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Going Nuclear


It would not be right to leave The Agonist without changing my mind on one last issue.

For a long time I believed that nuclear power generation was an energy source for the post-climate change world we're encountering. After Fukushima I had to really rethink the issue and began slowly moving towards the idea that maybe I might believe wrongly. After listening to this podcast from the always excellent George Kenney at Electric Politics I suppose my about face is now complete. It's not a matter of personal feelings that led me to change my mind, but an assessment of the risks. If you do the math, even assuming a 99.99% record of total safety, the amount of nuclear reactors it would take to power the United States in a post-climate change world, the risk of a Fukushima, or Chernobyl, is still too great. George, thank's for educating me on such a critical issue.


Sean Paul Kelley January 31, 2012 - 11:02am
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( categories: Global Energy )

I would hold the door open

for the wave reactors being developed, there is a test plant likely going in China and perhaps France.

Wave reactors use spent uranium as fuel, burn slowly and remain in enclosed containment for their entire 60 year life and burn nearly 100% of the uranium material. The end waste product is non-radioactive.

The present reactors 'burn' only 3% of the uranium and 97% is waste, hence the problem. Those spent rods are laying in pools all over the world. Wave reactors would use existing spent rods as their fuel. The barrier has been in material development which can contain the reactor over such an extended period. But modern materials technology is now bringing their reality into reach. Also, the computerized modeling of the reactions are intensive but again growing computing power is also making these reactors possible.

Scotjen61 January 31, 2012 - 12:56pm
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Not exactly a proliferation resistant design.

"In combat one should be very suspicious of painless moral choices. When you are confronted with a seemingly painless moral choice, the odds are that you haven't looked deeply enough." ~ Karl Marlantes

JustPlainDave January 31, 2012 - 1:07pm
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The cat has left the bag

and there is no point engaging in last century's struggles while the world adapts to a new reality.

Our bullying of less powerful nations has guaranteed that we'll live in a pervasively nuclear-armed world sooner rather than later.

chalo January 31, 2012 - 4:53pm
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Pipe dreams

Here's the deal, there is not enough Uranium left, but if you can mix it and Plutonium together with Thorium it might be possible to fuel existing plants. This is really what the nuclear industry want to do but they are spouting off about non-existent technology that burns up everything if you run it through over and over but it doesn't work; not yet. Sure, I am for continuing research but I am not for what the present nuclear industry wants. They are telling lies.

Yes, the Thorium fuel cycle does not create Plutonium but it does create U232 with a half life of 240,000 years, which was used to make fission bombs back in the 50's. You see their lies yet? Thorium itself does not fission, it has to be transmuted into U233 first. But one tenth of the U233 will become U234 during normal reactor operation. U234 is a very strong gamma ray emitter making the spent fuel impossible to handle even with present robotic technology. Of course even if you could get that far it doesn't work because, at present, the Thorium fuel cycle generates too many neutron absorbing byproducts that quench the reaction. So the nuclear industry are back to doping Thorium with enriched Uranium and Plutonium making a very dangerous cocktail of spent fuel. Maybe, someday there will be a fast breeder reactor, cooled with Salt, that can actually shutdown (they are working on the shutting down part) if needed and there will be materials that can withstand molten salt long enough for the reactor to pay part of its construction cost but that day is not today it is still a pipe dream.

Joaquin February 1, 2012 - 1:07am
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The other reactor to pursue

would be a true fusion reactor, which would truly be the holy grail of power the world over.

Scotjen61 January 31, 2012 - 12:58pm
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We still appear to be years away

from the technology for materials or magnetic containment for a Fusion reactor to be operational, let alone practical.

In the mean time, improvements in renewable energy (Solar, Wind, Tidal) are progressing faster than I'd have thought...and that progress may be detracting from research and finding needed to realize Fusion technology

"It's no longer IOKIYAR....It's OK If You're A Republican, but IOKBYAR--It's OK BECAUSE You're a Republican." -- Me

justadood January 31, 2012 - 2:29pm
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Risk evaluation

has to consider both likelihood and consequences.

The chance of stubbing my toe may be comparatively high but the consequence is relatively trivial. I occasionally run around barefoot.
My chance of being hit by lightening are slim but the consequence is severe. I avoid thunderstorms.

No matter how low the odds are of a nuclear disaster, the consequences are higher than I am willing to tolerate.

It is worth remembering that the Founding Fathers were all traitors.

steeleweed January 31, 2012 - 1:34pm
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Another Nuclear Technology

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_Bed_Reactor

"...The base of the PBR's design is the spherical fuel elements called pebbles. These tennis ball-sized pebbles are made of pyrolytic graphite (which acts as the moderator), and they contain thousands of micro fuel particles called TRISO particles. These TRISO fuel particles consist of a fissile material (such as 235U) surrounded by a coated ceramic layer of silicon carbide for structural integrity and fission product containment. In the PBR, thousands of pebbles are amassed to create a reactor core, and are cooled by an inert or semi-inert gas such as helium, nitrogen or carbon dioxide.

This type of reactor is claimed to be passively safe; that is, it removes the need for redundant, active safety systems. Because the reactor is designed to handle high temperatures, it can cool by natural circulation and still survive in accident scenarios, which may raise the temperature of the reactor to 1,600 °C. Because of its design, its high temperatures allow higher thermal efficiencies than possible in traditional nuclear power plants (up to 50%) and has the additional feature that the gases do not dissolve contaminants or absorb neutrons as water does, so the core has less in the way of radioactive fluids. A number of prototypes have been built. Active development continued in South Africa until 2010 as the PBMR design, and in China whose HTR-10 is the only prototype currently operating..."

darms January 31, 2012 - 1:39pm
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As we found out with Chernobyl

Graphite burns causing the worst kind of disaster, and as we found out with Fukushima, the residual radioactivity left in the fuel after full shutdown is enough to melt right through a reactor.

Joaquin February 1, 2012 - 12:50am
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