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Understanding nuclear issues facing our future
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Also by Patrick McEwen:
- Understanding nuclear issues facing our future (November 4, 2009)
- SSFC reps should all be appointed (October 20, 2009)
- Non-tech students want a degree? Take calculus first (October 6, 2009)
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to Student Segregated Fees (September 30, 2009)
- Students, please be realistic: Health care reform has costs (September 16, 2009)
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This coming weekend, Madison will host an event that has the potential to change the world. No, I’m not talking about the Wisconsin Original Cheese Festival or the men’s hockey game against Minnesota. I’m referencing the Future Cities 2009 Conference. Tagged as 鏑ocal democracy in action for a greener, more peaceful world, this event seeks to stimulate efforts to get citizens involved in their municipalities on issues ranging from greener transportation to the global elimination of nuclear weapons.
While there are certainly programs and speakers one would expect from such an event deciding to come to Madison such as a program called 釘uilding Local Coalitions for Change being put on by Madison’s very own Brenda Konkel there is a peculiar focus on what mayors and other local government leaders can do to stop all things nuclear. While I’m not really sure how Mayor Dave learning about the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty at a presentation titled global law and nuclear weapons: Future paths is really going to help him perform any of his mayoral duties, at least there are rational reasons why a world without nuclear weapons would be better than the one we currently live in.
The same, unfortunately, cannot be said for the other portion of their anti-nuclear efforts, namely the bid to end the use of nuclear energy sources. While there might be some potentially legitimate reasons to oppose the building of new nuclear plants, the anti-nuclear advocates that are descending on Madison appear unable to find them if they were the size of a couple decillion barns. (For all of you non-nuclear scientists, a barn is 10^-24 cm^2. So a decillion,10^33, barns would be 10^7 m^2 … OK, never mind.)
Take, for example, Nukewatch co-director John LaForge. In the summer 2008 edition of Nukewatch Quarterly, while discussing Three Mile Island, he stated, 徹ver 10 million curies of radioactive noble gases were vented from the 祖ontainment building.
The units he chooses to use to discuss the amount of radiation he says were released are incredibly telling. Given the number of people in America who know the difference between a Sievert and a Gray or a rad and a rem, it’s not hard to imagine how easily radiation units can be manipulated to give the desired impression of the effects of radiation.
Other than being dead scientists, curies are a measure of what is essentially a reaction rate. They measure disintegrations per second. They don’t measure the impact on humans or the environment, but rather the rate at which nuclei undergo various kinds of nuclear emissions.
There is a reason there are no regulations on the number of curies a person can safely be exposed to. The wide-ranging effects of different kinds of radiation mean of rem which measure the actual biological impact that being exposed to radiation can cause. Now the odds that the average person would know the difference are close to zero, but at least with rem it’s possible to go and look up how many rem one is exposed to by an X-ray or how many the Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulations say the general population can be safely exposed to in a year.
Other evidence of the anti-nuclear advocates fundamental misunderstanding of the impact of all things nuclear and their attempts at scare tactics to convince others to agree with them can be found in the description of a program on the effects of nuclear radiation. The program tells us that federal agencies warn every external or internal radiation exposure, no matter how small, increases ones risk of cancer. It’s interesting to note these same federal agencies reportedly can’t be trusted when they speak about the impacts of Three Mile Island and are accused by the anti-nuclear side of “official cover-ups,” oversight and incompetence. However, now that what they say can be misinterpreted to scare people about the effects of radiation, their word is gospel.
The information they are misrepresenting is not that federal agencies such as the NRC and EPA warn us any exposure to radiation increases the risk of cancer, but rather the model they use to decide how much radiation workers or the public can be exposed to assumes a worst-case scenario where radiation exposure is accumulated and linear. In reality, no one can really say definitively whether or not that X-ray of the ribs broken at age 13 contributed to lung cancer at 62. Everyone is constantly exposed to natural background radiation and small exposures just don’t stand out enough to be conclusively studied. The only risk is that the assumption is wrong and our bodies are naturally able to recover from small doses of radiation.
While I don’t have the space to go through and correct every misrepresentation of the facts designed to scare the uninformed public made by the anti-nuclear crowd, before you decide to believe their propaganda, know there are many people down in the Engineering Research Building who would be happy to set the record straight.
And before someone starts the ad hominem attacks by claiming I’m bought and paid for by the nuclear industry, as those on the anti-nuclear side seem so fond of doing, you should know that I have received scholarship money from the NRC, and if things go well, someone from the nuclear industry will be paying me thousands more by this time next year.
Patrick McEwen (pmcewen@wisc.edu) is a junior majoring in nuclear engineering.
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IP hash: 4a9fdffa
The author of this article discusses many important points associated with units of radiation. At the present time there is disagreement as to whether there is a threshold for harmful effects associated with exposure to radiation. Some feel that below a certain amount there is no risk of harmful effects. Others hold that the risk of harmful effects is present even at low levels of radiation exposure but the risk is lower than at higher levels.
I stll wonder why there are two levels for radiation exposure for the Yucca Mountain repositoryin nevada- 15mr before 10,000 years and 100mr after 10,000 years.
Susanne E.Vandenbosch
IP hash: 0f68984d
One estimate is that 500 nuclear power plants would make America energy independent. I think that is optimistic in that an abundance of electricity doesn’t mean we won’t need to import oil for transportation needs, but it would certainly take us a long way toward independence. The cost would be in the order of 2 billion per plant (I would think less; that is the first one might be 4 billion, but the 400th would be considerably less than a billion; but call it 2 billion). That is one trillion dollars, comparable to the TARP or stimulus — and for once a deficit would be financing something real.
It is less than the cost of the war, and less than the war is going to cost if we continue. Cheap reliable energy would be one major step toward economic recovery. Low cost energy plus freedom will bring prosperity. If we have the energy we can work on the freedom. The whole thing could be accomplished in four years. Of course the ravening wolves in the Congress won’t do it — but then it’s not likely that this is the kind of hope and change we can believe in from the current White House.
But it would work. France knows the value of nuclear power. Why can’t we learn it?
http://jerrypournelle.com/view/2009/Q4/view595.html#Monday
IP hash: 84626a49
That cost estimate will be great news to the industry, since others think reactors will cost $7-billion to $10-billion and take 10 years to build. It is so risky financially that the industry is asking taxpayers to underwrite the risk.
Peter Bradford, a former member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, wrote in Tuesday’s Capital Times:
“The nuclear industry has said that new nuclear reactors can be built only if taxpayers and customers take the risks normally assumed by investors. Since new nuclear plants are estimated to cost at least $6-7 billion apiece and to produce power far more expensive per kilowatt hour than other sources (renewables, efficiency and fossil fuels), the excess expense to consumers and the government from having Congress subsidize reactors on the scale necessary to make any difference to climate change will be very large indeed.
“The most authoritative recent estimate of the excess cost (a June 2009 study by Mark Cooper) puts the figure between $1.9 trillion and $4.4 trillion over the lifetime of 100 new reactors. Such an approach would worsen climate change, because the money spent on nuclear reactors would not be available for solutions that fight it faster and at lower cost. Nuclear loan guarantee proponents could as sensibly urge damming a river to create a lake to fight a raging forest fire.”
You can read the whole thing here: http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/column/guest/article_37b3c6b1-dff6-5ef1-a21c-8a511e278961.html?mode=story
IP hash: 3412785f
But these cost estimates are meaningless since the costs imposed by onerous regulations, restrictions and the risks associated with being at the mercy of shifting political forces distorts the actual cost of nuclear. And likewise, the massive subsidies and special favors to “renewables” distorts that market as well.
If you want to find out what the best source of energy is, get the government out of the market and let producers and investors come up with the best solution.
We don’t have to debate the best computer or cell phone because these markets are left relatively free, which allows the best product to succeed.
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What will we do with the nuclear waste from 500 nuclear reactors? At the present time waste from less than 150 nuclear reactors is being stored at reactor sites. This cannot be done indefintely with waste which remains radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission estimates that nuclear waste can be stored safely at the reactor site for only one hundred years.
As for France their present methods of spent fuel management are only temporary solutions. Reprocessing generates new waste streams. Vitrification will not isolate reactor waste permanently. The French are looking for permanent repository sites.
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But “indefinitely” is not a rational standard. Everything is finite.
There are many ways to store and recycle nuclear waste for varying amounts of time, and the physical amount of waste generation is very small compared to other sources of energy.
The only way to discover new solutions and develop new technologies is to allow people the freedom to develop them.
IP hash: 4a9fdffa
It is not the volume of nuclear waste that poses a problem. It is the radioactivity.
Freedom alone will not solve the problem. It takes money and competence.
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A small volume of radioactivity is easier to contain then a large volume.
The prerequisite of making money and being competent is freedom. When energy production is dictated by energy “czars” then competent, money-making decisions are irrelevant.
IP hash: 84626a49
The government actually does have some responsibility to insure public safety, which is really what this debate is about. No other form of energy produces waste that is dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years. And the nuclear industry does not have the “right” to produce it with no solution, nor should it have the “freedom” to do so. Freedom ends where infringement on the public good, welfare and safety begins.
IP hash: 3412785f
No, the debate is not about safety. Nuclear is one of the safest power sources known to man by any standard. Nuclear waste is NOT dangerous because we know how to contain, store and reuse it and we’ve know this for decades. There is nothing about nuclear energy production that infringes on anyone’s rights. Not a thing.
The debate has been, and continues to be against environmentalist ideology.
IP hash: 060f8452
I’d suggest dumping it into an ocean trench where it would be subducted into the mantle but the “waste” may someday turn out to be a valuable resource in a as now unknown process.
The universe in general runs on nuclear power - burning carbon instead is stupid on many levels.
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Those “unknown” process are known now. There are just varying reasons why we don’t do them. Many are political while some are still technical hurdles.
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Let us not forget one thing: Americans are wasteful. If you ask ANYONE whether recycling is a good or a bad thing to do, what do they say? “Oh I LOVE the environment! We have to save it!
Shame we are all talk about the environment and not about making war. That’s right. Just because the recycling (“reprocessing”) of nuclear fuel generates plutonium, the process is outlawed. You guessed it, it’s for YOUR safety. Just like the Patriot Act, NSA wiretaps, and the loss of your personal liberty. It keeps you ‘safe.’
Never mind that recycling can extend our fission fuel supplies for another 50-100 years, even after accounting for increased consumer electric demand. Never mind that nuclear facilities and transports of nuclear fuel materials are heavily watched and regulated by the NRC, and that nuclear high-level waste is already stored on-site at reactors. Never mind that France and Japan already recycle their nuclear fuel without incident.
Quick question for the general public: Do you think nuclear plants use fuel like your SUV? You should know that they don’t. The fuel has to be taken out because the reaction starts to stop, even though an extremely significant percentage of the fuel is STILL NOT USED. US Law says that fuel is now ‘spent’ and must be sealed away, never to be used, despite the energy just waiting to be released and charge your iPod, iMac, or iWhatever.
The US needs nuclear. Just like it needs net neutrality, free speech, and leaders who aren’t afraid of acting against corporate lobbyists. Shame we won’t have any of that in the near future.
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Yes, freedom is the answer, both for nuclear producers and everyone else.
The solution to corporate lobbying is to return to a constitutionally limited government that stays out of economics. This would eliminate the need for corporate lobbyists. Think of the productivity increases!
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France is unwilling to retain the residue of the nuclear waste that it reprocesses for Japan. It is shipped back and leaves Japan with the problem of what to do with the radioactive residue. French recycling leaves a liquid residue that still must be dealt with. It vitrifies this but the product will not isolate the waste long enough. The French are looking for permanent repository sites. Also, the French process isolates plutonium that can readily be made into nuclear weapons. If the United States uses reprocessing thye are not going to use the French process because of these proliferation concerns.
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I noticed that Patrick McEwen brings up the 1979 Three Mile Island meltdown, or partial meltdown, if that makes you feel better. McEwen conveniently omitted the fact that a series of design flaws, mechanical malfunctions, human error and communications breakdowns brought the world within one hour of experiencing its first full reactor core meltdown.
Patrick McEwen’s omission isn’t surprising, since most people hoping for a lucrative career in the nuclear industry have an understandable aversion to discussing the possible consequences of their beloved, flawed technology. The severity of the TMI accident was much more grave than Americans were led to believe. First of all, there was an explosion (or fire) resulting from the combustion of built-up hydrogen gas within the TMI #2 containment early in the course of the accident. Also, a build-up of radioactive gases accumulated underneath the top of that same dome. I shudder to think what damage would have resulted from a breach of containment. The release of radioactive gases and particles would have been comparable to the level of contamination caused by a 1-megaton nuclear detonation. And if the meltdown had been complete, the so-called “China Syndrome” wouldn’t have metled down into the earth’s core, but it would have made a 45,000 square-mile area more or less permanently uninhabitable. Thank god the continment held; we were lucky!
Still, it was bad enough that about 13 million curies of radioactive noble gases, including xenon-133 and krypton-85, WERE discharged into the atmosphere, as documented by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in April 1979. In addition, substantial amounts of the particularly dangerous iodine-131 were vented into the air over east-central Pennsylvania. A large quantity of radioactive water was discharged into the Susquehanna River. Was this contamination somehow a positive thing? And it was especially unconscionable that Metropolitan Edison, the operator of the power station, lied through their teeth to the media and neighboring residents regarding the actual facts of the unfolding “transient.”
And Three Mile Island has been only one of a number of close calls within the last three decades. Consider the Davis-Besse reactor; it had a “hole in its head.” Located near Toledo, it’s a virtual twin of TMI#2. Consider the reacor in Texas that’s leaking cooling water from its base:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/19/us/texas-reactor-is-leaking-cooling-water-from-its-base.html
What about Indian Point reactor 2, near Peekskill NY? In August 2005, radioactive tritium isotopes were found to be leaking into the groundwater from its spent fuel pool. Even worse was the discovery, according to the New York Times, that strontium-90 has also been detected in test wells near the now-defunct Indian Point reactor number 1.
Then there is the Vermont Yankee plant. As reported in a July 26, 2008 Rutland Herald article, headlined: “Study: Yankee Radiation up 30 percent,” the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Plant is indeed releasing 30 percent more radiation into the environment since it increased energy output by 20 percent in 2006. Vermont Yankee also experienced an “embarassing” partial collapse of one of its cooling towers in 2007, even though that same tower had been inspected earlier in the year.
So Mr. McEwen, what are the supposed new safety features that have been implemented in the design and operation of fission reactors? Why is the new Westinghouse reactor allegedly much, much safer than the older generation of pressurized-water cooled reactors, like the troublesome Babcok & Wilcox model that failed terribly at TMI? What has been done to improve the training operators receive?
As for France, the French Nuclear industry has been an aboslute ecological disaster:
http://www.alternet.org/story/132852
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All this proves the point that nuclear is safe. Even the worst imaginable failures - and multiple of them (with 30 year-old technology) produced no harmful results. And this is over the course of decades.
Compare this with almost any other power source, and the nuclear is very, very safe.
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Pebble bed nuclear power plants would be inherently safe.
We’d have them now, but Rickover pushed for reators that could be used in Navy ships and subs.
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Once the Dems push thru cap and tax all carbon based power (which is MOST of the baseline electric power in the USA) will be MUCH more expensive and nuclear will be even better looking.
Nuclear Costs
“Westinghouse claims its Advanced PWR reactor, the AP1000, will cost USD $1500-$1800 per KW for the first reactor and may fall to USD $1200 per KW for subsequent reactors. They also claim these will be ready for electricity production 3 years after first pouring concrete. ” http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2323
Part of a rather good article on the whole subject.
If nuclear at $6-8bn a reactor is “competitive against other technologies” imagine it at $1.2bn. Probably even undercut China’s cheap coal based energy on which their booming economy has been built. The rest of the cost is regulatory. I think government regulation overall destroys about 50% of the potential economy
Neil Craig
I think there is no consensus on the actual costs of reactors, but I am pretty sure there is agreement that a good half of it has nothing to do with safety and everything to do with the Trial Lawyers Association: France doesn’t pay what we do. It’s the legal eagles who profit.
I would still put the cost of a 1000 MW reactor at no more than 4 billion for the first one, and if you build 100 the last one will be less than $1 billion. I can defend that with numbers, but it seems intuitive as well.
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/mail/2009/Q4/mail595.html#Thursday