Nuclear power is safe

tahanson43206 · 2022-01-19 15:43:20

The article at the link below reports on what appears to be a robust discussion.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/experts-legi … 00939.html

Jessica Lovering, founder of the Good Energy Collective, talked about some of the advantages of deploying small modular reactors in place of coal plants.
They produce zero greenhouse gas emissions, she said ; can provide baseload power to balance the grid, unlike renewables ; have a relatively small footprint and low materials requirements ; and in the future could be used for industrial heat, desalination and hydrogen production. They can use existing transmission infrastructure.
Factory-built modulars can be assembled faster and cheaper than the current water-cooled plants built on site, she said.
Thinking of West Virginia, she talked about the idea of "just transition, " which is making sure fossil fuel workers have real opportunities for new energy jobs. Nuclear offers answer to some of the challenges of that transition: comparable skills, high pay, long-term local jobs with potential union representation and minimal retraining.
Jim Kotcon, conservator and political chair of the Sierra Club West Virginia Chapter, took an alternate view, saying advanced nuclear is not the solution.

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SpaceNut · 2022-01-19 19:31:41

The big issue for nuclear is its construction cost to life expectancy for how much you can charge for each kw of energy that you are delivering and still make enough to pay for the decommissioning costs and have a profit.

For mars all we want is the delivery cost for a unit and how much can we get reliably until it fails.

tahanson43206 · 2022-01-19 19:57:54

For SpaceNut re #452

Thanks for your timely additions to the topic!

For Calliban ... I wrote to the company you identified as possibly able to supply Bill Gates with 20% Uranium:
Reply(automated) ...

Thank you for your enquiry.

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tahanson43206 · 2022-01-20 11:44:56

https://www.yahoo.com/news/might-finall … 32430.html

This article seems (to me at least) like a good fit for "Nuclear is Safe" topic ...

How We Might Finally Get Over Our Fear of Nuclear Power
Thor Benson
Thu, January 20, 2022, 4:52 AM

“I think people tend to get on a team and root for the team. I see irrational exuberance from some of my nuclear colleagues, but I also see it with renewables,” Todd Allen, a professor of engineering and chair of the Nuclear and Radiology Department at the University of Michigan, told The Daily Beast. “I just think that’s human nature. I don’t think it’s helpful.”

“Technologically,” he said, “we know that these reactors work,” since they’re more or less scaled-down versions of generation 3 reactors—which are the kind of traditional reactor we build today. “These SMRs are scaled-down versions of things people know how to build and work.”
Though the potential seems huge for finally converting nonbelievers into nuclear power acolytes, companies like NuScale will still have to demonstrate that SMRs are a safe, reliable, cost-effective source of power. Kammen said we won’t have answers to these questions until one has been built.
That could be a crippling obstacle for unleashing the potential of nuclear power in combating climate change. The Biden administration has set a goal to get the U.S. to run on 100 percent clean electricity by 2035. It’s hard to see SMRs or nuclear power at large playing a large role in that kind of future at that point. But the urgency of climate change means we’ve no choice but to plow forward as best we can.

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tahanson43206 · 2022-01-21 06:30:28

Related to fear of nuclear energy is the reality that radioactive waste ** is ** created, and it must be disposed of safely.

The premise of this topic is that nuclear energy can be harnessed safely.

The report at the link below is about a site in New Mexico that is set up to sequester low level radiation contaminated waste deep underground.
This site is separate from the search for a high level storage location, which has not yet been selected (and agreed to) in the United States.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/waste-isolat … 22472.html

WIPP Labs maintained is accreditation since 2000.
This allowed WIPP Labs to continue analyzing water, air, soil and vegetation samples near the WIPP site for isotopes known to be present in TRU waste sent to WIPP.
The recent study that achieved the lab’s certification identified accurately all the known isotopes: plutonium, americium, uranium, cesium, cobalt and strontium along with their activity levels.
More: Waste Isolation Pilot Plant struggles to control costs, per annual performance evaluation
“One of the requirements for DOELAP is that the WIPP laboratories must demonstrate annually their ability to analyze blind bioassay samples under a rigid set of criteria to maintain NIST compliance,” said Ginny Jones, manager of the WIPP laboratories.
“Having the ability to analyze various isotopes at extremely low levels of activity helps WIPP demonstrate that our radiation protection protocols are working.”

It seems to me that as humans continue to learn how to safely harness nuclear energy, it will be simultaneously necessary to be able to measure the environment with the same level of accuracy as is reported for the WIPP facility described above.

And ** that ** accounts for part of the expense of nuclear energy, and it accounts for part of the explanation for why it is more expensive to harness nuclear energy that is the case for chemical energy. The tradeoff is that nuclear energy is potentially far more productive, and the waste produced is much less than is true for chemical energy. However, unlike waste from chemical processes, waste from nuclear energy production cannot easily be rendered harmless.

As a caveat, I note that huge quantities of chemical waste cannot "easily" be rendered harmless, due to the sheer volume. Thus, the landscape around the world is dotted with collections of waste from chemical processes that will remain as unpleasant "companions" for thousands of years.

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tahanson43206 · 2022-01-21 18:29:02

Question for Calliban ...

https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/tho … 00368.html

According to Prof. Mourou, Thorium has three advantages. The first is its abundance in nature. “Compared to other power production’s inputs, if Carbon is one unit, Uranium is five, then Thorium is up to 1 million units," he said.
Second, Thorium produces much less waste than Uranium. And thirdly, the life cycle of toxic materials of Thorium is very short compared to Uranium.
“That is why it is an opportunity for us in the field of nuclear energy. This is an area that we had never explored before and we can now. The energy source can meet the needs of 10 billion people for a period of 10,00-20,000 years," Prof, Mourou said.

For Calliban ...

Did the reporter make an error of translation?

The comparison between Carbon and Uranium seems low, and the comparison between Carbon and Thorium seems about right.

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SpaceNut · 2022-01-22 13:20:29

The embedded energy required to gain it from the ground to the point where we can make use of the material in the reactor. It does seem to be quite high.

tahanson43206 · 2022-01-24 19:01:25

The article at the link below provides an overview of declines in the French nuclear power industry.

Now is a time when any nation doing nuclear power should be on the ascendent, but France appears to be falling behind, let alone improving it's performance.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/fren … 00039.html

“Over the past decades, we may have rest a bit too much on our laurels while the output was dwindling,” Industry Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher said at the Union Francaise de l’Electricite annual conference last month.

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tahanson43206 · 2022-01-25 09:44:17

The article at the link below provides a glimpse of advances in nuclear fission technology by China.

https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodi … 021-12-20/

December 20, 2021
1:41 AM EST
Last Updated a month ago
Commodities
China puts pioneering 'pebble bed' nuclear reactor into operation
Reuters
SHANGHAI, Dec 20 (Reuters) - China has launched a new high-temperature gas-cooled nuclear plant in the eastern coastal province of Shandong, the first to make use of 'pebble bed reactor' (PBR) technology developed by state-run China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC).
The first unit of the Shidaowan reactor project, built near the city of Rongcheng in collaboration with the energy group Huaneng and Beijing's Tsinghua University, has now been connected to the grid, CNNC said on Monday.

If the article is accurate, this achievement puts China in the lead over other nations, in this specific variation of nuclear fission power.

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Oldfart1939 · 2022-01-25 15:41:58

Well, Louis should be happier about Nuclear reactors now that Rolls-Royce is building these small Megawatt units. That's a fantastic company to see building units that could be transported to Moon and Mars.

Last edited by Oldfart1939 (2022-01-25 15:51:41)

GW Johnson · 2022-01-25 23:12:56

Speaking of whom, what happened to Louis? Haven't seen anything from him in quite a while now.

GW

Oldfart1939 · 2022-01-26 15:04:37

GW-
I think he has left the forum over some sort of tiff he had with an Administrator or Moderator.

GW Johnson · 2022-01-26 15:22:31

Well, that's a shame. While I often found him off-base technically, he did ask very good questions that prompted better thinking from the rest of us.

GW

tahanson43206 · 2022-01-27 11:32:48

The article at the link below reports on what looks to me like good news, as Bill Gates continues to assemble a team to build and operate a Sodium cooled reactor in Wyoming.

The 2028 target date looks (to me at least) overly cautious, but conditions are not favorable in the United States for introduction of any fission reactor, let alone one that uses a new technology, never mind that it is running elsewhere in the world.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/japans-mitsu … 34783.html

Associated Press
Japan's Mitsubishi, energy body join Gates' nuclear project
FILE - A logo of Mitsubishi Corporation, the parent company of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, is displayed on a sign outside its headquarters in Tokyo, Nov. 26, 2021. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and the Japan Atomic Energy Agency have signed an agreement to participate in a next-generation nuclear energy project with TerraPower, a company started by Bill Gates. The memorandum of understanding calls for cooperation in developing advanced nuclear technologies, Mitsubishi Heavy said Thursday, Jan. 27, 2022. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
More
Wed, January 26, 2022, 10:50 PM
TOKYO (AP) — Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and the Japan Atomic Energy Agency have signed an agreement to participate in a next-generation nuclear energy project with TerraPower, a company started by Bill Gates.
The memorandum of understanding signed Wednesday calls for cooperation in developing advanced nuclear technologies, Mitsubishi Heavy said.
Located in Kemmerer, in western Wyoming's desert highlands, the demonstration project will use a nontraditional, sodium-cooled nuclear reactor. It will hire workers from a local coal-fired power plant scheduled to close soon.
MHI, one of Japan's largest industrial conglomerates, said it will explore ways to provide technical support and to develop the reactor.
“MHI will also bring back expertise and knowledge obtained through this partnership to contribute to the advancement of nuclear innovation in Japan," the company said in a statement.
The U.S. nuclear industry has been at a standstill, providing a steady 20% of the nation’s power for decade amid the costly and time-consuming process of building huge conventional nuclear plants.
Japan’s atomic energy sector has been in crisis since meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant on its northeast coast following a massive earthquake and tsunami in March 2011. But its government views nuclear energy as essential for achieving net zero carbon emissions to counter climate change.
TerraPower plans to make its plant useful for today’s energy grid of growing renewable power. A salt heat “battery” will allow the plant to ramp up electricity production on demand, offsetting dips in electricity when the wind isn’t blowing and sun isn’t shining.
The startup of the plant is years off — 2028 according to current planning.
The approach isn’t new. Russia has had a commercial sodium-cooled reactor in use at full capacity since 2016 and such designs have been tested elsewhere in the U.S.
GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, an alliance between GE and Japan’s Hitachi, worked with TerraPower to develop the project’s sodium fast reactor and molten salt energy storage system.
Mitsubishi Heavy said the agreement with TerraPower will facilitate joint, wider efforts on developing fast reactor technology.
Gates, the famous co-founder of Microsoft, started Bellevue, Washington-based TerraPower in 2008 and is chairman of its board.

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Oldfart1939 · 2022-01-27 19:52:37

Although I'm neither a "Green Freak," nor a fan of Bill Gates, this to me represents a step towards better energy independence for the USA. My late friend and Professor, Victor A Ryan, the Nuclear Chemistry Professor at the University of Wyoming would be very pleased at this development. I was his Teaching Assistant for Physical Chemistry Laboratory while a Graduate student in 1971, and he was a superb intellect, although not a really great lecturer. Nice gentleman and was the Democrat Party candidate for the US Senate in 1986 (could be a different year). He lost badly to Malcom Wallop, the incumbent Republican. It was under his supervision that I was able to use the Thorium based critical mass nuclear reactor for a Physical Chemistry experiment.

SpaceNut · 2022-01-27 20:49:34

If we start nuclear from recycling Starship tanks and such do we have what we need to make the first thorium reactor from a slightly used ship or would we need other items to be brought to make it work?

Oldfart1939 · 2022-01-27 21:11:53

We would need lots of other components. Better to buy a Rolls-Royce megawatt self contained powerplant. Starship has plenty of weight carrying capacity for it.

SpaceNut · 2022-01-27 21:22:15

Thanks as that gives me something to go research to gain the knowledge we need for mars.

Will post more stuff later for all to make use of.

https://neutronbytes.com/2019/11/09/rol … or-design/
Rolls Royce Reveals 440 MW Commercial Reactor Design

A 300Mw unit is considered the highest of power that a small reactor is categorized as.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_modular_reactor

http://www.world-nuclear.org/informatio … ships.aspx

The Rolls-Royce PWR1 of about 78 MWt was used to power the first 23 British nuclear submarines. It was based on the Westinghouse S5W reactor, one of which was provided by the US Navy in 1958 under a mutual defence agreement. The PWR1 with high-enriched fuel required refuelling every ten years or so. British Vanguard-class ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) of 15,900 dwt submerged have a single PWR2 reactor with two steam turbines driving a single pump jet of 20.5 MW, implying a reactor power of about 145 MWt.

French-integral-PWR-system-submarine.jpg.aspx

More power and updated design revealed as nuclear power team targets first place in the assessment queue in Autumn 2021

https://www.twi-global.com/technical-kn … ar-reactor
What is a Small Modular Reactor (SMR)? (A Complete Guide)

SpaceNut · 2022-01-27 22:09:55

Located in Kemmerer, in western Wyoming's desert highlands, the demonstration project will use a nontraditional, sodium-cooled nuclear reactor. It will hire workers from a local coal-fired power plant scheduled to close soon. A salt heat “battery” will allow the plant to ramp up electricity production on demand, offsetting dips in electricity when the wind isn’t blowing and sun isn’t shining. The startup of the plant is years off — 2028 according to current planning. The approach isn’t new. Russia has had a commercial sodium-cooled reactor in use at full capacity since 2016 and such designs have been tested elsewhere in the U.S.

SpaceNut · 2022-02-08 20:15:05

Seems that some states are changing their tune End to nuclear plant ban signed by West Virginia governor

According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, coal provides 88% of West Virginia’s energy needs, followed by 5% from natural gas, 3.3% from wind, 3.1% from hydroelectric and 0.2% from other energy sources.
There are nuclear power plants in 28 states, although Georgia is the only state with a nuclear project currently under construction. Among surrounding states, there are a combined 8,500 nuclear energy jobs in Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia, according to the NEI.

tahanson43206 · 2022-02-18 09:18:53

https://www.yahoo.com/news/richland-wor … 00520.html

This topic is optimistically entitled nuclear power is safe.

This topic does NOT deny that nuclear power is dangerous.

Safety is a matter of knowing what you are doing, and doing everything correctly.

The article at the link above describes a failure at a civilian power plant.

NRC: Workers exposed
Energy Northwest failed in several ways to provide adequate radiological controls for the work, according to the NRC report.
It said Energy Northwest was fortunate that the radiation protection technician happened to see the work on a remote monitor, had enough experience to recognize a problem and was only 40 feet away from the room.
Had the pipefitters remained in the room for another five minutes, they could have been exposed to more than 5,000 millirems, exceeding the NRC annual limit, the inspection report said.
Energy Northwest should have done more radiation surveys the day before work started, should have prevented airborne radioactive particles and should have had a radiation protection technician with the two pipefitters at all times.
Energy Northwest has conducted an investigation and taken actions to prevent similar problems from occurring again, it said.
The NRC will hold a regulatory teleconference with Energy Northwest officials at 7 a.m. Pacific Time on March 1 to discuss the incident.
The public can listen to the business portion of the meeting and then ask questions by calling 800-857-5003 and entering passcode 5204033#.
The teleconference will be an opportunity for Energy Northwest and the NRC to discuss the circumstances of the incident and make sure the NRC has a full understanding of information before it makes a decision on whether a “white violation” occurred, according to Energy Northwest.
No decision is expected to be made during the teleconference.

Because the Mars project will require master of nuclear fission power, the experience of this company needs to settle into the minds of those who will be planning and executing installation and operation of nuclear fission facilities on Mars.

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tahanson43206 · 2022-02-18 09:23:46

A related thought that occurs (to me at least) after reading the article reported above, is that humans (as a species) may simply not be capable of operating equipment like this safely over an extended period of time. It seems to me that everyone involved in the situation described in the article should have been aware of the danger of the work they were doing, INCLUDING THE PIPEFITTERS!

Apparently some attempt was made to brief the pipefitters on the work to be done, but an un-briefed worker was brought into the job.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will be investigating the incident, and (apparently) everything will be made public.

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Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-02-23 08:00:57

'Marin: Finland to reassess Rosatom-backed nuclear project'
https://yle.fi/news/3-12329586

and the leadership?

This woman Sanna Mirella Marin is strange, a few years ago she was still very young in her 20s and some say she was uploading these kinky photoshopped camgirl pix of herself to Ylilauta the Finnish version of 4chan

https://www.garbageday.email/p/the-trut … ds-catgirl

QUOTE

the front page of the site is a message that reads, “Ylilauta is a privacy-oriented anonymous discussion board where you are free to discuss almost anything. Sending messages requires neither registration nor a username.”
And, sure enough, if you go into any threads, you’ll see the same strings of randomized numbers that you would see on a 4chan thread. Ylilauta is actually incredibly similar to 4chan, although, it runs a lot better tbh.

Sanna Mirella Marin is a Finnish politician who is the 46th and current Prime Minister of Finland since December 2019 she is part of the Social Democratic Party of Finland, founded as Suomen työväenpuolue, the pervious leader was convicted of organizing an illegal strike with against the forestry industry, he managed a housing area and fail to file back his tax recepits?

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2022-02-23 08:04:58)

Calliban · 2022-02-23 08:31:22

She is young and good looking. But those attributes are irrelevant to her value as prime minister. A competent leader needs to be old and experienced enough to understand how the world around them works and they need to be free from the idealism that youth brings. But they need to be young enough to retain the energy and mental fitness to perform. Biden and Trump are at one end of the spectrum, she is at the other. The ideal age for a prime minister, would be 35-65. And the best leaders are men. There are things that men are good at. There are things that women are better at. Women leaders tend to be ruthless control freaks. I think it says something that most women don't want female bosses. A nation is a family. It's leader needs to be a father figure.

The problem with relying on Russia as a nuclear vendor, has nothing to do with nuclear safety or nuclear weapons. Their PWR reactors are as good as anything in the west and buying light water reactors from them will do nothing to support their weapons programme. The problem is simple - you are sending them cash at a time when Western countries are looking to apply economic pressure on them. The downside for Finland, is that there are few other vendors they can work with. They could go cap in hand to the Chinese or South Koreans. Both have good nuclear expertise and have built plants very cheaply in the past. The French seem to have lost the plot altogether, their EPR, wherever it has been built has been an expensive monstrosity with construction times running into decades. No good at all. The Russians can build these things quickly, cheaply and to a good standard. The Finns aren't in a position to shun one of the few reactor vendors that can build new units to Western quality standards in an acceptable timescale and cost.

Idealism is fine when you don't have severe real world responsibilities. With the weight of the world on your shoulders, you need to be good at understanding real politik. It usually takes an older and wiser head to do that. But not an immobile fossil. And the ideal leader is a middle aged man, wise enough to have abandoned idealism. A good listener and negotiator and able to understand the viewpoints of others without being seduced by them. Exceptional leaders are rare. The current state that Canada finds itself in, shows us exactly what a bad, arrogant and idealistic leader can do. The ascent of Russia as major power, out of the darkness and despair of pist-Soviet collapse, shows exactly the difference that a superb leader can make to a nation. Metrosexual millennials and senile old Marxists have done terrible things to Europe and North America.

Last edited by Calliban (2022-02-23 08:50:15)

Calliban · 2022-02-23 13:46:03

The latest report from Goehring & Rozencwajg: The distortions of cheap energy.
http://gorozen.com/research/commentaries

Basically, the large fall in cost of wind, solar and battery systems over the past decade, can be attributed almost entirely to the falling cost of fossil fuels between 2014 and 2020 and the lowest interest rates in 4000 years. Yes, thats not a typo.

It suggests that as interest rates and energy prices rise, the massive investments in renewable energy will be exposed as a costly policy error. The essential problems with these sources are unavoidable: extremely poor 'Energy Return on Investment' EROI, which is a direct result of the poor inherent power density of renewable resources. There is no way of solving this problem, because the resource characteristics are fixed by nature. Of the two, wind power has better power density and more resilience than solar power. But wind is faces the same problems of daily and seasonal intermittent generation. Dealing with this problem effectively, severely compromises the EROI and long term cost effectiveness of wind power. G&R estimate wind and solar EROI of 3.5:1, that is 3.5 units of energy returned per unit invested, inclusive of storage. The equivalent for coal power ~10:1. Natural gas: ~30:1. Nuclear power: 100:1. It is not really surprising that natural gas has cornered the electricity supply in most countries. It is clean and gas turbines have unrivalled power density. A GT plant can be built in just a few months. Nuclear power on the other hand, has never really capitalised on its huge EROI advantage, due to the enormous cost imposed by regulation, due to concerns over safety. This stretches supply chain costs and build time in ways that balloon capital costs enormously.

Last edited by Calliban (2022-02-23 13:48:54)

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Re: Nuclear power is safe

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