Nuclear vs Fossil Fuel

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Part of the reason for posting that was to illustrate the continuing, very real risks from hot particles in large areas of Japan. Sure, nobody died as a result of the failures of Fukushima. Immediately...

Which is admittedly kind of impressive given the level of failures suffered. But to use that as some sort of justification of solid fuel nuclear technology when it's going to render uninhabitable that much of a country for a considerable number of years and is almost certain to cause cancers and wreck the land-based food chain for an indeterminate amount of time. The consequences are far from trivial.



Regarding the wisdom of generator siting the Wiki gives some insight:
The reactor's emergency diesel generators and DC batteries, crucial components in powering the reactors' cooling systems in the event of a power loss, were located in the basements of the reactor turbine buildings. The reactor design plans provided by General Electric specified placing the generators and batteries in that location, but mid-level engineers working on the construction of the plant were concerned that this made the back up power systems vulnerable to flooding. TEPCO elected to strictly follow General Electric's design in the construction of the reactors.[60]


In the late 1990s to comply with new regulatory requirements, three additional backup generators for reactors Nos. 2 and 4 were placed in new buildings located higher on the hillside. All six reactors were given access to these generators, however the switching stations that sent power from these backup generators to the reactors' cooling systems for Units 1 through 5 were still in the poorly protected turbine buildings. All three of the generators added in the late 1990s were operational after the tsunami. If the switching stations had been moved to inside the reactor buildings or to other flood-proof locations, power would have been provided by these generators to the reactors' cooling systems.[77http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster#cite_note-76
 

FRE

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Part of the reason for posting that was to illustrate the continuing, very real risks from hot particles in large areas of Japan. Sure, nobody died as a result of the failures of Fukushima. Immediately...

Which is admittedly kind of impressive given the level of failures suffered. But to use that as some sort of justification of solid fuel nuclear technology when it's going to render uninhabitable that much of a country for a considerable number of years and is almost certain to cause cancers and wreck the land-based food chain for an indeterminate amount of time. The consequences are far from trivial.



Regarding the wisdom of generator siting the Wiki gives some insight:
The reactor's emergency diesel generators and DC batteries, crucial components in powering the reactors' cooling systems in the event of a power loss, were located in the basements of the reactor turbine buildings. The reactor design plans provided by General Electric specified placing the generators and batteries in that location, but mid-level engineers working on the construction of the plant were concerned that this made the back up power systems vulnerable to flooding. TEPCO elected to strictly follow General Electric's design in the construction of the reactors.[60]


In the late 1990s to comply with new regulatory requirements, three additional backup generators for reactors Nos. 2 and 4 were placed in new buildings located higher on the hillside. All six reactors were given access to these generators, however the switching stations that sent power from these backup generators to the reactors' cooling systems for Units 1 through 5 were still in the poorly protected turbine buildings. All three of the generators added in the late 1990s were operational after the tsunami. If the switching stations had been moved to inside the reactor buildings or to other flood-proof locations, power would have been provided by these generators to the reactors' cooling systems.[77http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster#cite_note-76

Another thing being considered, at least elsewhere, is using a small steam turbine to operate emergency cooling pumps. When a reactor is shut down, for a while it continues to generate about 6% as much heat as when it was operating, the reason being that the highly radioactive materials in the fuel rods continue generating heat until they decay. That is sufficient heat to generate adequate steam to power emergency cooling pumps. That might be safer than depending on emergency Diesel generators.
 

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Another thing being considered, at least elsewhere, is using a small steam turbine to operate emergency cooling pumps. When a reactor is shut down, for a while it continues to generate about 6% as much heat as when it was operating, the reason being that the highly radioactive materials in the fuel rods continue generating heat until they decay. That is sufficient heat to generate adequate steam to power emergency cooling pumps. That might be safer than depending on emergency Diesel generators.

Yep, that sounds very sensible - providing the water is still around to provide cooling and the power can get to the pumps.

The SCRAM feature worked just fine in Japan but dealing with the 6% latent heat was the problem.
 

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The new Westinghouse design is supposed to have passive emergency cooling, which should be an improvement, but it hasn't yet been approved for operation in the U.S. It has, above the reactor, water tanks for emergency cooling and, because of that, I'd be concerned about whether horizontal shaking in an earthquake could cause problems with the tanks. Also, I don't know for how long the emergency cooling would be effective.

If there were no choice but to use pressurized water thermal reactors, I'd be in favor of continuing to use them but designing them to be safer. But with LFTR technology potentially available, I think that current reactor designs should be phased out.
 

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Nuclear waste is the problem I have.:biggrin1:

one word..."reprocessing", United States I believe ended its fuel reprocessing based on the factors of consumption and proliferation.

Summary, consumption side makes uranium mining profitable and on the proliferation were where highly dangerous key elements is plutonium is hard to detect and easy to handle.

the other minor waste like irradiated liquid coolants and material can be vitrificated and stored on secured sites.
 

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The new Westinghouse design is supposed to have passive emergency cooling, which should be an improvement, but it hasn't yet been approved for operation in the U.S. It has, above the reactor, water tanks for emergency cooling and, because of that, I'd be concerned about whether horizontal shaking in an earthquake could cause problems with the tanks. Also, I don't know for how long the emergency cooling would be effective.

If there were no choice but to use pressurized water thermal reactors, I'd be in favor of continuing to use them but designing them to be safer. But with LFTR technology potentially available, I think that current reactor designs should be phased out.

I agree on that, We should go for new design like Generation IV reactors
 

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Yep, that sounds very sensible - providing the water is still around to provide cooling and the power can get to the pumps.
The SCRAM feature worked just fine in Japan but dealing with the 6% latent heat was the problem.
They had steam powered pumps....they didnt have electricity for control systems. Last time I checked the story they had a basement which contained all the critical systems....which flooded. It seems likely the company understood there was a risk because it already had a program to deal with it. It had also been resisting making improvements virtually since the reactors were originally built, and a history year on year of discovering new issues which required retrofitting new safety equipment. A history of denial of issues and delay.
 

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They had steam powered pumps....they didnt have electricity for control systems. Last time I checked the story they had a basement which contained all the critical systems....which flooded. It seems likely the company understood there was a risk because it already had a program to deal with it. It had also been resisting making improvements virtually since the reactors were originally built, and a history year on year of discovering new issues which required retrofitting new safety equipment. A history of denial of issues and delay.

It doesn't make much sense to have control systems located where flooding is possible.

Designing safe nuclear power systems requires a high degree of paranoia and considering all the things that could go wrong.
 

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ah, but a tsunamia of that size was impossible. That, essentially, is the difficulty with designing a nuclear plant. Chernoby might not have been a brilliant design, but I doubt the designers seriously considered that the operators would simply switch off the systems.
 

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ah, but a tsunamia of that size was impossible. That, essentially, is the difficulty with designing a nuclear plant. Chernoby might not have been a brilliant design, but I doubt the designers seriously considered that the operators would simply switch off the systems.

Chernobyl was a very dangerous design to begin with. Not only was the reactor itself a dangerous design, but there wasn't even a containment structure.
 

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The trouble is the way that 'bad designs' are frequentlyidentified using hindsight.

The Russians were not very risk averse as clearly evidenced by the fact that they didn't even have a containment structure. Thus, it should not be surprising that they took excessive risks with the design of the reactor itself and had few qualms about disabling safety devices to perform a test.
 

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I have to throw my vote behind nuclear power with all the advances in safety the payout is far greater than the risk.

As an addendum I would like to add that yes when there is a disaster it is tragic and horrible but they're not common and you have disaters with fossil fuels as well. Coal mines collapse and miners all the time. Also here is another way fossils fuels can become disastrous.

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2196

That is Centrailia, Pennsylvania where an entire coal mine was accidentally set on fire and has been burning since 1961.
 
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I have to throw my vote behind nuclear power with all the advances in safety the payout is far greater than the risk.

I agree, but of course we should keep the risk to a minimum.

In case you haven't yet seen this list of links to liquid fluoride reactor technology, I am including it here. From all the reading I've done, I think that this is the way to go.


‪Thorium Energy Future‬‏ - YouTube

‪1_Minute_LFTR_Thorium_Plant‬‏ - YouTube

‪Dr. Kiki's Science Hour 84: The Nuclear Alternative‬‏ - YouTube

Safe nuclear does exist, and China is leading the way with thorium - Telegraph

http://www.rightsidenews.com/201009...nvironment/thorium-cures-the-free-market.html

Response: don't dismiss the potential of thorium nuclear power - comment - The Ecologist
 

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@FRE - some interesting discussion in the comment section of the (not new) link below as to why thorium hasn't succeeded in the USA, isn't likely to and why it most likely will succeed in Asia. In spite of technology setbacks with the Indians' solution and political ones in China i.e. the arrest and jailing for life of the man in charge of their nuclear power program over corruption issues.
It has been hard to find a balanced analysis about thorium energy generation as most literature in favour seems to be almost evangelical in its promotion as the panacaea to solving the world's energy deficiencies. And most decrying it is wrapped up in general nuclear = bad hogwash that most critical thinkers can spot a mile off.

Uranium Is So Last Century
 

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@FRE - some interesting discussion in the comment section of the (not new) link below as to why thorium hasn't succeeded in the USA, isn't likely to and why it most likely will succeed in Asia. In spite of technology setbacks with the Indians' solution and political ones in China i.e. the arrest and jailing for life of the man in charge of their nuclear power program over corruption issues.
It has been hard to find a balanced analysis about thorium energy generation as most literature in favour seems to be almost evangelical in its promotion as the panacaea to solving the world's energy deficiencies. And most decrying it is wrapped up in general nuclear = bad hogwash that most critical thinkers can spot a mile off.

Uranium Is So Last Century


Attempting to predict the future tends to be risky. However, from what I have read, it seems to me that nuclear energy from thorium is far superior to nuclear energy from uranium.

If Asia beats the U.S. in migrating from uranium to thorium, the U.S. will be put at a competitive disadvantage because energy generated from thorium, using LFTR technology, should be much cheaper. However, being put at a competitive disadvantage would be nothing new; American history has many times failed to implement technology invented here until forced to do so by foreign competition. That's especially obvious in automotive technology.