Nuclear energy and society

Discussion in 'Science & Society' started by Keln, Feb 4, 2011.

  1. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    Tell that to the people trying to contain Iran, after losing the battle with North Korea, India, Pakistan, Israel, barely winning it (so far) with Libya, South Africa, Iraq, Brazil, Canada, Japan, - - -

    Bombs are easier to build than power plants. They don't have to be safe.
    The only ignorance doing any harm there was the fatheaded complacency of the people who permitted and built the thing.

    We're stuck with it now. Cross your fingers the Madrid fault's northern branches don't let loose - it's their turn, with the northern midcontinent still rebounding from the ice.
    If your idea of the best we can do is a few banks of lead acid batteries and the funding for one small pumped storage facility, you're in for a treat - a whole new world lies before you.

    My idea of the best we can do starts with funding levels matching all the research, all the development, all the construction, all the waste handling monies, and all the proposed investment in all of this, for the nuclear power industry.
     
    Last edited: Feb 8, 2011
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  3. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    its your lack of attention to detail (or more precisely, comprehending how computer modeling doesn't constitute "hard" data) that is the problem.

    I mean if you can't fathom how an error of 20 metres in sea level will cause very major complications (despite being a mere 2% of ocean depth) you are certainly not the sort of person we would want playing with the ecology.
     
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  5. Skeptical Registered Senior Member

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    LG
    Get real!
    I was discussing final concentration of dissolving radioisotopes in sea water, which I calculated at 5 parts per trillion. You point out that the seas might rise 80 metres, plus or minus a bit and tell me that is "playing with the ecology".

    Please tell me how reducing final concentration from 5 parts per trillion by 1.7% to 2.3% will 'play with the ecology'? In fact, how can 5 parts per trillion be 'playing with the ecology" when you consider that the current 'natural' radioisotope level in the ocean is ten times that level?
     
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  7. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, that is a risk. But again, everything is relative. Would you rather have them blow a Nevada waste dump to bits, and make ten square miles of uninhabited desert uninhabitable? Net result - no one killed, outside perhaps the people guarding it.

    Or you would rather have them blow up a power plant - say Hoover Dam? Lake Havasu City, Bullhead city, Needles, Blythe, and Laughlin are destroyed; 100,000 people are homeless if they are lucky and dead if they're not. And afterwards, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix and San Diego become uninhabitable as they lose their water supply.

    Which is worse?

    If we need it that badly, I hope we have it.
     
  8. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    I was pointing out how you can't even give an acceptable answer on sea levels, and as a further point your back handedness in the error margin rings of the corporate short-sightedness that people in general have grown to loathe in recent years
    its quite simple

    if you put it out there, you can't take it back

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    Even on the stock market 0.6% can mean a lot .... what to speak of a planetary level ....
     
    Last edited: Feb 9, 2011
  9. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    "Fatheaded complacency?" That power plant experienced one of the worst disasters imaginable - a LOCA. Mechanical failures caused a loss of coolant, and three incredibly stupid actions by the operators compounded it. At two separate points in the incident they actually shut down the systems that would have prevented the incident, and in fact were in the process of doing so.

    And as a result of that, the worst nuclear disaster in US history? One that destroyed the core and created a melt pool in the reactor, the worst-case scenario? Nothing. No deaths. No injuries. So little effect that decades later people are still arguing over whether there is any measurable effect at all.

    If that's an example of "fatheaded complacency" let's hope that designers of coal and gas fired power plants someday gain enough weight and become complacent enough that they can reach that level of safety.

    And if it does, and we have another disaster akin to the first one? Then - nothing will happen, again. Not a bad scenario.

    Great! I look forward to new developments in power generation and storage. In the meantime, we have to solve our problems now, which means we have to use technology that can be used now. Take your pick.

    Again, great. Nuclear fusion could solve all our problems, for example. Until then . . .
     
  10. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    The assumptions behind that calculation were ridiculous. Not even the Brits, when they decided to just pipe several decades of raw plutonium waste unto the seabed in deeper water, entertained the notion that they could assume a thorough mixing of the ocean's waters for dilution.

    Their calculations, based on filling a void in their knowledge of the ocean with convenient assumptions about seafloor stability and deep water stasis, were considerably more plausible than that. They didn't have to ignore stuff they already knew.
    When they blow up Hoover Dam, they will probably use a nuke. How and where would they get it?
    Prairie Island, not Three Mile, was my example.

    But any confusion is completely understandable. Examples of fatheaded complacency abound, in the nuclear power business. I've heard people recommend CANDU reactors - which generate plutonium in large quantities, and were key to India's getting the bomb (and in turn Pakistan, of course) - as a protection from the risk of weapons proliferation; I've seen professional engineers (this one's local to me, again) examine the wreckage where the central control unit for a power reactor core had free-fallen off of the wall due to unexpected and unpredicted and unobserved corrosion problems with its mounting bolts and some pump vibration,

    and landed on the pipes that were the sole delivery system for coolant to that core,

    (did I mention this thing was the size of a school bus? and very heavy for its size?)

    deliver the verdict that since the last, third tier backup safety systems had functioned, and shut the reactor down in time,

    and since the pipes had not actually been too badly damaged, and most of them would have still functioned under rerouted controls,

    that the entire incident was an example of the safety and reliability of the plant.
    Just look around, if all you've seen is lead acid batteries and a small time pump storage facility.
     
    Last edited: Feb 9, 2011
  11. Skeptical Registered Senior Member

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    1,449
    I was talking of 1000 years of radioisotope production, which would be added to the oceans with care to mix thoroughly. What humanity will not achieve using a mobile tanker or similar method, will be achieved over that length of time, by the oceanic currents.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermohaline_circulation

    There will inevitably be areas of slightly higher and lower concentration, but remember that the base line is 5 parts per trillion of radioisotopes from nuclear waste, and 55 ppt including 'natural'. If we got 20 ppt of radioisotopes from waste instead locally, that is still way less than the 'natural' background level.

    We have a lot of data on the effects of higher and lower levels of radiation on life forms, including human. As I pointed out earlier, a single dose of 80 millisieverts at Hiroshima was not enough to cause measurable harm.

    Natural background radiation averages 2.4 millisieverts per year globally, and locally can be as high as 260 msv.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Background_radiation
    None of those doses seems to be harmful to humans, despite the incredible variation. This leads me to think that raising radioisotope levels in the ocean from 50 ppt to 55 ppt, or even 75 ppt, will have no measurable effect on any lifeform.

    If anyone wants to argue otherwise, post your references.
     
  12. Keln Registered Member

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    This on-going argument about dumping nuclear waste into the sea is silly. Come on guys...of course the amount of waste compared to the amount of water means a very large amount of dilution. Use a little mathematical sense please.

    But the argument is moot. Dumping this waste is, well, a waste. I wouldn't even call it "nuclear waste". Maybe, "post nuclear material" or something. It is far too valuable to throw away. The problem isn't the "waste". The problem is that we haven't developed any way of using it yet. But there are several promising ideas on how to use it.

    Storage, for now, is simply the best, and only solution. Because once we can use the stuff, we will want to have a good supply. These are isotopes just bristling with energy...how can anyone view them as waste? I mean, the things that happen in a reactor are just beautiful. What is created is the stuff of the universe. Don't treat it like trash.

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  13. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    I don't know. The bombing was Fraggle Rock's example, so you'd have to ask him. Personally, I very much doubt that any future war will involve bombers dropping nuclear weapons (or even large conventional weapons) on locations within the US.

    Fair enough. No serious problems at that plant, so again, a poor example of the risks nuclear power poses.

    So again - a critical system in a nuclear power plant experiences a worst case failure, and a safe shutdown results? That's not an argument for the horrendous safety record of nuclear power. The correct response to that would be to fix the control system mounts so it couldn't happen again, thus making an inherently safe system even safer.

    This is like arguing how unsafe the 757 is because one once ran out of fuel midflight, deployed its RAT for emergency power, made a safe landing on an abandoned runway - but sustained tens of thousands of dollars worth of damage. It would be foolish to argue that that made the plane unsafe. A good response to this would be to fix the error that cause the plane to run out of fuel to begin with, rather than attempt to eliminate 757's.

    I am, and I'm just not seeing the horrible nuclear accidents that occur in the US nuclear power generation program. Nuclear is certainly not a perfect form of power - but by just about every standard, sources of power like coal are worse.
     
    Last edited: Feb 9, 2011
  14. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    The rest of us are dealing with somewhat shorter time lines - the kinds that involve disasters from idiotic ideas like deliberately dumping nuclear waste in the oceans.
    No serious disasters, you mean. Problems have been frequent, expenses and inconveniences common (including to me personally) and risks of course ongoing and very, very, serious.
    That was far from a worst case. It was a best case of its kind - something completely unpredicted happened, and as it happened a backup system turned out to be able to handle it. A major and unforeseen threat to the cooling system and core integrity was averted by luck - some of the pipes not broken, a key part of the emergency scram setup a few feet out of range, nothing done on purpose saved that plant.

    Unexpected, unpredicted, near disasters, from which we were saved by good fortune rather than design, are signs of trouble and contradictions to expressions of mastery and confidence. To quote Richard Feynman, in his criticism of the role of such reasoning in the prelude to the shuttle blowing up: "{This is} not something from which safety can be inferred".

    But the obvious and ludicrously unreasonable risks imposed on everyone by nuclear proliferation of various kinds are only the first objection. The huge cost of these monsters, their centralization of effective power, the fact that they hold the entire society hostage to their needs once built, are as severe in criticism of the notion of building more of them as the odds of having to evacuate the Ohio River Valley for hundreds of years.
    It does not. The Brits are finding this out as we speak. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sellafield
     
  15. Keln Registered Member

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    65
    You just committed an academic sin...linking to Wikipedia.

    Academic source please?
     
  16. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    21,634
    But again, that's like claiming that minorities are bad because they make property values go down. It's not the minorities; it's other people's perception of them that is the problem.

    Again, when you compare an industry like coal (that _does_ kill people) to an industry like nuclear power (that does not kill people, only poses a theoretical risk) - nuclear wins. Actual deaths are worse than theoretical deaths.

    No, best case failure is a failure that is planned for and designed for, like a fuse on a solenoid driver line. Short in the solenoid? Fuse blows and system throws a warning; system works as designed. Best case failure.

    Worst case is multiple failures that are hard to foresee. Complete controller failure? Foreseeable. Complete controller failure followed by it falling on (and damaging) primary loop coolant pipes? Harder to foresee. Not a best case failure.

    Loss of coolant accident? Foreseeable. LOCA followed by failure of indicators that should indicate the failure? Foreseeable, but a little tougher to manage. LOCA followed by the operators closing the auxiliary feedwater valves? Harder to foresee. LOCA, followed by operators closing feedwater valves, followed by operators shutting down the emergency high pressure injection pumps? Very hard to foresee. Close to a worst case failure.

    Yet in both those cases - nothing bad happened. No deaths. No injuries. Damage was purely economic. Which is an excellent incentive for the owner to make sure it doesn't happen again.

    Exactly! But if that exact same launch had had a better O-ring design, and the failure was found weeks later by an inspector looking at the seals and concluding "gee, that could have been bad" - then that would be something from which safety COULD be inferred. The first O-ring failed; the system still worked as designed.

    And that's the big difference between the Challenger disaster and an incident like Three Mile Island. When the shuttle blew up, the system failed; seven people died. When Three Mile Island melted down, the system worked. The problem was contained. No one died. No one was injured.

    Imagine how happy the families of those astronauts would be if the Challenger incident had only been as bad as Three Mile Island.

    That's getting into more political/religious types of beliefs, which I won't argue. There are plenty of such beliefs to go around - and some people oppose solar power with as much justification, and with as much fervor.
     
  17. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    Weapons proliferation from the nuke power industry is at the base of the Iraq sanctions and subsequent war - something around a million people dead, millions more refugee, crippled and blighted. And then there's Chernobyl. And the background dead from the various releases, mining and processing operations, etc.

    But the argument is bad anyway: Possible extraordinary devastation is worse than even certain but much smaller tragedy.

    And we are not comparing coal.

    But if we were: Bad safety standards and inability to control the behavior of corporate entities is an argument against allowing the establishment of extraordinarily hazardous corporate enterprises. The coal people can't do Chernobyls, and we are very fortunate that way.
    That would be a different kind, as clearly specified.
    Nothing bad happened in the first half dozen cold weather shuttle launches either - some erosion in the O rings, which was not supposed to occur, but no deaths, no disasters. And so safety was inferred. Which was a basic error - right?
    The fuck it did. The entire reactor went out of control, the people on the scene had no idea what was going on, and the Ohio River Valley was saved by luck and the paranoia of strangers - the forced imposition of containment shells and multiply redundant safety systems that in desperation managed to reel it in. That paranoia you sneer at, that perception by outsiders that you guys need to be kept on a short leash with this stuff, was all that saved our collective ass.
    We were lucky with the Challenger, too - it didn't blow up on the launch pad, land on a large city, blow up a dangerous payload, etc.

    The point is that when you are looking at a long and continuing string of unforeseen events that missed being Chernobyls by dumb luck, you can't infer safety from your good fortune so far. The next one is coming. Build a thousand more nukes, create a million tons more waste, generate hundreds more pounds of plutonium in hundreds of plants all over the globe, and it will arrive sooner.

    And if you can't get past the basic safety issue, you don't even need to consider the money. The fact the nuclear power when it's working is insanely expensive compared to almost anything else, in particular thermal solar as mentioned, doesn't even matter.
     
    Last edited: Feb 9, 2011
  18. Skeptical Registered Senior Member

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    Nuclear power is not insanely expensive.

    As I pointed out earlier, 2005 figures show nuclear generated electricity costs 7.5 American cents per kilowatt hour versus 10 cents for wind power.

    It is not especially dangerous. Compared to coal power, if a Chernobyl happened each 10 years (2500 deaths), it would still be way, way safer than coal power that kills hundreds of thousands each year.

    The figures are clear, but the paranoia and emotional bulldust of the nuclear-phobic cannot be overcome.
     
  19. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    16,330
    the figures may be clear but its the conclusions or validity of them that the overwhelming majority of people tend to suspect draws from your nether regions

    Like for instance citing one instance of a nuclear reactor going supernova (and even then, forgoing the indirect consequences since the legacy of Chernobyl is still continuing ) as contrasting the total casualties of coal based energy (whatever they may be) as if there is some sort of parallel ...

    Its not emotional bulldust.

    Its simply a common understanding that regardless how much of the go ahead nuclear energy gets (and even if they are as mindless as to pump the waste into the ocean)coal based power will still be supplementing the grid.
     
  20. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    Fantasy numbers. They don't even include the risk premium, which in the US is borne by the taxpayers (and an unfunded liability, in general), let alone the military and police and other security demands, the still unaccomplished waste disposal and decommissioning, realistic estimates of externalized downtime and repair costs, mine reclamation and medical expenses, strain on the grid from plant shutdowns and behaviors, and so forth.

    In 2005 we had reached a sensible understanding of what the Iraq war was going to cost, for example - a good share should have been included in the costs of nuclear power generation, prorated of course.

    And nukes have not been all that reliable, you know: the famous "cloudy day" factor in solar power is at least realistically estimated, included in the recognized costs. When a large proportion of your baseline power suddenly goes down and stays offline indefinitely with no warning, repeatedly over years, that factor needs factoring in using prudent and soberly derived and comprehensive numbers.
     
  21. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    24,690
    I can't find a good estimate of pre-industrial energy comsumption, but I'm sure I'm safe in estimating that we use at least ten thousand times as much energy as our ancestors did 500 years ago, using primarily human and animal muscles. Per capita, in the developed world.

    We have entire new categories of technology that they couldn't have dreamed of, and those technologies use energy at a rate they couldn't have dreamed of. It would be silly to think that won't happen again on the other side of the Post-Industrial Revolution.

    Especially if energy becomes tremendously cheaper, and the only drawback is one that our distant descendants will have to worry about. One thing we've always been abysmally poor at is making this a nice place for those who come after us.

    The Japanese are still eating whale meat.
     
    Last edited: Feb 9, 2011
  22. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    21,634
    You really think the wars in the Middle East are more over uranium than over oil? I disagree there. Far more wars have been fought over oil - and they will get worse, not better, as we run out.

    I disagree there as well. I am sure you would rather be dead in someone's imagination than actually dead; most people would.

    We can imagine scenarios all we like. But in terms of actual, demonstrated safety over many decades of operation, nuclear power is far, far safer than coal.

    They have "done" them time and time again.

    Chernobyl killed 50 people directly, from the explosion and fire and from radiation poisoning. There may be up to 4000 deaths due to low-level radiation exposure and subsequent cancers and other health results.

    Let's compare that to the coal industry here in the US. A single dam failure in Buffalo Creek released tons of coal slurry that killed 125 people and injured over 1000; it poisoned the rivers nearby for years. And still they continue; the last impound dam failure was last year, and they happen with depressing regularity. Coal power plant pollution kills about 20,000 people a year here in the US, primarily from fly ash pollution. So in a very real sense we are having 5 Chernobyls a YEAR here in the US.

    Yes. Because it did eventually fail and kill seven people.

    Let's say it had a different design, one that had prevented the explosion. There was some damage visible on occasion, but it never progressed to destruction of the orbiter. By your standards, that's just as bad as the actual deaths of seven astronauts - because it _might_ have happened. I disagree with such logic. A system that works as designed in the real world even in the face of major failures of components is a system that works.

    Exactly! The worst case incident occurred - and no one was injured.

    ?? I'm not sneering at the engineers who designed it. They did a good job. The backups in place were sufficient to prevent the incident. That is proof positive that they worked.

    The right response to this is not "hey, nothing happened, nothing to learn here." That would be foolish. And indeed, a lot DID change in nuclear power here in the US as a result of that accident, primarily in designing systems that give a better indication of what's happening inside the reactor.

    The right response is also not "hey, look what COULD have happened - it's a disaster!" Since the system did in fact work as designed, that's an emotional argument, not a logical one.

    If you think US power plants can become "Chernobyls" there are a few details of nuclear reactor engineering you may be missing. US LWR's cannot go prompt critical, they are not constructed of flammable materials and do not have a positive void coefficient. It's not dumb luck if it is designed expressly to prevent such an occurrence.

    That's what I'm saying. If we have one Three Mile Island a year, we still come out ahead of coal. (Needless to say, the goal should be NO Three Mile Islands again, ever.)

    If nuclear power were insanely expensive no one would pursue it. People build reactors because they provide cheap power, as people both in the US and abroad have demonstrated. Thermal solar is great - but it's a lot more expensive than nuclear power, and it doesn't produce at night.

    We may someday solve those problems; I hope we do. But until that day, US operators are going to have a choice that comes down to coal or nuclear (natural gas in some places, but not for long.) Choosing nuclear over coal will keep more Americans alive.
     
  23. Skeptical Registered Senior Member

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    France has 58 nuclear reactors, and has never had anything approaching a serious accident.

    Chernobyl is the worst nuclear accident in history. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the total number of deaths from Chernobyl, up to now and indefinitely into the future, will not exceed 2500. Those 2500 deaths are pretty much all deaths from nuclear energy in history.

    Hydroelectricity has killed many thousands from dam bursts and from assorted accidents. Coal burning has killed hundreds of thousands from respiratory illness.

    Of the Big Four electricity producers, only natural gas has a better safety record than nuclear. Of those big four, only nuclear can be expanded almost indefinitely. Coal is too environmentally destructive. Hydro is almost at maximum potential already. Natural gas is good, but is limited in abundance.

    I predicted that my idea for dissolving nuclear waste in seawater would attract irrational and emotional opposition, and it did.
     

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