| Nuclear Power -
One of Humankind's Biggest Mistakes |
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Nuclear Power was a mistake and remains a mistake. If the human
family survives it, our descendants will wonder what we were
thinking to justify leaving them nuclear power’s toxic legacy -- a
legacy they will be dealing with for hundreds if not thousands of
generations.
And why did we do it? To power our lights, TVs, radios, stereos,
air conditioners, etc. and the tools we used to make them.
Our creation of nuclear power will be especially difficult for
our descendants to understand because they will know that in the
nuclear era, we already had all the technologies and know-how needed
to power everything in ways that are perpetually recyclable, powered
by free solar energy and which leave zero harmful residues in their
wake.
On its own, nuclear power’s toxic radioactive legacy should be
enough to give any thinking person sufficient reason to want to
eliminate it as quickly as possible and do everything to protect our
descendants from the radioactive wastes already created.
The human family has been at war with itself for the majority of
its history. Human history is full of successful, advanced and
sophisticated civilizations that utterly collapsed. To the informed,
even our current civilization(s) don’t feel very solid. Plus there
are earthquakes, tsunami’s volcanoes, severe weather, terrorism, and
just plain human error. This given, who can guarantee that anything
as dangerous and long-lived as nuclear waste can be kept safe for
even 100 years much less the hundreds to hundreds of thousands of
years it will take before some of these wastes are safe to be
around.
And even if an insurance company did guarantee its safety, what
is their guarantee worth? What could they do to protect us and
future generations if San Onofre’s spent fuel storage pond lost its
coolant water? If this happened an almost unquenchable radioactive
fire would spontaneously erupt, spewing radioactive materials
wherever the wind blew for weeks if not months -- rendering Southern
California a dangerous place to live for thousands if not hundreds
of thousands of years.
Notwithstanding the above, the nuclear industry is lobbying the
public and the government to continue supporting them politically
and economically so the industry can expand.
Its latest rational is that nuclear power will produce fewer
greenhouse gases than what would be produced using fossil fuels to
make electricity. This is true if one only looks at what happens
inside a reactor. It’s not true when accounting for all the fossil
fuel energy consumed during nuclear power’s fuel cycle, and what it
takes to build, operate and dismantle plants when they wear out.
Additionally, even if nuclear power was ended today, fossil fuel
energy must be consumed for millennia in order to protect the public
from the radioactive residues that nuclear power has already
generated.
An increasing number of former industry and non-industry experts
are saying that at best nuclear power releases slightly fewer
greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than if the fossil fuels embodied
in it had been burned to make electricity directly.
In his 2002 book, Asleep at the Geiger Counter, p.
107-118, Sidney Goodman, (giving the industry the benefit of the
doubt on a number of fronts and assuming no serious accidents or
terrorism), concludes that the net output of the typical nuclear
power plant would be only 4% more than if the fossil fuels embodied
in it had been uses directly to produce electricity. This means,
best-case scenario, replacing direct fossil fuel generated
electricity with nuclear generated electricity will only reduce the
carbon dioxide released per unit of electricity produced by 4%.
Goodman is a long practicing licensed Professional Engineer with a
Masters Degree in Mechanical Engineering.
Other experts believe that nuclear power will produce about the
same amount of energy as was, is, and will be consumed to create,
operate and deal with its aftermath. This case was made in an
article published in Pergamon Journals Ltd. Vol.13, No. 1,
1988, P. 139, titled “The Net Energy Yield of Nuclear Power.” In
their article the authors concluded that even without including the
energy that has or would be consumed to mitigate past or future
serious radioactive releases, nuclear power is only “the
re-embodiment of the energy that went into creating it.”
In its July/August 2006 edition, The Ecologist Magazine, a
respected British publication, featured a16-page analysis of nuclear
power. One of the conclusions was that nuclear power does not even
produce enough electricity to make up for the fossil fuels consumed
just to mine, mill and otherwise process uranium ore into nuclear
fuel, much less all the other energy inputs required This is not
surprising given that typical U-235 ore concentrations of .01% to
.02%, require mining, crushing and processing a ton of ore to end up
with 1/2 oz to 1 oz of nuclear reactor fuel.
To put this in perspective, the typical 1,000 MW nuclear power
plants uses around 33 tons or over 1 million oz of nuclear fuel each
year.
As a teenager I saw a TV program that showed a man holding a
piece of metal in the palm of his hand. He was saying that if what
he held was pure uranium it would contain as much energy as the
train full of coal that was passing by him on the screen. I became
an instant “true believer” in nuclear power. I thought if something
that small can produce the same amount of energy as all that coal,
there will be plenty of energy and therefore plenty of money to
address any dangers that using it might pose.
Unfortunately, to get that level of energy from a small amount of
pure or near pure uranium it would require that it be exploded as an
atomic bomb. Of the uranium used in a reactor, only a fraction of
the energy in pure uranium gets used. That’s why we are left with
depleted uranium and other long-lived wastes.
The nuclear industry says that nuclear power is safe, a big net
energy producer, and that it will be cheap and easy to keep its
wastes out of the environment and out of the hands of terrorists.
But if these claims are true, why has an industry that supplies
only 8% of our country’s total energy and 20% of its electricity
consumed hundreds of billions of tax dollar subsidies since its
inception? The 2005 Federal Energy Bill continues this trend.
According to U.S. PIRG, Taxpayers for Common Sense, Public Citizen
and the Congressional Research Service the recently passed 2005
Federal Energy Bill includes “a taxpayer liability of $14 to $16
billion” in support of nuclear power.
If nuclear power is so safe and wonderful, why does it require
the Price Anderson Act? The Price Anderson Act puts taxpayers on the
hook if the cost of a major radioactive release exceeds $10.5
billion. According to a Sandia National Laboratory analysis, this
puts taxpayers on the hook for over $600 billion to cover the damage
that a serious radioactive release would cause. Another Sandia
Laboratory study focusing just on the Indian Point nuclear power
plant in New York, concluded the damage caused by a serious release
from that plant could cost up to a trillion dollars. Needless to
say, any serious radioactive release from any U. S. plant would wipe
out any net energy gain by nuclear power if -- there ever was one.
Realizing the potential cost of a serious radioactive release,
manufacturers, insurers and utilities, were unwilling to build,
insure or order plants. They only got seriously involved after the
Congress assigned these cost to the taxpaying public. On page 7 of a
report by the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research titled
The Nuclear Power Deception, they included the follow 1996
quote from then NRC Commissioner James Asselstine, “given the
present level of safety being achieved by the operating nuclear
power plants in this country, we can expect a meltdown within the
next 20 years, and it is possible that such as accident could result
in off-site releases of radiation which are as large as, or larger
than the released estimates to have occurred at Chernobyl.” Bare
in mind, a meltdown is only one of several things that could happen
with nuclear power to cause a serious radioactive release.
As I said in the beginning, nuclear power is a mistake.
Especially considering we already have all the technologies and
know-how needed to make us completely and abundantly renewable
energy self-sufficient. Solar energy leaves no radioactive residues
for our children or future generations. Additionally, although not
completely environmentally benign yet, solar energy collection
systems can be designed to last generations, be perpetually
recyclable and leave zero toxic residues behind.
If San Diego County covered 24% of its roofs and parking lots
with PV panels, it would produce more electricity than the county
consumes. This assumes that 3 million resident use, on average, 10
kWh per capita per day after installing cost-effective electricity
use efficiency improvements.
For ourselves, our children and future generations, let’s move
into the solar age.
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Readers Comments
| Date |
Comment |
Malcolm Rawlingson
11.14.06 |
If nuclear power is a mistake then
we need to make more mistakes like that.
There is no safer technology on the planet than nuclear energy
none.How many people have been killed making and installing solar
panels on roof tops??
There is no other technology that is as immune from earthquakes,
tornadoes, other natural disasters and human error than nuclear
energy - None. No chemical plant, no coal mine, no oil field, no gas
field. There is not one single industry that has such an impeccable
safety record - even including Chernobyl.
There is no other technology that controls all of its by products
the way nuclear energy industry does. None.
Based on your assertion then I would strongly suggest you start a
petition to ban all automoblies from the world NOW. They kill people
every single day of every single year. Thousands upon thousands of
dead and injured people - not potential deaths REAL dead people. How
do you justify your mindless diatribe based on the fact that nuclear
power is the singlemost safe industry humanity has ever developed.
I can only describe this nonsense as complete codswallop.
I live next to a nuclear power plant. The safest place in the
world bar none.
I hope mankind makes many more "mistakes" like that.
Malcolm
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Ferdinand E. Banks
11.17.06 |
I'm very impressed by this article
- by Mr Bell's enthusiasm for a large scale solar commitment - and
especially by his background. This background thing is especially
important for this humble teacher of economics and finance. But I'm
not sure that I can buy more than a few percent of his logic.
If solar panels can do what he says, then I think that we are
going to have to have some indictments and trials in the US of
engineers, scientists and politicians. These people have definitely
been remiss in their duties. Building all those ugly nuclear plants,
or allowing them to be constructed, instead of covering 90% of the
rooftops in Southern California with PV panels, and then exporting
the electricity generated to the far corners of the country. In
examining his article I remember a short course that I gave at the
Australian School of the Environment a couple of centuries ago. It
was the first - but not the last - time that I heard gutter language
in a university classroom, and the guilty party was a young
gentleman from Canada who was patiently explaining to dumb me the
miracles that solar panels were capable of performing in the
northernmost part of his country. The expletives he employed and the
tone of his voice soured me on solar energy.
But let me make myself clear for the 10,00th time. Using more
solar panels makes all the sense in the world to me, and the same is
true of wind, but I think that Malcolm is heading in the right
direction where this nuclear thing is concerned. We need more rather
than less of it, and we need it now.
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Arvid Hallén
11.17.06 |
What a load of hogwash. I really
don't know where to begin...
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John K. Sutherland
11.17.06 |
So ALL of life on this planet is a
gigantic mistake, courtesy of GOD and his nuclear power plant in the
sky - our sun.
Ah well, I suppose we need an article like this every so often,
so that we can examine the power of focused stupidity once more.
I am reminded of a quote of Voltaire "I have never made but one
prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord, make my enemies
ridiculous.' And God granted it."
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Jim Beyer
11.17.06 |
With respect to huge mistakes of
humankind, how does nuclear power rank with Pauly Shore?
Just wondering......
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Jim Beyer
11.17.06 |
I think a more useful critique
would be to ask what would it cost for these PV panels to be
installed? How would the energy be stored for electricity use at
night? To provide a simple example, consider the battery storage of
this energy. A very low cost estimate for storing 1 kilowatt-hr of
energy in NiMH batteries (Lithium ion may be better, but they aren't
less expensive, at least not yet) is about $300. These batteries can
be expected to last about 1000 cycles, so pro-rating the battery
cost into the energy storage, that's about 30 cents per kw-hour, for
just the storage of the energy. If you add another 10-20 cents at
least for the PV provided energy itself, you are close to 50 cents
per kilowatt-hour for this nighttime energy. That's very expensive.
Enough to disrupt lives, make major pieces of community
infrastructure too expensive to run, etc.
So, as stated, your solution is not so easily integrated into our
current way of life, at least in Southern California. Given that,
your article should have been focused on 'How our lives will change'
rather than just critiquing nuclear power.
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James Hopf
11.17.06 |
I find it difficult to imagine how
Western nuclear power, an industry that has never killed anyone or
had any significant environmental impact, could be considered one of
man’s biggest mistakes. This especially when the main alternatives
to nuclear are killing ~25,000 people every single year in the US
alone, may radically alter the planet’s climate, and are causing a
host of geopolitical problems and tensions (wars, etc..).
When our descendants look back on this era, they will not wonder
why we used nuclear power. On the contrary, they will be dumbfounded
as to why we voluntarily killed so many of our people, wrecked the
planet’s climate, and burned up (wasted) the earth’s precious,
limited hydrocarbon reserves when the nuclear option was available.
And contrary to what Mr. Bell says, solar energy is not “available”
right now as an alternative, as it is not yet practical (let alone
remotely economic) to provide all or even most of our energy with
that source.
Of all the things we leave to future generations, tiny volumes of
well-isolated nuclear wastes will the very least of their concerns.
Wastes from other energy sources and industries (including chemical
toxic wastes, fossil fuel wastes/ash and even landfill garbage) will
pose greater risks to public health, even over the very long term.
This is because these wastes are generated in infinitely larger
volumes, have a much more dispersible/leachable physical form and
are not buried with anywhere near as much care and expense to ensure
their isolation. Many wastes will remain toxic as long or longer
than nuclear wastes, as they never decay away. On top of these
larger long-term risks from our other waste streams, future
generations will be a lot more upset about a radically altered
climate, and a planet devoid of useful hydrocarbons than they will
be about nuclear waste. A tiny (<< 0.1%) chance that a handful of
people may someday receive annual exposures that are merely similar
to what everyone living in Denver gets right now (with no apparent
health effect) is simply not a significant environmental problem.
The notion that nuclear power provides only slightly more power
than if the fossil inputs were burned directly is simply absurd. As
I’ve tried to explain in other article thread’s, anyone capable of
critical thought will be able to quickly deduce that this is simply
not possible. It this were true, the total operating costs for
nuclear plants could not be ~1.6 cents/kW-hr. The total fuel cost
(i.e., finished fuel assemblies) could not be ~0.5 cents/kW-hr. We
never could have built pre-TMI plants whose total power cost
(including capital) was cheaper than fossil sources. And it would
not be possible for nuclear’s net CO2 emissions to be only ~2% of
coal’s and ~5% of natural gas, as is shown by all the formal
scientific studies on this issue. One such study is linked below.
This data clearly shows that nuclear provides ~30 times as much
power than would be produced by burning its fossil inputs directly.
http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Magazines/Bulletin/Bull422/article4.pdf
The assertion by Asselstine that a Western plant is capable of a
release anywhere near that of Chernobyl defies common sense and is
being disproved by more recent, detailed analyses. It is absurd to
suggest that having reactors that are fundamentally stable (
incapable of power excursion), are made of non-flammable materials
and are surrounded by a containment structure does not result in a
vastly lower potential release. Chernobyl caused anywhere from ~100
to ~10,000 eventual deaths. Any Western plant accident will cause
far less. Even the Union of Concerned Scientists admits that it
would take multiple worst-case meltdowns every year in the US alone
to have the same health effect as the coal plant pollution that is
emitted annually. The is no comparison between nuclear and fossil
fuels in terms of public health risk and environmental impact, over
both the short term and the long term.
|
Len Gould
11.17.06 |
A 2006 study published by UIC
website of Australian Uranium Assoc., likely a bit more reliable
than quoted above. Either this author has a selective reading
problem, or doesn't understand what he writes about at all.
http://www.uic.com.au/nip57.htm
Information on Nuclear
Energy
(The following 4 figures cover ALL energy inputs to a nuclear
power plant, and are stated with separate figures depending on
whether the fuel was enriched by diffusion or centrifuge.)
Input percentage of lifetime output, thermal (diffusion) 5.7%
(centrifuge) 1.7% Energy ratio (output/input), thermal (diffusion)
17.5 (centrifuge) 58
Assumptions: Fuel Cycle: 1000 MWe, 40 year life, 80% capacity
factor, enrichment with 0.25% tails (2.5 SWU/kg for initial 80 t
fuel load @ 2.3% U-235, 4.8 SWU/kg for 3.5% fresh fuel @ 24 t/yr),
45 000 MWd/t burn-up, 33% thermal efficiency. Mining: Ranger ore in
2004 was 0.234% U. Energy: 165 GJ/t U3O8, 195 GJ/tU. (Note that if
ore of 0.01% U is envisaged, this would give 924 TJ/yr, 37 PJ total
for mining & milling, hence total 89 PJ for the centrifuge option,
thus inputs become 2.9% of output and energy ratio becomes 34.)
Figures for Beverley ISL operation 2004-05 are 187 GJ/t U3O8, 221
GJ/tU. Rossing 2004: 306 GJ/t U3O8, 361 GJ/tU, with calculated ore
grade 0.0276%U. Calculations: Electrical inputs converted to thermal
@ 33% efficiency (x 10 800, kWh to kJ)
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Graham Cowan
11.17.06 |
Ha ha ha!
Jim Bell and similar jokers' time was pretty well up -- maybe
long before, but definitely no later -- when Lonnie Dupre, working
for Greenpeace, faced the choice between taking a ride home on the
Yamal, an icebreaker,.and staying up north, watching the
ice thin a while longer, waiting for another ride.
Greenpeace and the like pretend to believe that nuclear is
dangerous, that they are doing a favour to those in whose
neighbourhood powerplants will be built when they lobby that those
powerplants shall not be nuclear. The Yamal is a
nuclear icebreaker, with more radioactivity in its core as it
comes to port than Yucca Mountain, if it goes ahead, will contain at
its height. Lonnie got on the
boat.
The favour these funny little people would do for us is one they
do not choose for themselves.
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen fan
Burn boron in pure
oxygen for car power
|
James Hopf
11.17.06 |
Len,
And things would be even better if one uses up to date figures,
i.e., 60-100 year plant life and 90% capacity factor! Even thermal
efficiency is getting better. I hear that the GE ESBW will have an
efficiency of 37% or 39% (can't recall).
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Roger Arnold
11.17.06 |
Nice commentary, James. Everything
you say is perfectly correct--though I doubt it will make any
difference to Mr. Bell and other committed opponents of nuclear
power. "Don't confuse me with the facts, son, my mind is made up!"
BTW, it's not just the thermal efficiency and the capacity factor
of nuclear poower plants that are getting better. The burn ratio is
getting better as well. That means that the fraction of the each
load that is consumed for power is improving; more energy out for
each kilo of raw uranium.
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Len Gould
11.17.06 |
Also worth mentioning that the USA
(and likely China, soon others) put a LOT of nuclear fuel out
floating about in the oceans on their military lfeets, (power
reactors, warheads and projectiles) in defense of shipping lanes in
order to continue to import fossil fuels so they won't have to
cunstruct nuclear power reactors at home. Thank you again, anti-nuke
activists.
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Ferdinand E. Banks
11.18.06 |
Some years ago I occasionally
argued against the introduction of breeder reactors. My premium
soapbox oration as to why it would be one of 'HUMANKIND'S BIGGEST
MISTAKES' began as follows.
When the Swedish parliament was in Sergel's Tor (in the middle of
Stockholm), next to a place often referred to as 'The Platform', if
you stood at a bottom floor window of the parliament, and if there
was no one urinating on the window opposite you, you could see drug
deals taking place at virtually every hour of the day and night,
while at the same time 'law enforcement' would be somewhere in view.
In these circumstances, I concluded that the launching of the
plutonium economy might be a serious mistake. At that time there was
no talk of 'weapons of mass destruction' etc, however I reasoned
that in a country like Sweden just about anyone who felt like it
could waltz into a breeder installation, and waltz out with a couple
of million dollars worth of plutonium, which they could also peddle
on the 'platform' or a similar venue somewhere in the world.
Needless to say, the Swedish parliament could easily have passed
laws which would have made this sort of thing impossible, but
instead they chose to move the parliament building to a location
where they would not see the trade in dope, pistolas or plutonium or
whatever. It is at this point that we can use expressions such as
HUMANKIND'S BIGGEST MISTAKE, and use it to cover the security
aspects of ALL nuclear activities.
I therefore suggest that if Mr Bell or anyone else plans to argue
the bad news relevant to nuclear energy, they should concentrate on
human frailties - such as those of lazy and indifferent economists
and politicians - and leave the technical stuff to technicians,
engineers and scientists.
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Graham Cowan
11.18.06 |
Some people advocate breeder
reactors because they think they are keen. However, no-one expects
uranium supply to be a limiting factor for nuclear fission power's
expansion in this millennium, even if no further progress on
breeders occurs. The prospective-uranium-scarcity story often used
in the attempt to make breeder reactor development seem urgent is
somewhere between a rationalization and a lie.
That said, it doesn't seem impossible that breeder reactors
should produce plutonium no more attractive to waltzers than the
plutonium that existing power reactors produce -- and mostly burn --
has been, which is to say, not at all.
Unfavorable isotopics, contamination with many much more strongly
radioactive isotopes such that a waltzer would stop after a couple
of steps; the usual. There are reasons power reactors have
never been involved in proliferation.
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen fan
Burn boron in pure
oxygen for car power
|
Ferdinand E. Banks
11.19.06 |
Graham, you haven't been smoking
or drinking boron again, have you? You say that no-one expects
uranium supply to be limited during this millenium, although if you
knock on any door in the red-light district on a saturday night,
you'll be buttonholed by dedicated scholars preaching the scarcity
of uranium. In fact Tam Hunt was singing this kind of song recently
to Jim Beyer.
Of course, dynamics are important. Sweden has an awful lot of low
grade uranium, but no one expects that it can or will be exploited
in the near future - for instance, not until present nuclear plants
have been pulled down with bare hands and turned into ploughshares.
And I wouldn't go around calling waltzers liars if I were you, even
if they look like liars to sophisticated judges of character like me
and your good self. Just as Willie Sutton waltzed into banks with
his trusty shotgun because that was where they told him the money
was, the same thing could happen with breeder facilities. After all,
both know-nothings and many teachers of economics have been told
that in a breeder installation the plutonium is right out there in
the open, practically begging to be removed.
Better get on the team, Graham. We're all smart guys here.
|
Ferdinand E. Banks
11.19.06 |
Did I say Jim Beyer? Well I meant
Don Giegler. Of course, it may not make any difference, because I
feel sure that Tam would sing that song to the director of the
Viennese Boys Choir as a part of the auditioning procedure.
|
Graham Cowan
11.19.06 |
... both know-nothings and many teachers of economics have been
told that in a breeder installation the plutonium is right out
there in the open..
Perhaps they have been told so. It isn't. If I told any number of
people they could pour wine directly from a bottle into the dimple
on the bottle's bottom, and they really wanted to believe me, they
might, many of them, express loud and confident belief, but still
somehow they wouldn't do it.
What team had I better get on?
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen fan
Burn boron in pure
oxygen for car power
|
Ferdinand E. Banks
11.19.06 |
"...express loud and confident
belief.." you say, like the former Swedish prime minister saying
that "nuclear energy was obsolete". Whether he believed it or not is
beside the point: the issue was votes, not truth.
And they wouldn't attempt to "pour wine directly from a bottle
into the dimple on the bottle's bottom", you say. You must have led
a very sheltered life to believe that. We're talking money and
careers here, and when those items are on the table, "any number of
people" would say or do anything.
|
Graham Cowan
11.19.06 |
I didn't say they wouldn't
attempt it, I said they wouldn't do it.
|
James Hopf
11.19.06 |
Long term uranium supplies are not
an issue for the foreseeable future. We will have enough relatively
high-grade uranium ore to last centuries, even assuming a once
through fuel cycle and substantial growth in nuclear power. It will
be at least 100 years, probably longer, before uranium ore prices
rise to the point where they would significantly affect the overall
price of nuclear electricity. Ore prices account for ~2% of the
overall power price, or ~0.1 cents/kW-hr. (Even with the recent run
up in price, it is still under 0.2 cents.)
This is discussed in more detail at:
http://www.americanenergyindependence.com/uranium.html
and
http://216.94.150.122/investor_relations/speeches/speech_text.php?spid=49
By the 22nd century (or even later) we will probably be able to
develop safe, economical breeder technology. As far as the plutonium
theft risk, my attitude is that we should just wait and see what the
world situation is in the 22nd century before concluding whether or
not breeders are acceptable. If they're not, I'm sure we'll have
other sources by then (fusion, renewables, even solar power
satellites) that will be able to meet our needs. We need not worry
about those issues now. We also need not (and should not) be in any
rush to implement breeders now.
It's also true that the price of raw uranium ore will never rise
to the point where reprocessing is worth it, purely from a fuel
source point of view. Uranium ore will always be cheaper than
reprocessed U or Pu fuel. Reprocessing will (eventually) be
worthwhile for other reasons, however. It will allow us to get by
with a single repository (versus as many as 10 or 20), at an
additional overall power cost of a fraction of a cent at most; well
worth it given the political costs of having to site all those other
repositories. Reprocessing is more appropriately thought of as a
waste management approach, as opposed to a means of long-term fuel
supply.
It should be noted, however, that multiple repositories can be
avoided even if we don't start reprocessing until ~2050. No need to
rush into this either. Research and technology development should
definitely proceed, though. The Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative
should definitely be fully funded.
|
Ferdinand E. Banks
11.20.06 |
James, I'm not concerned in the
least about uranium supplies, or for that matter the influence of
the price of uranium (yellowcake) on the price of power from nuclear
facilities. It's those other people, where apparently 'those other
people' include some well dressed young ladies and gentlemen in the
financial district of New York, who need to be straighted out in
this matter, and soon - i.e. before interest rates start escalating.
And of course, if it is official/true that optimal (i.e. best
practice) plant lives now range up to 100 years, and optimal
capacity factors are 90%, then there is no need for further
discussion.
|
Jim Beyer
11.20.06 |
"We have enough of fuel X to last
for centuries."
I am really starting to hate this phrase. For coal, uranium, etc.
In a single century, we went from Kitty Hawk to Cape Canaveral.
From a world population of less than 2 billon to more than 6.5. Who
is to say what our energy needs will be 100 years from now?
If we extrapolate population (20 Billion?) and energy use (100x?)
then we'd using 300 times the energy that we are today. Given that,
almost any fuel one could imagine would quickly be exhausted. I'm
not saying we will be at those levels necessarily, but I am saying
we don't know what the world is going to be like in 100 years. No
real idea. It wasn't much more than 100 years ago that our preferred
energy source was WHALES.
It is more than likely 100 years from now, the people of the
future will regard digging coal (or uranium) out of the ground for
energy the same way we regard harvesting whales for oil today.
|
Arvid Hallén
11.20.06 |
Energy use or population won't
increase that much. The time when there really was something new
under the sun was the 20th century (to paraphrase J.R. McNeill's
great book about that subject
(http://www.amazon.com/Something-New-Under-Environmental-Twentieth-Century/dp/0393321835)).
Population will never double again. It will peak at 8 or 9
billion. Energy use will probably double, it might even increase as
much as it did during the 20th century (that is by a factor of 4).
Or at least it could if energy prices stayed as low as they were
during the 20th century.
Which they won't.
But no matter what, a population of 20 billion or an increase in
energy use by factor 100 is completely unreasonable.
|
Warren Reynolds
11.20.06 |
Excellent article and supporting
documents ! Do not let the previous "nuclear advocates" deter you.
Let me add some more facts.
In the 1970s, I saw five sign carrying anti-nuclear activisits
stop the construction of one of GE's BWR nuclear reactors for many
weeks. This cost GE a large amount of $ with cost over-runs to the
client. The "hand writing" was on the wall.
Since 1987, many European countries have abandoned the use of
nuclear energy. Austria(1978), Sweden(1981), and Italy (1987) voted
to oppose or phase out nuclear while Ireland prevented a nuclear
program there. Poland stopped the construction of a nuclear power
plant. Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, Spain and Sweden decided not
to build new nuclear plants and intend to phase out nuclear power.
Germany has agreed to shut down all nculear power plants by 2020.
All of this gave the death knell for the nuclear power industry.
See: Greenpeace International "A Farewell to Nuclear Power"
(1990); see also http://en.wikipedia.org "Nuclear Power Phase Out"
and www.hydrogennow.org.
In 2006, a team of NRC personnel along with a nuclear industry
management staff held a "town hall" meeting in a Mississippi town
for siting a planned nuclear power station nearby. At the end of the
presentation, they were politely told, in essence "to get h--- out
of our town and take your proposed nuclear plant with you-we don't
want it".
See Reuter's news service, October, 2006
Your data closely confirms GE analysts data on cost of generating
nuclear electricity from uranium mine to electric wall plug, i.e.
95% cost generation.($0.076/kwhr cost, $0.080/kwhr consumer price).
In addition, to emphasize the high cost of generating nuclear
electricity, I had previously shown that the "well to wheel
efficency" for nuclear electricity is low:
Uranium-mine-to-electric-vehicle wheel efficiency = 8.8%
Natural-gas-well-to-hydrogen-to FCV-wheel efficiency = 22%
Water-well-electrolysis-to-hydrogen-FCV-wheel = 42%
see: Argonne Rept 2004-01-1302 by A. Rouseau and www.efcf.com and
www.energypulse.net
Your data also confirms my comments on costs of nuclear power in
Prof. Banks' EnergyPulse article "More Facts and Fictions About the
World Oil Scene" (11-1-06).
Joke: How do you spell nuclear ? NIMBY (not in my back yard)
Nuclear fusion is also not an option. Government spending for
fusion R&D has dropped since 1970 and was phased out in 2004.
See: Year 2000 email from D. Markevich(Energy Office, DOE) to
W.D. Reynolds; and also http://aries.ucsd.edu article "DOE Plans
Termination of All Fusion Technology Efforts" FPN 04-17; see also
http://fusionpower.org
What about the leakage of tritium into the ground water at the
Hanford sit or from three other commerical nuclear reactors ? What
about the Ukraine increased cancer rate downwind of the Chernobyl
explosion.
From an ex-nuclear engineer.
|
Len Gould
11.20.06 |
Mr. Reynolds: Your last is so
filled with untruths and undocumented claims it doesn't bear
acknowledgment. At what facility did you last actually work as a
nuclear engineer?
And re:
"Your data closely confirms GE analysts data on cost of
generating nuclear electricity from uranium mine to electric wall
plug, i.e. 95% cost generation.($0.076/kwhr cost, $0.080/kwhr
consumer price). "
Could one of you please cite a reference for this apparent urban
myth?
One final question. What is it about fusion power generation
which you appear to fear, exactly? The only logical reason to oppose
development of fusion power generation which I can see is it may
harm a large investment in coal.
|
Len Gould
11.20.06 |
is this the correct Mr. Reynolds I
presume?
http://www.beyondfossilfuel.com/hydrogen/reynolds.html
"Controlled nuclear fusion power generation, i.e. hydrogen
fusion, is also not an option. In 1950, Dr. Edward Teller theorized
the existence of nuclear fusion. However, even with heavy Government
funding in the intervening 50 years, there has not been any
demonstrated sustainable controlled nuclear fusion power source.
Nuclear fusion research is now waiting on advances in
superconducting magnets and new alloys for high temperature
containment. Both of these are large technical obstacles. In
addition, there is only a 100 years’ supply of the lithium-tritium
fuel. Even with massive Government funding, nuclear fusion would not
be expected to be commercialized until after 2060 if at all. Thus,
nuclear fusion will NOT be available when the remaining fossil fuel
supply is exhausted. We now have to quickly develop renewable energy
while we still have sufficient fossil fuel to make the transition."
That's a pretty weak argument against fusion.
|
Graham Cowan
11.20.06 |
It's interesting to to compare
naturally occurring radioactivity in the ocean to the amount of
man-made radioactivity a nuclear power station can accumulate over a
few decades. The dominant marine radioisotope is potassium-40, and
as mentioned in
How much Uranium is
in the Earth?, table 1, natural potassium produces 3.6
nW/kg of radiation, mostly through the rare 40 isotope's turning to
calcium. (In an alternate mode of decay that occurs about nine times
less often it turns to argon, and that is why we're breathing 1
percent argon now.)
Seawater is 0.038 percent potassium by mass, so the ray power per
unit mass of seawater is 1.4 picowatts, 0.0000000000014 watts, per
kg. But Earth's seas contain 1.4e21 kg of seawater, a number that,
if written out long, extends much farther left of the decimal point
than does the power-to-mass to the right of it. So the total ray
power comes out as two billion watts, 2.0 GW.
That's not so much compared to a typical power reactor, but what
would be buried, say, 50 years after such a reactor's final shutdown
is several thousand times less radioactive. So for instance if the
Darlington station near me averaged 9200 thermal megawatts until
2050 and then is shut down, and its waste stored on site until 2100
and then buried, what will be buried will have ~3 megawatts of
radioactivity. So the ocean's radioactive content is equal to that
of 700 such dumps. (40-K is the dominant emitter but uranium
produces about another 0.4 GW if I recall correctly.)
That means the occasional suggestion that prohibitions of nuclear
waste dumping at sea are aimed at protection of the ocean is a
misunderstanding. In the deep parts we could dump all the nuclear
waste in existence, and any additional amount we might produce in
this century, and know, just by arithmetic, that it could never come
back to haunt us.
Rather as the saltshakers in the wreck of the Titanic do
not threaten to make the sea salt, no
matter whether they leak or not, so would a few million tonnes of
spent fuel rods lying on the bottom pose no threat of making it
radioactive, no matter what they do.
That is the context in which to understand what's wrong with Jim
Bell's assertion,
our descendants will wonder what we were thinking to justify
leaving them nuclear power’s toxic legacy -- a legacy they will be
dealing with for hundreds if not thousands of generations
Our descendants may indeed share the planet with artificial
radioactivity we bequeath them, but they'll no more wonder at this
and have no more trouble dealing with it than, today, we wonder why
so many natural retired-nuclear-plant equivalents of radioactivity
are in the ocean as we deal with it by swimming therein.
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen fan
Burn boron in pure
oxygen for car power
|
Todd McKissick
11.20.06 |
Avoiding comment on the technical
issues, it seems that the nuclear opponents at least give
consideration to actual real world economics. I hear forcasts that
encompass the politics, peaks and the interaction of all other
sources. All I hear from the proponents are the technical facts of
it being possible. No mention of the fact that for their proposal to
be workable, billions of tons of land must be mined per year, a
thousand reactors must be built (US only and short term), a million
people must be trained AND TRUSTED with those plants, our
transmission line infrastructure must be bolstered to what... 10
times the current capacity, our auto fleet must be converted to some
form of electric which requires an incalculable amount of batteries
manufactured and hopefully always recycled. On top of this, I don't
see where the 'too cheap to meter' electricity that has penetrated
the US market to the 20% mark has influenced my price at all. This
existing fleet is currently extending licenses everywhere you look
and most are uprating. Combine that with the purported statement
that capital cost makes up the lion's share of their costs, and it
should mean their price dips under a penny / kwh. Well maybe just
their expenses.
Unfortunately, price hasn't changed because they continue to take
everything they can get from Joe consumer. If it is the cash cow
that many have professed it to be, now would be the time they would
be cash heavy enough to fund new expenses. Instead, future
technology development and insurance undercoverage must still be
subsidised by the government. What will this insurance burden on the
taxpayer do if there were 1000 reactors instead of 100? That's just
for a ten-fold increase in power which will result from 20% going to
100% and then doubling to add transportation but discounting any
growth.
Once you get past the US market, how will the remaining countries
handle this issue? If a couple billion people in China/India changed
their consumption to match the US's, my BOE calc says they're use
would increase over 10 times without counting any transportation
supply. That's just staggering.
No, I don't think nuclear can do it all. I think DG will provide
the competition required to keep all the other players in check and
once that competition beats nuclear on all fronts, nuclear will
begin to be phased out. After all, like oil, it's not the
availability of the Uranium, it's the production peak and price
point of it being economical, right?
|
Graham Cowan
11.20.06 |
Absolutely, and if it ever happens
that "competition beats nuclear on all fronts", that will be good
news for most here. But that's a bar that tends to rise as time
passes; both politically, as more and more nuclear opponents go to
their reward, and technically.
Why would a tenfold expansion of the U mining industry be
"staggering"? Are the cell-phone ring-tone industry and the
bubblegum industry, together, staggeringly large?
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen fan
Burn boron in pure
oxygen for car power
|
Graham Cowan
11.20.06 |
Actually, "it's the production
peak and price point of it being economical" doesn't seem to mean
anything. I agree, though with "it's ... the price point of it being
economical", and skipped over the part I didn't understand. Uranium
is a pretty good deal at its present US$1.60/BOE price, but if an
evil wizard made so we couldn't raise production to a billion BOE
per day without paying $500 for each one, I think it would no longer
be a deal. But it got over about US$2/BOE and stayed there a few
years, seawater mining operations would start, so I don't see how it
could get much higher than $2 any century soon.
|
Todd McKissick
11.20.06 |
Graham, The economics of DG and
central utility plants are reversed from each other. The utility
version wants a perpetual customer which is absorb constant
increases in business costs. Most of these costs are set to increase
long term. The average DG transaction is more equatable to a product
manufacturing market where competition and economies of scale
actually do lower prices. From the customer's POV, which is more
stable? Which is more insulated from taxes, fees and rate increases?
My comment about it being staggering was directed at all the
items I listed being applied to the massive upcoming markets. It's
hardly comparable to a consumer good that's replicated en masse. It
requires support and infrastructure and labor and cooperation on so
many levels that I don't see human nature making it happen in time.
Regarding production peak and price point, they are two ways of
looking at the same thing. As with oil, our problems start when
delivery to the customers becomes limited. That occurs either by
physical shortage or by it becoming to expensive to go after. I am,
however, very surprised to hear that it would only cost $2 / BOE to
grab U from the sea but is that something that could be scaled large
enough in a short time?
|
Jim Beyer
11.20.06 |
I think $2/BOE is expensive,
taking in account all the hassle of a nuclear power plant needed to
use it. According to references, a BOE is 5.8x10^6 BTUs or 1.70
MW-hr. I am assuming and hoping this is referring to the KWe
produced by the Uranium and not just the overall heat product
produced. If it is the kWe, then the cost of producing some kind of
fuel from the electricity is about $20/BOE, which is what oil cost
in the 1980's-90's. If it is the heat value, then you are closer to
$60/BOE, much higher.
Those don't sound like huge numbers, but that is displacing only
the cost of the fuel, not the nuclear power plant, the fuel
synthesis machinery, etc. Not a huge bargain as I see it.
Again, I agree with Todd. With central plants, the utility wants
to sell more electricity and increase demand. No incentive for
conservation, etc. With DG, each site generates their own power.
This makes them want to make as much as possible and also to use as
little as possible. The incentives are more reasonably alligned.
Also, with DG, some kind of waste heat utilization is at least
theoretically possible. With nuclear power plants, it all has to be
sent to the cooling towers.
It would be nice if they could just hand out Uranium and
Plutonium pellets to everyone. And then we could make our own
electricity with a thermocouple or whatnot, and also benefit from
the waste heat. But it didn't seem to work out that way.
|
Graham Cowan
11.20.06 |
Beyer multiplies the hypothetical
future per-BOE cost of uranium by ten or 30 to take into account
other things besides fuel cost, and then, of the result, says "that
is displacing only the cost of the fuel". Seems rather unsubtle.
|
Jim Beyer
11.20.06 |
My apologies. The 10X is the rough
cost of getting electricity into some kind of fuel (methane,
methanol, ammonia, etc.) that can be stored reasonably. The 3X is
for the efficiency of the nuclear power plant (30-35%) depending on
whether the BOE is based on the heat value of the Uranium or the
realized kWe output of the fuel when used to make electricity in a
nuclear power plant.
|
Arvid Hallén
11.20.06 |
Jim,
It's very possible to use the heat from nuclear power plants to
heat buildings. They do it in Russia, and I believe also in
Switzerland. We did it here in Sweden with a prototype reactor. We
were supposed to heat our major cities with nuclear heat, but
"environmentalists" wanted us to burn oil instead. So that's what
happened.
When we are talking about DG (distributed generation, right?) we
face the nasty problem of diseconomies of scale. There is a reason
no one wanted to buy the AP-600 and are going for the AP-1000
instead, just as people build 5 MW windmills instead of 50 kW ones.
Also, why would DG not try to maximise sales and hence profits?
Just because your power plant is small you don't want to make less
money.
|
Warren Reynolds
11.20.06 |
Len. It must have been a strong
argument since the Feds stopped all funding for Nuclear Fusion R&D
in FY 2004. After more than 30 years of Federal funding, I do not
like my tax money sent down a rat hole. I can be honest in my
analysis since I do not have any vested interest or ties to any type
of energy generation. I assume you do have vested interests ?
|
James Hopf
11.20.06 |
Jim B,
Your right that we may very well have far better generation
technologies 100 or more years from now, and that "running out of
stones" (i.e., coal and uranium) won't be the issue. That's all the
more reason why what I said (that running out of uranium will never
be a problem) is true. We need not worry about it, and no utility
executives are.
In the unlikely event that energy use is at some phenomenal level
by then (e.g., 10 or 20 times today), I'm left wondering what energy
source could provide that much power. In any event, with respect to
nuclear, what's the worst that could happen? Perhaps it is only
capable of increasing to the absolute (as opposed to percentage)
levels that I was predicting when referring to years of supply. If
that's true then some other source will have to do the rest. It's
hardly a reason to not build any plants now.
I think we're all getting kind of confused with this BOE thing.
It's already been established that if you start with electricity, it
is vastly more efficient and cost effective to use it directly in
PHEVs and/or electric cars than to use it to make H2. This fact is
independent of the issue of how best to provide the electricity. For
the power source, it just comes down to cost, although once again, I
really think that the very real costs of air pollution and CO2
emissions should be factored in for coal, and that the geopolitical
costs should be factored in for (imported) gas.
My understanding is that nuclear power costs (including capital)
are competative with gas now, and would be competative with coal if
these other costs were accounted for. No renewable source is cheaper
than nuclear, and their intermittantcy limits their total
contribution. Studies show that the cost of electricity for electric
cars (equivalent miles driven) is ~75 cents/gallon, based on typical
retail power costs. Nuclear can generate power at this price,
including capital and all other costs. I think nuclear should be
used for baseload power and as one of the sources to charge PHEVs or
electric cars. I'm less certain of its role (or competativeness) as
the energy source to make hydrocarbon fuels. If we did use it for
that role, LWRs and electrolysis would not be used. Thermochemical
H2 production from HTGRs (at ~50%-60% overall efficiency) would be
used.
Do you concur that using electricity directly beats the
electrolysis/H2/fuel cell approach? Are you advocating using some
renewable (or decentralized) source to make electricity and then
using that to make H2? Are you advoating using the electricity
directly, but believe that such sources will be generate power more
cheaply than nuclear (or should be used instead for some other
reason)? Or are you advocating some other source of fuel for our
vehicles that does not involve either hydrogen or electric/PHEV
cars?
|
Peter Platell
11.21.06 |
Yes there will be many companies
and society that will apprehend nuclear power investment as a
mistake in the future. That will be those companies and society that
cannot distinguish between different energy qualities needs.
Companies and society that build large nuclear power and generate
electricity for space heating and space cooling will be outstripped
by solar energy harnessed on the surfaces that the building envelope
constitute. Houses have great physical possibilities to generate all
energy that they need in the building and in many cases also for
producing their own fuel. Society that relies on nuclear power for
the building sector will end up with a very vulnerable society with
a lot of hidden cost that the plan economic industry needs. Nuclear
power cannot be running without communist similar conditions and
nuclear power is a typical supply side approach rather than demands
side approach. However, supplying electricity in the order of 100 MW
almost all hours during the year takes technology as nuclear power
or other energy technology that runs on high energy density fuel.
Unfortunately.
|
Jim Beyer
11.21.06 |
James,
Hey, I didn't start with the BOE stuff. Let's see, I think it was
Graham Cowen that first mentioned it. It's a bit disingenuous to do
that, because oil is so valuable because of its physical properties,
energy density, and ease of use. That's justifies its price to some
extent. So I tried to put nuclear power in the context of making a
fuel out of it.
Uranium would be better compared with coal. But a BOE of coal is
only about .2 tonnes, thereabouts. So Uranium would be about
$10/tonne-coal-equivalant (TCE?) And coal now costs what, about
$40/tonne? So, Uranium fuel is about 1/4 that of coal. I think
that's a fairer comparision than saying it's 1/30 that of oil. Of
course nuclear power has the big advantage over coal in having no
significant GHG emissions when used.
If I sound like I am critical of nuclear power, I am not. I guess
if both sides think I am against them, then I really AM being
objective. :)
I guess my concern over the short-medium term is heating, at
least in Northern climates. People can restrict their vehicle use,
but they can't restrict their need to stay warm. Since heating oil
and NG track oil prices pretty well, people are going to get pinched
in the home heating, more than they will at the gas pump. I don't
see nuclear power addressing that anytime soon. I see DG possibly
addressing some of that. (Of course this is all theoretical -- not
that I am doing anything to help anyone hurting right now....)
|
Len Gould
11.21.06 |
This from a 2005 document at AAAS,
(American Assoc. for Advancement of Science?) at
http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/doe06f.pdf titled
"DOE Science Funding Falls in 2006 AAAS R&D Funding Update on R&D
in FY 2006 DOE Final Appropriations"
"Congress adds funds for high energy physics and advanced
computing research, and finds more money for domestic fusion
research by trimming the request for an international fusion
project"
"Domestic fusion research facilities, however, should be able to
operate at 2005 levels thanks to a funding shift. Total Fusion
funding jumps 5.0 percent to $288 million, in 2006 just slightly off
the request, but Congress rearranges fusion priorities to favor
domestic fusion over an international collaborative project. In its
budget request, DOE proposed $56 million for the International
Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project, up from just $5
million last year, at the cost of reducing operating times at
domestic fusion facilities. The $5 billion international project had
been delayed because the international partners were unable to agree
on a site, but earlier in 2005 a site in France was chosen, a
director was selected, and construction got underway. The energy
policy bill signed into law in August authorized U.S. participation
in the project and authorized DOE to negotiate with the other
partners. But Congress shifts $30 million from the ITER request to
domestic fusion research in order to sustain operating times at
fusion facilities in New Jersey, California, and Massachusetts. The
$26 million remaining for ITER is still far above the $5 million in
2005. Congress looks to the future by calling on DOE to fund any
further increases for ITER in FY 2007 and beyond through additional
esources rather than through cuts to domestic fusion."
US has never been big on the international cooperative projects
like ITER, and seeing the support for that cut a bit is no surprise,
esp. with a Republican congress at that time. However, it appears
the laser fusion research is still on strong, eg. published news of
a quantum leap in laser power to now very close to predicted
requirements, though still some stability issues. I anticipate an
anouncement very shortly that that program achieves "net energy
production", though ITER I think is on a more predictable, if less
glamorous, track to commercial fusion power. Question I have is will
any of these projects beat the Chinese to commercial viability, and
if not, what consequences?
|
Ferdinand E. Banks
11.21.06 |
I know that you believe what you
say Mr Platell, and in cerntain cases it may well be true, but it's
NOT TRUE for the country in which you live. The evil consequences
you recount have resulted from such things as ignorant politicians
describing nuclear energy as obsolete, and most of all Sweden
becoming a part of the European Union - which was an act of stunning
irrationality. Or perhaps a better expression would be dumber than
stupid.
|
Todd McKissick
11.21.06 |
Arvid, for a customer driven
widely distributed generation (DG) system, there is a great economy
of scale to increase sales, especially in the beginning where the
market is hardly touched. Market share competition between suppliers
takes care of this.
There is a benefit on the energy efficiency of the system but
it's limited. A small system can afford to fail in say X% of the
homes per year without affecting the entire system's reliability. It
only affects THAT customer's reliability. Kind of like one furnace
going out per neighborhood. That same X% cannot be allowed to fail
in a large plant since it will usually shut down the total output
related to that part. (depending on which part it is). This is why a
large plant needs double and tripple redundant systems with very
expensive quality (and maintenance, training, security,
administration, etc.) to attain 90% availability where the small DG
system can use much cheaper parts in a non-redundant fashion and get
to 99.9... %.
This creates a dramatic disconnect in the graph of economy of
scale. Yes, bigger scale is better, but only short of the point were
it's cost effective to protect your investment with NON-PRODUCTIVE
redundancy and quality. Once you pass that stage, you have to scale
it enormously larger to get back over the previous peak.
Look at any market that's very mature and past the newbie stages.
We have disposable cheap products punched out by the gazillions in
industries from happy meal toys to business computing.
|
Berol Robinson
11.21.06 |
Warren Reynolds wrote:
"See: Year 2000 email from D. Markevich(Energy Office, DOE) to
W.D. Reynolds; and also http://aries.ucsd.edu article "DOE Plans
Termination of All Fusion Technology Efforts" FPN 04-17; see also
http://fusionpower.org"
I just visited http://fusionpower.org and found that USR&D for
2006 was about 735 M$. Hardly phased out.
Berol Robinson Berol@ecolo.org
|
Todd McKissick
11.21.06 |
James, your comment, "Your right
that we may very well have far better generation technologies 100 or
more years from now..." may be a significant difference between the
pro-central/nuclear and the pro-DG crowds. When you bury yourself in
research of DG solutions, you find that there are a few technologies
that are already here to provide a net-zero-energy residence. There
are many more that are near completion. Of these, there are quite a
few with the potential of becoming cheaper than any grid solution.
This considers all of the other factors such as reliability,
availability, environmental, resource use and aethetics as well. As
with most new technologies recently, rapid advances happen much
faster than 50 years ago. I believe we'll see self sufficient homes
breaking the cost effective barrier in 5 years. I also think they'll
become somewhat mandatory or incentivised or whatever, for new homes
in 10 years. Other markets will move toward this option as well, but
these aren't so well matched to the renewable resources onsite.
If that happens, the home market will be taking demand away from
the grid at a growing pace (whatever rate that settles to) and the
grid demands will, at some point, become lower than the cost
effective capacity of the then current grid. This will lead to
public grid maintenance subsidization to cover the expenses beyond
it's needed capacity. That's a tolerable solution for the grid, but
central generation is another matter.
Central plants will always be needed to fill in supply where DG
doesn't fully support local needs. It's anyone's guess if this will
amount to more, less or the same capacity we now have in nuclear
(the most likely supplier). The problem lies in the economics. The
massive investment deals coupled with the extended time frame
required to support each 1 GW plant are already very risky business.
Whenever the DG solution becomes a common household option, that
risk will skyrocket. Similar to the barriers to nuclear in the 80's,
these plants could end up having quite a bit of opposition, albiet
from the investor side this time. I just see all the ramifications
of such a scenerio as being an unnecessary cost passed down to the
consumer.
I'm not saying we don't need more nuclear power, just that it's
irresponsible to advocate any specific level of nuclear power (as
Mr. Rawlingson does) or increased transmission capacity without full
consideration for the future real market power of DG solutions. With
incomplete DG research, you just see the individual parts (like an
engine, tires, seat and steering wheel) but the Model T is almost
here and the VW Beetle is right behind it. I hope I'm alive for the
Doosenburg and muscle car eras.
|
Jonathan Baty
11.21.06 |
If nuclear power is so safe and
wonderful, why does it require the Price Anderson Act? As a
taxpayer, this sounds like unsound fiscal policy.
|
Kenneth Kok
11.21.06 |
Going back to Mr. Bell's paper, I
would like to give a different perspective on his conclusions based
on his number of .01% U-235 in the uranium ore. First this means
there are 3.2 oz in a ton of ore. Using the conversion of 1 MW days
per gram of U-235 burned that 3.2 oz will produce about 91 MW days
of thermal power and in a power plant that is 33% efficient in
converting thermal energy to electricity it will produce 726,400
kwh. Compare this to a ton of coal, assuming it is 100% carbon, it
will produce about 2,760 kwh in a similar power plant. Second based
on these numbers a 1000 MW nuclear power plant only burns 38,600 oz
of U-235 in a year which is slightly less then the 1 million stated
in the paper. All of this assumes that power only comes from U-235
fissions and there is no conversion of U-238 and subsequent burning
of plutonium.
There have also been several references to breeder reactors in
the discussion. The effort now is to use fast spectrum reactors as
burner reactors as part of the proposed system to close the fuel
cycle. In this case the result will be a nuclear waste stream
consisting primarily of fission products and a much greater use of
all the uranium including the U-238. This fuel cycle was first
studied in the 1970s as a way to combat the proliferation of
plutonium. In general it uses a reprocessing flow sheet that does
not separate the plutonium from the uranium and also carries the
other actinides into the fast reactor fuel. They are then "burned"
as fuel in the fast spectrum reactor. Development of this fuel cycle
is the purpose of the GNEP initiative in the USDOE. It will lead to
a great reduction in the need for facilities such as Yucca Mountain
and will also enhance the proliferation resistance of the nuclear
fuel cycle.
|
Graham Cowan
11.21.06 |
Because it is not perfectly
safe. It does, however, tend to have smaller accidents less
frequently than the power sources that bring in large amounts of
fuel tax revenue.
That is why the Lonnie Dupre's behaviour is significant. A gas
pipeline explosion here, a tanker truck crash there, and as long as
you don't know any of the victims, it's easy to say you don't
believe nuclear is much safer. A government paycheque helps you to
say this. But if, at some point, your personal skin needs
to be put near either one power source, or another, suddenly all
those accidents don't seem so insignificant.
That is why I often say boron will bring nuclear
cachet to motoring. Even if solar power is used to
generate the boron, still, like a fission chain reaction, onboard
boron combustion is unable to survive outside the devices that
sustain it. No amount of boron in transit can create another
Neyshabur or Ghislenghien disaster.
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen fan
Burn boron in pure
oxygen for car power
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Steven Peterson
11.21.06 |
Warren said: In the 1970s, I
saw five sign carrying anti-nuclear activisits stop the construction
of one of GE's BWR nuclear reactors for many weeks. This cost GE a
large amount of $ with cost over-runs to the client. The "hand
writing" was on the wall.
Warren, you seem to be under the impression that the success of a
small number of ignorant obstructionists is a good thing. You are
mistaken. I am sure this was pleasnatly cathartic to those involved,
but unfortunately they had been fed lies by alarmists. They were
working for the downfall of our nation. Pity you are unable to see
that.
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