David Fleming’s New Book Provides Death Knell for Nuclear Power.

[metalman]

Re: David Fleming’s New Book Provides Death Knell for Nuclear Power.

This is a quick summation of the USA's experience with fast breeders. I remember studying this in my nuclear engineering courses in university.

This is a long time back, but the very real potential of radiation contamination of the City of Detroit was one of the fears that caused the permanent shut-down of this reactor.

Sodium is a tremendous heat exchange fluid, and indicative of the huge amount of heat energy coming off the reactor, which is exactly what is desired, but also like trying to control a tiger. No doubt technology has advanced tremendously in the last 40-odd years, but these things are not without their challenges.

Fermi I Breeder Reactor

The Fermi I reactor was a breeder located at Lagoona Beach, 30 miles from Detroit. On October 5, 1966, high temperatures were measured (700 compared to normal 580¡F) and radiation alarms sounded involving two fuel rod subassemblies. The reactor scrammed and there was indication of fuel melting. After a month of sweating, they tested out enough subassemblies to limit the damage to 6 subassemblies. By January 67 they had learned that 4 subassemblies were damaged with two stuck together, but it took until May to remove the assemblies.

When they had checked the sodium flow earlier, they had detected a clapping noise. In August 67 they were able to lower a periscope device into the meltdown pan and found that a piece of zirconium cladding had come loose and was blocking the sodium coolant nozzles. The zirconium cladding was part of the lining of the meltdown cone designed to direct the distribution of fuel material should a meltdown of the fuel occur.

Such structures are necessary in a breeder reactor because of the possibliity of molten fuel reassembling itself in a critical configuration. This is not a possibility in an ordinary light water reactor because of the low level of enrichment of the uranium, but a fast breeder reactor is operated with a much higher level of enrichment.

The phrase "China syndrome" was coined in regard to this accident as they were contemplating the possibilities should a meltdown of fuel with critical reassembly take place. The uncontrolled fission reaction could create enough heat to melt its way into the earth, and some engineer remarked "it could go all the way to China".

With ingenious tools designed and built for the purpose, the piece of zirconium was fished out in April of 1968. In May of 1970, the reactor was ready to resume operation, but a sodium explosion delayed it until July of 1970. In October it finally reached a level of 200 Mwatts. The total cost of the repair was about $132 million.

In August of 1972 upon denial of the extension of its operating license, the shutdown process for the plant was initiated.

cool story. i remember the movie that sensationalized this. movie was funded by the coal industry ;)

what's your take on pbnr? 'sounds' great but there's got to be a gotcha.

[moonshot]

Re: David Fleming’s New Book Provides Death Knell for Nuclear Power.

'sounds' great but there's got to be a gotcha.

Nuclear energy is an example of there being no free lunch. The tremendous amount of energy given off by fission is associated with an equally incredible danger in the event of a failure, and the costs of cleaning up/disposing of radioactive waste once the reactor is decommissioned. A reactor with a 30yr life will have to be safely stored, along with the spent fuel, for thousands of years.

From the little I know about PBNRs, the risks are :
1. Fire - carbon is flammable, but with the PBNR design there should never be any O2 in the reactor, so no fire. But as we all know, sh*t happens.

2. The safety implicit in the design of the reactor is used by the technology's sponsors as a rationale to eliminate safety features that would be mandatory for most other reactor designs (e.g., a containment building, extra cooling, etc.). This is done to reduce costs. The argument makes sense, but see point #1 on sh*t happening.

3. It seems to me that the PBNR design will result in a much larger volume of waste than a breeder design - all those "pebbles" are once-through fuel sources, and there is no reprocessing. On the other hand, the pebbles are supposed to serve as a containment unit, so per volume of waste, the disposal cost should be lower than light water, heavy water, or breeder reactors. But there will be more waste in total.

Would love to hear from anyone involved in the nuclear industry.

[GRG55]

Re: David Fleming’s New Book Provides Death Knell for Nuclear Power.

cool story. i remember the movie that sensationalized this. movie was funded by the coal industry ;)

what's your take on pbnr? 'sounds' great but there's got to be a gotcha.

Interesting comments on PBNRs from moonshot. What I have read about PBNRs sounds promising, but most of my detailed knowledge of the nuclear industry is decades old, so way out of date.

I do think nuclear is going to be an increasing part of our worldwide energy future. What nuclear's safety detractors fail to mention is the lives lost from the emissions from coal. NOX, sulphur compounds, radioactivity (mostly thorium and uranium), and mercury. And that stuff is spewed over a wide area from the stacks. The US EPA states that elemental mercury emissions from coal plants can travel thousands of miles before being deposited back on earth.

One of the arguments the anti-nuclear lobby bring up is the lack of economics for constructing a nuclear plant. If coal fired power plants had to meet, over their full operating life, the same radioactive montoring regulations and emissions limits that nuclear power plants are required to meet they would also be uneconomic to build.

People in the USA in particular have been brought up to fear anything nuclear. Coal fired generation took up most of the electrical capacity that might have come from nuclear. Killing people slowly isn't any better IMO. And none of the above issues has anything to do with climate change, just the shzt we pump into our air and spread over our neighbours, our oceans, our crops and take into our lungs. And now the Asian world is doing the same thing to us North Americans...

[jk]

Re: David Fleming’s New Book Provides Death Knell for Nuclear Power.

Interesting comments on PBNRs from moonshot. What I have read about PBNRs sounds promising, but most of my detailed knowledge of the nuclear industry is decades old, so way out of date.

I do think nuclear is going to be an increasing part of our worldwide energy future. What nuclear's safety detractors fail to mention is the lives lost from the emissions from coal. NOX, sulphur compounds, radioactivity (mostly thorium and uranium), and mercury. And that stuff is spewed over a wide area from the stacks. The US EPA states that elemental mercury emissions from coal plants can travel thousands of miles before being deposited back on earth.

One of the arguments the anti-nuclear lobby bring up is the lack of economics for constructing a nuclear plant. If coal fired power plants had to meet, over their full operating life, the same radioactive montoring regulations and emissions limits that nuclear power plants are required to meet they would also be uneconomic to build.

People in the USA in particular have been brought up to fear anything nuclear. Coal fired generation took up most of the electrical capacity that might have come from nuclear. Killing people slowly isn't any better IMO. And none of the above issues has anything to do with climate change, just the shzt we pump into our air and spread over our neighbours, our oceans, our crops and take into our lungs.

nuclear accidents are much easier to focus on. i still remember 3 mile island... it's like people's fear of airplane crashes while downplaying auto accidents.

[GRG55]

Re: David Fleming’s New Book Provides Death Knell for Nuclear Power.

nuclear accidents are much easier to focus on. i still remember 3 mile island... it's like people's fear of airplane crashes while downplaying auto accidents.

Precisely. Every activity we engage in carries with it some form of risk. The nuclear industry appears to be faced with the impossible task of creating completely risk free electricity.

No doubt this is because those that may be effected by a nuclear plant do not feel they are assuming any of its risks voluntarily, unlike driving a car or boarding an airplane.

The risks from a coal generating station are not immediate but cumulative, often not well understood (how many people are even aware of the radioactive and mercury emissions from coal?), and most of the people effected are well outside the required public consultation radii and have no say.

[metalman]

Re: David Fleming’s New Book Provides Death Knell for Nuclear Power.

Precisely. Every activity we engage in carries with is some form of risk. The nuclear industry appears to be faced with the impossible task of creating completely risk free electricity.

No doubt this is because those that may be effected by a nuclear plant do not feel they are assuming any of its risks voluntarily, unlike driving a car or boarding an airplane.

wish i was a cartoonist... i'd draw a bunch of anti nuke idiots picketing a nuke plant choking to death on coal fumes.

the answer is authoritarian rule... huge advantage in an energy constrained age. put the nukes where they are needed. fuck the locals. put the high speed rail tracks down where needed. fuck the locals. dump the waste where needed. ftl.

authoritarianism... the government of winners in the competitive peak cheap oil future.

the individual is a luxury in an energy constrained world.

[GRG55]

Re: David Fleming’s New Book Provides Death Knell for Nuclear Power.

wish i was a cartoonist... i'd draw a bunch of anti nuke idiots picketing a nuke plant choking to death on coal fumes.

the answer is authoritarian rule... huge advantage in an energy constrained age. put the nukes where they are needed. fuck the locals. put the high speed rail tracks down where needed. fuck the locals. dump the waste where needed. ftl.

authoritarianism... the government of winners in the competitive peak cheap oil future.

the individual is a luxury in an energy constrained world.

Somebody is bound to invoke this from the Declaration :

"...That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness..."

[moonshot]

Re: David Fleming’s New Book Provides Death Knell for Nuclear Power.

One of the arguments the anti-nuclear lobby bring up is the lack of economics for constructing a nuclear plant. If coal fired power plants had to meet, over their full operating life, the same radioactive montoring regulations and emissions limits that nuclear power plants are required to meet they would also be uneconomic to build.

Your post raises a very valid point, namely that the same cost-benefit analysis should be applied to any energy solution.

I guess the question is, is there any energy solution that can pay for all its externalities? Even if the answer is no, since we will prefer to keep our modern conveniences rather than reverting to the stone age, we (government and its citizens) need to figure out what the net deficit is from each of the proposed energy solutions, and in what form those deficits come in (hydrocarbon emissions, radioactive waste, food competition of biofuels, noise/potential harm to wildlife of windfarms, etc.). Only then can we rationally decide which energy solutions we are willing to subsidize (either directly, or via bearing the externalities).