DEEP END: Spent fuel pool at a nuclear power plant.
Image: COURTESY OF THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
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The hydrogen explosions, melting fuel rods and radiation leaks at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant are having an immediate impact on perceptions of nuclear power worldwide as many countries are earnestly searching for alternatives to fossil fuels. Safety will be a major concern, particularly as emergency workers in Japan continue battling to keep spent fuel rods stored on site at Fukushima Daiichi from melting down.
Even before the disaster at Fukushima Daiichi could be brought under control and investigated, Germany earlier this week said it would shut down seven of its nuclear power plants built before 1980. This turnaround comes after last year's decision to extend the life of all 17 of the country's nuclear power facilities.
In the U.S. the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Thursday said it was canceling next week's meeting to discuss the restart of Progress Energy's Crystal River plant (pdf) on Florida's west coast after the company reported problems with repair work on a containment wall. Crystal River shut down in the fall of 2009 for a planned refueling that included the replacement of steam generators. To install the generators, workers needed to remove concrete in the containment wall, and it was during this work that they discovered a gap in the wall.
Entergy Corp., which last week received NRC approval for a 20-year operating license extension at its Vermont Yankee plant, must in the wake of Japan's crisis obtain final approval from Vermont lawmakers, who last year voted against re-licensing the facility after 2012. Three other Entergy nuclear sites, including New York State's controversial Indian Point, are also up for license extensions.
For an understanding of how nuclear plant safety is assessed and will likely be evaluated moving forward, Scientific American spoke with Najmedin Meshkati, a professor of civil, environmental, industrial and systems engineering at the University of Southern California's Viterbi School of Engineering in Los Angeles. Meshkati expressed concern over the practice of storing spent fuel rods on-site, a product of the risk-based approach to nuclear safety, and what he sees as a conflict of interest at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]
What does the incident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant mean for the nuclear industry both in Japan and the rest of the world?
It's too soon to make a judgment on its impact on the "nuclear renaissance" that started in the United States five or six years ago. The most accurate statement I can make is that it's going to seriously hamper the expected growth rate of this movement. On the other hand, it's going to really put more scrutiny on nuclear safety-related issues, which is not bad. In particular the storage of spent nuclear fuel at plant sites should be reexamined.
As we speak, one of the most serious problems happening in Fukushima Daiichi is the spent fuel pool-fire at the fourth reactor. We have likewise been storing spent nuclear fuel at our nuclear plant sites since the country began using nuclear energy. This poses a serious safety problem and a serious security risk of a terrorist attack to get these materials.
What is the alternative to on-site spent fuel storage?
There was a decision in 1982 to have the United States Department of Energy build a permanent nuclear waste repository. In 2002 [President] George W. Bush approved Nevada's Yucca Mountain [about 160 kilometers northwest of Las Vegas] as the site, and to move nuclear waste there. But because of a combination of incompetence, political fighting, bureaucracy in the Department of Energy, and partisan bickering, the site is now in limbo. The only silver lining I see in this dark cloud over Japan is to draw attention to the danger of on-site storage of spent fuel. I hope this revives discussion of Yucca Mountain.
Is it fair to judge the safety of other nuclear power plants based on the extreme conditions that Fukushima Daiichi has had to withstand?
You make say it's an extreme case, and I agree, but just because [prior to this week] there had not been major accidents or fires related to spent nuclear fuel doesn't mean they are safe. When we talk about lessons learned, the most immediate lessons that we have to learn from this catastrophe in Japan is not whether nuclear power is good or bad or whether to continue with nuclear power growth or not. The most immediate lesson we need to learn, and we should implement this yesterday, is a serious look at the state of our on-site spent nuclear fuel pools.
Had there not been spent fuel stored at the Fukushima plant, we would not have had all of the latest problems of the past two or three days. There are four reactors over there that are problematic, but I submit to you that the design of the reactors was excellent. The reactors did not fail or topple or become dislodged because of the earthquake or tsunami. All four reactors have a nice primary containment—which means we should not worry very much at this point about the design of our boiling-water reactors and our pressurized-water reactors.
How is a U.S. nuclear plant's safety evaluated?
For all 65 nuclear sites in the U.S. there are resident NRC inspectors at the different sites. When a nuclear site applies for a license extension or for basically getting a new extension on the life of the reactor, they need to go through a very rigorous risk analysis of their reactor vessel and other hardware. For example, reactor vessel embrittlement [or loss of ductility] is a major issue. There has been some discussion in the United States to change this regulation, making it less rigid and more risk-based.
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55 Comments
Add CommentYou can't kill something that is already dead, as is this toxic, dangerous and impossibly expensive mad scientist's dream. Goodbye and good riddance.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks for the article. I'm curious if you mean not worrying about the boiling water reactors in the US specifically (that gap they found in the Florida concrete when they opened up the wall seems a pretty spooky one). Germany's had longterm problems with their 40-year-old designs, e.g. http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,635788-2,00.html -- I think they're all going to be closed now?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisChina is still building mostly Gen2 reactors:
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf63.html
"... to avoid placing undue demand on quality control issues in the supply chain. .... more of the Generation-II CPR-1000 units are under construction .... Only China is building Gen-II units today in such large numbers, with 57 (53.14 GWe) on the books4.
SCRO said that reactors built today should operate for 50 or 60 years, meaning a large fleet of Gen-II units will still be in operation into the 2070s ...."
No worries?
Nuclear power plants, as they have proved themselves right from the start and still proving themselves, to be an aggressive, dangerous and destructive wild animal. You wouldn't allow a lion roam around in class with your children, so why do you allow this destructive animal to roam your neighborhoods?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJapan has some of the safest nuclear reactors in the world. If their nuclear reactors can become a time bomb so easily, can you imagine what the most unsafest nuclear reactors in the world could become? America probably have the most unsafest reactors in the world because of all the short cuts they take on safety and pay offs to look the other way.
We do not need nuclear reactors, they are too expensive, too dirty, too dangerous and too destructive to use as a source of energy.
What it takes to build and maintain one nuclear reactor, you would build 50 mega Geothermal power plants and thousands to solar power plants with mega storage batteries. So, why are we wasting our time and tax payers money to build such a destructive monster in our back yards?
All sources of energy carry risks, even the wonderful so-called green energy sources. Less nuclear means more reliance on coal, oil and gas. Even with the recent disaster in japan, nuclear is still the safest and best fuel.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI honestly question which would be an immediately worse disaster, a nuclear meltdown or a terrorist attach on coal site. Nuclear meltdown has the potential to expose plant personal to unhealthy levels of radiation, possibly leading to cancer. It also has the potential to send a radioactive cloud a few 10s of miles away from the plant (remember, exposer time in the cloud will be short since the cloud travels with wind), the danger is really when the cloud settles on houses cars and people clothing. Realistically, under a worst case senario, people within a 30 mile radious could potentially be exposed to unhealthy levevls. Conversely, at a coal site, if a terrorist were to explode the ammonia tanks, a cloud of ammonia could form and travel roughly the same distance i suspect. The difference is that when the people breath in ammonia gas, it pretty much melts your lungs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCarcinogens are what we are afraid of, rightfully. radiation and pollution are both carcinogens. Extremely high doses of radiation are more dangerious than pollution, but to see immediately acute effects from radiation, you need to be handling weapons grade plutonium, not the stuff in reactors. When you really sit down and determine which is worse, coal is worse. Just imagin the mass of coal used by these facilities.
Lets just do the math real quick and dirty. One site I was at using 3 TONS of coal per SECOND! .02% of the wieght of this coal is uranium, plutonium and other radio activit materials. So thats, .06 tons of radio active material spewed directly into the air every second (not to mention the carcinogenic combustion byproducts), though that sounds a little, it isnt that far off.
A typical nuclear site uses about 1500 tons of uranium in the reactor core. Doing the math using the values from the previous paragraph, every 8 hours, this coal site puts as much radio active material directly into the air we breath as a nuclear plant uses and stores in 2 YEARS... every 8 hours!! Granted, the coal uranium isn't as radio active, but remember, what important is amplitude, type and TIME OF EXPOSER. We are in contact with coal byproducts 24 hours a day. I do question which is worse.
7.9 million people die of cancer every year. This is not caused by nuclear plants, it is cause by pollution from fossil fuels. Under no circumstances will the japan nuclear crisis result in 1/100th of 1% of this value, it is impossible, there isn't enough material in the core and the danger zone has already been evacuated.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOkay, I'm not claiming its a good situation, all I am saying is that when we make these policy decisions about our energy mix, it is completely illogical to rule out a source because of its dangers, without considering and comparing to the dangers of the alternatives. All industrial facilities, all sites for that matter, pose unique dangers and challenges. The devestation caused by a full meltdown will be negligable in comparison to the devestation caused by the quake and sunami, so I am not happy with the media coverage.
Vootie - do your research. Nuclear power is as cheap (lifetime $/kW) as hydro. It's not a "Mad Scientist's Dream" it's clearly reality. Ingesting the coal or liquid fuel from a combustion plant will also kill you. The thousands of gallons per minute of a hydro plant can be deadly, the heavy metals used in bogus-ly 'green' power sources are equally deadly. The Japanese REACTORS are holding up fine, the problem is the spent fuel. Get the politicians off their collective thumbs about Yuca Mt and relo the old rods and pellets. Also note that the Japanese reactors are a GE Mk1, not near the current standard of US reactor construction.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually, no. Geothermal runs about $115/MW-hr to Nuclear's $120/MW-hr, but is dependant on a good subsurface heat source (like the west coast), not so good in Vermont. Solar is utter BS with Photovoltaic topping almost $400/MW-hr and Solar-Thermal at $250. Coal is the cheapest ($80/MW-Hr) and Nat Gas is between coal and Nuke/Hydro. Would YOU be willing to DOUBLE or QUADRUPLE your power bill and teh cost of most of your purchased goods to have solar power? Didn't think so.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf they had performed a adequate risk analysis at the Japanese plants they would have realized that the potential for loss of AC and backup power was unacceptably high because of earthquake and tsunami. They could have addressed the risk by relocating backup power and transmission to a location safe from these events. I am mystified why this issue was not addressed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn Fukushima the two back-up generators to replace power failure in the cooling system were swallowed by the tsunami.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis was the source of the problem in the reactors.
But a startling fact has emerged in this nuclear accident in Japan The fact is that all nuclear plants in the world contains a basic error in design, which is just using ONLY ONE hydraulic cooling circuit.
As in Fukushima. The most modern plants use the so-called external circuit of COOLING, which is an improvement over the old mills.
But this is only ONE external circuit, and in case of failure would cause the same phenomenon of Fukushima.
The principle is basic in engineering: if you have one, IN FACT you have none.
The aeronautical engineering widely used this principle, using two engines on airplanes, instead of just one.
In addition of two independent cooling hidraulic circuit, would be needed: two or more electric
stand-by generators to move them.
And two fuel tanks, diesel, independent to ensure supply.
All confined in a screened room and waterproof.
Recent expert analysis indicate that the generators for cooling can not be at the same level of the sea, to prevent flooding or invasion of the sea on the generators. Should be built on the highest level. Most nuclear power generators in the world has generators on the same level of the reactor, and are not shielded and not waterproof.
I used to be relatively pro-nuclear before these incidents. I don't know that I've completely changed my stance yet, but it sure has me thinking.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisShortly after the reactors started making news, I read an interview with a some nuclear energy expert. The gist of the interview was basically: it's so unlikely to lose both primary and backup power that, even though the scenario was considered, it wasn't planned for thoroughly due to its statistical insignificance.
For a process that is so important to maintain control of, I really thought a scenario like this would be seriously considered. It makes me wonder if these experts define "safety" the same way the rest of us do.
Now, one could argue that there are so many equally unlikely failure modes that they could never all be planned for, or it would be too expensive to do so. If that's *really* the case, I'm not sure I could continue to support nuclear energy in its current state. The cost of failure is just to high.
I wish that were true. It's not. America is about to spend 36 billion, on one of the few bipartisan agreements to spend public money to enrich dangerous private corporate interests. Why does an industry with hundreds of billions of dollars need the government to give them billions? No sane investor will risk money on nuclear power plants. They're expensive, may never go online and risk killing thousands and destroying land perpetually. If they weren't indemnified, not a single nuclear plant would ever go live.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGlad to see Capt. Hindsight and Professor Frantic are in attendance here. If you really think nuclear power is worse than coal, gas, or more environmentally destructive than hydro, then you should just go back to sleep and don't bother posting. This situation, though tragic on the large scale, is a great opportunity to assess the errors that allowed the meltdown. Nuclear power is young and this incident will give way to safer nuclear power as well as the development of additional sources. Going backwards is about retarded. More people die in coal mines than nuclear, radiation is all around us, we are already running out of fossil fuels.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNuclear is a little different than a lion, nice analogy, but I'd live in a town with a nuclear plant well before I'd live near loose lions. I also trust Japanese technology to essentially "build a better mousetrap" after this. I also think 3-mile Island and Chernobyl happened because of ad design/bad decision/human error. What earthquake and following tsunami caused those.
All of your fears sell ad space at a higher cost. The news wants to scare you and has been doing this for decades. What was the name of that real-life town that everyone got cancer in from living near a nuclear plant? Oh, none? I could've sworn I saw something once about it...by Rob Zombie maybe...
Chernobyl used essentially graphite dust to cool the core and that dust traveled far and stayed around longer than steam will. But even there, the land was made unsafe, but it was obvious. The secret creeping evil toxic fantasy is the thing of horror films, not reality. If anything, move forward, not backwards. Develop something new, don't go back to the smog making cancer cloud plants because of unfounded fears. What is the death toll at here? 11? With maybe 180 brave people risking ball cancer?
Please, do your own research. If you do, you will find out that the "cheapness" of nuclear power is a myth, once you take into account decommissioning the plants. The world is just now finding this out, as an entire generation of aging, dangerous plants are being shut down. This is in addition to the nuclear industry quite simply having no viable solution for waste disposal. Cheap? Don't make me laugh.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf they're so cheap why do they need federal money to build and run?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey can't pay the cost of clean up, because no nuclear power plant has ever cleaned up a nuclear accident - never, not a single one.
They can't pay the cost of litigation, so they are indemnified.
They aren't safe. Even in nuclear friendly Japan, they are indemnified against natural disaster. So, as long as there's no hurricane, earthquake or other natural disaster they're perfectly safe. Only, they still have dangerous accidents.
Coal, oil and hydro plants often pay their own building costs and accept legal costs if they cause accidents. More importantly, it is possible to shut them down. It's impossible to safely reclaim nuclear property ever -- well, within a few dozens of billions of years anyway.
What about the prospect of this Reactor Crisis , have you not understood?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat about the prospect of this Reactor Crisis , have you not understood?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHave you checked into the backup plans at US facilities? They're not better.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRenewables are becoming cheaper - nukes are not - what are we talking about?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRenewables are - in some cases, and in others are becoming - financially viable in the marketplace (i.e. without trying to factor in future costs to society and nature, de facto government coverage for disaster costs or past public investment in r & d), with prices dropping steadily. Why are we still having this discussion?
All nuclear planning, due to the nature of the beast, is not for the immediate future, but for a usage period of several decades many years in the future. By then, the most viable renewables will have proven themselves, matured and in parts commodified, leading to much lower prices.
So, why even think about taking the risk, now that the (at the very least second- or third-) best nuclear risk assessment in the world has exploded in our faces?
Second guessing is easy, however... Nuclear reactors can and should be safe. Why were these not? Why will people die and land be contaminated for years? Could this have been prevented?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA 9.0 magnitude earthquake a a large devastating tsunami. Unusual, yes, very. The damage to the physical plant and the loss of power for cooling was and is devastating. But surprising? The reactors were built near the ring of fire, one of the most earthquake prone regions in the world; next to the ocean, in a land that has had many large tsunamis. A surprise? No. Why were the reactors built near the sea and not miles from where the tsunami might reach? Why were the power and cooling systems not build with devastation in mind? The cost? This is a one in hundreds of years event, maybe. The expense in build further from the ocean and with sufficient redundancy is too great.
Really? This event will cause many acute miserable deaths from acute radiation effects and many more due to increased cancers. Billions of dollars will be lost with the loss of these reactors and billions more in loss of the surrounding land, for miles. And the effect on the nuclear industry is predicable.
Were all "reasonable" precautions taken? Were extraordinary precautions taken, because of the extraordinary risks? Were these nuclear reactors typical of reactors around the world? How many of them, how many of us are at risk?
This is not second guessing.
The calculations in the above contribution are incorrect. 0.02% of three tonnes is not 0.06 tonnes, but 0.0006 tonnes (600 grams). In addition, a coal throughput of 3 tonnes per second (presumably, you are talking about a power station, not a mine) is 94 million tonnes per year. The largest coal-fired power station in Western Europe burns 9 million tonnes per year. I would prefer to use that figure for coal use. This means that a (very large) coal-fired power station has one thousandth of the radionucleide output that you cite. It would make it about the same as your nuclear site (assuming you data are correct).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisbenjaminearle,you left out the greed/incompetence,human error,lobbyists,the worlds richest throwing money at preserving there commodities investment portfolios.the diesel engine was invented to run on peanut oil not crude oil the sun gives us free energy everyday.the sun gives us in one day free,what the world uses in a year.with no radioactive/carcinogenic coal dust cloud, blocking the sunshine.spent rods verses a bottle windex and a squeegee, redo the math
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this> two engines on airplanes, instead of just one
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is a tangent, but a twin-engine aircraft losing one engine loses 80 percent or more of performance; only the most over-designed and high-powered twins may be able to fly safely on one engine, because after losing that 80+percent they have some margin left. Many pilots don't know that.
www.ehfc.net/twin_engine_aircraft_safety-1.pdf
Even these ancient Generation-1 plants have multiple and redundant cooling systems -- water sprays, water flooding systems -- all of which failed in several of the Fukushima plants. Those were not duplicates of the steam power loop that took heat out while it was operating -- they wouldn't have two of those in that design; the redundant systems were meant to cool down the reactor after shutdown or during a failure.
It seems that this hydro-electric thing is the best solution there is. That doesn't mean these other forms of energy couldn't be used, just less and for areas of very high importance. I mean really, several hundred potential disasters staring straight at you would-be like going out side the space station with-out a suit,$DEATH$
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThank you for this opportunity to help keep my kids from unrealistic expectations.
There never should have been a "nuclear renaissance."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRenewed ignorance would be more accurate.
It is heartening that so many readers reject the sensationalism. Of course lessons will be learned but do we throw out the safest form of base load electrical generation because of an extraordinary event? Do we cease to build aircraft because some crash? Flying remains the safest form of long distance travel. Lessons are learned & we move on. Just remember the predictions of disaster from the Gulf oil spill if you want a reminder of failed sensationalism.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor accurate information on the present situation in Japan, go to:
http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/17/fukushima-17-march-summary/#more-4112
Time ago project Manhattan save the world of a long war ,finishing a genocide machine of war, now with the same nuclear energy developed, we are in trouble, maybe its time for another manhattan project to develop a clean energy, energy without residues with more efficiency and power. Our universe move in celestial order without contamination and in a eternal movement, its time to see beyond our shoulders and turn around to other source of energy, the answer is to make a research with a brainstorm ideas of all the specialists, engineers and scientists and put the necessary funds to do it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFrom someone who believe that Mother Earth is sacred I have another perspective.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisConsidering that the reactor is 40 years old and withstood the earthquake to begin with I would think that's a pretty good record. The problem apparently being the Tsunami. I don't see how this challenges the benefits of Nuclear Power.
Just don't locate them in areas with flooding, earthquake, hurricane and Tsunamis. That's still leaves us with plenty of location opportunities.
Chernobyl is not a reference point as it was not
designed properly to any real standards to begin with.
At this time while Nuclear Power is certainly not ideal there are no other short term alternatives that doesn't also impact the environment negatively at a cost that society is willing to pay.
An important lesson from the ancient Greeks.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisShortly summarized the modern method of risk management for nuclear power plants is the following:
- Analyse the fundamental risk factors
- Store them in a huge database
- Construct an adequate risk model
- Implement the technical machines according to this
model
The common believe was, that the situation is under control, if the database is large and the risk model is good.
The ancient Greeks did not have risk models nor did they have nuclear power plants. However they made similar considerations but on a rather abstract level and could prove, that the above mentioned believe was wrong.
Euklid took as a model the multiplication of natural numbers. His fundamental factors were the prime numbers.
He asked: "Do we have the situation with numbers under control, (i.e. do we know all numbers) if we store a large number of primes and apply our model (the multiplication)?"
Today we all know his famous answer (prime number theorem): "regardless how many primes you have stored, your model (the multiplication) cannot deliver the knowledge of all numbers!
This is a great contrast to the believe of the current risk managers. Its time, that they remember Euklids lesson!
Translated to our time Euklids theorem says: regardless how many risk factors you consider in your database, there comes always a next risk, which is not included in your model! Lets listen to Euklid and beware of modern risk experts!
Solar at $400 a megawatt hour would mean you could build a 1000 MW power station for $400,000. That is the output of a huge nuclear power station, which would cost $12 billion, not counting storage, forever, of the true product of the plant, the transuranics like plutonium and the radionuclides like cesium.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCan we really trust your figures when you don't even understand what a MW is? I don't think so.
I live near Yucca Mountain. There are young volcanic cones that dot the plains around the site. One just north of my village has been dated as only 800-1000 years old.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisKeep your poisons east of the Mississippi as long as you can. We won't accept them out here. Las Vegas has millions of residents now and enough political pull to keep the nuclear poisons out of our state.
You couldn't say it better. Unfortunately, we're presently on a negative wave and it's going to take some time before they realize that we have no other cheaper and cleaner source of energy for the future.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was sanguine about nuclear power until this unfolding disaster in Japan. No other nation I know is as disciplined and cautious as that one, yet they chose to use this Boiling Water design in its first version, and just as we have started to do here in the U.S. they were about to extend the use of these faulty plants that were nearing the end of their design life.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI believe that it might be that 60 year extended lifetime that justifies the low cost per MWh figure cited in a previous post explaining relative costs of nuclear power v. renewables. I also wonder if those figures include the costs of retirement and disposal of spent fuel. We know that such figures do not cover the costs of insuring against such a disaster as the present one. That money comes at taxpayer rather than ratepayer expense.
What this disaster has 'uncovered' for me as a West Coaster within 40 miles of San Onofre is the Earthquake susceptibility of the onsite storage of spent fuel rods. While the reactor containment and safety systems at San Onofre seem to be better than those at Fukushima, the need to keep that spent fuel storage pool from cracking open during a quake and losing its water, especially after a recent refueling cycle is quite worrisome.
Descriptions of the safety systems I have usually heard only refer to nuclear material in the reactor dome itself, and even it is not expected to sustain the size of quake that Japan endured. Let us hope that that nearby fault five miles away is accurately characterized as to its potential and that San Onofre's 8 meter tsunami wall is not met with a 10 meter tsunami like the one at Fukushima. Also prevailing winds here are from the sea, not toward it as on the east coast of Japan.
the only lesson that should be learned is this. Do not build a nuclear power plant on top of an active earthquake fault. NOTHING is safe.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo, Russia has the worst power reactors. We use reinforced concrete containment walls several feet thick. (1 to two Meters.)Russia on the Chernobyl plant used sheet metal. Granted, it was cheaper, but it worked, until they turned off the safety systems for a drill.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowever, I continue to believe that we need to develop a newer generation of safer more modular nuclear reactors. The available alternatives will just not give enough power.
In the near future, if we are to escape from foreign oil domination, we will need a lot of power. Using electricity for transportation as well as industry will give us real progress towards a workable "green" future.
You are using hindsight. The Reactors were designs with Earthquake protection. In fact, they came through the Earthquake. The Tsunami was not anticipated. As late as two years ago, the damage assessments did not include them. Neither do the building codes for large cities.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEven under worst case, more people died from the tsunami than will die from the power plant. People over there are still dying from the damage done by the tsunami.
I don't claim to be a nuclear expert, only quoting hard figures from the Dept. of Energy, which DO include capital (construction) costs, O&M (including fuel), and transmission upgrades for the life of the plant. Oh, and for the record, a MW is 1,000,000 Watts. Use that 1,000,000 Watts for an hour and you've used a MW-hr.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, i never said you could build anything that cheap and you might need a primer on engineering economy. $400 MW-hr for solar means that the plant would need to charge $400/MW-hr for its entire useful life to justify it's existence. The construction portion is $375 of that.
Relative generation cost is nicely summarized here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_cost_of_electricity_generated_by_different_sources
Also, i know wikipedia is, well, wiki, but its a nice summariztion.
I guess now would be a good time to say that I actually prefer natgas over any of these others as it's cheap, clean, and unlike the other cheap or clean systems - it's scaleable.
NatureTM,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI appreciate a rational & reasoned argument like yours.
It is appropriate to think about things after an event such as this.
Note that I do not use the term disaster (Yet anyway) as the leaks have been minor to my knowledge,as reported by the government of Japan.
The reports by the mass media are as usual in such events subject to unsubstantiated statements about the amount of risk.
Very little of the media give values of the amount of radioactive material released.
All the statements made so far by Nuclear Engineers and Scientists have said that there has been not enough radioactive material released to be hazard to health.
I am amazed at the Governments of America and France in telling their citizens to get out of the country.
They have not consulted with those who have knowledge of the risks etc in this power station problem.
It seems fear and hysteria are rampant at present,maybe things will calm down in a few weeks.
The nuke industry and nuclear scientists have blown there credibility before the public. There were no warnings, just reassurances before this tragedy. Add to that the public realization that man-made global warming is a hoax supported by bad science AND supported the relapse into nuclear.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy should the public believe Scientific American now? You said nothing about the dangers before; what dangers do you not know about now? I do not trust you anymore. Just propaganda for industry.
I agree. In fact the panic itself is likely to result in many more deaths than any release in radiation. After Chernobyl, thousands of European women had abortions for fear of giving birth to deformed babies & there was also a wave of suicides. Even things like car accidents in Japan are likely to increase by expatriates being panicked to leave by their home governments & families.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisModest radiation is not very harmfull, see
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDose Response. 2010; 8(2): 148–171. PMCID: PMC2889503
2010 University of Massachusetts
Observations on the Chernobyl Disaster and LNT
Zbigniew Jaworowski
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/ppmc/articles/PMC2889503/#b56-drp-08-148
…. The most nonsensical, expensive and harmful action, however, was the evacuation of 336,000 people from contaminated regions of the former Soviet Union, where the radiation dose from Chernobyl fallout was about twice the natural dose. Later this limit was decreased to even below the natural level and was some five times lower than a radiation dose rate of 5.25 mSv/year at Grand Central Station in New York City ....
We have a long way to go before we can 'safely' use nuclear power (fission) - IF ever such a happy day arrives!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe probably passed 'Peak-oil' a decade or more ago, so we have to seek alternatives.
Coal is currently simply too polluting.
Hydroelectric - by no means will there be sufficient, and there are huge environmental costs associated with large hydel plants.
Other renewable sources of energy (solar; wind; tidal) - not at all sufficient for humanity's burgeoning needs; and, in any case, the needed technologies are nowhere near ready for deployment.
Fusion energy is a long, LONG way in the future (assuming it is going to be safe enough for more than lab-scale demos).
What other options are there ahead?
Have we ever thought of learning to live more frugally? Adjusting our economic philosophy and economics appropriately to the idea that we are NOT the "masters of the universe"?
Have we ever thought of limiting our population to the extent that we're able to live, sustainably, on planet earth?
Will we ever learn to act more wisely than we do today?
-- GSC
100% Renouncing to nuclear energy? Of course (off curse)!!! And it is no question about how to fill the energy gap. Once the decision is made pure heartedly, other alternatives will emerge and, the sun for enough solar panels will shine even in places never imagined before. That is methapysics - a science as well. And Tesla could be finally rediscovered. The real problem are the money maximizing lobbies that don't invest where there is no 200% interest guaranteed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisParabolic solar collection systems are very efficient, and could easily replace fossil fuel use and nuclear. Cost are relative. how much will it cost to the Japanese compared to what this disaster will cost in money lives and suffering?. see - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parabolic_trough#Existing_plants
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisban nuclear power and decommission all existing plants. lovins, caldicott, makijhani are good authors to support this. wind and solar are far faster to install, cheaper when the insurance, cleanup, transmission loss, health costs, and weapons costs are calculated in, and guess what? if a problem goes wrong it is safe to fix it. and the waste problem is never going away and has no solution at present. nuclear power was designed as part of the "atoms for peace" program-a front for weapons development. how about this-if you think nuclear is so clean and cheap why don't you volunteer to clean up the accident personally and bury the waste in your backyard? didn't think so. are you going to wait until the united states has a massive accident from something like a hurricane or earthquake? get real! what is wrong with the pro-nuclear people? they are talking blindly. their thoughts must be twisted. power is being used to poison people with depleted uranium weapons. oh and then lets consider the massive water use required. it ludicrous to gather the most dangerous particles known to human tissue and concentrate them just to boil water. dumb. dumb idea, dumb science, uncontrollable waste and contamination issues. solar and wind are nice to look at, you can put them in your backyard, they are renewable, and nuclear is none of these and more expensive. put away your short term kw cost calculations they are meaningless long term as solar and wind crush all competition because there is no mining, and the technology can last indefinitely, while we certainly will run out of uranium. 20% of us energy could easily be replaced by midwest wind alone or rooftop solar alone. nuclear nightmare boondoggle coercive pork projects with zero private investment forced on the masses will be viewed as one of the dumbest technologies ever conceived. the future kids in school will laugh at us. you people promoting this ridiculous idea need to consider more closely the disgusting amount of violence that you are advocating. there is something wrong with the logic that we need to create massively dangerous contraptions to burn uranium and we are blowing up and burning mountains because we are too stubborn to use the best, newest, most elegant technologies-solar age is coming- renewables are by definition inevitable. don't delay putting in the best systems- your irresponsible advocacy of this nuclear nightmare puts all people at risk from nuclear war, accidents, and and waste. death to nuclear power. nuclear power is death, painful and ugly.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe answer is "no". Nuclear should be one of the options and we should use all of our options. Although nuclear is so expensive I doubt if any will be built.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLike with a plane crash, we will learn what went wrong in Japan and so improve our plants or procedures so that will not happen again. After the 3-mile island accident, we made many improvements to our US plants -- I do not know if Japan did so as well.
It will be months before we really know what happened in that plant.
Is it surprising a 1971-vintage reactor plant is vulnerable to a earthquake & tsunami of this magnitude? Does that necessarily doom the future of nuclear energy? Technology has moved on, so it may be a false dilemma to condemn nukes because an obsolescent plant failed under extreme circumstances. Shouldn't pebble-bed reactors and reprocessing spent fuel change the equation significantly? I recall SA having pretty thoughtful articles about the benefits of reprocessing spent fuel to extract residual energy and reducing the volume and toxicity of resulting waste products. I would argue that we can control proliferation risk better than we can control Mother Nature. Rather than retrench, perhaps we should accelerate the development of inherently safe reactors, decommission the creaky, leaky, shaky ones built when we were wearing bell-bottoms, and begin reprocessing spent fuel to mitigate the long-term high-level waste storage issue. As to the cost of status quo: this month's SciAm article on the movement of the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone gives additional rationale for moving from fossil fuels; if the turmoil in Libya and the middle east aren't enough for you. Other green sources, sure. Get them all online ASAP. Don't forget the smart grid and large scale batteries to smooth out the supply / demand bumps. And make sure you don't kill the salmon when you build more hydro power dams, by the way. Plenty of challenges all around. Grab one and dig in! The biggest risk is global warming, which will cook all our geese before too long. I'd take the risk of an occasional nuclear meltdown if it avoids a polar icecap meltdown, or worse, the shutdown of the thermohaline conveyor. That really ruined the party during Cretaceous and Jurassic Periods, as well as the late Triassic, Permian, Devonian, Ordovician and Cambrian periods. Mass extinctions are no fun.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll types of power plants will eventually change over to thr type that uses gravity control.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBased on the technology of the Flying Saucer.
Look at > One Terminal Capacitor<
The risk of nuclear power is lower than other dangerous activities we do. You are more likely to get struck by lightning, die of skin cancer due to sun's radiation or die of lung cancer due to smoking than die of nuclear radiation. Burning coal is more deadly, more polluting and more radioactive than nuclear power.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut high profile nuclear accidents will surely scare investors and that will kill the nuclear renaissance. I wish this death will give birth to the renaissance of nuclear fusion.
In Germany on the electricity exchange market (it's similar to the stock exchange) the price for the MWhr is between 50 - 60 € (about 70 US $ ).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWho on earth would invest into a solar power system where the price of a MWhr would be 400 $ ?
All forms of energy generation can cause problems. Black lung disease, smog, and so forth. However, the safety of many forms of energy generation can be adjusted. Usually there is a trade off between efficiency and cost on the one hand and safety on the other. We can build nuclear power plants that are safer today than some built in the past. We must decide what we want and what we are willing to pay for it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisfolks,all these posts are fantastical in the intellect/knowledge base.lets retain suitable,concise,replies,curt and to the point ease-up the pithy after remarks when you clear a factoid.its all confusing and emotional,mixed with danger.nightmare scenario#1the dumped radiated sea water causes a herd of Godzilla to rise,kicking over nuke plants world wide,get autism from the coaldust/smog,then forget what they where doing. which REALLY,REALLY, makes them mad so they start wrecking the wind-turbines, bullet-trains,solar plants and fast-food restaurants.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is hardly the truth. There have been a grand total of three incidents involving nuclear power. The first two caused by extreme human error, and the third by a huge earthquake and tsunami (becoming a time bomb so easily? I didn't realize HUGE natural disasters counted.)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNuclear power is a clean, reliable, steady source of electricity.
"America probably have the most unsafest reactors in the world because of all the short cuts they take on safety and pay offs to look the other way."
- If we have unsafe reactors, it's not because of short cuts, it's because people like you create so much fear that companies cannot build newer, safer plants and HAVE to work with technology from the 70's.
"We do not need nuclear reactors"-WRONG, many states do need nuclear power to support electricity use.
"too dirty, too dangerous and too destructive"- Wrong, wrong, wrong. They are not dirty at all, they are actually very green. Not dangerous, there is even newer types of plants that can use graphite covered uranium pebbles that have no chance of melting down and don't emit radiation due to the graphite.
I live in SC, most of our energy comes from nuclear power. There are zero accidents year to year.
Coal, oil, natural gas, wind farms, and solar farms have much worst safety track records.
And geothermal energy cannnnnot work everywhere, Nuclear can.
Also, interesting little factoid. MRI use to be called "nuclear magnetic resonance imaging" (it has NOTHING to do with radioactive anything) but people were so scared of the word "nuclear" that the name had to be changed.
And, for all you natural gas lovers, the way they drill for methane causes Strontium to contaminate water sources... Strontium is very radioactive.
But if you still say "nay", go ahead get rid of nuclear power and...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEnjoy not having power.
You probably don't realize this, but you most likely get a lot of power from a nuclear power plant! Especially if you live on the eastern seaboard.
in response; you have painted a picture with blue skies and singing birds in the bright sunshine nuclear is not clean they do emit stuff.maybe,you will change your mind 1)any given day spent core rods will be on a railroad to Yucca mountain:thousand year rail disasters ?perhaps,nearby your house. 2)terrorist targets?3)nuclear has killed hundreds of thousands already[weaponized]new construction workers deaths. Chernobyl cleanup crews,first responders Poissoned,even the cafeteria lady.4)they cost 1 billion build,70 billion to clean up only if fiscally viable.thank god for tree huggers.going green is the answer till human responsabilty improves greatly.the sun safely gives us for free in one day,what the world uses in a year combined
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