France builds nuclear future
Flamanville, Normandy, northern France.
Rounding the coast road, as blue-green breakers crash against the dark beaches, you can see a vast building site. It perches on the edge of the sea, on top of old industry, for here there used to be a granite mine and and an undersea iron mine. A few hundred yards out to sea there is a paler expanse of water in the shape of a flattened oval, while overhead scores of gulls hover and swoop on some tasty morsel below.
The site itself resounds with clatters and bangs, men in hard hats wield lengthy pieces of metal, while very tall cranes swing overhead. Two of the cranes are almost entirely encircled in huge concrete tubes, taller than a tower clock.
These oddities are connected, for this is not just any old building site. This is Flamanville Three, where France's latest nuclear reactors are being built. The two cranes wear concrete jackets, to make sure that in the unlikely event they fell over, they wouldn't crash into either of the live reactors next door. And the seabirds are scoffing algae and other goodies forced to the surface by the pressure of the water flowing from the pressurised water reactors. 
I am here filming for a Newsnight piece that will go out at the end of the month, on the European Union's energy policy. Nuclear power is big in France. It generates a whacking 80% of the country's electricity and President Sarkozy is keen to export the power to neighbouring countries like Spain, which won't build any more nuclear plants themselves.
On the ground before me is the outline in rusty-looking steel of two European Pressurised Reactors, which the designers say are "safer, more environmentally friendly and more powerful" than previous models. The plan is that they will come on stream in 2012. It's possible Britain will decided to buy the EPR as well.
From the outline on the ground I can see that the space where the concrete will be poured is very large, perhaps as thick as two or three houses. This the manufacturers claim is what makes it so safe: the concrete shell, they boast, could take the impact of a large plane. They also say that, in what they describe as the very unlikely event of a Chernobyl-style meltdown, all the radioactive fuel would flow back into the centre and into a cooling "swimming pool".
They certainly haven't persuaded all the locals. There is a big anti-nuclear banner hanging from one of the nearby houses. I meet a protester from the area later at an anti-nuclear rally in Paris. He tells me he's not just worried about safety but all the heavy militaristic security that comes with a nuclear plant. People mill around before the march, wearing radiation suits and masks and carrying pictures of children with horrific injuries, although I can't see whether these are victims of Chernobyl or Hiroshima or just generic images of the sort of thing they believe could happen. These people are passionate and demand that France abandon its nuclear programme in favour of renewable energy like wind, wave and solar power and cutting down on consumption.
But most French don't seem disturbed by their reliance on nuclear energy, particularly at a time when the intellectual fashion is swinging back that way, and surely France has gone too far down the track for any change to be politically possible?
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It is clear that nuclear power must be an important component of near future energy production, and it is one of the French success stories, along with aeroplanes, rockets, trains etc. It is also far safer than coal mining.
Yet the current generation of nuclear plants burn only a small fraction of their uranium fuel. Research into more efficient reactors is urgently needed, but is held back by vocal protest groups, even in France. The UK and other countries no longer even have the basis for this research. That expertise is not something that can be created on the time scale of the growing demand and cost of energy.
A vigorous European effort is needed to develop "conventional" nuclear power, but since Brussels is incapable of doing that, the UK and France must work together on it.
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Not only a power station but huge 400000 volt power lines within 200 metres of our houses, right the way down through Normandy
Power for Brittany, destruction for Normandy
The French government thinks of this region as a moral and cultural dessert, and thinks nothing of the rights of its inhabitants
We are still fighting the authorities but our landscape is shortly to be scarred for ever
So much for "no environmental effect"!!!
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However much the business-as-usual, blind-folded people refuse to contemplate the unavoidable, a lower-energy future is what is in front of us.
Peak everything assures us of that.
Any temporary alleviation, such as nuclear energy, are just that. To despoil on such a grand scale on a stop-gap, instead of looking fully into the face of necessary adaptive, powering-down strategies is deception and risk and continuing damage.
Such a pity that proliferating nuclear-power facilities will increase the clean-up burden and environmental threat on any future generation when the main energy sources will be muscle, solar, wind and wave, as they have always been.
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I have every sympathy with greatBobFrance but almost anywhere you build a conventional power station, a massive windfarm with acres and acres of propellers on sticks or a nuclear facility - someone will object to the eyesore, the harm to the environment or simply 'not in my backyard'.
The truth is that the safety record of Nuclear Power is only marred by the early lessons learnt from "Three Mile Island" (which was identified as caused by poor construction and use of cheap materials) and "Chernobyl" (for which it is assumed the same causes were to blame but this is never provendue to Russion secrecy!).
In my view, Nuclear Power is a solution to the reliance on fossil fuels used in most conventional power stations but Nuclear Power should merely be a percentage of a range of solutions to provide heat, light and consumable energy.
Solar Power, Wind harnessing, Hydro-Electrical Power, Recycled Steam, Tide Harnessing Output, etceteras can all have their part to play.
What must not happen is that the over-dramatic CND type of fears of Nuclear Power must not overrule the common sense use of Nuclear Power which does provide the most efficient return on investment of all human-controlled power generating mechanisms!
Good luck to the French. I hope the UK Government has the capability of showing the same sort of gumption and orders the next generation of Nuclear Poewer Stations before we run out of power and have to rely on France to support our energy needs here in the UK.
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They don't 'claim' the shell can take the impact of a large plane- its been proven. I've seen video footage of a US F4 Phantom jet on a sledge doing 700 mph (a smaller plane but carrying more kinetic energy than a Jumbo going at 400mph) slamming into one of those containment vessels. It barely chipped the surface.
Equally as the French ARE building these plants just a couple of dozen miles away from England andy argument that we shouldn't build our own plants 'in case of Chernobyl's' is ridiculous. If a French plant blows up we get the full fallout... we might as well get the electricity as we're getting the risk anyway.
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Thanks for covering this.
The ecofanatics tell us that global warming and peak oil means there is no option but to return to the middle ages.
But the French - a country very like ours - are already generating EIGHTY PERCENT of their electricity from nuclear power!
No wonder they wanted to keep that quiet!
It would be interesting to see more coverage of this and other viable alternatives to fossil fuels.
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"And the seabirds are scoffing algae and other goodies forced to the surface by the pressure of the water flowing from the pressurised water reactors" - I really wish you reporters would check your facts before you write such drivel! This is exactly the sort of nonsense that gets people worried. If someone reads that statement they assume that the water has come straight from the reactors and is therefore contaminated! The water in the pressurised water reactors is in a completely sealed circuit, it goes through a heat exchanger and generates steam for the turbine (the two fluids never come into contact with each other!). This steam/water (depending on where it is in the cycle) for the turbines is also in a closed circuit. Finally, sea water is pumped through the condenser to cool the steam that has just come out of the steam turbine so it condenses back into water and can be pumped back round the closed circuit again. The sea water is also in a circuit separated from this system and is therefore nowhere near coming into contact with any source of radiation. The sea water is pumped through the condenser and returns to the sea at a warmer temperature than the surrounding water so it naturally rises to the surface - nothing to do with the pressure of water flowing from the pressurised water reactors! I hope you get this right on your Newsnight piece!!
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I endorse jon112uk's comment ('it would be interesting to see more coverage...'). How about a companion piece on Germany? I recently went to Bremen for the first time, and then travelled round Lower Saxony by train, ending up in Cuxhaven. I have never seen so many wind-farms, or houses with solar panels! The Germans appear to following a different 'greener' route than France (Although I understand it also involves building a special relationship with Russia to secure gas supplies via a pipeline under the Baltic). This country, the UK, (typically) just dithers, unable to choose either the nuclear or the green path to energy sufficiency - and most people seem blissfully unaware of how close we have come to wide-spread power cuts on several occasions in recent years. If we ever again get a severe winter...
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Greatbobfrance. I presume your house uses electricity? if so objecting to power lines seems just a touch hypocritical.
Living in Nottingham I'm surrounded by coal fire power stations powering most of central England (which incidentally produce more nuclear emmisions- from radium in the coal- than nuclear stations do) , yet my parents i50 miles down the road n leicestershire wanted me to sign a petition objecting to three wind turbines being put up near their house because it would spoil the view!
personally I'd solve the energy crisis by disconnecting any NIMBY who objects to having a power plant near them from the grid. That might remove the obstructions that are endangering the UK.
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@ #5
You are aware that we live in a west wind drift, aren't you?
Or are you a Thatcherite who still believes that all evil is coming from the continent?
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Nobody has ever figured out how to dispose of the spent fuel rods which will remain dangerously radioactive for tens of thousands of years.
Although France relies for 80% of its electricity on nuclear energy, the US actually produces more, it's power demands that much greater yet the US relies for only 20% of its energy on nuclear power.
Having worked on a nuclear power plant myself in the 1970s, I can say that should the US government commit 100 billion dollars tomorrow to build 20 nuclear power plants, there is no longer the technological infrastructure to know how to satisfy the NRC to build even a handful of them. It's a lost art in the US that would take the better part of a decade or more to relearn. And no, imported engineers from other nations would not be able to fill in the gap even temporarily. US standards, codes, and NRC requirements are generally tougher and certainly different from those in other countries. Neglect of its infrastructure and undervaluing the engineers needed to maintain and grow it is one of the mistakes that has created a vulnerability for the US. The blackout in Northeast North America in the summer of 2004 due to the loss of a single feeder in Ohio is a demonstraton of this. It could happen again...or worse.
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And noone mentions the one proven, reliable and truly green energy source that Europe has in abundance; solar. If a solar panel were placed on the roof of every home along the north shore of the Med there would be no need for these nuclear station.
However, why are countries in the EU still using seperate systems for energy production? It is probably the one area where we could kill 2 birds with 1 stone. The EU should be negotitating gas and oil treaties with the likes of Russia as a single entity, it would protect the former soviet block from Russia and would get a better price for the UK and Germany.
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#10. Yes I am a thatcherite, yes I generally distrust the French (based both on their political attitude to the UK over the last 100 years and my personal ancestory- I'm descended on 1 side from Hugenoughts from Normandy and on the other side from a French soldier abadoned in Scotland by the French after culloden).
I'm also aware that the wind GENERALLY blows from the west. However in the week Chernobyl went bang the wind was blowing from the east and the cloud of contamination went straight across Southern Scotland- as a result I couldn't drink milk for a few months and I contain more plutonium than a kid from Dounray (I know that because when I was 12 I took part in a medical screening programme).
Despite that I'm very pro-nuclear, for the simple reason that I don't want it to be cold and dark in winter when the gas runs out. My point was that IF the french are building nuclear plants just a few miles from the UK we might as well join them and build them on our Southern coast too.
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#11. "Nobody has ever figured out how to dispose of the spent fuel rods which will remain dangerously radioactive for tens of thousands of years. "
Uranium and plutonium stay vaguely radioactive for tens of thousands of years because they're incredibly stable. Uranium is a natural compound that can be shielded with a sheet of tissue paper. The elements in nuclear waste that make it DANGEROUSLY radioactive have much shorter half-lives (days, weeks and at worst 30-odd years). In reality you have to store these things for about a century which is perfectly possible.
These claims of things staying dangerously radioactive for millenia shows at best a misunderstanding of science and at worst distort the facts with emotive language to fool those who also don't understand the science.
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The French nuclear contribution was down a little last year to 77%, while British Energy's was 14%.
Although the French nuclear sector seems impressive, the French uranium mines are exhausted and it relies on imports from Canada, Australia and Niger with a little expected from Kazakhstan. Uranium production in Canada and Australia is failing, Canada's is down 18.5% and Australia's is down 9.5% over the last two years. Only Kazakhstan shows an increase but its output is mostly signed up to Russia, Japan and China.
The US relies for half of its nuclear generation on Russian ex-weapons diluted HEU equivalent to 10,000 tonnes of natural uranium, but when this ends in 4 years time the US and France will be in competition for what remains of Canadian production.
But the lights will "brown out" in those countries in the French nuclear hegemony first, which already includes Sizewell B and could be more of the UK's electricity if the Brown-Sarkozy deal matures and a number of French EPR's are built in the UK.
Only 60% of the world's uranium demand is met by primary mining and the other 40% from secondaries is expected to end in 2013.
Where is the security of supply for the UK which has no uranium mines? Subject to the French nuclear hegemony? Or for the US which imports 91% of its nuclear fuel, 50% from Russia?
Why does Gordon Brown believe nuclear will make us more independent? It's baffling.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
The French are, as they have been with the TGV, and Airbus, very astute in investing and keeping faith with technologies that, when they were originally developed were commercially questionable. Now, with fossil fuels constantly increasing in price, their years of experience and development in the nuclear field have ensured they have stolen a march on all their european competitors. Surely the UK will buy into the French technology, and others will follow.
I have just returned from Germany, and whilst they are indeed investing big time in renewables, the latest opinion polls show that the majority of Germans are now in favour of nuclear energy, a total "U" turn from just 12 months ago.
We have two choices - forget our plasma TVs, fllod lighting, air conditioning and the like - or embrace nuclear because, whilst I am all in favour of wind farms - they are no more ugly than pylons, mobile phone masts, cranes and the like - they won't give us the energy we crave.
As for NIMBYs - I'd agree, disconnect them from the grid - and make them see why there's no place for their attitude in the 21st century.
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#15. Use thorium and/or fast breeder reactors. There's meant to be 400 years worth of thorium easily accesible and fast breeder reactors would make better use of the remaining uranium by producing plenty of plutonium that we could also burn. The advantage of the plutonium reactors are that we can really start getting to work using up old nuclear warheads of which the Russians alone have about 40,000.
By the time we've worked our way through that lot we should have mastered fusion.... or more pragmatically I'll be dead of old age by then, so it won't be my problem anymore
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Gruenebaum1 @ #10
I remember a few years ago when all of the England and some parts of Scotland woke up to find a fairly thick covering of red saharan sand/dust covering everything.
It was the Sahel wind travelling directly up through France that was the cause of the 'dusting'.
If the red dust had been radioactive, we (in the UK) and all our children's children would have been clicking away in the presence of Geiger Counters for a while yet!
That being said, I am happy that a Nuclear Disaster is not imminent and Peter_Sym's comment @ #5 is a sound and rational comment and the UK may as well make full use of Nuclear Generated Power as we are just as likely to suffer from fallout as the French!
Shall we also try not to blame Margaret Thatcher for everything - I am no "Thatcherite" but sometimes she got it right - especially when dealing with France. Not trusting the French 100% is ALWAYS a wise move - they will ALWAYS look after themselves first even within 'ever closer cooperation'!
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I recall a report recently (can't find it now) about a group of people in Australia who initially objected to a local wind farm but, when they were offered the opportunity to invest in it themselves and benefit directly, then their attitude changed.
Perhaps if the nuclear power industry were to actually deliver the free electricity that we were offered (and paid for) thirty years ago then perhaps they would have a bit more support now.
Failing that, my preference is for each household and business to be as independent as possible from the greedy corporate "Light Brigade".
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If the reactors can really take the impact of a large plane, a crane toppling over on it should barely make a scratch.
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#12. "And noone mentions the one proven, reliable and truly green energy source that Europe has in abundance; solar. If a solar panel were placed on the roof of every home along the north shore of the Med there would be no need for these nuclear station"
Investigate the properties of electrical wires called 'resistance'. If every home on the med coast had a solar panel and was linked by a long wire to the UK there wouldn't be enough electricity getting through to us to light a torch bulb. Nuclear stations can be ramped up to 400,000 volts for distribution along cables. This isn't practical for domestic panels and the power transmitted by them would half every couple of miles.
The main problem of solar is that it produces the most power when we least need it. Frankly if you live in Glasgow then you need something a little more reliable than a solar panel to run your heating in winter. Even wind isn't much use as the turbines have to be turned off when the wind exceeds 50mph.. again, not unusual in a Scottish winter. Hydro works, but we've already dammed most of the suitable valleys so thats not such a great option either.
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Sea levels are rising, perhaps faster than previous predictions, and the French are building a nuclear facility on the coast?
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"The very unlikely event of a Chernobyl-style meltdown": at Le Blayais, meltdown was avoided merely by chance. Simple and naked chance.
"Safer than a coal mine": unless you're an African uranium miner. And the alternative isn't coal anyway. Reading each time the same argument makes its origin suspicious.
Nuclear bombs and reactors preempted all French scientists for a generation. This is the real cost for France, who lost its mechanical, chemical, electronics industry.
Breeders would use more of the uranium, but produce bomb-ready plutonium, so are impossible to export. You can't feed the planet from breeders' electricity. And we have too little uranium for non-breeders.
Thorium reactors don't exist up to now. If we invest 20 years research in them, we may well see then why they can't work or are uninteresting. Remember hydrogen fusion works, but reactors still don't after 50 years research.
Yes, plutonium is extremely toxic, and yes, it lasts for tens of thousands of years. This is science, not distortion nor emotive language. And you don't have a paper sheet in your bowel nor lungs to protect yourself from plutonium.
(Continental) Europe self-destroys itself twice a century. I don't want that some group - neither terrorists nor dictators - can grasp nuclear waste and make dirty bombs of it.
For the next war, reactors will be fabulous targets. There is no way their shell can resist a big kinetic impactor.
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"Yes, plutonium is extremely toxic, and yes, it lasts for tens of thousands of years. This is science, not distortion nor emotive language. And you don't have a paper sheet in your bowel nor lungs to protect yourself from plutonium."
So don't eat it. What you're saying could be equally true of lead, cadmium, mercury or any other heavy metal. The fact that the plutonium is also a mild alpha emmiter is virtually coincidental. The main hazards in fuel rods are things like caesium 137 with a 30 year half life. Thats long enough to need a couple of centuries storage (not millenia) and the cs-137 is rather good at entering the food chain. The REALLY radioactive stuff tends to have half life of hours so has gone by the time you've let the rod cool enough to remove it.
In any case I DO (at least did 20 years ago) contain trace elements (found from mass spec analysis of my urine over 24 hours) of plutonium, probably from Chernobyl but possibly from atmospheric bomb tests. It doesn't seem to be doing me any serious harm.... at least no more than the chemicals I routinely work with in the lab.
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And we worry about whether the UK should be in the EU or not . . . . my goodness the doom and gloom or gloom and doom that I read herein is amazing.
I think I ought to start building my nuclear-proof bunker in my back garden right now!
If it ain't nuclear fallout then I am doomed by rising sea levels or nuclear power stations being the targets of 'kinetic impactors' in the next war.
Luddites - they are still amongst us!
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Equally regarding the security issue- the French has nuclear weapons so if we did have another pan-european world war a few nuclear power stations getting bombed would be the least of our problems.
If terrorists want nuclear material for a dirty bomb then they need go no further than any major hospitals oncology dept. I doubt if there's a city in europe doesn't have a major hospital with cobalt 60 or caesium 137 sources for treating cancer. Most hospitals have slightly less security than power stations... walk in with an AK47 and no-one will stop you taking what you want.
Not that it matters of course because actually milling the stuff into 10 micrometre particles (optimum for inhalation) and working out a way to disperse the stuff effectively before you die of acute radiation sickness is impossible. Frankly I'd rather any terrorist started playing with cobalt 60 than simply taking an AK47 and a few spare mags to any high street.
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France is far down the nuclear road, but has explored other avenues as well. Less than 100km from Flamanville is the first tidal power plant in La Rance.
But yes, for the moment, a potential risk and waste we have time to research seems better than imminent destruction.
Also, I used to live not too far from Flamanville, and I can tell you, the protesters are not all locals. People are more bothered with the high power electricity cables, whose electro-magnetic fields are potentially harmful. There's one being built from Flamanville to the national grid. Building nuclear reactors in Normandy has the advantage of multiple areas you can cut the region off is something bad goes wrong, but it is quite far from the point of consumption, and it does seem a shame to harm such a wonderful part of the coast.
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There is no shortage of uranium: forget Greenland and Namibia; even such small countries as Czech Republic and Hungary have it. It's just that because of record low prices of uranium ore in the 80s and 90s
(its price fell to $7.00/lb in 2001!) many mining projects have been abandoned and many existing mines have been shut down.
Only now this process is being reversed as price is going up and public attitude regarding nuclear power is changing fast.
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Opponents of nuclear power obviously don't have any Weapons of Math Instruction for otherwise they'd know how many terawatts can be potentially generated by scarce geysers, stalling windmills and highly inefficient solar panels. Combined.
Leaders of China and India obviously do.
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''Opponents of nuclear power obviously don't have any Weapons of Math...''
Bravo, you do have a basic sense of humour after all; and what a surprise it mocks peoples intelligence...
Oh and by the way, powermeerkat, those against Nuclear power clearly don't have weapons of mass destruction either...
Is that wh you choose not to listen to them?
You Nuke spooks are really getting far more respect than you deserve...
And by the way, if the Nuclear controlled renewable energy commission (yes they take up most of its budget) had stopped pulling the plug on their competition (ie wave and solar), we would have been in a much better position to take advantage of them now...
They are better than the Nuclear apologists lead you to believe; and our government seem to be being defrauded into producing 8 new stations, despite selling the only UK owned company capable of their manufacture (at a bargain price too...). As always we will end up in ever greater national debt (thanks Gordon), poisoned, defenceless and undervalued as a people.
Do not follow the fear.
Choose love
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"...the concrete shell, they boast, could take the impact of a large plane."
"The two cranes wear concrete jackets, to make sure that in the unlikely event they fell over, they wouldn't crash into either of the live reactors next door."
A large plane but not a crane...
Did I miss something?
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Mark Mardell's selection of blog topics since the Irish vote is interesting. The BBC pro-EU bias is not simply how it reports a story, but what stories it chooses to report. If you want to know what is really going on in the EU, you will be better advised to skip the BBC coverage on health, energy and fishermen, and look in the French press, where the plan to make the Irish vote again features prominently.
http://www.lemonde.fr/l-europe-a-l-heure-de-la-presidence-francaise/article/2008/07/15/le-plan-pour-faire-revoter-les-irlandais_1073380_1058958.html#ens_id=1057332
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need4reality @28
Why denounce this statement. It is perfectly true.
It's a law of physics not sentiment that makes solar power something that only works locally to where it is harnessed.
In the UK we do not have sufficient sunshine to utilise rooftop solar panels and where people, such as David Cameron, have invested in such technology they have to top up with power generated from the National Grid during the hours when sunshine is not available - currently 14% of the top up provided by Nuclear Power. It makes David Cameron look 'green' but it's a meaningless gesture.
The Mediterranean may have more sunshine hours but the huge amount of power generated through solar energy capture needed and the distance to transfer the power to the UK would make it impossible to benefit the UK as power generated diminishes with leakage and resistance between source and destination.
I don't know about Peter_Sym but I know I have no "vested interest in the chemical and Nuclear industry..."; I merely have a reasonable education that included being taught some of the laws of physics and electrical conduction and associated problems!
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Galludor @33
I imagine you didn't read the small print?
Mark is writing about Flamanville Three, the new Reactor Housing which will be aircraft proof which is being built.
The two older Reactors already in operation next door have not been tested to that extent. It therefore makes sense not to accidently throw high-rigged cranes at them.
These older Reactors were built before the concept of terrorists highjacking aircraft and flying themselves and 200+ innocent passengers into buildings had occurred.
And to be fair to Al-Quaeda, the next big terrorist event is not likely to be in France - what do the French ever do to upset Al-Quaeda?
The concept of terrorist threat to Flamanville Three is a the topic of a Discussion Document raised by the States of Jersey and which had to be rationalised by the French in order to approve planning permission. EDF have shown the Reactor Housing to be terrorist-proof and so building has been approved and continues to progress.
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I wasn't suggesting Solar alone could power the UK, nor suggesting resistance theory would not stand in the way of long distance supply...
We need wave, wind, tide and solar combined; and perhaps small scale Nuclear.
Don't twist my words to discredit my pointing out industrial sabotage by the Nuke Spooks; or perhaps you have a vested interest after all...
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Interesting that as the United States empire is going down the pan, France is coming to the fore because they had the foresight to 'go nuclear'. It is the only real answer to global warming - wind alone will do little, although solar panels on all houses should be made mandatory to help reduce our reliance on the fossil fuels.
The ridiculous obsession with biofuels is going to create more deforestation which is the last thing we need, especially with the rise in food prices they cause.
The fact that General Motors is finally canning production of SUVs shows that they are, very belatedly, waking up and smelling the coffee.
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@ Peter_Sym
I never suggested connecting the UK to the Med via a large wire, I was merely pointing out the folly of the French for building a nuclear reactor on the coast when it could be investing in solar power. Yes solar power doesnt work at night, but if the French put half the effort into perfecting battery and solar collector cells as they do into making a train go ever slightly faster that problem could be over come. It is the same folly as Gordon Brown talking about wind farms across the North Sea; how exactly are they going to power London? What the UK needs is a way to make power out of the rain, but that seems unlikely.
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Lethal dose for inhaled plutonium is about 50 millionths of a gram. Lead is about 70 thousandths of a gram. Plutonium is about 1000 times as deadly as lead.
Its half-decay life is 24 thousand years.
Mankind has meanwhile at least 300 tons of it.
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People who dislike nuclear reactors are often highly educated. Better: many physicists with education for nuclear energy or particle physics, or maybe a majority of them, are against nuclear reactors.
There is much more in-depth scientific knowledge at, for instance, Greenpeace than among the politicians who decide whether to build new plants.
The CEO of EDF, the French electricity supplier, did not make the difference between kW and kWh. Disappointing, but true.
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Math proove geothermal energy for instance is abundant enough to supply Mankind with heat and electricity, when and where we need it, with a small footprint at the surface and seemingly at a good price, though so little money has been invested in it.
This can be done anywhere, and not only in Iceland. It's done in the Rhine valley, which completely lacks any form of geyser whatsoever.
Math tell, as evidence also does from Brazil or Canda, that electricity can be transported over 1000km with moderate losses, something like 10%. A line is being built right now from a solar plant in Sahara to Spain.
For storing electricity, have a look at Prof. Seamus Garvey's proposal. Published on bbc.co.uk. Looks feasible and quite affordable.
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The solar boiler in Spain BBC yammered about in its reports required an acre of mirrors to produce 11 kilowatts at noon on a sunny day and of course produced nothing at night, certainly less on cloudy days and closer to dawn and dusk. By comparison, a single nuclear reactor produces 1150 megawatts, over 100,000 times as much. In other words, at its highest output, you would have to cover 225 square miles (580 square kilometers)with mirrors and have over 100,000 solar boilers to equal what one nuclear power plant produces around the clock day in and day out. The notion that you could replace nuclear power plants or fossil power plants to satisfy modern civilization's thrist for energy with solar power is pure idiocy. Environmentalists who claim otherwise are liars.
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#28. I'm a cancer research scientist. I have no 'vested interest' in the nuclear industry, although I do at least appreciate how radiation causes cancer and the real risks of nuclear radiation, which is a damn site less then most people believe.
More to the point I did physics A level so have a pretty good idea about ohms law and resistance.
"That is absolute rubbish, mate, do not make yourself look like a complete idiot just because you have a vested interest in the chemical and Nuclear industry..." isn't an argument. Its just personal abuse... equally I'm not sure where the chemical industry came into the argument either.
using FACTS however: Power stations ramp up their supply to 400,000 V to help overcome problems with distribution. Its transmitted across country where a huge amount is still lost as heat , then ramped down again for domestic use, which also wastes power. The 'hum' you hear at substations is literally electricity being wasted. This transmission isn't practical for domestic solar generation unless you want a transformer bigger than a house at the bottom of every street.
Solar works fine for domestic, individual use in hot countries. I went to cyprus in May and most houses have a couple of panels on the roof. It doesn't make financial sense for northern europe and the med cannot supply us with solar unless someone comes up with a room temperature superconductor cheap enough to make wires from.
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Enthalpie wrote:
"Lethal dose for inhaled plutonium is about 50 millionths of a gram. Lead is about 70 thousandths of a gram. Plutonium is about 1000 times as deadly as lead.
Its half-decay life is 24 thousand years.
Mankind has meanwhile at least 300 tons of it."
That sound about right, at least for PU-239. So what? Unless you're planning on grinding up a fuel rod and inhaling the dust its not going to hurt you. Leave it alone in a bunker and it'll leave you alone. There are dozens of substances in nature such as botulism toxin, cyanides, ricin that are equally unwise to inhale and we have no problem storing them.
The half-life issue is an illusion used to convince people who don't understand radiation that something is dangerous. basically the longer the half life the safer the substance- something with a 24,000 year half life is vrtually non-radioactive. It means that in 24,000 years there is only a 50% of an atom emitting a single alpha particle. I'd quite happily stand next to a lump of Plutonium or Uranium. In comparision you wouldn't get me in the same room as Cobalt 60 ( half life of 5 and half years ) and your local hospital probably has a lump of that in the oncology unit.
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Enthalpie @ #40
Thank you for the statistics - very enlightening.
How is one going to get hold of any of this 300 tonnes of radioactive plutonium in the form of dust? I definitely don't want to breathe it in!
How many tonnes of lead are there in the world as a ratio of the amount of stockpiled radioactive plutonium? I suspect that the world is quite rich in lead and I'm relatively safe as I don't go into lead-roofed churches that often. I am a bit worried about all those house that still use lead piping though.
Thank goodness the half-life or radioactive plutonium is so long. That means that it is stable and thus easier to handle, control and manage quantities! For a moment there I thought it might be so unstable that it could not be controlled.
Thanks very much for scaring me though. It set me thinking!
I think I am going to stop using thermometers - that silver bulb at the end contain sufficient mercury to kill me yet the world has the audacity and foolishness to put them in childrens mouths.
I think Im just going to have to become perpetually fearful of the world around me!
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"And to be fair to Al-Quaeda, the next big terrorist event is not likely to be in France - what do the French ever do to upset Al-Quaeda?"
hahahaha. have you seen the racial tensions between Algerians and white French? In 1997 Algerian terrorists planted 8 bombs on the Paris metro killing a dozen and wounding 200. Many Al Queda cells have been arrested in France and the French embassy in Casablance was one of the targets for suicide bombers a few years back.
France is one of the main powers pushing for sanctions against Iran - ironically because they don't like Iran building nuclear power stations, and sells weapons to most of the middle eastern nations. France has troops in Afghanistan and its policies of banning headscarves etc in French schools hasn't won any favours in the Islamic world.
Basically if you want a country safe from Islamic terror attacks I'd advise staying clear of France!
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Mark,
There seems nowhere else to ask this question so I apologise in advance for going off-topic.
Quoted today elsewhere within bbc.co.uk "Mr Sarkozy's close aide Henri Guaino, speaking on France 2 television, said that asking the Irish to vote again was "one of the solutions". But in that case, he added, the text of the treaty would "probably ... not be quite the same"."
If the treaty text were to be amended should that mean the treaty has to be re-ratified by all the governments who have ratified the Treaty of Lisbon already.
It would seem rather odd that the UK Government, by way of parliamentary scrutiny, has accepted the Treaty of Lisbon as is BUT that the French feel they can rewrite it on the hoof to accomodate Irish concerns.
That would mean the UK has accepted the one treaty and the Irish could be asked to revote on a differently worded treaty?
Can you blog about this to clarify our understanding of what is afoot?
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The reality is that the worldwide demand for oil is increasing by 1.5million barrels/day.So by the year 2018 the total demand for oil will increase up to 100 million barrels/day.Existing field have declining production at 3-5% which means by 2018 there will be a gap between demand and supply of over 40 million barrels/day.(just under 1/2 of today total production.
The energy gap will have to be filled by newly discovered oil,renewables(windmill,solar power etc.) and nuclear energy
So starting the planning process for huge renewable schemes and nuclear power plants,with early construction, must happen now if the gap in demand against the decline is going to complemented with alternative forms of energy other than oil by 2018.
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The times are a-changin', I've been saying for twenty years that nuclear power is the only way we can avoid catastrophic air pollution over the next hundred years, and now we have finally reached the point where the majority in this discussion agree. Progress at last! I can't help thinking it's driven mainly by the oil price though rather than by any longer term economic (i.e. environmental) considerations.
Radioactive waste: throw it into a hole in the ground and it will destroy all life within that hole but have no effect on anything else. Surely that's not as bad as emitting a load of smoke into the air, or even (arguably) covering our hillsides with view-ruining turbines?
Solar/wind etc.: all very well, but above 20-30% of total production you get power cuts when the Sun goes down or behind the clouds or when the wind stops blowing. Any government engineering power cuts would be quickly voted out of government. The Danes for instance have now reached this 20% limit with wind power. We therefore need something else too..and it's all well and good to talk about developing new technologies but these things take time and that we do not have!
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@ Enthalpie
So what if plutonium is a 1000 times more deadly than lead, because no-one is pumping the stuff into the atmosphere. The amount of lead in the atmosphere, in contrast, has increased by a factor of 1000 in the last few thousand years. Archaeologists even measure the amount of it in bones as a way of dating them.
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Menedemus (48): According to yesterday?s "Le Monde" the plan is to make use of an obscure provision of the Lisbon treaty which would allow the European Council, acting unanimously, to decide not to reduce the size of the EU Commission after all. The Irish could then be asked to revote knowing that they would not lose their Commissioner. This would not change the treaty and so would not trigger a new round of rubber-stamping in national parliaments. One might of course ask how this article of the Lisbon treaty could be used before the Lisbon treaty comes into effect, but politicians brazen enough to ignore referendum results will not blush too much about a little thing like that.
The silence of the BBC is interesting considering that this story is being reported extensively in French newspapers (e.g. Le Figaro, Nouvelle Observateur, etc.) and by many Irish newspapers and broadcasters. Mark Mardell said he did not want to be a one-trick pony after the Irish referendum, but who would have thought the BBC would only be serving up the topics that the Commission would like us to hear about instead?
Is the BBC Newsnight audience really more interested in the non-issue of EU energy policy than the Federalist plan to get around the voice of the Irish people
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It's simply not true that there are no thorium-based reactors (LFTRs) or that we don't know whether they work. There are and we do.
There are simply no COMMERCIAL thorium-fueled reactors available because there was no incentive to offer them, with uranium being dirt-cheap and, until recently, hardly any demand for new atomic power plants of any kind due to ignorance-caused NIMBY factor.
The beauty of thorium-fueled reactors is that they are by nature subcritical and can basically burn its own waste if a little of plutonium is added to the mix, which is necessary anyway since thorium is not fissible.
Thorium fuel mix can be even used in some existing rectors, e.g., in Russian VVER-1000s, although American Thorium Power Co. (near Washington, D.C) works with Russian Kurchatov Institute on new, thorium-specific piles.
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Though the UK Government has recently given the go-ahead for a new generation of nuclear power stations to be built, the Scottish Government, with the backing of the Scottish Parliament, has made clear that Scotland will have no new nuclear power stations and is aiming instead for a non-nuclear future.
Should the rest of the United Kingdom subsidise this rather isolationist standpoint of the Scots who have most of the Hydro-electric Power infrastructure. If the National Grid for Scotland finds itself short of power - should nuclear generated power be diverted from England to Scotland to help them out?
Would it be hypocritical of the Scots to receive nuclear-generated electricity having taken such an isolationist stand?
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Gentlemen,
please don't mix dreams with reality. Dreaming about solar panels is fine, but in most European countries there simply isn't enough sun radiation, or the sunny days are interspersed with long periods of bad weather, to make this idea feasible for everyday use.
The reality is that Russia is already holding us by the boll.cks energywise, so we should build as many reliable power plants of our own as possible. This is a fact.
Dreaming about changing energy usage patterns across whole societies is nice, but this process will not take place overnight, it is more like generations long. And another fact is we need energy NOW.
Considering the facts I don't understand why we aren't building reactors in every European country.
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I should like to point out that the Sellafield/Thorpe discharge pipe was responsible for discharging over 2 tons of plutonium into the Irish Sea over its nearly 50 years of use. The plutonium does not remain in the water but is returned to the land via sea spray, mud sediments and the food chain. The statistics concerning the deleterious effects to health of those living in the area can be seen in various books, papers and internet sites. I have not yet found figures for the French discharge into the English Channel.
Also anyone interested in understanding the consequences of ionizing radiation should read the book by Dr. Bertell ? 'No Immediate Danger' : an on-line paper presented by her can be viewed at
www.ratical.org/radiation/inetSeries/NIDcell.html
No one has yet calculated the total energy costs of a Nuclear power plant, from greenfield site to greenfield site. So far the costs of UK nuclear clean-up is £73bn and rising - news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4859980.stm ? add in the construction costs and how many tidal or solar plants could have been constructed for this amount?
In Spain the Seville Solar tower produces 11Mw enough for 6000 homes: this link is to the BBC article ? news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6616651.stm - PS10 is the first of a number to be built, PS20 will be twice the capacity, a more sensible solution.
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@ JOhnBusby
Regarding the supplies of uranium: yes the price has risen recently but still represents only a miniscule fraction of the cost of nuclear power, which is mainly the construction, staffing and decommissioning of the power stations. The cost of decommissioning is high only because the nuclear industry is forced to turn all of its old power stations back into green fields, unlike other industries which are in practice free to leave a derelict mercury-contaminated wasteland if they want to. In contrast, the bulk of the cost of energy from coal or gas is the fuel itself.
World supplies of uranium should last for at least 100 years or so, which should give us some time to invent something else. The first and most obvious thing would be to improve the design of fast breeder reactors, giving us a commercially viable way to use the 99.3% of uranium which standard reactors don't use.
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"If the National Grid for Scotland finds itself short of power - should nuclear generated power be diverted from England to Scotland to help them out? " [#54]
Yes, but only if Scotts in turn supply England with uranium from Orkney! :-)
[Start digging boys!]
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#56. 11Mw for 6000 homes works out at less than 2 kilowatts each. Better hope they don't all turn on the kettle at the same time. Of course thats during the day, in a Spanish summer too. In Scotland, in winter, the seville tower wouldn't power up a calculator.
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powermeerkat @ 58
As I recall Margaret Thatcher, in her days in office, proposed that Uranium be mined in the Orkneys but the locals (Scots?) won the day and no Uranium is mined there?
Maybe England should get it's Uranium elsewhere and just make the Scots suffer for their SNP separatism! :o)
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"Maybe England should get it's Uranium elsewhere" [# 60]
USAF's C-17s have just finished flying 550 metric tones of yellow cake (obtained by Saddam for its nuke program at Tuwaitha) from Iraq to Canada where it'll be processed and sold to atomic power plants. :-)
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Nuclear power is the future for our energy needs in the world.
France, at least is getting a head start on this issue.
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Am I banned from this blog? I've tried three times to post a contribution - but not even a ot saying I've been "moderated out".
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why bother with the EU can any one politication or someone from thge media say this is a true democratic organisation its far from it.Once the EU takes full control the only true long term success will be by implementing a common language without it the languag barriers will always spark nationality.Cause the average person from either country cannot communicate with each other.
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"And the seabirds are scoffing algae and other goodies forced to the surface by the pressure of the water flowing from the pressurised water reactors. "
What exactly does this mean? How is algae forced to the surface? Are the reactors leaking? Or is this just another example of hysterical uninformed objection to nuclear power?
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Like all forms of power generation using steam turbines, Nuclear power plants use large amounts of water for cooling. As with most power plants, two-thirds of the energy produced by a nuclear power plant goes into waste heat, and that heat is carried away from the plant in the water (which remains uncontaminated by radioactivity).
The emitted water either is sent into cooling towers where it goes up and is emitted as water droplets (literally a cloud) or is discharged into large bodies of water - cooling ponds, lakes, rivers, or oceans.
This is why Flamanville One, Two and Three and all the UK Reactors are located beside the sea. The cooling process merely recycles seawater back into seawater.
This is no different to the process used in coal-fired Power stations.
Because of the concerns of the anti-Nuclear Power Lobbyists, in 2007, proposals for the construction of two new coal fired power stations were announced for the UK. One to be built in Tilbury, Essex and the other in Kingsnorth, Kent.
When built, they will be the first coal fired stations to be built in the UK in 20 years.
In countries with nuclear power, radioactive wastes comprise less than 1% of total industrial toxic wastes, which remain hazardous indefinitely unless they decompose or are treated so that they are less toxic or, ideally, completely non-toxic
(Reference: Information and Issue Briefs. World Nuclear Association (2006))
Overall, nuclear power produces far less waste material than fossil-fuel based power plants. Coal-burning plants are particularly noted for producing large amounts of toxic and mildly radioactive ash due to concentrating naturally occurring metals and radioactive material from the coal. Contrary to popular belief, coal power actually results in more radioactive waste being released into the environment than nuclear power. The population effective dose equivalent from radiation from coal plants is 100 times as much as nuclear plants.
In a way, hysterical uninformed objection to nuclear power has let the UK government make a really retrograde decision - part of the vacillation that epitomises this UK Labour Administration.
What the UK Government needs to do is stop shilly-shallying and just get real and stop appeasing the anti-nuclear power lobbyists otherwise the anticipated "Energy Gap" for 2015 onwards will just get more difficult to close!
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Well it seems that BBC World TV's announcer got it wrong. The solar boiler in Spain really does produce 11 megawatts, not 11 kilowatts the way their reporter said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6616651.stm
"It is Europe's first commercially operating power station using the Sun's energy this way and at the moment its operator, Solucar, proudly claims that it generates 11 Megawatts (MW) of electricity without emitting a single puff of greenhouse gas. This current figure is enough to power up to 6,000 homes."
So it's a thousand times better than it looked to me. And still a hundred times worse when it is operating at its best at high noon than a single nuclear power plant is around the clock. Perhaps at less than 2 kw each that's enough power for 6000 European homes but 2kw wouldn't power even one of my three central air conditioning units.
So we've reduce the equivalent of a nuclear plant by a factor of 1000 down to 100 acres. That's still nearly a quarter of a square mile. Not practical enough yet for large scale use. Not nearly efficient enough either.
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MarcusAureliusII @ 67
But it will make the tree-huggers and high-minded conservationts feel really good about themselves!
Mind you, once all the Earth is taken up with solar panels, they'll want to get rid of them as it's not fair on biodiversity!
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#68. Agreed. Apparently wind turbines chop up birds so aren't acceptable, hydro schemes dam rivers so stop fish spawning and god alone knows what the eco-response would be to a tidal barrage across the severn messing with the water flow and upsetting the salinity.
The greenies seem opposed to ALL forms of power generation which is frankly why I try and ignore their bleeting.
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Interesting timing for a nuclear power blog post Mark, as the french press is currently very pre-occupied by the large leak of uranium into a river and the groundwater around the Tricastin power station. They have now discovered that there have previous leaks that have gone unreported and a minister has requested a radioactivity audit of all the french nuclear sites. No doubt the results of any such study will be hushed up by the all-powerful french establishment.
While I accept that we currently have little choice but to meet our growing energy needs using nuclear power, the long term environmental risks due to poor waste and process management are of great concern. The toxic and/or radioactive legacy that we will leave for future generations to deal with may well end up outweighing the results of mankind's CO2 emissions. This is enough justification for continuing the development of renewable energy sources where possible.
Now, please get back to blogging about the eurocrats' lack of democratic accountability and Sarko's slip of the tongue on an Irish revote!
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Any move towards nuclear energy should be taken under a European level.
If France goes nuclear, what's the point in keeping Spain or Italy nuclear-free? the Pyrinees or the Alps are not going to save us in the (unlikely) event of a nuclear disaster.
In general, energy supply solutions must be considered in a continental basis.
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betuli @ #71
But why?
In the case of the UK, Scotland has already decreed that no more nuclear facilities will be built on Scottish Territory. This unilateral decision is despite a UK Government decision (in principle) to support the creation of new Nuclear Power Reactors to meet the expected energy gap from 2015 onwards.
I fully support the Scottish right to have the option to make this choice but any shortfall in energy requirements should not be provided by neighbours - else such decisions are inevitably hypocritical!
Spain and Italy should be allowed to make the same choices at national level too.
But, similarly, they should not expect to be able to import energy from countries that generate any electricity from nuclear power.
I'm sure they would not want to anyway but we must make sure that hypocracy is not allowed to excuse them from making irrational choices!
When the Scottish, Spanish and Italian lights do go out they can always be high-minded and know they are much better than the rest of Europe when it come to their production of power. Let them suffer for their righteousness!
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#72 "I fully support the Scottish right to have the option to make this choice but any shortfall in energy requirements should not be provided by neighbours - else such decisions are inevitably hypocritical!"
Scotland is a net PRODUCER of electricity, mainly due to some huge hydro schemes. At the moment we're meeting Englands shortfall. For that matter FRANCE is meeting Englands shortfall and the english are paying good money for it. i doubt if you'd object to Scotland buying english power?
With a population of only 5 million, mainly spread across a very small central belt and with little heavy industry left Scotland is one of the few european countries that doesn't have to worry about its lights going out.
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Peter_Sym @ #73
The English probably paid for the Scottish hydro-electric schemes so I hope the Scottish enjoy their independence and their surfeit of electrical power.
I want the UK to build as many Nuclear Power Stations in England as needed and ensure we need no power from the Scots or the French. I do not want England to need Scotland at all!
This still does not mean that I support a European-wide approach to the management of power production.
Having the EU decide whether Scotland has Nuclear Power Stations or not would go somewhat against the drive for independence that I hope the Scottish people achieve when the SNP do finally hold their referendum on separation from the UK!
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"The English probably paid for the Scottish hydro-electric schemes so I hope the Scottish enjoy their independence and their surfeit of electrical power."
No, scottish power, a private company of which my parents were share holders, paid for the hydro schemes.
If you saw the stats published by the BBC last week Scotland gets 50% of Scotlands GDP back in public spending compared to nearly 70% for the North and North West of England. Contrary to popular belief south of the border the Scots do actually pay tax. I hoped this would stop the 'England bankrolls Scotland c**p' but apparently not.
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Hi,
#74 Menedemus, I couldn't agree with you more, the sooner Scotland gives the English independence by claiming their own 'independence' the better, likewise I for one look forward to the Flemish splitting off from Belgium as they once again seem to want to do. I for one think they will find life somewhat different from the rose coloured specs on their own, just like the Scots will.
On the nuclear track, I spoke to an ex nuclear scientist yesterday who's worked in the Belgian nuclear industry (yes, we do have some plants). The Wallon plant is just down the river from a French plant so I hope that has not been leaking plutonium as well as it is strategically placed to be surrounded mostly by Belgian territory rather then French. Anyway, my friend mentioned that a direction for research should be the manipulation of the half life of radioactive materials. Were a way to be found to accelerate or decelerate the half life it would amongst other things make waste storage must simpler. I wonder if this has been researched?
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"Anyway, my friend mentioned that a direction for research should be the manipulation of the half life of radioactive materials. Were a way to be found to accelerate or decelerate the half life it would amongst other things make waste storage must simpler. I wonder if this has been researched?"
Piece of cake. Simply bombard your waste material with high energy neutrons and you'll transform it into something else. What you'll get will almost certainly be more radioactive, but it will decay faster. Frankly its no real advantage though.
There's an old russian reactor that has partially turned to gold as a result of neutron bombardment.... you won't get many people wanting to wear earrings made from it though!
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Peter_Sym # #75
Call it what you will.
Scottish Devolution to date has been grossly unfair to the English - the continuing distribution of a per-capita amount under the Barnett Formula to each devolved areas means that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland receive funds higher than that allocated to England
Using figures for the financial year 2006/2007 (source: HM Treasury, Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses (PESA)), if a UK-wide per-capita average was a notional 100% then identifiable per-capita expenditure on services in England would be 97% and the Scottish amount 117%. Wales would be 111% and Northern Ireland 127%.
I would say that the English Taxpayers are being robbed!
It is political unwillingness to manage the difficult task of making the big changes necessary to rebalance existing expenditure provided by the Barnett Formula , that means that, as an Englishman, I will never achieve equity under devolution.
If dissolution of the Union achieves that equity then I am willing to support the SNP set up the Scottish referendum and work for the Scots to separate and stand on their own feet.
The Scots can keep their dwindling North Sea Oil assets, their hydro-electricity and their independence and spend their own taxes as they see fit. Mind you the qulaity of life noth of the border might fall away from your current high standards.
English taxes will remain relatively unchanged BUT the English might just start to receive 100% per-capita expenditure.
I think that Separation IS the most fair solution to the current unfairness of devolution. The Scottish can spend their money as they see fit and the English can spend all of their money as they see fit.
No more West Midlothian Question, no disparity in per-capita expenditure and the Scottish get taxation with true representation and self-determination!
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#78. being more accurate the south-east of England grossly subsidies the rest of the UK. Spending in London relative to its GDP is a fraction of what the rest of the country gtes. As a proportion of GDP Scotlands public spending is very average... the south west, northwest and north of England get FAR more.
The barnett formula is easy to misinterpret: basically a scot living in the Highlands gets the same as a englishman living in Cumbria as rural services cost more. A scot in Glasgow gets the same as a Yorkshirman in Leeds. Scotlands proportionally higher rural population means that per head a Scot gets slightly more than an Englishman but only on paper.
This has nothing to do with devolution- the Barnett formula predates that, and evrything to do with resentment that the Scots manage their money better than the English. Since devolution we've kicked a hell of a lot of the managers out of the NHS and instead doctors and politicians work together. As such the Scotting NHS works better than the top-heavy English version. There is also pathetic resentment south of border that the PM is a Scot (for the first time in 300 years).
No Scot wants the 'West Lothian question either' and I see no reason why Scottish MPs in Westminster shouldn't be be barred from voting on English only matters. If that means the tories effectively run England then so be it. Neither do many Scots REALLY want independence- they just don't want the sort of oppression we had with Thatcher. I voted against devolution because I didn't want the country run by the sort of tartan bigots who reckon I'm the enemy because I speak with an English-ish accent (despite being born in Glasgow and living their for 20 years- geordie parents). Frankly they've suprised me how well they're doing and instead I now get english bigots abusing me for being Scottish instead.
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#77 Peter_Sym,
That's very interesting, what you said is roughly what my friend said although he is a bit of an optimist. He is of the opinion that if this research progressed the radioactivity could be dissipated in some way thus making the waste almost harmless.
It's curious that Gold is the result though as that sounds like shades of alchemy, maybe the ancients had techniques that have been lost in time?
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#80. All matter is just protons, neutrons and electrons. Add a neutron and a chemical changes from one substance to another. Generally though this is unnatural and the chemical you form will be highly unstable, will break down into something else, usually releasing radiation, and usually going through many changes before becoming something stable (sadly that stable metal is normally lead not gold!...its sort of reverse alchemy).
The problem is that you'll generate VERY radioactive waste that breaks down quickly(ish) rather than slightly radioactive waste that lasts forever. I'm not sure if the 'solution' is worse than the initial problem!
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#81 Peter_Sym,
From what you say it may be possible to use waste to create new Uranium, Plutonium etc or does the stability factor preclude that possibility. Should it be possible and not too expensive it would answer the supply shortage mentioned earlier.
Strange that about Lead as well, as I seem to recall that was what the legend of Alchemy was about, Lead into Gold
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Manedemus R 72
You're right, although this is not what actually happens.
Spain is under a nuclear moratoria, with no more new reactors ahead to be built, while it is buying nuclear-produced electricity from France.
Spanish government is focusing on alternative energies like solar pannels farms and above all wind power, which have not proved enough efficient so far, and they are not very "environmentally friendly", especially the wind mills, that are extremely harmful to migrant birds.
Considering neighbour France is going nuclear, alternative energies are not yet satisfactory and Spain is highly dependant on energy supplies, I'm changing my mind over the convenience to build again (ultra safe) nuclear reactors in the Iberian Peninsula.
Don't compare with Scotland, which is becoming a sort of "a new Scandinavian tiger" thanks to its oil and scarce population.
I insist though that a hipotethical nuclear accident in France, located in the middle of Western Europe, would affect all neighbours.
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#82. Thats how a breeder reactor works: bombard non-radioactive Uranium 238 (which is in plentiful supply) with neutrons from the fission of U-235 (which isn't common at all) and you get Plutonium-239 that can also be burnt in a reactor. effectively you make more fuel than you use. Unfortunately P-239 is weapons grade, so frankly its not the sort of technology we should share with most of the world.
Most of the other products you'd get from this sort of reaction are very unstable though and the cost of recovering anything useful from the radioactive waste would be very high.
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Re #84
It's the lack of scientific understanding of the difference between U-238 and U-235 which is allowed to boil up and become used to scare people about the safety of Nuclear Power.
The recent spillage at the Tricastin power station (See beavervalleys comment @ #70) was a spillage of 75kg of unenriched common Uranium (originally reported to be 350kg +) that was contained in 18 cubic metres of Uranium Solution that spilled through human error.
Subsequently higher reading of the heavy metal were found in the nearby rivers and so, to be safe, the local authorities have imposed a ban on drinking, swimming and fishing.
This type of spillage then gets blown up as if it were a major catastrophe and the natural human fear is that the local water table has become radio-active.
Accidents happen but one has to put these things into context. Chernobyl was always an accident waiting to happen given that the Russions never had the funding or expertise to utilise the atomic secrets they stole from the US and Britain!
Three Mile Island was an early mistake and the lessons have been learnt but in the grand scheme of things, Three Mile Island was two points off the INES Maximum rating for Nuclear Incidents that only Chernobyl has ever been assigned.
The Tricastin power station incident has been marked down as Category 1 on the INES Scale but this does not rationalise human fear that is exploited by the likes of Greenpeace and other anti-Nuclear lobbyists to drum up resistance to Nuclear Power.
I don't mean to belittle the fear that humans have of Nuclear Incidents but I resent the misuse of statistics and facts to entirely damn the peaceful and relatively safe use of Nuclear Power!
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"It's the lack of scientific understanding of the difference between U-238 and U-235 which is allowed to boil up and become used to scare people about the safety of Nuclear Power." [#85]
Ditto re difference between plutonium 239 and 238.
Vide complaints, made in all seriousness, that US deep space probes have P-238 on board rather than... solar panels! :-)
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However well a nuclear facility is designed it's how it's built and managed that's important - because too many accidents are "human error". So, it's up to management on site, whether building (at Flammanville work was stopped because of worries about how concrete was being poured), or when operating (a new MD has just been appointed at Tricastin, after a 'level 1' leak - they go from 0-8 apparently).
The consequences of "human error" are that we, the citizens of the world, are the ones who could get hurt.
Start asking how management ensures safety, not how well designed these things are.
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It is strange though that we humans panic like mad about accidents at nuclear facilities but we're apparently happy to live and breathe the pollution emitted from coal-fired power stations.
Coal-fired Power Stations inherently produce up to 1000 times the amount of radioactive and toxic substances as Nuclear Facilities throught the actual process of burning coal and emitting the by-products into the atmosphere and yet the UK Government has given the go-ahead for two new coal-fired power stations to be built in the UK as if they are a more 'safe' option than nuclear power stations.
It seems very odd to me but I suppose that is the success of scare-mongering!
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It is fine for France to build a nuclear future, but it is not all right for Sarcozy to be a nuclear proliferator spreading weapons capability throughout the Middle East.
Too many people worry about Iran getting nuclear arms but don't see that Sarcozy has set in place plans for Saudi Arabia and the Emerates to be next in line to develope nuclear arms because order have been place with France's president for nuclear reactors.
If the Chinese or Russians had done the same with these Arab countries, all hell would have broken loose in the UN and in Washington DC.
What exactly is the law reguarding who is or can be a nuclear proliferator? And when does he become benevelent?
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The enriched uranium used in most nuclear reactors is not concentrated enough to build a bomb. Most nuclear reactors run on 4% enriched uranium. However, the same plants and technology used to enrich uranium for power generation can be used to make the highly enriched uranium needed to build a nuclear bomb.
In addition, the plutonium produced in power reactors, if separated from spent fuel through chemical reprocessing (much less technically challenging than isotopic separation), can be used for a bomb.
While the plutonium resulting from normal reactor fueling cycles is less than ideal for weapons use because of the concentration of Plutonium, a usable weapon can be produced from it. If the reactor is operated on very short fueling cycles, bomb-grade plutonium can be produced. However, such operation would be virtually impossible to camouflage in many reactor designs, as the frequent shutdowns for refueling would be obvious, for instance in satellite photographs.
Thus, the safeguards are the "Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons" (NPT), regular inspections for analysis of uranium and plutonium by-product outputs and satellite observation.
There is no law that prevents any counrty from developing nuclear power nor going to the next level and producing weapons-grade uranium or plutonium but it is incredibly expensive to do, technically requires a great deal of effort and demands a preparedness to be 'nuked' before getting that far. Such countries would also require the delivery mechanisms (rocketry) which also require a great deal of technical effort, expense and preparedness for pre-emptive retaliation.
The three known-to-have-thebomb non-NPT countries (India, Pakistan and North Korea) went to nuclear weapon production surreptitiously.
The only other non-NPT Nuclear Power is Israel. They have a special role to play in preventing the proliferation of nuclear armamnets in the Middle East. It's a self appointed role but I'll come back to that in a moment.
Because of the mutual fear factor, India and Pakistan are held to be locked in Mutally Assured Destruction mode but, although they are not signed up to the NPT they do permit inspectors in to review their facilities and uranium/plutonium outputs.
North Korea has been bought off and going to be weaned back from being a nuclear weapons state by the careful orchestrations of both China and the USA - both of which countries do understand the purpose behind the NPT.
Saudi Arabia and the Emirates are to be provided the Reactors from France but it is in France's interests to control the use of the reactors and ensure the host countries don't get above themselves and think they might go to the next level. As it is they are signed up to the NPT and so will be subject to inspections.
Iran is surreptitously developing enriched Uranium on the pretext of a civil nuclear power program. Iran is not signed up to the NPT. If Iran cannot be weaned off going to nuclear weapon development they have to risk the idea that Israel will intervene militarily in first instance to protect itself.
In fact, I would worry less about France supplying Saudi Arabia and The Emirates with nuclear power and watch the Iranian Nuclear Power development process much more closely. Israel will have several red lines in the Iranian progress towards self-sufficiency in enough enriched Uranium and Plutonium at which point they must react militarily. My guess is they will 'take out' Iran's Nuclear Facilities to dissuade them of their folly. This will inevitably create a crisis of epic consequences but the Iranian's cannot say they have not been warned or been given misleading signals!
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About thorium reactors, my precisions to comment #53, hi.
True thorium reactors, the only ones that would be subcritical, exist only on paper up to now, and not a single experiment has been done in this direction.
What does exist is fuelling VVER reactors in Russia with a mix of recycled military plutonium and thorium. This mix is critical and works much like enriched uranium does, except that it converts some thorium into fissible 233-uranium which is then consumed and produces added energy.
Similar conversions exist in any reactor, including enriched uranium ones, with a low efficiency. The Pu-Th mix converts a bit more of the thorium and allows to take advantage of some thorium thus saving uranium. Nice.
But by no way can this mix use all thorium nor work without plutonium. In this sense, it is not a thorium reactor - just a slick way to maximize the energy gained from deleting some plutonium.
And as exporting plutonium is excluded, this operation with the thorium mix can't be generalized overseas.
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About price and availability of uranium:
Uranium has been cheap for a decade because military uranium was being recycled since bombs prefer plutonium. Now that reactors burn uranium at ore price, this fuel is by no way negligible in the price of electricity. Its cost is already comparable to coal and rises quickly. There is no room to pay 100 times more for it.
Proved reserves at today's price would last for a century at today's pace. Reserves at hurting costs are only 10 times higher. This means that uranium is plentiful enough for France, not for Mankind.
I also regret that only wind and Sun are mentioned as renewable energy. Geothermal energy makes more sense for availability and costs.
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Radioactivity of plutonium:
A half-life of 24,000 years does mean a high radioactivity. Natural uranium or thorium, with half-lives of several 1000 million years, are little radioactive, though they're radioactive enough to be deadly to the miners.
Writing "a clump of uranium or plutonium" doesn't make sense. Uranium can be held in the hand for a reasonable time with no risk. Plutonium is almost one million times more radioactive. As it gets hot from its own activity, sensible people would have the healthy reaction of not touching it.
And the mere quantity of plutonium is a challenge. Short-lived isotopes are always in short quantities because they quickly disappear.
So as Peter_Sym put it, there are short-lived isotopes that disappear within a century and long-lived isotopes that are little radioactive... But then, there are isotopes with 24,000 years half-life like plutonium which are a real challenge.
Also to be kept in mind: with 5 or rather 10kg of plutonium, virtually any physicist can build a nuclear bomb. An inefficient bomb as was the one built by North Korea, but still 500t TNT equivalent, and very dirty. 300,000kg plutonium translate to 30,000 homebuilt nuclear bombs. It just waits on the next country collapse to get in the wrong hands.
As for mercury: European laws preclude it from new objects.
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#86 "Vide complaints, made in all seriousness, that US deep space probes have P-238 on board rather than... solar panels! :-)"
US deep space probes DO have Pu onboard. As Enthalpie points out in #93. Pu gets warm from alpha decay- put a thermocouple in a little bit of plutonium and the heat generates a small current. In effect you have a battery with a 24,000 year life. Once you get beyond about Jupiter the sun has so little power solar cells are useless so these probes that are sent off beyond our solar system need batteries. Useful stuff, plutonium.
However tackling some of the other comments in #93. Plutonium probably is a million times more radioactive that Uranium, but its still an alpha emmitter unless you start getting rather a lot of it in one place when odd things start happening to it. A million times virtually nothing still isn't that radioactive. Frankly the Am-241 in your smoke alarm isn't killing you.
Any physicist could make an atomic bomb with U-235. Plutonium is MUCH more difficult to make a bomb from as the 'lenses' needed to compress it require incredible manufacturing skill. The North Korean bomb was a joke... it was so large and chunky that it was never a viable weapon. There are far cheaper and more cost effective ways of making a big bang than that. You could make a fuel air weapon that was more lethal for pennies.
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Well Al Gore made a fool of himself again. He wants to see the US stop generating electricity from fossil fuel and use only renewables in 10 years. He says it's crazy for the US to borrow money from China to buy and burn Saudi oil to generate electricity. Hey Al, get your facts straight. The US generates 50% of its electricity from American coal, 20% from American uranium, and a similar amount from natural gas and hydro. Only a small percent of electricity in the US is produced from burning heavy fuel oil. Most US oil consumption is used by motor vehicles. The chances of the US converting electricity production significantly to renewables in 10 years is zero. Al, go back to sleep or whatever you were doing before you became a tree hugger. Invent another internet or something.
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It seems that Mark Mardell must be really busy on his Newsnight feature, so I have been following the shenanigans of the EU anti-democrats elsewhere. RTE has a beautiful quote from an EU Commissioner with just the subtle hint of menace that one might expect from a Brussels Overlord. Benita Ferrero-Waldner says the Irish government must be allowed to analyse and reflect in order to "tell us what they must do".
Some Irish politicians at least are distinguishing themselves in this affair. Eamon Gilmore, leader of the Irish Labour party, has a piece in the FT that no democrat could object to. He says that the result of the Irish poll, the only one allowed, and in traditionally pro-EU country indicates the EU and not just Ireland has a problem. He goes on to say that a community of states founded on the principles of democracy, would cause itself "untold damage" if it were to ignore the results of the Irish poll, or in some manner attempt to sidestep the verdict of Irish voters. There is no doubt who is the better representative of the people, but I also think Eamon represents the real long-term interests of the EU institutions far better than Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner too.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0429a84e-54bc-11dd-ae9c-000077b07658.html
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Plutonium bombs are easy to make indeed.
They become very difficult if you want to make efficient use of all the plutonium as this requires a fast compression. But for a "little" bang (still 500t or as much as 100t fuel in a fuel-air bomb) like in North Korean, standard technology like in a basic uranium bomb is enough.
And then, you get the huge toxicity in the air, which means that London and its neighbourhood would have to be abandoned for many generations - something you don't get with a huge fuel-air bomb.
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Some spacecrafts do use plutonium, but it is the isotope 238 with 88 years half-life, not the isotope 239 with 24,000 years half-life produced in uranium reactors.
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The EPR has a shell designed to withstand the impact of an airliner. The impact of a jet fighter has not been computed and far less so experimented, though a fighter flies at 2000km/h and has a denser engine shaft.
This was pointed out by an opponent to nuclear energy. The French state reacted by making legal problems to this helpful individual instead of redesigning the shell.
By the way, this proves once again that what is kept secret are design flaws and corruption.
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#99. The US slammed an F4 phanton doing 700mph (on a sledge) into a reactor wall. It didn't even chip the concrete. There's amazing video footage of it online.
The 'huge contamination in the air' from your DIY plutonium bomb would last for days not generations. With an atomic weight of 239 Plutonium isn't going to float around the air for very long. One good rainstorm and it'll be in the ground. 'Fat Boy' that was dropped on Nagaski was a poor desing and probably only consumed a few % of the PU in it but Nagasaki is still habitable.
In any case if you wanted to do what you suggest just use medical grade Cobalt 60 or strontium 90 and give everyone a good dose of gamma rays. Why spend billions making weapons grade Pu if you just want a dirty bomb? If you want to flatten london just sail a bulk carrier full or LPG or ammonium nitrate (see explosion in Halifax nova scotia in WW1) up the thames. Same result- fraction of the effort.
Its a good argument against exporting breeder reactors to Fundamental-istan, but the worlds biggest industrial nations mostly have H-bombs already. Weapon proliferation isn't a reason why the UK/China/US/Russia etc shouldn't use the technology.
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#98. That makes sense: shorter half-life = more alpha decay in less time = more heat = better battery.
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Oh look, another leak of uranium announced in the french press today, this time at the Areva site in Romans-sur-Isère where they make fuel for nuclear reactors. An under-specified, buried pipe between two different parts of the plant burst.
Again, only a minor leak classed as a "1" on the event criticality scale. So, do I have absolute confidence in their ability to manage their nuclear installations? In a word, NO.
Another issue in France is that the cost of the electricity produced by the nuclear plants does not include the decommissioning costs. As we know from the british experience at Sellafield (if i recall correctly), the decommissioning of a nuclear plant has the potential to go WAY over budget - always a good incentive for short cuts that risk being costly in the long term environmental sense.
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Beavervalley @ 102
In 102 posts here we have had raised the spectre of TWO recent incidents involving leakages at two separate Nuclear Power Facilities in France.
Both have been dealt with promtly by the relevant Site and remedial actions are underway.
But we have to be careful that our natural human fear of the unknown does not cloud our judgement as to whether Nuclear Power for peaceful purposes is a good thing!
Both incidents sound bad but the actual risk to life is zero to nothing of consequence.
The International Nuclear Event Scale (INES) was introduced by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in order to enable prompt communication of safety significance information in case of nuclear accidents. A number of criteria and indicators are defined to assure coherent reporting of nuclear events by different official authorities.
The Tricastin and the Romans-sur-Isure Site incidents have been designated "1" on the INES Scale - this is less than a "2" (an Incident) and a "1" is merely an "anomaly".
Depending upon how much one trusts the IAEA (and most sensible people would trust the expertise of that body of scientists) this would make both events reportable but of little consequence.
People who make these events sound so dreadful that we should all run and hide are merely alarmist and they could become voices that are ignored - just like the little boy who cried "wolf" too often.
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People forget that nuclear power has been used for decades not only for electricity generation but for propulsion as well.
For example: All USN aircraft carriers and subs (both: attack and boomers) are nuclear powered. And with the price of oil likely to remain above $130.00 p/brl mark
(and perhaps even passing $170.00) there's a growing pressure to make next generation of smaller vessels, such as destroyers and frigates, nuclear as well.
There's even talk about biggest cargo ships going nuclear in the near future. [Big ice-breakers already did] However nobody's talking about going back to burning coal or even using wind power on the high seas. Again.
BTW. Price of uranium is going down again and may may drop even lower ( to $50/lb) on the news of planned significant production increase in Australia (Olympic Dam), Canada (Cigar Lake) and Uzbekistan.
Which, unfortunately, may delay development of ADS (thorium) reactors even more.
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No doubt the tree huggers would prefer the nuclear powered ships to go back to being wind-driven using sails instead!
It's just a shame the tree huggers don't go to the Amazon or Indonesia and hug the trees there - what's left of them - before they all disappear. That would be the most effective way of halting climate change!
Once the rain forests have gone - that's when the Earth's Lungs (or nature's carbon-conversion mechanism) will have been killed off and then Climate Change will be a reality and not a hypothesis!
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To Menedemus ¤103:
It's not a question of what level the leak is on the scale, it's the fact that human failings link all three recent incidents in France. The latest wasn't actually recent - apparently it's been leaking for several years. The site operator just hadn't inspected it.
Let's get this straight. Whatever the arguments about nuclear efficiency, technical design, or whatever, matters little when the building of the plant and the operation of same ends up in the hands of people.
I had my own experience of the lackadaisical approach to Safety that can afflict people who work constantly with dangerous products or processes. That was at Sellafield, about 10 years ago. It turned out to be of no consequence.
One day, one of these "human errors" is going to cost the greater population. Unless, of course, greater pressure is put on management to lead by example and to get tough on safety slackers. (NB the MD at Tricastin was sacked but will his replacement be any better in this regard?).
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About the "alpha" radioactivity of plutonium:
Each plutonium alpha decay emits as well a gamma ray with 400keV energy as a mean value. This energy is best absorbed by the human body.
No single chance to stop this gamma with a few centimetre air.
One-tenth of a gram 60-Co (a hugely radioactive amount) emits as much gamma power as 5.5kg of 239-Pu.
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About the radioactivity allegedly emitted by coal power stations:
All combustion compounds of natural radioactive elements are solid, that is, ashes and fumes. At least in Europe, fumes a caught in the power station and don't escape to the atmosphere. Feasible anywhere, cheaper than a nuke.
This bad argument appears on each discussion about nuclear energy, so readers should ask themselves who brings it.
And anyway, the alternative to nuclear reactors isn't coal power stations. Again this bad argument.
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frenchderek @ 106
I fully accept that the elimination of human error is essential - but this is not just essential to the safe operation of nuclear facilities! I merely ask that people don't assume that every event at a nuclear facility is as serious as the scaremongers make them out to be. These 'events' have to be put into context with reality.
Man is not designed to fly and certainly not at 35000 feet but the safest form of transport is jet airplane.
How many nuclear reactors are in operation around the world? 1000s.
How many incidents have been Level 7 on the INES Scale? 1
Minor pipes breaking and minor tank overflows are sympomatic of human error but are events that also happen on pharmaceutical sites, building sites, farms, airports, you name it. They happen but don't cause massive risk to humans.
All I ask is that people who are anti-nuclear power don't try to scare people with events at nuclear facilities as if if was a given that they are life threatening or a major consequence. They are not major incidents they are minor events.
They just need to be understood, acted upon, prevented from happening again, and then everybody can move on!
In regards to your sentence, "One day, one of these "human errors" is going to cost the greater population." Again, the consequences of the 1 Critical Incident that scored the highest level of rating on the INES Scale, Chernobyl, need to be put into context.
I do not wish to minimise the catastrophe that was Chernobyl but the 2005 report prepared by the Chernobyl Forum, led by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and World Health Organization (WHO), attributed 56 direct deaths (47 accident workers, and nine children with thyroid cancer) to the disaster.
Because of the news coverage and the way the catastrophe was reported, I would imagine the scaremongers have succeeded and that if you asked the "man-in-the-street" as to how many people died at the time of Chernobyl I would guess the reply would be "Thousands!".
Put into context, more people die on UK Roads each year than died at Chernobyl or have died as a result of Chernobyl-related cancer cases arising in the populations surrounding the disaster site since that awful date!
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Enthalpie @ 107
As of 2003 there were between 50 and 100 heart-illness related patients fitted with pacemakers containing Plutonium-238 powered batteries.
As far as I know the pacemakers and the patients are still going strong . . . . because of and not despite the radioactivity of Plutonium-238.
Why are you dispensing statistics that read as if they are intended to frighten people?
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Enthalpie @ 108
I don't know where you get your facts from regarding the radioactivity emissions from fossil-fuel power stations?
I quote "At least in Europe, fumes a caught in the power station and don't escape to the atmosphere."
The flue gas from combustion of the fossil fuels is discharged to the air; this contains carbon dioxide and water vapour, as well as other substances such as nitrogen, nitrous oxides, sulfur oxides, and (in the case of coal-fired plants) fly ash and mercury. Solid waste ash from coal-fired boilers must also be removed, although some coal ash can be recycled for building materials.
At best, even if filters are fitted (and there has been no uptake of the 50 nations using foosil-fuel power generation), the carbon-dioxide emitted from a fossil-fuel power station may only be limited to 90% of the carbon dioxide produced.
Even if the there was no radioactive emmissions from coal-fired power stations (such as are to be built, after a moratorium of 20 years, in the UK), to prefer carbon-dioxide emitting fossil-fuel power stations to carbon-free nuclear power stations is simply crass given the general concerns over global warming!
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Risk. The opposing argument regardin the risks involved in nuclear power generation and the us of nuclear radiation generally. The popular defination of risk is one directional. For example if an aircraft hits a nuclear powerplant and if the plant should explode as a result in would be a most aweful disaster. This is true as far as it goes, no one would argue with that.
However, scientific risk is assessed multi-directionally. What is statistical probabilty of the event? From what previous incidents can we gain knowledge of the possible and likely scale of the disaster?As far as I know, no aircraft has ever crassed into a power station and therefore the statistical risk must be infinity. Next best, an aircraft crassing into an major structure. The World Trade Center in New Year might be a possibilty for comparison. Excluding the Pentgon which was a military target and very different structure this is the sole such incident in America or anywhere else. Taken the number of commercial flight every day in America and multiplying that up over a period of 30 years, this risk becomes one in many millions and probably statistically near enough zero.
The potentially worst ever incident took plas off a beach on Spain's Mediteranean cost in 1966. Translating from the Spainish: In 1966 two United Staes airoplane loaded with nuclear boms and of hydrogen colided in flight and chrashed close to Palomares, on the Almerian coast. The bombs did not explode .... The whole of Spain, Portugal an Marcocco, nearly the whole of Algeria and much of South Western France were within the projected zone of serious contamination. Barcelona, where I live was on the edge of the zone of 25% loss of life.
That Spain to this day is somewhat abivilant towards nuclear power, is hardly supprising.
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Old-Man-Mike @ 112
As a matter of interest, is the Spanish ambivalence towards nuclear technolgy: weapons (as this was the nuclear technology involved in Palomares, Spain) or is it the use of nuclear power stations or is it nuclear technology in it's entirety?
In truth, three nuclear bombs landed on shore, the conventional explosives detonated and 2 square miles of Spanish land was contaminated with radioactive uranium.
The fourth device was recovered intact from the sea.
The loss of life was 7 US Airmen and the accident resulted in the fuel explosion aboard the fueling plane NOT the nuclear bomber although the latter was irreversably damaged by the fueling plane's explosion and it had to be abandoned.
I just wonder how much scare-mongering by the anti-nuclear lobbyists made a relatively small nuclear-related event into such a major catastrophe that even today the Spanish may still be paranoid about nuclear technology?
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People who keep bringing up the only major accident in nuclear industry's history (Chernobyl) are obviously unaware that the RMBK-1000 reactors's design was considered so flawed even in the 80s, that Russians never attempted to export it; that such a contraption could never possibly be allowed to operate in the West; and that reactor #4 at Chernobyl didn't even have a mandatory full containment dome (forget its sturdiness standards), which was skipped to save money.
Those who think that conventional power generation is safer should recall/read on Great Smog, which killed 4000 Londoners in 1952 immediately, and 8000 addtional people in subsequent months.
And enthusiasts of hydroelectric power should be aware that as a result of failure of Bangiao Dam in Hunan (PRC) in 1975 26000 people died as a result of flooding and another 145 000 due to subsequent epidemia and famine.
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I'm very pleased that the thermonuclear reactor project is being built in France. They tell us it will be perfectly safe. Right. They've said that about a lot of things that turne out to be incredibly dangerous. If a thermonuclear reactor gets out of control and goes up in smoke, there is every possibility that there will be a big hole in south central Europe where France and Italy used to be.
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The perception of risk is relative to it's familiarity and percieved level of control individuals have to "beat the odds".
Air pollution has been with us since the first fire was lit in a cave. If fossil fuels were discovered today (and all other factors being the same) there is no way that the by products of combustion would be allowed to be spewed into the atmosphere.
Radiation presses quite a panic few buttons - in large doses it kills relatively quickly and in smaller doses it triggers cancer which is one of the dread diseases. It is also long lasting, so unlike some air pollution which can be washed out of the atmosphere is with us effectively forever. Finally it is contaminated by the creation of nuclear weapons. Too many people see nuclear power stations as nuclear bombs in all but name.
The rational response to the risks would be to set similar standards of quality and risk management and to all energy generation industries, require them to factor in all the external costs and let them work it out.
I am not scared of radiation from nuclear power any more than of air pollution from the internal combustion engine.
In many ways, I would to prefer have the costs, risks and rewards of energy generation by nuclear power in my own back yard, rather than exported to other parts of the world through the global trade in fossil fuels.
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They have a reason for building their nuclear reactors on the coast. If it chernobyls then the cloud of noxious wotsit might just be blown out to sea.
If it is safe, then why don't they build it in Pasis? maybe in Neuilly.
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As regards noxious substances being wafted onto islands, I will be interested to see how Sarkozy gets on in Ireland. I hope they tell him what he can do with it, in the interests of the whole of Europe and the world.
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Menedemus ¤109
I don't disagree with you over the level of risk at each of these sites. What concerns me (and I've experienced it in too many situations) is that people who work with dangerous, or potentially dangerous substances or processes can become lax. Familiarity breeds contempt.
It is possible to instill the idea that safety is a way of life: but that depends on managers, at all levels (from the top) leading the way.
It turns out that at the latest site, sub-contractors had been warned, verbally, several times over the years - but they hadn't reacted. Whose fault is that?
Now we hear of Semtex being stolen from a site that wasn't even licenced to hold it. "Slack management" is the official version. Where's the safety culture there?
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Are we going to go geothermal in a big way if Yellowstone Caldera erupts, or simply face global winter?
And what are the chances of Lisbon Treaty
surviving if a 100 m3 meteorite hits Brussels?
Shouldn't we just cover ourselves with white sheets and crawl to the nearest cemetary?
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My energy audit of a nuclear power programme anywhere shows that it does not provide any net energy to society. As such it is not even utilitarian. My study of the health effects of nuclear power shows that the option is unacceptable. A taste of this is as follows:Nukes should not deliver a dose of more than that corresponding to a 5 W hit to a single cell(Derived from ECRR2003:Re:Recommendations on the Health and Safety of Nuclear Power) . Since there are hundreds of thousands of DNAs in a single cell, the hit should not be more than say 5-6 megawatts(MW) or equivalent to those delivered by a hundred thousand musclemen to a single DNA! And the ICRP says 5 mSv or 250-360 Megawatts( equivalent to the power of 5 million men to a single DNA) causes an unmeasurable effect! Apply the precautionary principle and have the option independently studied for safety.The IAEA-WHO1959 deal suppresses the truth about nuclear programmes it appears.
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@ 117
SB2 wrote: "They have a reason for building their nuclear reactors on the coast."
Yes, and the real reason is they need a lot of cooling water, so enough of that Chernobyl nonsense, please.
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I feel (sadly) vindicated by my earlier comments about management's role in ensuring site safety. It turns out that the local manager at Tricastin had decided that the 'lower risk' areas of the site did not warrant the level of routine safety checks demanded in the site contract. The checks were relaxed to the point of near non-existance.
When the government inspectors came calling - guess what they found? The leak is said to be getting into water a course - and no-one knows for how long it's been leaking.
It's the people factor.
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negentrope @ #121
"My energy audit of a nuclear power programme anywhere shows that it does not provide any net energy to society."
As of 2007, the IAEA reported there are 439 nuclear power reactors in operation in the world, operating in 31 countries.
A lot of people around the world must disagree with your energy audit findings as they would not have gone to that expense without knowing the returns would produce ample energy for cost of investment?
I fail to see the relevance of the other comments in #122.
The whole purpose behind the use of civilian nuclear power reactors is the controlled use of fission, fusion or thermal nuclear degradation. The operative word being controlled.
There have been more nuclear bombs detonated in the world than catastrophic nuclear reactor incidents so one can assume your figures relate to exposure to radioactivity through nuclear detonation. There is a simple solution to that - try not to be near ground zero or downwind from the detonation of a nuclear bomb.
Having said that, if we reach a point where nuclear bombs or missiles are being detonated, we probably won't have to worry too much about energy, being carbon-neutral, greenhouse gases, inflation, employment figures, nuclear power or much else other than just trying to subsist as best we can in a world that is not worth living on!
Personally, I'd rather perceive my glass was half full than half empty!
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frenchderek @123
I am sorry but I am uncertain as to the purpose behind repeatedly promoting the idea of good management being able to prevent human error.
I worked in the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Industry where the manufacture of medicines is strictly controlled by the external and internal management processes.
The risk of just one tablet being prescribed but containing the wrong ingredients would be potentially catastrophic for the patient but from an industry perspective the offending company would be barred by the FDA and MHCA from manufacturing drugs full stop. If this were all the tablets in a batch the consequences could be worse than any nuclear bomb! We could be talking about thousand of potentially catastohic consequences - Thalidomide is a prime example of a morning sickness pill not being adequately tested before being widely supplied and prescribed!
This means that the Pharmaceutical Industry works on a 'right first time' principle and provision of high degree of training. Mistakes are to be deplored and if failure to comply with operating procedures is found to be the problem this can result in dismissal.
Companies can reject batches of manufactured product from going out simply for finding one too many labels left over after a batch run (indicative of one vial, bottle or packet not having a label - not because the drug is harmful). Similarly, products can be recalled if an error is found by pharmacists, patients or prescribing doctors.
Ultimately, too many errors and the pharmaceutical company will close the manufacturing site if this is required to drive the message home.
However, despite all the best efforts of managers, the workforce and the maintenance of up-to-date procedure control, humans will make mistakes. It is something akin to the proverb "To sin is to be human" - you can do your utmost to prevent mistakes but no system is human proof!
Thus, I am not sure what relevance repeatedly criticising the French Tricastin Site in this blog achieves. To me it sounds like the French Authorities are investigating the problem(s), identifying the cause(s), introducing remedies and moving on!
Maybe we should do the same?
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Hi Menedemus and everybody,
replying to #111:
All fumes are caught indeed from the flues of a European coal powerstation. No mercury, radioactive elements, nitrogen nor sulphur oxides escape any more.
And again, the alternative to nuclear energy isn't coal anyway.
Though if we achieve to store CO2 in deep reservoirs, it could be a less bad transition solution, needing little development time.
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About fusion reactors:
No, they won't make a thermonuclear explosion. They are intrinsically stable. So stable that it's very difficult to ignite and maintain a fusion reaction for a few seconds.
But having invested half a century in tokamaks without usable results, and preparing to invest one half-century more is an incredible waste of talents, and also of money.
There is no natural tritium to fuel them. It must be created in uranium reactors, which produce more electricity when creating a tritium atom than this tritium atom will produce in a fusion reactor. And nobody has a feasible proposal to fuel a tokamak without tritium nor create this tritium in the tokamak itself. In fact, all computations show very pessimistic figures about that.
Producing the same amount of electricity in a fusion reactor emits 3 times as many neutrons as in a uranium reactor. These neutrons will induce 3 times as much radioactivity in the reactor's materials.
So fusion is neither a clean nor an abundant energy. The same amount of talent and money invested in renewables would already have solved our energy needs.
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We cannot compare a nuclear disaster with any other artificial or natural disaster. Earth and thus humans can recover themselves in a relatively short time after a tsunami or a massive volcanic eruption.
Chernobyl however is dead per secula seculorum. Alright, now it is a wild life reserve, but the alien lives inside :-(
If you still hesitate, imagine just for a second that Pripiat was your birth town.
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betuli @ 128
So what is your point?
I have now wish to minimise the catastorphe of the disaster at Chernobyl but your intent seems to be to suggest that Chernobyl was or is somehow a greater catastrophe than a Tsunami. Such a bold suggestion is misleading and a gross error.
The 2005 IEAA/WHO Report into the Chernobyl Disater details that as a direct result of the Chernobyl Disaster, 56 direct deaths occurred (47 accident workers, and nine children with thyroid cancer) were directly attributed.
I imagine that no person would dispute that the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami wasn't more lethal? It killed more than 225,000 people in eleven countries
The same 2005 IEAA/WHO Report into the Chernobyl Disater estimated that there would be 4,000 extra cancer cases among the approximately 600,000 most highly exposed to readioation and 5,000 among the 6 million living nearby.
(Note: it should be noted though that subsequently the United Nations Scientific Committee of the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) believe the estimated 9000 cases of induced cancer is highly overstated)
There is a 30-mile diameter exclusion zone around the Chernobyl Reactor explosion site but so what?
Given 58 deaths and possibly as many as 9000 cancer cases (and there may well NOT be as many induced cancer cases as envisaged!) as a result of the Chernobyl Disaster as compared to 255,000 death due to the 2004 Tsunami, I think the odds of living to a ripe old age are probably higher for the citizens of Pripyat than those living in Sri Lanka, The Maldives, Thailand or Indonesia.
You may personally dislike Nuclear Power but scaremongering by over-exaggerating the risks of civilian use of nuclear power and misleading people about the one catastophic nuclear event is simply alarmist or at worst dishonest!
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Manedemus,
It's not about dead figures, it is about dead earth -at least for humans-, say it clear: forever. I don't want to go through controversy over Chernobyl disaster figures, but I understand you tried to minimized them.
The point however is in South East Asia live has revived after the tsunami only 4 years ago. It's lamentable the high number of casualties, but the survivors can stay in their land and therefore live continues. Tourists have come back to their beaches.
Pripjat will always remain a scar, a sort of warning: nothing to do with scaremonging. I bet you wouldn't step there for a second, "just in case", would you?
I'd support nuclear energy if safety was tighter, moreover: one hundred per cent guaranted. Leaks in French reactors are quite frequent, so what to think over a less reliable country with nuclear power?
If total safety cannot exist, I'll be opposing Nuclear energy.
Search for alternative energies must continue. In the meantime, saving energy seems the wisest advice.
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56 deaths are accounted for in a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The same report estimates to 4000 the number of additional cancer deaths, not cancer cases.
As one may expect, predictions and observations diverge as much as a nuclear reactor. Expectedly again, the lowest figures are from the IAEA. Others tell 50,000 excess deaths.
Credibility of the IAEA report diminishes when one notices that it counted 212 deaths initially, most of whom revived meanwhile.
You may find many links to other reports at Wikipedia for instance. Have a look at the German and French versions as well if possible: more complete than the English one.
So, is anybody suggesting that nuclear reactors avoid tsunamis?
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Pollution by surface detonation of nuclear bombs, as China still does it, is certainly a health concern. As surface detonation were common half a century ago, radioactivity was multiplied in food in the whole world, not just near the bombs. It managed to overshadow natural radioactivity then.
However, the explosion of a nuclear reactor releases much more radioactivity than a bomb does. A bomb typically contains 5kg fissible elements, a pressurized water reactor about 100kg, a Candu or graphite-gas reactor much more.
Another difference is that most bomb detonated far from cities, and most reactors are near to big cities.
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To: Menedemus 113 I have never heared anyone express concern about Nuclear in any form. The Spanish are a generally pragmatic lot and not much worried about such things. My point was that although this incident could have been blown up out of all proportion I only come upon it by chance in an atlas.
Spain generates 20% of its electricity from nuclear power station, which Marcus says is the same proprtion as in the U.S. Our problem is our demand is always running ahead of generation capacity. Solar panals are the in thing at the moment and as usual nothing is done by halves here. Every parking meter has a panel on top and motorwaay signs also. In fact as far as I know it is alway used on the spot. Sorry none over for export.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Old-Man-Mike @ 133
Thank you for the explanation. It's good to know that the Spanish are not entirely anti-nuclear.
We are seeing more and more solar panels fitted to individual roadside items such as roadsigns and motorway gantries.
That is a good use of solar power in that it is local and the power generated is suffficient for the energy requirement.
I haven't yet seen it in use for street lighting but solar panels to provide energy might be unfeasible as the amount of light needed per street or motorway lamp (in order for the light emitted to be bright enough to achieve the safety purpose) may not be met by the output of solar panel equitable with the size of a lampost, i.e. it is usual to see a street lamp with a tall thin pole to be unobstructive - there's no point putting a solar panel the size of a house beside it to provide the necessary energy . . . that would seem somewhat counterproductive!
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My comment at #134 rewritten to avoid the reported copyright infringement.
Enthalpie @131
Your comment "The same report estimates to 4000 the number of additional cancer deaths, not cancer cases." is a deliberate rewriting of history, the facts and a false revision of the 2005 IEAA/WHO Report.
The 2005 report prepared by the Chernobyl Forum, led by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and World Health Organization (WHO), attributed 56 direct deaths (47 accident workers, and nine children with thyroid cancer), and estimated that there may be 4,000 extra cancer CASES among the approximately 600,000 most highly exposed and 5,000 among the 6 million living nearby. Although the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and certain limited areas will remain off limits, the majority of affected areas are now considered safe for settlement and economic activity.
(Source: 2005 IEAA Report, http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Focus/Chernobyl/)
There is no mention of DEATH cases (as per your comment) and this is because the induced cancer is typically cancer of the Thyroid Gland which is not considered life threatening as reduced or removed Thyroid Gland excretions can be substituted with the drug Thyroxine.
Thyroid cancer is generally treatable. The five year survival rate of thyroid cancer is 96%, and 92% after 30 years, with proper treatment.
(Source: Genzyme Canada Incorporated (http://www.genzyme.ca/thera/ty/ca_en_p_tp_thera-ty.asp)
Furthermore, reports from both OSTI and the OECD stated that only 237 people were diagnosed with radiation sickness after exposure attributed to the Chernobyl incident and of these diagnosed with radiation sickness, only 31 died (and these deaths are included within the figure of 56 deaths reported by the IEAA/WHO report) all of them fire workers and other emergeny response people who inhaled radioactive smoke at the scene of the incident.
In addition, the IAEA reports that there has been no increase in the rate of birth defects or abnormalities, or solid cancers (such as lung cancer) arising from exposure to the radiation from Chernobyl.
Furthermore the UNSCEAR report informs its readers that, up to 2002, about 4,000 CASES of thyroid cancer have been reported in children and adolescents who were exposed at the time of the accident. The report states that more CASES may be expected during the next decades due to exposure to radiation AT THE TIME OF THE INCIDENT. The UNSCEAR report that apart from this increase, there is no evidence of a major public health impact attributable to radiation exposure 20 years after the accident.
The UNSCEAR Report makes it clear that there is no scientific evidence of increases in overall cancer incidence or MORTALITY rates or in rates of non-malignant disorders that could be related to radiation exposure.
The risk of leukaemia in the general population, one of the main concerns owing to its short latency time, does not appear to be raised by radiation exposure from the Chernobyl event.
The report also indicates that it finds the greater majority of the population is not likely to experience serious health consequences as a result of radiation from the Chernobyl accident.
(Source: The Chernobyl accident, UNSCEAR's assessments of the radiation effects (http://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/chernobyl.html#Health)
You are being disingenuous when, to support your obvious anti-nuclear views that, you rewrite the UNSCEAR's assessments to suggest, "The same report estimates to 4000 the number of additional cancer deaths, not cancer cases.". This is despicable as it is intended to frighten and/or mislead using your own misconceived perceptions about your fears of nuclear power.
I accept that Chernobyl was an unmitigated disaster with 56 deaths but you overegg the pudding trying to make the death toll higher by thousands.
You may wish that Chernobyl was a worse disaster than it actually was because you wish it to be so to support your anti-Nuclear Power view but that does not make Chernobyl as deadful as you try to make it so!
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Even if we accept that 4000 people died as a result of chernobyl (I don't) this is still less than the death toll of just the Chinese coal industry in 6 months!
NO energy industry is accident free (wait till we start building thousands of wind turbines in the North sea and watch the death rate rise).
In any case the design of chernobyl and the series of events that lead to the disaster CANNOT be replicated in the west. If Chernobyl was a hydro-electric station then the technicians did the equivalent of block the sluice gates in the middle of a flood and wait for the dam to burst. It wasn't an accident... it was manslaughter caused by communist idiocy. It has no more in common with a western nuclear station than Hiroshima did.
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"117. At 2:43pm on 19 Jul 2008, SuffolkBoy2 wrote:
They have a reason for building their nuclear reactors on the coast. If it chernobyls then the cloud of noxious wotsit might just be blown out to sea. If it is safe, then why don't they build it in Pasis?"
The reason is that they need lots of cooling water. Nuclear power stations generate amazing amounts of hot, non radioactive, water and if you dump it in rivers the warming effect kills wildlife. chernobyl was geographically the best place in central europe to build a power station for the same reason- an ENORMOUS river runs past it which provided plenty of coolant. The Seinne just isn't large enough to cope.
The other reason is that nuclear stations need lots of land and that isn't in plentiful supply in cities.
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The Seine is large enough at Nogent-sur-Seine for a nuclear reactor.
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Reactors don't have to be water-cooled; they can be cooled with helium, lead or molten salt.
However many (if not most) next generation reactors will be cooled by sodium.
SFRs not only have a close fuel cycle; their primary system operates at near atmospheric pressure.
And on top of that they are passively safe.
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Powermeerkat, you're confusing the primary and the secondary cycle.
Abundant water remains necessary with any kind of primary coolant.
And bad stability is a big weakness if removing water as a primary coolant.
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[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
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@ #140
The point is not about cooling the reactor but about getting rid of the waste heat. If I recall correctly the efficiency of steam turbine generator is below 33%, so approx. 2/3 of the supplied energy must be dispersed to the environment. Large bodies of water are perfect for this purpose.
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So the EPR doesn't even resist the impact of an airliner
(translated and condensed from the Pdf referenced).
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[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator][Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]Here is the audit made by an independent company about the impact or airplanes:
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
telling the assumptions about the impact aren't serious.
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I wonder how many airliners have crashed into nuclear reactors to date?
I wonder what the price of bread is to day?
I believe that some would hypothesise some causal connection between airliners crashing into nuclear reactors and the price of bread.
It is laughable but I suppose once someone has decided that fairies do live at the bottom of the garden then it's not such a leap of faith for them to start seeing spooks, ghosts and goblins there as well - and even if spooks, ghosts and goblins do not exist someone will always try to convince others that they do!
I imagine that they would prey upon the natural fear of humans by twisting facts, distorting the truth or simply conjuring up scenarios of doom or gloom to convince other to also believe in spooks, ghosts and goblins!
Oh! But wait! Is that not exactly what anti-nuclear power objectionists do with facts and figures relating to nuclear power?
They must believe in fairies too!
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Re #141
Nope, Im not. There's primary sodium and secondary sodium in SFR.
And I didn't say that water supply is not necessary; I said that that a reactor does not have to be water-COOLED, and a coolant (other than water) does not have to be under high pressure.
And that SFR has closed fuel cycle and is by nature passively safe.
BTW SFRs were safely used in USN subs with no records of any untowards 'bad stability'.
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Re #143
Actually, if you wanted to cool reactors with supercritical water (SCWRS) you'd get thermal efficiency not of 33% but of ca 45%, not to mention much simpler construction.
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#143.... ideally the waste heat could be recycled and used to heat a hospital (etc) but politically building a nuclear power station next door to a hospital isn't going to happen.
#144. Looks like the link you posted has been removed, but a nuclear reactor WILL take the impact of an airliner, mainly because there's not much too an airliner. It like being hit by a fast moving beer can. You can kick a hold in an airliners fuselage. Only the engines have any real momentum and mass. A 1970's tower block like the WTC can take the initial impact of an airliner (it was the fires that softened the steel that brought them down... or Dick Cheney and some dynamite depending on your point of view) so a nuclear reactor certainly can survive the impact. A 747 slamming into a street of houses (lockerbie) barely demolished a couple of semis.
For that matter actually hitting a nuclear reactor with a plane isn't easy- the terrorists on 9/11 couldn't hit the pentagon. If you're really worried put some WW2 style barrage balloons around the site. The cables will chop the wings off and ensure the plane crashes short.
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Menedemus, you're losing temper and credibility.
A nuclear reactor is a high-value target for terrorists, who have already proved they can crash airplanes into targets.
And yes, only anti-nuclear power objectionists tell such things. I regret they're the only ones to tell it. Just as I regret the EPR shell hasn't been redesigned as a consequence, instead of trying to silence these facts.
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#147. Wikipedia has a nice drawing of an SFR which has primary and secondary sodium cooling circuits AND a condensor and heat sink. That will almost certainly be a ton of water going into the sea. You don't HAVE to use cooling water but its cheaper and safer than anything else.
Submarines have a water cooling circuit that can be used to make tea and provide hot water for the showers! Its non-radioactive and totally safe.
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#147: The secondary circuit of a SFR consists of water (vapour+liquid).
Water in the primary circuit gives stability margin because it expands, and thus decreases its ability to help the chain reaction, when it gets hotter. This is lost with sodium, and sodium reactors have a worse stability margin.
I know of no single submarine with a breeder reactor onboard. Aren't you confusing between SFR and sodium?
And yes, there have been several nuclear accidents onboard submarines. Bad ones, but little known.
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Wikipedia shows secondary sodium in the primary circuit, and a secondary circuit with water...
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Answering to Menedemus' #136.
4000 deaths is the estimation from the IAEA among 600,000 persons affected. It is not the number of thyroide cancers, but the number of people not surviving it.
And the last IAEA report is from 2006, not 2005.
Other organizations give higher numbers than the IAEA ("A" stands for Atomic).
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Enthalpie @ 154
4000 CASES of induced thyroid cancer in the population of 600,000 is what is written in the IAEA/WHO Report for 2005 researching scientific findings 20 years after Chernobyl.
The WHO Component Report (Expert Health Study Group) specifically states (at page 114) that of the 4000 thyroid cases reported as consequent to the Chernobyl Disaster only 1% (percent) had died by 2005.
(Source: Report of the Chernobyl Group Forum/Expert Group "Health" at http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/chernobyl/who_chernobyl_report_2006.pdf
Incidence of childhood leukemia, solid cancers and non-cancer illness are identifed as not having increased subsequent to the Chernobyl disaster and that it is not possible to attribute any such incidence to Chernobyl as countries to the north and west (covered by the plume form the disater site) and to the south as far as Turkey show no difference in the number of such cases per head of population.
The document details the death of 23 people in 1994/5 (at the time or subsequent to the incident) and 19 people who died in the following 4 years directly asa result of exposure to radioactivity at the site.
The document was published in 2006 at Geneva. I imagine you want to argue that the date is important too?
I suppose that you persist with trying to generate higher mortality rates arising from ChernobylI to try to scare people - having read some of the Greenpeace propaganda, it is not that hard to see that the more you try scare people the more likely you are to have people fear nuclear energy.
The Luddites were of the same ilk!
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Different power sources for different locations and climates...
UK needs Wave power, not Nuclear.
Water cooling from bodies of water always sees release of tiny isotopes... these can get lodged in your body (or your pets) and give you a rather painful death.
Enjoy the 'Nuclear renaissance' guys...
Bye.
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"I know of no single submarine with a breeder reactor onboard. Aren't you confusing between SFR and sodium?" [#152]
Nope.
Fast neutron reactor doesn't have to be a breeder.
Yes, sodium-cooled reactor IS much safer than water cooled.
All major nuclear incidents occurred on SOVIET subs, and, as just a snafu at Chernobyl were result of poor designes, shody workmenship, suppresion of information flow and political pressures typical of communist regimes. Again one could not have a C. anywhere in the West, particularly with new reactor designes. Although I understand why opponents of nuclear power try to extrapolate Soviet/communist conditions on the rest of the world to promote their cause.
Incidentally, you cannot fly a plane at 2000 km/hr (as mentioned earlier) at low altitude, nor can you you get one to that speed in a free fall. Not to mention that it would be v. difficult to hijack any airliner in post 9/11 environment, let alone to get it close to any potential target.
Nobody ever attempted to destroy a reactor with remotly controlled heavy plane or even missile. There was a good reason why both, French reactor in Iraq, and North Korean one in Syria were destroyed by bombing them. Repeatedly.
And finally, terrorists, judging by their long record, seem to be much more interested in sabotaging OIL refineries/pipelines, which are much easier to destroy/damage than atomic reactors. Just like acquiring chemical and biological weapons would be much easier than building/buying nukes. No to mention smuggling them.
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Sodium-cooled reactors are inherently less stable than water-cooled ones.
The EPR doesn't withstand the impact of an airliner. See the analysis made about
EPR
by
large and associates
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To Enthalpie 158
I do not claim to know much about Nuclear Power Stations but I know a lot abour aircraft and flying them.
You are many millions of times more likely to killed by an aircraft hitting your house by accident than as a result aircraft hitting anything the size of a reactor dome on purpose. Even if it did, the radome in nose would disintigrate, followed by the rest of the aircraft. It would then skip off and by the time the fuel could catch fire it would be at a considerable distance from the original point of impact.
I was witness to a crash of a Cambara B2 Bomber which flipped on its back and crashed when one of the two engines failed immediately after take-off. It hit the runway at about 200 miles an hour, caught fire and slide on its back about 500 yards. By the time the station fire service where able to smother the fire with fime about a third of the fusalage had been consumed. Whe the wreckage was removed ther was some melted tarmac wher the plane hand come to rest and a few gauges from the original impact that was all. It just is not going to happen.
The greatest mystery of the World Trade Center was how not one but two aircraft managed to hit them at all.
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There is no end to panic-stricken luddites coming up with ludicrous disaster scenarios.
Now I hear some Cassandras are protesting European Large Hadron Collider
(ending its tests) because the superaccelerator can, according to them, create mini black holes which would destroy our world.[sic]
I give up: there's no point.
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Sarkozy is in Ireland... guess what for ;-) while Mark must be on holidays somewhere under the sun...
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No doubt he intends to do a bit of Gallic arm twisting.
One hopes he gets to see a bit of Gaelic foot-in-ball in return!
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Butcher Karadzic arrested. It was about time. Serbia, welcome to the EU (if accused is sent to The Hague, of course).
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''panic-stricken Luddites''
Nuke spooks have no right to call their critics Luddites...
They have suppressed wave technology for 25 years to save their own overly subsidised jobs...
THEY ARE THE LUDDITES!
Suppressors of emerging technologies...
If you have forgotten, I will remind you that Nuclear is not new technology.
Due to their espionage, unfortunately wave energy tapping is a new technology...
They are anti science, anti people and must be stopped.
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Even with wind turbines littering every square inch of the landscape and wave power generators lining Britain's coast there still wouldn't be enough electricity. Wind "farms" fail to work when there's no wind and (contrary to what people might think) are often stopped when there's too much. Tidal power is minimal on the turn of the tide. The "greens" don't want fossil fuel stations so without nuclear, for sure, there will be regular power cuts. The idea of green power is not to be ridiculed but seen in context. Nuclear, is currently the only large scale option. Not only that but as Mark Mardell points out with the French, electricity can be a major export too and eliminates dependence on Russia and the Middle East.
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#157 agreed. So far zero people have been killed as a result of planes flying into reactors (or even as a result of released radiation from planes dropping bombs on reactors) yet nearly 3000 people died in one night from planes dropping bombs on hydro-electric schemes. Logically this means we should close all the hydro schemes and drain the reservoirs in case Al Que'da build bouncing bombs!
Hitting the twin towers was relatively easy as you could see them from the air from about 50 miles away and it was relatively straight forward to fly in a straight line into them. The 9/11 guys couldn't even manage to dive bomb the pentagon (MUCH larger than any rector and convenient for the potamac... follow the river to the target). Navigating cross country at 400 mph to find an isolated nuclear plant is far, far trickier than finding New York.
I keep pointing out (and none of the anti-nuclear power lot have responded) that there are far nastier isotopes under minimal security in most hospital oncology units. Why muck around with power stations when you have cobalt 60 on your doorstep?
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To Mark - Can we talk about something else now, this subject is getting just a we bit BORING.
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About unsafe Soviet technology:
The accidents at Chernobyl et Three Miles Island were identical for the core which melt down in both cases. The difference is that TMI had a retention dome which contained radioactivity and Chernobyl had none and released radioactivity.
Some Soviet reactors don't have this dome (RBMK) and most do have it (VVER).
Most US and French reactors have this dome and some older ones don't have any.
So accidents of TMI-type do happen in the West and can get the size of the Chernobyl catastrophy, depending on which reactor fails.
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Managing to hit a reactor with an aircraft: you must be kidding!
Al Qaida managed to hit buildings three times in a single day, so it looks quite feasible.
A reactor dome (or weaker but equally radioactive, the disposed fuel building) is the size of a landing strip, and evidence show it's no miracle that planes find the runway. In happens quite often, in fact.
About the mass concentration of an airliner, you forget for instance the engine shaft. You won't make a dent in it by kicking it, this is excellent thick steel.
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Yes, wind turbines can provide enough electricity on a finite - though certainly not negligible - footprint. And Prof Seamus Garvey proposed a method, sound both technically and economically, to store their electricity for periods of bad wind. So we could.
However, they are still about 3 times as expensive to build as a nuke when comparing the average output power. One may argue that this comes from scaling factors, a factor of 3 being regularly won when building 1000 times as many items - to get a power comparable to a nuke.
Because of the footprint, the present cost, and the need of an electricity storage, I prefer geothermy, though it's less developped up to now. Available everywhere (used in the Rhine valley, 5000km away from the next geyser) and when you need it, small footprint, existing technology pieces. They can provide electricity and heat at the same time. Costs look good, though they shall become more certain when building more units.
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Several guys try to suggest that secondary water is safe, that throwing its heat to the river is a wasting, that converting heat to electricity and to heat again loses most of it...
Just in case somebody would like to insinuate we should heat homes with the waste heat: It's NO.
A reactor contains tens of kg of poisons which kill persons in microgram quantities, so laying a hookah between both is just plain fool.
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#171. On submarines the secondary coolant is used for showers. Its totally safe. A closed loop between a power station and a big central heating system (like a school or hospital) is 100% safe. EVEN if plutonium somehow did make it into the coolant it would only be harmful if someone started drinking the water in the radiators!
I work in a hospital and I have a 500g tub of sodium cyanide sitting in a cabinet 20 feet from where I'm currently drinking some coffee. Thats enough to kill half the people in my town, but its perfectly safe unless someone actually eats the stuff. The fact that it can kill in milligram quantities is irrelevant to the actual risk of storing the stuff.
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regarding the planes: Al Queda hit TWO buildings on 9/11 not three. They missed the pentagon because diving on a target is tricky. The damage to non-reinforced walls was caused by bouncing engines. Those are the same mass as the engines on an F4 phantom which have been proven to be stopped by a reactor wall.
Diving onto a small target is very tricky. The Japanese Kamikaze pilots were skilled fliers but the vast majority missed the ships they attacked, even though they were flying very manouverable fighter planes.
The actual reactor dome is always surrounded by coolant towers, pylons etc so the chance of a plane hitting is VERY slight.
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"Yes, wind turbines can provide enough electricity on a finite - though certainly not negligible - footprint. And Prof Seamus Garvey proposed a method, sound both technically and economically, to store their electricity for periods of bad wind. So we could."
I actually know Seamus Garvie- His idea is insanity. He proposes using windturbines to fill big bags of air to store energy. Quite where he thinks we can put these 'wind bags' beats me. If he'd suggested pumping water uphill with spare electricity or making some hydrogen I might have some time for him, but bags of air???? It MIGHT work on small scale domestic generators but his idea would have the countryside covered in zeppelins!
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While Europeans bicker both China and India (countries with which EU wants to successfully compete) have already made a decision to invest in nuclear power in a big way. Types of reactors Chinese want Westinghouse Power to build initially are known.
But it'll be interesting to see what India will opt for when its historical agreement with USA clears regulatory hoops, which should occur later this year.
Interesting, because, although uranium has been a prefered reactor fuel so far, 25% of all thorium desposits happen to be in India.
Clearly something for New Delhi to consider, particularly long term.
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#174,
It sounds like this Seamus Garvie is a bit like Bill Boakes, he wanted to build helicopter landing sites on every green space in London, plus having a bizarre fascination with a converted bicycle that looked like a box on wheels.
I think it's well past time to put the moronic scientists and their pet politicians where they deserve, anyone know a deserted deep unused mine shaft?
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#174. Actually I'm being unfair to Garvie. The guy is a bit like Barnes Wallis or Trevor Bayliss. he's got the sort of crazy inventor mentality that made Britain great. His idea is ingenious, but utterly inpractical. The idea of weights falling through columns in the turbine blades to compress air is clever, but would massively reduce the efficency of the blades in the first place and add a whole load more working parts to go wrong.
If someone CAN work out a practical method of storing electricity then wind turbines become more viable but mechanical methods of storing power are not the way forward.
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on #85: that the russians had to rely on american and british plans entirely to build a nuclear reactor, I tend to doubt that. Physics, especially theoretical physics research had reached a really high level during the 1940'ies and '50'ies in the USSR. In fact, the Soviets were the first starting a commercial nuclear reactor in 1954 (Obninsk).
Also, contrary to the statement in this contribution the reactor of the Chernobyl type was rated as rather secure because in its normal operation slabs of graphite are driven into the reactor to control the rate of fission. Contrary to other materials graphite hardly changes its capability to moderate the fission process with rising temperatures. To my knowledge the Chernobyl accident was caused by a chain of human errors: the reactor was in use for an experiment during revision. The moderator slabs were driven out of the reactor completely. Additionally, the temperatur rescue system expected to drive the slabs back into the reactor was switched off. When personel became aware that the reactor was heating up extremely fast it was to late to drive the slabs back into the reactor. So they flooded the reactor which had reached such high temperatures that instantly a mixture of oxygene and hydrogene was created which exploded so that the covering shelter above was blown off. The main cause of this desaster wasn't the technology, it was man as in many cases of large scale desasters.
Thorium-Reactors: in 1983 a high temperature thorium reactor was taken in operation, yet shut down after six years due to a series of complications and technical failures.
I guess that german tax payers have paid so much for the development of this technology that the companies using it should be obliged to deliver energy for free to every german household for the next twenty years.
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on the attitude of Germans towards nuclear energy:
has it really changed ? the current government of chancelor Ms.Merkel has basically adopted the positions on this issue that were decided upon by the previous government coalition between the Green party and the Social Democrats: leaving nuclear energy. Only one issue is being discussed controversially until now: when should the currently running reactors be shut down ? Actually, even this issue has been settled already, yet the issue of carbondioxide has become more critical meanwhile, fueling the proponents of longer run times or of even reentering nuclear technology.
A couple of days ago, one of the once most prominent opponents of nuclear energy, the social democrat Mr.Eppler suggest to think again about the run times of plants with good, modern equipment. His point is, that a premature shutdown of such plants wouldn't be really reasonable concerning environmental consequences requiring earlier replacement. This is far away from advocacy of nuclear energy, and actually a question to reconsider.
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I have full confidence in French technology. The stuffy French are known for wine and cheese, high fashion and culture but surprise surprise, Airbus commercial jetliners and Arianne rockets. With energy costs soaring Britain in particular will be hard hit as soon as this year. North Sea oil had peaked in 1999 and now Britain is a net importer of energy. Britain should build more nuclear power plants with plenty of safeguards. Stop wasting time Britain and get into the act. Mark Boston, USA
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And now you can accurately observe how a propaganda office works by reading Peter_Sym.
Yes, the third plane did hit the Pentagon. But P_S denies it, just in case he can fool somebody.
If P_S were able to fly a plane, he would know that targeting a object the size of a reactor is very easy - as easy as landing a plane. But he doesn't fly anything - he just pretends it in a try to grasp some credibility.
P_S doesn't know Prof. Seamus Garving, or he would spell the name properly, and would know the airbags are underwater. But prentending to know him brings hopefully some credibility.
Now, simple questions: why does the nuclear (or rather a government) activity need propaganda professionals? And why do these need to lie to defend this industry?
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A complete plan for how Europe could supply its electricity needs without new nuclear power stations has been produced by the Club of Rome with German government support. You can download it from http://www.desertec.org/
The main renewable energy technologies described (solar CSP, wind, solar PV and marine) are all eminently suited to mass production because they require production of many thousands of identical units and no unusual hazards are involved. Existing industries could retool to produce renewables as quickly as they switched to military production at the start of World War 2.
Whatever side of the debate you are on, why not take a look at this very comprehensive plan.
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Speaking of pollution. Coal contains Uranium (and other radioactive elements), just as normal soil, rocks, etc, contain it. The amounts vary depending on the source of the coal. Not many people know that when the coal is burned, the radioactive uranium is released into the air, and the remainder is concentrated in the ash and slag.
An interesting figure here is that the total uranium used by for example all nuclear power plants in the US per year is about eight times less than released by burning coal in the US! This means that even if all the uranium used up by nuclear power plants was released up a smoke stack, without any storage, moving over to using nuclear power plants would reduce the amount of uranium put into the environment.
This is without the other pollutants produced by burning fossil fuels.
As for solar or wind, aside from the higher costs of it as compared to nuclear, or the reliabilty issues in that the Sun does not always shine and the wind does not always blow, making all those solar panels and wind turbines produces a LOT of pollution! This is simply because more materials are needed per unit energy with those "renewable" sources. A proper full cycle assessment of "renewables" is needed... because when the whole thing is considered, the rare materials needed to make solar cells, or the large amounts of metal and concrete needed to make wind turbines, those energy sources are NOT RENEWABLE, create pollution, and are EXPENSIVE and damaging to our economies.
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The plan for how Europe could supply its electricity needs by investment in rewewables and without new nuclear is described in the Trans-CSP report by the "German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute of Technical Thermodynamics, Systems Analysis and Technology Assessment Section". It was commisioned commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety. http://www.trec-uk.org.uk/reports/TRANS-CSP_Full_Report_Final.pdf It's 190 pages long and as you can imagine, the scientists and engineers who wrote it are well aware of the variable nature of wind and solar energy and have taken it into account. They also describe how to transmit CSP energy long distances with low losses using known technologies.
Just recently our Prime Minister Gordon Brown, backed the proposed Mediterranean Solar Plan (CSP). In a speech that he made at the inaugural meeting of the Union for the Mediterranean Summit in Paris, 2008-07-13, he said:
... in the Mediterranean region, concentrated solar power offers the prospect of an abundant low carbon energy source. Indeed, just as Britain's North Sea could be the Gulf of the future for offshore wind, so those sunnier countries represented here could become a vital source of future global energy by harnessing the power of the sun. So I am delighted that the EU is committing at this summit to work with its neighbours?including Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and the League of Arab States?to explore the development of a new 'Mediterranean Solar Plan' for the development and deployment of this vital technology from the Sahara northwards.
Investment in solar and wind is booming in places like Germany, Spain, Portugal, California and China. Renewable energy jobs in Germany shot up to 249,300 in 2007, almost double the 160,500 green jobs in Germany in 2004. There are great opportunities for Britain here if we choose to play a part.
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What happens if the "renewables", solar and wind, create more toxic pollution than nuclear?
The question IS NOT whether it is physically possible to supply EU energy needs by solar/wind/etc, but what is the cost of doing so in terms of materials, monetary cost, use of non-renewable rare elements, etc, the pollution created.
Without doing such an assessment the whole thing is silly. We may end up in a similar situation to what we have created with the first generation of bio-fuels... create more problems than it solves at a higher cost to the environment.
I still do not see how solar power can be made to provide energy during the night... no matter if the solar colectors are located in the Sahara, during the night the Sun DOES NOT shine. And NO, I do not think this question has been addressed in any proposals... solar is seen as adding some energy to a system of power supply, but NOT as providing power 24/7/365. Assuming scientists have addressed this is not correct, because they may simply be talking about topping up the power when possible (i.e. the Sun shines, and the wind blows... at other times need fossile fuels/nuclear/hydro/storage/etc).
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Solar CSP does indeed need to be located in southern Europe and north Africa where there is sufficient sun in winter. CSP uses the sun's heat to make steam for a conventional steam turbine plant. Operation at night is achieved by either storing heat from the day in hot salts or by co-firing with natural gas.
Currently in Spain the 15 MW central receiver SolarTres is being projected. It will work with a 16 hours molten salt heat storage which enables a 24/7 hours operation (the aperture will be three times bigger than for a plant without storage: one solar field for the electricity production during the day - two solar fields for producing the heat to be stored and used later for electricity generation).
Please see [Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator] for a comprehensive description of storage systems for CSP.
There are about 50 pages in the TRANS-CSP Report (from P.32 on) dealing with security of supply. Apologies if it wasn't clear that their plan includes several sources of energy to generate electricity (not just wind and solar) and about 20% still comes from fossil fuels in the year 2050. Chapter 5 analyses the environmental impacts with a summary on P144. They conclude that the impacts over the entire lifecycle from raw materials for constructions through to eventual disposal of the plant "are many times lower than the impacts of a conventional energy supply system. Besides, no highly risky waste products are produced, which survive in the long-term such as nuclear waste, whose consequence for the future, anyway, can be hardly estimated."
Regarding monetary costs, Google are spending some of their profits on CSP and have launched "a strategic initiative whose mission is to develop electricity from renewable sources cheaper than electricity produced from coal." See: http://www.google.com/corporate/green/energy/
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What I do not like about the Solar plan are two things.
One, it still requires us to use fossil fuels for when there is no or insufficient renewable supply. Fossil fuels will run out. It keeps us dependant on places like Russia.
Two, placing these solar installations in the Sahara is good technically but stupid politically. It replaces dependence on Russia with dependence on other countries. By now we should have learnt this lesson.
Nuclear can be used for thousands of years into the future (if you reprocess spent uranium, and if you use thorium, for tens of thousands of years into the future). Thus, unlike fossil fuels, it will not run out.
Nuclear can be located in the countries where it is needed making them energy independent.
As I already point out nuclear creates less radioactive waste than say burning coal.
YES, it is true that the environmental impact of a solar installation can be less than that of a fossil fuel plant. Clearly CO2 will be the big one here. HOWEVER, we are arguing about the relative environmental impacts of renewables vs nuclear. I am not convinced that these renewables are as clean as advertised, or for that matter renewable.
This still does not address the cost question, with solar/wind being an order of magnitude (10x) more epensive than nuclear electricity (even when decomissioning and clean up costs for nuclear are taken into account).
The thing with nuclear processes is that there are many types of cycles and fuels that can be used, not just uranium. There are nuclear reactor designs that will produce far smaller amounts of waste, and only of the type that will last a few hundred years (time scales that allow safe storage)... none of that it will be radioactive for essentially ever fears need to apply.
So if you eliminated from nuclear the very long term waste problem (possible with new fuel and reactor designs), and the costs are many times less, while the independence of energy supply much greater, what is the better option? ESPECIALLY when the solar plans still realy on using gas (and probably hydro, bio-mass, etc) for back up generation in dark or quite times.
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The UK government's pro-nuclear consultation document claims that wind is one and a half to two times more expensive than nuclear (about £55/MWh compared to £38/MWh), not ten times. The government's subsequent White Paper proposing new nuclear plants says (page 169) that if we didn't build any new nuclear stations in the UK, we would need to spend an extra £1bn per year in 2050 to meet our CO2 targets. This might seem a lot but is actually about the same amount that we spend annually in the UK on ice cream, and a fortieth of what we spend on beer. Drinking a bit less to avoid 250,000 years of nuclear waste and the small but finite risk of poisoning a large area of the UK, would seem to be a bargain.
More to the point, the government's estimates are disputed - for example a report by the New Economics Foundation said that electricity from a nuclear generator will cost as much as £83/MWh once realistic construction and running costs are factored in. The TRANS-CSP report from the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) gives the cost of electricity from solar CSP plants in Spain as £75/MWh, falling to about £35/MWh by 2020. Figures from the USA for CSP are similar.
In general costs of all renewables technologies have been falling steadily for years and appear set to continue to do so given the massive levels of investment and interest.
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The prices in the last posting were all in UK pounds (on my browser the pound sign has come out as a question mark in a black diamond!).
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