out to be poisonous (absorbing neutrons) to the reactor.
Why isn't thorium used DAVID?
You know when we had this big ice storm in 1998 in Quebec more than a million persons discovered the benefits of just being heated a bit and talking about windpower that some see as temporary used or alternative, during this ice storm, wind was so strong that if wind farms had been installed at certain places, only good brakes for overspinnings had been the nessacessry item to keep people out of freezing condition.In winter, the more wind we have the more heat out and what is decreasing temperatures, wind. I think we sould be using wind and solar wher we can for the moment and increasing technologies researches as years pass.
I have a good question for some of you ! Here in Quebec it is very possible that we will be refurbishing our only nuclear reactor Candu and it will be costing more than 2 billion. For Hydro-Quebec the message sent to journalist is that it will be costing 1.5 billion to renovate Gentilly 2 and 1.6 if we have to close it. To all inteligent and technical people here that knows nuclear a bit, I have this question ! How could we say that we will be spending 100 million more canadian dollars if we have never ever be in a dismanteling situation including nuclear. Could the plant that is now often stopped due to different usage damages be cleaned at best cost than it is predicted ? May be it is time to know how to close old plants at the better prices possible if we have in mind to build new one or even if we dont need to buil new one.
David v. yes, you are absolutely correct. Perhaps my only difference with you is that I do not lump in spent fuel/waste with mining as they are two different industries that have different potential effects. Quite honestly, if in Namibia or Niger someone heists a few pounds of yellow cake, I might raise an eyebrow but it's hardly worrisome. Additionally someone getting into a waste containment facility would have a hard time doing anyting with the stuff since it would probably kill him before they could do anything with it. But it's a serious problem anyway, and the point is that these issues can be addressed. And should be. And people *should* raise bloody hell about it. So whether it's Areva or Eskom dealing with it, they should be held accountable.
The mining issue is also managable. I know your description, as you posted here early on, is accurate, and, for all we know, worse. So, these issues are a function of occupational/community safety and health. They can be managed. If they can do it in the US, Brazil and China, they can do it in S. Africa, and should.
If you were paying attention, I'm not a big fan of uranium as fuel in any event. I much prefer thorium as no encirchment is needed (it can be used in it's natural form) and few waste products are created. In the US, all the thorium that has ever been mined is enough to run a 1000-reactor infrastructure for 3,000 years. And it can't be use for proliferation as one of it's daughter products is U233, which is impossible to refine out of the plutonium making it useless for weapons.
I think mining of uranium, to the degree that we need to do it has to be done with as careful conderation for the community as we have for the actual power plants. We have to put people before private profits, and, I just assume this sort of thing be nationalized anyway...and even then it's not an answer...maxium oversight and input from the community needs to be a *constant* presense in administration of uranium resources.
David
Dear Dave Walters and others, your discussion remains focused on nuclear energy plants (reactors), your discussion leaves mining out of the equation. Nuclear disasters go beyond problems associated with reactors. Pelindaba nuclear reactor spilled a large amount of radioactive uranium hexafloride into the Crocodile River causing a massive fish die-off. Uranium and gold mines in the catchment of the same river is also causing uranium flows into streams, dams and rivers. In this area children are born mentally retarded, and physically challenged in cancer ridden communities (Farmers Weekly, 25 February 2008). The security of the same Pelindaba Reactor was breached twice on the same night in December 2007 by gangsters who wanted to steal the computers in the control room. They surprised the control room manager who was in a compromising situation with his girl friend. This is one of the highest security sites in South Africa (which currently has only two reactors). Someone claiming to be from the National Intelligence Agency who threatened the journalist of the Pretoria News with all sorts of unpleasantries should the story of the theft be published. Some years ago an environmental NGO breached the site where the waste of this reactor was dumped. This waste was not fenced properly, there were no guards, no sign posts, not even the most elementary protection of this toxic site. Uranium is mined in the third world... we have very little security, and enforcing environmental and security controls and regulations seem nigh impossible. That is exactly why we in the Third World should stringently oppose uranium mining and nuclear power. If we cannot even guarantee the security of one nuclear plant how are we going to do so for dozens more?
South Africa could have better utilized the poorly thought through Lesotho Highlands water project to see to all its energy needs... but that would have limited the scope for the enrichment of the new elite. The USA should not cry if some fanatic reaps uranium from South Africa, Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia or Namibia for purposes of terror against the population of the USA. There is much more to nuclear power than just electricity.
KEM, almost. In fact much of the 'mass' of these fissionable elements does decay into nothingness. There is always some left over, obviously. The radioactive crap that is left in spent nuclear fuel is mostly irradiated uranium 238...that actual 'fissionable' material is U 235 of which in most reactors there is basically about 3 to 5%. In nature, U235 is only .7% of uranium, 99.3% being U238. This is why you see the term "enrichment", the are trying to increase that .7% to more than 3%. At any rate, some of the U238 decays to Plutonium. Much of the U235 is still there and the bulk of the U238 is, of course still there too. This is why pro-nuclear technology people (meaning I'm for the technology, not the "industry" necessarily) are for recycling. Every reprocssed step helps reduce the total volume of waste a few percentage points.
There are other reactor types that burnup even more fuel in one multi-year shift. The more "burn up" the better, the less "waste". The newest crop of nuclear reactors actually use less fuel than the current fleet, and we get less waste (even if total volume increases because we are building more reactors).
And yes, there is some highlevel radioactive waste left. But in my "Challenge" to people, I pointed out that ONLY reactor-burning, reprocessing or other forms of fission-disposal can reduce signifcantly the amount of waste we have now, including plutonium.
David
Why electric cars have not been imagined to be propulsed by the power of steam coming from a nuclear reaction ? Why if nuclear is so acceptable that since the 60 we have not been able to secure a small nuclear reactor to run our cars if we have been succeding imagining small reactors elsewhere ? I have heard that Toshiba will be manufacturing a unit that is nuclear, to put in a building for heating or cooling. Why we dont have eachothers a car that we can fill up ourself with plutonium or mov?
Is it not because we would be throwing radioactive pollution too near from our mouth ? So that is why chimneys are still being used at some nuclear plants I suppose.
Wow ~DAVID~ There is something I never knew. Of course there are lots of things I never knew.
But, you are telling us, that once plutonium is manufactured that to get rid of it, we just burn it up in a reactor using it for fuel. Like a stack of coal, we burn it and it's gone, and there is nothing, or very little left. I never knew that.
You know, when we burn a hunk of wood, it's gone, there are ashes of course and smoke. I always thought that every atom that was in that hunk of wood, was still present, either in the ashes and or drifted off in the smoke. I never knew until today that we could burn somethng up until there was nothing left, no atoms at all. ___ Wow, sounds like there is no problem with atomic waste then. Just burn it up.
I think I understand where the confusion is. 225 KGs per reactor works out to approx 500 lbs of plutonium. Multiplied by 1000 reactors (we have 100 in the US so taht would by x100) would give you 500,000 lbs or, for the United States, 5,000 lbs a year. But it's less than that. Why? Because you are giving GROSS figures for each reactor. It's true, each reactor will *produce* that much Pu. But 96% of THAT is burned up in the reactor! Pu makes a great reactor fuel, capturing more neutrons than U235.
Most reactors by the end of their fuel cycle (4 1/2 years) is burning MOSTLY Pu, not U235. All reactors, in otherwords, 'breeds' it's own fuel varying degrees.
The US currently fuels all it's reactors with about 50% of Russian ex-WMD Plutonium. Should we *stop* doing this? Do you want to get rid of the Pu? If you do the ONLY answer is to burn it as reactor fuel.
David
Rock and Roll,
I think the problem with your calculations is that the fuel is hardly burned up when it is withdrawn from a power reactor. 95% of the fissionable uranium remains, it is simply tainted with activation and fission products that "poison" the reactor. This is why the French and others recycle their fuel. It is foolish to bury it after once through like is done in this country. It's like filling the 20 gallon tank on your car with one gallon and pouring 19 gallons on the ground.
There were eight plutonium production reactors at Hanford. Graphite moderated and specifically designed (fuel type and operations) for plutonium production. All eight could barely produce the kind of figure you are talking about and power reactors produce considerably less.
An update on Chalk River:
Canada snubbed international efforts to protect isotope supply, report says
Canada could have avoided the recent medical isotope crisis if supplier MDS Nordion had joined international efforts to co-ordinate global production, a report in the Canadian Medical Association Journal says.
The article Monday in the journal said MDS Nordion wouldn't co-operate with Europe's two large-scale isotope suppliers — Nuclear Research and Consultancy Group in the Netherlands, and the Institut National des Radioelements in Belgium.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/02/04/chalk-river.html
Found the original Canadian Medical Association Journal article:
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/rapidpdf/cmaj.080154
Hope you get some pollinating inscets. We didn't last year and our garden failed. It was awful and the weather was great.
I'd be ok with nuclear power if and when it becomes cheap, safe, and non monopolistic (i.e. I can hook one up to my roof next to my solar). I'm not holding my breath. I'm not setting down to a banquet of poisonous mushrooms (although I might be tempted with psychedelic) even though the cook assures me that an antidote will be forthcoming by meals end.
The god's of science can only do so much. Both of my father's parents died of cancer in the late 40's and even though I was rather young I can still remember my father saying that the doctors told him that it was an untimely tragedy, because in 3-4 years medicine would have a cure for cancer. This story if repeated in hundreds, no even thousands of different ways by contemporary "scientific dreamers." Look at how much manpower and treasure was spent to find the the fictional "Northwest Passage."
Maybe there will be some tremendous scientific breakthrough that enables us to continue living our profligate life styles. Maybe all those "Popular Science" covers were prophetic and we'll all swirl around in our very own jet propelled flying machines with out any road rage. Maybe the elite will have their own privately gated Manhattan Project so that can have an 11 hour escape from the dying embers of this rotting earth and pollute the rest of the near universe in an entrepreneurial frenzied chain letter with no end.
Secretly, I think we all want to slow down, to get to know each other; to not only smell the flowers but plant some.... and who knows maybe Obama is a start. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, my solar panels pointed south and my garden well composted.
Thank you very much for the reply ~Rocky~ Guess the book I quoted was pretty accurate.
In that case, I wonder how many tons of plutonium is presently being SAFELY stored in the United States?
In 1974, the AEC, grudgenly admitted to Congress, that several tons of the "strictly controlled" poison, was missing and unaccounted for. They presumed it was LOST in the industrial process. A rather frightening presumption eh. Wonder what my dear "friend" Kendpotter may wonder about this?
I understand France has a sure fire and permanent method of getting rid of theirs. And we get rid of depleted uranium, by making cannon shells and bombs with it. Strictly controlled atomic waste. __ Yeah sure.
David!
I have a question for you about thoriated rods that are used for welding stainless steel with argon. I have a couple of welders that all got cancers after having been in ou Nuclear plants Gentilly 1 and 2. Could it be possible that alphas have contaminated them at first over a long period that they were grinding their rods in contaminated areas and holding them in their mouth. Could it be possible that a dose so accumulated under the skin at some esealy reachable places on an infected skin, can be irradiated again by neutrons or strong gammas and this way developping tumors and cancers ? Have you seen this in your laboratories ? Many welders are waiting for an answer over here.
Thank you,
Serge
Kem Patrick:
Weapon grade plutonium is almost pure Pu-239. It is produced in reactors built for this purpose and extracted from the irradiated fuel which has a very short burn cycle.
Longer burn cycles as used in commercial power reactors will yield a mix of plutonium isotopes that have a higher spontaneous fission rate which is highly undesirable for use in nuclear weapons.
At times commercial reactors have been known to be abused for plutonium production. This is one of the reasons the U.K. built graphite moderated, gas cooled reactors: they do not need to be shut down in order to change fuel, as PWR's and BWR's do.
Furthermore, if you have seen my previous post: 400,000 pounds of plutonium a year for 1000 commercial power reactors is quite close to my calculated 225 kg a year for a single 1000MW PWR reactor. Keep in mind that many existing reactors are smaller, with the average single *reactor* being 600-800 MW but most *plants* have more than one.
Bill,
That's a good deal better. The study is a bit optimistic, but only slightly so...
However, my principal objection to nuclear still stands: Too expensive, too complicated, too difficult to make fail-safe.
Greenpeace recently published a report on the economics of nuclear energy. Say what you will about Greenpeace, but the report is well-researched and solid - and if one's prepared to accept documentation from proponents of nuclear, one should be equally prepared to accept documentation from opponents of nuclear...
Get it here: http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/media/reports/the-economics-of-nuclear-power
dwalters,
One metric ton of 3.3% enriched uranium fuel for a PWR - which is pretty typical for most existing reactors, once exhausted will result in about 9 kg of plutonium.
A 1000MW(e) plant running at max capacity for one year will burn about 25 metric tonnes of such fuel, resulting in approx. 225 kg of plutonium.
The data comes from my old but still quite valid reference on nuclear energy: Prof. J.D. Fast, "Energie uit atoomkernen", Maastricht 1980.
A nuclear riffle used in 1962 by the US army.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khyZI3RK2lE
~John Randolph~ Do you have something against using solar, wind, geo-thermal energy with no cost for fuel and no danger of nuclear waste? Fusion is a dream, the scientists are not sure it would ever work. We need clean energy NOW, not twenty to thiry years or more from now. The technology to develop ample clean energy for our needs is available and ready to go. The money to fund a program isn't, ___ it will be for nuclear though.
Brontoburger,
Your wish is reality. There has been for several years a program called "megatons to megawatts".
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was a brief (alas too brief) period of lower tensions. The US and Russia agreed to reduce the inventory of nuclear weapons and demilitarize the nuclear material. The weapons material is both highly enriched uranium and nearly pure plutonium-239.
The easier of these two materials to demilitarize is the highly enriched uranium. Both the US and the Russians have been doing this for several years by diluting the weapons grade uranium with natural or depleted uranium. This material is then marketed as commercial reactor fuel.
Demilitarizing the plutonium is not as straightforward. France has been burning plutonium in its reactors for several years but this is reactor grade plutonium not weapons grade plutonium.
The US has now demonstrated weapons grade plutonium in a US power reactor. (It was fabricated for us by the French in their MOX factory. I don't know the special security arrangements for weapons grade plutonium but I am sure there were some.) We are currently constructing a high security fuel plant at Savannah River to make MOX fuel from the weapons grade plutonium.
Bill
SIM,
Just as a guess, I would say xenon or iodine. There was gaseous release during the accident at TMI-2.
Bill
Very interesting Bill but we had an independant detector for iodine near our big chimney at Gentilly 1 in Quebec in 1979 and when we took this reading we were up over the reactor containment or near there. Xenon make sense and let me congratulate you for having brought those answers that we are looking for on the downwinders forum where we speak often of the work of Sternglass and Gofman with people that have worked with them.
Regards,
Serge
John Randolph,
I join you in supporting fusion. It is not a solution for today, however. The next generation fusion reactor, the ITER, is in the early stages of manufacture. It is to be built in France and, hopefully, to have first plasma in about 10 years. See www.iter.org.
Unfortunately, the US has again dropped out of the ITER research consortium. (It may be that we only temporarily rejoined to try and derail the reactor from being built in France as payback for not supporting the US in Iraq.)
The ITER is still a research reactor. Perhaps the next reactor beyond it will be a commercially viable power generator.
Certainly the ITER schedule would benefit from increased funding (China has picked up the slack from the US funding cut) but it cannot be built tomorrow by throwing money at it. I worked briefly on some of the magnets for an earlier and smaller tokamak reactor and we had a long list of things in the category of "how the hell are we going to do that".
Bill
Why do we need so mutch energy anyway ? Where does it shows that we as individuals have made progress in using our energy? Does the power companies are congradulating those that are taking care of not spending to mutch energy or are they waiting only for the cash to come ? We have been using microwave owens that cooks in 10 minutes instead of hours. We have lamps that are using less electricity. We have now leds that are using ten times less power and last longer. We have been modifiing things to use less energy as individuals, but if a company that has not modified his installation and keep using 500 megawatts to run, where can we see the efforts that the simple citizen make ?
I think we could all support the use of nuclear energy if it were used to generate electricity from weapons grade material.
Imagine if we could reverse our collective stupidity of nuclear armament by using the bad stuff to make good stuff - electricity. Then we would eliminate one horroble world-destroying threat by using the same technology that made the bad stuff a generation before.
Of course this is the only time I think I can support nuclear power.
What all of these comments have left out is that there is an alternative - fusion energy.
Unlike fission which produces long-lived isotopes that will poison generations to come, fusion produces short-lived isotopes which quickly breakdown into totally safe helium. In addition, unlike fission that can get out of control easily, the fusion reaction is barely sustainable with the greatest effort - so there isn't a risk of another TMI or Chernobyl. No greenhouse gases, no long term poisoning of our environment and no risk of an ecological disaster.
To achieve this we need a Manhattan Project of Energy on a national level to get away from hydroelectric (which kills rivers), coal/oil (with its GHGs, airborne mercury and particulates) and nuclear fission (which is a ticking time bomb of waste and costs billions in dealing with the waste). On the local level, increasing energy efficiency will go far in reducing our footprint, but solar and wind power is not a net gain in total energy output - ie the production of solar cells and wind/water turbines take more energy than they can produce, so you have to have some other fuel source ultimately. Fusion could fit the bill.
KEM,
IF,and I say if (because your track record is pretty crappy) that is what the book "Turn Off The Plutonium", says, then they are making up their "phacts" too.
It doesn't matter if you want it to be so, think it should be so, or desperately need it to be so, it aint so. And making up stuff doesn't add to the strength of your argument.
I meant to say, not as dangerous as a nuclear power plant accident. Scuuuuuuze me.
Not accordng to the book, Turn Off The Plutonium ~KENDPOTTER~. Check it out.
A thousand nuclear reactors, would produce 400,000 pounds of plutonium every year.
I also am not a member of any church or a coven. I used the words "Ticking Time Bombs", in reference to nuclear power plants. You have some sick desire to mock my word usage, and as usual, attempt to start a silly argument with me, to satisfy your ego, or whatever.
I, like all humans, accept dangers daily. I have a chain saw, power tools, guns, vehicles and ride on boats and aircraft. I flew combat missions for several years. We all have to accept dangers in life.
I do believe, humanity should not have to fear a nuclear power plant, or a nuclear waste storage area accident,__ but we do have to. I would like to see nuvlear and coal power use ended and have clean energy. That's the issue here, not my choice of word usage that any can understand.
All of those things I mentioned as an analogy, could be likened to ticking time bombs, but none are near as dangerous or deadly as a nuclear power plant and that's the point, not your silly, abusive, insulting, personal attacks and arguments.
Kem, Kenpotter is correct. Plutonium comes in grams, or, rather, kilograms at best. The dangerous part of Spent Nuclear fuel are all the other fission products that get radiated along with, and are creatred by fission. There is about 50 tons a every 18 months. I believe the total amount of US nuclear reactor waste is up to about 8,000 tons a year or some such number, for the 104 reactors we have going.
The fact that most of the plants will start operating past their 'lifetimes' should not be troubling. The original 40 year "life span" was a very gross estimate, desinged to be re-visited (some engineers though that maybe only 30 years would be the limit). Now, most engineers put *most* light water reactors out to a 60 to 80 year limit. Assuming this is safe, it makes amazing economic sense. Most older reactors are money machines since they've been paid for, the average cost to run one in the US is only 1.7 cents a KW and the average prices it's sold at is 3.5 cents for long term contracts.
None you my friends here who are anti-nuclear has risen the challange I poised. What happened? Cat go your tongue?
Peace Czar, "shilling"? I defend the technology, I would like to see all nuclear plants nationalized. This is why I run LEFT-Atomics. I don't call you a "Shill for the coal industry" do I? So, please don't insult our intelligence and respond to the science, not your wishful thinking.
David
r&r,
If you don't like the University of Wisconsin reference, here is another one from British Energy: http://www.british-energy.co.uk/opendocument.php?did=340.
BE summary says:
Torness nuclear plant is 5 grams/kwh
Coal is 900 g/kwh
Gas is 400g/kwh
Results are similar to the Univ. of Wisconsin study but not identical (it depends on the assumptions you make in the analysis). Note the units are different but equivalent.
There is also a study the Swedish government did on the Vatterfall reactor. Again with similar results.
Bill
KEM,
"An averaged size nuclear power plant produces half a ton of plutonium every year."
You are using "phacts" again, instead of facts. You are off the mark by a couple of orders of magnitude, again. Plutonium production in a power-generating reactor is in the area of grams, not pounds.
Would you quit making this shit up?
~DWALTERS~ Are you sure of the figures you posted of how much nuclear waste there is to store?
An averaged size nuclear power plant produces half a ton of plutonium every year, or about 15 tons from each plant over their normal lifetime. Many of the plants in operation are far past their designed lifetmes. That too is rather troubling. There are many other man made nuclear wastes besides plutonium to store away ___ forever.
KEM,
Planes and cars have killed far more people than nuclear power plants. Every single one of them is a "ticking time bomb" with a far higher propensity to "explode" than a reactor. The "nut" connected to the steering-wheel of a car is the least reliable component in all of engineering history. Quite obviously we need to ban all of them.
Chain saw accidents kill people every year - lets ban em.
Ships sink, let's ban those too. Sidewalks get icy, houses get moldy, some clothes aren't flame retardant. Drugs are dangerous and people catch life-threatening infections from getting their teeth cleaned.
I swear to God, Allah, Buddah or whatever witch's coven you belong to - You won't be happy unless we are naked, shivering in a cave.
What's the rate for shilling for the nuke industry on these threads? I could use some extra $$$, preferably those that glow bright green...
Billy_y4,
The "reference" you mentioned - http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/pdf/fdm1181.pdf - is about carbon emission equivalents from photovoltaics and from state of the art gas plants. The data for nuclear and wind are taken from another study by one S. White: "Net energy payback and CO2 emissions from Helium-3 Fusion and wind electrical power plants", 1998.
Regrettably, this study is not available on line. I suspect I would have had a few good laughs reading it. Especially since a *working* fusion reactor has thus far eluded us. Also note that wind has made pretty giant strides in efficiency since 1998...
Finally, BOTH dissertations were published by an entity called "The Fusion Research Institute" - in other words, some of those people who have been telling us for the last thirty years that we'll have a working fusion reactor in thirty years.
Next time, come up with a better reference. There might be people who actually download and read the stuff - I sure do - and then rightly proceed to shoot holes in your line of reasoning.
The problem with estimating carbon emissions due to nuclear power plants is that nuclear technology has been always been shrouded in secrecy when it comes to details. Reliable data especially about nuclear fuel production, decommissioning costs, operating costs, waste treatment and storage costs is not available, usually with the excuse that if we publish this data, the Iranians will use it to help them in the production of mushroom clouds (now where have I heard this before)
dwalters,
"Burning up" nuclear waste might be possible in theory. But in practice, it is pure science fiction.
Nuclear technology is too costly, too complex, too difficult to make fail-safe. It violates one of the basic principles of engineering: KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid).
We have one nuclear reactor, that has been known to work reliably for billions of years, it's called the Sun. The energy it sends our way is more than sufficient for any needs we might have for ages and ages to come. Finding out how we can tap this stream of energy will prove far simpler for us than to try to build reliable nuclear reactors of our own.
Hi ~PEACE CZAR~
Google Arctic methnae gas. When the screen opens, scroll down to the article titled___ Arctic Methane Gas, A Ticking Time Bomb.__ It's all there, if we don't clean up our enviroment, and start very soon, like this year, our ass will be grass and the methane gas will be the Grim Reaper. That goes for our children's butts and any kids they may have too.
~KENDPOTTER~ "A ticking time bomb", when in reference to any atomc power plant, is my opinion. You don't like it, that's your opinion. I don't expect you and I to ever agree anyway. I also don't care if you don't like my word usage.
A loaded gun is a tickng time bomb, any operating vehicle is and any flying aircraft, or chain saw. Anythng man made is. Some man made machines or objects have the potential to seriously harm or kill someone, or a lot of people. Some have the potential to do a great deal of damage. A nuclear power plant is a man made "ticking time bomb" and the potential for death and destruction is far greater than any other man made item I can think of.
What else, other than a nuclear power plant, has man ever made, which if it had a disasterous failure, could kill thousands, or even millions, and destroy millions of acres of land ___ forever? That's a ticking time bomb in MY opinion. Go argue over word usage with someone who gves a shit.
SIM,
The youtube of the Davy Crockett is interesting. In addition to being too damn close to your target when you fired it, the DC had a 5 foot extension tube on the back of the warhead that dropped off about 50 feet from the firing point. It would drop on the heads of any perimeter defense the artillery unit had.
I have never heard of the Davy Crockett referred to as a rifle. I have always heard it referred to as a supercaliber mortar. In any event, it was quickly rendered obsolete by the Honest John rocket.
Thankfully, the army is no longer nuclearly armed.
Bill