Nuclear Power - why not?

[ChristianLoeschel]

It seems like everyone is up in arms about nuclear power. Understandably, the way it is currently handled is far from ideal, and nowhere near the "clean energy source" it has been promised to be. While not emitting significant amounts of greenhouse gases, the waste issue is, obviously, considerable.

The real question is, why is there no further push for the development of a safe, reliable Fast Breeder Reactor? In a standard, light-water nuclear reactor, about 1% of the total energy available gets used (Uranium 235), leaving behind immense amounts of non-fissionable waste (mainly Uranium 238). The idea in a fast breeder is to utilize fast neutrons given off by the fission of Uranium 235 to turn Uranium 238 into fissionable Plutonium 239 by 2 successive beta decays. Plutonium 239 then is used for energy just as Uranium 235 was. This boosts the efficiency of the reactor to, in theory 100%, and in practice to over 90%, leaving behind very little amounts of nuclear waste, and the trace nuclear waste has a halflife in the area of 30 to 50 years (as opposed to 24000 years for the waste generated by traditional lightwater reactors).

So you say "whats the problem? why arent we doing this everywhere?". Well, there are immense safety concerns. The first one that springs to mind is cooling of these reactors. The heat capacity of water is simply insufficient, and the coolant of choice is....liquid sodium. Sodium metal is obviously a problem, burning on contact with water, and oxidizing in contact with oxygen. However, in a closed system such as the cooling circuit in a nuclear plant, this isnt nearly as big an issue as one might think. Of course, if there IS a leak...

The bigger issue lies in how the plutonium 239 is made. If you paid close attention when I discussed the fundamental principle, there is one phrase that jumps out at you: "fast neutrons". Now, in a traditional nuclear reactor, EVERYTHING is done to regulate fast neutrons. There are so called control rods which have the sole purpose of intercepting fast neutrons as to prevent an uncontrolled chain reaction. A fast breeder reactor is basically an uncontrolled chain reaction, which poses a serious challenge to nuclear engineers.

However, it works! France (example: Super-Phenix, up and running since 1984 without incident) and Switzerland both have running fast breeder reactors, and I fully believe its worth the risk.

[Dardedar]

This boosts the efficiency of the reactor to, in theory 100%, and in practice to over 90%, leaving behind very little amounts of nuclear waste,...

DAR
Awesome.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Let's see - it's hellaciously expensive, requires all kinds of subsidies to get it going, takes at least 5 and closer to 10 years to build, and over 20 from going online to reach payback - those are all reasons to spend a fraction of those dollars for wind or solar, both of which can be generating electricity within 9 months of ground breaking (they don't have to be "complete" to go online). Biomass conversion is also a lot cheaper, we have the fuel in waste products of our very agrarian state (same principal - using what is currently a waste product and a big problem as a fuel significantly reduces both the volume and the toxicity of the resulting waste), and can be online in less than 5 years.

One of the biggies to think about - a light water reacter can melt down, but it cannot blow up. A fast breeder reactor can blow up. It's a sitting nuclear bomb. Not only is it a terrorist's dream, the pup can go up if even a minor earth shift cracks its cooling system so the liquid sodium comes in contact with either water or air. (Others have a problem with the fact that the fuel for a fast breeder reactor is bomb-grade plutonium - and in fact, Iran's attempts at creating the fuel for a fast breeder reactor is W's excuse for beating the war drums again.)

[ChristianLoeschel]

Oh I agree, there are huge issues with breeders. But I think you overestimate the money that needs to go into them. Heck, get with France and ask them about theirs, then try to improve it. Improving an existing concept is a good way to promote science in general. As far as the weapon grade plutonium goes...yeah, its in there. But theres a big problem:

An atomic bomb requires pure PU 239. >99.9% pure that is. Do you know how many people tried extracting pure plutonium 239 out of burn-elements? The Brits, French, Russians, and the US all tried it independently, and the results were rather embarassing to say the least, given the amount of money that was thrown at it. So that issue is moot (and by the way, also sheds some interesting light on the uproar about Iran).

Issues of safety for a breeder reactor are the biggest problem, but its nothing that cant be solved. Structural integrity, possibly less reactive coolants, that sort of thing. The terrorist threat...yeah Ill give you that one! But to be honest, if terrorists decided to go after a light-water reactor, that would do plenty of damage.

The efficiency of nuclear power is undeniable. Solar/wind power is all nice and well, and Im by no means against pushing it more, but at this point, those sources of power have absolutely abominable efficiency. Did I mention that Uranium 238 is immensly abundant, and 1 molecule of it provides as much power as 50 kilograms of coal? Basically, you can walk outside, and pick up any fist-sized rock. There you go, you just picked up more energy than you could spend in your entire lifetime. Thats an intriguing possibility, and one that I believe warrants further investigation.

[Doug]

Biomass conversion is also a lot cheaper, we have the fuel in waste products of our very agrarian state (same principal - using what is currently a waste product and a big problem as a fuel significantly reduces both the volume and the toxicity of the resulting waste), and can be online in less than 5 years.

DOUG
I've heard that's a bunch of shit.

Of course, the closer it is to Washington, the cheaper it would be to transport.

[ChristianLoeschel]

One of the biggies to think about - a light water reacter can melt down, but it cannot blow up.

Tschernobyl anyone?

[Doug]

DOUG
Double posts. The computer was acting up. Probably Alberto Gonzalez's boys hard at work.

[Dardedar]

DAR
I cleaned up some of the double posts. I noticed the site was pretty slow this morning.
I am all for subsidizing wind and solar (I bought two little solar panels Friday) and saving a lot via efficiency (I use the little fluorescent bulbs whereever I can), and I think these will become more competitive in the future but right now, there really is no comparison in the amount of electricity put out via a nuclear power plant and windmills or solar.

D.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

France used a lot of government money to set up their FBR. All nuclear plants take a lot of government money. They are too expensive for commercial companies to take nuclear on by themselves. All power plants are inherently dangerous. Every heat-producing plant except the LWR can blow up and the LWR can melt down. However, if either nuclear plant destructs, you have the radiation problem to deal with, as well as the initial damage. LWR fuel is hard-rock mined, with the accompanying environmental damage, including highly toxic mine tailings. LWR's have tons of waste we haven't figured out what to do with - stashed in barrels for over 50 years waiting for some future solution. The only really good thing I know of about FBR's is those stashed barrels of nuclear waste ARE the FBR fuel. However, FBR's can blow up due to the coolant - we don't need to set ourselves up a new scenario of hoping for a future solution. All heat-producing power plants take years to build - the non-nuclear average is 5 years, the nuclear closer to 10.

Biomass plants also take time to build, although, depending on what you are processing and what you are producing, it varies - averaging 3-5 years. Biomass can produce "natural gas", which can be utilized on site (chicken litter to provide energy for running the chicken house or landfill methane used to power an electric generation plant), can be fermented to produce ethanol and other burnable liquid fuels for vehicular usage. Post vols removal, the residue can be burned as fuel for more electricity generation or (if not containing heavy metals) spread on agricultural fields to replenish the topsoil. Biomass became economic when oil hit $50/barrel.

Solar from photovotaic cells is working from the moment you hook it up. Your house can be putting electricity into the grid through an intertie system in 6 weeks or less of ordering it. The efficiency rating for it is misleading, because of the amount of total power coming in that it is only turning 2-5% of into electricity - 3% of $1,000,000 is more than 100% of $1,000. One problem with solar is the environment problems of making the cells, which is already being reduced. There is no environmental issue once they are actually "online". Solar has multiple uses that may not create electricity or natural gas, but reduce or eliminate the need for it - solar water heaters, for example, and solar heated buildings (and other variations of "green architecture"). Giving you 20% of your fuel or reducing your need by an equivalent amount are the same thing. Solar is intermittent, and that must be planned for - but feeding into the net (intertie) really solves that problem, since other sources will pick up the slack - and design for solar will reduce the need.

Wind is producing electricity from the time the first generator is hooked into the grid. Wind farms go online in pieces, and the transmitter and first towers can be built and online in under 9 months (under 6 if you're running emergency hours and working multiple crews). The issue with wind, like solar, is that it's intermittant - and the solution is the same.

Fed into the grid, electricity is electricity. It doesn't care what made it or where it came from. Combine solar, wind, and biomass with "green" (I almost said intelligent) design of buildings and appliances and we are covered - and if even a 10th of the money to build the nukes (or new refineries or drill in the arctic or other public lands, etc.) were put into putting up those solar, wind, and biomass installations we wouldn't need the others by the time they were ready to go online.

[Dardedar]

Chernobyl fallout much worse than originally revealed:

***

Technological Accident
Le Monde | Editorial

Tuesday 25 April 2006

The Chernobyl accident, the greatest industrial catastrophe of the Twentieth Century, will remain the perfect example of bad information management.

In France, no one denies that the Chernobyl cloud caused radioactive fallout. But it took almost twenty years for the official evaluation to finally coincide with that proposed by an independent laboratory, Criirad. Recent evaluations contradict the soothing ones furnished by official services in 1986. Now we observe, that for certain elements, the differences in measured concentrations go from 1 to over a thousand-fold!

Incompetence or lying? Even if a posteriori methods of reconstitution allow room for scientific debate, the magnitude of such divergences authorizes the question. In 2001, a suit against X ... for "failure to protect the population against radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident" was filed by the French Association of Thyroid Disease Sufferers (AFMT) and Criirad, an association founded in 1986 to take independent measures of radioactivity. The investigation under way will perhaps allow a determination of whether the authorities willfully hid the scope of Chernobyl's impact on the French, even as their neighbors were encouraged to protect themselves.

...snip

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/042506H.shtml

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Now think of this kind of radioactive fallout damage propelled by a FBR explosion.