PASSIVE SAFETY: New reactors, like the two under construction at Plant Vogtle in Georgia pictured here, employ safety systems that are supposed to function in the absence of electric power or human intervention.
Image: © 2010 Southern Company
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The first new nuclear reactor ordered in the U.S. in roughly three decades is beginning to take shape near Augusta, Ga. Southern Company and its partners have dug 27.5 meters down to reach bedrock and are now refilling the hole to provide a stable, anchored foundation for what is likely to be the first of a new generation of reactors in the U.S.: two new AP1000 models at the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant that stand next to two older pressurized water reactors, which came online in the 1980s—the first of some 14 AP1000s and 20 new reactors in total that may be built in the U.S. in the next 15 years.
"The nuclear revival is underway in Georgia," said Jim Miller, chief executive officer of Southern Nuclear Operating Co., the subsidiary charged with administering the corporation's nuclear power plants in February. "It will provide safe, clean, reliable, low-cost electric energy to our customers for generations to come."
Of course, that was before the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan, following the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami. That power plant boasted six boiling-water reactors built in the 1970s by General Electric, Toshiba and Hitachi, and capable of pumping out more than 4 gigawatts of electricity. It also proved incapable of withstanding the twin perils of an earthquake that disconnected it from the electrical grid and a tsunami that wiped out back-up diesel generators and flooded electrical equipment.
"First you rely on the grid," explains Scott Burnell, a spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees safety at the 23 such boiling water reactors in operation in this country. "If the grid is no longer available, you use diesel generators. If there is an issue with the diesels, you have a battery backup. And the batteries usually last long enough for you to get the diesels going."
That did not prove to be the case at Fukushima Daiichi. But new reactor designs—including the Economic Simplifed Boiling Water Reactor from GE-Hitachi that passed its safety rating from the NRC on March 9, two days before the quake—are meant to provide cooling even in the absence of power.
For example, the AP1000s being built in Georgia boast "passive" safety features—safety technology that kicks in with or without human intervention or electricity. In the case of the Westinghouse AP1000 design that means cooling water sits above the reactor core and, in the event of a potential meltdown like at Fukushima Daiichi or Three Mile Island in Pa., will, with the opening of a heat-sensitive valve, simply flow water into the reactor, dousing the meltdown. "Never has so much money been spent to prove that water runs downhill," Westinghouse spokesman Vaughn Gilbert told Scientific American in 2009.
Further, although the thick steel vessel containing the nuclear reactor is encased in a further shell of 1.2-meter-thick concrete, that shell is surrounded by a building that is open to the sky. Should the concrete containment vessel begin to heat up during a meltdown, natural convection would pull in cooling air.
But that open-air building was initially rejected by the NRC for a lack of structural strength. The U.S. regulator argued that it would not withstand a severe shock such as an earthquake or airplane impact, because it was initially planned to be built from pre-fabricated concrete and steel modules in order to save money.
The modified design now under review by the NRC employs more steel reinforcement as well as improved venting (maintaining such venting has proved critical at Fukushima Daiichi). But some critics, such as engineer Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates, have further concerns. For instance, if the containment building housing the reactor core were to spring a leak—as appears to have happened at Fukushima Daiichi— radioactive material would be wafted up and out of the AP1000 thanks to that same natural convection.
In the end, all nuclear power plants suffer from a balancing act between absolute safety and acceptable cost. "With earthquakes, there are limits to what you can do," says nuclear engineer Michael Golay of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "What risk are you willing to tolerate?"
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34 Comments
Add CommentNuclear power project has undoutedly shown a bright prospect of energy technology,however,it has also aroused the most controversy...The explosion of the nuclear power plants in Japan has made other countries act with greater vigilance,but will it make us free from risk to only balance safety and costs?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe bottom line is that you can not be free from risk. No living thing can be. We must always balance cost and safety.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell,some is avoidable absolutely.Besides, I didn't mean to talk about risk generally.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUnfortunately, we're still trying to make the LWR do things it wasn't intended for, decades ago. As the 1962 AEC report to JFK stated, we should be rapidly be deploying breeders, once LWRs were running economically...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://energyfromthorium.com/pdf/CivilianNuclearPower.pdf
In particular, Thorium breeders avoid Uranium mining/enrichment/waste/safety and proliferation dangers, because after startup they make their own fuel internally, from essentially free Thorium. This is where China is now going, using all our development work from 1954 on...
http://energyfromthorium.com/2011/01/30/china-initiates-tmsr/#comments
www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/01/china_thorium_bet/
www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8393984/Safe-nuclear-does-exist-and-China-is-leading-the-way-with-thorium.html
Shall we continue the foolishness of not listening to what recommendations JFK asked for, and was given, 48 years ago?
http://tinyurl.com/25mgqkd
http://tinyurl.com/252wxt2
http://tinyurl.com/yb2qgex
Feel free to attend the 12 May conference, right next to Congress, attempting to wake us & our reps up...
www.thoriumenergyalliance.com
--
Dr. A. Cannara
650-400-3071
Smaller Reactors would mount a smaller risk, a small breeder for example. If built at a current facility current wastes can be recycled, all for our benefit. Future reactors can be be made almost entirely passive. For example: A liquid pool of sodium can be used just a conductor medium for a mercury/mercury vapor geyser that then heat water to push generators to make power.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisstarch_cole@yahoo.com
It seems really safe to keep three levels of security in the event of a power outage on the grid, as explained.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs we see, in the case of a power outage on the grid, we have diesel generators to ensure the cooling. In case of failure of generators, batteries come into play. In the worst case, a large swimming pool with several gallons of water would have its valves automatically open to cool the core.
But the question remains: batteries and generators are waterproof, to prevent flooding? Are built in a safe place to prevent attacks from the air space? The pool has enough water to cool the core for several days?
It would be safer to keep one more additional cooling pump to work in case of main pump failure.
Fukushima had generators flooded by the tsunami. Also lacking in the energy grid. In addition there was not a large pool of water nearby to ensure the cooling.
The disaster was inevitable.
If you analyse disasters, nucleair and other, then you see that technically they could have been prevented. Think about the shuttle, ariane-5, Tjernobyl, etc. The root cause is always a human factor issue. Often engineers had issued warnings, but management choose to ignore them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have and still am a great fan of nuclear energy. But the human factor has started to scare me more than the technical challenge. Even the API1000 scheme is full of assumptions that might be proven wrong. It also looks like none of the safer designs do take into account that when a disaster has happened, that containment and cooling is not enough. People will need to go in. Where are the provisions for what needs to be done after the accident? Where are the radiation hardened camera's, the robots, etc. In Japan they even had to work for days in the dark. When an accident happens, it is not enough the be able to watch dials in a cosy control room. Someone will need to go in.
I am not an expert on the Westinghouse AP1000 PWR design, but it does not appear significantly safer than Westinghouse 2nd generation PWRs. Arnold Gundersen, a nuclear engineer who testified at the TMI investigation, believes they are less safe (bing him, google him, or whatever, he was also mentioned above). I know nothing of Gundersen's reputation within the industry, except that he is was a whistleblower.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe AP1000 just appears to be a marketing "scam" to me. The design appears to concentrate on costs rather than safety (title of article is an euphemism). They claim to be able to build these plants, which are very similar to 2nd gen PWRs, for the same cost of building our existing plants that are 25 years old (and that's not adjusting for inflation). They claim to do this by eliminating a lot of equipment??? I do not know what equipment? Redundant equipment and systems that are meant for safety???
Who cares about the pool of water above the reactor? It's a good idea, but if it was so important, why couldn't it be retrofitted to existing PWRs? Existing PWR containment domes should definitely be able to support the weight. If not, add an additional structure.
That being said, I am NOT saying that 2nd generation Westinghouse PWR are unsafe. They are significantly safer than graphite moderated reactors such as at Chernobyl. It just doesn't appear these 3rd generation PWRs add much additional safety to nuclear power generation (for those expecting that a 1/4 century in advancements would provide).
What leads to safety problems are years of industrial deregulation started by Reagan and the continuing need to cut costs. The nuclear industry is no different from drilling in the gulf. Deregulate and corners will be cut, just like more people would drive home drunk if DWI was not illegal. Do you think executives care about the risks? They want quick stock market gains. They'll take the risk. If things go wrong, they play the stupid card (operator error) and retire to an island in the Pacific.
If what you're saying is true then Westinghouse made the right call (i.e., focusing on reducing cost more than trying to reduce risks even further).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFossil fuel plants cause 25,000 deaths ANNUALLY in the US alone (hundreds of thousands worldwide) and are the leading cause of global warming. Non-Soviet nuclear plants have never had any measurable health impact (or killed a single member of the public). Even this Japanese event will cause few, if any, public deaths.
Given this, the most dangerous nuclear plant is a plant that is not built (with fossil fuels used instead). Pursuing safety to the point of pricing nuclear out of the market does not make the world safer. It makes it more dangerous, by causing fossil fuels (that are thousands of times as dirty and dangerous) to be used instead.
Westinghouse designed a plant that will be cheaper to build, and is still significantly safer than the designs in use today. Sounds like a good balance to me.
The notion that nuclear regulation is in any way lax is a joke. Nuclear is, far and away, the most strictly regulated industry there is, with standards that are thousands of times as strict as those applied to fossil fuels (as measured by expenditure required per unit of public risk reduction).
I doubt the safety of any boiling (BWR) or pressurized water reactor (PWR) design can be significantly improved. That no one in our country has gotten killed by these demonstrates the high level of skill and diligence in their workers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBWRs and PWRs are fire hazards. When the reactor is scrammed, there are still many megawatts of heat being generated by the core that need to be removed by active cooling. Cooling failure causes steam to burn off the zirconium cladding of the fuel rods leaving zirconium oxide and hydrogen gas. This radioactive hydrogen and tritium then needs to be vented. The most likely modes of failure lead to a positive reactivity coefficient. This means that the hotter the core gets the faster the reaction, and the more heat generated.
Water-based reactors are inherently unstable and dangerous. The shape of the pressure vessel tends to puddle the fuel from ruptured fuel rods in the center where a vigorous exchange of neutrons resumes causing the reaction to increase. The generated heat leads to a vessel breach out the bottom and the escape of extremely radioactive material.
What is needed first are non-combustible reaction and cooling media. The second requirement needs to be that the system has a negative reactivity coefficient. So, increasing the temperature beyond a certain limit tends to inhibit or terminate the reaction. Finally, if the system exceeds yet another temperature limit, it must be passively drained to spread the fuel out into a containment geometry that will minimize exchange of neutrons in the reaction media.
Good molten salt reactor (MSR) designs meet these criteria. The reason why they are not being given the same hard sell as the BWR and PWR designs is that the profit model of the nuclear industry today relies heavily on the sale and eventual reprocessing of uranium or mixed plutonium fuel rods. MSR nearly eliminates this lucrative uranium market and runs by thorium conversion into uranium. It's like asking oil companies to produce cars that get 1000-mpg on ethanol.
So safety goes hand in hand with making nuclear power both safe and economical for the customer. But the regulatory structure could be barking up the wrong tree. Instead of focusing only on the details of existing technology, regulators need to focus on how to restructure the industry itself to create irresistible inducements to break up business as we now know it into an economic model that minimizes risk and cost while maximizing benefit to the public and the environment.
Or they can change to the Gravity Control System.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo fuel needed, just a few silos, in which a weight of 1000 tons or more is levitated 1000 feet or more, using the technology borrowed from the Flying Saucer.
Don't worry, they will insist on using the most expensive system and "to hell with any danger, we are Americans and don't care if we die. We love to pay expensive electricity instead of 1 or 2 cents per Kilowatt."
It's interesting to find out more about the newest safety features. As support for nuclear drops in public polls, however, it seems that less and less people want a nuclear facility in their vicinity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCheck out this video that features residents of the community around Plant Vogtle to see the issues at play: http://bit.ly/93FFaJ
Luca Semprini
www.poweringanation.org
Please explain your numbers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCorners should be cut. Many were added after Three Mile Island when public fear and loathing required them. Now, there's a lot of deadwood in what we do and why we do it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSee "The Nuclear Energy Option" by Bernard Cohen.
http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/BOOK.html
(In particular, see Chapter 9: Costs of nuclear power plants — what went wrong?)
I have wondered what has happened to the "pebble reactors" that were mentioned in SciAm a few years ago. Apparently one was being built in South Africa, but I've seen no information on it since.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOur troubles are at heart political. Even before this accident, I viewed nuclear as a bridge technology needed to reduce carbon over the next thirty years until we could build a new power grid and develop our wind and solar resources. Being a child of the 50's, I had always dreamed that nuclear could fulfill Ike's promise of "electricity to cheap to meter". Sadly, we can't even agree on something as incredibly "safe" as Yucca Mountain for storage, and we continue to follow Carter's decision to build no breeders as if the "nuclear weapons club" was still exclusive and the US was somehow utterly incapable of protecting its plutonium.
We have about forty years of oil left on the planet (probably a bit longer since in the end it will get extremely pricey), and by 2040 we will be at 450 ppm atmospheric carbon. Even if we were able to draw all our own oil with a straw, the US supply would last less than five years at current rates.
I simply have no faith in the capacity of our political system to address such energy issues in a timely manner. Failure in this area will make an impoverished future for our children. Scientists everywhere need to take control of this "narrative" and rebuild a sensible consensus for a better alternative. Educate, and vote differently.
One other thought... why don't we turn this whole thing over to the US Navy? Or, since the existing industry is already mostly Rickover veterans, why don't we create a private/Navy enterprise so the same people can keep us safe in new ways but continue to be cycled out of Navy payscales? It might work.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDubina, you say corners should be cut, but then never say which corners. Neither does Cohen.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCohen never even claimed corners should be cut. He proposes ideas for meeting the public's demand for "super-super safe" nuke plants. Although Cohen is a respectible person, his 1990 book is very light. It's a terrible reference for determining what "deadwood" to get rid of.
The public also wants "super-super safe" air transportation. Guess what, that's business. That's supply and demand of economics. There are people who are still afraid to fly even though commercial aviation accidents rarely happen.
TMI happened. Chernobyl happened. People got scared. There hasn't been an accident in the US since TMI. Regualtions will be relaxed until there is another accident. The public then gets scared again. Hopefully, future accidents will not be the size of Chernobyl.
rabarker, so you want a private Navy? That means even more wars than we have now with our industrial military complex (as long as your quoting Ike, but "to cheap to meter" was by Lewis Strauss who worked for Ike referring to fusion power). Do you think they can make profits and continue making more and more profits without war? Do you also want to choose who dies in your privatized wars so some executive can make millions of dollars? Or another scenario, there would be no wars, but then sometime in the future when a national defense is needed, we will discover there is no Navy just a few yachts for the executives (just like Bernie's hedge fund).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe need a lot of energy to propel the modern civilization onwards, but it does not come by cheap.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVerily, while sources of green energy are still at their infancy, we may not want to phase out nuclear plant that soon, despite the unwelcome risks attached.
There have been myriad blur reports about the Fukushima crisis, greatly obfuscating the public. What we need are clear, transparent, authoritative scientific statements on the actual situations inside the reactors. However, such truth is slow to emerge, even 12 days after the explosion.
We should do much better than that.
"In the case of the Westinghouse AP1000 design that means cooling water sits above the reactor core and, in the event of a potential meltdown..., will, with the opening of a heat-sensitive valve, simply flow water into the reactor, dousing the meltdown. "Never has so much money been spent to prove that water runs downhill," Westinghouse spokesman Vaughn Gilbert told Scientific American in 2009."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDoes Mr. Gilbert realize that water does not run uphill without a pump? Water has to circulate to keep the cooling. You still need a pump to circulate the water or else it will evaporate into steam.
You can prevent a meltdown by using 3 meter thick graphite containment in addition to steel. Currently, concrete and steel are used for containment. Concrete melts at 1200 C and steel at 1500 C. When cooling system breaks down, the nuclear core temp. can reach 2500 C or more. The melting point of graphite is 3600 C. But you still need to fix the cooling system.
Mr Cramer, my tongue-in-cheek remark about making a joint Navy/private enterprise was simply a tip of the hat to the fact that the Navy has done this nuclear stuff pretty marvelously for fifty years and in the process has also supplied most of the talent for the private industry as it presently exists. The Navy is quite serious about regulation, and that's clearly a virtue here.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour remarks seem hostile to almost any serious discussion of energy policy, and that speaks to my first comment: without a political will toward consensus, we will get nowhere. You appear to be quite anti-nuclear, yet I'd guess you would also be the leader in any local movement to prevent the extension of a new power grid near your community even if it carried renewables. As a nation, people like you and I need to agree or at least establish common intent on both the need for energy and the matters of how it will be produced and distributed. Is that possible?
Old nuclear plants plainly need to be retired and the fifth of US energy they provide replaced. How would you do this--and pay for it-- in a twenty year timeframe? New nuclear designs are nearly inevitably part of the plan, so rather than simply rage against "the Man", why don't you lead the way for a new consensus?
rabarker,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisremarks seem hostile to almost any serious discussion of energy policy??? Anti-nuclear??? Rage against the man???
The first thing for a serious discussion is to better understand the people in the discussion. I am pro-nuclear. I was a trained nuclear plant operator in my younger years.
Rage against the man? In case you haven't notice, we are in the age of an anti-government movement. There are many people (and people who post in the forum) who would like to privatize the military and get rid of the government. I am not pro-government or a socialist, but I do believe in Ayn Rand's concept of property rights just like libertarians/anarchists. However, I believe it is the government role to protect property rights (those include a person body and intellect as well as a fisherman's business in the gulf). Getting rid of all regulations (like the Ayn Rand Institute wants to get rid of the FDA and NRC) is like doing away with drunk driving laws. The logic is the same--who is the government to tell someone when they am able to drive.
You make some tongue-in-cheek commits and I am suppose to determine if you are an anarchist/libertarian or not? I have worked in nuclear power, oil, pharmaceuticals/biotech, and on Wall Street (Chem Eng / Math / Finance education), so I have seen my fair share of regulatory environments. Most importantly I have seen my fair share of fraud. And the companies I worked for were the largest in their industry at the time (Exelon, Merck, Exxon, BNP-Paribas).
Why don't you quote what I said that leads you to believe that I am anti-nuclear and hostile to serious discussion (when you are talking about privatizing the Navy).
Well, you CAN be free from risk. It is simply to stop using nuclear reactors and start using renewables instead.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUS has long since run out of Uranium resources and maily buys all its fuel from Abroad. At current usage rate the world will be depleted of "cheap" Uranium in 65 years.
Maybe you should stop using energy sources that generate future problems and start thinking about solar and wind energy.
Cramer,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou said Cohen never claimed corners should be cut. Yes, you are right, that was my hyperbole. Still, he saw corners being added, and that as a problem. From Chapter 9.
**
Starting in the early 1970s, the public grew concerned about the safety of nuclear power plants: the NRC responded ... by tightening regulations and requirements for safety equipment.
You can always improve safety by spending more money. (etc)
This process came to be known as "ratcheting." Like a ratchet wrench that always tightens and never loosens a bolt, the regulatory requirements were constantly tightened, requiring additional equipment and construction labor and materials. According to one study, between the early and late 1970s, regulatory requirements increased the ... steel needed in a power plant of equivalent electrical output by 41%, the ... concrete by 27%, the lineal footage of piping by 50%, and the length of electrical cable by 36%. The NRC did not withdraw requirements made in the early days on the basis of minimal experience when later experience demonstrated that they were unnecessarily stringent. Regulations were only tightened, never loosened. The ratcheting policy was consistently followed.
In its regulatory ratcheting activities, the NRC paid some attention to cost effectiveness, attempting to balance safety benefits against cost increases. (etc)
In addition to increasing the quantity of materials and labor going into a plant, regulatory ratcheting increased costs by extending the time required for construction. According to (one) set of estimates, the time from project initiation to ground breaking was 16 months in 1967, 32 months in 1972, and 54 months in 1980. (etc) The time from ground breaking to operation testing was increased from 42 months in 1967, to 54 months in 1972, to 70 months in 1980. The increase in total construction time, indicated in Fig. 2, from 7 years in 1971 to 12 years in 1980 roughly doubled the final cost of plants.
In addition, the EEDB, corrected for inflation, approximately doubled during that time period. Thus, regulatory ratcheting, quite aside from the effects of inflation, quadrupled the cost of a nuclear power plant. What has all this bought in the way of safety? One point of view often expressed privately by those involved in design and construction is that it has bought nothing.
**
Nuclear power isn't the only US industry subject to gold-plating and fortification. Little wonder we are now competitively disadvantaged vis-a-vis China.
Light but right and fit to purpose
Dubina, so you like a cliche like regulatory ratcheting. Do you also like cliches like paradigm shift and core competency? That book by Cohen is terrible.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOur only disadvantage to China is from a manipulated exchange rate and sweatshop labor. Do you think it is the fixed investment costs and environmental regulations for why Apple has Foxconn mfr its ipads?
It going to be a long time before we start importing electric power from China, if ever.
Keep buying the propaganda from the Koch brothers and soon you will also be a sweatshop worker, if you aren't already.
Thinking of sweatshops, in exactly 12 hours from the time I wrote this, it will be the 100 year anniversary of the Triangle wasteshirt factory fire. With more people with your attitude, we will be heading back to the 19th century sweatshops for most workers.
Without a manipulated exchange rate we can compete with China. They have their own set of problems, just as Japan did before their economy failed. Without Wall Street sucking wealth out of this country our consumers will be able to spend more. Demand side is now what needs help, not the supply side, they are flush with cash. Believe me, I've worked on Wall St for over a decade and I am rich from doing the sucking. I've seen all the fraud and market manipulation first hand. Wake up from your utopian world view. To find the problems in the economy, follow the money.
Cramer,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are inclined to evasion, I guess. If you don't like Cohen's numbers, tell us why they are wrong, why his assay of massive overspending due to "a strictly political phenomenon" was wrong. Your reflex jump to China and sweatshop labor was laughably awkward.
"Our only disadvantage to China is from a manipulated exchange rate and sweatshop labor."
You are wrong about our disadvantage to China. They are more energetic and ambitious at this point in time. they are thinner. They have numbers and that will matter more and more. Have you heard of "frugal innovation" as it relates to Chinese body scanners? Look it up. Head out of sand, first, byw.
"Importing electric power from China"
Another evasion. Talk about Cohen's numbers and the implications of gold-plated US nuclear reactors.
"...you will be a sweatshop worker, if you aren't already."
Clever idea: if not a money-sucking Wall Street “worker”, I belong to the sweatshop class.
(Just the other day I thanked my lucky stars that I didn't end up on Wall Street.)
"With more people with your attitude, we will be heading back to the 19th century sweatshops for most workers."
How many more do we need? People with my attitude deplore the mentality and practice of your sauve qui peut casino capitalism. (Here's a clue: we probably have a lot already.)
"Without a manipulated exchange rate we can compete with China."
By all means, Cramer, tell us how we're going to compete with China. Nobody but you and the tariff courts seems to have an answer for that. Be sure to notify Gary Locke so he can get in step with you.
I know a guy who manufactures drill pipe in China and exports a lot to the USA. His company was hit with punitive tariffs because he built a big new plant and was out-competing US manufacturers on price and availability. US plants were thus “endangered”. No doubt his competitive advantage was due in part to sweatshop labor, not that it matters a rat's hiney to countries that use drill pipe and don't have “mature” national industries to protect.
Finally, don't look now, but "following the money" caused monumental problems in the economy, evidence your notice of “fraud and market manipulation”. How long do markets last when people who use them lose faith in their protocols? You are wrong about my world view; it is dystopian taking into account the nonsense that passes muster now in Washington, on Wall Street and on Main Street. You might be happy to ride that machine into the ground, but I find it disgraceful.
QUANTUM ENERGETICS - THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVladimir Leonov
There are now over 440 commercial nuclear power reactors operating in 30 countries. It's 440 nuclear bombs. 1986 - Chernobyl, 2011 – Fukushima. Who will be next? Large earthquakes occur every 20 years. The mankind can to disappear in 200 years.
Quantum Energetics - there is an alternative to the nuclear power plants.
Leonov V. S. Quantum Energetics. Volume 1. Theory of Superunification. Cambridge International Science Publishing, 2010, 745 pages.
http://leonov.inauka.ru/
Quantum energetics is based on new fundamental discoveries of quantum of space-time (quanton) and super-strong electromagnetic interaction (SEI) made by Vladimir Leonov in 1996. On the basis of new fundamental discoveries the theory of Superunification of fundamental interactions of electromagnetism, gravitation, nuclear and electro-weak forces is completed. It is important that new fundamental discoveries have the widest practical application in the development of quantum energetics. It is discovered that the single source of energy in the Universe is the quanton in the structure of quantized space-time, which is the carrier of super-strong interaction (SEI). All known methods of energy generation (chemical and nuclear reactionsm etc.) are redued to the release and transformation of SEI energy. Quantum energetics is a more general concept in energetics, which includes both the new energetic cycles, and traditional ones, including nuclear energetics.
Dubina,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat's interesting is that we are probably on the same side. You are preaching to the choir in most of what you said.
It has seems there has been a breakdown in dialogue due to the simple fact that you have NOT told me what corners should be cut in nuclear power generation. Neither could I find in Cohen what corners should be cut.
Is it the equipment redundancy that should be eliminated? We should get rid of back-up pumps? So, in case, one pump fails, we should never need the backup? This redundancy is also used in the chemical industry. It actually make business sense since the entire plant does not have to shut down each time there is a problem with a pump.
Is it x-raying every weld? Guess what they also do this in other industries.
Is the secondary containment an overkill?
Are operators now overtrained (too costly)? QA requirements too costly?
It's been 25 years since I was an operator at a nuke plant. I am just trying to learn how costs can be reduced; but you will not give any examples/suggestions.
If anyone is being evasive, it is you. You are the one making a claim that corners can be cut. It is your premise. I am simply just asking which ones? You gave a reference that is NOT very detailed. I read two chapters in Cohen in a very short time. Yes, I remember he said that in the 1970s regulatory requirements increased the amount of steel needed by 41%. However, he reference his own publication in the Health Physics journal. Changes were made in the 1970s before TMI. Do you care to tell me were he got this number? What steel can be eliminated? I know the space is very tight in a nuke plant, so length of pipe unlikely to be an issue.
You speaking complete nonsense in replying to the post about thorium (LFTR design), indicating you are shooting form the hip with doing your homework.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Well a uranium powered nuclear paradise will require the construction of some 200,000 new nuclear reactors."
to quote from http://energyfromthorium
"With this approach, plutonium from weapons and reactor fuel will start about 70 chloride fast reactors. Each one will make enough uranium-233 each year to start 70 new LFTRs at a gigawatt each. That means that in less than 20 years we could have 1000 LFTRs online, generating all of the energy our nation (United States) needs, all the while we’re burning down and destroying the plutonium we’ve generated over the last 60 years for weapons and from reactor operation. Compare that to the standard fast breeder approach where in 20 years the 70 fast breeders we started have generated enough new fuel for another 70 fast breeders and you can see really quickly how fast uranium-233 and slowed-down neutrons can let you move ahead and replace coal and other fossil fuels.
...Those thousand LFTRs are going to burn about a thousand tonnes of thorium each year to make all of this energy, which is about a quarter of what one mine site in Idaho with a pit the size of a football field could produce. Again, thorium and slowed-down neutrons can let you be much more efficient in your nuclear strategy.
At the end of this effort, we will have destroyed our 100 tonnes of highly-enriched uranium from weapons. We will have destroyed our 100 tonnes of weapons-grade plutonium from decommissioned weapons. We will have destroyed the 700 tonnes of plutonium and other actinides in the spent nuclear fuel. We will have essentially eliminated the issue of spent nuclear fuel as a concern. We will have replaced the coal and gas electrical generation in the country. We will have added enough additional electrical generation to the nation’s grid to power electric cars rather than gasoline-powered ones. We’ll have cleaner air. We’ll have cleaner water. We’ll keep hundreds of billions of dollars in our country because we’ll be energy-independent. And we will have solved the energy crisis permanently."
Now given that the U.S. current consumes 25% of the World's Energy, that would mean if ALL world's power was produced from Thorium then that would mean building 4000 new nuclear power plants (currently the world has about 440 nuclear plants). That's just 2% of the number you threw out there and only 10x what we have now for a many times much safer design.
Sheer nonsense. We don't have a complete theory that unifies the four forces of nature much less a practical application of such theory. M-theory is a candidate but its full description is unknown. If you have the complete 'theory of everything' publish it in a reputable physics journal. Anybody can publish a science fiction book.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYup, your 200,000 new nuclear reactors is just your wild imagination. The world's installed capacity in 2006 was only 4 million MW. That's only 4,000 nuclear plants with 1,000 MW capacity each. If you replace all the fossil fuel plants with nuclear, you only need 2,752 new plants.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree that Japan shows that people have not made the necessary planning in case they do have to go inside or at least be able to judge if the water is in the tank or not. Placement of items like the diesel pumps underneath the reactor at a level were it would be swamped in a Tsunami and spent fuel above the reactor where it would be inaccessible if there was a problem with the reactor.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere could be battery powered LED lights to illuminate the control room in emergency.
All six reactors close together - again inaccessible if something goes wrong with any one of them- on the East side of Japan where the entire Pacific is at the front door rather than the West side. Maybe that was situated on the East to take in consideration the winds going to the east and away from land? A city of 1 million nearby. Is somebody trying to show off that no accident will happen- thereby excluding the possibility of earthquake which is common in that country.
About 50 reactors for the tiny country- Tokyo is ablaze with colored lights-- Tokyo was able use a lot less electricity to avoid brownouts and allow maximum power to go to the ailing reactors-- maybe it was done to meet the emergency but also maybe there is just too much power on a small island peppered with so many reactors - some close to together. "The cleanest power is the one you don't use".
Lots of lessons learned....
Dear Dr. Strangelove. You have a famous writer. Our fragile world can secure only the fundamental science, fundamental new knowledge. This knowledge gives s the theory of Superunification, i.e. the Theory of Everything.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm not a writer fiction. I am a Russian theoretical physicist, experimentator and inventor.
Leonov is a Ph.D., author more than 200 scientific articles and 6 monographs, was awarded a Russian government prize in the area of science and technology and in 2007 was included in 100 leaders of science and technology of CIS countries.
Only this book has brought me fame:
Leonov V. S. Quantum Energetics. Volume 1. Theory of Superunification. Cambridge International Science Publishing, 2010, 745 pages.
http://leonov.inauka.ru/
The book is sold in dozens of countries around the world. The Quantum energetics and theory of Superunification very interested China and India.
The theory of Superunification is confirmed experimentally: Leonov effect, Usherenko effect and other.
LEONOV EFFECT.
Results of the tests of a quantum engine for generating thrust without the ejection of reactive mass. http://inauka.ru/blogs/article104833.html
In two years of experimental work it was possible to increase the thrust from 0.1 N to 500 N with the mass of apparatus being 50 kg together with the chassis. The diameter of the apparatus of was 1.5 m, the height 1.05 m together with the chassis. Unusual even for the author was to observe the motion of the apparatus which has no screws, jet nozzle and drive for the wheels. High stability is typical of the work of the quantum engine. . The effect of generating thrust without the ejection of reactive mass during the operation of the quantum engine did not disappear even after 6 months in repeated tests. This fundamental effect is always well reproduced.
USHERENKO EFFECT
In 1974 the Belorussian scientist Sergey Usherenko discovered the effect of the ultradeep penetration (UDP) of particle-strikers of micron sizes in solid targets with the release of colossal energy in the channel of the target.
Leonov V.S., Russian Federation patent No. 220 1625, A method of generation of energy and a reactor for this purpose, Bull. 9, 2003.
I'm not interested to write short articles for journals and prove his innocence to editor. Quantum engines (Leonov effect) in the work is the best proof, I was right. I am a businessman in the science and I'm more interested in investing in very large project.
There's no such thing as Leonov effect or quantum energetics. If you want to convince the world of your invention, publish it in a reputable physics journal. That's the only way it will be recognized as legitimate. Otherwise, it's just a scam.
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