Aug 16, 2010 11:00 AM | 113
My belated education in nuclear energy continues. I just read Power to Save the World: The Truth about Nuclear Energy (Vintage, 2008) by Gwyneth Cravens, a petite, energetic novelist and journalist. Cravens contacted me after seeing my chat with Rod Adams, a nuclear-trained Naval officer, on Bloggingheads.tv last May (which I followed up with a post). I recently met Cravens during a tour of the Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York State, which she arranged. I'm feeling a lot better about living near Indian Point, less because of what I learned during my tour (although plant employees were quite informative) than because of Power to Save the World.
The 2007 book describes how Cravens morphed from a nuke-fearing greenie who in the 1980s opposed the Shoreham nuclear plant on Long Island, where she lives, into a proponent who believes that we need nuclear power to save us from global warming and other adverse effects of fossil fuels. Cravens repeats the refrain that the risks of nuclear energy have been exaggerated; nuclear power, both civilian and military, hasn't killed a single person in the U.S. over the past half century. But she fleshes out these statements with surprising (to me) details.
—Day in and day out we are all bombarded by radiation, including alpha and beta particles, x-rays and gamma rays. Americans receive an average of 360 millirem (a rem is a measure of radiation dosage) a year from radon gas and other background sources, cosmic rays (doses rise at higher elevations, where there is less atmospheric protection), consumer products (such as smoke detectors), and medical procedures. (I learned at Indian Point that the 360 estimate has recently been revised upward to 620). A set of dental x-rays delivers 39 millirem, a flight from New York City to Los Angeles 1.5 millirem. Radiation treatments for cancer can deliver millions of millirem to a specific organ and tens of thousands to the whole body. Federal regulations allow nuclear workers to receive up to 5,000 millirem annually, but they receive less than 240 on average. U.S. nuclear plants increase the radiation in their neighborhoods by less than one millirem a year, on average.
—There is no clear-cut evidence of adverse health effects from radiation at levels below 100,000 millirem a year. The health effects of radiation have been calculated from people who received extremely high doses, including survivors of the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Chernobyl accident, and "radium girls" who painted radium on watches and other instruments in the early 20th century. The cancer epidemiologist Charles Key told Cravens that "compared to tobacco, gasoline, drunk drivers or being a couch potato, radiation is of very little risk to most of the public."
—Claims about adverse effects from low levels of radiation are often based on a so-called linear non-threshold model. The model assumes, for example, that if an exposure of n millirem kills 50 percent of a population, then 0.1 n will kill 5 percent, 0.01 will kill 0.5 percent and so on. There is no evidence for this model. Background radiation from natural sources varies around the world from an annual dosage of less than 100 to over 10,000 millirem. (Residents of Ramsar, Iran, receive up to 26,000 millirem a year!) Studies have not found increased cancer or other illnesses in areas with naturally high radiation.
—Fifty plant and emergency workers died of acute radiation exposure in the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the U.S.S.R., the worst nuclear accident in history. The explosion contaminated more than 200,000 square kilometers with radioactive fallout, but radiation in parts of this zone is now lower than in Finland and other regions of the world with naturally high radiation. The International Agency for Research on Cancer estimates that radiation releases from Chernobyl caused a slight increase in thyroid cancer but adds that "smoking will cause several thousand times more cancers in the same population." So far, there have been no excess deaths among the 200,000 "liquidators" who helped clean up the mess from Chernobyl compared with controls.
—The worst nuclear accident in U.S. history was the 1979 partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, which led to venting of radioactive gas. The highest dose received by plant workers was 4,000 millirem, 1,000 less than the annual dose permitted for U.S. nuclear workers. The highest dose for people living near the plant was 100 millirem. There is no credible evidence of increased cancer or birth defects among plant workers or residents near Three Mile Island.
—According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, so-called depleted uranium, which consists primarily of the isotope U 238 and not the more fissionable U 235, "has never caused a case of cancer in animals or humans." The dense metal is used to make tank armor, armor-piercing projectiles, shielding for x-ray machines, boat keels and other applications.
—Nuclear power in the U.S. has grown steadily more efficient and cheaper. Plants now operate at 90 percent of peak capacity (up from about 50 percent a few decades ago) compared with 73 percent for coal, 29 percent for hydroelectric, 16 to 38 percent for natural gas, 27 percent for wind and 19 percent for solar. In 2005 nuclear power was cheaper per kilowatt than any alternative.
—The waste from coal-burning plants is much greater in volume and more harmful than from nuclear generators. If you, as an average American, got all your electricity from nuclear plants, you'd generate one kilogram of nuclear waste during your lifetime, enough to fit in a soda can. If you got all your electricity from coal, you'd generate almost 70 tons of waste. Coal plants emit far more radioactive materials than nuclear plants do; each year a 1,000-megawatt coal plant disperses about 27 metric tons of uranium, thorium and other radioactive substances. Coals plants also emit mercury and other toxins, in addition of course to carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. An estimated 24,000 Americans die prematurely per annum because of pollution from coal plants; in China, the number is 400,000.
—Hydropower has killed many more people than nuclear power. About 1,000 Americans have died in dam collapses in the past 100 years. Dam collapses caused by a typhoon in China in 1975 killed 26,000 people immediately; another 145,000 people later died of disease and famine. The output of hydroelectric plants is decreasing because of droughts, possibly brought on by global warming.
—The footprint of nuclear power is much smaller than that of solar and wind. A 1,000-megawatt nuclear plant like Indian Point requires less than two square kilometers of land. Comparable solar and wind plants would require, respectively, 130 and 500 square kilometers of land, and they cannot produce a steady supply of power, as nuclear plants do.
I've always had a knee-jerk distrust of nuclear advocates, just as I have of right-wing Congressmen, psychiatric-drug shills and string theorists. But I trust Cravens and the experts she interviewed—including physicists, engineers and epidemiologists—over many years of reporting. If you're agonizing over whether to support nuclear energy, read Cravens's book and see if you find it as persuasive as I do. I also welcome (and expect) challenges to the assertions above.
Tags:
nuclear power
More Cross-check:
Next: Why I'm becoming a pro-nuke nut, continued
Previous: Queer notions: How Christian homophobes misuse my "gay gene" report
Get weekly coverage delivered to your inbox.
YES! Send me a free issue of Scientific American with no obligation to continue the subscription. If I like it, I will be billed for the one-year subscription.
113 Comments
Add CommentAnd nuclear waste is the result of a presidential decision NOT the result of commercial nuclear powers. Commercial power spent fuel can be reprocessed and re-burned. Jimmy Carter (who was NOT a nuclear engineer as he claimed) decided it "wasn't nice" to reprocess spent fuel because it yields plutonium, among other fissile materials. His decision led to tons of spent fuel clogging up nuclear power plants all over the US.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI, too, am a proponent of expanded use of nuclear power. We are going to need it for our base power needs no matter how much wind generation we create. There is no other presently available alternative that can satisigy our needs and does not contribute to global warming. But, in fairness to the discussion, there are other points you need to address. Is the cost of nuclear power still the lowest if you take into account the cost of decommissioning old plants and properly dealing with the radioactive remnants? Does your cost comparison to coal take into account its externalities -- the costs of the pollution coal (and gas) generate? Is nuclear viable if we do not have the political will to find a disposal site for radioactive waste or to build a breeder reactor to reduce that waste? Although the track record has been very good for 50 years, are we going to take the steps necessary to prepare for the "Black Swan" worst case scenario of a major melt due to malfunction or attack that contaminates a metropolitan area? If we again lack the will to do that, can we ever actually move forward on nuclear power?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNuclear power needs better PR. I've seen commercials for Natural Gas, Heating Oil, and plenty of Gasoline. I suppose nuclear fission isn't really a household product like those others, but still something could be done.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI vote that we unban breeder-type reactors and rename them Nuclear Recycling Centers. You know, since they "recycle" harmful radioactive waste into clean electricity and inert ash.
(Yes, I know that may not be accurate, but you get the general idea.)
To clarify PsySciGuy's comments a bit: the decision not to reprocess was a complex one, not one based on a single emotional concept. Accidents at UK reprocessing plants and US research facilities studying reprocessing, as well as terror scenarios involving theft of the liquified nuclear fuel (reprocessing requires that the fuel be liquified for many steps in the process) and the political environment at the time led to a decision not to reprocess. Of course, that decision could be reversed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGreat article! It needs to be presented with great push to the public so they know the truth in Nuclear Power Plants and how beneficial they are to our future. The anti-nuclear wackos need to be shushed and the truth be known by all.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe true costs have to be computed, included the cost of federal subsidies for insurance, federal subsidies for security, and federal subsidies for decommissioning and waste disposal. In addition, the true risks have to be assessed -- I agree with you that the normal risks are slight, but what would be the outcome of a catastrophic terrorist attack or other catastrophic failure, and what is a reasonable estimate (black swans and heavy tails etc.) of the probability? The argument that a catastrophic failure hasn't happened yet isn't worth much -- e.g., see space shuttle explosion, see Gulf oil spill, see financial meltdown -- and we don't really have that many plant-years of experience yet (e.g. compare to what we would have with a major increase in the number of plants), let alone experience in a time in which terrorists would clearly love to blow up a nuclear plant.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf the true costs are competitive with other forms of renewable energy, and the true risks are no worse, then I will be a believer in nuclear power. But I find both of these propositions to be very dubious and currently unsupported. And the fact that there are some very big corporations that will make very big money building nuclear plants means that there is necessarily a lot of distortion in the information ecology as to the true costs and the true risks (although any particular individual, such as Cravens, may of course be completely scrupulous and well-meaning).
Nice to learn that your "belated education in nuclear energy" has brought you after such a short learning phase up to a mid-1990s level. Next thing we'll learn that you discovered efficient energy management, starting with every US citizen being allowed to use only as much energy per year as the average European. That would not only cut US energy consumption by 2/3ds, it would also save all that tax money that would otherwise go into new nuclear plants via all kinds of subsidies. These savings could then be used to bail out all those poor bankers who invested their customers' money into those energy-guzzling no-future industries whose stock in 2008... just pulling your leg a bit. The key to saving the grid is not to build more energy generators, it is to manage energy intelligently. The cost and energy of one average private medium-sized Christmas lawn installation could probably provide electricity for a whole African village. That's where the waste is. What we need is intelligent equipment and conscious users, not more nukey.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJohn,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell done piece. Two additional bits of info. First, much of the data on the carcinogenicity of ionizing radiation comes from studies of the HIBAKUSHA, the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Out of roughly 100,000, only 582 have died of cancer due to the high levels of radiation exposure of those godawful human experiments. Many nuke opponents are surprised at that relatively low number.
Second, the question remains why some people are still so worried about nuclear power. The reason is that risk perception is not a purely fact-based rational affair. It also calls on instincts and emotions and mental processes that often produce a gap between our feelings and the facts. We can be too afraid, or not afraid enough. Nuclear is a great example, which I use in my book "How Risky Is It, Really? Why Our Fears Don't Always Match the Facts."
Agreed. The more people learn, the less reason they have to fear nuke plants. Cleanest, safest, cheapest option we've got. Decent public education is all that's lacking.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA mix of nuclear, solar, and wind is needed.
John Horgan, how convenient of you to leave out geothermal. I am not an anti-nuclear wacko, but I can add two and two together and I know that for what it takes to build one nuclear power plant, you can build five geothermal power plants. Geothermal is as clean and safe as the water you put down in it and the water can even be recycled from the steam and there is no radiation or other deadly chemicals in the waste product of geothermal. Geothermal can produce super mega watts of electricity for thousands of years and there has been no reported incidents or deaths in the 14 states in the U.S. that already have geothermal plants, and not a single employee is radioactive and not a single kitchen sink has caught on fire, and not a single child has been reported as getting sick from living too close to a geothermal power plant. Let a terrorist attack a geothermal power plant and the most that will happen is they will get some stink washed off them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBecause of human error and terrorist moles, nuclear power plants are just too dangerous to use around populations.
What are you going to do when you run out of the ore it takes to fire nuclear plants?
Small scale geothermal can work in niche applications but mass large scale gigawatt level geothermal energy requires drilling deep into the earth injecting water and pumping with not yet invented 400 deg C pumps supercritical steam to the surface driving generators but also causing earthquakes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJame's car will be powered by a Mr. Fusion device long before large scale geothermal becomes viable..
In another decade when we start building commerical scale fast neutron reactors we can resuse all the current waste from all the nuke power plants before them, not to metion no plutonium required in the fuel cycle. Researchers say that we have enough fuel stored as 'waste' from our current reactors that we would never have to dig up additional uranium. Because there is no plutnium required in the fuel cycle the technology can be exported safely without fear of proliferating the bomb.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJamesDavis, you're right on! And it's one powerful and plenty ressource the US has plenty of!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJamesDavis,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"...Geothermal can produce super mega watts of electricity...there has been no reported incidents or deaths in the 14 states in the U.S...not a single employee is radioactive and not a single kitchen sink has caught on fire, and not a single child has been reported as getting sick from living too close to a geothermal power plant...."
The same can be said of Nuclear power in the United States, as well. If you disagree, please provide supporting documentation. Good luck with that.
According to Wikipedia, "..In 2010, the United States led the world in geothermal electricity production with 3,086 megawatts (MW) of installed capacity from 77 power plants.."
thats 40 megawatts per powerplant.
we could create 4,616 megawatts of energy with 4 Westinghouse AP 1000 reactors.
"..What are you going to do when you run out of the ore it takes to fire nuclear plants?.."
World reserves of Uranium are around several hundred years, but America has enough Thorium, were we to use that as well, to last us about 1,000 years.
@jctyle:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow exactly would you enforce energy consumption to "average European" levels? And does this average include significantly poorer nations in Eastern Europe, for example?
I can't think of a single thing I'd like to cut back on. I'd rather we build more power plants instead. Besides, it'll help out for when battery technology eventually catches up to gasoline for storage/price/convenience/etc.
If you ever needed more proof of how insane and crazy 'radiation' makes people...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/100815/national/wi_fi_kids_health
There's no chance that nuclear power will be widely accepted. 1950s science fiction and propaganda did their work all too well.
I've been reading up lately on a type of nuclear energy called thorium that is more efficient, safe and creates less waste. And the waste that is produced cannot be weoponized like uranium. The whole reason uranium was used as the standard fuel in the first place was to provide weapons grade material for the U.S. military. The only problem is a tremendous amout of institutional inertia that would prefer to further develop conventional but ultimately unsustainable methods. www.energyfromthorium.com
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thissethdayal, if the government would invest only 10% of what it has sunk into fission to further solar, wind and geothermal ressources, 400c pumps resp. the solution of the problem wouldn't be too difficult for guys who can build particle colliders; smaller power plants more evenly distributed over the territory combined with intelligent energy-saving management is the accessible, logical and affordable solution for the short and midterm in my opinion. Fusion I agree is most interesting but it's long term. We need solutions now. Saving energy is cheap, efficient and instant. And we could quite easily save 30 to 40% within a shortest time.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisKirk Sorensen runs www.energyfromthorium.com, He's given some pretty fascinating speeches on Liquid Flouride Thorium Reactors (LFTR) that you can watch on Youtube. To sum up what he (and others) Say about the Thorium Fuel Cycle & LFTR:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe've had an energy source for 50+ years that could provide near limitless, cheap, always available power.
1 marble of this fuel in your hand could power your entire life.
500 tons of this fuel could power %100 of America's energy needs for 1 year.
This fuel is an Element called Thorium.
http://energyfromthorium.com/lftradsrisks.html
http://nucleargreen.blogspot.com/
The Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor
the Liquid-Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR, pronounced "lifter") uses uranium and thorium dissolved in fluoride salts. These salts are chemically stable, impervious to radiation damage, and non-corrosive to the vessels that contain them. LFTR cores can be made much smaller than a typical light water reactor (LWR).
The Advantages
1)Safety--LFTRs Cannot Melt down like Uranium Reactors.
2)Proliferation Resistance--Thorium Fuel Cycle cannot make weapons grade materials.
3)Energy Production--LFTR is 300 times more efficient than a typical uranium LWR.
4) Waste--A LFTR power plant would generate 4,000 times less mining waste and 10,000 times less nuclear waste than an LWR.
5:) Secondary Products--Because an LFTR is so energy dense, the nuclear "waste" products from the LFTR include stable rhodium and ruthenium, rare elements needed in modern electronics
Seriously, anyone who is at all against nuclear but who is for fossil fuels is either (1) a stooge for big oil (2) ignorant and basis decisions on beliefs, emotions, or propaganda and not fact and science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCrazy though these Coal guys aren't switching by themselves, nuclear is far more profitable for them, even with the over regulations. You only have to refuel every 2 years, as opposed to getting 2 40 car train loads of coal per day.
Please, it's time we moved out of the cave (MAN MAKE FIRE!) to a more modern technology (MAN SPLIT ATOM!)
IMO, "The Simpsons" have done more to harm Nuclear Power's image than anything that's actually happened in the real world. With Homer as the safety inspector, Blinky the three-eyed fish, and Burns as the miserly owner who wont spend money to keep the plant in good repair.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe only thing we need to do is figure out what to do with the waste. Once we can get that solved (reprocessing, re-use, whatever) then we'll be OK.
Fantastic article. However, you state that at TMI, "The highest dose received by plant workers was 4,000 millirem, 1,000 less than the annual dose permitted for U.S. nuclear workers." 4,000 millirem is equivalent to 4 rem. The annual dose permitted for U.S. nuclear workers is 5 rem (total effective dose equivalent). So how is that 1,000 times less than the annual dose limit? Perhaps you meant to say that it was 1,000 millirem less than the limit? Please clarify.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGeothermal? Check out the landscape and contamination all around the geothermal plant att eh Geysers in CA. WhenI was in the fire department we never wanted to be called as mutual aid for a grass fire an the Gysers. If we did we neeed to decontaminate all the turcks, equipment an clothing. Lots of heavy metals and nasty stuff is residue from geothermal steam extraction. Fortuantely, it ahs killed most of the vegitation around the plant so grass fires were rare.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"So far, there have been no excess deaths among the 200,000 "liquidators" who helped clean up the mess from Chernobyl compared with controls."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell, those who don't want to see close their eyes. If you'd do your job correctly you couldn't ignore that there are many people sick from the nuclear contamination in the Belarus and in Ukrainia. The problem comes from the nuclear lobby (AIEA), which has done much to hide the truth and so protect its juicy business. Just read what the doctors from Belarus have written.
See what consequences those who told the truth about Chernobyl had to support. The nuclear industry has been surrounded by secrecy and lies from the beginning.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.bellona.org/english_import_area/international/russia/envirorights/info_access/29685
As usual "sethdayal", I never did trust your 'Republican' ideals about nuclear, but I do trust your math...you are more accurate than most. This is what Alaska is doing with geothermal. Read the article: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2010/08/akutans-geothermal-exploration-paying-off?cmpid=rss
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGeothermal has already surpassed nuclear in everything except pollution of the air, land, and health. I believe with a 'commitment' that geothermal should be the future of America. After the geothermal plant is built - for just a couple of million...not billions dollars, it produces free electricity with no destruction to the land and the water pump is sitting on top of the ground pumping water down to the heat source and it does not produce earthquakes.
Still a lot of mis-information to dispel in the above comments.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFrance produces 80+% of their electricity from nuclear power, reprocesses their fuel and uses breeder reactors that are fueled by plutonium. No reason we can't do it in the US. The known reserves of uranium for a system that includes breeders and reprocessing should be good for 400+ years.
Decommisioning old plants is already paid for by an industry fund. Most of the suitable sites for geothermal are already taken.
All claims that the technology is too dangerous, ignore the thousands of reactor-years of experience and the safeguards built-in to pesent and proposed designs. By any un-biased measure, nuclear power is among the safest industrial technologies in common use today.
Forcing us to "manage energy intelligently" (read stringent conservation practices) will either take a drastic increase in price or another government czar - which I don't think we really want.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthere are 104 nuclear reactors in the USA producing 806.2 TWh of electricity, which is 19.6% of the nation's total electric energy consumption
Megawatts per reactor: 7,605
there are 77 geothermal electricity power plants producing 3,086 megawatts (MW) of installed capacity total.
thats 40 megawatts per powerplant.
we could create 4,616 megawatts of energy with 4 Westinghouse AP 1000 reactors.
Your "Cost" comparison is laughable. There are numerous subsidies for Geothermal and virtually NO EPA regulations, despite the fact that the water coming up from the ground is laced with toxic/radioactive chemicals including boron, lead, arsenic, and Hydrogen Sulfile. Nuclear has EXCESSIVE levels of regulations, excessive safety requirements, and virtually NO government subsidies. THIS is why there is a cost difference.
Notice the term "installed capacity" for Geothermal. That's not equivalent to "true" output, just what it can produce under ideal conditions.
Once again James this a low power niche application. It works on an island built on a volcano in the middle of the Bering sea.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt has no application except for folks who need a little of power and live on a volcano. Doesn't work in the PNW nor in Hawaii on a large scale.
John:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am happy that you have continued asking questions, reading good books and visiting nuclear energy facilities. I am also glad that you are using the communications paths available to you to share what you have learned. It has always been disappointing to me that so many people have been taught to distrust nuclear energy advocates.
I am a bit prejudiced on this topic, but that attitude comes from having known a large number of nuclear trained people and trusting them with my life on board submarines. The integrity level that is inculcated from the very earliest days of nuclear power training is quite high. There are some exceptions, but it is reasonable to assert that nuclear trained people are more trustworthy than the average person.
People make a big deal about the "natural" fear of the unknown, but it is funny to recognize that people were far more optimistic about atomic energy in the 1950s than they are today. Back then children were taught to duck and cover and many adults had clear memories of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and atmospheric weapons testing. I believe that the current level of fear in the general population is the result of many decades of careful teaching and repetition of scary imaginary scenarios.
Nuclear energy is the only real competitor for fossil fuels in the business of supplying on-demand energy that does not depend on the weather. However, nuclear energy requires a completely different set of core competencies and capital assets compared to extracting and burning fossil fuels. The companies and individuals who have invested hundreds of billions and many career decades in fossil fuel production and marketing are logically threatened by widespread adoption of nuclear energy.
There is no reason to fear nuclear power once you have gained the kind of understanding that can be gained by reading Gwyneth's book and doing some honest research among real experts. Like any concentrated form of energy, it deserves respect and careful attention to detail in equipment design, operations and maintenance.
With that care, nuclear power plants provide decades of reliable, emission free, affordable energy at a cost that is about 40% of the cost of today's "cheap" natural gas. In 2008, when gas prices peaked, the comparison was that nuclear electricity cost less than 20% of the cost of gas fired electricity.
Rod Adams
Publisher, Atomic Insights
Host and producer, The Atomic Show Podcast
I think the real answer is going to be the 'Liquid Thorium Fluoride Reactor' - this type of nuke resolves nearly all the issues around nuclear power. In the 1950s and 1960s the AEC had two LTFR reactors, but stopped development because of the odd problem that they did not produce weapons materials!! Besides being nearly inherently safe, LTFR also requires a drastically reduced mining footprint, and less than 1% as much radioactive waste. At present the major impediment to LTFR is that the major vendors of expensive fuel rods are lobbying madly to prevent them, as they will lose a very lucrative specialty market.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt may have been Jimmy Carter who signed the documents, but Gerald Ford's Chief of Staff, my hydrocarbon, Dick Cheney, was responsible for the policy that killed the Clinch River Breeder Reactor project and lead to 30 years of decline in nuclear development and construction. Coal companies and railroads benefited greatly.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOur energy future was solved 40 years ago by the folks at Oak Ridge (ORNL) who developed and ran safe nuclear reactors using molten salts rather than solid fuel. This results in less than 1/1000 the long-lived waste and no nuclear-proliferation risk. In fact, such reactors can consume existing wastes & weapons materials.. Read the current issue of American Scientist for details, or go here...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://tinyurl.com/252wxt2
We discontinued the work in 1974 because we needed Plutonium for bombs, and that's what our current nuclear technology produces nicely. We also waste over 90% of Uranium mined, because solid-fuel systems can survive long enough to burn up much, and must be re-fuelled, creating huge waste.
If anyone wants to do something useful, write your representatives, Steven Chu & anyone else to add MSRs to the Hatch-Reid Thorium Energy bill, or just write a new bill. With local solar, efficiency & molten Thorium-Fluoride reactors, we have not only plenty of safe power, but all the fresh water the world needs as well. And, negotiators can use MSR technology to achieve nuclear disarmament aims.
Nuclear energy has the potential to provide a lot of energy for some time into the future. But not forever and not without a price. Nuclear energy is not modular and requires large plants. Mining for nuclear material is highly destructive.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining#Mining_techniques
http://www.britannica.com/bps/additionalcontent/18/22762274/URANIUM-MINING-ampMILLING
"Geothermal can produce super mega watts of electricity for thousands of years"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWay to use your numbers there, man.
The earth's total geothermal radiation is ~45 TW. That means, for a GW geothermal plant, you need to dissipate heat from an appreciable area - a square about 65 miles to a side.
"Nuclear energy is not modular and requires large plants."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGoogle "Small Modular Reactors".
Much of what KenM says is off base. All plant decomissioning costs and waste management and disposal costs are fully included in the price of nuclear electricity. All of those activities are required by law to be fully paid for by the industry, and the trust funds that they are required to maintain are routinely audited to ensure that the annual contributions remain sufficient to cover all eventual costs. If only other industries were held to the same standards (such as fossil plants, that get to just dump their wastes into the environment).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEven nuclear critics admit that any subsidy associated with liability limits (Price Anderson) only amount to ~0.1 cents/kW-hr. Nuclear is not the only industry that has liability caps. We recently learned that the oil industry has a cap of only 75 million (compared to 10 billion for the nuclear power industry).
As for the potential consequences of an accident, not only is the probability ridiculously small (less than 0.1% in a given year), but the maximum possible consequences are actually a small fraction of the ANNUAL consequences of fossil-fired power plants. Fossil plants cause ~25,000 deaths every single year in the US alone (EPA), and are responsible for ~40% of our CO2 emissions. By comparison, Chernobyl caused (or will cause) anywhere from ~100 to 9,000 eventual deaths. The maximum consequences of a worst-case Western plant meltdown are far smaller.
John, Thank you for an informative article. Glad you invested the time to research this on your own, knowing not all in your audience will appreciate your epiphany. My own epiphany occurred last year, thanks to Rod, Kirk, Charles, Dan Y, and several others. I am in the solar and battery back-up arena.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@Approach -- How do you know nuclear can't provide energy indefinitely into the future? New nuclear designs are, indeed, modular (B&W mPower, Hyperion, NuScale, Advanced Reactor Concepts, Toshiba 4S, etc.) and will fill a niche all over the world. Mining for coal is likewise destructive, as is the mining for the components for your cell phone and computer. How dedicated to your convictions are you?
Now if we could only get the Sierra Club on board with this...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaybe I'll send them the link to this article. Nyah, I'd probably get so much acrimonious grief in my inbox that I'd have to change my email address.
Rayonic:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this<How exactly would you enforce energy consumption to "average European" levels?>
No need to enforce, charge what it really costs, prices become real, price goes up, manufacturers produce more efficiently. Sideeffect: although prices go up, you will use less = to you same cost as before. Sounds simple, took me a long time.
<And does this average include significantly poorer nations in Eastern Europe, for example?>
No. A standard US household consumes approximately as much as a village of 200 people in those Russian areas that are right now burning down. Already they had nothing... and you are whining because of the cheap gas for your five cars? Get a grip.
<I can't think of a single thing I'd like to cut back on.>
a) quite a remarkable statement; I'm sure you'll shoot yourself in the other next <g>
b) if you were really thinking this through you would eventually notice that you don't have to cut down on anything. So what if gas was twice the price of today if your future car was using half of what it uses today? A society that isn't capable of understanding this is too stupid to have a future. Funny enough, quite a number of specialist intellectuals such as the one or other "top" economist simply doesn't get it, too fascinagted by his image reflected in his own narcissistic vocabulary. And the industry is more than happy not to correct the mistake. Every buck they don't have to sink into R&D goes straight into their pockets. It's the very few rich people's excess billions which screw it up. Take one of Buffet's or Ellison's billions and invest it into hands-on energy management devices for the electronic industries, guess what happens. Within less than three years that one billion would pay itself back. Do the math. (Don't trust economists, especially where energy is concerned, cos the known and quoted ones can't detach themselves from pre-digital thinking.)
<I'd rather we build more power plants instead.>
Excuse my bluntness but this is simply stupid, there's no other way to put it. Ego squared. Après nous le déluge and all that. Or your syntax is excellent for a third-grader.
<Besides, it'll help out for when battery technology eventually catches>
Not all is lost yet. Fully, and I mean fully, agree. Storage is what it's all about. Mail me when someone invented intelligent energy storage and I'll sink all my money into it.
Have a nice, fully propped but energy-efficient day!
Wait a minute, you all.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRe-read the first paragraph of the article. Methinks wonders if we are not being had by a covert pro-nuke PR action here. I start very much to doubt the one and the other detail. author's credibility. There's something like a smell. Check this:
<"Power to Save the World: The Truth about Nuclear Energy" by Gwyneth Cravens, a petite, energetic novelist and journalist.>
She is not a scientist or a thorough pro in the field, she is a journalist and a novelist. Good start.
And she's got a book to sell, commissioned or not, part of the stunt or not.
<Cravens contacted me>
Because she had a book to sell? Because she was doing Nukefission PR and the author seemed the perfect target? Objective journalism I see differently.
<I recently met Cravens during a tour of the Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York State, which she arranged>
Hm... now did she?
<Cravens contacted me after seeing my chat with Rod Adams, a nuclear-trained Naval officer>
What coïncidence, what surprise!
Honi soit qui mal y pense.
You know now what I mean by this strange smell in the intro. This article would be a perfect basis for some probably highly interesting investigative journalism into how the pro-nuke lobby works these days. Know what I mean by slightly smelly?
"jctyler", you do know you're feeding blind tolls fruit from the forbidden tree of unwanted knowledge.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGeothermal is a readily available power supply is those areas where is Earth's crust is thin and the appropriate geological temperture gradient exist to support its use.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowever, Geothermal power, like any power source has it's own set of hazardous issues that need to be put into context, like nuclear or fossil generation.
One, the closed loop operating medium (the steam equivalent ) for many geothermal units is the petrochemical product pentane, an explosion hazard per DOT ERG Guide 128. Pentane is used because it boils at temperatures below the 180F, which from an engineering perspective, is the desired underground temperature gradient desired for plant construction and operation.
Two, Geothermal fluids contain elevated levels of arsenic, mercury, lithium and boron because of the underground contact between hot fluids and rocks. These must be controlled or leaching into surrounding water bodies can create havoc.
Three, geothermal fluids contain dissolved gases which are released into the atmosphere. The main gases are carbon dioxide (CO2) and hydrogen sulfide (H2S). These gases are a recognised hazard for people working at geothermal stations or bore fields, and can also be a problem in urban areas. Carbon dioxide is also a greenhouse gas, contributing to potential climate change. However, geothermal extraction releases far fewer greenhouse gases per unit of electricity generated than burning fossil fuels such as coal or gas to produce electricity.
Finally, extracting geothermal fluids can reduce the pressure in underground reservoirs and cause the land to sink. The largest subsidence on record is at Wairkei, where the the subsidence bowl is sinking at a rate of almost half a metre every year. In 2005 the ground was 14 metres lower than it was before the power station was built.
JamesDavis, thanks for reminding me, nearly forgotten - one shouldn't really get involved in religious discussions but I couldn't help it. <g>
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@jctyler:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHorgan's public conversation with Rod Adams is illuminating - and was a reaction to a decidedly anti-nuclear piece that Horgan had written.
"one shouldn't really get involved in religious discussions but I couldn't help it"
Spoken like someone wholly uneducated in the discussion at hand. Allow me to lampoon:
"Hmm, I can't understand why people hold strong opinions that are different from mine... Must be a religion! That explains it all away and makes it so I don't have to learn anything!"
And you appear to refuse to; you've latched on to the unfounded belief that energy storage and renewables can replace coal and natural gas (the actual goal here) without "doing the math" - and then refuse nuclear power on the grounds that -
Oh, wait. You haven't actually stated any grounds for dismissal of nuclear energy. You just dismiss it as a plot to make money. Or something. You weren't exactly clear on that.
I'd go further.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere's a rather bizarre movement that is strongly against nuclear power, but strongly for (natural gas backed) Solar. This despite the fiscal failures that have been (natural gas backed) Solar thermal and PV projects, and despite fact that the technology projections for PV efficiency (Solar Thermal is already up against its carnot wall) aren't that promising.
My hypothesis is that someone (or some committee) with a good deal of influence has ignorantly decided that american commercial nuclear power poses a proliferation risk - or a disaster risk - that they believe to be unbearable.
This entity, as such disseminate information that they believe to be mostly correct, with "adjustments" so that those people touched by their influence are more likely to be vehemently against nuclear power.
Suppose this beast is Greenpeace. They have a good deal of influence over a devout base, and their structure does suggest what strategies won't work.
Authoritative conversion doesn't work - Stewart Brand is having a go, but he's not exactly winning hearts and minds. Hydra-like, if you remove the head, another grows in its place.
The trick is to get the body to revolt against the heads, or at least, to siphon off its mass.
That's what us layman nukles are more or less attempting: to get accurate information about nuclear energy to be ubiquitous enough that denying the benefits thereof becomes akin to denying gravity. Thereby, we can reduce the body of the beast by sheer virtue of (membership = ridicule).
It doesn't kill the beast, but it makes it ineffectual. Nice and harmless, like the flat earthers.
@jctyler
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScience Magazine recently devoted an issue to papers on catastrophic ocean acidification caused by excess carbon dioxide from burning hydrocarbons. Replacing fossil fuel combustion on a large scale requires nuclear power, which has a comprehensive life-cycle carbon footprint somewhat lower than wind and solar. These can't replace fossil fuels. Half of the world's lowest-carbon electricity comes from nuclear and hydro.
I'm troubled by the huge damage fossil fuels are doing to the only home we have. And I wonder why anyone who grasps the scale of the disaster we are already experiencing would oppose one of the best resources we have to mitigate it. Certainly many climatologists support nuclear power--and do so for free, because they're alarmed. And I'm so stupid that for free I devote time and energy to raising public awareness about this. The nuclear industry does not tell me what to do. I neither need nor want to be in their pay.
My income comes from my writing, as it has for most of my life.
Because of your way of thinking as expressed in your post, it seems only reasonable for me to inquire about whether you are paid by an anti-nuclear organization and whether you were told to post that comment by a conspiratorial group.
I misspoke when I said that half of the world's low-carbon energy comes from nuclear and hydro. All but 2% of the world's low-carbon energy is derived from nuclear and hydro.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this(http://www.pewclimate.org/technology/overview/electricity)
As for those who think we will run out of uranium: as the Russian and American stockpiles of nuclear weapons continue to be dismantled and their uranium and plutonium blended down into low-enriched commercial reactor fuel, the US will continue to get about half of its fuel from this resource. Recycling of used fuel, as is done in France, further guarantees a supply for hundreds of years. Fast neutron reactors can readily make new fuel. But uranium itself is abundant in the earth's crust and in the oceans. And reactors can run on thorium, which is 4x more abundant than uranium. We have a virtually unlimited supply of nuclear fuel.
You make some good points but haven't mentioned a word about nuclear waste disposal which is an ongoing nightmare. If one person produces 1kg of nuclear waste in a lifetime, then that's around 250 million (or whatever the current population is) kilos of waste for the US alone.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhere's it going to go?
Adrian.
Yes, I feel that we do need nuclear power but storing the waste can be a very difficult issue. Right now in West Texas there is a nuclear waste disposal facility, privately owed, that sits directly over the Ogallala Aquifer. This aquifer provides agricultural and drinking water to eight different states. This company stands to make hundreds of millions of dollars a year and has positioned itself with no liability if an accident were to occur. So why would they care if it could possibly threaten the Ogallala? They spend their money defending their position that they are not even over the aquifer or sue anyone who tries to bring attention to their questionable dealings with the state. There have even been complaints filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency and yet they still refuse to acknowledge the threat their site poses to such a valuable water source. Lets get smart about nuclear power and keep the environment in mind as we look to the future.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou left out out Federal politics perspective; how does every US Representative find major campaigning MONEY now in her/his following the most reasonable way ahead for coal replacement? Russia is building semi-portable small nuclear power plants so train all Afghanistan farmers and Iraqi workers to build that design for putting at our substations and finesse the need for a huge increase in the tall towers for moving the electricity from monster power stations to the substations. john E C
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhile every attempt to bring sanity into the discussion is laudable, some of your statements are blatantly wrong. As someone who has spent time in the Chernobyl area and is involved with children exchange programmes for Chernobyl victims, I assure you that there has been a tremendous rise in morbidity and mortality due to the accident. For instance, the Belarus Academy for sciences estimates 93.000 deaths. The WHO has not been neutral in the whole affair. (Also, see http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/10/chernobyl-nuclear-deaths-cancers-dispute, for instance.)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, the adverse effects of DU ammunition has been well documented in former Yugoslavia, as well as in Iraq. The fact that you deny this is very puzzling to me.
Fordi,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this<Horgan's public conversation with Rod Adams is illuminating - and was a reaction to a decidedly anti-nuclear piece that Horgan had written.>
And then all of a sudden he becomes pro-nuke after meeting a novelist? That is a conversion akin to religious illumination hence me saying "one shouldn't really get involved in religious discussions".
<Spoken like someone wholly uneducated in the discussion at hand.>
I'm not a nuclear physicist, I'm an experimental philosopher, why does that make me uneducated in this discussion at hand?
<"Hmm, I can't understand why people hold strong opinions that are different from mine... Must be a religion!"
I was being ironic and yes, I should have followed it with a smiley for your likes.
<you've latched on to the unfounded belief that energy storage and renewables can replace coal and natural gas (the actual goal here) without "doing the math">
Where have I said that energy storage and renewable energy can replace coal and natural gas?
Also, if you were as "uneducated in the discussion at hand" as I you would possibly know that energy storage is really huge research these days, one of the most interesting terrains in the energy sector. The only reason it's not in the public eye is because it's not very glamorous. "I develop batteries, wanna date?"
<and then refuse nuclear power on the grounds that - Oh, wait. You haven't actually stated any grounds for dismissal of nuclear energy.>
your left foot <g> soon to be followed by:
<You just dismiss it as a plot to make money.>
your right foot. I don't say anywhere that nuclear power per se is a plot to make money, what I am saying is that the author might just have been cleverly spun around by a PR black belt. And a lot of strange detail in his first paragraph seems to suggest that this is a definite possibility.
<Or something. You weren't exactly clear on that.>
Yes I was. Your speedreading classes were too successful.
There has been no rise in morbidity and mortality in the Chernobyl area as a result of radiation. Read the work of Zbigniew Jaworowski, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sc., who was in charge of radiation protection in Poland at the time of the accident, and is an expert in radiation effects. You can read one of his articles here "The Real Chernobyl Folly":
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/2006_articles/spring%202006/Chernobyl_Folly.pdf
Furthermore, Belarus is now resettling the areas that were
evacuated after Chernobyl:
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles_2010/Chernobyl_repopulation.pdf
Mr. Zbigniew Jaworowski is pretty much the opposite of an authoritative source, I am afraid. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Zbigniew_Jaworowski
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy don't you read one of the many articles he wrote, instead of gossip? Some are technical, but this one is for a general audience:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/2006_articles/spring%202006/Chernobyl_Folly.pdf
Oh, you are _the_ nuke lobbyist Marje Hecht, of 21st century global warming denialism?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou seem to be an example of someone who prefers to parrot popular opinion than to think, and who sticks labels on people who don't share your popular opinion, instead of discussing
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisideas.
This is what I hate most about the knee jerk left. They rail on about topics they have little or no knowledge about save the images of radiation induced giant ants from a B rate movie. One day when a new problem comes along that their previous fear could solve, suddenly they are a convert&nay a proponent of what they used to condemn. If these are the enlightened among us why do they intentionally keep themselves in the dark? By the 1980s all of this was known. We should have been putting in Nuke power, like Europe, for 30 years. Now we find ourselves horribly behind the curve all due to an imaginary threat. Perhaps Mr. Horgan can take his new education in biological risks and non-linear threshold models and apply it to say Pesticide exposure, or Food additives or any of the other inflated and imaginary threats to the public welfare; or dare I even suggest it, Global Warming!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you are going to take a position in an issue it is incumbent on you skeptically evaluate all claims; pro and con before staking out your position. DO not accept anything as gospel from anyone at anytime. We are all humans consequently there are always agendas.
To address the waste issue that all are concerned about. This is a product from the earth so put it back. Using the deep subduction trenches would put the material out of the hands of those we fear. the stratification of the oceans will prevent the migration of this material out of the trench in which we place it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@jctyler:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou wrote:
<Also, if you were as "uneducated in the discussion at hand" as I you would possibly know that energy storage is really huge research these days, one of the most interesting terrains in the energy sector. The only reason it's not in the public eye is because it's not very glamorous. "I develop batteries, wanna date?">
If you were not just a philosopher, but also an energy professional, you would know that there are hard chemical and physical barriers that limit battery energy density. There is certainly a "lot" of research going on, but the likelihood of any kind of dramatic improvement is very small. Marginal yes, revolutionary, no.
If energy storage actually were to become more readily available at a lower operating and maintenance cost, the systems that would benefit the most would be those that could refill the storage system with energy that is not otherwise in demand.
A solar system that can only produce useful energy near the peak in demand because its source is otherwise unavailable would be unlikely divert its output to charge a storage system so that the energy could be used at night when there is less (but not zero) demand. (Never buy high and sell low.)
On the other hand, a nuclear power plant that can operate at full power nearly 100% of the time when it is not refueling could economically recharge storage systems when power is cheap because of low demand and release it during the peak in demand when power is more valuable. (Always buy low and sell high.)
Like Gwyneth Cravens, I am also so dumb that I advocate for nuclear energy for free. I do it mainly as payback to the American taxpayers who sent me through nuclear power school and provided me the opportunity to serve as an engineer officer on a submarine, working with some of the finest people I have ever met.
Rod Adams
Publisher, Atomic Insights
Host and producer, The Atomic Show Podcast
PS - I wish that the nuclear industry employed the PR blackbelts and Madison Avenue types who have been selling fossil fuels for the past 15 decades. Maybe people would not be as afraid of nuclear energy and maybe the advertiser supported media would have done a better job of covering the technology.
Better late than never.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thismacleod77 at 04:24 PM on 08/16/10: "there are 104 nuclear reactors in the USA producing 806.2 TWh of electricity, which is 19.6% of the nation's total electric energy consumption"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTerawatt-hours, not terawatts.
That's an average of 7,752 GW·h per year = 884 MW
Bill Woods at 02:31 AM on 08/18/10
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this<macleod77 at 04:24 PM on 08/16/10: "there are 104 nuclear reactors in the USA producing 806.2 TWh of electricity, which is 19.6% of the nation's total electric energy consumption"
Terawatt-hours, not terawatts.
That's an average of 7,752 GWýh per year = 884 MW>
@Bill Woods - no, TWh is short for Terawatt-hours. The US Energy Information Agency reports that US nuclear plants produced 806 Terrawatt-hours of electricity (806 billion kilowatt-hours) in 2007 and 2008 and dipped slightly to 798 billion kilowatt-hours in 2009.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table1_1.html
Rod Adams
Publisher, Atomic Insights
RodAdams,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this<If you were not just a philosopher, but also an energy professional, you would know that there are hard chemical and physical barriers that limit battery energy density.>
That's the difference between my work and yours. You stand so close to the trees you don't see the forest anymore. My job it is to see the whole. Energy storage is not just a matter of boxes storing energy. I am presently in a different context looking at the feasibility of pumped storage power plants in a dry region. People who can build dams can build energy storage pump power plants.
Other than that, Adrian's remark about 1kg of nuclear waste per person, i.e. 250 million kilos per today's USA, kills everything you can throw at us from your lobbying hill.
It takes more conventional energy to process uranium than is ever generated by the uranium after it has been processed. The cost of uranium is kept artificially low by not cleaning up the lakes of acid that are needed in order to mine it. The conclusion must be that we only need nuclear power stations in order to create nuclear weapons. Not in my name.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNuclear energy's achilles heel is not radiation, it is cost. Despite the numbers provided in this article, the fact is that when you remove the subsidies that Nuclear enjoys, Solar reaches "grid parity" with Nuclear - see http://www.ncwarn.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/NCW-SolarReport_final1.pdf - so further development of Nuclear power provides no benefit whatsoever, except perhaps to those who profit directly from it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJohn - thanks so much for this Cross-check. I followed up on the liquid salt thorium breeder reactors; the best introduction I found is
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEnergy From Thorium: A Nuclear Waste Burning Liquid Salt Thorium Reactor, a July 2009 Google Tech Talk found at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZR0UKxNPh8&feature=channel
Also read macleod77's post #23; he sums up Kirk Sorenson's presentation very well. Thanks Rod Adams for your insights as well, here and on your site.
A lot of people in this discussion (and everywhere) seem to be arguing that there's only one answer for all energy needs. I think there's room for everything - LFTRs, geothermal, hydro on all scales, solar, and OTEC (ocean thermal energy conversion). And as many more good ones as we can invent. We'd choose from the options to suite location and needs.
For a vision of what OTEC could be, check out Marshall Savage's The Millennial Project - Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps. Info at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Millennial_Project:_Colonizing_the_Galaxy_in_Eight_Easy_Steps
His OTEC powered ocean colonies (step 2) produce energy, food, fuel, and remove CO2 from the ocean to boot.
Very neat: Thorium Reactor vid, 3hrs of Ted Talks compressed into 15 min.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWUeBSoEnRk
Very interesting indeed.
@Gwyneth - 10:44 AM - I appreciate your efforts to educate the lay public on the benefits of nuclear power. Your humility at recognizing what you didn't know and willingness to find the answers is refreshing and encouraging. Those who decry nuclear power out of ignorance would do well to follow your lead - and let the facts speak for themselves.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat being said, please consider this article and study on "ocean acidification". Assess it based on the facts as you would the nuclear power industry.
http://www.co2science.org/subject/o/summaries/acidurchins.php
Nuclear energy may have its advantages, but apparently price is no longer among them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/27/business/global/27iht-renuke.html
I see little scientific value in the musings of a self-professed ignorant on the subject, who only bases his opinions on the say-so of others. It is not that I am "against" nuclear power; I am rather pro. Nevertheless, I read SciAm to listen to people who "know" rather than to speculations of people who don't know.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI may have been too succinct. (And the "The following is a direct response to this comment." thing didn't show up for some reason.)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBack in comment #28, Macleod had taken 104 reactors and 806.2 TW·h and somehow gotten 7,605 MW per reactor.
Actually, that's an average power *per reactor* of 7,752 GW·h per year = 884 MW.
A couple of people have linked a Nutball study that claims Solar PV is cheaper than Nuclear. The study was so bad, the NY Times went to the extraordinary length of publishing a retraction. The Study is Torn-To-Shreds and Flushed down the Sewer here:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2010/08/is-solar-really-cheaper-than-nuclear.html
I have calculated that the true cost of Solar PV including the INESCAPABLE backup in my comments here:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=solar-power-in-a-box-sunfish
"...So $69 k per kwavg, about 200 gms CO2 per kwh& pushing avg O&M to about 2.7 cents per kwh. That's ignoring the opportunity cost to the homeowner for cleaning/maintaining/replacing their own Solar PV & batteries - also some repair/replacement costs.
Final Result $69k per kwavg capital cost with at least 2.7 cents per kwh O&M cost, 200 gms CO2 per kwh generated, and 20 yr lifespan.
I would say it would make much more sense for the homeowner to invest (through the utility) in Clean, Green Nuclear Energy at $4k per kwavg capital cost, 2 cents per kwh O&M and about 10 gms CO2 per kwh and lasts for 60-80 yrs..."
The recent Korean sale to the UAE of $20B for four APR-1400 NPP's at $4k per kwel is 17X cheaper than Solar PV. And the thermal waste heat is very cost effective for desalination power plants. This in spite of the High Cost of Business in the UAE, which includes widespread Corruption & Payola, Terrible lack of Infrastructure, no Supply Chain, very little Skilled Labor, very high shipping costs.
To say the USA cannot do as good as Korea can in the UAE, in their own homeland, is tantamount to a declaration that American Workers & Engineers are among the Worst in the World, completely incompetent screw-ups and the USA might as well RESIGN right now as a World Power and admit that it is a third-rate pathetic excuse for a nation.
Or on the other hand, you could just realize how Big Oil/NG/Coal used their immense Lobby Power to create the NRC - Nuclear Rejection Commission and other Nefarious, Devious Methods to artificially inflate Nuclear Costs and throw Roadblocks in every step of NPP builds. Knowing that only Nuclear Energy is a threat to their Energy Hegemony. They have also Hyped up Renewable Energy which is a good SUCKER TRAP for GULLIBLE FOOLS!
The truth about NPP costs in the USA:
http://depletedcranium.com/hope-this-works/
http://depletedcranium.com/hey-hey-ho-ho-the-nrc-has-got-to-go/
http://depletedcranium.com/the-nrc-a-den-of-anti-nukes-theives-and-scoundrels/
@jctyler
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou wrote:
<That's the difference between my work and yours. You stand so close to the trees you don't see the forest anymore. My job it is to see the whole. Energy storage is not just a matter of boxes storing energy. I am presently in a different context looking at the feasibility of pumped storage power plants in a dry region. People who can build dams can build energy storage pump power plants. >
Hmm. The problem is that looking at forests does not help when you also need knowledge of the details. From a distance, they can all look green. However, there are many questions that can never be answered unless you actually go and see the trees to find out what kind of trees they are, how healthy they are, what kind of creatures live in and around the trees, and countless other details. If you look at forests, but not trees, you might overlook little things like the worms that are killing hemlocks all over the eastern US until it was too late to stop them.
http://www.climatecentral.org/breaking/news/new_englands_stately_oaks_and_hemlocks_give_way_as_the_region_warms
When you talk about storage in a "dry" region and then mention dams, I would imagine that you have overlooked a few details - like where will the water come from? Have you read about Lake Mead and its falling levels? You might also have overlooked a small detail associated with pumped storage - the system requires elevation differences. I grew up in a state where the highest point in the entire state was only 330 feet above sea level. How would Kansas use pumped storage?
250 million kilos sounds like a big number, but every bit of the 60 million kilos currently in storage would fit on a single football field and not even cover the goal posts. Isolate a few football fields worth of land, put a fence around it, and tell people not to eat the material stored in the containers. Simple.
No one in the world has been hurt by exposure to used nuclear fuel because we know how to use time, distance and shielding to protect ourselves from the potential danger.
I am not a lobbyist who is employed to sell government officials on programs that will benefit my company. I am an advocate who is sharing knowledge about an important and useful technology. There is a significant difference.
Rod Adams
Publisher, Atomic Insights
The costs to run, as opposed to build, a nuclear plant come to 1.86 cents kwh according to the audited accounts in the US. This includes all the fuel costs, at around 0.49 cents, wages and payment into the waste disposal fund, which has got $30 billion so far to bury perfectly good 'waste' aka fuel in Yucca mountain.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is very difficult to damage a nuclear reactor by a terrorist attack, as the 3 foot thick containment dome makes a tough target.
Hitting an oil pipeline or a gas tanker is in contrast trivially easy, and in the latter case would result in an explosion equivalent to a small nuclear bomb.
Renewables build in fossil fuel use, as they are utterly dependent on them to make up for intermittency, and by their demands make it impossible to optimise the fossil fuel burn as it is at the beck and call of unreliable renewables.
Extensive and expensive use of renewables in Germany and Denmark has resulted in no appreciable reduction of their very high CO2 emissions, in contrast to nuclear France.
Renewables in their present form are at best a distraction to moving on to abundant low carbon energy, at worst a scam.
@twee643 - The NC Warn commissioned paper needs a close read with a calculator by your side. It also requires a critical thinker who recognizes that there are profits to be made from opposing nuclear energy as well as profits to be made from employing it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe folks that profit from opposing nuclear include people who are interested in profiting from wind, solar, oil, coal, natural gas, wood waste, biofuels and geothermal. All of those energy sources have a competitive disadvantage to nuclear on objective measures of effectiveness.
If you want to read more about how NC Warn paid a couple of lightly qualified advocacy researchers to produce an actively marketed paper that attracted the attention of a gullible reporter from the New York Times, please read:
http://atomicinsights.blogspot.com/2010/08/tamping-down-spread-of-nc-warn.html
and
http://atomicinsights.blogspot.com/2010/07/gullible-reporting-by-new-york-times-on.html
Yes, these are blatant self promoting links, but they provide far more detail and additional links than can fit in a blog comment.
Rod Adams
Publisher, Atomic Insights
Your right wing comment suggests you keep to the left side of things (typical anti-nuclear side). It's sad to think that most people may have negative feelings about nuclear just because the political party they associate themselves with does too. I applaud you and anyone else for listening to the experts rather than the politicians.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEngineers/Experts will tell you what you SHOULD do. Economics will tell you what you CAN do. Politicians will tell you what you WILL do.
You're helping to reverse the above - Thanks.
RodAdams,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this<The problem is that looking at forests... from a distance, they can all look green....>
Somebody's got to look at the whole from time to time else the nuclear power tree would overshadow all others by virtue of its military funding-by-interest.
<there are many questions that can never be answered unless you actually go and see the trees... you might overlook little things like the worms that are killing hemlocks all over the eastern US until it was too late to stop them. >
a) I did that and the one tree that looked most rotten was the "nuclear" tree, that's why I propose to cut it;
b) to see the damage by the worms it's not enough to look at one tree. If they had looked at the whole picture early enough the worst could have been avoided.
Therefore I maintain that nuclear is the worst solution, both in time, money and result. No other energy source needs to be kept away safely for that long and cost money centuries after its remains have been stowed away (and in practice to rot quietly until an environmental disaster is about to happen).
<When you talk about storage in a "dry" region and then mention dams, I would imagine that you have overlooked a few details - like where will the water come from?>
Why water necessarily? (BTW, more people die in the Sahara drowning than from thirst.)
<250 million kilos sounds like a big number, but every bit of the 60 million kilos currently in storage would fit on a single football field>
Every seventy years the amount doubles, the facility would cover more than a football field, would have to be maintained for centuries, one major problem in one field could pollute a whole state etc.
Nuclear as we use it today was an incredibly valuable and absolutely necessary experiment. The lesson we learn is that it's a dead end. Need to refocus. Sorry, that's what it is. Knowledge not lost tough.
<put a fence around it, and tell people not to eat the material stored in the containers. Simple.>
Simply don't touch it and it will go away??? Check Asse and Gorleben (and only because German journalists are more investigative and harder to shut up than their US colleagues) ...
<No one in the world has been hurt by exposure to used nuclear fuel because we know how to use time, distance and shielding to protect ourselves>
Chernobyl, everything's dying off from tumors and cancers but you're saying that if it had been properly disposed of it wouldn't be a problem? Wait until the next Eastern cooker blows.
Probably the best economic thing the current administration could undertake would be to vastly streamline the administrative approval process associated with the design and construction of new nuclear electrical power generation facilities (power plants), and then to work to get something like 100 new facilities completed with 4 years. A standard design should be established and built for nuclear power plants (probably 4th generation type).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis proposal would:
1. Improve the economy immediately by employing the same types of people as work in the defense industry (a mix of highly technical people and touch labor)
2. Improve the economy long term by reducing the outflow of US capital being spent on foreign oil
3. Improve the environment by reducing CO2
It seems so obvious that I am amazed it has not been taken up by a politician. robert-starkey@att.net
sisko says, "...work to get something like 100 new facilities completed with 4 years. A standard design should be established and built for nuclear power plants (probably 4th generation type)."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this***************
While for once, I can probably agree with you on this project, as long as it is GenIV reactors, and that they start replacing our dirty coal-fired energy plants.
Two questions though....First, how is nuclear power generation going to reduce foreign OIL imports, if most of that goes towards transportation?
Secondly, and I hate to keep repeatedly asking this, but why do you optimistically think that defense contractors that are always over budget and late on every schedule, should be trusted with delivering such a high quantity of nuclear energy?
Oh, and sisko, what makes you think that the fossil fuel industry interests, especially BIG COAL, their hordes of lobbyists and piles of money, not fight something of this magnitude tooth and nail -- basically like they have been doing for decades?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell for once I agree with you. This is what Big Oil has been doing to nuclear since the seventies when they first started donating big to the Big Green, putting greenies in charge of messing with the nukes at the NRC..
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNuclear power provides the hydrogen to make synfuels. During the transition to nukes, NG based fuels like CNG, LNG, methanol, DME and Isobutanol can power transportation.NG power and heating load transition to nuclear as gas supplies tighten.
Call it the nuclear Pickens plan.
fyi - contextual - as is:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJournal of evolutionary biology
"Historical mutation rates predict susceptibility to radiation in Chernobyl birds"
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1420-9101.2010.02074.x/abstract
Sure, but why pay to reprocess spent nuclear fuel when you can lathe it into projectiles that vaporize on impact, and then fire them out of cannons all over the Middle East?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe author ought to do a little more research into the CDC's claim that depleted uranium "has never caused a case of cancer in animals or humans." Google "Fallujah radiation" and see what you come up with. 26% infant mortality, with 75% of those severely deformed? Cancer rates 5x-6x higher than surrounding areas and rising? To save a buck, our government is volatilizing TONS of depleted uranium on the battlefield. This stuff has gone stratospheric.
Whether or not safe nuclear power is our best way out of greenhouse gas emissions, nuclear power is never safe in the hands of unscrupulous and corrupt officials. Consider all the waste sunk off the coast of Somalia and Italy by the Calabrian mafia over the last 20 years. IN WHAT WAY IS THIS SAFE?
chevyclutchfoot,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this<"Fallujah radiation">
or in the US, google "Three Mile Island veterinary" and that should return reports to the same effect, possibly even mentioning the threats to regional vets by shady lawyers and strange government envoys. Why vets? The US administration and military had shut up the GPs in the area right after the first ones reported strange stillbirths and even stranger deformities but they had forgotten to do the same with vets and some hasty but major leaning had to be used to keep the vets mum if I remember correctly.
If nuclear was a car they'd shoot it. <g>
@ Adrian: "You make some good points but haven't mentioned a word about nuclear waste disposal which is an ongoing nightmare. "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSpent nuclear fuel becomes around 10,000 times less radioactive in around 10 years. Depending on burn up, spent nuclear fuel can decay to less dangerous than some grades of Uranium ore in less than a thousand years.
Natural nuclear reactors at Gabon, Africa (just under 2 billion years ago) produced around thousands of pounds of Plutonium. The produced Plutonium barely migrated through the rocks it was formed in (as evidenced by decay isotopes), in spite of being unclad, uncontained, lacking a bentonite clay surrounding, in spite of the rock being fractured and in spite of boiling water flowing over the Plutonium for hundreds of thousands of years. Dealing with spent nuclear fuel isn't as big an issue as fossil fuel revenue financed anti-nuclear groups would have us believe.
@jctyler
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSome of us get our information from sources other than Google searches on the Internet. We can use those other sources of information to judge the validity of the material that we find using searches.
I was a nuclear submarine engineer officer. I lived within 200 feet of a nuclear plant for months at a time and was responsible for knowing nearly every detail about the plant and the people operating that plant. I reviewed health records, set up continuing training programs, reviewed all maintenance procedures and performed hundreds of qualification check outs. I regularly inspected the plant, including the areas inside the containment when the plant was not operating.
I have read dozens of books and articles on the health effects of low level radiation. As part of my professional training, I had to demonstrate a detailed understanding of radiation measuring devices and record keeping.
You are here blowing smoke and spreading fear about a topic that you know little about. Depleted uranium is actually a bit less radioactive than uranium that comes out of the ground and is a natural component of a number of different kinds of rocks and minerals. You can hold uranium in your hand or carry it around in your pocket without fear of health effects. The main radiation that it emits is alpha, which can be stopped with a sheet of paper, and uranium has such a long half life that the rate at which it emits radiation is quite low.
Certainly, getting hit with a depleted uranium shell is deadly, but so is getting hit with a shell made of lead or tungsten. I will agree that war is hell, but that is no reason to claim that there is something wrong with using fission power plants.
Rod Adams
Publisher, Atomic Insights
RodAdams,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this<You are here blowing smoke and spreading fear about a topic that you know little about.>
You are here blowing smoke and spreading inanities about an industry you don't want to admit or are incapable of understanding that it's become a deadend.
<Depleted uranium is actually a bit less radioactive ...>
With you, everything nuclear is always safe and healthy and cool and clean. Would you accept a nuclear waste site in your backgarden? What would happen to the value of your house and why?
If it was as safe and productive as you pretend, there would be no reason for this discussion. The fact is that in all those years your industry never managed to prove its safety, especially because reality has proved them wrong time and again. And yet you keep spreading that inane "safe and healthy" ideology. Why is there so much coverup and lying everytime something goes wrong? That alone discredits everything you say.
As for your remark on google, true, if one has your insider connections and your sort of help, one doesn't need Google, one is safely tucked away in a cocoon of subjective thinking. Alas, in a democracy we also have the right to know the other side. Why does that bother you? Afraid we find out things you don't even want to admit to yourself?
One last time: the nuclear industry has proven to be far too expensive, far too unproductive, far too unsafe and far too environmentally dangerous to be contending as a serious source of energy in the medium and long term. It's only alive because of special interests. If a fifth of nuke money was spent on proper energy management R&D there wouldn't be any need for more nuke power and all of its unpleasant side-effects and hidden costs.
It is not the military's mission to be in the business of objectivity and independent thought so why do you believe that you military formation is a guarantee of an independent and objective mind and that it puts you high above the opinions of people who do not have a nuclear military background?
You either come to grips with reality and move on or you stay behind with your strange love for strange misconceptions but whatever the choice please spare me with your repetitious "cuddly, cozy, comfy, nukey" self-serving echolalia thank you.
The internet gets around 16% of it's electricity from nuclear power plants. Everyone who uses the internet is choosing to use nuclear energy, and thus either thinks it is safe enough to make use of, or is being hypocritical if they say it is too dangerous to use.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe internet gets around 16% of it's electricity from nuclear power plants. Everyone who uses the internet is choosing to use nuclear energy, and thus either thinks it is safe enough to make use of, or is being hypocritical if they say it is too dangerous to use.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"<em>Everyone who uses the internet is choosing to use nuclear energy, and thus either thinks it is safe enough to make use of, or is being hypocritical if they say it is too dangerous to use.</em>
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSimilarly, physicians who oppose bloodshed must neither do surgery nor prescribe it. Vegetarians may, however, speak out loud in forwarding vegetarianism -- PROVIDED they do all the necessary inhaling through a filter that excludes even the tiniest flying insects. Thrips, for instance, if they fly. Anyway, very small insects can be suspended in air even if they don't fly on their own power.
Horgan mentions how some places have more natural radiation than others. If all this radiation could magically be shut off, and then nuclear power stations were built to replace it, with the same uneven distribution, in some regions there would need to be three stations within five miles of a given spot, and in others 30 stations. This map -- http://gsc.nrcan.gc.ca/gamma/dist/images/adrn.gif -- shows the differences across the USA and in parts of Canada.
You want hypocrisy? What organization's name is on the banner at http://www.projectthinice.org/blog/view/3444/ , and what kind of boat is the man on the ice pulling?
--- G.R.L. Cowan ('How fire can be domesticated')
http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan/
Falujah? DU? YOu deniers are so funny. The backrooms boys down at big oil musta had a good laugh when they came up with that one, and dumped it on the alternet for fools to look at.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisY'all see the video of troops dumping white phosphorous on that town a settin folks on fire.
If we stopped nuke power tomorrow there is enough DU sittin around to fuel several world wars worth of arty.
If fact the only way to get rid of it would be to burn it up in nuke power plants mixed with recycled fuel rods. Called MOX
Tyler has to be the thickest denier I have seen in a while. Everything he's says gets shredded so he just says the same thing again. I'm sure I've seen he him on climate issues posting the same bilge from Big Oil's denier shop over and over and over.
According to wikipedia there were more than 5,000 deaths and more than 300,000 resettled people due to Chernobyl accident.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust read this piece after seeing part tw0.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are correct, as everyone who has actually looked at the facts know, including scientists involved in Greenpeace and the Sierra Club.
One minor nitpick, you state that you are always wary of right wing congress critters. The current evidence suggests that you would be more accurate if you distrusted the left wing congress critters. The current economic problems began just after the Democratic majority came in 4 years ago. Bush managed to hold it off for a little while, but things have really gone in a hand basket after Obama came in.
You would probably be even better served to distrust ALL Congressmen and Senators. Most are ill informed posers.
@JamesDavis,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSpeaking as an Electrical Engineer, Geothermal plants have a history of corrosion problems. They also seem to increase the frequency of earthquakes nearby.
Geothermal plants have been around for over 100 years, but are not currently cost competitive, except in rare locations. The Utility I used to work for would have been happy to put in a geothermal plant, if it could beat the cost of coal based electricity. They never did. It never could.
I hope that one day that changes. in the mean time, Utilities and Government keep trying to lick the problems. They should keep up the good work.
rodrigobernardo you are misinformed, and the Wikipedia states: "...It is estimated that there were 4,995 additional deaths, between 1991 -1998...". This is an arithmetic calculation based upon the debunked LNT - Linear No Threshold Theory of Radiation Exposure and was completely contrary to actual statistical data.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn the most accurate report on the Chernobyl incident, 31 died as a result of Soviet ZERO-SAFETY-CULTURE Practice. There is zero evidence of any further deaths. See:
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/2006_articles/spring%202006/Chernobyl_Folly.pdf
"...the mortality rate among these 103 survivors was 1.08 percent per year... less than the average mortality rate in the three affected countries, which was 1.5 percent in 2000..."
"...In 2000, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), the most authoritative body in these matters, and in 2006, the United Nations Chernobyl Forum (a group composed of representatives of eight U.N. organizations, the World Bank, and the governments of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine), stated in their documents that except for thyroid cancers, there was no increase in the incidence of solid cancers and leukemia, and no increase in genetic diseases observed in the highly contaminated areas..."
"...The most nonsensical action, however, was the evacuation of 336,000 people from the contaminated regions of the former Soviet Union, where the radiation dose from Chernobyl fallout was about twice the natural dose. Later, the radiation dose limit at which people were evacuated was decreased even to below the natural radiation level, to some five times lower than the natural radiation at Grand Central Station in New York City..."
"...In the most exposed group of this population (those receiving a dose of 5 mSv per year), there was a 17 percent lower incidence of all solid cancers..."
Notice the AstroTurfers, never talk about the Banqiao Dam Failure which caused 230,000 fatalities. Or the NG Power plant explosion which killed 128 people and destroyed one square mile of Cleveland, Ohio.
And they avoid all reference to the 3 million people who are killed by Coal Power Plant pollution every year and the 80,000 who have died in Coal Mines in the past 10 yrs. Casualities that could have been prevented if the World had ignored the paid-by-fossil-fuel pseudo-greenies and embraced Nuclear Energy back in the 70's. It is amazing that anyone listens to a word that they say after the Death & Destruction they have caused.
Though i do favour safe Nuclear power , the content in this article about the chernobyl is utterly false and without merit which leads me to question the whole topic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was involved in the international response to chernobyl an event which almost caused large parts of northern europe to become uninhabitable for 10,000 years.
there where 63 deaths alone just among the helicopter crew's, where this figure of 58 comes from god knows and it required nearly a quater of a million troops and engineers to stop a disaster which would have destroy half of europe.
the article is an afront to the millions affected by it I could go on and on and on .
Or maybe they should just go and visit orphanages in the ukraine to see some of the damage caused by the disaster.
PLEASE DO NOT TAKE YOUR STATS FROM A NUCLEAR POWERED SPONSORED WEBSITE.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization-institutions_government/chernobyl_3477.jsp
@dwbd please dont use wiki as a validation to arguement or a cut paste response.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthe reactor in chernobyl where built on top of the biggest underground water course in europe which supplied almost 1/3 of the population of north eastern europe with freash water.
I also sure some of our atomic guru's will understand what happens when a super heated core meltdown reaches several million tons of cold fresh water.
A good reference from an eye witness is
Chernobyl: The Forbidden Truth
read dont just cut and paste.
My involement was after the fact by 3 months. watching demolition and repair crews work for just over a minute before have to high tail away from their machines was a frightening thing considering the impact if they had failed.
I welcome Nuclear power ....but down playing it's risk is a fools folly.
@JCtyler- Wouldn't you agree that the reason that nuclear energy is currently higher cost that necessary due to the inefficiency in the regulatory process? Wouldn't you also agree that all forms of energy production have environmental risks and costs associated with them, but at the end of the day, humans need/want vast amounts of additional energy???
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@lakota- Regarding your point that building nuclear power plants not eliminating the need to import oil currently used in automobiles....you are correct......building nuclear power plants will not solve all problems in the world. It would be good for the US economy, and would reduce the amount of oil that the US needs to be import.
Regarding your thought about defense contractors. You misunderstand the problem. The reason defense spending is higher than necessary is generally due to how the government buys things and not the contractors. Defense contractors usually have the infrastructure and experience to manage large complex projects reasonably efficiently. That said, it really does not matter what companies are contracted with to build nuclear power plants. Whoever gets the contracts would employ the types of people employed by defense contractors (a mix of touch labor and highly skilled engineers).
Over at my blog Age of Engagement at Big Think, I discuss these books in the context of efforts to effectively communicate about nuclear energy. Include a video interview with James Hansen on why he supports nuclear.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://bigthink.com/ideas/22984
Over at my blog Age of Engagement, I discuss John's post in the context of effectively communicating about nuclear energy. I also include a video interview with James Hansen on why he supports nuclear energy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://bigthink.com/ideas/22984
@ aggellos "I was involved in the international response to chernobyl an event which almost caused large parts of northern europe to become uninhabitable for 10,000 years."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPeople went back to work, right at the reactor site, within weeks of the accident. The notion that the area will be "uninhabitable for 10,000 years," is sensationalist nonsense.
@JamesDavis....we have enough supply of fissinable U-235 for next 50 to 100 years...New fast reactors use U-238..those can run upto next 1000+ years ....also if we run a closed fuel cycle and recycle fuel (like France does) we literally can run it for 1ooos of years....and hopefully bu next 2-3 thousand years (if not sooner) we will find way to do "fusion"....and once fusion is accomplished we will be set for next trillion or so years...I hope that answers your query...I am a nuclear engineer...working in the field for past 8 years so take my opinion on that...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@Kenn...Probabilty risk and cost analysis has been done for over past 50 years for 104 current operating reactors in US itself. The need is to build new ones to keep up with growing energy costs. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and American Nuclear Society websites provide lots of information on these operating reactors, like their cost-benefit, saftey, PRA studies, radiation and environmental safety studies near sites etc; We have been successfully running 104 reactors for over 30-40 years...France gets 80% of energy from Nuclear. I am a nuclear engineer myself and have been working in risk analysis area for long time now. I have no agendas to push for anybody but Nuclear is the only way to go forward.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNuclear power is a failed technology. It cannot compete in the marketplace with wind or solar, and can't even come close with increased efficiency. No other technology has the risk or proven killing power of atomic energy. I went into central Pennsylvania the year after the accident & can guarantee that people were killed in large numbers by radiation from Three Mile Island. 2400 families sued in federal court & never got a real trial. The French industry is a form of national socialism, and the new reactors AREVA is trying to build are just more of the same......There is much more to say, but let's leave it at this: why would any sane society pursue a technology that cannot be insured for the damage it could do? we've seen in the Gulf the folly of allowing the deployment of drilling techniques that could no proceed without strict liability limits. Lift those limits from nuclear power plants and they would all shut tomorrow. Which they should do. We cannot afford more games of Russian (Chernobyl) Roulette. We have the technology to get the energy from cleaner, cheaper, safer & more reliable technologies. It's time to leave this uninsurable 20th century radioactive clunker behind.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"It takes two to lie. One to lie, the other to listen." - Homer Simpson
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJohn states that after reading Gwyneth's book, he learned that "there is no evidence for this model", meaning the Linear No Threshold, or LNT model which is used by experts to describe the effects of radiation exposure. This is a misinterpretation of the discussions in Gwyneth's book, and is completely incorrect.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGwyneth interviewed one of the most senior scientists responsible for preparing the latest update from the highest level scientific organization in the US, i.e. Dr. Evan Douple, who directed the Board of Radiation Effects Research that oversaw the National Academy of Sciences National Research Council's seventh panel on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR VII). Quoting Douple on page 120, Gwyneth writes: "BEIR VII faced the challenge of examining all of the world's epidemiology data to estimate the current risks to people exposed to radiation and then used the new biology data to see what the radiation risk estimates might be at doses below which epidemiology cannot provide statistically significant estimates".
What did BEIR VII find? I don't think Gwyneth quoted them exactly. I looked it up.
Quoting from BEIR VII on LNT: "The committee judged that the linear no threshold model (LNT) provided the most reasonable description of the relation between low-dose exposure to ionizing radiation and the incidence of solid cancers that are induced by ionizing radiation". - page 6, BEIR VII, Public Summary.
By the time you've got the US National Academy of Sciences NRC convening its seventh committee to review everything that is known about radiation to give you an assessment, you've got the highest level assessment in the world.
The problem with LNT is what people not expert in assessing what is known about radiation do with what they think it means.
Adding to my comment #108: As Gwyneth wrote: "BEIR VII committee was asked to develop the best risk estimates; it was not asked to recommend whether there should be changes in the permissible dose levels for the general public...". and: "As is usually the case on the frontier of any scientific discipline, more data will be needed to come to a resolution."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMore data is not required to make common sense policy however. US lawmakers required the designers of the now discontinued Yucca nuclear waste repository to come up with a design that would prevent anyone wandering around the site thousands of years from being exposed to orders of magnitude LESS radiation than all people who live in NE Washington state for instance. Why? There is no evidence that living in Washington State or anywhere there is greater than normal background radiation causes any harm to anyone. Yucca, thousands of years from now, if it emitted far less radiation, would also be no cause for concern. People are phobic about radiation that can be pinned on the nuclear industry, and lawmakers respond, because of fears trumped up by people exploiting ignorance about what LNT means.
But this is no reason to add confusion to the mix: John should not be saying there is no evidence to support LNT. Gwyneth's book does not say this.
Gwyneth did a great job in writing her book. John is right to highly recommend it.
Adding to comments #108, and #109: John may have made an error when he says he learned from Gwyneth's book that "there is no clear cut evidence of adverse health effects from radiation at levels below 100,000 millirem a year". The book quotes several sources saying otherwise. Perhaps John just added a zero to his figure by mistake, but the issue is more complex than he describes. Relevant discussion in the book occurs mainly between pages 112 - 124. Eg:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this" 'Things are pretty linear for cancer down to five rads' [5,000 millirem] Fred Mettler told me.... 'The argument really becomes what happens below that level' " - page 124
"There's no evidence of human cancers from exposures below 10,000 millirem" - quote attributed to Dr. Leo Gomez, page 123.
In other words, there is evidence for adverse health effects below 100,000 millirem.
We won't run out of the ore if we use breeder reactors. What's more, that reduces the waste disposal problem by about 100 in mass, and 1000 in duration.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe've enough "waste" uranium to provide all our energy for 200 years.
I get the impression that the cost of decommissioning old plants is chiefly the consequence of running them as a proprietary venture. In Britain at least, Margaret Thatcher's "privatisation" of the CEGB has led to decommissioning several plants that had seemed perfectly viable, and to "British Energy" becoming a part of the French government's creation, now the EDF company.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDuring the great California electricity debacle, there was some suspicion, not proven, but not vigorously pursued, that some companies had made a profit by scheduling non-urgent maintenance upon their nuclear reactors, and thus aggravating the need for peaking power.
You can now go preach your pro-nuke nutting to the Japanese as I'm sure Fukushima needs all the support it can get from you and the other pro-nuke nutters here.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this