THE Nuclear Power Thread pt 5 (merged)

[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

[FranklySpeaking]

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.

YES I AGREE COMPLETELY WITH THIS POST. THORIUM IS A MUCH BETTER CHOICE, BUT LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE WORLD, PEOPLE (INCLUDING CORRUPT POLITICIANS & LEADERS) WILL CHOOSE WHATEVER IS MOST PROFITABLE FOR THE LONGEST PERIOD OF TIME. THIS IS WHY THEY CHOSE URANIUM. PUBLIC SAFETY WAS NEVER A GENUINE ISSUE.

[cephalotus]

Actually the only real problem with nuclear energy is the wrong fuel was used from the beginning!
...
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.

Germany started to build a Helium cooled Thorium reactor (THTR 300) in Hamm-Uentrop in 1970. After several delays it started to produce electricity in 1985.
This reactor had huge problems with its reactor core based on 675,000 Thorium-"spheres" and was shut down after leakage of radiation (which the operating company tried to hide, typical behaviour of every nuclear company, I assume ...) and massive protests in 1989.

The plant is still very radioactive and it is planned to finish deconstruction in the year 2027, roughly 40 years after shut down. Currently it costs 6,5 million Euro each year to maintain the power plant.

Overall costs exceeded 4 billion Euro so far for only 2,9 billion kWh.

The first 2,9 billion kWh of photovoltaic energy have been much cheaper in Germany.

Germany also designed another Thorium based reactor system and tried to export it to South Africa (which failed: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100223/ ... 1008b.html ) and China, where a small power plant was built near Peking.

You can find more details at:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernkraftwerk_THTR-300
(text in German, but some references are available in English)

My opinion:
If your really believe in cheap and "safe" thorium reactors just go ahead and try. "We" did several decades ago and failed, maybe the Indian and Chinese engineers will find better solutions or maybe the will deal differently with the risks in that technology.

Nuclear is only cheap if you ignore the risks and the follow up costs, if you do, the economics of this technology are very different.

PS: afaik Norway has stopped its plans to build a thorium reactor in 2009 after a study from Statens Strålevern calculated the costs and risks of that technology:
http://www.taz.de/1/zukunft/umwelt/arti ... e-loesung/
(sorry, I wasn't able to find any news about that in English)

[cephalotus]

In case of interest

currently 11 out of 17 nuclear reactors are shut down in Germany...

[cephalotus]

Until the end of May only 4 out of 17 German nuclear reactors will be on-line:

http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/atom ... -1.1099891 (in German)

You can not power an industrial society without nuclear energy?

[Serial_Worrier]

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

What can I say, German are fucking looney.

[dohboi]

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110614004193.htm

Fukushima farmer kills self over N-plant

A cattle farmer in Soma, Fukushima Prefecture, who hanged himself left an apparent suicide message that read, "I wish there wasn't a nuclear plant [in this area]," it has been learned.

The man was forced to kill some of his cows and close his dairy business due to the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

[meemoe_uk]

Good old nuclear power. The french probably think anyone who believes all this doom hype over nuclear has a croissant for brain. They're right.
Nice clean nuclear plant in france


No serious nuke accidents ever in france, even though they got more nukes than anyone else.

[Lore]

And I believe we kicked the French out just before the British.

[clif]

I hate to break it to you meemoe_uk, but the image you posted as a nuke plant in France is actually Three Mile Island.

See here;

http://www.eoearth.org/article/Three_Mi ... nnsylvania

for reference.

Pretty much the exact same image as you posted.

Trust me the French were not at fault, at TMI. Although like at Fukushima, GE and their refusal to make their early reactors safer in the late 60's when they were notified of problems did contribute to both problems. Well that and both governments (Japan and US) ability to pretend what ever the nuke operators said would work as described .... until it didn't.

[clif]

I see you changed the picture meemeo_uk.

[dohboi]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/23/us-nuclear-security-idUSTRE75M1SU20110623

Nuclear terrorism can cause another Fukushima: expert

Global action to protect the nuclear industry against possible terrorist attacks is urgently needed, a leading expert said, as are safety steps to prevent any repeat of Japan's Fukushima accident.

"Both al Qaeda and Chechen terrorist groups have repeatedly considered sabotaging nuclear reactors -- and Fukushima provided a compelling example of the scale of terror such an attack might cause," Matthew Bunn of Harvard University said.

It always puzzled me how the right wing, who are generally most enthusiastic about nukes and also most concerned about the eternal "war on terror", could reconcile these. But I guess we all have our little inconsistencies.

[meemoe_uk]

That article forget to mention the other terrorist organisation, you know, the one that invaded Japan just after they had the Earthquake and blew up one of their nuclear plants for an anti-nuke publicity stunt : the US.

"Fukushima provided a compelling example of the scale of terror such an attack might cause,"
Hahar, any sane Jap wouldn't consider the Fukashima sabotage a large scale terror attack, because it pales in comparision to the terrible nuclear bombs droped on Japan.
If we were going by the level of farcical scare hysteria cooked up by western media over Fukushima, weren't we all spose to be hideously mutated genetic freaks now due to world-wide radiation poisoning?

[ColossalContrarian]

@meemoe_uk, it seems like you're basically handing all the nuclear responsibilities of France off to future generations. That's a pretty dirty thing to do. I don't think they should have to be responsible for all the lavish living the French have enjoyed over the past few decades. This is why nuclear energy will ultimately fail. You say things like "France has never had any nuclear problems" but it's based off only a few decades, nuclear energy is a multi-generational cleanup effort and a sampling of a few decades is tiny compared to the impact nuclear disasters cause. Frances is screwed too but it might not be for a few more decades.