Nuclear Energy - the Great Comeback

[Winner]

Nuclear Fission always has the chance for nuclear meltdown. Thus coal is better. We could go solar power, but that would take lots of panels over a large area to generate an equivalent amount of energy.

Coal plants have killed much more people than nuclear energy, but from some mysterious reason, nobody seems to mind that.

Modern nuclear energy is extremely safe. There is simply NO chance of meltdown. Even Chernobyl, which was obsolete and inherently dangerous reactor, blew up only after the control turned off all safety measures. On the other hand, every year, there are hundreds of accident in coal plants with hundreds of dead.

Face it, there is much higher chance you'll be killed by a heart attack or even some meteorite, than by nuclear accident.

 

[JerichoHill]

Hmm? I've heard figures that say it's dangerous for something more like 10,000 years (thus the impetus for long-term underground storage). And anyway, I think breeder reactors are illegal in the US.

They're scare reports. And according to the post by the OP, recycling fuel is no longer illegal.

When the environmentalists AND the power industry BOTH agree on something, it is probably right.

 

[History_Buff]

Nuclear Fission always has the chance for nuclear meltdown. Thus coal is better. We could go solar power, but that would take lots of panels over a large area to generate an equivalent amount of energy.

Nuclear Fission has the potential for a meltdown. Burning Coal is effectively guaranteed to dump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which is hurting the planet. And decent reactor designs are very safe. In the CANDU reactors the moderator is the coolant (I think that's the right terms). If the reactor breaches, the reaction will automatically shut down. That and Chernoble was caused by people trying to see if they could push the reactor. Now we know better.

 

[Oerdin]

Winner - I've explored the concept of nuclear power, and I don't think it's really cheap. If it was cheap, private industry would be interested. But it isn't, unless there are huge government consessions.

You do realize we are in the middle of the single largest building boom for nuclear power in the history of the field, right? It sounds like industry is very interested but the main sticking point remains political opposition from the ignorant "OMG!! NUCLEAR IS EVIL!!" crowd. Those people have no anwsers, they have no real alternatives, they like to pretend that solar will magically replace all other forms of energy... The problem is global climate change is happening right now and we need solutions right now. Nuclear is that solution.

 

[Oerdin]

Nuclear Fission has the potential for a meltdown. Burning Coal is effectively guaranteed to dump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which is hurting the planet. And decent reactor designs are very safe. In the CANDU reactors the moderator is the coolant (I think that's the right terms). If the reactor breaches, the reaction will automatically shut down. That and Chernoble was caused by people trying to see if they could push the reactor. Now we know better.

True, there are no free lunches in the world and there are no risk free energy sources. There is only risk minimized energy. Virtually no waste, no green house gases, and very little risk. The melt down in the Ukraine was a text book case of incompitent party officials replacing trained scientists thus creating a "perfect wave" which represents the absolute worst case scenerio. What was the result of that worst case scenerio? A grand total of 60 people have died in the last 20-25 years due to the Chrynoble accident but every year tens of thousands die of lung disease due to coal dust. The mercury and sulfur in coal (and other fossil fuels) poison the environment while the Earth is heating up (causing more storms and worse storms) due to all the GHG we are spewing into the air.

Yes, compared to the alternative (fossil fuels) nuclear energy is risk minimized energy.

 

[El_Machinae]

You do realize we are in the middle of the single largest building boom for nuclear power in the history of the field, right?

I know a couple designs have been approved (Westinghouse has one that's been approved, IIRC), but is there a single new contract in the United States to build a plant? As of February of this year, I wasn't aware of any.

 

[Azkonus]

What was the result of that worst case scenerio? A grand total of 60 people have died in the last 20-25 years due to the Chrynoble accident but every year tens of thousands die of lung disease due to coal dust. The mercury and sulfur in coal (and other fossil fuels) poison the environment while the Earth is heating up (causing more storms and worse storms) due to all the GHG we are spewing into the air.

What scares people is the way of dying and end effects of carrying the poison. Coal dust can kill you but in time and it just kills you, do no cosmetic damages and do no damage someone you love or you make love with.

If you survive a nuclear meltdown, you may have serious cosmetic problems (not with coal); you may be harmful to people you love (not with coal) and you make love with (this is so sad but you may have genetically defective children, again not with coal)

 

[kronic]

True, there are no free lunches in the world and there are no risk free energy sources. There is only risk minimized energy. Virtually no waste, no green house gases, and very little risk. The melt down in the Ukraine was a text book case of incompitent party officials replacing trained scientists thus creating a "perfect wave" which represents the absolute worst case scenerio. What was the result of that worst case scenerio? A grand total of 60 people have died in the last 20-25 years due to the Chrynoble accident but every year tens of thousands die of lung disease due to coal dust. The mercury and sulfur in coal (and other fossil fuels) poison the environment while the Earth is heating up (causing more storms and worse storms) due to all the GHG we are spewing into the air.

Source?

This is what Wiki has to say:

In September 2005, a report by the Chernobyl Forum, comprising a number of UN agencies including the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the World Health Organization (WHO), UN bodies and the Governments of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine, put the total predicted number of deaths due to the accident at 4,000 (of which 2,200 deaths are expected to be in the ranks of 200 000 "liquidators") [1] . This predicted death toll includes the 47 workers who died of acute radiation syndrome as a direct result of radiation from the disaster, nine children who died from thyroid cancer and an estimated 3,940 people who could die from cancer as a result of exposure to radiation [7]

The Chernobyl Forum report has been criticised for its methodology, by Greenpeace among others. For example, it only studied the effects on areas near to the accident. Some studies indicate possible heightened mortality in other countries[8]. Furthermore, it only studied the case of 200 000 people involved in the cleaning-up, and 400 000 most directly affected by radiation. The total number of people affected by radiation in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia may amount to up to 6 million. The UN report concluded that "99% of the patients affected by thyroid cancers will survive".

Greenpeace quoted a 1998 WHO study, which counted 212 dead from only 72 000 "liquidators" (those who cleaned-up the accident). This contradicts the number of 47 dead liquidators on a total amount of 600 000 people. Greenpeace Russia considers that 67 000 people died in Russia because of Chernobyl's consequences.

According to the Union Chernobyl, the main organization of "liquidators", 10% of the 600 000 liquidators are dead, and 165 000 disabled [9].

According to a April 2006 report by the International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear Warfare (IPPNW), entitled "Chernobyl's consequences on health", more than 10 000 people are affected by thyroid cancer and 50 000 cases are expected. In Europe, 10 000 deformities have been observed in newborns because of Chernobyl's radioactive cloud, and 5 000 deaths among recently-born babies. Several hundreds of thousands of the people who worked on the site after the accident are now sick because of radiation, and tens of thousands are dead, according to the IPPNW, 1985 winner of the Nobel peace prize [10].

Even if you ignore the Greenpeace figures, the number of only 60 deaths doesn't look plausible at all.

We should also note that the Chernobyl region isn't densely populated when compared to other regions in Europe. I live in one of the denser populated areas in Germany. That means there are at least 10 million people, probably more, within a radius of 100 km. (There are seven nuclear plants within that radius as well.) The consequences of a nuclear catastrophe in terms of deaths, diseases and economic costs would surely be much worse here.

Has anyone thought of the economic costs of a nuclear meltdown?

 

[Irish Caesar]

I know a couple designs have been approved (Westinghouse has one that's been approved, IIRC), but is there a single new contract in the United States to build a plant? As of February of this year, I wasn't aware of any.

Site selection is going on right now. I spoke with some people from the NRC fairly recently, and they said that they expected several new reactors to open within the next decade...there's an awful lot of regulations to get through before they'll let you start building a plant or add reactors to an existing site. As best I understand, you are correct, but plans to build new reactors and plants are looking to get to the NRC before much longer.

 

[sysyphus]

In the CANDU reactors the moderator is the coolant (I think that's the right terms).

Not quite. The moderator is the substance that slows down free neutrons, allowing nuclear fission, whereas the coolant is the substance which removes the heat generated from fission from teh reactor and passes it on to a secondary steam circuit (which mvoes the turbine). The CANDU reactor is unique in that it uses heavy water for both, the the new design under development uses ligth water for coolant (but still heavy water for moderator).

Otherwise, your post was spot on.

 

[History_Buff]

Yeah, I'm not up on my technical terms, but I do believe that if you were to ever remove whatever keeps the reaction controlled, it'll actually stop. Or so I was taught in school anyhow

EDIT: Read the Wikipedia on the CANDU, very interesting. And they can be used to render old weapons grade materials effectively useless, which is cool in and of itself.

 

[Oerdin]

If solar is cheap, why isn't it more common? If nothing else, you'd use solar during the day, and supplement with coal at night?

And isn't the amortized fixed cost of nuclear really huge?

Solar isn't cheap and is the most expensive source of energy on a per kilowatt/hour basis. Let's have a reality check. We've all heard the solar fanatics for 30 years now and every day they keep promising that the revolution will start tomorrow. If solar was a cost effective way to produce large quantities of electricity then the "solar revolution" would have already happened. Solar has been given huge subsidies and plenty of chances but it is still just a tiny niche player and the reason it is a tiny niche player is because the grand promises never came true.

If solar was going to become a serious player in the energy field it would have done so already since they've had decades to try and perfect their product. Climate change is happening NOW and we can't wait for magical solutions to appear 20-30 years from now. We need massive amounts of nongreen house gas causing electricity and nuclear power is the only one that can deliver.

 

[Oerdin]

I know a couple designs have been approved (Westinghouse has one that's been approved, IIRC), but is there a single new contract in the United States to build a plant? As of February of this year, I wasn't aware of any.

NO new nuclear plants in the US (though there are a number of expansions to existing plants so that the US domestic output of nuclear power is now higher then ever) but luckily the US is not the entire world. China, India, France, South Africa, South Korea, and Japan are all building new nuclear power plants. They are not bound by the anti-science luditism which strangles nuclear power in the US. That's a good thing because if we stand any chance of reversing global warming then we're going to need a lot more nuclear plants and a lot fewer fossil fuel power plants operating in the world.

 

[JerichoHill]

If solar is cheap, why isn't it more common? If nothing else, you'd use solar during the day, and supplement with coal at night?

And isn't the amortized fixed cost of nuclear really huge?

I thought I addressed this.

The variable cost for solar power is cheap, as well as the fixed cost. However, the power output is very small, and highly variable. Henceforth, it is not a preferred means of power distribution. An effective solar plant would have to be HUGE, much too large to be practical.

The cost of a nuclear plant is typically spread across multiple companies. Plant Hatch and Plant Vogtle in GA have multiple owners, so they share costs and share power output coming from the plant.

 

[El_Machinae]

And to think, to get the USA into Kyoto standards, they will need to build two nuclear powerplants every three months for the next 50 years.

Better get started!

(I heard about General Electric building in China, I hope it works out for them.)

Solar isn't cheap and is the most expensive source of energy on a per kilowatt/hour basis.

I have trouble proving this, because solar proponents include capital costs into their factors, but you can't seem to get nuclear advocates to include capital costs when they're debating.

I'll agree that nuclear's operating cost SMOKES solar's operating+capital costs ... but that's not saying much.

What's the true cost of nuclear on a kilowatt*hour basis?