Atomic Energy

[zasanya]

There is big debate going on in India regarding the desirability of generating electricity through nuclear reactors.One authoritative source has stated that while USA generates most of its electricity by conventional methods France generates 65 % of its electricity by way of nuclear reactors.

Can somebody suggest a link which gives the true picture about the desirability of generating electricity through nuclear reactors and the way developed nations meet their energy requirements?

[helene_t]

Oops, I wouldn't trust anyone who provided one link to the true picture of the desirability of something. This decision involves, even with completely reliable information available, a lot of subjective value weightings.

 

Anyway, I'm sure Gerben can help with some relevant links, he's the unofficial BBF expert on nuclear energy.

[matmat]

as far as I know there are several dangers when resorting to nuclear power.

1) if you don't take care of the power plant properly, it will cause a meltdown and a major environmental and human disaster

2) if you don't dispose of the waste properly, it will cause a long term environmental problem

3) if you don't play your cards right you are going to get invaded.

[mike777]

I am certainly against anything having to do with getting energy or power from atoms.

 

Just look how many have died directly or indirectly from wind, sun, or water or coal or oil related incidents over the centuries. That stuff kills people.

 

They all cause pollution of one sort or another. We need to find something that is safe, clean and not an eyesore that destroys our view. Of course if we all just stop using power or energy that would go a long way towards saving and restoring the Earth to its natural balance before it is too late.

[Codo]

As Helene statet there is no true picture about nuclear power.

Most people who write about it have their own goal: And mostly it is to praise our condemn nuclear power.

[Gerben42]

This is going to be a long story, but first let me state that I work for a company that is engaged in nuclear energy (AREVA NP). Even if I weren't, I think more people would support nuclear energy if they knew more about it.

 

With that out of the way, let me explain why this is my opinion. There is a natural fear in large parts of the population for that what they don't understand, and radioactivity is one of them. Things most people don't know:

 

* Radioactivity is a natural phenomenon. It is everywhere. Uranium and other radioactive materials are part of everything. Fpr example look in your kitchen. Does it have a working area made of natural granite? There's uranium in that. But don't worry, you won't get sick from cooking in your lovely granite kitchen.

 

* Nuclear power plants do not make the environment radioactive. If anything, COAL plants do. Why? Nuclear power plants have many layers upon layers upon layers that make sure that the radioactive materials stay INSIDE. And you don't need a lot of them either. Coal is radioactive too since it contains Carbon-14 (halflife of about 6000 years, useful for dating things). Not very much, but think of the wagonloads coming into a coal plant every day. That adds up to more than the nuclear power plant.

 

So what, you say. I'm still against nuclear power. What about accidents like Chernobyl?

 

Fossil fuel plants are bad for the environment, and bad for health. I wouldn't want to be the poor guy mining the coal. Many people die from the dust in their lungs. Mining coal is unhealthier than smoking. By a lot. In the "black triangle" border region between Czech Rep, Poland and Germany a whole region didn't have a healthy tree in it because of the air pollution from carbon. Whole coastal areas have been sterilized by oil dumping into the ocean. More environment has been destroyed by fossil fuels than nuclear energy ever will.

 

Besides, new plants are much (think orders of magnitude) safer than the Chernobyl plant. Plants in France and Germany have many safety features lacking in the old Russian design. And the newest generation under construction (first one in Finland, by AREVA) have even new features to comply with Finnish regulation that if there is a severe accident, no one needs to be even evacuated.

 

So what stands in the way of nuclear energy now? Clearly the waste. It is dangerous for thousands of years!

 

True, but the amount of it is limited, and I think there is still a need for better solutions than the current ones. But let's also think of the current sites that were okay (no water) and then opponents DUG A HOLE to the site to measure and surprise, now water can get in... Duh!

 

What about alternative energy?

 

That's part of the solution but it is impossible to be the whole solution. There is so much energy demand, and it is continuous. Wind energy is so unreliable that to have more than 5% wind energy means you run the risk of blackouts when there is no wind. Solar panels work only during daytime. You can't STORE the amounts of energy that are needed.

 

Nuclear energy must be part of a healthy energy mix for a country (unless perhaps you are Switzerland: small with lots of mountains --> hydro power!) and I find it troubling that the current German government is digging it's own grave energy-wise. They want to be good for the environment, yet they plan to build many new COAL plants. I hope none of them will be near my house.

 

In short, nuclear power gives you:

 

* Cheaper energy

* Clean and safe energy

* Political independence from Middle-Eastern oil and Russian gas

[Al_U_Card]

My list according to my personal preference (has to do mostly with benefit vs. risk)

 

Geothermal

Solar

Wind

Hydro

Nuclear

The rest are just too darn nasty to include.... :P

[Gerben42]

My list according to my personal preference (has to do mostly with benefit vs. risk)

Geothermal

Solar

Wind

Hydro

Nuclear

 

I'd like more of all of these :P

[matmat]

I'd like more of all of these :huh:

time to move to Iceland! :P

[Gerben42]

Great bridge too there :)

[mike777]

My list according to my personal preference  (has to do mostly with benefit vs. risk)

 

Geothermal

Solar

Wind

Hydro

Nuclear

The rest are just too darn nasty to include.... :)

Nice list and you have have them all now. Just pay for them, pay lots for them now! We could all have much more of them right now if "wanting" was that important. :) As usual we rather spend our limited money on other wants rather than geothermal or solar energy.

Once again money acts as an allocation of resources.

[P_Marlowe]

I have only one small issue with Gerbens words, and thats

the main reason, why peoble oppose nuclear energy:

 

If an accident happens, however unlikely that may be, if it

does happen, the result will be devastating, ... and it will

happen.

 

What I dont like about the discussion in Germany:

The industry wants to stop the shut down of reactors, claiming

that the technology improved (no disputes that), but usually the

discussion is about shuting down the old reactors, which may or

may not meet todays standards.

 

You can only improve the technology of an old reactor to a

certain point, because certain things need to be there from the

beginning, if they are not there, it wll be only patch work, and

understanding a system with lots of patches gets harder with

every patch who gets added.

 

With kind regards

Marlowe

 

PS: Someone listed the alternatives, but missed one important

resource - improve efficiency.

[matmat]

someone needs to solve the problem of cold fusion... shubi?

[P_Marlowe]

<snip>

Fossil fuel plants are bad for the environment, and bad for health. I wouldn't want to be the poor guy mining the coal. Many people die from the dust in their lungs. Mining coal is unhealthier than smoking. By a lot. In the "black triangle" border region between Czech Rep, Poland and Germany a whole region didn't have a healthy tree in it because of the air pollution from carbon. Whole coastal areas have been sterilized by oil dumping into the ocean. More environment has been destroyed by fossil fuels than nuclear energy ever will.

<snip>

As far as I know, the working conditions have improved in a

similar way as the safety of nuclear plants, ... no wait, let me

check the miners work under the same condition as 1900.

 

Of course we can talk about the working conditions in Africa,

or where ever, and maybe that children do the mining, in

some area.

And yes there is oil dumping, ... and of course the nuclear

industry exposes its waste compelety legal and have done so

since the plants exists.

 

With kind regards

Marlowe

 

PS: I am willing to listen and discuss the whole stuff, but lets

keep it fair. I am even willing to buy the argument with coal

being radioactive to a small degree because of Carbon-14,

although I am pretty sure, that the water you need for cooling

the reactor, wich gets after a while released to mother nature,

also has a slight increase of radioactivity.

[P_Marlowe]

someone needs to solve the problem of cold fusion... shubi?

cold fushion - may or may not solve the issue we have,

but it will have other problems assigned to it, which we

most likely dont know yet.

 

As a english saying goes: There is no such thing as a free

lunch, you always have to decide, which is the lesser evil.

[luke warm]

I am certainly against anything having to do with getting energy or power from atoms.

 

Just look how many have died directly or indirectly from wind, sun, or water or coal or oil related incidents over the centuries. That stuff kills people.

 

They all cause pollution of one sort or another. We need to find something that is safe, clean and not an eyesore that destroys our view. Of course if we all just stop using power or energy that would go a long way towards saving and restoring the Earth to its natural balance before it is too late.

:)

[helene_t]

If an accident happens, however unlikely that may be, if it

does happen, the result will be devastating, ... and it will

happen.

How do you know? Gerben said that the requirements for the Finish plant was that noone would have to be evacuated in the event of an accident.

 

Chernobyl was a disaster but that was because of several factors that do not apply to modern, Western nuclear plants

[DrTodd13]

Not all types of nuclear reactors are susceptible to meltdown. IIRC, there is at least one type (named something like "pebble"?) that is physically incapable of having a meltdown. You still have problems of long term radioactivity and you don't have the problem with getting nuclear energy if you already have the bomb. You can only not have nuclear energy if we don't like you and you don't have the bomb yet.

[joshs]

Having worked for years in the field of Quantitative Risk Analysis (a field that grew out of risk/safety modeling for the nuclear industry). I have lots to say about this subject, even though I never did an assessment of a nuclear plant (I worked mostly on terrorism risks and on NASA projects).

 

First of all, I basically agree with Gerben in that:

a. In terms of operational/safety risk at nuclear plants, these are well understood after decades of research and modeling, and substantial improvements have been made which makes serious accidents into very rare events. Since I have not worked on nuclear plants, I am not certain of the exact order of magnitude of "rare" here, but I trust that its really quite low. The harmful enviromental effects of using Oil and Coal, on the other hand, are also quite serious, and are much more likely. The big difference is that the effects occur over years, rather then all at once, which seems to effect peoples perceptions of the relative risks. Solar, Wind, etc carry much less risk, but are nowhere near ready to satisfy anything close to our current energy demand. I do think they have serious potential, and much more R&D funding is required...

 

b. The main current hangup is disposal (and transport to the disposal site) and the associated risks. I think Gerben understated these risks somewhat, but I do think they are managable. In addition to making storage tanks that can last 10,000 years, there are issues with exposure of underground water to high energy particle emissions, since underground water can travel a great distance without significant dilution. I still think we have not really solved these problems completely, but we are far enough along to store waste for the short term (100 years) while improving our ability to store it for the long hawl. Avoiding a traffic accident on the way to the dump, on the other hand....

 

c. The issue Gerber didn't mention is terrorism. While Nuclear plants (and waste disposal sites, and waste transport vehicles) have many many safety precausions that prevent serious accidents, its really hard to protect ourselves from "delibrate accidents" so its best if we can control the consequences of such an accident. And the consequences here can be quite serious.

 

Having said that, other types of facilities are also at risk of a terrorist attack. For instance see my Op-Ed piece about Chemical Plants I wrote a few years ago:

http://hungryblues.net/2005/02/19/bad-chemistry/

 

All in all, I think Nuclear is a much better alternative to Coal and Oil but there are still some issues...

[Gerben42]

If an accident happens, however unlikely that may be, if it

does happen, the result will be devastating, ... and it will

happen.

 

FYI, this is no longer true for the new generation of plants (3rd generation) like the EPR. Also the size of the Chernobyl accident is much larger than what would happen when a major accident happens in a French / German plant.

 

Chernobyl was an accident waiting to happen.

 

c. The issue Gerber didn't mention is terrorism. While Nuclear plants (and waste disposal sites, and waste transport vehicles) have many many safety precausions that prevent serious accidents, its really hard to protect ourselves from "delibrate accidents" so its best if we can control the consequences of such an accident. And the consequences here can be quite serious.

 

Just like the people in charge of most potentially dangerous things, screening the personnel of a power plant is very important.

 

About outside attacks, modern plants are secured against an airplane crash.

 

b. The main current hangup is disposal (and transport to the disposal site) and the associated risks. I think Gerben understated these risks somewhat, but I do think they are managable. In addition to making storage tanks that can last 10,000 years, there are issues with exposure of underground water to high energy particle emissions, since underground water can travel a great distance without significant dilution. I still think we have not really solved these problems completely, but we are far enough along to store waste for the short term (100 years) while improving our ability to store it for the long hawl. Avoiding a traffic accident on the way to the dump, on the other hand....

 

This is about what I wanted to say on this.

 

Since I have not worked on nuclear plants, I am not certain of the exact order of magnitude of "rare" here, but I trust that its really quite low.

 

As I am working in the risk assessment field I know these figures but I cannot disclose details about any particular plant. Let me just say that for a French / German plant a figure of 10^-6 / year for a severe accident would be bad.

[P_Marlowe]

If an accident happens, however unlikely that may be, if it

does happen, the result will be devastating, ... and it will

happen.

How do you know? Gerben said that the requirements for the Finish plant was that noone would have to be evacuated in the event of an accident.

 

Chernobyl was a disaster but that was because of several factors that do not apply to modern, Western nuclear plants

Simply put: Human make errors, and you

cant prevent Humans from making errors.

And if you think that the Chernobyl disaster

cant reoccur, you are simply wrong, it will

happen again, for what ever reason.

And afterwards everyone will say, nobody

thought that 1), 2), 3) and ... could happen

together.

 

Any strategy to create systems, which make

technology more error friendly, and the error

friendlines of systems improved a lot (I am

not disputing this) are still strategies developed

by humans.

 

We may be forced to use Nuclear energy, because

of a lack of alternatives, but we should try hard

to avoid using this technology.

 

With kind regards

Marlowe

[mike777]

I agree 100%. Some disaster will occur that equals Chernobl.

1) How many died in Chernobl?

2) As of what date?

3) See disaster that that happend after date, and killed more!

 

 

So what is your point??????????????

 

I predict 100% that more will die in a disaster than Chnernobl.

 

 

You heard it here first!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

[hotShot]

Lets take a look at the space shuttle program:

 

Everybody involved in panning, building and maintaining a space shuttle, knows that any error or material weakness will cause the death of the shuttle crew. They have the highest quality controls and everything is checked more than once.

All this was not good enough to prevent 2 disasters in 116 shuttle missions.

 

 

Remember this plain crash?

One of the safest airplanes existing crashed, because the pilot allowed his children to visit him in cockpit during flight.

 

During the disaster in the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl the safety system did not fail. The engineering crew switched off all security systems to test a new idea for a safety system. They thought they could handle it. This could have happened anywhere in the world, it's human nature and no technical issue.

 

All this shows that humans are incapable of running a technical system over a longer period of time, without loosing their concentration and without making errors.

 

 

Nuclear energy is cheap on paper, because the costs for securing radioactive waste for the next 10000 to 100000 years are set to 0. But this is a period of time that is long enough for geological changes to happen. And you won't be able to hold anyone to account if anything happens in 15000 years.

 

I think that the maintenance and safety of a chemistry plant is comparable to that of a nuclear power plant. Maintenance and safety reduce profit and I guess you remember the Bhopal disaster. I would not trust profit organizations very much in this area.

[mike777]

"I would not trust profit organizations very much in this area."

 

 

 

Fair enough...how many died under nonprofit or some gov org in this area?

What is a gov org?

 

 

Egypt?

Greece

Rome?

etc etc etc?

[helene_t]

Suppose an airplane crash or a terrorist attack, or a tornado, hit the ashes deposits from a coal-powered plant close to a major city. Thousands of tons of nasty carcinogenic particles plus tons of toxic heavy metals spread in the air and polluting nearby drinking water reservoirs. Or think of the movie "Kuwait in flames".

 

Those horror scenarios may be silly, but are they more silly than movies like "the China syndrome"?