Atomic Energy

[Codo]

I really thougth that the majority of people are opposite nuclear power, so I am quite surprised about the postings so far.

 

I am not in a position to judge whether NP is good or bad, but I have some notes:

 

1. The nuclear plants are still not 100 % sure. Just a month ago we had a fire in our local plant in the control post. This was not dangerous in case of a meltdown or freeing radioactifity, but before it happen they say: "This could not happen."

So I believe that there are still risks which even Gerben do not know.

 

2. A meltdown is not the only possible risk. Radioactivity in the water or in the air is an issue.

 

3. At least for me it is far from clear whether or not nuclear power is a cheap energy. I have seen no convincing invoice which includes all the possible costs for the buildings, the problem and costs with the waste for more then 100.000 years and the risks of a significant breakdown. But the overall costs are hardly well researched for oil and coal either.

 

4. Some nuclear plants are able and used to produce of material you need for nuclear bombs. With less of this stuff produced the risk of using it is getting lower.

 

 

5. I had never expect that an terroist had been able to fly a Boeing 747 into a building. But if they had been able to do this, why shouldn´t they be able to create a disaster with a nuclear plant? (maybe and hopefully this is impossible, but I am not sure about it)

 

6. To hold onto high standards like they have in in France German and Finland costs money. If you bring NP to poorer countries they will have a different view what is necessary for their safety. This happened in Chernobyl and worlwide.

 

7. The conclusion from point 4 to 6 is, that possibilities to abuse nuclear plants are much higher then when you use other possibilities. In a stable enviroment, this may be no problem, but I would not gurantee a stable society for the next 50 years. Can you?

 

8. If the risk of a major disaster is something in the area of 10.000.000 to 1, it can (and will) happen. It is like playing lottery. The chance "to win"is reomote, but if this case does happen, the consequences are enormous.

 

9. I believe that we cannot hold our today standards of using energy with solar, hydro, wind and other "nice" energies. But maybe we can have enough energy out of this mix and still have a more then nice life. Espacially as it is possible to "earn" energy from regrowing cultures.

 

Anyway, despite these points I still belive that the pain and costs which exist while living from oil and coal are much higher, so I can still life with nuclear power.

[helene_t]

I really thougth that the majority of people are opposite nuclear power, so I am quite surprised about the postings so far.

The proportion of people who have college-level science education is probably higher among BBF posters than in the general population of any country. Scientists and engineers are relatively likely to support nuclear energy.

[Gerben42]

1. The nuclear plants are still not 100 % sure. Just a month ago we had a fire in our local plant in the control post. This was not dangerous in case of a meltdown or freeing radioactifity, but before it happen they say: "This could not happen."

So I believe that there are still risks which even Gerben do not know.

 

You can claim misinformation here. My work is to do "probabilistic safety analysis" and I could probably find you the path in the event tree that actually happen, complete with estimated frequency.

 

What happened was a relatively severe error which meant that the reactor had to stop running for the moment, but the safety net worked as it was designed to do, but... it happened only a few days before an important energy meeting "Energiegipfel" and Vattenfall wanted to keep the information away from those involved because it would make them look bad at the meeting. That's why what started with a transformator fire (which happens sometimes in ALL kinds of power plants) suddenly became a big story.

 

2. A meltdown is not the only possible risk. Radioactivity in the water or in the air is an issue.

 

Only if there is a meltdown. Otherwise, no. Unless you live near a coal plant, but then pollution is a bigger issue anyway.

 

3. At least for me it is far from clear whether or not nuclear power is a cheap energy. I have seen no convincing invoice which includes all the possible costs for the buildings, the problem and costs with the waste for more then 100.000 years and the risks of a significant breakdown. But the overall costs are hardly well researched for oil and coal either.

 

For the plant operators running a nuclear power plant is like printing money. Unfortunately studies have shown that prices will stay high anyway for the consumers... But you don't pollute the air or produce CO2 with nuclear power.

 

4. Some nuclear plants are able and used to produce of material you need for nuclear bombs. With less of this stuff produced the risk of using it is getting lower.

 

Even with most of them destroyed, the US and Russia still have so many nuclear weapons to destroy all civilization 10 times over. I wouldn't be worried about Iran having nuclear power. I would be worried about terrorist organization getting hold of one of these already-finished bombs. This risk is huge in comparison to that of power plants.

 

Edit Due to connection problems this post was cut off

[hrothgar]

Sorry to be so late to the conversation. Its been a hectic week at work.

 

My position is probably best described as a pro-nuclear energy green.

 

1. I am very concerned about the various externalities associated with power production.

 

2. From what I can tell, the environment impact associated with fossil fuel plants are a hell of a lot worse than the impact of nuke plants.

 

(The obvious problems with nuke plants is that many of the risks are localized while the costs from coal plants are distributed across millions of folks which makes it much easier to lobby against nuke plants). Unfortunately, many of the fundamental tradeoffs in evaluating the different systems require estimating the frequency of a black swan event, which is never a fun thing.

 

Long term, I have high hopes for some combination of solar thermal and wind. (I have some friends who are managing some big private equity accounts. I've been trying to get them to consider developing investment instruments based on a right of first refusal or an option on Wind Power or Solar power generation on different patches of real estate. I think that these would make some really interesting financial instruments)

 

Regardless, from what I understand, widespread nuclear power generation will be limited by "peak uranium" long before any significaqtncapacity can be brought online. Speaking of which, I heard claims that we may have hit peak oil this year)

[Al_U_Card]

When things impact your person and your loved ones, they get a lot more serious.

 

Three Mile Island occurred when I was on a golfing junket in North Carolina.

 

We took a big detour to go west of the site on our way back up north to stay out of any radiation release zone.

 

Our second child (and closest that I ever got to having a daughter) was stillborn at 5 months gestation in 1981. I read some years later that 3MI was responsible for an increase in incidents of birth defects and pregancy terminations in the St. Lawrence river valley where we lived in Montreal.

 

People die every day. When it is people that I love, maybe it shouldn't make a difference, but it does. When that death is premature and might have been preventable, that makes it all the more tragic.

[Gerben42]

5. I had never expect that an terroist had been able to fly a Boeing 747 into a building. But if they had been able to do this, why shouldn´t they be able to create a disaster with a nuclear plant? (maybe and hopefully this is impossible, but I am not sure about it)

 

You cannot breach the containment of a nuclear power plant with a Boeing 747. You can knock down one of the auxiliary buildings but there is another one of those on the other side. If you try hard enough you could break anything, I guess.

 

6. To hold onto high standards like they have in in France German and Finland costs money. If you bring NP to poorer countries they will have a different view what is necessary for their safety. This happened in Chernobyl and worlwide.

 

I notice even in everyday work that cutting cost as a tradeoff to security is NOT an option where I work.

 

7. The conclusion from point 4 to 6 is, that possibilities to abuse nuclear plants are much higher then when you use other possibilities. In a stable enviroment, this may be no problem, but I would not gurantee a stable society for the next 50 years. Can you?

 

If that is the case, we have bigger problems. All the military might of the Soviet Union when the country broke up was suddenly in the hands of... who? Much more dangerous.

 

8. If the risk of a major disaster is something in the area of 10.000.000 to 1, it can (and will) happen. It is like playing lottery. The chance "to win"is reomote, but if this case does happen, the consequences are enormous.

 

Not like a 2nd Chernobyl for a modern "generation II" plant. For the new generation III plants (EPR now under construction in Finland), not even evacuation will be needed in case of a major accident.

[jkljkl]

For the plant operators running a nuclear power plant is like printing money.

 

and we all experience several times a year that the operators of nuclear plants will lie with no end to us regarding security accidents. One thing will never change amongst us "Money First". Do I want to put my security in their hands? You bet not.

 

Let's have a look direction France. Hey there coworkers of atomic plants commit suicide due of pressure regarding cost cuts even in security matters. Do I want to put my security in their hands? You bet not.

 

To not talk about such blessings as having nuclear threats as a good excuse to make war. What a blessing the cutting of our civil rights due of a possible dirty bomb.

 

I turely belive that we would be better off if we would leave Uranium & Co under the earth.

 

ciao stefan

[Wackojack]

Accepting all that previous points in Gerben's post particularly about safety and the neccessity to have a "mix" of electricity generation, I would still like to comment on the summary below.

In short, nuclear power gives you:

 

* Cheaper energy

* Clean and safe energy

* Political independence from Middle-Eastern oil and Russian gas

 

Cheaper Energy:

 

Yes operator nuclear stations are cheap operate because the uranium fuel cost is low compared with fossil fuel. Yet the power companies in UK seem very reluctant to build new nuclear stations. As I understand it this because they are much more expensive and take longer to build than conventional fossil fuel stations and decomissioning costs at the end of their life are enormous. (The cost of the clean-up) Commercially they take much longer to pay back. So they won't get built unless government provides some inducement.

 

Clean and safe energy:

 

In UK as in other parts of the world, nuclear stations are sited away from centres of population, mostly in quite remote areas. Yet gas fired stations are now sited right in the middle of cities and coal stations not far away. In London right in the centre we had Bankside until the late 80's, an oil fired station which at the end of its life was turned into "Tate Modern". And we have dear old "Battersea Power Station" they do not know what to do with. Build a nuclear station on the old site? Outrageous! They built Didcot a 2 Gigawatt coal fired power station near Oxford in the 1970's nowhere near any coal field. If nuclear power was considered to be safe by the GEGB (the public ownership national generating authority at the time) why not nuclear there. Not far from Harwell the government nuclear weapons research unit. Was it public acceptance or was risk management the reason that Didcot wasn't nuclear?

 

Another anxiety is that 30 years ago we were having exactly the same discussions about how to deal with radioactive waste as we are having now. I do not detect any progress whatsoever.

 

 

Political independence from Middle-Eastern oil and Russian gas:

 

Yes a mix of nuclear, fossil and renewables must be right with a phasing out of fossil and perhaps building cleaner (less carbon emmissions) fossil stations. Wind power incidentally does not have to be just for electricity generation. It could be used to manufacture hydrogen to replace gasoline as the fuel for transport.

[helene_t]

cleaner (less carbon emissions) fossil stations.

But the scope for reducing CO2 emissions from fossil fuel is limited. One mol of coal produces one mol of CO2 and the amount of energy you can squeeze out of it is limited by it's per-mol free energy. Some talk about CO2 sequestering. Sounds like science fiction to me but what do I know.

 

As for the fact that nuclear plants are not placed in the center of cities, obviously there are some policymakers who disagree with Gerben's assessments or some politicians who fear that their voters might, but they don't have to be right. Personally I would rather have a nuclear plant than a conventional power plant in my backyard but I'm sure many people feel different about it.

 

The public's attitude to risk can be extremely irrational. Alcohol and tobacco were part of our culture long before we grew up to be concerned about our health, so people consider it normal that those substances kill hundred of thousands of people, while LSD and magic mushrooms are relatively new, so whenever a single person or two are killed by those, people start crying for stronger enforcement of the ban on them. Same goes for airplane accidents compared to car accidents, and mad cow disease versus colon cancer. And also old-fashioned air pollution versus the marginal (if not non-existent) risk of a nuclear melt-down.

[Codo]

Hi Gerben,

you really work for a company wich builds nuclear plants.

 

1. Vattenfall et al did lie before and they will do it again. Why should I trust them if they give me any "facts" about the safety? They are liars. Proofen liars.

 

2. There is really no complex technology which works without problems. We have problems in ships, cars, planes, starships, buildings, mines, any kind of industry, really anywhere. There is simple no way that this will be different in nuclear plants.

We make really big efforts to make the industry safe. But there are still accidents- anywhere and in each technology. Everybody believes that his special pet is different. But it is not. Machines make mistakes, men make mistakes.

 

3. There can be water polution without a meltdown. You just need (more then one) leckages.

 

4. We do have problems with nuclear material already which came into the black market after the end of the USSR. But these problems will get worse if we have plutonium from other states too. That we have a problem allready is no excusion to make it bigger.

 

5. I doubt that someone will use a B747 to crash it into a NP. What about working there or just start a millitary attack? As I said before, I don´t know if it is still possible to produce a meltdown by pure will from the runners, but if it is, this is a real danger. What about using shelter crushers?

 

6. If your safety standards are not cut down due to reducing costs, I believe you. After all you work in Germany. But I don´t believe that this is true anywhere and anywhen.

We really pay a lot for our safety. But this is not standard all over the world. And maybe we will decide in some dacdes that our standards are too expensive too.

 

7. I agree that EPR plants are much safer then normal plants, but they are just safe when in the case of trouble there troubleshooting system works. Just in case that you are able to get the melting uranium in the freezing area (sorry for this horrible translation), no meltdown will happen. But nobody knows whether this will always and everywhere work. At Chernobyl they thought that they can handle everything too. They erred. Men often err, even engineers.

 

8. That the runners of a nuclear plant do earn a lot of money is nice for them (and bad for us) but one reason for this is that they do not pay all the costs we have because of the nuclear plant. We had political descissions where the state paid at least a part of some plants. And as nobody knows how expensive the keeping of the waste will be for the next 100.000 years, nobody sends an invoice about this to them.

I

[mike777]

You guys keep limiting the discussion to power plants but what about, machines that run on some combination of nukes and supercomputers and travel our world or solar system. :)

 

They exist now and we will only make more of them in the next 40 years, more movable machines with nuke power and super smart computers. :P

 

I think you guys are discussing and solving the Last War(3 mile island, cherynobl) not the near future.

 

What about future nanobots that move on solar(nuke) power? I think we need to worry about the near future nuke problems not last centuries. :)

[keylime]

I am an advocate for nuclear energy, and Gerben's cogent and well-articulated argument has reaffirmed the rationale that nuclear energy if properly designed will be a viable alternative.

 

Coal, even with the cleaner technologies that are in existence to date, is at best, an 100 year old solution for the United States.

 

It is understandable the apprehension about accidents and such with regards to nuclear. However, I'd happily take that small risk and exchange it for less acid rain, less CO2, H2S04, and many heavy metals. In addition, it would lessen our energy dependence on Canada and would aid in building some redundancy into the electrical grid.

 

Another area to consider too, is the fact that nuclear energy would substitute for the need to build numerous refineries to process oil, the last one of these built in the U.S. being in 1976 in Garyville, LA for Marathon (there's been expansions of older ones, but this is the newest one). Due to incredible environmental pressure, we now owe the pleasure of paying nearing three bucks a gallon in fuel (that, and the over 130 different formulations of fuel in the U.S. for clean air purposes).

[Al_U_Card]

There was a good article in Scientific American not long ago about the costs ($ and enviro etc.) of creating and dealing with nuclear (or new-cue-lar as W likes to imagine it is pronounced) energy. Decommissioning costs, when done properly, are quite prohibitive. The problem is that often the builders or exploiters reap the profits while the tax payer gets the hit for the clean-up.

[mike777]

There was a good article in Scientific American not long ago about the costs ($ and enviro etc.) of creating and dealing with nuclear (or new-cue-lar as W likes to imagine it is pronounced) energy.  Decommissioning costs, when done properly, are quite prohibitive.  The problem is that often the builders or exploiters reap the profits while the tax payer gets the hit for the clean-up.

thank goodness only the taxpayer takes the hit.

 

Soon if you count every child and adult in America less than 50% may end up paying taxes......

We can only hope that soon less than 50% of the voters will pay taxes so we who do not pay can really sock it to them that do.

[matmat]

Soon if you count every child and adult in America less than 50% may end up paying taxes......

We can only hope that soon less than 50% of the voters will pay taxes so we who do not pay can really sock it to them that do.

that is a totally different issue... a big issue, but totally different.

[mike777]

It seems most posters are just focusing on the few square blocks of the power plant and the possible pollution. But there is much more to the big picture of how much pollution this plant will cause directly or indirectly.

 

People who build the plant will simple create pollution in the whole building process. People who run the plant will continue to create pollution in simple going to work and maintaining the plant.

Power lines will create pollution of one sort or another as they spread out from the building and the need to maintain them.

Of course these plants produce what, power, and that power will flow to homes, cars, company plants etc that create even more pollution of one sort or another.

 

Broadly speaking it is one giant multiplier of pollution in one form or another.

 

Power plants have a multipying effect on the environment. It is not limited to a few square blocks. :)

[helene_t]

People who run the plant will continue to create pollution in simple going to work and maintaining the plant.

Power lines will create pollution of one sort or another as they spread out from the building and the need to maintain them.

Of course these plants produce what, power, and that power will flow to homes, cars, company plants etc that create even more pollution of one sort or another.

True, but this applies to the alternatives as well so it's not obvious how, if at all, it should affect the choice of nuclear power versus <whatever alternative>. Production and maintenance of windmills pollute as well, Heck, even if the alternative is to use less power, the labor and capital now used to produce power would probably be allocated to other activities which may pollute as well.

 

I recently read an article about the nett effects of the Dutch electricity companies' efforts to make people use less electricity. It was argued that people spend the money saved on electricity on things that are just as bad for the environment such as plane tickets and tropical wood products.

 

I wonder if one should try to factor in all those multiplier effects etc. or just use the first approximation of ignoring them and look at direct effects only. Obviously there is a risk of factoring in multiplier effects for some alternatives and not for others, which would lead to biased comparisons.

 

This sounds like a tricky econometrical problem. Maybe Gnome can say something about it?

[mike777]

People who run the plant will continue to create pollution in simple going to work and maintaining the plant.

Power lines will create pollution of one sort or another as they spread out from the building and the need to maintain them.

Of course these plants produce what, power, and that power will flow to homes, cars,  company plants etc that create even more pollution of one sort or another.

True, but this applies to the alternatives as well so it's not obvious how, if at all, it should affect the choice of nuclear power versus <whatever alternative>. Production and maintenance of windmills pollute as well, Heck, even if the alternative is to use less power, the labor and capital now used to produce power would probably be allocated to other activities which may pollute as well.

 

I recently read an article about the nett effects of the Dutch electricity companies' efforts to make people use less electricity. It was argued that people spend the money saved on electricity on things that are just as bad for the environment such as plane tickets and tropical wood products.

 

I wonder if one should try to factor in all those multiplier effects etc. or just use the first approximation of ignoring them and look at direct effects only. Obviously there is a risk of factoring in multiplier effects for some alternatives and not for others, which would lead to biased comparisons.

 

This sounds like a tricky econometrical problem. Maybe Gnome can say something about it?

OF course this ignores the alternative of not having a power plant.

 

Good points brought up by the article you cite.

People do seem to want to pollute in one form or another no matter what the government tries to do or how we say we want a green planet.

 

In any event I do think growing the middle class will be a good and green thing to do in the long run. I do not think we will kill the planet off just make Greenland a warm vacation spot at worse. B)

[hrothgar]

People who run the plant will continue to create pollution in simple going to work and maintaining the plant.

Power lines will create pollution of one sort or another as they spread out from the building and the need to maintain them.

Of course these plants produce what, power, and that power will flow to homes, cars,  company plants etc that create even more pollution of one sort or another.

True, but this applies to the alternatives as well so it's not obvious how, if at all, it should affect the choice of nuclear power versus <whatever alternative>. Production and maintenance of windmills pollute as well, Heck, even if the alternative is to use less power, the labor and capital now used to produce power would probably be allocated to other activities which may pollute as well.

 

I recently read an article about the nett effects of the Dutch electricity companies' efforts to make people use less electricity. It was argued that people spend the money saved on electricity on things that are just as bad for the environment such as plane tickets and tropical wood products.

 

I wonder if one should try to factor in all those multiplier effects etc. or just use the first approximation of ignoring them and look at direct effects only. Obviously there is a risk of factoring in multiplier effects for some alternatives and not for others, which would lead to biased comparisons.

 

This sounds like a tricky econometrical problem. Maybe Gnome can say something about it?

The basic concept of an "externalities" is in no way, shape, or form complicated.

 

If a production process imposes an external cost, you tax the sale of the product appropriately. If a production process creates an external benefit, you subsidize the product. (Of course, implementing this type of scheme requires the ability to know how to price the tax or subsidy)

 

There are some alternative suggestions: (For example, Coase claims that so long as there are zero transaction costs, externalities will be eliminated by the market).

 

At the end of the day, the major problem typically boils down to the distribution of costs and benefits. The costs from pollution are thinly distributed across a large number of people. The benefits are reaped by a few who are much more willing to organize and ensure that they continue to piss all over the rest of us. In the worse case scenarios, the costs are actually passed down to the next generation.

 

This isn't an economics problem. Its political science.

[helene_t]

Agree, Richard. But many people persist in seeing these things as economic decisions. Stalin still rules in most of the World (only to some extent, thankfully)

[mike777]

While it is interesting to discuss the "best" way to create energy, perhaps more attention could be given on how to store electricity. This seems to be a more important question.

[hrothgar]

Energy storage is a fairly interesting topic. Its also incredibly broad:

 

Large "pump storage" systems are extremely efficient. Unfortunately, they're really not that practical for laptop computers or cell phones.

 

A couple years back, I spent a month or so running numbers trying to see whether or not it would be practical to install flywheels in houses as a storage system. (All the new work on electric and hybrid cars is going to have a big impact on flywheel prices) The idea was the following:

 

1. The electric grid in the US is moving towards load based pricing. If you want power at 5:30 in the afternoon when everyone has come home from work and is running their electric stove and air conditioner, its going to cost you a lot more than the same amount of power at 3:00 in the morning.

 

2. In theory, I could install a flywheel in my basement. Spin this up using "cheap" power in the wee hours of the morning and draw down the flywheel during those hours when power is expensive.

 

3. Better yet, this concept could be extended if the flywheels where smart enough to communicate with one another. In theory, if I was managing a set of 100K flywheels, I could negotiate with the power company for additional discounts. (The flywheel system would be valuable for load balancing. Furthermore, its better for everyone if the flywheels agree that they won't all spin up at precisely the same time)

 

Unfortunately, the numbers didn't work out. The manufacturing costs didn't look to be all that bad, however, retrofitting this type of technology into an existing house looked to be prohibitively expensive. I do think that it might make sense to try something similar on a grand scale. If I were building a new condo complex or an office park, I might look into ways to arbitrage the electric company. (I also think that there are small scale opportunities for folks who are running their own solar or wind powered systems)

[jkljkl]

Energy storage is a fairly interesting topic. [snip]

A couple years back, I spent a month or so running numbers trying to see whether or not it would be practical to install flywheels in houses as a storage system.

There are already scenarios for the day that we have many vehicles powered by electric energy. The electrical companies would not only recharge your batteries but also pull energy out of them to a certain degree in peak times.

 

Another topic regarding atomic energy that I find interesting, is the role of de facto electrical monoplies intersted in huge centralized facilities opposed to decentralized combined heat and power plants.

 

ciao stefan

[mike777]

Energy storage is a fairly interesting topic. [snip]

A couple years back, I spent a month or so running numbers trying to see whether or not it would be practical to install flywheels in houses as a storage system.

There are already scenarios for the day that we have many vehicles powered by electric energy. The electrical companies would not only recharge your batteries but also pull energy out of them to a certain degree in peak times.

 

Another topic regarding atomic energy that I find interesting, is the role of de facto electrical monoplies intersted in huge centralized facilities opposed to decentralized combined heat and power plants.

 

ciao stefan

i have no idea what this post means.

 

 

1) de facto monopolies? what is a de facto monoply compared to a facto or other monopopy....

in other words...you just seem to run random words together with no real meaning

2) how do they pull electricity....no in other words how do they store electicity and then pull it?

3) what is centralized electricity compared to noncenralized electricity....in other words how are you storing it?

[helene_t]

All this fuz about hydrogen fuel is exactly that - hydrogen used a an electricity storage medium.