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Nuclear Power Is Expensive and Bad for the Environment … It’s Being Pushed Because It Is Good For Making Bombs
Forbes points out:
Nuclear power is no longer an economically viable source of new energy in the United States, the freshly-retired CEO of Exelon, America’s largest producer of nuclear power [who also served on the president’s Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future], said in Chicago Thursday.
And it won’t become economically viable, he said, for the forseeable future.
***
“I’m the nuclear guy,” Rowe said. “And you won’t get better results with nuclear. It just isn’t economic, and it’s not economic within a foreseeable time frame.”
U.S. News and World Report notes:
After the Fukushima power plant disaster in Japan last year, the rising costs of nuclear energy could deliver a knockout punch to its future use in the United States, according to a researcher at the Vermont Law School Institute for Energy and the Environment.
“From my point of view, the fundamental nature of [nuclear] technology suggests that the future will be as clouded as the past,” says Mark Cooper, the author of the report. New safety regulations enacted or being considered by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission would push the cost of nuclear energy too high to be economically competitive.
The disaster insurance for nuclear power plants in the United States is currently underwritten by the federal government, Cooper says. Without that safeguard, “nuclear power is neither affordable nor worth the risk. If the owners and operators of nuclear reactors had to face the full liability of a Fukushima-style nuclear accident or go head-to-head with alternatives in a truly competitive marketplace, unfettered by subsidies, no one would have built a nuclear reactor in the past, no one would build one today, and anyone who owns a reactor would exit the nuclear business as quickly as possible.”
Alternet reports:
An authoritative study by the investment bank Lazard Ltd. found that wind beat nuclear and that nuclear essentially tied with solar. But wind and solar, being simple and safe, are coming on line faster. Another advantage wind and solar have is that capacity can be added bit by bit; a wind farm can have more or less turbines without scuttling the whole project. As economies of scale are created within the alternative energy supply chains and the construction process becomes more efficient, prices continue to drop. Meanwhile, the cost of stalled nukes moves upward.
AP noted last year:
Nuclear power is a viable source for cheap energy only if it goes uninsured.
***
Governments that use nuclear energy are torn between the benefit of low-cost electricity and the risk of a nuclear catastrophe, which could total trillions of dollars and even bankrupt a country.
The bottom line is that it’s a gamble: Governments are hoping to dodge a one-off disaster while they accumulate small gains over the long-term.
The cost of a worst-case nuclear accident at a plant in Germany, for example, has been estimated to total as much as €7.6 trillion ($11 trillion), while the mandatory reactor insurance is only €2.5 billion.
“The €2.5 billion will be just enough to buy the stamps for the letters of condolence,” said Olav Hohmeyer, an economist at the University of Flensburg who is also a member of the German government’s environmental advisory body.
The situation in the U.S., Japan, China, France and other countries is similar.
***
“Around the globe, nuclear risks — be it damages to power plants or the liability risks resulting from radiation accidents — are covered by the state. The private insurance industry is barely liable,” said Torsten Jeworrek, a board member at Munich Re, one of the world’s biggest reinsurance companies.
***
In financial terms, nuclear incidents can be so devastating that the cost of full insurance would be so high as to make nuclear energy more expensive than fossil fuels.
***
Ultimately, the decision to keep insurance on nuclear plants to a minimum is a way of supporting the industry.
“Capping the insurance was a clear decision to provide a non-negligible subsidy to the technology,” Klaus Toepfer, a former German environment minister and longtime head of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), said.
This is an ongoing battle, not ancient history. As Harvey Wasserman reports:
The only two US reactor projects now technically under construction are on the brink of death for financial reasons.
If they go under, there will almost certainly be no new reactors built here.
***
Georgia’s double-reactor Vogtle project has been sold on the basis of federal loan guarantees. Last year President Obama promised the Southern Company, parent to Georgia Power, $8.33 billion in financing from an $18.5 billion fund that had been established at the Department of Energy by George W. Bush. Until last week most industry observers had assumed the guarantees were a done deal. But the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade group, has publicly complained that the Office of Management and Budget may be requiring terms that are unacceptable to the builders.
***
The climate for loan guarantees has changed since this one was promised. The $535 million collapse of Solyndra prompted a rash of angry Congressional hearings and cast a long shadow over the whole range of loan guarantees for energy projects. Though the Vogtle deal comes from a separate fund, skepticism over stalled negotiations is rising.
So is resistance among Georgia ratepayers. To fund the new Vogtle reactors, Southern is forcing “construction work in progress” rate hikes that require consumers to pay for the new nukes as they’re being built. Southern is free of liability, even if the reactors are not completed. Thus it behooves the company to build them essentially forever, collecting payment whether they open or not.
All that would collapse should the loan guarantee package fail.
Bad for the Environment
Alternet points out:
Mark Cooper, senior fellow for economic analysis at the Vermont Law School … found that the states that invested heavily in nuclear power had worse track records on efficiency and developing renewables than those that did not have large nuclear programs. In other words, investing in nuclear technology crowded out developing clean energy.
Many experts also say that the “energy return on investment” from nuclear power is lower than many other forms of energy. In other words, non-nuclear energy sources produce more energy for a given input.
And decentralizing energy production and storage is the real solution for the environment … not building more centralized nuclear plants.
BBC notes:
Building the [nuclear] power station produces a lot of CO2 ….
Nuclear power … would do nothing directly to reduce CO2 from transport ….
Indeed, an International Forum on Globalization report – written by environmental luminaries Ernest Callenback, Gar Smith and Jerry Mander – have slammed nuclear power as catastrophic for the environment:
Nuclear energy is not the “clean” energy its backers proclaim. For more than 50 years, nuclear energy has been quietly polluting our air, land, water and bodies—while also contributing to Global Warming through the CO2 emissions from its construction, mining, and manufacturing operations. Every aspect of the nuclear fuel cycle—mining, milling, shipping, processing, power generation, waste disposal and storage—releases greenhouse gases, radioactive particles and toxic materials that poison the air, water and land. Nuclear power plants routinely expel low-level radionuclides into the air in
the course of daily operations.While exposure to high levels of radiation can kill within a matter of days or weeks, exposure to low levels on a prolonged basis can damage bones and tissue and result in genetic damage, crippling long-term injuries, disease and death.
David Swanson – discussing the report – writes:
The energy put into mining, processing, and shipping uranium, plant construction, operation, and decommissioning is roughly equal to the energy a nuclear plant can produce in its lifetime. In other words, nuclear energy does not add any net energy.
Not counted in that calculation is the energy needed to store nuclear waste for hundreds of thousands of years.
Also not counted is any mitigation of the relatively routine damage done to the environment, including human health, at each stage of the process.
***
Nuclear energy is not an alternative to energies that increase global warming, because nuclear increases global warming. When high-grade uranium runs out, nuclear will be worse for CO2 emissions than burning fossil fuels. And as global warming advances, nuclear becomes even less efficient as reactors must shut down to avoid overheating.
Good for Making Bombs
If nuclear energy is expensive and bad for the environment, why is it being pushed so heavily? And why did the Fukushima reactors use plutonium – instead of just uranium? We need a little background to understand the answers.
Virtually all of the nuclear reactors in the U.S. are of the same archaic design as those at Fukushima. This design was not chosen for safety reasons. Rather, it was chosen because it worked in Navy submarines, and produces plutonium for use in nuclear weapons.
Indeed, safer designs – such as thorium reactors – were left on the shelf because they don’t produce weapons-grade plutonium.
Governments have been covering up nuclear meltdowns for 50 years in order to protect the nuclear plant production of weapons-grade nuclear material. They have also suppressed the findings of their own top scientists about the health risks of radiation. Indeed, “nuclear regulators” are really just promoters for the nuclear cycle.
As veteran investigative reporter Joseph Trento – who has received six Pulitzer nominations, worked for CNN’s Special Assignment Unit, the Wilmington News Journal, and prominent journalist Jack Anderson – notes in a new report, the U.S. circumvented national and international laws to secretly give Japan nuclear weapons:
The United States deliberately allowed Japan access to the United States’ most secret nuclear weapons facilities while it transferred tens of billions of dollars worth of American tax paid research that has allowed Japan to amass 70 tons of weapons grade plutonium since the 1980s, a National Security News Service investigation reveals. These activities repeatedly violated U.S. laws regarding controls of sensitive nuclear materials that could be diverted to weapons programs in Japan. The NSNS investigation found that the United States has known about a secret nuclear weapons program in Japan since the 1960s, according to CIA reports.
***
[Japan] has used its electrical utility companies as a cover to allow the country to amass enough nuclear weapons materials to build a nuclear arsenal larger than China, India and Pakistan combined. This deliberate proliferation by the United States fuels arguments by countries like Iran that the original nuclear powers engage in proliferation despite treaty and internal legal obligations.
***
That secret effort was hidden in a nuclear power program that by March 11, 2011– the day the earthquake and tsunami overwhelmed the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant – had amassed 70 metric tons of plutonium. Like its use of civilian nuclear power to hide a secret bomb program, Japan used peaceful space exploration as a cover for developing sophisticated nuclear weapons delivery systems.
Political leaders in Japan understood that the only way the Japanese people could be convinced to allow nuclear power into their lives was if a long line of governments and industry hid any military application. For that reason, a succession of Japanese governments colluded on a bomb program disguised as innocent energy and civil space programs.
***
Until the March 2011 tragedy, the Japanese nuclear industry had largely remained hidden from critical eyes. The less than thorough InternationA nuclear-armed Japan would relieve much of the drain on American military resources. The need to keep two divisions on the ground in Korea, as well as nuclear armed ships and aircraft in the Pacific as a hedge against China and the missile bases in the Soviet Far East detracted from the Pentagon’s chief mission – preparing for all-out war on the plains of Central Europe. The Reagan administration’s strategy was to push the Soviet war machine until it broke, taking the Soviet Union and its satellite regimes with it. The less than thorough International Atomic Energy Agency, the world’s proliferation safeguard agency, also turned a blind eye.
In a rare glimpse of a Japanese industry that has remained top secret for so many decades, our investigation raises serious concerns about Japanese and Western nuclear policies and the officials who shaped those policies during and after the Cold War. International corporations and officials sacrificed the safety and security of the public to carry out the deception. Under the guise of a peaceful nuclear power program, they made huge profits.
***
Both the Monju fast-breeder reactor in 1995 and the Tokai reprocessing plant in April 1997 suffered serious, accidental radiation leaks; both accidents were the subjects of attempted cover-ups. Most egregious was the fire and leak of radioactive sodium at the Monju FBR. Japan’s Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation (PNC), the government corporation that operated Monju, lied repeatedly to the public about the accident. PNC attempted to suppress video footage that showed the cause of the accident: a ruptured pipe in a secondary cooling system that had spilled an estimated two to three tons of radioactive sodium – the largest such leak in the history of fast-breeder technology. One of the reasons PNC gave for releasing the misinformation was that Monju was too important to Japan’s energy program to jeopardize the reactor’s operation. In other words, the public’s safety was secondary to the breeder program.
Had it not been for a courageous act by a group of Fukui prefecture officials in the early morning of December 11, PNC’s attempted cover-up probably would have succeeded. Suspecting a cover-up, the officials entered the plant and secured the videotape. The action came as a direct result of a previous accident at Fukui’s Tsuruga Unit I reactor in the early 1980s. Fukui prefecture officials were not permitted to investigate that mishap. When the Monju accident took place, the officials were determined not to be turned away a second time. Following revelations that the agency itself had been involved in trying to withhold the video, a PNC executive committed suicide.
***
The Fukushima nuclear disaster was not Japan’s first close call with nuclear weapons grade plutonium. Japan came very close to contaminating the Chilean coast on March 20, 1995, when the Pacific Pintail, laden with enough waste plutonium to build hundreds of nuclear bombs, tried to head into the protection of Chilean waters during a storm [with] 40-foot waves crashing over her bow, the spray flying away horizontally in the storm. He was in the midst of an Antarctic gale off Cape Horn at the tip of South America – the deadliest ocean in the world….
BBC notes:
A veteran of the nuclear industry wrote this: “What the industry needs to regain the support of the British public is… something akin to a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.”
It needs to be admitted that governments and industry lied to the public about the links with the military programme” ….
- advertisements -
Can you imagine what GW is going to write when somebody in the US actually dies in a nuclear powerplant accident?
Only nuclear shills pretend no one has died from nuclear accidents.
Nuclear Engineer Arnie Gundersen and Epidemiologist Steve Wing Discuss the Three Mile Island Accident
CBC on TMI: Reports of enormous increase in cancer deaths — Infant
mortality rates doubled — Birds disappeared — Many mutations observed
Don't forget Karen Silkwood
Or the massive increase of Infant Mortality Rates after 3/11. Those kids are people, too, or don't they count?
It kills the kids first.
truly terrible article, the whole thing is wrong.....i'm with GW on most of the conspiracy stuff but nuclear is the answer, not the problem......rather than dispute the article point by point, though, lets accept it as true. so what are the alternatives? let's take a look:
solar: does not provide baseload power, so there are issues if the sun doesn't shine for a while
wind: does not provide basload power. also has extremely low energy density (translation: not scalable, not economically viable), creates headaches and other physiological problems for those who live near them, and kills endangered birds.
oil: it's running out! see peak oil arguments.
natural gas: i agree it is a part of the solution, though it has many other indusrtrial and agricultural uses, and is still a finite resource.
coal: dirtiest form of energy out there. still need it, i'm pro-coal because i'm pro-energy, but coal is the dirtiest.
natural gas and nuclear are hte best of the lot. this is primarily because they have the best energy density which makes them the most economically viable.
for a better look at the energy paradigm, see this: http://www.321energy.com/editorials/energyreport/energyreport091808.html
NO, YOUR CONCLUSION IS WRONG. Because the facts on which you base your premise are wrong in the first place: Nuclear fission is NOT CO2 neutral: In order to make it appear so, the comparative graphs used by the industry and governments only portray the CO2 creation using the operation of the plant. Not what it takes to mine the fuel, process it, transport it, build a nuclear reactor, or store the waste (INDEFINATIVELY). It's a very damaging and wasteful way of heating water. It's a total bogus argument.
Moreover large quantities of CFK are produced during processing of the fuel and these are a factor worse than CO2 when regarding impact on the atmosphere of planet Earth.
when did i mention CO2?
they have already performed studies of wind power along the east coast, the output is stunning, the storage is capable. I suggest you review them
passive solar designed into structures and expanding food production year round is one of the best uses of solar energy on the planet.
SimitPatel - as to your answer on what we will replace nuclear with, if I were a betting man I'd bet instead of any constructive answers you'd get a slew of negative votes. GW has gotten further and further from actual dialogue with his strange conspiritorial "solutions: that always involve some type of State force.
As to what will take its place, in Japan I have no idea unless they devote an inordinate amount (it's already an inordinate amount) towards oil. The real answer is that synthetic photosynthesis along with increasingly efficient batteries and motors will one day become the norm.
"nuclear is the answer, not the problem"
What exactly is it the answer to? To how we're going to grow a bigger pyramid scheme of resource depletion and debt?
What do you want all this energy for? Bigger pyramids? More power? Greater centralization? Bigger government? More advanced weapons? An ipad for everyone including Amzaon indian tribes and the Kalahari Bushmen?
We can't grow ourselves out of the mess we're in. Just as the fed can't solve the problem of too much debt with more debt.
You seemed to have been brainwashed to believe that quanitative growth is somehow healthy and desirable.
"Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell." ~Ed Abbey
yes, growth for the sake of growth. to enable greater exploration and pursuit of dreams. greater energy levels do require greater maturity but i do not believe in penalizing those who want energy for the pursuit of their own personal development because there are a few rotten people who want more energy to do what most of us would regard as evil acts.
more energy also for the future, as another commenter noted. i do believe it is our obligation to leave the world better than we found it.
more energy to clean water and fix the environment.
more energy to bring prosperity to those who do not have it. it is very easy to say "who needs more energy?" if you have the time and resources to comment on zerohedge. i think if you go to iraq and talk to some people living in abject poverty, you will find they have a greater interest in more energy.
but it is not just more energy. it is avoiding a decline in energy. energy demands are growing and unless oil is replaced, energy will decline.
m king hubbert, the visionary geologist credited with discovering the concept of peak oil, entitled his seminal paper "nuclear power and fossil fuels." he correctly forecasted that nuclear power was how we get past peak oil.
You are correct in another important sense: The acquisition of more and more knowledge requires more and more energy. Futurist energy experts (Not poor George) have estimated that our energy needs will only grow. In a sense, energy is power today. There ARE societies that do not require lots of energy - the Bushmen of Africa, Eskimos, the starving hordes in Ethiopia, the slums of Calcutta,etc - but I can't see any rational person willingly exchange place with them.
"if you go to iraq and talk to some people living in abject poverty, you will find they have a greater interest in more energy."
We are currently living in a time with the greatest abundance of energy in human history. Yet the world is wracked with poverty, misery and suffering. So your idea that more energy will solve this is delusional. If history is a guide, more energy and the resultant quanitative growth, will only magnify the poverty, misery and suffering. Completely removing what is left of freedoms, civil liberites, intact ecosystems, clean air and clean water. A true prison planet.
We can't escape the limits of our planets resources. We can only escape in to fantasy and dreams that a new crop of "thorium reactors" will save us. Even if we did come up with a new fleet of thorium reactors. Our demand for endless quanitative growth would still be put in check by something else. Most likely fresh water, topsoil, or clean air.
Our only option now is managing the collapse. Something our "leaders" refuse to do, or even acknowledge. Like cocaine addicts, they are addicted to the rush of the fiat monetary system. A system based on endless debt, and endless growth to service that debt. They are a lost cause. We're on our own now.
One of the most important steps in turning the corner, and disconnecting our umbillical cords from the megamachine. Is realizing that trying to grow our way out of all the problems created by endless growth. Is a at least a cruel delusion, if not a form of insanity. This insanity is most apparent in the actions of the central banks who are currently trying to solve the problem of overwhelming debt by racheting up the debt load.
The second most important thing is realizing that, in the midst of wars, economic collapse and natural disasters. The worlds crop of 400+ nuclear reactors have a much higher chance of melting down than in the preceding decades of relative stability.
WWII repeated today in Europe would leave hundreds of nuclear reactors bombed out, neglected and melting down. The resultant genetic mutations to human DNA, would most likely lead to extinction for the human race.
So even without any new reactors, we may be headed for the endangered species list. Unless we're very careful and get to work dismantling all of the worlds nuclear reactors. The nightmare of Fukushima is already pushing many countires in that direction.
More reactors, more nuclear, will almost certainly guarantee our extinction.
you keep bringing up debt and quantitative "wealth." i havent mentioned any numbers (closest i get to that is mentioning energy density) and haven't mentioned debt at all. the debt scam is different than the energy scam. we can build a new monetary system and a new energy paradigm.
or we can sit here and complain about it all.......
if energy supply declines, that likely means even less for the folks living in abject poverty, and higher prices for everyone.
in a universe made up ENTIRELY of nothing BUT ENERGY, to risk our planet and our societies for some half ass dirty nasty energy source is ridiculous. Nuclear plants are nothing but steam engines using a toxic nasty and very dangerous heating element. If you think nuke energy is safe, there is a bunch f cheap real estate in Japan you may be interested in. Go move your family there and see how wonderful your energy source is.
yep crawldaddy, you nailed it. We are literally surrounded by energy.
fun anecdote: In every lightning storm on planet earth, antimatter is produced.
tell me what's better.......
Doing without the energy produced by those nuclear reactors. It's really, really simple.
Thinking can be tricky sometimes!
and replacing it with.....?
here are the options:
1. we replace the shortage resulting from peak oil with nuclear, which actually has the potential to increaes aggregate energy output
2. we devolve into a society using less energy
3. something else, but what?????
i reject option #2. i want to live in a world where we can all learn and pursue our dreams and i want the same for posterity. i'm open to #3, but i don't know what it could be -- and i need more than blind hope to feel confident. let's see something that is scalable, cost-effective, and people are actually behind.....something that has momentum and works.
from this perspective, option #1 is what i like most.
3. Directed energy technology? Hutchison Effect? Check it out!
What do we want "all that energy" for? That annoyance called the future. Yes, in 200 years when oil production is the stuff of mythology, people might appreciate out attempts today to get nuclear energy right, and our sacrifices in doing so, instead of just kicking the can. Unfortunately, we can't seem to get past the ends of our own lives, which points most starkly at the eventual collapse of our civilization from sheer comfort-driven selfishness.
Fans of Thorium say that once the technical issues are settled there will be thousands of years of fuel available. Same for breeder reactors. Of course, the risk of accidents and pollution from nuclear power to people who can drive a mile on 20 cents worth of gasoline seem too big. But if the eventual, inevitable collapse of our energy-hungry world from oil drying up means billions dead, then nuclear is a very viable option so long as it has evolved into cheap, safe and reliable energy by the time we really need it.
Sustaining what we have, not growth, requires a serious replacement of fossil fuels. Wind and solar aren't it. I've seen the wind maps, and if you want to live near places that can reliably generate wind power you'll be living in mountains or on an ocean where forests of turbines are allowed to be built.
What we have is a metastasizing cancer threatening to kill the host. We need to learn how to do more with much less, and that's after several billions have died due to war, disease, food and water shortages. We have temporarily moved the Malthusian limits with technology, but we are now approaching fundamental limits and the downward correction is in-progress.
I've looked at almost all the forms of energy production, and to me solar hot water and PV are absolutely the way to go. First, they offer the ability to achieve real energy independence now, second, it's decentralized, and third, apart from production, no pollution is produced. The reason this isn't done is political and not technological. Seems the banks aren't the only industry that likes to keep it's clients attached to and dependent upon the system they benefit from. Nonetheless, individuals and businesses are seeing the benefits and investing accordingly. Germany has made serious progress, and is showing the rest of the world how to do it. It's not perfect, but it is good progress in the right direction.
In the US, much of our infrastructure is unsustainable as it was developed around car/truck transportation. In that context, the development of suburbs and large distances between crops and consumers are no longer viable with oil scarcity. Do we spend scarce resources maintaining structures and systems that require large amounts of energy to keep them going/working? I think the answer is: probably not. We will adapt or else.
One of my pet peeves about calls for more and more energy (especially with electricity demand falling in the US) is that there are many culturally approved uses of energy that are either frivolous or that don't make sense in an environment of energy scarcity. As an example of the latter, taking a shower at 6:00am is stupid from an energy perspective when the sun produces plenty of heat in most places for an afternoon shower. What I'm getting at is that we could restructure cultural norms so that the norms match up with the energy reality, instead of using energy mindlessly.
Wind is the best, by far:
http://www.kitegen.com/en/technology/details/
These kites are cheap, safe, and they can tap into the faster winds around 1km that are almost always there even when there is no wind closer to the ground. They can "extract more energy from the no-fly zone above a typical nuclear power plant than what the plant itself produces".
Nuclear is dead.
i'm a fan of technology, let's see if they can make this kite thing work.....we do live in the here and now, though. there is innovation along all fronts in the energy sector. lets see what comes to fruition and works best from all perspectives.
Come on, what do you mean by we live in the here and now? These are simple kites with their lines pulling on regular generators. You are implying there might be issues with that as if it was in any way comparable to the complexities or the risks of a nuclear plant or even a coal or natgas plant? You sound dishonest.
what is the cost of electricity generated this way? when does it not work? if it is so great and so efficient, companies and individuals will naturally adopt it to save money. so why hasn't that happened?
Just google kite sails to see companies already powering both small ships and cargos with kites. I bet you won't though, if you were really interested in technology and alternative energy as you pretend you would have already found the answers to your questions on the site I linked to above, shill.
MIT scientists:
The answer is decentralization, bitch ...
Great idea, using sunlight to create hydrogen and oxygen. Storing them might present greater challenges, however, and leaks could be dangerous if not catastrophic. Oxygen is deadly in high concentrations. Indeed, you can burn steel wool in pure oxygen. And we all know what happened to the Hindenburg.
I assembled a few cheap solar panels and used them to create hydrogen and oxygen from water using electrolysis. It was fun to fill a few empty plastic soda bottles with hydrogen and then shoot them with tracer bullets.
Touch a 9 volt batteries terminals to steel wool, you'll see you don't need pure to get it to ignite and sustain... Side bar on that, a buddy almost burned his house down via having swept steel grindings into a wastebasket which had some water from a cup get on it afterwards. tarried in garage for a bit and caught it just as it started going up.
there's also lots of stuff in the works about making solar function as baseload, but let's see if any of it works. this is not a new problem and has been a challenge for literally hundreds of years. i remain hopeful, but alas, we have to live in the here and now.
name calling, nice. so, in addition to being misinformed, you're rude. well done......
i don't dispute decentralization and expect modular nuclear reactors to play an important part in getting us there.
Mr. Patel,
My apologies if I caused offense. Google "Thorium, bitchez" and you'll see that it was not meant as an insult.
You cite to a web page apparently run by investor Jack Chan (321Energy), who pushes energy etfs. I have cited to top scientists on nuclear energy, top nuclear executives and other people who - unlike investors talking their book - have deep expertise.
thanks for the clarification -- i guess i need to brush up on the latest slang! :) another reminder that i'm getting old......
Don't be offended on this site by the use of the term "bitch". Or it's variations "bitchez" or "beeotch". They're the badge of honor around here.
Yes, that's how I was using it ... Google "Thorium, Bitchez" and you'll see how often we use that term here ...
That's a fair statement.
But "Solar Beaches" sounds much better than "Thorium Beaches".
While you are griping about all the radiation from nuclear powerplants think about the vast amounts of radioactive materials blown into the sky every year by coal burning power plants. Coal is one of the richest sources of uranium and transuranics. Power plants burn off the hydrocarbons and leave the ash and radioactive materials in the environment. Coal ash, containing all the radioactive materials, is most commonly sold to add to lightweight concrete for use in high-rise buildings. I'm not for nuclear power of the current light-water kind but gees keep an open mind to the overall ecosystem of power and environment.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioa...
Coal sucks. Microgeneration, bitchez ...
Not as long as Uncle Warren gets to haul it on his own railroad.
article is 4 yrs old and no prototype yet?
I do believe the right solutions is decentralized power generation. However, will our government really want to pursue that? That leads to much more freedom from government.
What about the fuel cells by BloomBox, I think they are currently using nat gas for fuel but that could switch to other alternatives in future.
I recall reading a paper about twenty years ago that discussed why nuclear power was pushed over MHD coal, which would have been a more efficient and cleaner type of coal plant when the opportunities to develop both came up in the 50's. Although there were arguments that the future would not include coal, the conclusion was that the real reason for the choice of nuclear was that it was the only one of these plant types that would make material for nuclear weapons.
FWIW: Virtually all US Nuke Power plants are light water reactors and nearly the worst type of reactor for the production of Plutonium. Extracting the small amount of plutonium from light water reactors is not economically feasible.
Commerical nuke power originated with Eisenhower's "atoms for peace" program which promoted Nuke power worldwide, which set up small university reactors, including small reactors in Iran and Libya. Probably to promote US exports, since at the time the US was the leader in Nuclear energy at the time, and the nuke plants are expensive to build, and had the potential to generate tens of billions in exports for the US.
Japan has no nuclear weapon program, and used its Nuke power program to cut foriegn energy imports as a long term energy plan. They simple choose to ignore the long term risks.
"Thorium power has all of the advantages of conventional nuclear power, but with orders of magnitude less of the drawbacks (safety, cleanliness, non-proliferation)."
Completely wrong!
1. You can build nuclear weapons from thorum reactors. Thorium reactors produce U-233 which can be extracted and used to make a bomb.
2. Thorium is nasty stuff, Its exteremly toxic, and is no longer mined in the US because it kills miners and produces an eviromnent mess (some of the biggest superfund sites are closed thorium mines)
3. Thorium reactors produce U-232 which is one of the most nasties gamma emitters known. Servicing a thoruim reactor is a death sentence for anyone that has to get close to work on the reactor.
4. Thorium reactors can have meltdowns just like Uranium or Plutonium fueled reactors. They all produce radioactive daugthers from fission reactors. and require spent fuel to be cooled for long periods before they are safe to handle.
Nice set of half-truths you are spewing!
on 1. While generally true, it is more dangerous to extract and then not really feasible as stored nuclear weapons have some U-233 decaying to U-232 - so both times exactly the nasty gamma emitter problem you listed yourself in 3.
on 2. Yeah, just like Lead or Beryllium?
on 3. So if it's a strong gamma emitter, why would anyone get close to work on it?
on 4. Oh yeah, with the totally unimportant fact that on meltdown a Thorium reactor automatically and permanently loses criticality, stupid!!
"Oh yeah, with the totally unimportant fact that on meltdown a Thorium reactor automatically and permanently loses criticality, stupid!"
Your an idiot. You don't need critically to cause a meltdown. Spent fuel rods generate virtually all of their heat without critically. Its the decaying daughters that generate the heat! A thorium reactor towards the end if its cycle will contain sufficient daugthers to meltdown without criticality. Go learn something before you insert foot into mouth!
"on 2. Yeah, just like Lead or Beryllium?"
Go google thorium minning, If your so gungho on thorium, go become a thorium miner! I guarentee you would not personally go near such a site, but you don't have an problem sending some else to expose themselves to thorium mining.
"While generally true, it is more dangerous to extract and then not really feasible as stored nuclear weapons have some U-233 decaying to U-232"
That does not prevent the fuel from being turned to a bomb. Its just a more difficult. It was also make a very nasty bomb if it was used because the whole region would become contaiminated with U-232. Also does not prevent people from making nasty dirty bombs by dispersing Spent fuel from thorium reactors.
"on 3. So if it's a strong gamma emitter, why would anyone get close to work on it?"
Bingo! Thats why it was abandoned in the 1960's as a reactor fuel. Admiral Rickover has a pet project to build a set of thorium plants for commerial power in the US. One them was the Indian point reactor (NYC). But the idea was abandoned because of the U-232 issue.
Drs. Hargraves and Moir respond:
A commercial reactor will make just enough uranium to sustain power generation. Diverting any would stop the reactor, alerting authorities to a breach. Certainly terrorists could not steal U-233 dissolved in a molten salt solution along with lethally radioactive fission products inside a sealed reactor. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards would require security, accounting of all nuclear materials, surveillance and intrusive inspections. It is conceivable that a nation or revolutionary group might expel IAEA observers, stop a liquid-fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR) and attempt to remove U-233. Skilled engineers would need to modify the radioactive reactor’s fluorination equipment to separate uranium from the fuel salt. U-233 produced in a LFTR is a poor choice for nuclear weapons because the neutrons that produce U-233 also produce 0.13 percent contaminating U-232, whose decay products emit 2.6 mega-electron volt, penetrating gamma radiation. That would be hazardous to weapons builders and obvious to detection monitors. The U-232 decays via a cascade of elements to thallium, which emits the radiation. A year after U-233 separation, a weapons worker one meter from a subcritical 5-kilogram sphere would receive a radiation dose of 4,200 millirems per hour, compared to 0.3 millirems per hour from plutonium. Death becomes probable after 72 hours of exposure. After 10 years, this radiation triples. U-232 cannot be removed chemically; centrifuge separation would make the equipment too radioactive to maintain. Conceivably, nuclear experts might try to devise chemistry to remove the intermediate elements of the U-232 decay chain before thallium is formed. But at-risk nations could be limited to using a LFTR variant with no chemical-processing capability. Deploying LFTRs will decrease, not increase, risks of nuclear weapons proliferation. Kickstarting LFTRs with plutonium can consume existing stocks of that weapons-capable material. Using thorium fuel reduces the need for U-235 enrichment plants, which can make weapons material as well as power reactor fuel. This energy source is cheaper than coal, can increase prosperity and can reduce the potential for wars over resource competition.
Source: http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/2010/5/a-thorium-future
"Certainly terrorists could not steal U-233 dissolved in a molten salt solution along with lethally radioactive fission products inside a sealed reactor."
Molten salt and sealed. Don't make me laugh (or cry)! Go google all the problems with MSR reactors. Not one was a viable option. You might as well just come out and go with Fusion, since it has about the same prospects as MSR reactors. Perhaps terrorist won't be able to build a bomb out of U-233 but a gov't can, and there are plenty of them willing to sacrafic many human lives to acheive that goal. Light water reactors also have similar issues when extracting the small amounts of Pu from them to build a bomb.
If you still think MSR reactors are a good thing. consider this that happens on occasion to service light water reactors. Also how do you perform periodic inspection of the reactors internals? You can see through water and use cameras to inspect the interior of a reaction. How do you do it with an MSR?
http://www.divingheritage.com/nuclear.htm
What happens if something goes wrong with the reactor and its necessary to have it serviced to avert a disaster? Are you willing to volunteer for the job?
Out of all you pro thorium folks, how many of you work in the nuclear industry and how many of you would be willing to go work in a thorium mine or fuel processing plant? Let me guess: Zero!
Finally how many of you trust your gov't or your local nuclear industry to not cut costs and hide known issues? I bet the answer is still zero!
a lot of conflicting info....sources would be nice....
Generally speaking, thorium is the best of the nuke bunch.
The other technologies haven't really proven their economics, but it's being worked on.
The Chinese are going full tilt with thorium. They have to stop the pollution, or they'll run out of water, and there's no one to go to war with to get substantially more.
More waste = more corporate jobs and greater need for more regulators, tighter security, etc -
More nuclear fuel = more bombs = greater need for wars to increase demand.
Considering that the global politicical apparatus has been taken over by sociopaths, the ploriforation of nuclear power makes perfect sense -
I'm all for nuclear power - so long as they ship the waste to Martha's Vineyard.