Nuclear & other power source discussions

[T.Neo]

I am not talking about how easy it is to clean something, I am talking about total impact to ecology, society and infrastructure...

 

[Urwumpe]

I am not talking about how easy it is to clean something, I am talking about total impact to ecology, society and infrastructure...

And? I am just one step of sanity away from adapting the infamous pope quote about the Islam to Nuclear power....

Nuclear is only the dream of tyrants.

 

[T.Neo]

I am a tyrant?

That is really flattering, who would you say I am more like, Robert Mugabe or Muammar Gaddafi?

 

[Urwumpe]

I am a tyrant?

If you support all the reasons that make Nuclear power better than other energy sources on Earth...yes. If you don't need to produce nuclear weapons or centralize your power generation in few large, easily controlled plants (politically), you won't favor nuclear power by the numbers. Others are more economic, have easier manageable pollution and are systematically safer by causing less damage if they fail:

For causing the same economic damage as a coal power plant during the worst possible failure, the chance for this failure in a nuclear power plant has to a few thousand times lower.

That is really flattering, who would you say I am more like, Robert Mugabe or Muammar Gaddafi?

After knowing you for a few years, clearly closer to Gaddafi. Having female bodyguards and a private nurse from Ukraine does simply sound more like you. :lol:

 

[T.Neo]

I never said that nuclear power is the best option around... not nearly. Only one that is a necessary evil in some situations.

For causing the same economic damage as a coal power plant during the worst possible failure, the chance for this failure in a nuclear power plant has to a few thousand times lower.

I'm having trouble seeing how Fukushima and Chernobyl have accomplished as much worldwide pollution as all coal plants since 1900...

Still, worldwide pollution does not correlate to economic damage... if there is no economic damage, than pumping particulates and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere doesn't really matter...

After knowing you for a few years, clearly closer to Gaddafi. Having female bodyguards and a private nurse from Ukraine does simply sound more like you.

:rofl:

 

[Urwumpe]

I'm having trouble seeing how Fukushima and Chernobyl have accomplished as much worldwide pollution as all coal plants since 1900...

Well, its hard to compare Apples with Oranges in a scientific way, since one is chemical pollution, the other nuclear.

But nuclear has more direct impacts on the life of humans, as CO2 - until you get CO2 poisoning, you need a lot of it, 3% CO2 in the air or 100 times more than it is today.

Plutonium would already be lethal for a human in a much lower quantity.

Lets go by a value we can compare: How long does it take and how expensive is it, to make a region contaminated by nuclear or CO2 contamination decontaminated...

 

[Sky Captain]

We had tried something like that already, failed epically by project management errors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THTR-300

It also already failed before by operator error... a Homer Simpson nearly caused a major nuclear accident, despite this having been officially impossible in such a design.

Its predecessor didn't fare much better:

AVR reactor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The building was until Fukushima, the highest contaminated ruin in the world, even exceeding Chernobyl in terms of beta radiation.

Those were solid core designs. The Oak Ridge laboratory molten salt reactor experiment were largely successul. This type of reactor in terms of fuel consupmtion and waste production probably is the most efficient fission reactor of any kind.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-Salt_Reactor_Experiment

Another advatage of thorium fuel is that thorium is mined as byproduct of rare earth metals so no seperate mining operation required until the demand grows sufficiently large.

My point is if it turns out it is not possible to make a fission reactor cost efficient compared to fossil fuels then there is no hope a fusion reactor which is technologicaly far more difficult would ever generate cost efficent energy and the world is largely stuck with fossil fuels with all the resultant consequences.

 

[Urwumpe]

Those were solid core designs. The Oak Ridge laboratory molten salt reactor experiment were largely successul. This type of reactor in terms of fuel consupmtion and waste production probably is the most efficient fission reactor of any kind.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-Salt_Reactor_Experiment

Shutdown in 1969 and since then never attempted again for civilian plants. Must have been a reason for this.

The Russians only deployed molten-salt reactors in space, because the NaK liquid salt reacts very strong when in contact with air.

Their non-water-cooled nuclear reactors in ships used lead.

From Wikipedia:

• When optimized for breeding, thorium breeder reactors may require on-site reprocessing to remove [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_protactinium"]protactinium-233[/ame] from the breeding blanket so it can [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_decay"]beta decay[/ame] to uranium-233 instead of [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_capture"]neutron capture[/ame] to uranium-234. This might allow diversion of fuels to weaponry, so a decision can be made to simply allow Pa isotopes to remain in the salts, especially since there are far more effective neutron absorbers in the fission products, such as Argon, which will be removed continuously as gas at the reactor's plenum. Chemical extraction of [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protactinium"]protactinium[/ame] will extract any [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_protactinium"]isotopes of protactinium[/ame] including 231Pa which has a half-life of 32,760 years. Thus, there is good reason to simply allow Pa to remain within the salt, and so decay, or be converted by neutron capture.
• The uranium-233 contains trace amounts of uranium-232, which produces a hard [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_emitter"]gamma emitter[/ame] thallium-208 in its [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decay_chain"]decay chain[/ame]. This [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_radiation"]gamma radiation[/ame] would increase the difficulty of making nuclear weapons.[8] Removal of U-232 by [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopic_separation"]isotopic separation[/ame] would be even more difficult than enrichment of U-235 in natural uranium. These features may offer some non-proliferation advantage, over conventional, enriched-uranium reactors. If the uranium is purified of thorium and other elements, its radioactivity is initially low and increases with accumulation of thorium-228 (halflife 2 years) and further short-lived [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium_series"]thorium series[/ame] decay products. An easier route to produce [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon"]nuclear weapons[/ame] already exists by [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_enrichment"]enrichment[/ame] of [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_uranium"]natural uranium[/ame].[[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed"]citation needed[/ame]]
• Fluoride salts naturally produce [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrofluoric_acid"]HF[/ame] when in contact with moisture, which may lead to release of [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrofluoric_acid"]hydrofluoric acid[/ame] fumes during reactor shutdowns, [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_decommissioning"]decommissioning[/ame], or flooding. However, competent reactor designs would never allow the salt plumbing to ingest or become exposed to moisture or other contaminants, whether in operation or shutdown. Similarly, de-commissioning procedures for all reactors are always fastidious, and the nature of the MSR's continuous operation makes de-commissioning infrequent.[[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed"]citation needed[/ame]]

 

[Sky Captain]

Of course there are issues remaining and the online fuel reprocessing likely would be technically most challenging apsect of molten salt reactor, but then again until a full scale prototype of a comercial plant is built we will never know how it performs. A research project on thorium powered molten salt reactor would certainly be worth spending few billion $$$ along with a research on fusion and renewable energy sources and energy storage technologies.

 

[T.Neo]

Urwumpe, of course I am not talking about direct CO2 poisoning- that is silly.

I am talking about chronic exposure to other elements and chemicals released in the process of burning coal...

 

[Urwumpe]

Of course there are issues remaining and the online fuel reprocessing likely would be technically most challenging apsect of molten salt reactor, but then again until a full scale prototype of a comercial plant is built we will never know how it performs. A research project on thorium powered molten salt reactor would certainly be worth spending few billion $$$ along with a research on fusion and renewable energy sources and energy storage technologies.

Maybe, but I think nuclear power should then play by the same rules as all other power sources - not worse, but especially not better. and by the same rules, especially without large government funding for operations and disposal.

---------- Post added 04-03-11 at 12:13 AM ---------- Previous post was 04-02-11 at 07:58 PM ----------

We'd just been talking about it: The state of northrhine-westfalia is missing 2285 spheres of the former AVR reactor. They don't know where they went. They suspect it went to Asse II, but the records there are also incomplete.

 

[jedidia]

especially without large government funding for operations and disposal.

Which, I'm afraid, would be a good way, to ensure that the waste gets dumped somewhere in africa in the desert...

 

[Urwumpe]

Which, I'm afraid, would be a good way, to ensure that the waste gets dumped somewhere in africa in the desert...

I don't mean saving money on monitoring that the companies dispose their waste properly. I mean not paying the waste disposal for the companies by the tax payer. Currently in all countries with nuclear power, there is either no waste disposal at all, or the costs for this are paid completely by the tax payer.

 

[Tommy]

People, not power, are the problem. They need to be fixed, not the actual power source (already you can have bad effects with other energy storage, look at the Deepwater Horizon oil spill).

How, exactly, do you propose to "fix" people? Government and religeous leaders have been trying to "fix" people since people existed - and yet our prisons are overflowing with miscreants.

Greed is instinctive, a survival trait that pre-dates humanity. Having better food, shelter, mates, etc. increases your chances of survival. Greed is not going away any time soon. Communism was supposed to make greed unrewarding - yet all that happened was the greediest people clawed their way to the top so they could have better cars, food, houses, etc.

Even if you try to remove the profit motive by having all nuke plants government owned - and pay EVERY worker the same, greed will still apply. Running the plant has more prestige than pushing a broom, so the person running the plant still needs to appear to perform better than the janitor - or risk losing the high prestige position. Even without a financial profit motive, there is still an incentive to be "better than the next guy", so there will still be an incentive to try cutting corners in an attempt to appear more productive and efficient.

The only way around that would be to assign positions by some sort of lottery - but then you eliminate the incentive to perform well and laziness will cause all the same problems as greed.

 

[Belisarius]

I'd like to ask a few key questions which I believe ordinary laypeople want to have answers to so that there can be an informed debate on energy.

Leaving out countries like Canada, Norway, etc, which are in a privileged position to use massive amounts of hydropower, and thinking more of countries like the US, UK, France, etc. without so many torrential mountain streams...

1) What are the prospects for developing a truly clean nuclear power system which does not create dangerous waste? Are we talking about 20 years or 60 years or longer?

2) What are the prospects of developing renewable sources that can provide more than a marginal amount of power? Could wind farms, tidal and solar generation eventually become majority sources of power, or is it just a pipe-dream?

3) What are the prospects of significantly reducing consumption through more efficient designs? Are radical and draconian restrictions in consumption (like capping consumption for domestic and commercial users) called for?

4) Are there any projects that could create completely new sources of power, like the Zero-Point Energy principle? I know some people say it's possible to harness such sources, but they apparently all violate thermodynamic laws. Could some quantum source be created?

5) If we really have to rely on fossil and other carbon fuels, are there any sources which we've overlooked so far? Could recycled biomass become a more significant source?

From the point of view of an informed non-technical layperson, these are the questions I would like to see debated.

 

[Artlav]

1) What are the prospects for developing a truly clean nuclear power system which does not create dangerous waste?

Aneutronic fusion, probably developable within a century. Fusion in general, 50-100 years without major breakthrough.

2) What are the prospects of developing renewable sources that can provide more than a marginal amount of power?

Pipe dream unless we can do massive construction in high orbits.

3) What are the prospects of significantly reducing consumption through more efficient designs?

Restrictions without a pretty good and obvious reason are marginally efficient, sometimes even counter-productive. Increasing efficiency can help for a bit, but it's not unlimited.

4) Are there any projects that could create completely new sources of power, like the Zero-Point Energy principle?

Based on known physics, none.
Estimating unknown physics is handwaving - anything could be discovered.

5) If we really have to rely on fossil and other carbon fuels, are there any sources which we've overlooked so far? Could recycled biomass become a more significant source?

The organic-inorganic oil debate.
Western geological schools assume the oil and coal are exclusively products of past biological decay and fossilisation, eastern schools suggest inorganic, mineral origins for them.
Our one have a much higher estimate for oil&coal reserves, and both lead to looking for them in different places. So, we may find fossil fuel reserves somewhere no one bothered to look before.

 

[Sky Captain]

Thorium fuel cycle would also have very little long lived waste compared to light water reactors. I have heard claims that after few hundred years waste from thorium reactor would be decayed to levels less radioactive than original ore. If those claims are true then it is comparable to fusion as far as waste goes. A tokamak has hellish neutron flux so there will be plenty of irradiated stuff that will require some special storage until it decays.
Another environmental advantage of thorium over coal and to some extent over uranium is it can be mined as byproduct of other metals that are mined anyway allowing to stop strip mining for coal which cause a lot of water pollution and destruction of landscape. A 1 ton of thorium could replace 2 - 3 million tons of coal.

Problem with wind and solar are while total available resources are enormous the best locations usually are somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Tropical deserts for solar and polar regions, Southern Ocean, North Atlantic, North Pacific for wind. Unfortunately no one needs electricity there. Unless some breakthrough happens that allows cheap electricity transmission over thousands of kilometers those areas will be largely left unexploited for decades to come. In Europe only big energy consumer that could reasonably use wind to phase out fossil fueled generation are United Kingdom which have plenty of areas where strong winds blow nearly always and also have suitable terrain to implement large scale pumped storage plants.

 

[Urwumpe]

Pipe dream unless we can do massive construction in high orbits.

You forget geothermal and off-shore wind power.

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Ventus_Offshore_Wind_Farm"]Alpha Ventus Offshore Wind Farm - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

Just an experimental offshore Windpark, but already with 60MW power. Currently it would produce about 220 GWh in a year (out of 525 GWh maximum capacity). And that with just 12 turbines.

The biggest nuclear power plant in Germany produce 12000 GWh per year - only 600 off shore wind turbines would replace it - which would mean a 50 times bigger wind park as it currently is.

Even at the current costs for building this prototype (which includes a lot of trail and error, since not everything worked as planned and raised the costs) - it would cost "just" 12 billion Euro in total. A single nuclear reactor block costs currently about 5 Billion Euro - companies can only afford this investment if the tax payer pays most of the bill. The nuclear reactor has to be bought in one piece - the offshore wind park is made of many small turbines, each costing currently about 15 million Euro.

15 million is something that even smaller companies can afford.

 

[jedidia]

You forget geothermal and off-shore wind power.

Now there's an Idea I like... must be one hell of a maintenance nightmare, but so is a nuclear reactor. This concept seems way more feasable than on-orbit construction, and you certainly have wind enough. Weird that I never heard anything about it until now.

 

[Urwumpe]

Now there's an Idea I like... must be one hell of a maintenance nightmare, but so is a nuclear reactor. This concept seems way more feasable than on-orbit construction, and you certainly have wind enough. Weird that I never heard anything about it until now.

Maybe because only few countries have both the offshore experience and the interest in wind power? Germany had build the first offshore structure in history (The light house Roter Sand), but not the first offshore wind park - that in Denmark, 1991.

The biggest offshore wind park is Thanet, in English Waters.

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanet_Wind_Farm"]Thanet Wind Farm - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

300 MW power - compared to a nuclear power plant with 1400 MW, not that much - but did cost only one billion Euro.