Seriously thoughtful Will more nuclear power plants be built?

[taosaur]

The risks of fission plants seem like a decent trade-off for the certain damage done by coal, but I'm made a little nervous by the proximity of a plant that allowed a football-sized hole to corrode through their concrete lid, leaving 1/8" of bulging steel between me and a pressurized jet of irradiated vapor. Best anyone can tell, management was friendly with the inspectors and enforced a "don't ask, don't tell" maintenance policy internally.

[DixieGal]

Originally Posted by taosaur

The risks of fission plants seem like a decent trade-off for the certain damage done by coal, but I'm made a little nervous by the proximity of a plant that allowed a football-sized hole to corrode through their concrete lid, leaving 1/8" of bulging steel between me and a pressurized jet of irradiated vapor. Best anyone can tell, management was friendly with the inspectors and enforced a "don't ask, don't tell" maintenance policy internally.

EEK!
More details, please?

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by YGG-

yes but you can't possibly have a Chernobyl-type accident in a coal mine, ever...
(and I'm all for nuclear power plants)

Nor can you have such an accident in a US-style, or French-style, or anyone-in-the-Western-world-style nuclear powerplant. It takes the lack of concern shown by the Soviet government (and other dysfunctional governments) to manage that big a screw-up.

Meanwhile, the death-toll from coal is very large and ongoing. A dozen miners here; a hundred there. Black-lung. Mountain-top removal for "strip mining." Mine fires like Centralia. And on, and on, and...

Remember, too, that nuclear waste decays to quite benign levels in only a few-thousand years; the chemical by-products of coal and combustion thereof are forever (on anything less than a geologic time-scale).

Xenophon

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

The latest generations of nuclear plants are designed to recycle and thereby use up more of the energy in fuel, resulting in less radioactive waste, and less of a half-life of the waste it creates. So far, none of these latest generation plants have been built in the U.S. But every plant in the U.S. eventually will need to be decommissioned, and they should be replaced with the latest design plants as they are shut down. I hadn't heard about the glass-encasement method Xenophon described (and wouldn't mind sources or details), but I could see something like that as an effective way to store less-active wastes (though I'm pretty sure no one will let you use those things for a school foundation!).

I think nuclear can be part of an overall national energy strategy, combined with other renewable sources, and sensible conservation, especially if the radioactive waste issues can be dealt with. But I also think that if we use the renewable resources at our disposal and maintain sensible conservation, we may not even need a single nuke plant.

A note about solar to Harry: So many designs and configurations are being studied for solar, many of which do not require expensive or toxic compounds, that I would not count out solar based on toxicity concerns.

[taosaur]

Originally Posted by DixieGal

EEK!
More details, please?

Looks like my info was a little distorted--the hole was eaten through the carbon-steel reactor head within the containment building, making it only the 10th nearest-miss in our nuclear history. The third nearest-miss happened at the same plant in '77.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davis-B..._Power_Station

[pilotbob]

I think someone here mentioned Toshiba's portable reactor. Here is a link to it for those interested:

http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/19/t...r-your-garage/

BOb

[mjh215]

Originally Posted by taosaur

The risks of fission plants seem like a decent trade-off for the certain damage done by coal, but I'm made a little nervous by the proximity of a plant that allowed a football-sized hole to corrode through their concrete lid, leaving 1/8" of bulging steel between me and a pressurized jet of irradiated vapor. Best anyone can tell, management was friendly with the inspectors and enforced a "don't ask, don't tell" maintenance policy internally.

Jeez, that makes you feel safe. This is slightly off topic but this reminds me of a situation in my township that was discovered last year. At the local waste treatment plant a valve had gone faulty and instead of having it repaired the local administrator (manager? whatever his title was) simply allowed all the raw sewage to be dumped into the Delaware river for 2 years. Explain to me how no inspectors ever picked that up?

-MJ

[YGG-]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Interesting article about wind power in Spain here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Spain

It seems that Spain leads the world in wind power generation, in terms of percentage of generating capacity. I didn't know that until now!

Actually Denmark is ahead --but much smaller (Spain ~40 million people, DK ~5 million).

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

The latest generations of nuclear plants are designed to recycle and thereby use up more of the energy in fuel, resulting in less radioactive waste, and less of a half-life of the waste it creates. So far, none of these latest generation plants have been built in the U.S.

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.

Given the plentiful supply of Uranium in the world, it's difficult to make an economic case for FBRs, so it's doubtful that anyone's going to build a commercial one in the forseeable future.

I hadn't heard about the glass-encasement method Xenophon described (and wouldn't mind sources or details), but I could see something like that as an effective way to store less-active wastes (though I'm pretty sure no one will let you use those things for a school foundation!).

It's called "vitrification"; there's a vitrification plant at the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing site in Cumbria, England, and it's now a standard method used to dispose of high and medium-level waste.

[YGG-]

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.

The infamous Phenix plant had to be de decommisionned years ago...after having produced less power than it consumed... liquid sodium sounds like a sure recipe for accidents.

Given the plentiful supply of Uranium in the world, it's difficult to make an economic case for FBRs, so it's doubtful that anyone's going to build a commercial one in the forseeable future.

Not so AFAIK; the recent manoeuvres by AREVA in Africa are an example of the different companies jockeying for acces to (rather limited) reserves.

It's called "vitrification"; there's a vitrification plant at the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing site in Cumbria, England, and it's now a standard method used to dispose of high and medium-level waste.

The ultimate residue does get vitrified, but before, they extract as much as possible re-usable refuse to re-feed it in a working (normal) reactor (the so-call MOX).

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You're talking, I think, about "Fast Breeder Reactors" such as the experimental one built at Dounraey in Scotland.

Actually, the tech I was referring to has not yet been applied to any reactor that I've heard of. What I remember off the top of my head is the insertion of fuel into small spheres that move through the circulation system. Fuel is recycled back into the spheres and goes through 2-3 times, until the level of energy left is minimal. There was a Scientific American article about it within the last 2 years I believe...

[YGG-]

End of 2006, France produces 1,3 GW w/ windfarms. Germany has 20,6 GW.
10 GW will be installed before 2010.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by YGG-

End of 2006, France produces 1,3 GW w/ windfarms. Germany has 20,6 GW.
10 GW will be installed before 2010.

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

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Actually, the tech I was referring to has not yet been applied to any reactor that I've heard of. What I remember off the top of my head is the insertion of fuel into small spheres that move through the circulation system. Fuel is recycled back into the spheres and goes through 2-3 times, until the level of energy left is minimal. There was a Scientific American article about it within the last 2 years I believe...

That's the "pebble bed" reactor concept. It dates back to 1943. China has been working on them, I don't know how far they've gotten in building one. The major problem with the concept is political. A properly designed, safe pebble bed can only be built to a certain size, which means you have to build a string of them, instead of one honkin' big plant. The design however, is a fail-safe design, it cannot generate enough heat during a coolant fail to cause a meltdown. That 's why the size limit, make it too big and you lose the fail-safe feature...

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

That's the one.