Nuclear Power

[Bog]

Good gh0d what a hopeless pile of codswallop. Uranium's about as common in soil as iron (and yes, as it's not enriched that's exactly the same as "depleted uranium", so you can stop worrying about that, too).

I can't see anyone running out of that anytime soon. Besides, between Bussard's EMC2 group and the HiPER facility that's going up here in the next few years, we'll be on fusion power long, long, long before uranium supply becomes a problem.

Coal, oil and gas supply is already a problem. Hell, the monstrosity up the road at Didcot burns a 100-tonne truckload of coal every 15 minutes. Stick the carbon emission from that in a very, very large gorram pipe and smoke it.

That's just a pointless, anencephalic scare-screed. Sadly, most people are sufficiently uneducated to eat it. *sigh*

 

[gordo_gun_guy]

been meaning to jump on this thread....

....having quit an attempt at a NucE master's to learn to fly. (Nuc physics is pfun; but pressure vessel code, radiation safety, and all the real meat and bones of power production is some of the most boring stuff I can think of):barf:

we'll be on fusion power long, long, long before uranium supply becomes a problem.

Well, that depends on two things: how long it takes to develop fusion, and how long uranium will last.

I've got no opinion on the former.

As to the latter, I've read that meeting just the electric generation needs currently supplied by fossil fuels with traditional reactors, would run out the uranium supply in about 50 years.

The workaround is using breeder reactors, which turn abundant U-238 into Pu-239, and run off the plutonium. In other words, they "breed" their fuel by bombarding the abundant, but not easily fissionable U-238 with neutrons to turn it into fissile U-239.

What's the catch? The process intentionally makes lots of Pu, which could be easily extracted for weapons production.

I believe France is the only nation currently running breeder reactors for power pro.

At any rate, breeder reactors could power the world for thousands of years, or until we develop fusion, or until terrorists nuke us back to the Stone Age with their byproducts....

 

[Crosshair]

The workaround is using breeder reactors, which turn abundant U-238 into Pu-239, and run off the plutonium. In other words, they "breed" their fuel by bombarding the abundant, but not easily fissionable U-238 with neutrons to turn it into fissile U-239.

What's the catch? The process intentionally makes lots of Pu, which could be easily extracted for weapons production.

I don't mean to downplay your concerns, but the "nuclear weapons" issue is nothing more than a red hearing.

1. We already have more than enough nukes.

2. We aren't going to be leaving this stuff in a crate on the side of the road. Have the reprocessing on site and the "theft" concerns are gone.

3. Breeder reactor plutonium contains large amounts of Pu-240. Pu-240 is a contaminate in Nuclear weapons, but useful as fuel in a breeder reactor. Reactor operators will keep the Pu-240 mixed with the Pu-239 because for them there is no reason to separate it.

 

[HKuser]

I don't mean to downplay your concerns, but the "nuclear weapons" issue is nothing more than a red hearing.

The only conceivable reason I can think of is that countries we don't like will be able to hide that they're siphoning off some material they breed. What's stopping them otherwise, I don't know. I think it's overblown. If you can build and fuel a reactor, you can build and fuel a bomb. So what?

 

[mvpel]

As to the latter, I've read that meeting just the electric generation needs currently supplied by fossil fuels with traditional reactors, would run out the uranium supply in about 50 years.

Is that assuming a reprocessing fuel cycle, or no?

 

[gordo_gun_guy]

I don't mean to downplay your concerns, but the "nuclear weapons" issue is nothing more than a red hearing.

I agree: they're not concerns of mine. But it is an avenue of attack for the anti-nukes which will need to be addressed before any widespread adoption of breeder reactors in the US; we're having enough trouble building ANY new plants....

Is that assuming a reprocessing fuel cycle, or no?

Good question; my source for the 50 year number was Rifkin's 2002 The Hydrogen Economy; his agenda is pro renewably separated hydrogen and slightly anti nuke, so take that for what it's worth. I'm thousands of miles away from my copy of that book, and I read it a few years ago, so I'm out of details....

 

[Crosshair]

I'm rather sure that it would have to be a non-reprocessed fuel cycle. Uranium is a rather common element and massive quantities are available.

From Wikipedia Uranium

......It is more plentiful than antimony, tin, cadmium, mercury, or silver, and it is about as abundant as arsenic or molybdenum.[5][9] It is found in hundreds of minerals including uraninite (the most common uranium ore), autunite, uranophane, torbernite, and coffinite.[5] Significant concentrations of uranium occur in some substances such as phosphate rock deposits, and minerals such as lignite, and monazite sands in uranium-rich ores[5] (it is recovered commercially from these sources with as little as 0.1% uranium[7])........

......It is estimated that 4.7 million tonnes of uranium ore reserves are economically viable, while 35 million tonnes are classed as mineral resources (reasonable prospects for eventual economic extraction).[34] An additional 4.6 billion tonnes of uranium are estimated to be in sea water (Japanese scientists in the 1980s showed that extraction of uranium from sea water using ion exchangers was feasible)

Using a non-reprocessing fuel cycle means that we can only use the small fraction, .71%, that is U-235. Using breeder reactors and reprocessing, suddenly all that otherwise useless U-238 becomes valuable fuel. 4,700,000 tons of Uranium will last us for quite a long time if we convert it all to nuclear fuel. We can even get it out of seawater if we need to.

 

[mvpel]

Not to mention there's more potential energy in the uranium and thorium found in coal fly ash than was released by burning the coal in the first place.

Uranium can produce about 2 billion kWh per ton, and coal-fired power plants are dumping thousands of tons of it into the air and ash piles every year.

 

[homefires]

Most people don't know coal has a radioactive component to it!


I tried to tell that to someone years ago and had to prove it to him.

New Mexico uses coal for more then 80% of our power.:barf:


They have a new system now that the Germans are messing with. It uses sealed spheres they call pebbles. It self regulates to the most part and seems to be the way coming!

I want a foot locker size one in my back yard!

 

[mvpel]

Pebble-Bed Modular Reactor, it's called - neat stuff. If we'll ever have nuclear reactors in our basements, it'll probably be that kind of technology.

Check out http://www.atomicengines.com/

 

[buzz_knox]

There are some very interesting nuclear technologies out there. Unfortunately, getting the licenses necessary to produce that tech here is extremely difficult. So, companies have to continue using old tech and demothballing facilities that already had licenses.

The antis are being very successful at keeping the nulcear industry stuck in the 1960s-70s.

 

[homefires]

Speaking of the devil, there was a accident here this week that involved a truck carrying some wast. They send there dirty rags, tools, scrap metal and junk here to the old salt mines on the east side of the state.

Some of us wore watches that had higher levels of radiation for years.

Do you have a Colman Lantern? If you used it like I did and still do, you have been dosed!

Get to the lake, take it out, find the mantle did not make the trip so well. Open it up blow out the dust of ashes that was the old mantle and replace it. Go cook dinner never washing your hands never mind the dust you just inhaled. Thorium's radioactivity is mostly emitted as alpha particles.

Did you know that some salt substitutes are radio active?

I am going to post this and do some eddits: Thats the only way this pease of junk seems to work.


As for the wast being generated by the current reactors, why don't they just dump them in on of the holes in the photo posted?

Yucca Flates is going to be hot long after man kind dies out!


Everything you seen, every thing you was told said the fall out did not make it that far south!

Abstract
A coloured rain event originating from the Sahara Desert occurred on April 9, 2000 at Thessaloniki, Northern Greece (40°38′N, 22°58′E). The radioactive nuclides that were determined in a coloured rain dust sample were 137Cs of Chernobyl origin, 7Be of cosmogenic origin and 40K of terrestrial origin. Cesium-137 still remained 14 years after the Chernobyl accident, reaching 26.6 Bq kg−1 in the coloured rain dust.

 

[tube_ee]

The problem with nuclear power

except for the waste problem (which can be controlled using secondary fuel cycles that extract the ~98% of untapped energy still in spent fuel rods), is not technology.

It's people.

Why has the US Navy never had a nuclear accident?

Because profit isn't an issue.

Safety costs money. It's always cheaper to not do something than to do it.

Naval nuclear power is as safe as it is (more reactors than the entire US civilian industry, no accidents, and almost no violations even in paperwork) because safety is the only concern. Nobody gets promoted for cutting corners. They get fired, and if it's bad enough, they go to jail.

Put that same incentive structure in place in the civilian nuclear industry, and you'll see all but the hard-core anti-nuke folks go away.

But for most of us who are nervous, it's not that we don't trust the technology. It's that we don't trust our local power companies. And given their track records, we shouldn't. Given the consequences of a screw-up, "trust us" won't cut it.

--Shannon

 

[homefires]

I wouldn't believe they never had problems! I believe you never heard about them!

I still think Nuc is a good thing and should be moved forward. Solar is cool but will never cut the mustard until we find some way to store the day time for the night time. Hydrogen is a traveling bomb and you need electricity to produce it. Wind/Wave is not even in the mix yet. Coal is nasty dirty stuff even before we take it out of the ground. I has more radio active hazards with it then contained Radium use!

People wonder why cancer rates have escilated over the past 100 years?

I live in Deming N.M. and you would not believe the rate of skin cancers on dogs that are maintained out side here. Trinity? Natural? We use to mine and have recently started to again Radium!

I know I sound like I am talking is circles, Natural, Problems, Why! I think Nuclear is a good thing if used in the correct fashion. It is natural made, not naturally concentrated! You can drink natural Arsenic you find here in the water with no problems. Concentrate it to say 25 times and your a dead animal!

The hugger will not let us use the trees we grow.

The hugger will not let us use the oil we have.

The hugger will not let us use the gift of nature called Nuclear Energy!

 

[mvpel]

There was one accident in an Army reactor, the SL-1. A control rod was pulled out, as part of the startup procedure, 50cm when 40cm would have been enough to make the reactor critical. The power output of the reactor went to 20,000 megawatts in about 0.01 seconds, melted the fuel, and converted the moderating water to steam, which then slammed a plug of water up into the top of the containment vessel hard enough to bounce the entire vessel about 10 feet into the air.

Two Army Specialists, John Byrnes, age 25 and Richard McKinley, age 22, and Richard Legg, a 25 year old Navy Electricians Mate, were killed, one of whom was impaled by the control rod. Their bodies were so radioactive that they had to be buried in lead-lined coffins.

 

[brickeyee]

I live in Deming N.M. and you would not believe the rate of skin cancers on dogs that are maintained out side here.

Sunlight and UV exposure?
Skin cancer is not tied to ionizing radiation exposure very strongly.

And you do realize the radioactive elements are present if we mine them or not.

 

[homefires]

No it's something in the dirt. I would rather see a cooling tower then a smoke stack pumping out yellow smoke.


Edit: All is on the back of the limbs, and chest area! Feet, Toes and haunches!

 

[rwilson452]

There has bee two Navy accidents I'm aware of. USS Thresher and Scorpion. both lost will all hands. RIP

 

[buzz_knox]

Put that same incentive structure in place in the civilian nuclear industry, and you'll see all but the hard-core anti-nuke folks go away.

But for most of us who are nervous, it's not that we don't trust the technology. It's that we don't trust our local power companies. And given their track records, we shouldn't. Given the consequences of a screw-up, "trust us" won't cut it.

That same incentive is there in the civilian industry. A minor violation (leave a firedoor open for a few minutes) can net a five figure monetary penalty from the NRC. Anything major and your plant gets shut down.

Everyone thinks that the industry has been stangant since 3 Mile Island. The reality is that the nuclear industry has probably become the most heavily regulated and overseen industry this planet has ever known. Everything is done by a procedure, and every procedure must be followed (this is due to the fact that the modern nuclear industry was founded by U.S. Navy vets, who left a major imprint on the industry, and have been followed by other vets). Fail to do so, and the NRC can and will ban you from ever being involved in the nuclear industry. I know two people who got barred from the industry for something the NRC thought they did, but in reality never happened.

As for Thresher nor Scorpion were lost due to reactor issues. The best theories on both are that Thresher had a bad weld that allowed flooding, and Scorpion had a torpedo go active (due to a defective battery) and run hot in the torpedo room.

 

[rwilson452]

True, the loss of these boats was not due to a reactor problem, none the less there are two reactors on the bottom of the ocean.

As for Thresher nor Scorpion were lost due to reactor issues. The best theories on both are that Thresher had a bad weld that allowed flooding, and Scorpion had a torpedo go active (due to a defective battery) and run hot in the torpedo room.