PUBLIC DEBATE : Nuclear Energy

[w1z4rd]

(Dont be obscene)

(Dont be an ass then, you started with the whole loaf comment)

Uranium mining is very volume-intensive, which means you have to extract huge amounts of soil in open mines to get a small amount of mineral - which is a very environmentally unfriendly way to mine.
Workers are exposed to radiation, as well as dust.

Mining anything is not ganna be the best, but you still seem to have no idea of the quantities involved. Also, nuclear fuel is reusable: http://inhabitat.com/china-finds-way-to-reuse-nuclear-fuel-60-times-longer/

 

[murraybiscuit]

I worked for 2 years in a Nuke power R&D company (can't call them a construction company for obvious reasons...) and I was pro-nuke before, now I'm more ambivalent - nuke power is cleaner than coal, but coal ash, although giving respiratory problems, does not change your DNA... Or your great-grand children's either... Cause nuclear material half-life is a problem for days/weeks/months/years/decades/centuries...

The same can't be said of the others, no matter how you look at it...

I'm not following. Are you referring to accidental leakage or processing and storage of waste. How are people exposed to this?

 

[Techne]

The media coverage with regards to the Japanese incident was horrible and all just for cheap sensationalism. This debate is a good idea.

Kalvaer, what do you think of Thorium-based reactors?

 

[Lounger]

(Dont be an ass then, you started with the whole loaf comment)

Mining anything is not ganna be the best, but you still seem to have no idea of the quantities involved. Also, nuclear fuel is reusable: http://inhabitat.com/china-finds-way-to-reuse-nuclear-fuel-60-times-longer/

If it's reusable, then why are they burying it in the Kalahari or somewhere for 2000 years?

 

[Kalvaer]

The media coverage with regards to the Japanese incident was horrible and all just for cheap sensationalism. This debate is a good idea.

Kalvaer, what do you think of Thorium-based reactors?

Awesome Idea if they can get it off the ground. The problem again is explaining it to the public. They are so stuck in their mind-set that "nuclear is bad" that trying to explain to most people that Thorium is safer, even if it is still "nuclear" could be a problem. Of course, you still need a Uranium plant to start up the thorium one. But who knows, that could change.

And lets hope the people doing the research arn't like those in SA with the PBMR

 

[w1z4rd]

If it's reusable, then why are they burying it in the Kalahari or somewhere for 2000 years?

/sigh

Because if you had bothered to even read the article I had posted, you would realize the discovery to reuse nuclear waste is incredibly new.

 

[henkc]

How does Uranium get out of the ground - does it just appear on the surface. Use your loaf man!

fraction of the tonnage of coal with far smaller environmental mining footprint.

Actually not as much smaller as you would think. Coal mines take out lots of coal. Uranium mines take out lots of rock, process it to get a tiny bit of uranium out and then enrich that to get an even tinier amount of nuclear fuel out of it.

Worse still, at the current small contribution to the world's energy mix there's still plenty of uranium ore around that's cheap to mine. Expand the industry and we get to peak uranium, just like peak oil. Suddenly a renewable-based energy economy starts to make sense.

All of our energy sources impact on the environment to a lesser or greater extent. The obvious solution is to use the energy we have more efficiently and find ways to use less of it to do what we do. This comes down to economics and the way we measure wealth and prosperity.

As an example. Today there was no real reason for me to drive to and from the office. Everything I did today I could have done from the comfort of my own home. I live close to work so my savings on fuel would have been around R20, but here's the catch. By not driving to work and not using the diesel I would have reduced the country's GDP.

In the energy equation, don't expect the people who want to sell you electricity to make rational decisions when it comes to efficiency or energy saving Eksdom are only pushing efficiency as they can't keep up with demand.

Do you know you get more radiation from eating a banana, than you do from a Cell phone.. I don't see Green peace attacking the fruit industry though?

This banana story is total cr@p! Sure bananas are a good source of potassium and 0.0117% of potassium is the radioactive isotope potassium-40 but that's where it ends. Your body controls its potassium content homeostatically and excretes the excess and so maintains a pretty constant level of potassium including its radioactive isotope. Take in the same amount of activity in iodine-131 and it heads straight for the thyroid and sticks there where it can cause big problems. Likewise something like strontium-90 will head for the bones.

In the never ending debate around nuclear energy, the pro-nuke lobby does itself more damage than good spreading BS stories like the banana one.

 

[henkc]

but I do find that pro-nuclear people tend to approach the issue with rather rose-tinted glasses.

And anti-nuclear people tend to do the exact same thing, more times than not, its as if they are completely blind instead.

I actually find this debate something of a dead end. Everyone starts up with their own chosen preconception, trots out the same arguments and leaves feeling as though they've won.

The media coverage with regards to the Japanese incident was horrible and all just for cheap sensationalism.

And lacking in any scientific rigor. Note that all the exposures are referred to as multiples of normal. The isotopes getting released aren't normal. That's what makes them a problem. If more stuff was getting reported on in meaningful measurable units, an informed public would be in a position to make informed decisions.

This debate is a good idea.

Read the brief. It's a briefing and a Q&A session. If it was a debate, two (or more) opposing opinions would be being presented.

Kalvaer, what do you think of Thorium-based reactors?

Maybe they might work one day. I can't see how we can plan an energy economy around something that's not implementable with existing technology.

 

[chris2.0]

I'm not following. Are you referring to accidental leakage or processing and storage of waste. How are people exposed to this?

Leakage, like in 2 of the big 3 nuke accidents in the last few decades, as well as storage - they have to find a seismically stable area pref nowhere near a water-table where all this stuff can sit and decay itself out of radioactivity...

I said "they" on top, but actually it's "we" - nuclear and coal affects all of us in some way or another...

 

[Archer]

Worse still, at the current small contribution to the world's energy mix there's still plenty of uranium ore around that's cheap to mine. Expand the industry and we get to peak uranium, just like peak oil. Suddenly a renewable-based energy economy starts to make sense.

Uranium is semi renewable - there are several projects running on recycled uranium

This banana story is total cr@p! Sure bananas are a good source of potassium and 0.0117% of potassium is the radioactive isotope potassium-40 but that's where it ends. Your body controls its potassium content homeostatically and excretes the excess and so maintains a pretty constant level of potassium including its radioactive isotope. Take in the same amount of activity in iodine-131 and it heads straight for the thyroid and sticks there where it can cause big problems. Likewise something like strontium-90 will head for the bones.

No its not total cr@p. Bananas are among the most radioactive foods out there. If you left a couple near your desk, it would release far more radiation than your cell phone ever would. Never mind that cell phone radiation is non ionising and therefore harmless. Dont believe me? Try taking a banana through a US port where they have scanners to detect smuggled nuclear weapons. It will set off the sensors. It is however true that AFTER eating it it does not stay in your body for long thus removing the radioactive source

 

[Techne]

Maybe they might work one day. I can't see how we can plan an energy economy around something that's not implementable with existing technology.

There are a few working reactors and the technology was developed in the 70s. It just needs to be optimized and several countries (China, India and a few European countries) are working on it.

 

[Kalvaer]

No its not total cr@p. Bananas are among the most radioactive foods out there. If you left a couple near your desk, it would release far more radiation than your cell phone ever would. Never mind that cell phone radiation is non ionising and therefore harmless. Dont believe me? Try taking a banana through a US port where they have scanners to detect smuggled nuclear weapons. It will set off the sensors. It is however true that AFTER eating it it does not stay in your body for long thus removing the radioactive source

Well at least my small amount of joking around wasn't lost on everyone, But has you stated.. its still true. You get more serviets from a banana that a cell phone.. I don't know where I mentioned anything about other forms of isotopes?

 

[Rkootknir]

For interests sake:

The "policy-adjusted" Integrated Resource Plan for South Africa (4MB PDF) was published yesterday (the plan is for the period from 2010 - 2030). This is the probably the final one after all the public & private consultation sessions, so it should be the one that will be approved by the cabinet. New build recommendations for Eskom and IPPs are:

Coal: 16 383MW (Includes Medupi & Kusile)
OCGT: 4 930MW
CCGT: 2 370MW
Pumped Storage: 1 332MW
Nuclear: 9 600MW
Hydro: 2 659MW
Wind: 9 200MW
Concentrated Solar: 1 200MW
Photo Voltaic Solar: 8 400MW

So, quite a large fraction (38%) of the new build is going towards renewables.

 

[chris2.0]

So SA needs around 56k MW by 2030?

At least PV / Solar is equal to Nuclear...

But if PV follows Moore's law, then the efficiency should increase? Or price decrease? Check out a good blog about this very fact here:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=smaller-cheaper-faster-does-moores-2011-03-15

"The exponential trend in solar watts per dollar has been going on for at least 31 years now. If it continues for another 8-10, which looks extremely likely, we’ll have a power source which is as cheap as coal for electricity, with virtually no carbon emissions. If it continues for 20 years, which is also well within the realm of scientific and technical possibility, then we’ll have a green power source which is half the price of coal for electricity.

That’s good news for the world."

 

[henkc]

No its not total cr@p. Bananas are among the most radioactive foods out there. If you left a couple near your desk, it would release far more radiation than your cell phone ever would. Never mind that cell phone radiation is non ionising and therefore harmless. Dont believe me? Try taking a banana through a US port where they have scanners to detect smuggled nuclear weapons. It will set off the sensors. It is however true that AFTER eating it it does not stay in your body for long thus removing the radioactive source

You know what, I'm going to go one better than leaving a few on my desk. I'm going to arrange to do some gamma ray spectroscopy on them. Watch this space.

Read all of what I said. I am fully aware that bananas contain potassium - one of the reasons why you should eat them. Remember that I compared them with iodine-131 and strontium-90 - things you know you should be worried about, not cellphones where the jury's still out (and will probably remain out) on whether or not microwaves heat your brain and if they do whether or not we should worry about it.

I think that the issue which gets lost in the radioactive banana debate is not about a few microsieverts here and there which make up our normal background dose (which is estimated at around 2 millisieverts per year for South Africa - as it is in most of the rest of the world) it is the very high doses which workers are receiving at Fukushima (in some cases hundreds of millisieverts per HOUR), the high doses which have been reported related to other accidents and some of the Pacific nuclear tests and the radionuclides that concentrate in various organs and irradiate them.

Quite a nice article on regular every day radioactive objects over here.

Getting back to the energy discussions, This article in Scientific American is really interesting.

 

[henkc]

163,000 Bq of Cs-137/ square metre in soil 40km from Fukushima That's about 11643 bananas.

 

[henkc]

The joys of the internet. I'm still not sure how stumbledupon found me but it directed mehere a moment or so ago.

Eating a banana apparently nails you with 0.1 microsieverts.

 

[Kalvaer]

The joys of the internet. I'm still not sure how stumbledupon found me but it directed mehere a moment or so ago.

Eating a banana apparently nails you with 0.1 microsieverts.

If you actually read the whole thread.. you would see that has been confirmed already on the first page.. the point was.. you get more from a banana.. than a CELL PHONE. And also get more from staying next to a coal power plant.. than a nuclear one...

Not sure if anyone here actually bothered to go to the discussion last night, though I thought it was really interesting. They gave some interesting data, and details. One which I see has been brought up again here in Post 56.. which was that news reporters are going ballistic about the current readings from certain "soil" data that has been taken recently. The funny part, is that those readings have been there since the original nuke testing done in Japan a few decades ago

One thing that all the "speakers" mentioned was that they dont deny the dangers of nuclear tech. However when you compare apples to apples.. it is still safer NOW... than anything else, and less deaths have been caused by "accidents" than anything else with all the coal mining over the years (and much more) Currently not a single death has been caused at Fukushima by "radiation" and yet, it is still over shadowing the deaths caused by the quake and the tsunami. The people working there are still well within all legal limits. And even those limits are well within anything dangerous. There is a certain "instantaneous" limit that is deadly, the rest is accumulative over years. As long as you are within all those limits (comparable to certain people staying in high background radiation areas daily), there is no concern. The workers currently working at Fukushima are rotated out, so that none of them are supposed to be exposed beyond dangerous levels. But that's all ignored of course as it doesn't make Google's top news stories

As to the comments about it not being a "debate" About half the people there seemed to be all "anti-nuke", in fact, the chairman of the "people against nuclear power plants" Or what ever it was, Wouldn't keep quiet. I was "lucky" enough to sit close by and even when the speakers thanked him for coming and said that he was the type of person they wanted there, he went on to belittle them for even having the talk.. something they did on their own, to try educate the public.

He started throwing back stat's, including page numbers, and paragraphs of research from people that nobody had every heard of, and pretty much refused to give up the floor. When the Chair tried to ask other people for input, he even threatened to leave, until the Chair asked him to then please pose his XXXth question to the panel, which calmed him down a bit. Until he started "whispering" loudly that the speakers were all taking &*%$, and were As&*^^, and possible had been paid to "spew such BS". In the end I believe more people were just happy to have him shut up, than even care what he was on about. The questioning section went on for much longer than expected and they wrapped up about an hour and half later than expected

To me (IMHO), What came out was that they whole panel agreed, that currently, there are problems with ALL forms of energy.

Nuclear is the one that we currently understand more than any of the others, mostly because of mistakes and ACCIDENTS in the past. The fact that a Plant designed in the 50's, commissioned in the 60's and brought online in the 70's, due for decommissioning, in the next few years, survived one of the worst natural disasters in a 1000 years, was testament to just how much thought is put into planning these things in the first place. never mind the fact, that even though 50 years on.. current new plants will be 1000 times safer, they will now again have to be redesigned for the 1000 year accidents.

They all mentioned that nuclear would at most be something that we would need for about 100 years. At which time they all believed that new technology would come forward to replace it. However until such time, in world that not only needs power to grow, but to survive, They best choice would be nuclear.

Finally, They seemed to believe that these choices should be made by the public... a well informed public, and not Google tech jockeys who actually think they know more than the experts, who seemed to be actually trying to dispel some of the myths... which I dont think anyone bothered to even listen to.. what with all the "facts and stats from Page 261, paragraph 12, line 6 of Journal.. Blah....

 

[henkc]

I'm not sure that I would call what Fukushima has done really surviving the 1000 year event. Today reports are suggesting that one unit has melted through its pressure vessel and that short-lived local re-critically could be occurring.
http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2011/03/30/has-fukushimas-reactor-no-1-gone-critical/

Even the IAEA has stopped "dispelling some of the myths". It's important to note that the people who are being most affected are the workers attempting to bring the situation under control and not the public outs, ide the exclusion zone,which sounds as though it may need to be enlarged.

if I put the pieces together, what's happened is that an old plant was hit with a natural disaster bigger than had been planned for, based on science which either missed or deliberately ignored evidence. This all looks like it was compounded by corners being cut in maintenance and operation and regulation that somehow let the situation develop. It makes for a scary scenario, whatever technology we believe we are harnessing.

There is of course a question of scale. One of the reasons why nuclear power gets so much attention is that we are dealing with big plants which can have pretty catastrophic consequences when they fail. Large-scale hydro projects can also really ruin a good day when they break. Finally don't forget the insidious impacts on water and other environmental media that coal (and uranium) mining can have.

 

[BattleMoose]

For interests sake:

The "policy-adjusted" Integrated Resource Plan for South Africa (4MB PDF) was published yesterday (the plan is for the period from 2010 - 2030). This is the probably the final one after all the public & private consultation sessions, so it should be the one that will be approved by the cabinet. New build recommendations for Eskom and IPPs are:

Coal: 16 383MW (Includes Medupi & Kusile)
OCGT: 4 930MW
CCGT: 2 370MW
Pumped Storage: 1 332MW
Nuclear: 9 600MW
Hydro: 2 659MW
Wind: 9 200MW
Concentrated Solar: 1 200MW
Photo Voltaic Solar: 8 400MW

So, quite a large fraction (38%) of the new build is going towards renewables.

I cannot pull the document, not sure why, would have liked to have a look at it. However, I would call those projections complete bull****, don't believe a word of it.

A similar projection was included in "South African Report on Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Potentials from Buildings" which projected about 80% nuclear by 2030 or something similar if memory serves.

Not sure who created these projections, if Eskom was involved or if Eskom has accepted these as commitment or not or if they have plans to finance the investment required to make this work.

Bottom line is this, and its that the bottom line matters, Eksom will build more coal, because that is what is going to be the cheapest and most profitable. Even if it has made commitments to renewable technologies, it will be able to get out of those on grounds of being financially nonviable.

Coupled with the issue that having such a large fraction of generating capacity that cannot be controlled (output from wind and solar cannot be turned on when it is wanted) is an issue that hasn't been solved anywhere in the world. Its an huge issue.

Basically, these reports tend to be fuzzy feel good things about what we are going to do and then reality kicks in and we build coal instead.