Seriously thoughtful Will more nuclear power plants be built?

[YGG-]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

Well, of course. Germany has a natural advantage. All that sauerkraut and bratwurst generates a lot of wind.

[YGG-]

China has a string of "pebble" projects but in parallel is pitching against each other the western providers of new generation PWR.

[wodin]

Originally Posted by HarryT

For one thing, the production of solar cells is not exactly an "environmentally friendly" process; they contain all sorts of highly toxic substances, like cadmium.

More toxic than plutonium-242? Or Cesium-137? Or cobalt-60? Or Strontium-90?

I think not!

And I wonder how much a lead glass billet the size of a boxcar might cost. Think maybe that might run up the cost of a kilowatt-hour?

[wodin]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You're talking, I think, about "Fast Breeder Reactors" such as the experimental one built at Dounraey in Scotland. The engineering problems are horrendous; because the plant operates at a much higher temperature than a conventional nuclear reactor it has to be cooled by liquid sodium rather than water, and the technology for that essentially had to be "invented" from scratch.

I'm reminded of a conversation I had some years ago with an old nuclear worker who had worked on the fast breeder program for the AEC/US Naval Reactors in Idaho back in the nineteen fifties.

He said the bolts in the reactor head had been frozen by the high temperatures, and to get them lose they would squirt water on them and the residual sodium would explode and break them lose.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by wodin

More toxic than plutonium-242? Or Cesium-137? Or cobalt-60? Or Strontium-90?

I think not!

The typical nuclear power station has a generating capacity of perhaps 2GW, and produces a few cubic metres of high-level waste a year. I think you'll find, that if you compare that to the environmental impact of producing 2GW of generating capacity of solar panels, the nuclear solution comes out quite comfortably ahead in terms of "greenness".

[outofbreath]

It takes very little to understand that a chernobyl-type accident needs a chernobyl type reactor. All western built plants could have never had such an accident. A very easy to understand explanation is here:

http://users.owt.com/smsrpm/Chernobyl/RBMKvsLWR.html

in summary:

Western reactors use water as a moderator.
Russian reactors use(d) Graphite as moderator.

If a breach of the water loop would happen it would mean also a loss of the moderator. The Nuclear reaction would simply stop because there are no more thermal Neutrons to feed it.
In the chernobyl type the loss of the coolant actually has the opposite effect. The reaction accelerates. also the graphite will continue to supply Thermal Neutrons to feed the reaction.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by outofbreath

Western reactors use water as a moderator.
Russian reactors use(d) Graphite as moderator.

That's a slight over-generalisation. Some designs of western reactors use water as a moderator, but by no means all. Most UK nuclear power plants are of the "AGR" (Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor) design, which are also graphite moderated.

However, a "Chernobyl"-type accident could not happen at these plants, because the safety systems cannot be manually disabled, as was done at Chernobyl.

[Format C:]

Italian government was planning to change the laws about nuclear power (we voted against it in the 80s - shortly before we hid the waste under Somalian and Ethiopian motorways...), and they were planning to build a large plant in Abruzzo, not far from l'Aquila.

All in the silence of the journalists.

[YGG-]

Originally Posted by Format C:

Italian government was planning to change the laws about nuclear power (we voted against it in the 80s - shortly before we hid the waste under Somalian and Ethiopian motorways...), and they were planning to build a large plant in Abruzzo, not far from l'Aquila.
.

Ooooops?!?

[HarryT]

When I worked in the UK's nuclear power industry I was in the group which did "risk assessments" of power stations. Earthquakes are one of the things that every plant is built to withstand - even the UK gets significant earthquakes from time to time.

[YGG-]

Originally Posted by HarryT

When I worked in the UK's nuclear power industry I was in the group which did "risk assessments" of power stations. Earthquakes are one of the things that every plant is built to withstand - even the UK gets significant earthquakes from time to time.

Then again, the japanese power plant that was shaken some years ago kept scientists worried (significant leaks + damage)

[HarryT]

True! And you would have thought that few countries had more experience in building "earthquake-proof" structures than Japan.

[wodin]

Originally Posted by HarryT

However, a "Chernobyl"-type accident could not happen at these plants, because the safety systems cannot be manually disabled, as was done at Chernobyl.

One variant of Murphy's law is "Any system designed to not fail, will."

An extension of that is "The probability of failure on any safety system is directly proportional to the potential damage caused by such failure.”

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by wodin

One variant of Murphy's law is "Any system designed to not fail, will."

An extension of that is "The probability of failure on any safety system is directly proportional to the potential damage caused by such failure.”

Another reason, then: western reactors have strong containment vessels; the Soviet reactor did not, so when it went "bang" the entire contents literally went up in smoke through the roof of the building.

[kcarscadden]

David MacKay, a Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, has produced a book that discusses the prospects for sustainable power generation (sustainable defined as lasting at least 1000 years) - wind, solar, tide, wave, bio, nuclear, fusion, etc. and concludes that the only reasonable choice is nuclear.

There is a review of the book at http://www.boingboing.net/2009/04/09...-energy-w.html.

You can download a pdf of the book from his website at http://www.withouthotair.com/