Nuclear Power's Unchanging Plight

Just as congressional Republicans and the Obama administration had been pushing nuclear power, the disaster in Japan arrived to complicate matters. Proponents of atomic energy fear an unfair, crippling backlash. But the crisis only confirms that in this country, nuclear is the fuel of the future -- and always will be.

Over the past 40 years, plenty of things have happened that should have worked to its advantage. There was the energy crisis of the 1970s. There was the threat of climate change brought on by fossil fuels.

There were clean air laws that raised costs for coal-burning plants. There have been huge oil spills and more price spikes in the petroleum market.

But none of it has made much difference. Nuclear energy provided 19 percent of U.S. electricity in 1990, and it provides 20 percent today. Even before the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant went down, that share was not expected to grow. Last year, the federal Energy Information Administration projected that in 2035, it will be no more than 17 percent.

Nuclear has two major challenges. The first is cost, and the second is safety. Neither has been solved, and neither is about to be.

It's hard for atomic energy to compete with fossil fuels in the United States, which are plentiful and cheap. A 2008 report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said nuclear is generally about one-third more expensive than the least expensive forms of power (coal, natural gas and geothermal). Even with big federal subsidies, nuclear is pricier than gas.

The worm has turned. Did you hear the ‘rats’ on Meet the Press this morning? They were tripping over each other about who would stand by commercial nuclear power. Meanwhile the Obama-reactionairies are promoting their coal, oil, and natural gas allies by dissing nuclear power as unsafe and expensive. I wonder who promoted all the legislators and NRC administrators who have saddled nuclear power with a never ending parade of one feel-good regulation/study after another? Do you think the enviro-wackos have that much money?

Nuclear power has a serious, and perhap inherent, PR problem.
harldy anyone really understand nuclear technology.
least of all the media.

So safe things sound scary.

An example was a report on a nuclear reactor going ‘critical’ and the media reporting it with alarm.

Typical is the anti-nuclear activists believing adn spreading the myth that a nuclear power plant might explode like a bomb - its physically impossible.
Even a ‘metldown’ is impossible - the fuel cant melt - its metling point is 2800C, the cladding and fuel rod containers warp and lose integrity. The ‘meltdown’ at TMI barely melted 5/8s of an inch of the containment vessel.

And calling used fuel ‘waste’, and confusing products of fission with actinide elements that fuel reactions etc.

And so it goes.

Atomic energy is no big deal. We are all made of atoms. But we fear what we do not understand, and fearmongers have loved this topic.

its metling point is 2800C, the cladding and fuel rod containers warp and lose integrity. The ‘meltdown’ at TMI barely melted 5/8s of an inch of the containment vessel.

To continue the seminar in nuclear engineering

UO2 has a melting point of 2865 degrees-C which is 5189 degrees-F; all the more reason for finding a rubble of UO2 inside the TMI reactor vessel. Many things will melt before achieving an average temperature of 5189 degrees-F. Continuous submersion of the core with any amount of liquid water will prevent a complete conversion of the fuel assemblies into a corium mass.

The small corium that formed in the TMI reactor vessel at one point penetrated approximately 5/8 inch into the reactor vessel steel wall that is a little more than 9 inches thick. The melt at TMI stayed in the reactor vessel. The "containment vessel" in a PWR is steel plate butted up against the three foot thick rebard-concrete shield wall. The "containment vessel" in a BWR Mark I containment is the "drywell" which is also steel plate butted up against thick rebarred concrete.

Some PWR containments have a free-standing containment vessel (same multi-inch steel plate) — effectively a big airtight tank — that is enclosed in the rebarred concrete shield wall you can see from the outside. In those containments there is an annulus that is a gap from the outside of the containment vessel to the concrete shied wall of approximately three feet. The steel plate holds in the gases and particulates. The concrete shield wall dissipates the gammas generated by the nuclear reactions.

Right.
I recall watching “The China Syndrome” in 1979 around when TMI happened. Compelling metpahor, a ‘meltdown’ that melts everything underneaht it - except it aint possible. The myth in that story is that the nuclear core in meltdown will somehow melt through the bottom of the containment vessel, then the meters of thick concrete, etc. At some point the natural flow of heat and the high melting points stop you (just try melting sand, or concrete, or bricks ... there’s a reason they make ovens out of it, you are at 1400C before you can melt silicon/sand.)

Nothing of the china syndrome kind would really happen. At TMI, it was 5/8th of an inch of a 9 inch thick steel vessel it got through. Not much. ... and it happens fairly soon, because its frankly not hard to stop a nuclear reaction if you have given up on saving billion-dollar pieces of qeuipment (add boron, sand and patience).

We are told of how deadly stuff like plutonium uranium is, and that since its radio-active, that when radition is mentioned, it means that the plutonium itself is being released. So when they report on radiation, the media doesnt mention these are radiation products that will mostly dissipate in hours, and instead most people are given the implication that somehow when they detect radiation, it means that plutonium or uuranisum can get out or did get out. NO it didnt. Its heavy and just sits there in the core, and even more so, is encased in zirconium covered in water, encased in a steel containment vessel, encased in cement containment building.

In TMI, 2 of those 4 layers was breached. Even a ‘meltdown’ is not what people think it is.

"Nuclear power has a serious, and perhap inherent, PR problem. harldy anyone really understand nuclear technology. least of all the media."

Said "PR problem" had it roots in the Cold War and was an action started and funded by the KGB. It developed a life of its own after that and has been a standard "belief item" for virtually all leftists ever since. The original purpose was to damage the US's efforts in all things nuclear.

This article is fairly clueless on a few levels.

For one thing:

Romney says he can't "understand why some environmental activists still consider nuclear power such a bogeyman." Hmmm. Maybe the prospect of uncontrolled leaks of deadly radiation across large geographic areas? Yeah, that could be it.

Even Plastic Mitt gets it right sometimes. Modern reactor designs have virtually no chance of "uncontrolled leaks across large geographic areas". Even the Fukushima plant hasn't produced such a result - the leakage has been extremely minor so far.

Contrasted with:

Other forms of energy, to be fair, carry dangers of their own. Coal mines have fatal accidents. Eleven oil workers were killed last summer when a platform blew up in the Gulf of Mexico. By contrast, no one has ever died in a commercial nuclear power accident in this country.

To be actually fair ;-) the estimate is that pollution from fossil fuel electricity generation kills about 200,000 people every year around the globe. Nuclear power is a much safer alternative.

This is reminiscent of the coverage of the quake itself, where a massive tragedy that's killed tens of thousands and crippled a nation has been overshadowed by a relatively minor nuclear problem that has not and most likely will not kill a single person.

If nuclear power were pursued as it should be, costs would go down as economies of scale kicked in.

Sadly, many people today are so ignorant and clueless they will never see the truth.

Meanwhile, China is positioned to eat our lunch going forward:

China Takes Lead in Race for Clean Nuclear Power

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