New look at nuclear power

[OldBill]

Think of it this way: Nuclear Power is the second-worst way in the world to generate electricity. The worst way: ANY fossil-fired plant.
With the advent of computerized controls, all manner of renewable resources can now be employed in myriad schemes to maintain an accurate 60 hz. output onto the grid. And soon, sans grid, straight from your own rooftop or utility closet right into your wall receptacles.

[Moontanman]

Think of it this way, nuclear power is the absolute best way to generate electricity.

Nay sayers use statistics from old technology to further their rabid antiquated views on nuclear power.

There are so many people who have this idea of the nuclear genie killing us all or turning us all into radioactive monsters it is very difficult to to even make these people understand.

They grew up on a diet of b movies that portrayed nuclear power as the ultimate evil blamed for everything imaginable that was bad.

Staying with these outdated technologies is bad and should be avoided absolutely but to allow these b-movie ideas to drag down the only high intensity power source available to the human race is stupid and short sighted.

If you were to use the first jet airliner as a model to prevent any more jet airliners from being built and to make sure everyone rides trains instead of flying you would be in the same situation as the people are trying to beat down nuclear power.

Unfortunately these people also have decades of extremely scary and emotional propaganda both official and unofficial to help them achieve their goals. Most of them do not even realize what they are really doing. They have been told what they want to hear for so long the propaganda becomes self reinforcing.

Even old style nuclear power plants do not pollute any where near as bad as coal fired power plants. New technology is orders of magnitude better than old technology. I talked to literally hundreds of people who would rather live next to a coal fired power house than live with in a hundred miles of a nuclear power plant. It's just plan silly and it's also the reason so little private money is available for nuclear power plant building.

People are simply scared out of their wits by the prospect and the fear is totally irrational. I have already provided links to new types of nuclear power plants so I won't again but if we as a civilization want to move forward at anything other than a snails pace we will need nuclear power, safe modern nuclear power.

No small dribs and dabs of disconnected low intensity power sources that production of is farmed out to third world countries due to the inherent pollution released in their manufacture.

[freeztar]

Originally Posted by Moontanman

People are simply scared out of their wits by the prospect and the fear is totally irrational. I have already provided links to new types of nuclear power plants so I won't again but if we as a civilization want to move forward at anything other than a snails pace we will need nuclear power, safe modern nuclear power.

Perhaps you are right, Moontan, that the stigma ingrained within the majority public mindset detours nuclear industry growth. Amory Lovins (which btw, I highly recommend his book 'Natural Capitalism' [a bit outdated now, but still great]) makes the claim that nuclear is not in proliferation because of market hesitation. That may be the case, but stigma may also play a role. I'm not aware of any studies comparing the two though (stigma and market hesitation, regarding nuclear proliferation).

What about Thorium (fast breeder) reactors? The idea is not a "'new' look at nuclear power", but I see a potential benefit with them. Nonetheless, it's not the quick fix that the world needs/wants.

We've discussed this here in quite a bit of depth in this thread:

Are Thorium Reactors Better?

Supplemental thread here:

http://hypography.com/forums/physics...m-contain.html

[GAHD]

MMM Lead cooled reactors...I want one! Or two!

[Reaper]

Originally Posted by Moontanman

Think of it this way, nuclear power is the absolute best way to generate electricity.

Nay sayers use statistics from old technology to further their rabid antiquated views on nuclear power.

There are so many people who have this idea of the nuclear genie killing us all or turning us all into radioactive monsters it is very difficult to to even make these people understand.

They grew up on a diet of b movies that portrayed nuclear power as the ultimate evil blamed for everything imaginable that was bad.

Staying with these outdated technologies is bad and should be avoided absolutely but to allow these b-movie ideas to drag down the only high intensity power source available to the human race is stupid and short sighted.

If you were to use the first jet airliner as a model to prevent any more jet airliners from being built and to make sure everyone rides trains instead of flying you would be in the same situation as the people are trying to beat down nuclear power.

Unfortunately these people also have decades of extremely scary and emotional propaganda both official and unofficial to help them achieve their goals. Most of them do not even realize what they are really doing. They have been told what they want to hear for so long the propaganda becomes self reinforcing.

Even old style nuclear power plants do not pollute any where near as bad as coal fired power plants. New technology is orders of magnitude better than old technology. I talked to literally hundreds of people who would rather live next to a coal fired power house than live with in a hundred miles of a nuclear power plant. It's just plan silly and it's also the reason so little private money is available for nuclear power plant building.

People are simply scared out of their wits by the prospect and the fear is totally irrational. I have already provided links to new types of nuclear power plants so I won't again but if we as a civilization want to move forward at anything other than a snails pace we will need nuclear power, safe modern nuclear power.

No small dribs and dabs of disconnected low intensity power sources that production of is farmed out to third world countries due to the inherent pollution released in their manufacture.

Most of the time, the arguments are usually revolving around fear of nuclear weapons (completely preposterous as the uranium for weapons has to be much more enriched before it can be usable as such), or a Chernobyl-like disaster.

Overall though, less people have died from a nuclear power plant than most any other accident that takes place. And regardless, the use of nuclear power in general is on the rise everywhere else in the world.

Although, I'm still waiting for the fusion reactors to come online, then our energy problems will be solved forever.

[REASON]

I don't think Avery Lovins' objections had anything to do with fear of death or disaster, his were primarily economic. He is convinced that there will be no substancial movement toward nuclear power because implementation costs are too high, particularly now, and nobody is investing in it.

Personally, I don't know if that will change in the future and nuclear energy may become a significant contributer. But I still tend to think that we should push toward more passive solutions that are innovative and include some serious reductions in waste. Our infrastructure is seriouly out dated and inefficient, as are our industries' methods of transporting products and goods.

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by Reaper

Most of the time, the arguments are usually revolving around fear of nuclear weapons (completely preposterous as the uranium for weapons has to be much more enriched before it can be usable as such), or a Chernobyl-like disaster.

Overall though, less people have died from a nuclear power plant than most any other accident that takes place. And regardless, the use of nuclear power in general is on the rise everywhere else in the world.

Although, I'm still waiting for the fusion reactors to come online, then our energy problems will be solved forever.

Unless you are talking about aneutronic fusion you will have waste problems as well. New technology fission plants can be made small safe and fast and they can be built now. Thorium reactors are probably the future of fission But we do have choices and until people realize the old propaganda of the evil nuclear genie is false it will be an uphill battle. I don't think that new low intensity power sources are bad or unusable they just do not provide power in the quantities we as a civilization really need. many industries are very energy intensive, solar just won't do for these industries. I would like to see solar used as an option for people who live far from a easy source of power but big cities in hot or very cold regions would be hard pressed to use solar as it's only power source. eliminating the use of hydrocarbons would be much easier if you used nuclear and maybe used solar around the edges. It's easy to say we need to rebuild our infrastructure but that will take many years and many times as much money as developing safe nuclear power. And we can and should be changing to a more efficient infrastructure as we go anyway.

[raymond723]

We should take measures to protect our enivorment.

[Eclipse Now]

So no one debunked the economic position Amory Lovin's has, that nuclear has "died of a critical attack of the marketplace" (paraphrase from memory).

How about Lester Brown?

October 28, 2008: The Flawed Economics of Nuclear Power

I'm all for nuclear in space as it just makes sense there, but here on earth we have other, better options.

The Flawed Economics of Nuclear Power

Lester R. Brown

Over the last few years the nuclear industry has used concerns about climate change to argue for a nuclear revival. Although industry representatives may have convinced some political leaders that this is a good idea, there is little evidence of private capital investing in nuclear plants in competitive electricity markets. The reason is simple: nuclear power is uneconomical.

In an excellent recent analysis, “The Nuclear Illusion,” Amory B. Lovins and Imran Sheikh put the cost of electricity from a new nuclear power plant at 14¢ per kilowatt hour and that from a wind farm at 7¢ per kilowatt hour. This comparison includes the costs of fuel, capital, operations and maintenance, and transmission and distribution. It does not include the additional costs for nuclear of disposing of waste, insuring plants against an accident, and decommissioning the plants when they wear out. Given this huge gap, the so-called nuclear revival can succeed only by unloading these costs onto taxpayers. If all the costs of generating nuclear electricity are included in the price to consumers, nuclear power is dead in the water.

To get a sense of the costs of nuclear waste disposal, we need not look beyond the United States, which leads the world with 101,000 megawatts of nuclear-generating capacity (compared with 63,000 megawatts in second-ranked France). The United States proposes to store the radioactive waste from its 104 nuclear power reactors in the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, roughly 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada. The cost of this repository, originally estimated at $58 billion in 2001, climbed to $96 billion by 2008. This comes to a staggering $923 million per reactor—almost $1 billion each—assuming no further repository cost increases. (See data).

In addition to being over budget, the repository is 19 years behind schedule. Originally slated to start accepting waste in 1998, it is now set to do so in 2017, assuming it clears all remaining hurdles. This leaves nuclear waste in storage in 121 temporary facilities in 39 states—sites that are vulnerable both to leakage and to terrorist attacks.

One of the risks of nuclear power is a catastrophic accident like the one at Chernobyl in Russia. The Price-Anderson Act, first enacted by Congress in 1957, shelters U.S. utilities with nuclear power plants from the cost of such an accident. Under the act, utilities are required to maintain private accident insurance of $300 million per reactor—the maximum the insurance industry will provide. In the event of a catastrophic accident, every nuclear utility would be required to contribute up to $95.8 million for each licensed reactor to a pool to help cover the accident’s cost.

The collective cap on nuclear operator liability is $10.2 billion. This compares with an estimate by Sandia National Laboratory that a worst-case accident could cost $700 billion, a sum equal to the recent U.S. financial bailout. So anything above $10.2 billion would be covered by taxpayers.

Another huge cost of nuclear power involves decommissioning the plants when they wear out. A 2004 International Atomic Energy Agency report estimates the decommissioning cost per reactor at $250–500 million, excluding the cost of removing and disposing of the spent nuclear fuel. But recent estimates show that for some reactors, such as the U.K. Magnox reactors that have high decommissioning waste volumes, decommissioning costs can reach $1.8 billion per reactor.

In addition to the costs just cited, the industry must cope with rising construction and fuel expenses. Two years ago, building a 1,500-megawatt nuclear plant was estimated to cost $2–4 billion. As of late 2008, that figure had climbed past $7 billion, reflecting primarily the scarcity of essential engineering and construction skills in a fading industry.

Nuclear fuel costs have risen even more rapidly. At the beginning of this decade uranium cost roughly $10 per pound. Today it costs more than $60 per pound. The higher uranium price reflects the need to move to ever deeper mines, which increases the energy needed to extract the ore, and the shift to lower-grade ore. In the United States in the late 1950s, for example, uranium ore contained roughly 0.28 percent uranium oxide. By the 1990s, it had dropped to 0.09 percent. This means, of course, that the cost of mining larger quantities of ore, and that of getting it from deeper mines, ensures even higher future costs of nuclear fuel.

Few nuclear power plants are being built in countries with competitive electricity markets. The reason is simple. Nuclear cannot compete with other electricity sources. This explains why nuclear plant construction is now concentrated in countries like Russia and China where nuclear development is state-controlled. The high cost of nuclear power also explains why so few plants are being built compared with a generation ago.

In an illuminating article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, nuclear consultant Mycle Schneider projects an imminent decline in world nuclear generating capacity. He notes there are currently 439 operating reactors worldwide. To date, 119 reactors have been closed, at an average age of 22 years. If we generously assume a much longer average lifespan of 40 years, then 93 reactors will close between 2008 and 2015. Another 192 will close between 2016 and 2025. And the remaining 154 will close after 2025.

But only 36 nuclear reactors are currently under construction worldwide—31 of them in Eastern Europe and Asia. Although there is much talk of building new nuclear plants in the United States, there are none under construction.

What these numbers indicate, Schneider points out, is that plant closings will soon exceed plant openings—and by a widening margin in the years ahead. The trend is clear. From 2000 to 2005, an average of 4,000 megawatts of nuclear generating capacity was added each year. Since 2005, this has dropped to only 1,000 megawatts of additional capacity per year.
Even if all reactors scheduled to come online by 2015 make it, the projected closing of 93 nuclear reactors by then will drop nuclear power generation roughly 10 percent below the current level. Unless governments start routinely granting operating permits for reactors more than 40 years old, a half-century of growth in world nuclear generating capacity is about to be replaced by a long-term decline.

Despite all the industry hype about a nuclear future, private investors are openly skeptical. In fact, while little private capital is going into nuclear power, investors are pouring tens of billions of dollars into wind farms each year. And while the world’s nuclear generating capacity is estimated to expand by only 1,000 megawatts this year, wind generating capacity will likely grow by 30,000 megawatts. In addition, solar cell installations and the construction of solar thermal and geothermal power plants are all growing by leaps and bounds.

The reason for this extraordinary gap between the construction of nuclear power plants and wind farms is simple: wind is much more attractive economically. Wind yields more energy, more jobs, and more carbon reduction per dollar invested than nuclear. Though nuclear power plants are still being built in some countries and governments are talking them up in others, the reality is that we are entering the age of wind, solar, and geothermal energy.

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by Eclipse Now

So no one debunked the economic position Amory Lovin's has, that nuclear has "died of a critical attack of the marketplace" (paraphrase from memory).

How about Lester Brown?

October 28, 2008: The Flawed Economics of Nuclear Power

I'm all for nuclear in space as it just makes sense there, but here on earth we have other, better options.

The Flawed Economics of Nuclear Power

Lester R. Brown

Over the last few years the nuclear industry has used concerns about climate change to argue for a nuclear revival. Although industry representatives may have convinced some political leaders that this is a good idea, there is little evidence of private capital investing in nuclear plants in competitive electricity markets. The reason is simple: nuclear power is uneconomical.

So say the anti nuclear people....

In an excellent recent analysis, “The Nuclear Illusion,” Amory B. Lovins and Imran Sheikh put the cost of electricity from a new nuclear power plant at 14¢ per kilowatt hour and that from a wind farm at 7¢ per kilowatt hour. This comparison includes the costs of fuel, capital, operations and maintenance, and transmission and distribution. It does not include the additional costs for nuclear of disposing of waste, insuring plants against an accident, and decommissioning the plants when they wear out. Given this huge gap, the so-called nuclear revival can succeed only by unloading these costs onto taxpayers. If all the costs of generating nuclear electricity are included in the price to consumers, nuclear power is dead in the water.

Old style power plants, why do they alwasy insist on using 1950 tecnology to show what nuclear power plants are capable of?

To get a sense of the costs of nuclear waste disposal, we need not look beyond the United States, which leads the world with 101,000 megawatts of nuclear-generating capacity (compared with 63,000 megawatts in second-ranked France). The United States proposes to store the radioactive waste from its 104 nuclear power reactors in the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, roughly 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada. The cost of this repository, originally estimated at $58 billion in 2001, climbed to $96 billion by 2008. This comes to a staggering $923 million per reactor—almost $1 billion each—assuming no further repository cost increases. (See data).

New technology that "burns" waste as fuel and results in a 100 fold decrease in the volume of waste as well as much shorter half lives seems to be beyond his keen?

In addition to being over budget, the repository is 19 years behind schedule. Originally slated to start accepting waste in 1998, it is now set to do so in 2017, assuming it clears all remaining hurdles. This leaves nuclear waste in storage in 121 temporary facilities in 39 states—sites that are vulnerable both to leakage and to terrorist attacks.

again new tecnology would use much of that waste as fuel, and decrese both it's volume and half life.

One of the risks of nuclear power is a catastrophic accident like the one at Chernobyl in Russia. The Price-Anderson Act, first enacted by Congress in 1957, shelters U.S. utilities with nuclear power plants from the cost of such an accident. Under the act, utilities are required to maintain private accident insurance of $300 million per reactor—the maximum the insurance industry will provide. In the event of a catastrophic accident, every nuclear utility would be required to contribute up to $95.8 million for each licensed reactor to a pool to help cover the accident’s cost.

Please, if a WW2 vintage airplane crashes do you use it as a ammo against air travel?

The collective cap on nuclear operator liability is $10.2 billion. This compares with an estimate by Sandia National Laboratory that a worst-case accident could cost $700 billion, a sum equal to the recent U.S. financial bailout. So anything above $10.2 billion would be covered by taxpayers.

More fear mongering, modern we maintained and operated plants have no potential to cause the Chernobyl syndrome.

Another huge cost of nuclear power involves decommissioning the plants when they wear out. A 2004 International Atomic Energy Agency report estimates the decommissioning cost per reactor at $250–500 million, excluding the cost of removing and disposing of the spent nuclear fuel. But recent estimates show that for some reactors, such as the U.K. Magnox reactors that have high decommissioning waste volumes, decommissioning costs can reach $1.8 billion per reactor.

After many decades of gerating many times that is energy I see this as less than a deal breaker.

In addition to the costs just cited, the industry must cope with rising construction and fuel expenses. Two years ago, building a 1,500-megawatt nuclear plant was estimated to cost $2–4 billion. As of late 2008, that figure had climbed past $7 billion, reflecting primarily the scarcity of essential engineering and construction skills in a fading industry.

Samller modern designs will not be as expensive and associated cost will go down due less waste and be offset by more energy recovered from the fuel.

Nuclear fuel costs have risen even more rapidly. At the beginning of this decade uranium cost roughly $10 per pound. Today it costs more than $60 per pound. The higher uranium price reflects the need to move to ever deeper mines, which increases the energy needed to extract the ore, and the shift to lower-grade ore. In the United States in the late 1950s, for example, uranium ore contained roughly 0.28 percent uranium oxide. By the 1990s, it had dropped to 0.09 percent. This means, of course, that the cost of mining larger quantities of ore, and that of getting it from deeper mines, ensures even higher future costs of nuclear fuel.

burning waste as fuel competly negates thess costs

Few nuclear power plants are being built in countries with competitive electricity markets. The reason is simple. Nuclear cannot compete with other electricity sources. This explains why nuclear plant construction is now concentrated in countries like Russia and China where nuclear development is state-controlled. The high cost of nuclear power also explains why so few plants are being built compared with a generation ago.

This is mostly because of the antinuclear crazies convincing every one they will grow twe heads if a power plant is built. competition is not the reason, and cola fired pants are far more dangerous but most people do now know this.

In an illuminating article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, nuclear consultant Mycle Schneider projects an imminent decline in world nuclear generating capacity. He notes there are currently 439 operating reactors worldwide. To date, 119 reactors have been closed, at an average age of 22 years. If we generously assume a much longer average lifespan of 40 years, then 93 reactors will close between 2008 and 2015. Another 192 will close between 2016 and 2025. And the remaining 154 will close after 2025.

New technology must replace the old, new tech is safer, more economical but antinuclear lies and exaggerations convince people not to replace them.

But only 36 nuclear reactors are currently under construction worldwide—31 of them in Eastern Europe and Asia. Although there is much talk of building new nuclear plants in the United States, there are none under construction.

Again mostly due to antinuclear nuts convincing people they will grow two heads if they allow these pants to be built.

What these numbers indicate, Schneider points out, is that plant closings will soon exceed plant openings—and by a widening margin in the years ahead. The trend is clear. From 2000 to 2005, an average of 4,000 megawatts of nuclear generating capacity was added each year. Since 2005, this has dropped to only 1,000 megawatts of additional capacity per year.
Even if all reactors scheduled to come online by 2015 make it, the projected closing of 93 nuclear reactors by then will drop nuclear power generation roughly 10 percent below the current level. Unless governments start routinely granting operating permits for reactors more than 40 years old, a half-century of growth in world nuclear generating capacity is about to be replaced by a long-term decline.

The antinuclear people are effective, the truth is never as sexy as lies and exaggerations.

Despite all the industry hype about a nuclear future, private investors are openly skeptical. In fact, while little private capital is going into nuclear power, investors are pouring tens of billions of dollars into wind farms each year. And while the world’s nuclear generating capacity is estimated to expand by only 1,000 megawatts this year, wind generating capacity will likely grow by 30,000 megawatts. In addition, solar cell installations and the construction of solar thermal and geothermal power plants are all growing by leaps and bounds.

yes mostly due to anti nuclear propaganda. these power plants are not suitable for everywhere and have their own problems.

The reason for this extraordinary gap between the construction of nuclear power plants and wind farms is simple: wind is much more attractive economically. Wind yields more energy, more jobs, and more carbon reduction per dollar invested than nuclear. Though nuclear power plants are still being built in some countries and governments are talking them up in others, the reality is that we are entering the age of wind, solar, and geothermal energy.

this is really not true, these power sources have problems of their own to suggest they are inherently superior is disingenuous to say the least.