Nuke Energy

[fizzissist]

Japan is leaking, and the fumes are headed east...

Here's the prediction of exposure by the NYT...

Forecast for Plume's Path Is a Function of Wind and Weather - Interactive Feature - NYTimes.com

Note the use of "Arbs".....arbitrary units. The graphic could just have easily used scarier colors, or gentle pastels, or numbers starting with 4 and going to 80,000....

We really should keep in mind that the Japanese reactors withstood an earthquake 5x greater than the design load, which speaks highly. The backup generators being wiped out by the resulting tsunami will be questioned after all is said and done, but the fact is the reactors themselves faired well.

At this point, I'm still very much in favor of nukes as a safe, reliable source of electricity. Consider the overall record, and consider that it took mother nature to bring us this debacle. There will be a lot of hand wringing and finger pointing, but there are some excellent lessons we'll take from all this, and in the end, it'll be a net gain.

My heart goes out to the thousands of innocent tsunami victims in Japan. I've been to that region, and have known some of the people there. To me, it's more than just some awesome TV footage.

[underthetire]

I agree, but I am a little pissed. All the miss-informed people in the US are out buying potassium iodine thinking it's going to save them like a lead suit, and all predictions so far look like nothing more than a stinking sun flare in august. The poor Japanese people who could actually benefit from the treatment, now can't get any !

[fizzissist]

Originally Posted by underthetire I agree, but I am a little pissed. All the miss-informed people in the US are out buying potassium iodine thinking it's going to save them like a lead suit, and all predictions so far look like nothing more than a stinking sun flare in august. The poor Japanese people who could actually benefit from the treatment, now can't get any !

Yeah, potassium iodide if you're an American...potassium iodide and milk if you're from Russia.

As usual, people are jumping to conclusions without enough information, and, as usual, the unintended consequences can be worse then the original problem.

Look out thyroid. You thought you were a mess before?

[Boltz]

I wonder if Grover Norquist (mister "I want to shrink government until it's small enough to put it in the bathtub and strangle it") would like to completely do away with the NRC. If Crossroads GPS spent several billion on an ad campaign and bought a bunch more puppet politicians like Scott Walker, I'll bet they could do it.

We dodged a bullet with Davis-Besse. The security guard who couldn't even manage to take a pee without shooting himself shows that they are still not hiring the best and brightest.

God forbid that the inspectors should be more aggressive and adequately funded. That might be hostile to business.

I accept that Nature does stuff to you that you can't really foresee and prepare for. The corruption, laziness, greed, and stupidity are what scare me most about nukes.

[fizzissist]

Originally Posted by Boltz The corruption, laziness, greed, and stupidity are what scare me most about nukes.

Didn't know nukes that the market cornered on those lovely attributes.

I guess coal mine disasters, ash ponds, unpleasant gasses and elements released from the mining and burning of coal.....'nuther category. Of course, wind and solar would never fall prey either.

I'm wagering that the net negative health effects from the combined nuclear accidents compared to conventional fossil and "green" sources of electricity would surprise. Not sure how you'd quantify, kwh vs. ??

Still, the vast injury and death toll in Japan is coming from the direct destructive power of water, which is a direct result of a natural phenomenon. We won't know for years how many are going to die as a result of nuclear radiation. In terms of kilowatt hours produced and the net benefit overall, the nuclear numbers will provide a pretty convincing argument in their favor.

[Boltz]

If a windmill blade falls off into the ocean or a cornfield in Iowa because the manufacturer didn't meet spec, or the operating company cut corners on maintenance the potential for destruction is pretty limited. In fact if the whole darned tower falls down, it's probably not going to kill anybody, because population density in the windiest places is low.

Solar panels can be blown around by a hurricane or tornado, but then so can billboards and cars.

No question that the toll from the effects of nature in Japan will be one or two orders of magnitude greater than the direct effects of the radiation leakage.

Ironically, AGW (*if* proven beyond a reasonable doubt) is perhaps the most compelling argument in favor of nuclear power.

[naPS]

Originally Posted by Boltz No question that the toll from the effects of nature in Japan will be one or two orders of magnitude greater than the direct effects of the radiation leakage.

Considering the death toll is already in the thousands, and if you combine that with the number of missing folks, it's in the tens of thousands, I would say that it's going to be quite a bit more than one or two orders of magnitude.

Having worked in nuke power for several years and understanding the operation and emergency procedures for reactors such as this, it's immensely frustrating watching the amount of mis-information that is disseminated and the resulting paranoia and panic. While I will never discount the fact that this was a major disaster, and that there's definitely damage to the reactors and their containments, the realistic worst case scenario is far more bland and of far lesser scale than pretty much any media report I've seen. Christ, I saw Bill Nye the Science Guy spewing off some nonsensical guesses as an 'expert' on a news show. It was worth a laugh, and nothing more.

[Boltz]

I think the central question in my mind is: can a nuclear plant be designed to withstand a quake and tsunami that big? Or should there just not be any nukes in Japan, and other areas known to have major seismic activity?

[TomB]

I’ve always felt that nukes were the only way we could grow the economy. We need cheap electric power but more importantly we need a cheap power source to extract oil from shale and to power electric cars as they become more prevalent. In the US today 1/3 of energy (of which 20% is nuclear) goes to the electric grid, 1/3 goes to automobile fuel and 1/3 goes to other transportation, heating, chemical manufacturing, etc. As we convert autos to electric we will not reduce the energy used per mile much, if any, but we will convert almost all of the gasoline used for autos to electric for autos. That means we will need to double the amount of generated power. But we will also need diesel for trucks and aviation fuel for planes. We can get it from oil shale. But if we have to use 2 barrels of oil to extract 3 barrels it will not be affordable and waste will significantly degrade the environment. But there is no reason that nuclear energy should not be used to produce that 3 barrels of oil for only a fraction of one barrel plus a bit of Uranium. I use to think those were reasons enough for more nuclear, i.e. it makes for energy independence, for all of history economic productivity growth has been positively correlated with energy production and it’s a green energy source.

But now I’ve changed my mind. The anti-nuclear crew has won. They have pushed the build costs of plants so high that they can’t be financed. They have made life so miserable for honorable plant owners that they sell out to shysters. Now they are using the fact that Tokyo Electric did not respond to an emergency by renting sufficient portable generators/pumps to keep the plants cooled to say the US plants in the middle of the Great Plains will be wiped out by tsunamis. I can’t put out a well-reasoned argument to counter the anti-nuc guys because they are just too uneducated to understand.

Instead we should go to the renewables. We can put a wind turbine on every 4 acre plot from Canada to the Gulf and from just west of the Appalachians to the Rockies. After a generation or so the locals will stop hearing the constant rumble and learn to ignore the rattling dishes. We could cover every bit of the SW deserts with solar concentrators. They use of molten salt as the heat engine medium meaning that they will be able to generate power for several hours after sunset and because they are in the west blackouts won’t occur in the East until after 11PM. I probably can’t go as far as being in favor of solar cells/panels. Mining the exotic elements used in their production would destroy massive parts of the environment and until somebody invents a battery that can power a city overnight that environmental cost is just too dear.

Natural gas seems to be the current favorite of the anti-nuc crowd. I suspect we will discover Natural Gas exposes more people to serious levels of radiation than even a nuclear reactor accident. I live over the Marcellus Shale where the NG guys are going to get NG by fracking. That shale deposit seems to include Uranium which on its natural decay path transmutes through a Radon-222 gas step with a half line of 3.8 days. As a result I have to have an active Radon vent in my cellar. If we frack the shale why won’t radon-222 seep into the NG well even faster than it defuses up 5000 feet to get in my cellar? Seems like that radioactive element will go up the stack when the NG is burned (Radon won’t burn). But Radon is heavy so it will soon settle and because NG power plants will be near cities that means it settles over large populations. However, radiation and aquifer destruction is nowhere as important as nuclear bashing so I guess this will be future.

Tom

[Geof]

Originally Posted by Boltz I think the central question in my mind is: can a nuclear plant be designed to withstand a quake and tsunami that big? Or should there just not be any nukes in Japan, and other areas known to have major seismic activity?

As far as I can gather reading the reports the nuclear plant itself did withstand the quake and the tsunami. However, what did not withstand the tsunami where the powerlines bringing in the electricity needed to run the pumps when the nuclear plant was offline and the diesel back-up generators. In the case of the diesels it appears to be contamination of the fuel. All the damage to the reactors arose from lack of adequate cooling during the shutdown sequence.

As far as I can see the problem to be solved is making sure back up power is available even after everything has been washed over by several meters of water. This is a simple engineering problem: Build them on higher ground even if the 'higher ground' is a manmade hill. Build them further from the sea even if this means there is an energy cost in pumping cooling water a longer distance in normal usage.

It is rather silly to take this event as being indicative of the hazard of nuclear plants anywhere else in the world. How many locations in which nuclear plants exist are subject to offshore megathrust earthquakes and a resulting tens of metres high siesmic sea wave?

[voltsandbolts]

Just tossing this out there, but wouldn’t you think the emergency cooling pumps would be steam driven? That’s one of the things a overheating reactor has plenty of.

[Boltz]

Gotta give you credit for thinking outside the box! However, under the chaotic conditions in the aftermath of an earthquake/tsunami one can't really count on having enough integrity left in the structures containing the water to be able to get useful pressure. Perhaps if one could capture a stream of steam at near atmospheric pressure it could be used to operate a Newcomen engine.

In regard to moving the reactor up the hill, the pumping losses are only increased by the frictional losses within the pipe. However, reactors typically contain a *lot* of very heavy parts and pieces which come in on barges and have to be wrangled up the hill. It also means longer pipes exposed to damage. Still, it's and interesting exercise to imagine if something containing material which is that dangerous could be secured against natural forces that extreme.

The future of nuclear power hinges on a couple of things. First, whether people are willing to accept the kind of radioactive releases we've seen in Japan. Second, whether we consider the effects of "fracking" (the source of the current glut of natural gas) to be acceptable.

AGW is a nuke booster's best friend!

Originally Posted by voltsandbolts Just tossing this out there, but wouldn’t you think the emergency cooling pumps would be steam driven? That’s one of the things a overheating reactor has plenty of.