What do you think of the nuclear power energy option?

EDIT:

Sorry about 2 and 3 being so similar. The poll was intended to be a scale with 1 pro, 4 con, 2 closer to 1, and 3 closer to 4.

 

Lakedude - Great idea starting this new post. I voted the 3rd bullet in your survey.

 

It was hard to differentiate between #2 and #3 but it looked like #2 paid more attention to the engineering problems that need to be resolved.

The whole of my engineering background says that nuclear power can work but only if:

1. A public-private corporation manages it (aka., TVA style)
2. Leader-follower design, construction and operation teams
3. Adopt plutonium cycle
4. Standardize plants with a 20 year cycle

It has to be a public-private corporation because the transient attention span of private corporations leads to accountants hijacking the engineering. It takes public oversight, deep into the process, to make sure safety and security concerns are properly addressed.

Following the USAF model for depleted uranium rounds, we need a leader-follower model. Thus Westinghouse (or whatever they call themselves today), Babcock and General Electric become our primary and secondary manufacturers. This ensures innovation and close attention to 'price performance' trade-offs but with public oversight to deal with private sector 'turn-over.'

There is not enough natural uranium and we really need to 'burn' plutonium and convert thorium to fissionable material. This eliminates a lot of import issues and puts in a fuel cycle that will last a long time. There is nothing about nuclear power that isn't deadly dangerous and changing the fissionable material does no harm. The nice thing is the waste from a breeder cycle is not bomb-grade, fissionable material. It is hot but it is not bomb grade material, like what you get by reprocessing left over fuel rods.

Standardize plants is key to making nuclear power affordable. What makes it so expensive in the USA is every dang civilian plant has been individually designed. Yet we can put nuclear power ships to sea with a fraction of the cost BECAUSE the Navy has a standard design that they replicated time-and-time again.

Heck, I'd start off with just Navy reactors on a pallet and issue specifications for the building. They won't be huge, mega-watt systems but they will be consistent systems. You could take an operator from any Navy ship and put them in the control room and they would operate it just like they did on the ships. Land is cheap compared to the integration and test of every, unique reactor design.

Bob Wilson

 

Those sound like some terrific ideas Bob.

The problems that have and always will bother me however are the idea that some facilities might erroneously be directed to limit down time, and of course where to put the waste.

Things like backup pumping systems with problems that get ignored because the primary cooling system works fine. Under the business model you propose, I think that offers the best compromise for safety. In effect, a private management company responsible for effecting whatever maintenance and personell issues are necessary - on the public budget, with no correlation between compensation, cost cutting, and up time.

As far as where to put the waste, I don't think that anybody has an answer that I would find satisfying.

 

I'd say store the waste in a remote location. Eventually, space travel will be safe enough to send it to the Sun.

Maybe I overestimate the potential of superconductors, but I kind of like the idea of building plants in the SouthWest, cooled by man-made lakes away from populated areas.

 

Thanks, glad you like it.

 

Well I'm a little surprised at the results so far. First of all I do admit that nuke power is clean and does not contribute to GW and as such seems like an attractive option, however I'm very strongly anti nuke, please allow me to explain...

1) Fissionable material is a finite resource, we get it out of the ground like oil. It will have a "Hubbert's peak" of its own someday. This makes nuclear power a poor long term option.

2) There are other better options like solar, wind and hydro. Got a hydro lake as my backyard. It is pretty, provides both power and water, and does not cause me to lose one minutes of sleep at night. Certainly all power sources have some risk but only Nuclear can cause vast tracts of land to be uninhabitable for years into the future.

3) What are you planning to do with the radioactive waste in the short term? I've not seen any good solutions to this problem. Perhaps you pro-nuke people could store some in your basements?

4) The "Jim-Bob" factor. I'm sure everyone has worked with the guy who is a total idiot but still can't keep his hands off stuff. If you got one where you work you can bet nuke plants got em too.

5) The "graveyard" factor. Nuke plants are operation 24 hours a day, not just during the day when everybody is awake. I work the nightshift myself and believe me we are not always completely awake and alert at work. Just the other day a smart, normal (not a Jim-Bob) coworker did something he does everyday completely backward, because he was half asleep. I can just see this kind of thing happening in a nuke plant. Combine a half asleep worker with a couple suck gauges and Jim-Bob and you got the next Chernobyl brewing.

6) The "it is only illegal if you get caught" factor. Proper safety and maintenance of a nuke plant is expensive. I personally know someone who is a trainer at a nuke plant and I've heard my share of stories about near misses and cut corners that were never reported. If you tell on yourself the NRC comes in and make a federal case out of every "tiny" problem. But if you don't tattle on yourself, no harm no foul.

7) The Chernobyl factor. Nuff said. Read up on it if you like:

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

8) The Three Mile Island factor. You got lots of experts who say a Chernobyl like accident could never happen with our better designed reactors but what about TMI? Sure the area around the reactor is fairly safe to live but TMI is proof that we screw up too.

Wouldn't you rather have a windmill or a lake in your backyard than a nuke plant and radioactive waste?

 

Hi,

I have long been disgusted by those well-dress idiots (former Hari Krishnuts?) at the airports trying to push nuclear power. I am not wedded to it but rather try to take a pragmatic point of view.

That will be true of any terrestrial source. However, I don't think we have the technology to efficiently harvest enough solar power to sustain today's population.

This is really a question of land use. Now I live in the Tennessee River Valley and love our hydro-plants. But my little home plot does not have the area to sustain any alternate power sources beyond water and space heating.

One of the reasons for the plutonium and thorium fuel cycles is to 'burn up' the fissionable material. First use what we've got before going after more or worse, just putting it in a hole in the ground. It comes with the species. If only we could find a perfect replacement . . . This is why I advocate a standard design that doesn't change from plant to plant. This allows us to work the kinks out of everything until, after 20-30 years, a newer and well tested technology comes along. What is nuts is redesigning every dang nuclear power plant from scratch.
This is one of the areas where ISO-9000 standards are really needed. In particular, this problem of fines and punishment when the opposite is what is needed. We need to encourage open disclosure and investigation without a draconian sword hanging over their head. Heck, I'd offer a bonus for problems that upon investigation, require corrections.
There have been more fatal incidents including a Japanese nuclear fuel incident and a test reactor, steam explosion in the 1950s. It happens and the right answer is to learn from those mistakes and engineer out the failure modes.
Given the size of our property, a windmill. We already have a pool but I suspect if the cleaning and filter system were wind operated, we'd have a scum-pond.

Bob Wilson

 

Nice, reasonable response, thanks Bob.

A couple of points:

"In my backyard" is not meant to be a literal expression, except in the case of the hydro lake which is literally in my backyard. I wouldn't expect to have a nuke plant or a windmill literally in my backyard. The whole term started out because everyone wants power but few want the souce of that power (be it coal, nuke (including waste) or whatever) "in their backyard", meaning anywhere near them....

Why limit yourself to terrestrial souce when we have the ultimate fusion nuclear reactor running as a source for power (the sun)? The sun ROCKS! We get lots of free power at a safe distance (till the sun novas).

 

I remember seeing various report of special tiles with affordable photo-voltaic coatings. I don't remember if any of them had water channels for space and water heating. IMHO, when we start with new roofing designs, then we'll be on the way to true energy independence. But we can't get there if one administration puts them up so the next administration takes them down.

Bob Wilson