Discussion: Nuclear Power

[a completely inoffensive name]

I looked back 20 pages and did not find a topic about this. I hoped if this became popular it would give some good insight on whether or not to change my view of nuclear power.

I personally am not in favor of nuclear power from my current understanding right now. This is my current understanding:

The new generation of reactors currently being built are safe and enormously efficient.
Although it is not renewable, we have enough uranium to last long enough for quite a while (somewhere in the thousands of years) and by the time it would run out we should have other incredibly new (or extremely efficient) ways of generating power by then.
The safety concerns of a terrorist attack are of no concern to me, terrorists could hit anything and under the worst circumstances it would be a disaster.

The main (and only issues) I have is the long term effects of spent nuclear fuel and how much area we have to truly keep it safe if we are to increase nuclear fuel production and the amount of nuclear waste we produce. Here is where I can't find a clear answer, from what I hear and read we can reuse spent nuclear fuel which creates different isotopes of different elements which are not radioactive as long. The main thing I hear is that instead of having half-lifes for tens of thousands of years we can reuse it or process it further to reduce it to around a couple centuries. The problem though, is that when you are talking about centuries it is still quite a bit of time. I want to know if what we can build today to contain these things will still be able to contain the waste 500 years from now which I have not found a clear answer on. A century or two is still multiple generations and I don't know if it is ok to dump nuclear waste that won't begin to clear up until my grandchildren are middle aged.

Secondly, if we are to increase production is there enough space to put the increasing amount of waste being produced? From what I know there are multiple ways to keep it safe from storing it in a giant mountain bunker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_M...ste_repository) to keeping it in salt domes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIPP), but is there enough to fulfill our needs?

If I have said anything not true please tell me and provide links, so that being said if what I have gathered so far is correct, is nuclear power still a viable option in the long run?

BONUS: If someone from France can tell me how France handles its nuclear wastes when 70 something percent of its electricity is produced by nuclear.

[rory_20_uk]

Assuming that fuel processing and decommissioning are taken into the economics and it is still comparable to others then build away. It's a very good source of reliable power.

Spent rods etc isn't so bad as the technology to "recycle" these into other sources of fissile material is very good what is left isn't great, but probably less toxic to life than many others.

[Riedquat]

BONUS: If someone from France can tell me how France handles its nuclear wastes when 70 something percent of its electricity is produced by nuclear.

Not from France and without a minor clue about how they manage theirs wastes now, but like 20(?) years ago there was a journalistic scandal when one of our more serious journals launched an inform about a state secret project about allocating nuclear wastes from 1st world contained in concrete blocks in some place in the Patagonia near the Andes. The Government at that time negated all, but the story about many of those blocks buried at the base of the Andes became an urban myth.

Perhaps the project never existed and perhaps its just an urban myth but other similar ashamed projects did in same government, like allocating containers of from France and when it became public our government just stepped back in their decision; a country who accept money for manage and keep others is capable of everything....

Welcome to the 3rd World!!!

[Furunculus]

give me more nuclear, spare me 10,000 more turbines.

[Whacker]

Three words:

Pebble. Bed. Reactors.

Relatively efficient, can be engineered to be very, very safe, waste might be a bit higher than normal but all in all the benefits vs risks is a forgone question.

[Xiahou]

BONUS: If someone from France can tell me how France handles its nuclear wastes when 70 something percent of its electricity is produced by nuclear.

They reprocess their (and other nations) fuel, which reduces the quantity and radioactivity of the resultant waste. Additionally, it produces new usable fuel.

[Riedquat]

I did find this very Informative

[Beskar]

One word: ITER

Spread the message.

[a completely inoffensive name]

One word: ITER

Spread the message.

It is just an experiment and actual commercial Fusion power will not come about until 2030 at the earliest. We need clean energy right now.

[a completely inoffensive name]

They reprocess their (and other nations) fuel, which reduces the quantity and radioactivity of the resultant waste. Additionally, it produces new usable fuel.

There is still a point where it is unusable and must be put away somewhere for it to decay, if 70something percent is run by nuclear in France there is still going to be a lot of waste that needs to be put somewhere.

[Don Corleone]

Nuclear power is by far the cleanest technology, most efficient technology out there. Look at what the chemicals they use in solar reactors do, and how long they last, before they get "dumped"... oops, was that a watershed...

If I was named dictator for life, aka president of Venezuela, my first order of business would not be to shut down the press or torture dissidents. It would be to build a reactor in every town in Venezuela and export all the surplus. That would defeat the USA far faster than any oil plot.

Wind turbines are good except the landscape would need to be littered with them, to the point of blocking out the sun.

Fossil fuels... why? Lot of trouble to pollute the world by burning a scarce resource.

Wood (for heating)... why not? It's carbon neutral. The carbon dioxide released when you burn it is consumed by the new trees you plant to replace the ones you burned. In a sense, they're a solar cell of a different sort. But you'd really have to have forestry down to an artform to burn enough to move beyond heating to electricity needs.

Tidal... does anybody really think we can power the planet with a few tidal generators?

Dams... now the spotted owl brigade and the Klammath mudpole crew get upset with you because fish have to swim harder.

Nope... at the end of the day, the way to go is fission now, fusion when we figure out how to make it affordable.

[Husar]

They had an interview on the BBC World news podcast about nuclear power lately and this guy said if we rely more on nuclear power, the fuel will last for about 50 to 60 years, not thousands of years, he basically recommended it as an intermediate solution for densely populated countries like the UK and Germany until the renewable energy sources can really take over.

[Whacker]

One of the big issues is not only the total supply of Uranium but WHERE it is. India and Africa, iirc.

[Don Corleone]

And Alaska & Siberia.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Nuclear waste is processed and reprocessed several times. For example, Japanese waste is send to France, where it is re-used again. This waste is then re-processed again. And the radioactive endproduct that's left at the end of the chain, we burn at the Eiffel Tower for July 14th fireworks celebration.

Or, in other words, I am not an engineer. I don't know about this sort of technical stuff. All I know is that you end up with nuclear waste at the end of the process. No permanent solution has ever been discovered. And so Greenpeace weekly fills the papers when they are protesting at La Hague again. (The waste processing - aka dump - site.)

La Hague is at the very tip of the Normandy peninsula. So in case of leaks or accidents, there is a good change Britain will be the sucker and not us.

La Hague has a big nuclear waste processing plant. It has a radioactive dumping site. It has a drab, brownish sea. In which you could swim if it weren't for the pointy rocks that make up the coast.
That is all there is to this town. Oh, and they have a tourist office.



@Riedquat - I am not exactly sure what you are talking about. A quick google revealed a 1993/4 plan to store nuclear waste in Argentina. That is, Argentina draws a big hole in a Patagonian mountain, cemented blocks of nuclear waste are thrown in, hole is filled up, and France pays Buenos Aires seven billion euros for the effort.

Which seems an awful lot of money to bribe a few local governemers for their effort with. In Chad we can do all of that for a few tens of millions and
How the money was supposed to be distributed in Argentina I didn't find.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Thanks for the replies everyone but I don't have anybody providing a clear answer to my questions of can we really store and/or dispose the waste for centuries or even thousands of years without leakage or contamination and whether or not we have space to put all of it safely if we increase production of nuclear power. Extra thanks to Riedquat for the info about the difference between disposal and storage as it pertains to nuclear waste and Louis for explaining that the French essentially put all the waste as far away from the main land cities and as close to England as possible.

[Caius]

We saw it 23 years ago. I will write a lot. But not today.

[Xiahou]

Interestingly, while reading up some on this I heard that the US had been planning on building a reprocessing facility. More reading led me to find that the Obama administration has since quietly killed the effort as well as apparently ending US participation in GNEP.

Via this notice, DOE announces that it has decided to cancel the
GNEP PEIS because it is no longer pursuing domestic commercial
reprocessing, which was the primary focus of the prior Administration's
domestic GNEP program.

[rory_20_uk]

Nuclear power is by far the cleanest technology, most efficient technology out there. Look at what the chemicals they use in solar reactors do, and how long they last, before they get "dumped"... oops, was that a watershed...

Wind turbines are good except the landscape would need to be littered with them, to the point of blocking out the sun.

Fossil fuels... why? Lot of trouble to pollute the world by burning a scarce resource.

Wood (for heating)... why not? It's carbon neutral. The carbon dioxide released when you burn it is consumed by the new trees you plant to replace the ones you burned. In a sense, they're a solar cell of a different sort. But you'd really have to have forestry down to an artform to burn enough to move beyond heating to electricity needs.

Tidal... does anybody really think we can power the planet with a few tidal generators?

Dams... now the spotted owl brigade and the Klammath mudpole crew get upset with you because fish have to swim harder.

Nope... at the end of the day, the way to go is fission now, fusion when we figure out how to make it affordable.

Solar reactors can use such "horrific" chemicals as... salt or water(!). And since the principle of heating something to turn a generator is the same in a nuclear or solar plant it should be no surprise that these two are also used in nuclear.
Mirrors aimed at a point. As long as they're kept clean they don't really break.

The Netherlands. The country with all the windmills. Ain't it cute? Or a 18th century eyesore. All down to perspective. Small ones on houses and buildings or even at sea do not cause an eyesore.

Wood yes, why not? And add to this all other biofuels, including organic waste not fit for the food chain. Can be digested and then usedd for energy and heat. The sludge is high in nitrogen as is ideal fertiliser.

Tidal. A few, probably not. Hundreds, more useful. Thousands might make a dent. Let's face it, one nuclear reactor isn't going to power the world either.

Dams. Yes the Green Brigade appear to think that the planet's life forms must remain utterly stationary. Every species that dies is a disaster, every one that increases its area is also a disaster. Few sites are viable for dams, so build them there.

IMO the "answer" is not to be so dogmatic:

Small communities miles from anywhere else might be best with small hydroelectric or tidal with possibly some wind if very polar. If equitorial perhaps solar is a better bet.

Use wood where you can, digest organic waste where possible, use thermal solar (black radiators on the roof don't wear out). Dam the most favourable places. Use tidal where possible, and wave power if it works. Some wind might be useful and solar works in places.

This will not be enough in the short term, so there's definitely a place for some fission plants too.

[Pannonian]

Thanks for the replies everyone but I don't have anybody providing a clear answer to my questions of can we really store and/or dispose the waste for centuries or even thousands of years without leakage or contamination and whether or not we have space to put all of it safely if we increase production of nuclear power. Extra thanks to Riedquat for the info about the difference between disposal and storage as it pertains to nuclear waste and Louis for explaining that the French essentially put all the waste as far away from the main land cities and as close to England as possible.

If the French make bottles from the waste, put the rejects of their wine industry in them, and store them in Calais, the English would actually pay to take the nuclear waste back to England.

[KukriKhan]

One side issue I think/worry about is: signage. If the waste needs to get buried deeply for hundreds of years, and needs to not be messed with all that time, how do we best alert the generations across centuries?

I mean look at documents from the 1700's... they're just barely decipherable into today's languages. How do we effectively warn Little Johnnie, poking around in the countryside in the year 2619, not to crack open that sarcophagus that he's curious about?

[Riedquat]

@Riedquat - I am not exactly sure what you are talking about. A quick google revealed a 1993/4 plan to store nuclear waste in Argentina. That is, Argentina draws a big hole in a Patagonian mountain, cemented blocks of nuclear waste are thrown in, hole is filled up, and France pays Buenos Aires seven billion euros for the effort.

Which seems an awful lot of money to bribe a few local governemers for their effort with. In Chad we can do all of that for a few tens of millions and
How the money was supposed to be distributed in Argentina I didn't find.

Sorry Louis, I wasn't talking specifically about the nuclear dumps of France, perhaps France was involved too but I don't know, think Caius know better what I'm talking about, also in 1993/94 the unmentionable Menem was in charge, the things I'm referring to happened during Alfonsin's administration.

What I was accusing France of was the dump of human fecal wastes in my country.

France pays Argentina seven billion euros for the effort.

[s]Which seems an awful lot of money to bribe a few local governemers for their effort with.......
....How the money was supposed to be distributed in Argentina I didn't find.

Just guessing but, 5% for the operators of the plan, 0,0000000000000001% for the 5 men who make the hole, move the blocks by hand and fill it again (never knowing what the heck they were doing); 0,0000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 in security measures; 0.00000000000000002% in materials to fill up the hole; 5% to spend in the secrecy law about operations with nuclear dumps; 30% to Mr. Menem and rest lost in the corrupt bureaucracy.

[rory_20_uk]

Meh. Assuming that they've not regressed in technology they'd soon pick up the leak.

And the dangers of nuclear waste are generally overrated: animals are having a great time around Chernobyl and birds even nest on the reactors. Most chemical waste will kill you far more effectively.

Most high grade waste would be in a cavern behind several feet of steel reinforced concrete.

Children would still die far more often from trampolines and swimming pools than opening an old waste cache.

[Husar]

Doesn't The Matrix show up a good way to get loads of energy from biological sources?

Concerning the waste, would be a nice perpetuum mobile if it could be used for nuclear fusion but since that doesn't seem to be possible, shoot it into the sun or bury it very deep, old coal mine shafts for example, somethimes those are prone to collapse anyway and damage buildings above, if we stuff them with loads of nuclear waste, we might be able to solve two problems at once.

Or throw them into the ocean and wait for Godzilla...

[Avicenna]

One side issue I think/worry about is: signage. If the waste needs to get buried deeply for hundreds of years, and needs to not be messed with all that time, how do we best alert the generations across centuries?

I mean look at documents from the 1700's... they're just barely decipherable into today's languages. How do we effectively warn Little Johnnie, poking around in the countryside in the year 2619, not to crack open that sarcophagus that he's curious about?

The timescale we're talking about is actually millenia, or even tens of millenia!

So nuclear power isn't a very viable source. At least, not nuclear fission.
I hear that fusion (which they're working on, but isn't great yet) is slightly better. Wikipedia says that fusion products become "low level waste" within the century.

I've recently heard about another possible energy source: methane clathrates. Methane locked in ice.
This is more energy efficient (in terms of energy/CO2 production), and apparently it's possible to remove it by pumping CO2 into the ice.
Of course, it's not all good. If you make a mistake and release all the methane... the hot summers will get even worse. Fast.

[rory_20_uk]

First off the ways we have with dealing with the waste have radically improved over the last 50 years.

Do you really think that no one will develop new types of power station that use different types of fissile material?

Clathrates are great... except they are so delicate considering they are methane in a ice matrix which at room temperatures and pressures would explosively decompose. Into this we should be drilling large holes, pumping in CO2 and this is safer than storing some waste in caverns?

[Louis VI the Fat]

I looked back 20 pages and did not find a topic about this. I hoped if this became popular it would give some good insight on whether or not to change my view of nuclear power.

I personally am not in favor of nuclear power from my current understanding right now.

Let me make a brief case for nuclear energy.

Three problems are solved in one go:
- Environmental concerns
- Energy dependence
- The propping up of dicatorial regimes by an endless transfer of money of truly staggering proportions.
- One could add that nuclear energy is cheap.

In France, the decision to go nuclear was made in 1973, during the oil crisis and boycott. Never rely on hostile regimes for energy. Events in recent years have re-inforced the idea that this was a good choice: climate and environmental concerns, Iraq, Russia.

France and Japan each lack any meaningful natural resources. Both have gone nuclear. Nuclear power is not hypothetical. It is functioning, it is popular, it delivers on the considerations above. I should hope America goes nuclear yesterday rather than tomorrow.
If I were Obama, I'd have 200 nuclear plants up and running by the end of 2010. Then I would take my turn to pester other nations that don't meet Kyoto standards, I'd pull half my troops back from the world's deserts and jungles, and I'd at last pull the finger at the Saudis and Chavezes of this world. And if that weren't enough, I'd get re-elected for reducing the monthly electricity bill of American families.

Two fun facts:
France has the lowest price of energy in the developed world.
France has the lowest carbon emission per GDP per capita.


Against:
- Nuclear waste. There is no satisfactory permanent solution.
- 95% is re-processed. Which still leaves 5%. And, this re-processing is a source of constant environmental concern. Google 'La Hague' or, for example, 'Sellafield'.
- Nuclear accidents. Nuclear power plants are supposed to be safe. History though shows a long record of accidents. Even in the last five years, both France and Japan have had leaks and other problems with their reactors.
- Nuclear energy provides 80-90% of electricity. Not of total energy consumption. French and Japanese cars still ride on 100% petrol. What the world needs, is transportable energy. Electric cars and airplanes. So in fairness, the four arguments in favour of nuclear energy go only about halfway towards solving the problems.

Don't know whether to classify this as for or against:
We only need to secure uranium from Niger, instead of oil from the Middle East. So much easier. (if it weren't for the pesky Chinese and their buying of African countries one by one...)

[Louis VI the Fat]

If the French make bottles from the waste, put the rejects of their wine industry in them, and store them in Calais, the English would actually pay to take the nuclear waste back to England.

They probably would to.
It would also still be an improvement over the sewer wastage that's currently sold by Tesco's as 'Fine French wine'.


The French nuclear waste processing plant is build on a peninsula facing England. Naturally, the English waste plant is build as close as possible to...Ireland. Yes, such is the way of the world.

Wiki on Sellafield, the British nuclear waste reprocessing plant:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The site has been the subject of much controversy because of discharges of radioactive material, mainly accidental but some alleged to have been deliberate.

Between 1950 and 2000 there have been 21 serious incidents or accidents involving some off-site radiological releases that merited a rating on the International Nuclear Event Scale, one at level 5, five at level 4 and fifteen at level 3. Additionally during the 1950s and 1960s there were protracted periods of known, deliberate, discharges to the atmosphere of plutonium and irradiated uranium oxide particulates.[31] These frequent incidents, together with the large 2005 Thorp plant leak which was not detected for nine months, have led some to doubt the effectiveness of the managerial processes and safety culture on the site over the years.

In the hasty effort to build the 'British Bomb' in the 1940s and 1950s, radioactive waste was diluted and discharged by pipeline into the Irish Sea. Some claim that the Irish Sea remains one of the most heavily contaminated seas in the world because of these discharges, although the relatively small size of the sea will also contribute to this. The OSPAR Commission reports an estimated 200#kg of plutonium has been deposited in the marine sediments of the Irish Sea. Cattle and fish in the area are contaminated with plutonium-239 and caesium-137 from these sediments


Organ removal inquiry

In 2007 an inquiry was launched into the removal of tissue from a total of 65 deceased nuclear workers, some of whom worked at Sellafield.[39] It has been alleged that the tissue was removed without seeking permission from the relatives of the late workers. Michael Redfern QC has been appointed to lead the investigation.[40]



MOX fuel quality data falsification

The MOX Demonstration Facility was a small-scale plant to produce commercial quality MOX fuel for light water reactors. The plant was commissioned between 1992 and 1994, and until 1999 produced fuel for use in Switzerland, Germany and Japan.

In 1999 it was discovered that the plant's staff had been falsifying some quality assurance data since 1996. A Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) investigation concluded four of the five work-shifts were involved in the falsification,




Irish objections

Sellafield has been a matter of some consternation in Ireland, with the Irish Government and some members of the population concerned at the risk that such a facility may pose to the country. The Irish government has made formal complaints about the facility, and recently came to a friendly agreement with the British Government about the issue, as part of which the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland and the Irish Police are now allowed access to the site. However, Irish government policy remains that of seeking the closure of the facility.



Norwegian objections

Similar objections to those held by the Irish government have been voiced by the Norwegian government since 1997. Monitoring undertaken by the Norwegian Radiation Protection Board has shown that the prevailing sea currents transport radioactive materials leaked into the sea at Sellafield along the entire coast of Norway and water samples have shown up to ten-fold increases in such materials as Technetium-99.[50] Fears for the reputation of Norwegian fish as a safe food product have been a concern of the country's fishing industry, though the radiation levels have not been conclusively proved as dangerous for the fish.[citation needed] The Norwegian government is also seeking closure of the facility.[51]

For more '', google 'La Hague' and 'Greenpeace'.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Let me make a brief case for nuclear energy.

Three problems are solved in one go:
- Environmental concerns
- Energy dependence
- The propping up of dicatorial regimes by an endless transfer of money of truly staggering proportions.
- One could add that nuclear energy is cheap.

In France, the decision to go nuclear was made in 1973, during the oil crisis and boycott. Never rely on hostile regimes for energy. Events in recent years have re-inforced the idea that this was a good choice: climate and environmental concerns, Iraq, Russia.

France and Japan each lack any meaningful natural resources. Both have gone nuclear. Nuclear power is not hypothetical. It is functioning, it is popular, it delivers on the considerations above. I should hope America goes nuclear yesterday rather than tomorrow.
If I were Obama, I'd have 200 nuclear plants up and running by the end of 2010. Then I would take my turn to pester other nations that don't meet Kyoto standards, I'd pull half my troops back from the world's deserts and jungles, and I'd at last pull the finger at the Saudis and Chavezes of this world. And if that weren't enough, I'd get re-elected for reducing the monthly electricity bill of American families.

Two fun facts:
France has the lowest price of energy in the developed world.
France has the lowest carbon emission per GDP per capita.


Against:
- Nuclear waste. There is no satisfactory permanent solution.
- 95% is re-processed. Which still leaves 5%. And, this re-processing is a source of constant environmental concern. Google 'La Hague' or, for example, 'Sellafield'.
- Nuclear accidents. Nuclear power plants are supposed to be safe. History though shows a long record of accidents. Even in the last five years, both France and Japan have had leaks and other problems with their reactors.
- Nuclear energy provides 80-90% of electricity. Not of total energy consumption. French and Japanese cars still ride on 100% petrol. What the world needs, is transportable energy. Electric cars and airplanes. So in fairness, the four arguments in favour of nuclear energy go only about halfway towards solving the problems.

Don't know whether to classify this as for or against:
We only need to secure uranium from Niger, instead of oil from the Middle East. So much easier. (if it weren't for the pesky Chinese and their buying of African countries one by one...)

That is what I was wondering about. And that is the problem, because if don't have a permanent solution to the waste issue then if we go ahead of nuclear power then we are simply dumping this problem onto our children and grand children's generations. The reason we are in a crisis is because previous generations did nothing in the 70's and 80's to create lasting renewable fuels even after seeing the worst case scenario of an oil embargo and progress toward fuel efficency which instead was quickly forgotten for SUV's and Hummer's instead. I really don't want to do that to my children's generation as other generations did with us.

[Louis VI the Fat]

I really don't want to do that to my children's generation as other generations did with us.

Choices are never between good and bad. They are always between two wrongs, or two rights. If not, they wouldn't be choices.

Solar, wind, tidal energy have some environmental problems of their own. And as of yet, they have not come to their full fruition.

As an intermediate solution, I think nuclear power is the best option. You can leave your children some cemented waste in a mountain; or a polluted world, a crippling national debt, and Saudi princes in Rolls-Royces protected by young American troops.