NUCLEAR WASTE: Will fast breeder reactors solve the issue of nuclear waste?
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On February 16, President Barack Obama announced loan guarantees totaling more than $8 billion for two new light-water reactors in Georgia, part of an initiative to restart the nuclear power industry in the U.S. Just three weeks earlier, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu had announced the formation of a Blue-Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future to resolve what to do with the waste produced by those future reactors—as well as the 2,000 metric tons a year produced by the 104 reactors currently in operation in the U.S. After all, the Obama administration has halted plans to store spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain in Nevada—a geologic repository that never opened.
Such struggles to find a permanent resting place for nuclear waste has prompted some to resurrect an idea that stretches back to the Manhattan Project: so-called fast-neutron reactors that can consume nuclear waste through fission. Whether it is billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates touting a new design for a traveling-wave reactor or the South Korean government promoting spent fuel reprocessing and fast breeder reactors, observers and governments seem to think it is time to reconsider fast reactors—despite the fact that the designs have a mixed track record. Since the 1950s, roughly $100 billion has been spent on the research and development of such reactors around the world, yet there is currently only one producing electricity—the BN-600 reactor in Russia, operational since 1980.
The U.S. "is at an impasse over disposing of nuclear waste," noted physicist Frank von Hippel of Princeton University and co-chair of the International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM), during a February 17 conference call with reporters that included several physicists, his co-authors on a new report on such fast-neutron reactors. "The interest in these reactors is that fast-neutron reactors are more efficient at fissioning long-lived isotopes…[and]...fissioning long-lived isotopes will minimize the waste problem."
Going fast with sodium
The most prevalent type of fast-neutron reactor, so-called because the neutrons used to initiate the fission chain reaction are traveling faster than neutrons moderated by water in conventional nuclear reactors, operate at temperatures as high as 550 degrees Celsius and use liquid sodium instead of water as a coolant. Sodium burns explosively when exposed to either air or water, necessitating elaborate safety controls. Nevertheless, as far back as 1951 at Idaho National Laboratory, such a sodium-cooled fast-neutron reactor produced electricity.
But attempts to make that technology commercial have largely failed, mostly because of difficulties with controlling sodium fires and the steam generators that transfer heat from the sodium to water. Japan's Monju sodium-cooled fast neutron reactor caught fire in 1995—and has just received permission to resume operation this month after years of technical difficulties in repairing it, along with legal challenges to its restart. The French Superphenix sodium-cooled fast-neutron reactor operated successfully for more than a decade—but only produced electricity 7 percent of the time, "one of the lowest load factors in nuclear history," said nuclear consultant Mycle Schneider, an IPFM member during the call. An accident at the plant cost one engineer his life and injured four other people when a leftover tank with roughly 100 kilograms of sodium residue exploded, according to Schneider.
Further, such reactors require that the spent nuclear fuel be reprocessed, a technical program that involves extracting plutonium and other fissile materials from the depleted uranium fuel rods. Such elements can then be used in the fast-neutron reactor or mixed with uranium to form so-called mixed oxide (MOX) fuel and deployed in a more traditional nuclear reactor. The U.S. had such a program until the 1970s that was briefly resuscitated by the second Bush administration; it was again shelved by the Obama administration in 2009.
Of course, such plutonium and highly enriched uranium are also exactly the isotopes used to fashion nuclear weapons, making the materials security threats. Already, the world has roughly 250 metric tons of such spare plutonium stockpiled, largely concentrated in the U.K. and France, that has been reprocessed but never used as nuclear reactor fuel. That's enough to make 30,000 "Nagasaki-size" nuclear bombs, according to von Hippel.
Bomb-proof reprocessing
The U.S. Department of Energy is spending $145 million to research a "proliferation-resistant" alternative to current reprocessing methods, and a House of Representatives hearing last June explored future needs for nuclear fuel recycling. Such reactors might also help address a potential deficit in uranium supplies caused by the generally low price of nuclear fuel over the past several decades. U.S. reactors consume some 25 million kilograms of uranium annually but only roughly 1.8 million kilograms of the nuclear fuel are produced in the country, says Amir Adnani, CEO of Uranium Energy Corp., a Texas-based uranium mining company; the remainder comes from mines abroad and other sources. In fact, one in 10 U.S. homes is powered by uranium derived from old Soviet nuclear warheads via the Megatons to Megawatts program, according to Paul Genoa, director of policy development at the Nuclear Energy Institute, but that agreement with Russia expires in 2013.
Fears of such a uranium shortage led India, which has limited natural supplies of the nuclear fuel, to explore another fissile element, thorium, as an alternative. Wrapping highly fissile plutonium in a thorium blanket could produce enough nuclear fuel indefinitely, according to the vision laid out by the architect of India's nuclear program, physicist Homi J. Bhabha, in 1954. The Indian government is currently building such a prototype fast breeder reactor, despite limited success with a precursor, said Princeton physicist M. V. Ramana during the IPFM call. "The cost of electricity is 80 percent higher than from heavy-water reactors," he added. Uranium prices would need to increase 15-fold from current levels of roughly $80 per kilogram to make it economically attractive.
Pricey power
Indeed, the cost problem plagues not just efforts to find a way to use nuclear waste, but also the nuclear industry in general—new conventional reactors such as the ones in Georgia that received the White House's initial loan guarantees could cost at least $7 billion per reactor. But the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission may have just raised the price after it rejected the initial AP-1000 design for security and safety reasons, insisting that the power plant buildings need more structural strength. Yet the promise of a generator that continuously supplies electricity with low greenhouse gas emissions is driving a government-backed renaissance. Nuclear reactors "produce about 20 percent of our electricity but fully 70 percent of our carbon-free electricity," Chu noted during a conference call with reporters after the loan guarantee announcements.
Fast-neutron reactors would not improve the economics of nuclear power based on past experience, the IPFM members argued. Nevertheless, China has signed an agreement with Russia to design two 880-megawatt fast-neutron reactors based on the BN-600.
As far back as 1956, Adm. Hyman Rickover, who oversaw both the Navy's nuclear-propulsion efforts as well as the dawn of the civilian nuclear power industry, cited such sodium-cooled fast-neutron reactors as "expensive to build, complex to operate, susceptible to prolonged shutdown as a result of even minor malfunctions, and difficult and time-consuming to repair." That judgment remains despite six decades and $100 billion of global effort, according to physicist Michael Dittmar of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich who wrote, "ideas about near-future commercial fission breeder reactors are nothing but wishful thinking" in a November 2009 analysis.
"For that $100 billion we did learn some things," remarked physicist Thomas Cochran of the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, during the IPFM call. "We learned that fast reactors were going to cost substantially more than light-water reactors…[and]…that, relative to thermal reactors, they're not very reliable."
Traveling-wave reactor
New designs might help with that, such as the traveling-wave reactor from TerraPower touted by Bill Gates recently as part of an effort to get to zero carbon emissions from the energy sector. The proposed technology would employ cores that, starting with enriched uranium, fission over at least 30 years. The cores could theoretically also employ the depleted uranium from existing reactors, as well, thus consuming some of the nuclear waste problem, explains nuclear engineer John Gilleland, president of TerraPower, in a video demonstration
"The idea does have the advantage of being waste-eating. It wouldn't require reprocessing," von Hippel said.
But significant materials advances would be required to create a cladding, or cover, for the core that could contain a fission reaction for decades. "It will confront horrendous materials issues in achieving the long lifetime cores that are envisioned," Cochran argued. And, ultimately, some nuclear waste will remain. "The only thing breeders can do is change the volume of waste," Ramana insisted. "The issue of nuclear waste disposal is more of a social and political problem than a technical problem."
The disposal solution of the moment for nuclear waste will likely continue to be fuel rods cooling in water pools before being moved to dry casks sitting on the site of existing reactors—roughly 64,000 metric tons of spent fuel is stored precisely that way today. "There is no problem with that in the short-term. Dry cask storage is very safe," von Hippel said. "Over the longer term, you don't want spent fuel at 66 reactor sites indefinitely."
And even if a fleet of fast-neutron reactors were built, Cochran noted, "you're not going to eliminate the need for a geologic repository."
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39 Comments
Add CommentIt would seem that the future of Nuclear Power depends on finding a process that can de-activate spent fuel to at least a degree that makes it storable safely. Perhaps future traveling wave reactors could be modified to continually reuse waste fuel until it becomes more manageable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnother biased report from Sci American courtesy of Shell Oil.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe loan guarantee program supports 80% of the reactor cost. 8.3B/.8 is $11B for two reactors. Perhaps Chu has better information on the latest costs than Biello here, committing maybe to kicking the NRC's ass and reducing construction time frames to Chinese levels.
American engineers used to build nukes for $.7B/GW ($2010) before Greenpeace attorneys got control of the Nuclear Rejection Commission and forced an order of magnitude increase in costs with no safety benefit.
Read about how they did it here.
http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter9.html
The actual cost of the Voptle twin American designed NRC approved nukes in China is $1.2B/Gw with 4 year construction timeframes. Google Westinghouse China nuclear for the facts. AECL in 2004 finished two Candu 6's in China in less than than 4 years at $2 B/Gw
Quotes recieved by Ontario from both Areva and AECL were $2.4B/Gw and 1.5 cents a kwh over 60 years.
Both AECL and Westinghouse claim after the first dozen or so are built they can factory mass produced with 3 year lead times at less than $1B/Gw.
Americans need to be deeply ashamed at the corruption and incompetence of its industry and government when a similar product that we once led the world in, can be made overseas in half the time and at a quarter the cost.Call up Chu and ask him what he is doing about it.
Hippel is of course a disredited and biased source on fast breeders along with his sidelick Amory Lovins
http://nucleargreen.blogspot.com/2010/02/international-panel-on-fissile.html
The plutonium from power reactors is so difficult to make into weapons that the entire idea is joke.
Omitted from SciAm article is the FBRP report on the no mishap IFR of EBR-II, which it described as the most successful of the U.S. fast reactors.
India started has almost finished building its nuclear waste burning 500 Mw fast breeder power reactor at a cost of $1.5B/Gw.
Gee I wonder why that isn't mentioned here.
For a more intelligent and less biased discussion on fast breeders try:
www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-kirsch/climate-bill-ignores-our_b_221796.html
www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/ff_new_nukes/
The real reason for building fast reactors is that nuclear fission is not sustainable in the medium term without them. The available supplies of uranium are insufficient to provide the level of nuclear energy that the world will need for a low carbon energy economy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou write "the French Superphenix sodium-cooled fast-neutron reactor operated successfully for more than a decadebut only produced electricity 7 percent of the time".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust for clarification: Superph�nix was shut down for about half of the 12-year period that it was listed as "operational" between 1986 and 1998 - hardly a successful operation. The lifetime loadfact (total power generation / versus nominal output) was less than 7%.
Also, the lethal accident that I mentioned took place in March 1994 at the Cadarache site (not at Superph�nix), where the research breeder Rapsodie was operated between 1967 and 1982. Some details on the chemical reactions that led to the explosion of the sodium tank are contained in the IPFM Report.
The most important new type of reactor may be the liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR). It uses molten salt as both a coolant an a carrier for thorium and uranium fluorides. It generates less waste than current LWR technology, and it makes four orders of magnitude less plutonium than LWR or fast neutron reactors. Intrinsic safety principles keep the cost low. It promises to produce energy cheaper than from coal, which is the only way to dissuade all nations from burning coal for power, as illustrated by the failure of the Copenhagen meeting to agree on taxing carbon.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor an introduction to the benefits and technology of the LFTR, go to http://rethinkingnuclearpower.googlepages.com/aimhigh.
Visit http://energyfromthorium.com for more technical disucussions (start at the beginning of the blog for an introduction). For videos, visit youtube.com and search on "thorium energy".
I spent some years in the commercial nuclear power industry. During that time, I asked for evidence that nuclear power was cost-effective. No one produced a study showing an economic justification for the nuclear industry. Now, an environmental argument for nuclear power is being made. Well, show me the mine-to-line study which takes into account the carbon cost of mining and the thermal cost of plant cooling, and which addresses long-term (60,000 years) waste sequestration?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe real problem with our electrical power industry is centralization of power generation. Rate-setting mechanisms allow monopoly utilities to operate at guaranteed profit margins, as if this were in the public interest. In fact, utilities oppose conservation initiatives and distributed generation because it reduces their profit. Utilities promote nuclear power because it increases their profit.
Instead of arguing the costs and benefits of nuclear power, we should be seeking ways to introduce conservation and competition into power generation. Along with this, power generation should be taxed according to its environmental impact. Then, our utility industry could truly act in the interest of society by providing safe and economical energy sources.
More Big Oil bias from SCIAM
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this".. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission may have just raised the price after it rejected the initial AP-1000 design for security and safety reasons, insisting that the power plant buildings need more structural strengt..."
Don't ya think the attorneys at the NRC should file information with the state licencing boards of those incompetent PE's at Westinghouse that violated "fundamental engineering standards." They need to have their tickets pulled. According to the NRC attorneys these Westinghouse morons actually claimed that their dome design could stand the weight of a swimming pool (emergency cooling). No engineer has ever designed a swimming pool on top of a building right? This is new right?
Oddly the Chinese engineers who have a lot more experience at building reactors than the attorneys at the NRC think the AP-1000 design is just fine. In fact, the Chinese will use design faults to refuse to pay Westinghouse. No foreign contractor would be crazy enough to take that chance.
In any case the design changes to satisfy the NRC attorneys uninformed claims are minor nuisances.
Mr Love: There are numerous studies on the overall lifetime cost of nuclear power from both friend and foe. Its called Google look it up.
Public power like Bonneville, TVA, and Seattle City Light are the models we should be looking at.
75% of the worlds population in the third world aspires to be energy hogs just like us. Do you think conservation here is going to have any effect on that?
And once again James, the big geothermal boom will come at enormous cost sometime too late way in the future when they can drill fracture and pump with not yet invented high temperature/pressure pumps and without causing earthquakes. The rest is just lowhanging fruit.
If the problem everyone is worried about, then the Fusion-Fission Hybrid that U of Texas in Auston should be the way to go. http://www.utexas.edu/news/2009/01/27/nuclear_hybrid/?AddInterest=1284
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTurns out that when you fracture layers of rock and then inject lubricants at high pressure, you can get create earth quakes ... so this technology is probably good only in areas that aren't geologically active. Such areas tend to have deeper crust (harder to drill to get the heat) and also tend to be located in the boondocks ... so, if you want to wire them up, sure, but you're probably just as well off to put a solar or wind farm out there too.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGiven that the Biello made mention of the traveling wave reactor idea ... which has never existed, it would have been nice to also include mention of the liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR) which has been made to work although not commercially proven. Sometimes what will work economically depends on a huge, upfront investment that can only really be done by the government (such as happened with getting the internet off the ground). LFTR is at least worth a serious look.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is the most poorly researched
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is one of the most poorly researched articles on nuclear energy I have ever read.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour coverage if Thorium was particularly mystifying, given the amount of coverage it has received by main stream media such as Wired magazine.
Oddly, your reference to India's research into Thorium is the opposite to India's current plans to use Thorium of a large scale for their future nuclear energy program. In addition, the US ran an experimental Thorium reactor in the 1960's and published extensively about Thorium.
Instead of being more expensive, Thorium is generally considered to far cheaper, safer, and without the waste problems of uranium reactors. Thorium reactors and effectively reprocessed the stockpiles of waste from uranium reactors.
For general information refer to the excellent Wired magazine article available online and the Wikipedia entry on Thorium, and for detailed information search Google Talks for several in depth presentations about Thorium reactors.
If we are going to be building reactors it would be a shame to base them on outdated technology when there are so many advantages to using Thorium.
There is a vested interest in the status quo in the nuclear power industry. Many of the current vendors of LWR's will loose the franchise one the LFTR becomes the gold standard of nuclear power generation. LWR's will not even be able to get close to LFTR's in price per watt. Many of these players are trying to squeeze the last vestiges of profit from LWR's before the LFTR renders them irrelevant. It is hard to understand why an article like this gets published with such a profound lack of reference to this coming technology. It is hard to believe also that this is due to technical incompetence. I believe this article was authored by smart and informed people. There must be another unspoken agenda here.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis question is political, not scientific. Obama wants to build a few nuclear reactors to soften up republican opinion to accept essential legislation on measures to reign in climate change.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt would be better to pump some money into laser fusion science which has more potential than fusion technology, that was only implemented to ensure possession of the atom bomb. Nuclear electricity generation was never profitable, as the full costs of development and legacy were never included.
Sorry, the last reference to fusion should read fission...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI invented a free energy system and its only downfall is flux. Some frquencies even ones not radio active can damage DNA. Dont get too close for too long. force / radius cubed. the only reason your mater creating systems dont work is because the absorbsion of friction by the planet that is a frequency all its own. some space people call us (nuts & bolts) in their language. because they have CAD Matter Creators, they just bring mater together into solid mass.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIts time to move on and end this circle of indecission about nuclear energy. We (the people) have wasted enough money and studied this issue to death. We have nuclear powered ships crusing the world for 50 years and I think their history speaks for saftey and control of nuclear energy. The plain fact is the world needs energy period. Electricity is the eaisest form to move and use. All other energy that use oxygen and combustion give off gasses that pollute. They are failed systems that because, when scaled up become self-destructive to all. At least neuclear can be used and disposed of in a safe manor. We can control all aspects of the creation and use of the materials. We can store material for as long as we need to. In the future a safe and clean method will be created to dispose of any waste not wanted or useful for creation of energy. End the failure to address a solveable problem with lame excuesses of the sky will fall and were all doomed nonsence. Open Yucca mountain collect all the fuel not safe to lay around the power plants that created it and develope the next generation power system for our collective futures. Time is running out for a world solution to a world problem. No good will result if we (usa) go "green" and the rest of the world is burning the forests to keep warm!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere is a summary report concerning fast breeder reactors, the full report is also off the root site:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.nirs.org/reactorwatch/newreactors/fastbreeder21710.pdf . And, a brief perusal of these fact sheets should make one reconsider the 'wisdom' of nuclear power as a viable energy source: http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/fctsht.htm . The NRC is an outgrowth of early nuclear weapon/MIC development, and we know how well that went. Union of Concerned Scientists has good review information on nuclear power, as well as an interactive map of the history of the 104 sites in the U.S. It does not give a very optimistic view of nuclear power. Mr. Chu should reconsider before we go any further down this road.
Idaho National Laboratory now has a Facebook site that contains research videos, news, job postings and other events. The lab conducts a variety of energy, security and environmental research. http://www.facebook.com/idahonationallaboratory
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThese talkbacks are typical of most thought on nuclear power these days. Pure ignorance producing irrational hysteria.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFission is safe and produces cheap, abundant energy. It's cost is artificially distorted by excessive environmental regulation.
Unfortunately, it will continue to be so for as long as the ignorant continue to have the influence they do.
I've lernt in this article that russians behaved collaboratively, at least for a while. However, the recent claims of unfair elections in Ucrania, a former part of USSR where some inhabitants joined the german army during WWII to fight against the Soviet Union Communist Party, raises the doubt that some elements in these nations still believe they have the key to solve all mankind problems, and thus, they are entitled to everything. It seems that an spanish politician, Giner de los Rios, met V. I. Lenin during a train trip. After hearing the Lenin rationales, the spaniard asked: well, and freedom?. The Lenin reply was: freedom, for what? Some brutalities are not over yet, but it is suprising that the soviet union developed some original technologies without having to rely on industrial spionage agents
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe research mentioned by shoshin doesn't "blow a hole" in the climate change argument, it suggests that we have been underestimating the effect of certain greenhouse gasses and aerosols in combination with each other.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/48940/title/Aerosols_cloud_the_climate_picture
You can find a web page here
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://climateprogress.org/2009/01/05/study-cost-risks-new-nuclear-power-plants/
with a link to an excellent, transparent study of all the costs associated with (today's technology) nuclear plants.
The numbers don't look good.
As for the future developments, we can do the research and find out how cost effective they are in production scale.
No comment about the use of Thorium-232 for nuclear power generation (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisImagine $8 Billion Dollars being spent of Solar Power Stations... We could create a LOT of Safe Clean energy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://gregvanderlaan.com/nonukes.aspx
"Craig A. Severance. A practicing CPA"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHmm. Good thing accountants don't run the world or we'd still be in the dark ages. The market has a knack for making things cost-effective. Government, OTH, makes things cost-prohibitive, especially when junk science is involved.
$8 billion on Solar Power stations - Yep, about 136 MWavg power. Not including the high cost of storage. That's using Sunny Spain's experience. Germany's experience you'll get more like 98 MW. Yowee!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA compendium of 11 different reputable Full Life-Cycle Levelized cost Analysis of different lower Carbon Power Generation technologies. Quite a variation, as expected, but Nuclear is about the lowest and Solar PV is unequivocally the highest (by far).
http://uvdiv.blogspot.com/2009/07/levelized-cost-studies.html
That is without using modern factory construction or modular construction or scale economies.
For an honest and accurate assessment of the Costs of Electricity Generation, the highly respected Institute for Energy Research:
http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/levelizedelec.png
shows levelized costs:
Nuclear at 11 cents/kwh, Hydro at 12 cents, Wind at 14 cents, Solar Thermal at 27 cents & Solar PV at 40 cents/kwh
Oh dear ! "The future of nuclear power" it's such a worry that this Mahvellous technology is such a total pain in the ass.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCould we not just build lots of it everywhere - because it's so nice, if you like that sort of thing - and to hell with the rest of the Earth ! It'll be a great party - for those brave and brainless enough to invest in it.
Or do we need to be another Albert Einstein to see that 30,000 "Nagasaki-sized" bombs-wort of Pu already in existance is probably more than is good for most of everything.
- Or am I going senile ?
Leave it to "Big wise men" I guess. They got us here.
So far, so bad.
It's interesting that someone incapable of stringing-together a meaningful sentence, should be advocating some kind of nuclear energy system ?.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm not that familiar with American places, but I feel sure that Texas is a large state, which is IN America - not in somewhere called Auston.
So "Auston should be the way to go". Oh, it should be should it. Well, no more problem then, I'm off to the white-house to let then know !
Ooooh yehis !. Wot a suupa idea ! why didn't Ai think of that ?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaybe if we surrounded it with say - something organic laik orange peel ? and wore special hats ? and danced every friday morning, this would tend to make the naughty little atoms of nasty wasty stuff think twice before decaying - or at least maybe doi it in a more considerate way, thus reducing the energy released by storing some of it as, er .. as grapefruit, perhaps ? Sure to be funding winner. Go for it !
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe here in Europe have wasted hundreds of billions during last 20 years to support renewables in hope to get a lot of green jobs..
With very bad success.
Costs for green jobs are very high - hundreds of billions - and CO2 emissions have not diminished...
Germany, Spain and Denmark have 20 years supported renewables like photovoltaics and windmills.
I prefer nuclear energy!
See recent economic analysis:
www.rwi-essen.de
Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaft s forschung
Economic impacts from the promotion of renewable energies:
The German experience
Final report October 2009
Denmark:
www.cepos.dk
Wind_energy_-_the_case_of_Denmark.pdf
Spain:
Gabriel Calzada Alvarez, PhD,
Study of the effects on employment of public aid to renewable energy sources,
Universidad Rey Juan Carlos
March 2009
To my understanding:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisold hydro and nuclear energy costs about 1-2 c/kWh here in Europe.
Nordpool price is often under 3 c//kWh.
Those are total levelized costs predicted for Nuclear, Hydro, Solar, Wind... for new Power plants constructed in 2016, in the United States, in 2007 dollars.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisbertwindon...have no idea what your posting...please clarify for the rest of us idiots
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiscool
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this[url=http://www.lubechem.net/]lubricants additives[/url]
when viruses go away ?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"you're not going to eliminate the need for a geologic repository."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHummmm!
We're talking here about Earth, right?
As long lived as some of these isotopes are, they linger for almost geological periods of time.
On our planet, things happen over extended periods of time.
Perhaps we should consider another prefix for that last word?
l
"you're not going to eliminate the need for a geologic repository."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHummmm!
We're talking about Earth here right?
Some of these waste products are so long lived as to linger for almost geological periods of time.
Here on earth, things change over long periods of time.
Not even a mountain can be considered a permanent feature.
Perhaps we might consider changing the prefix of that last word?
I think atomic power might be given another
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thislook as a main energy source. But there are problems with existing uranium reactor designs and the elusive fusion alternative. One is there with its waste products, and the other has been around the corner for half a century, and like manned interplanetary flight, might remain science fiction for a good deal longer. We need an answer sooner, and I believe thorium-based
test reactors are already operating in India and China. These reactors purportedly do not have the same level of waste product or safety problems of previous designs, and may have many other advantages. See:
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/348/ - also
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/08/indias-thorium-nuclear-reactor-and.html
Also see robert.hargraves comment #5 on this series of comments about Biello's article. He gives more links.
Due to the usual investor/promoter syndrome, these sources may depend on biased information. At least one prominent Union of Concerned Scientists member, Ed Lyman, apparently doesn't believe it offers much and has been arguing against it in public. I sent an email query to UCS asking whether they had an official position on the thorium alternative, but received no
answer; What does the rest of the physics community think?