THE Nuclear Power Thread pt 5 (merged)

[EnergyUnlimited]

Main problem is that new particle/force (if true) is manifesting itself at so high energy levels that it will be as useful as top quark is.

[Repent]

Sorry, I realize that physics is not a popular subject here. But it IS intriguing news.

I'll take science news any day over more American political news. As a non-american, I am increasingly bothered by the centric view that 'its only important if it happens in America'; like the rest of what happens on the planet is unimportant?

It distresses me even more to see and hear about all the political chaos in the US. And as a non-citizen of a foreign nation, I can never cast a vote or do anything about all this madness but watch it unfold! (In horror)!

Science news is applicable to all the non-Americans here on this site, keep it up!

[diemos]

As a non-american, I am increasingly bothered by the centric view that 'its only important if it happens in America'; like the rest of what happens on the planet is unimportant?

Its human nature to be more concerned with what's happening to "us" and not "them". No matter your definition of who "us" and "them" is.

It distresses me even more to see and hear about all the political chaos in the US. And as a non-citizen of a foreign nation, I can never cast a vote or do anything about all this madness but watch it unfold! (In horror)!

There was a science experiment once where the subject was given increasingly painful electric shocks but was told they could stop it any time they wanted. When the subject was given a button to push that they were told would shut off the current they were willing to tolerate more painful shocks than when they didn't have the button.

The illusion of control makes one more willing to put up with things.

[cephalotus]

Even in Germany where the Greens have just won the Government of one state they will not be able to keep their promise and switch off several nuclear reactors within a short time. This would de-stabilize the grid and risk to black out the whole grid once it can't keep the necessary frequency any more. Same effect as above...

Germany switched of 1/3 of its nuclear capacity (currently 9 out of 17 reactors are off grid) almost immediately after Fukushima.

Nothing happened except that there are now some days/hours where there is more photovoltaic power than nuclear power in the grid.

During summer some more reactors will be shut down for revision, so roughly 2/3rds of the German nuclear capacity will be off grid by then.

There is no need to run a single nuclear reactor after 2017 in Germany and Germany could even keep exporting electricity.

It's only a matter if you -want- to have nuclear power, not if you -need- it. You don't.

[Shaved Monkey]

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/radio ... 1dhvw.html
Aboriginal elders are calling for the closure of Ranger Uranium Mine it supplies 10% of the worlds needs
http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2011/0 ... te=westqld

[evilgenius]

War could of course be another trigger for the whole thing coming down.

It is quite easy and relatively cheap to shoot a small nuclear bomb to a height of 70 kilometres or so. It could even be launched from a vessel at sea so it would be hard to prove who has done it. That would cause a EMP which in turn would black out the resp. country's grid, and then cause nuclear plants and spent fuel storage to heat up and melt.

Even in Germany where the Greens have just won the Government of one state they will not be able to keep their promise and switch off several nuclear reactors within a short time. This would de-stabilize the grid and risk to black out the whole grid once it can't keep the necessary frequency any more. Same effect as above.

It seems it was easier to set up nuclear power than to get rid of it again.

When I saw the title of this post I immediately thought about this. All of the electronic controls on the diesel generators at the plants could be hardened, I suppose. That would buy some time. You do have to wonder what the long term answer is, though, when the grid could be down for a long time.

[Outcast_Searcher]

There is no need to run a single nuclear reactor after 2017 in Germany and Germany could even keep exporting electricity.

It's only a matter if you -want- to have nuclear power, not if you -need- it. You don't.

Citing the exception doesn't prove the rule. Besides:

So, you don't believe in air pollution? You like breathing emissions like coal dust (and hope your kids and grandkids will like it even better down the road)?
You are an AGW denier, I suppose?

I'm all for getting rid of unsafe nuclear power (i.e. the old plants that are poorly mitigated, located, etc), but without a safe and realistic short term alternative, which despite the proclimations of the greens won't be anytime soon in sufficient supply) -- getting there on a global basis with the likes of Chindia growing madly is a fantasy.

[AdTheNad]

Germany switched of 1/3 of its nuclear capacity (currently 9 out of 17 reactors are off grid) almost immediately after Fukushima.

Nothing happened except that there are now some days/hours where there is more photovoltaic power than nuclear power in the grid.

That's interesting. Are Germany totally self sufficient for electricity or have they just started importing more from places like France?
Also, have they increased the rate at which things like coal plants have been running? To say that nothing has happened implies that prior to the shut downs electricity was being produced for no reason which doesn't sound quite right to me.

[diemos]

Are Germany totally self sufficient for electricity or have they just started importing more from places like France?

they're importing electricity from the french and swiss nukes.

http://economicsnewspaper.com/policy/german/electricity-from-france-germany-doubled-import-9194.html

[AdTheNad]

they're importing electricity from the french and swiss nukes.

So turning off their own nukes didn't fix anything, just exported the problem. Why am I not shocked? Though maybe that is just the short term view and turning off the nukes will increase awareness and the investment into renewable energy in the long term.

So how do people who believe the free market will fix all problems account for the lag times present when just in time fails?

[Arthur75]

There is no need to run a single nuclear reactor after 2017 in Germany and Germany could even keep exporting electricity.

It's only a matter if you -want- to have nuclear power, not if you -need- it. You don't.

Sure, if you are willing to burn coal and lignite like no other (and have access to the said coal and lignite) this isn't an issue :

Germany power production by source 2008 :

http://www.euronuclear.org/info/encyclo ... en-ger.htm

As to PV producing more than the nuclear you have left at some day/hour, any source on that ?

[cephalotus]

you can see solar and nuclear (and other) production on http://www.transparency.eex.com .

For example today at 1:00pm

solar: 12,4 GW
nuclear: most likely 10,7GW (data will be available tomorrow)

This now happens on every sunny day for some hours when demand is highest.

It is true that Germany now imports more energy from France & Co, but this is only half of the story. There have always been imports and exports with other European countries, that the reason why there is an European grid.
So far Germany exported more electricity over the years during the last years (roughly 20TWh/a). We will see if this will change in 2011.
Importing electricity is not only driven by the need for power but also because of market reasons. It could be cheaper to import electricity from a coal fired power plant in Poland than to switch on a natural gas fired power plant in Germany.

Germany has more than enough capacity (and there is still the "cold reserve") to compensate for 2/3rds of the nuclear reactors shut down by now, but the merit order of power plants also includes the possibilities of importing electricity.
Btw, also the French rely heavily on the European grid, because they export lots of there nuclear power during normal times but need electricity on cold winter days and in hot and dry summers when cooling water gets scarce.

I agree with those of you that claim that nuclear power is a technology that releases significantly less CO2 compared to coal for example and I will also agree, that on the global scale global warming is a much bigger problem for humankind compared to nuclear waste and the occasional failure.
So for me it is perfectly fine if China or the US build more nuclear power plants. I prefer that compared to more coal power plants.

But with nuclear power I'm also interested in the local effects and nuclear power is way to expensive and way to risky for densely populated regions like middle of Europe. Germans taxpayers pay billions of Euro for the "management" of the nuclear waste and it is scandalous how the nuclear industry and the policy acts about that.
It's also scandalous how the nuclear industry operates its reactors. Their only goal is to increase the profit and security only reduces the profit.
It is not the question IF a nuke will melt down in Europe (wasn't so far away in Forsmark/Sweden in 2006 and the Swiss already had a molten reactor core in their early nuclear days), it's only a question WHEN. I don't want to be the taxpayer of the country the nuclear accident happens.

We now have the European parliament that makes more than enough rules (some good, some less good....) and I'm sure that they can make a rule that every nuclear power plant has to have an insurance against every damage it causes. Let's think about 500-2.000 billion Euro for a major accident in Europe.
Of course such an insurance has to be backed by the government and the tax payers of that country, no such insurance is available for a company.

With such an EU law I'm sure not a single new reactor would be built.

So I don't believe in cheap nuclear technology. If you do, fine for you, just go on...

If the French do, fine for them, but they should pay to the last cent in the case of a major accident. Also we should pay of course, if a major accident occurs in our nuclear power plants.
And to the French: Please stop putting your nuclear waste from la Hague into the Atlantic (yes I know, we also did...)

Yes, we need to reduce CO2 emissions and we should reduce them much faster than we plan (and maybe the US starts to think about their emissions?)
In my opinion wind energy and solar energy are the resources Germany should use on the way to a zero CO2 nation. In the interim period we should build a few more natural gas (methane) fired power plants (Siemens now makes them at 60%+ efficiency) to compensate for the fluctuating wind+solar input, on the longer term we need more storage capacity.

Maybe NaS batteries (Mexico(!) builds a 1GW / 8GWh system), maybe more pumped (water) storage capacity, there is an interesting idea to be found here: http://www.poppware.de/Ringwallspeicher/index.htm (only in German, sorry) or maybe the path from wind energy to hydrogen to methane is the way to go.
We have the first prototypes on wind-hydrogen power plants in the lower MW range and one energy provider now offers a tariff for natural gas mixed with hydrogen from excess wind power...

In my opinion these are technologies the world will need and buy in only a few years. Good for our export industry.

On the "other emissions" of conventional power plants. On the Eastern side of Germany you can see what effective filter systems can do on lignite power plants. There are still emissions (better to have none, of course), but I don't think that those are a significant problem at the moment. That is different in China for example, but in Germany emissions from the cars and trucks are seen as more problematic.

Dresden for example will be forced by the EU to pay millions of Euro, if they don't get their air quality problem with "fine dust" solved, so they are now discussing systems to give more space /v power to bicycles and the public transport (which is quite good in the city in my opinion)...
And don't see nuclear power plants solving those problems. Electric cars will do, but there are some years to go until they will become so common to have an effect.

So in the end I'm quite pragmatic and would say:

Let's use the technologies that have the best future for our country and in my opinion that would be wind energy and solar energy and storage systems. If fusion gets ready by 2050 (which I don't believe, but who knows) and it gets cheap and safe enough (which I also don't believe) we could use that, but to ist idle and wait for some magic technology is wasted time.
In the interim period we would need more natural gas, but on the longer end there are several options to get methane from renewable sources.
Almost everything could run on either methane or electricity, only planes would need liquid fuels (incl. liquid hydrogen or "biofuels")

The money that is made from keeping some of the old nuclear reactors running until 2015/2017/2020(?) will be desperately needed to pay for the nuclear waste treatment and "safe" storage for the next 50 years. After that we will see...
It will not be enough, so the tax payer will have to pay most of it, but that has always been the case with nuclear technology.

Lignite is the only carbon resource that Germany has in abundance. In my opinion it is very stupid to give it (almost for free) to the companies to burn it for cheap electricity and blow it into the air. We should save it for the chemical industry that still will need carbon based products after peak oil...

The last thing:

The costs of photovoltaic systems have come down by more than 50% from 2004 to 2010. This "learning curve" (similiar to those observed in the electrinic industries like the one for flat screens) is a combination of better and cheaper manufacturing in several countries and the demand created by installation programs in several countries.
Half of that global cost reduction in photovoltaic systems and the start into mass production was and is paid by Germans electricity customers.

Now photovoltaic systems have become cheaper than diesel generators in almost every "3rd world nation" so to make solar energy affordable is in my opinion (at least at 50%) Germany's part on the international fight on climate change. In the next discussion about cost transfers from rich polluters to the poor I would like to see that argument brought to the table.

What did nuclear power helped them so far?

best regards.

[cephalotus]

Germany power production by source 2008 :

solar has been at ~2% in 2010 and will be at 3% (+) in 2011.

Date gets outdated quite fast now

[Arthur75]

you can see solar and nuclear (and other) production on http://www.transparency.eex.com .

For example today at 1:00pm

solar: 12,4 GW
nuclear: most likely 10,7GW (data will be available tomorrow)

Cephalotus, thanks for the link, very nice and clear site !
Which got me to look if an equivalent is available for France, and in fact it is :
http://www.rte-france.com/fr/developpem ... nergetique
(much longer URL )

As to nuclear, personnally I'm quite ambivalent about it. I would say that in any case the top priority should be in Energy conservation, but even then, I'm very doubtfull about maintaining a modern society without fossile fuels on pure renewables (ie also without nuclear). My prefered reference regarding this is David Mac Kay book "Sustainable Energy – without the hot air" :
http://www.withouthotair.com/
And clearly he ends up with some nuclear in most of his mix, if no fossile at all. And it also gives a clear idea of the amount of renewables infrastructure needed to be deployed even after having pushed energy conservation quite far.

So somehow I could resume my position as switching between :
1) We haven't seen how peak oil will be impacting us yet by a wide margin, this will basically put the industrial/modern civilization down, so why bother with nuclear added risk anyway, result will be the same.
2) No we should still target keeping a modern society (telecoms networks, high tech medicine, even if transport for instance would be hugely reduced from today's level), but in that case dropping nuclear isn't really realistic.

As to nuclear real costs and waste handling, this is for sure very controversial, and I'm not an expert in it, so would have to dig deeper to have a real position on that (again would be close to MacKay's position regarding these for the time being, for instance on the actual volume of nuclear waste)

[KevO]

God, you will want to believe BNFL and the EPA after watching this.
Physician Helen Caldicott claims we are in the biggest cover up in world history. I million Chernobyl dead so far and Fukoshima is far worse. Tells you what not to eat and where not to eat it.
North America is in trouble, right now, according to the speaker and we are all being lied to on an unimaginable scale
http://youtu.be/Itr6GDuOOBY

[sparky]

@ Arthur and cephalotus ,
thanks for your reasoned and courteous discussion , it's a pleasure to read
Here in Australia the Anti-nuke lobby is very strong, and we are 95% coal because of it
there doesn't seems to be any problem with exporting Yellow cake however
.

[Arthur75]

@ Arthur and cephalotus ,
thanks for your reasoned and courteous discussion , it's a pleasure to read
Here in Australia the Anti-nuke lobby is very strong, and we are 95% coal because of it
there doesn't seems to be any problem with exporting Yellow cake however
.

Thks for the message, didn't realize that Australia was Uranium second producer (after Canada), didn't realize either that Uranium market price went through a major peak in 2007 prior to the oil one :

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... umSpot.png

From my knowledge, France Uranium main source is Niger, but apparently also important shares in Australia uranium mining, trying to find exact sources breakdown, didn't find it yet, but it is 100% imports, last Uranium mine in France closed in 2001, contrary to Aus we really have almost nothing left (be it fossile or other, a bit like Japan ...)

Edit : in fact Australia and Canada probably bigger source for France than Niger

[GOT2BGREEN]

Actually the only real problem with nuclear energy is the wrong fuel was used from the beginning! In 1977 Dupont recommended in their 167 page white paper to the U.S. Congress that Thorium (the only safe, green, cheap, and abundant fuel be used for the nuclear program because of the following advantages over Uranium:

1) Melt downs and other catastrophic failures are impossible with Thorium

2) One-Third the cost of Uranium

3) 600 Times more plentiful than Uranium

4) Produces 200 times more energy density than Uranium per ton

5) Produces the less than one-tenth the nuclear waste

But when Congress wanted to use Thorium, the DoD directed Los Alamos laboratories to conduct a feasibility and safety analysis since they knew Thorium could not be used to make atomic weapons. Los Alamos came back in favor of Thorium, but since America was hell-bent on making nuclear weapons in those days, Thorium was deliberately ignored and they pushed ahead with Uranium, knowing full-well that every Uranium fueled reactor would become a potential disaster waiting to happen.

Both Chernobyl and Fukishima would never have occurred if they were fueled with Thorium instead of Uranium. India, Norway, and China are to be commended for their wisdom in choosing Thorium for their new generation of nuclear power.

[Frank]

Thorium is indeed, the answer.

[sparky]

.
The choice of Uranium fuel was a direct by product of the nuclear weapon industry and the requirement of nuclear power plants for the U.S. and Soviet navies .
It made good sense at the time since the technology was reasonably known , procedures had been sorted out and there was an steady stream of qualified engineers with good practical experience

It's not quite true that civilian Thorium plant couldn't help nuclear proliferation , in some respect it make it easier , that certainly was a consideration since enriching Uranium is the hardest step in bomb making
also Uranium supply is easier to monitor , with Thorium it's much harder
There is good work proceeding with it , pilot plants exist unlike the most exotic " alternative energies which often are little more than government subsidized pie in the sky

Still there is a sharp step in adopting a new technology ,
if the results are good and the Greens more or less on board ( big if )
it can be made to happen