Posted on 10/25/2001 10:52:46 AM PDT by Willie Green
Which for a member of the public, LWR technology poses about the same risk of fatality as being hit by a falling meteor. Quick! Either ban meteors, or get those space rock defenses built right away. Ahhhhh! We're all gonna die!
Nukes pay for their fuel, etc. etc. and still produce cheaper power.
You're disingenuous to suggest that they don't.
No one will dispute how unhealthy heavy particle radiation is. No one will dispute that a little lead blocks it. My problem is: Trust us we can refine and transport it safely to your powerplant in your back yard(palo Ia), trust us we can contain it safely, trust us we can make power plants terrorist proof, trust us we can make power plants earth quake proof, trust us we can make plants tornado proof, trust us we can make plants 767 at 400mph proof, trust us we can transport the spent waste safely by rail so no one with 5 dollars worth of C4 can cause a spill, trust us we can store it safely for 30,000 years in this nice safe mountain, trust us the mountain didn't cost that much to hollow out, trust us the electricity is so cheap there is hardly a need to meter it.
I will dispute it. Just today I was working with a millicurie-level alpha (i.e., "heavy particle") source. Just pick it up, move it around, etc. No problem. The outer layer of your skin shields you. Hell, even a few inches of air will do as well. Just don't inhale the material, and since most people trained to work in radiation physics have enough sense not to huff down alpha sources, well...
No one will dispute that a little lead blocks it.
Hey, now you're getting it. Maybe there is hope after all...
My problem is: Trust us we can refine and transport it safely to your powerplant in your back yard(palo Ia),
Its not a matter of trust, its a matter of being rational enough to accept proven facts. Nuclear fuel has been "refined" and transported safety for decades. No member of the public has ever been killed or injured as a result of a nuclear accident involving fuel transport.
trust us we can contain it safely,
Its not a matter of trust, its a matter of being rational enought to accept proven facts. Nuclear containments have stood up to all sorts of abuse, both man-made and natural, for thousands of reactor-years of operation, and have not failed. No member of the public has been killed or injured by the failure of a nuclear containment structure.
trust us we can make power plants terrorist proof,
Its not a matter of trust, its a matter of being rational enough to accept proven facts. There has never been a successful terrorist attack on a nuclear facility, and none even attempted. These are about the most terrorist-proof facilities around, moreso than more commonly-accepted facilities, such as petrochemical plants, munitions manufacturing and storage facilities, fossil plants, medical buildings, pharmaceutical plants, municipal water sources, subways, airports, aircraft, etc. In fact, it might be beneficial to have a terrorist group try to attack a nuclear plant in this country, because it would be a good way to get rid of them.
trust us we can make power plants earth quake proof,
It is not a matter of trust, it is a matter of being rational enough to accept proven facts. Power plants have validated designs that require a design basis earthquake of a magnitude at least twice as powerful as the most powerful earthquake recored in the history of the area of the plant's location. Some, like the Diablo Canyon facility, exceed even this overly-conservative limit.
trust us we can make plants tornado proof,
It is not a matter of trust, it is a matter of being rational enough to accept proven facts. Once again, the safety-related plant structures are built to specifications of designs that have been tested and validated to withsatnd not only the dynamic loads of winds of tornadic strength, but also objects propelled to these speeds by the winds.
trust us we can make plants 767 at 400mph proof,
It is not a matter of trust, it is a matter of being rational enought to accept proven facts. The impacts loads of the containment structures have been designed and tested at these limits. Power plants must have proven designs that can withstand these kinds of credible accidents. Its right in the FSAR of the plant. The impact tests done at Sandia Labs have shown the inherent strength and ruggedness of the containment construction for impacts this high, and higher in some cases.
trust us we can transport the spent waste safely by rail so no one with 5 dollars worth of C4 can cause a spill,
It is not a matter of trust, it is a matter of accepting proven facts. The cask testing programs done at Sandia Labs showed that the transport casks withstand the maximum credible accidents quite handily. Further tests done at Battelle addressed the explosives issue for the current-licensed transport casks. Basically, the explosive blasts a few dents in the cask missile shield and impact limiters, but do not come close to breaching even the outer containment.
trust us we can store it safely for 30,000 years in this nice safe mountain,
It is not a matter of trust, it is a matter of being rational enough to accept proven facts. The decay rates alone for the radioisotope mix in spent fuel assure us that the radiological hazard associated with the material drops below that for the original mined ore after about a thousand years. Isolation of long-lived waste has been proven by the measured corrosion rates of the engineered materials used for the disposal casks. The disposal facility lifetime is assured by the measured erosion rates of the subsurface rock formations. Changes take a long time, on the order of millions of years, when you approach depths of those for the planned repository.
trust us the mountain didn't cost that much to hollow out,
It is not a matter of trust, it is a matter of being rational enough to accept proven facts. The nuclear industry is paying the full cost of the development of the Yucca Mountain facility. By law, there is a tax imposed on every kwh of nuclear-generated electricity. The Feds collect this and shunt it over to the DOE. They pay the money. Just like with taxes, the government can be pretty meticulous when it comes to collecting money they say they should have.
trust us the electricity is so cheap there is hardly a need to meter it.
It is not a matter of trust, it is a matter of being rational enough to understand the birth of a cliche. Do you know that nobody in the nuclear industry ever spoke the words "too cheap to meter". It was in fact one of the original military planners (a Navy Admiral) who was involved in the early Atoms For Peace program that had some involvement in the initial technology transfer of LWR technology developed for submarine propulsion. The media picked up on that and have propagated the lie that the industry has always claimed this. It is not true. Any rational person will know that in a free market nothing will ever be too cheap to measure the units of consumption. Why then would anyone ever produce the commodity? But the Luddites are perfectly content to smear the whole industry with this one individual's quote. I see by your statement you have fallen for the untruth. Well, my advice is, don't take urban legends as fact.
The government doesn't pay these. The company selling the NSSS hardware does, or the customer who ordered it pays. When I was at Westinghouse, all of the prototype design work we did in I&C upgrades and plant diagnostics was paid for either by company funds or customer payments. The same for the overall NSSS system designs. The government didn't pay a dime. And we built a lot of plants.
No mbmer of the public has ever been killed or injured as a result of a nuclear accident involving fuel transport. Of course, you missed the part about refining. You're asserting that no one in the nuclear mining industry has ever been killed? I dougt that...
No member of the public has been killed or injured by the failure of a nuclear containment structure. I guess Chernobyl never happened in your world. And TMI was maybe an hour from having the hydrogen bubble blow the containment structure, per the engineers working on it. How close do you want to come to a catastrophic accident?
There has never been a successful terrorist attack on a nuclear facility. And there was never a terrorist attack of airplanes crashing into skyscrapers before 9/11, either. (Actually, if I were a terrorist, I'd opt for the coolant intake facilities, control bunker, or transmission facilities before the containment area anyway; or using C4 to detonate/spread radioactive materials over an area. But then you say you folks are trained not to breath the little radioactive suckers, also...
the radiological hazard ... drops below that for the original mined ore after about a thousand years. Except for plutonium, which has a half-life on the range of 128K years. And the argument is still disingenuous; there isn't a government on earth that's lasted a thousand years yet, and we're ~750 years from achieving that goal. As regards "geologically safe" reservoirs, I remember the case of some salt-mine area that was considered to be perfect all of a sudden having a water leak...
The media ... picked up on that ["lie"] and have propagated the lie that the industry has always claimed [that nuclear energy was too cheap to meter]. Gee, I've been watching the nuclear industry for well over 30 years, and don't recall them going to much effort to dispute it (economics aside). And you also argue (and prove) the point: TANSTAAFL - "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch." Of course nuclear energy isn't free; but the industry has never charged the customer a rate commmensurate with the total cost of production. (And about things being too cheap to measure the units of consumption, try to measure the cost of your using the internet).
You are just full of frantic misinformation, aren't you?Spending to Date
Through September 2000, the Nuclear Waste Program has spent $6.7 billion. Of this, $3.6 billion has been spent characterizing the site at Yucca Mountain and $276.4 million has been spent by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, and the Nuclear Waste Negotiator. The remaining $2.8 billion has been spent on characterizing other potential sites, Waste Acceptance and Transportation, and Program Integration.
Funding is appropriated from the Nuclear Waste Disposal Fund, which is accrued in the form of a rate payer fee from those people who use electricity generated by nuclear power plants. Additional dollars come from taxpayers through the Defense Nuclear Waste Disposal Account which Congress established to provide for the disposal of high-level radioactive products from defense facilities. To date, $5.5 billion has been spent from the Nuclear Waste Fund and $1.2 billion has been spent from the defense account.
bottom line, I think we should keep the nukes we have, finish off the proposed ones, then go on massive decentralization, both from an extreme long term energy independence measure, and from a national securityy measure. all the eggs in one basket is not a good idea. I don't support 'the farmco company" supplying all the food, for instance. I like smaller and more decentralised, and from more sources. I would use our avaialble domestic and canadian natgas and oil-plus, really get serious about coming up with even newere technologies, then hit it from the opposite end of the spectrum, more fuel efficient vehicles, much, much better built and insulated homes and buildings, etc. I think dollar for dollar at this point, merely un-sexy but effective more insulation in homes would dramatically decreasae the needs for natgas and other fossil fuels for heating, and elctricity for AC cooling. A simple doubling of insulation in homes would have a much bigger effect than drilling for more arctic oil, but it's not juicy enough for political debate, and the big energy companies can only sell you insulation once, then it keeps on working, whereas they can keep selling you more burnable stuff as long as you cut them a check willingly. They like to keep getting checks from you. Pay for it once, then it's paid for. they don't like that, they like to keep you in energy bondage forever and ever. It just makes economic sense for them to do so, so they do.
I prefer an all of the above approach. We have solar, it works, it's paid for. Do have a small wind genny, not hooked up, as an emergency-a REAL emeregency backup, if there's catastrophic failure of the other sources of juice..
Chernobyl didn't even have a containment structure!
References to Chernobyl don't really have much relevance to the American nuclear industry, because that reactor design -- high power density, graphite moderated, no containment structure -- would never even make it to a groundbreaking ceremony in the US.
The only reason it was built in the USSR was because Stalin insisted that power reactors be adaptable to weapons-grade plutonium production. Yet another triumph of the workers and peasants state ... [snort] ...
And you think correctly...today.
And believe me, I'm no enviro-wacko, and care little about how many tons of hydrocarbons are spared the atmosphere. Those tawdry tears were exaggerated from day one. I'm impressed that wind generation (after the start-up cost) is basically free, and we don't import wind from other countries. (These days, that may be the best of all.)
The first 20 or so years of the automobile were so pathetic that horse-drawn vehicles were still a worthwhile (and more reliable) alternative.
More people crossed the Atlantic by ship than by air until 1956. Then, three years before the Boeing 707 started jet service, the best prop planes were suddenly outselling the boats.
Radio communication was a late 19th century product, and "broadcasting" remained a novelty until the late 1920's. It's something more than that now.
All the critics of their day made good points: namely, the technology was laughable. So it is today with wind power, and direct-conversion solar.
Some critics get lucky: the idea they're snickering at doesn't "take off," and then they've got one or more "I told you so" columns to write.
But who knows? Those who guessed, and guessed correctly, were rewarded heavily. Gates could get an expensive haircut today (why he won't, I have no idea.) The Steves of Apple have surely replaced their 1970's Birkenstocks with new ones.
For the rest of us? Well, it wasn't exactly like the comic books. I'm still waiting for my strap-on jet pack, but meantime -- for 20 bucks a month -- I can hold the equivalent of Captain Kirk's communicator in the palm of my hand.
Then there's those little yellow sticky-notes, and fat-free cheese, and...
I think you need to start thinking about maintenance costs for hundreds of thousands (millions? tens of millions?) of these dinky little generators scattered around the country. (I already guesstimated 1500+ of these things just to displace one nuke.) Factor in having to pay skilled maintenance technicians just for their travel time to get to these things, along with special equipment to get them 125' in the air for a simple, routine lube job. Don't forget: it's gotta be a multi-worker crew because of the hazards of working heights alone.
Ain't gonna happen. Nothing is maintenance-free.
Your attempt at a snide remark simply shows your lack of knowledge of the technology. I got news for you: Chornobil did not have a containment. The RBMK design did not allow for an LWR-style containment. Now here's some good advice, when you're trying to be flippant, its a good idea to do so from a position of understanding, not ignorance.
And TMI was maybe an hour from having the hydrogen bubble blow the containment structure, per the engineers working on it. How close do you want to come to a catastrophic accident?
You're really mixed up on this one. Either you didn't understand the "engineers" or they were not familiar with the accident sequence. The containment failure limits were never seriously challenged. There was a hydrogen burn inside containment. It really happened. I saw in real life the burn marks and the crushed containers and barrels that were inside of the containment building. The overpressure spike was in the range of 40+ psig. There was not one undamaged fuel pin in that core. And, guess what? The containment held. There was never any chance of the worst-case catastrophic accident given the source term in that accident. Such an event would involve common mode failures that just didn't happen, and wouldn't happen. It was a small-break LOCA, and that just doesn't involve the kind of energy releases that a large-scale LOCA would. The accident potential was quite limited.
there was never a terrorist attack of airplanes crashing into skyscrapers before 9/11, either.
That's because its a much more plausible scenario. It only goes to prove my point. Nuclear plants are a poor choice for a terrorist operation. They would shoot their wads and die without achieving their purpose. Skyscrapers just aren't in the same league in terms of ruggedness and robust construction as nuclear plant containments. Neither are many other things we take for granted with nowhere near the hysteria that seems to be associated with nuclear facilities. Personally, I'd be more concerned with widespread attacks on petrochemical facilities. It wouldn't take an airplane, just a person with a wrench to open the right valves. Bhophal, anyone?
Actually, if I were a terrorist, I'd opt for the coolant intake facilities,
Accounted for in the accident analysis. The "coolant intake facilities" you refer to are on the tertiary side of the plant. These are not connected to the primary coolant loops. You're thinking of the condenser cooling water, the stuff that sometimes gets evaporated out of the cooling tower. The accident scenario is called loss of heat sink. Elevated temperatures in the secondary coolant loop in a PWR or condenser recirc water or flow rate reduction in a BWR will trip the unit, and the RHR system picks up the slack for decay heat.
control bunker,
You're using unfamiliar terminology here. Again, if you're going to argue the technology, its good to be conversant in it. Assuming you mean the control room, again, redundancy and allowance for common mode failure provide assurance of positive shutdown in the event of I&C system failure. The reactor is always under positive control. Its natural state is shutdown, with RHR system redundancy if necessary for decay heat removal. If you want to disable the RHR system you're probably have to get into the containment, and I don't think that's likely. Short of detonating a thermonuclear bomb next to containment, you can't blast your way in, and it you try to get in through the access hatch without authorization, you'll have a clip up M16 slugs up your patootie.
or transmission facilities
Again, absolutely no problem. This scenario is allowed for in the safety analysis. It is called station blackout, or loss of offsite power. The plant normally runs on external supply. If that is lost, the plant runs on diesel backups. Again, the backups are designed and built in such a way that common mode failure is avoided. The backup power is in the plant vital area, meaning its quite firmly shielded. The auxiliary buildings are not as well shielded as primary containment, but they are still very strong structures, and present a much smaller target for airborne attack.
before the containment area anyway; or using C4 to detonate/spread radioactive materials over an area. But then you say you folks are trained not to breath the little radioactive suckers, also...
Where would you get the radioactive material to blow up? The fuel is in the containment, inside the pressure vessel. The spent fuel pool is a large tank of water with thick walls and is quite deep. That provides a lot of damping for an explosive overpressure. You could drop a package into the pool (assuming you didn't run into the aforementioned M16 slugs) and perhaps damage some spent fuel, but the primary release from fuel that has decayed for a couple of weeks will be the noble gas Kr-85, which is a weak gamma emitter (exercise for the student: get back to me with its gamma abundance, you'll be surprised). Particulate releases, if any, have very low diffusion rates from water and in any case would not disperse very far unless you vaporized a large portion of high burnup material. Again, a nuclear bomb would probably do it, but, conventional explosives, well, like I said, any self-respecting terrorist would better shoot his wad on a chemical plant.
Except for plutonium, which has a half-life on the range of 128K years.
Again, you'd be wise to brush up on your nuclear physics before attempting to engage in such a technical debate. Get out your Chart of the Nuclides and follow the bouncing neutron. Here is the breeding pathway for plutonium in commercial nuclear fuel:
U-238 neutron capture to U-239
U-239 23.5 minute half-life beta decay to Np-239
Np-239 2.35 day half-life beta decay to Pu-239
Pu-239 alpha emission to U-235, 24,110 year half-life.
Now, where in the blazes did you get this 128,000 year half-life? You really need to check your facts more carefully, or your credibility in this debate will dwindle faster than the lifetime of an isomeric state.
And the argument is still disingenuous; there isn't a government on earth that's lasted a thousand years yet, and we're ~750 years from achieving that goal.
Here's a clue: the integrity of a properly designed and built repository is not dependent on the lifetime of any political institution. Mother nature and the laws of physics pay no heed to such trifles.
As regards "geologically safe" reservoirs, I remember the case of some salt-mine area that was considered to be perfect all of a sudden having a water leak...
That's why the sites under consideration are studied and confirmed to be hydrologically inactive. The study group I consulted with on the rock formation stability at the Yucca Mountain site showed measurable erosion rates with time constants in the range of 10,000,000 years per centimeter of strata depletion. Here's another interesting exercise for the serious student: using the correct half-life (see above) for Pu-239, calculate the percent reduction assuming a 10,000,000 year decay period. Even if there were water intrusion the vitrified form of the material makes dissolution of the substance very weak. Fission products just don't migrate very fast through native rock.
Check out the information on the fossil reactors in Gabon, in Africa. Here is a totally uncontained, naturally chain-reacting system, producing fission products in limestone formations (water-bearing) for age after age, millions of years, and the migration of the fission products through the uranium-bearing formations was on the order of inches.
Gee, I've been watching the nuclear industry for well over 30 years, and don't recall them going to much effort to dispute it (economics aside).
I have refuted it at every opportunity (like now). One of the professors on my reading committee published an article (and op-ed) piece on this very subject. People were amazed, just as some of the readers of this thread probably are, to learn, after all these years of the Luddites parroting this urban legend, that it is just that.
And you also argue (and prove) the point: TANSTAAFL - "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch." Of course nuclear energy isn't free; but the industry has never charged the customer a rate commmensurate with the total cost of production. (And about things being too cheap to measure the units of consumption, try to measure the cost of your using the internet).
The nuclear industry has paid its way. They pay for everything, and not just fuel or capital costs for construction. They pay 100% of the cost of their regulation, which is the only industry that does so. They pay for the entire cost of the civilian waste disposal program, in addition to paying for the interim storgae of spent fuel. They pay into an insurance pool for the Price-Anderson liability reserve at rates established by the insurance underwriters and the program administrators (BTW, the Price-Anderson program actually results in a positive revenue stream for the government. That's one reason why they want to keep it.) Individual reactor operators also pay private insurers for policies that cover the Price-Anderson deductible amount. I know, because for awhile I was responsible for cutting the requisition for this payment for the facility I work at. If they don't do this, they self-insure, and must prove the cash reserves necessary to sustain it. They pay into a fund to decommission their plants, something that very few, if any, other industries do. They must prove to the regulators that their decommissioning fund has adequate reserves at all times for the life of the plant, and is adjusted periodically for possible future increases in costs. All of these costs are reflected in the rates charged by nuclear generators. Contrary to what most Luddites think, these people aren't stupid. They're going to pass along their real and quantifiable costs to the buyers of their product. And still the cost per kwh at last reporting was about at a national average of 1.83 cents/kwh, the lowest cost of any baseload generation source.
TMI did not come close. The hydrogen burn that occurred did not rupture the containment. The containment structure overpressure limits were not at any time in any danger of being challenged. The amount of hydrogen evolved during the course of the accident and released to containment through the small-break LOCA was never in the range of providing enough potential energy to do it.
No one is arguing absolute guarantees against possible accidents for all future times. Its just that it is possible, using well-known, non-exotic technology, to provide very reasonable assurance that the chances of such accidents are very small, much smaller than normally-accepted risks, either resulting from the activities of a technologically-advanced civilization, or natural events. That is all any industry can hope to do. And I think the track record for the nuclear business is pretty good, and if the technology is managed and maintained and improved as it has been, the odds are very good that it will continue to be so. Do any kind of risk comparison using reasonable assumptions and known facts, and that will be the logical conclusion.
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