# Nuclear Power **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 29, 2008, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-power/470035 "2008-10-29T02:56:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-power/470035/181 "2009-02-24T01:37:56Z")
[U.S. Power Plants Slow to Clean Up Their Act : NPR](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5673484) XT have someone read and explain this to you. Energy companies are interested in profits. Safety is way down the list of priorities. I suppose Silkwood did not happen in your world. I guess the company covering up inferior welds and suppressing the employees from telling what they did to cover up. Corporations will lie. It is our job to oversee and prevent them from jeopardiizng the population. They do not care and will fight every attempt to make them safer ,if it costs money. They weild their political power to fight for the right to pollute. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-power/470035/182 "2009-02-24T01:46:18Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > [U.S. Power Plants Slow to Clean Up Their Act : NPR](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5673484) XT have someone read and explain this to you. > Energy companies are interested in profits. Safety is way down the list of priorities. I suppose Silkwood did not happen in your world. I guess the company covering up inferior welds and suppressing the employees from telling what they did to cover up. > Corporations will lie. It is our job to oversee and prevent them from jeopardiizng the population. They do not care and will fight every attempt to make them safer ,if it costs money. They weild their political power to fight for the right to pollute. Yet the big oil fat cats…and the coal barrons…and the dam builders…and wind generator builders…and solar cell builders…and bio fuel growers…and pixie herders…will all be totally honest and responsible with the public :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-power/470035/183 "2009-02-24T01:48:16Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Hate to pull the “cite please” card out, but given that my source statesI fear you may going George Will on me again. I was being somewhat vague because estimates run wildly all over the place, depending on what you consider a subsidy. For example, the U.S. puts a tariff on Brazilian ethanol of [54 cents per gallon](http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/blog2/2008/02/29/fed-chairman-calls-for-elimination-of-brazilian-ethanol-tariff-says-the-move-will-reduce-food-price-inflation/). That is most certainly a subsidy of domestic ethanol production. The U.S. produced about 7 billion gallons of ethanol in 2007. 54 cents per gallon amounts to about 3.6 billion dollars. [This cite](http://zfacts.com/p/63.html) says that the total corn ethanol subsidy in 2007 amounted to about 7 billion dollars. Here’s a full report by the EIA on energy subsidies in 2007: [EIA report on financial intervention in energy markets](http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/servicerpt/subsidy2/pdf/subsidy08.pdf). Total subsidies were 16 billion dollars and change. Of that, nuclear got 1.3 billion, renewables got 4.9 billion, and refined coal got 2.4 billion. And this report only counts direct financial intervention in the energy markets, and doesn’t include the various regulatory efforts that affect energy. so add in the ethanol subsidies, the statutory mandate for blending ethanol into gasoline, various other state tax breaks and incentives for alternative energy, and the 37.5 billion dollars in the stimulus package for alternative energy, and the fact that fossil fuels get an implicit subsidy of about 50 dollars a ton for carbon release, and it seems to me like ‘orders of magnitude’ is pretty close. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-power/470035/184 "2009-02-24T01:49:47Z")
[QUOTE=gonzomax] XT have someone read and explain this to you. [/QUOTE] Do you know what the word ‘insult’ means? From your cite: > [@](#): > > U.S. Power Plants Slow to Clean Up Their Act > > by Elizabeth Shogren > > [NPR.org](http://NPR.org), August 20, 2006 · Most of country’s 420 coal-fired power plants still lack advanced pollution controls, even though the equipment to clean up their hazardous exhausts has been widely available for many years, according to Environmental Protection Agency officials. Do you realize this has nothing to do with CO2 scrubbers and carbon sequestration? They are talking about air pollutants in this article. And guess what? If those plants are in violation of EPA regulations I would have zero problem with throwing the book at them. > [@](#): > > Serious Health Hazards > > The federal government has long known that the plants harm public health, but in recent years, science has shown that they are deadlier than Congress realized when it adopted major air-pollution laws. > > The EPA now estimates that each year, tens of thousands of older Americans die early from heart or lung failure, and younger Americans suffer asthma attacks, as a result of tiny particles or soot from power plants. Both sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides emitted by the plants form fine particles or soot. > > “These are much smaller than the width of a human hair, so they can deposit very deep in the lungs and can contribute to a lot of respiratory effects, as well as cardiovascular effects,” says Jonathan Levy, a professor of public health at Harvard University who studies power-plant pollution. > > Exhausts from coal-fired power plants also create haze, which mars scenic views, and cause acid rain, which kills trees and pollutes streams. Coal-fired power plants are the biggest emitters of sulfur dioxide and major emitters of nitrogen oxides. If you are going to insult me in the future please…PLEASE…at least take the time to read your own cites for relevance to the actual topic under discussion. I can take the insult…but your drive by links to cites that don’t even have any relevance to to topic under discussion absolutely drives me wild. For your own future reference we are discussing nuclear power, and I asked you to provide cites to back up your assertions about CO2 scrubbers and carbon sequestration, not the clean air act of 1970 and the possibility that coal fired plants are skirting the EPA regulations. -XT ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-power/470035/185 "2009-02-24T02:06:07Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > If you think nuclear is mature in the sense of whats possible vs what has been done so far, you dont know diddly about nuclear. > > AND > > WHO do you think is taking ALL the risk associated RIGHT NOW by all those fossil fuel plants spewing out CO2? Relative to the emerging renewable technologies nuclear fission is a fairly mature technology. If it isn’t, after decades of billions invested in its R&D, then it may never be. I may not be an expert but I’d stand by that. Which does not mean that there is no potential for improvements btw. As for CO2, I’d suggest you actually read my posts before you start shouting. I have been quite clear that CO2 needs to be priced - and it is clear that (hopefully auctioned) cap and trade will be the means to do that. The issue is whether or not nuclear should get any help beyond being able to fairly compete, with CO2 costs included as part of that competition. **Sam** we are discussing electricity generation; talking about the boondoggle that has been subsidies to farmers for ethanol is not pertinent. Wind, solar, tidal, geothermal, biomass cofiring, … others too sure. But liquid fuels for cars are not competing with nuclear for electricity generation. Jonathan, you claim that protests are a major cause of delays and thus a major factor in costs. I cannot find much to back that up and in fact my looking for it only reveals that delays are endemic to nuclear plant construction across the world including in countries in which protests and lawsuits are hardly an issue. [This Status Report](http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/reports/2008-world-nuclear-industry-status-report/2008-world-nuclear-industry-status-rep) from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists includes substantial delays in Russia, Bulgaria, and Pakistan. I don’t think lawsuits are the issue there. Yes licensing and legal challenges are part of it but not that alone: > [@](#): > > Lead times for nuclear plants don’t only include construction times but also long-term planning, lengthy licensing procedures in most countries, complex financial negotiations, and site preparation. In addition, in most cases, the grid system has to be upgraded, often with new power lines that have their own planning and licensing difficulties. In some cases, public opposition is significantly higher in regards to high-voltage power lines than for the nuclear plants that generate the electricity. NRC Chairman Dale Klein noted that potentially necessary grid extensions could lead to further delays of nuclear projects and indicated that he was surprised to learn that “it may take as long to site, permit, and build a transmission line for a new plant as to site, license, and build the plant itself.” > > In the past, nuclear planning has rarely turned out to be accurate. That source sees several major problems for nuclear playing the lead role in the future of electricity generation: > [@](#): > > ``` > * Limited industrial capacity. In the 1980s, there were about 400 nuclear suppliers and 900 nuclear-certified companies in the United States. These have shrunk to fewer than 80 suppliers and 200 certifications in recent years. Even if some of this is due to corporate takeovers, the decline is dramatic. Currently there is only one steel plant in the world, owned by Japan Steel Works that can fabricate the 450-ton ingots needed for so-called generation III reactors such as the Franco-German European Pressurized Water Reactor (EPR). A nuclear power plant construction infrastructure assessment PDF by Energy concluded that major equipment (reactor pressure vessels, steam generators, and moisture separator reheaters) for the near-term deployment of generation III units would not be manufactured by U.S. facilities and would result in procurement and construction delays. > * Skilled worker shortage. According to Power Engineering, Art Stall, Florida Power & Light Company's senior vice president and chief nuclear officer, told the American Nuclear Society's 2007 annual meeting that the nuclear industry's revival has been slowed down by the challenges of building new nuclear power plants, which includes finding qualified craft labor, technicians, engineers, and scientists to support both construction and operation. He said that 40 percent of current nuclear plant workers are eligible for retirement within the next five years and that only 8 percent of the workforce is less than 32 years old. While students studying nuclear engineering and other nuclear-specific technical subjects are increasing, there is much competition from other industries for talent. "[T]he nuclear industry must become creative if it is going to entice these graduates to enter and remain in the nuclear field," he told the crowd. The situation is similar in most European nuclear countries. > * Skeptical financial markets. Standard & Poor's, the credit rating company, warned in May 2007, "In the past, engineering, procurement, and construction contracts were easy to secure. However, with increasing raw material costs, a depleted nuclear-specialist workforce, and strong demand for capital projects worldwide, construction costs are increasing rapidly." In October 2007, Moody's delivered a striking analysis of the U.S. nuclear sector, saying it did "not believe the sector will bring more than one or two new nuclear plants online by 2015." It concluded that it believed many of the current expectations for nuclear were "overly ambitious." Moody's had more bad news for the industry when its June Global Credit Research paper concluded, "The cost and complexity of building a new nuclear power plant could weaken the credit metrics of an electric utility and potentially pressure its credit ratings several years into the project." Even the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's trade organization, admitted in an August white paper PDF, "There is considerable uncertainty about the capital cost of new nuclear generating capacity." > > ``` They conclude > [@](#): > > After thorough analysis it seems surprisingly evident that contrary to the public’s perception and the industry’s efforts, nuclear power will continue its long-term decline rather than move toward a flourishing future revival. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-power/470035/186 "2009-02-24T02:18:39Z")
> [@](#): > > What’s the worst that could happen if a nuke plant breaks down (I suspect that it could be worse than Chernobyl). In a Chernobyl-style plant? Maybe. But the solution to that is to just not use a Chernobyl-style design. For an American design, Three Mile Island was an absolute worst-case scenario: Everything that could go wrong, did, and yet there were zero direct deaths and indirect deaths were so scarce as to be lost in the noise. And again: If we are to maintain our lifestyle, then we absolutely must have either nuclear or coal, at least in the medium term. Both types of plant are run by profit-motivated corporations. Both types of plant can have breakages, failures, and other incidents. One of the two types releases significant amounts of dangerous pollutants even when operating correctly. Of those two choices, which one would you prefer? ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-power/470035/187 "2009-02-24T02:19:15Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > . [This Status Report](http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/reports/2008-world-nuclear-industry-status-report/2008-world-nuclear-industry-status-rep) from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists includes substantial delays in Russia, Bulgaria, and Pakistan. I don’t think lawsuits are the issue there. Yes licensing and legal challenges are part of it but not that alone: Yeah…lets look to those shining beacons of state of the art engineering, safety, organization, and responsible capitalism for how good nuclear can or should be. Thats like looking to the middle east for positive guidance on how to implement separation of church and state. I wonder how well those Russian, Bulgarian, and Pakistani wind generator, solar cell and bio fuel projects are going ? :rolleyes: I also wonder how that middleofnowheregoatfelcherstan man on the moon project is going these days? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-power/470035/188 "2009-02-24T02:19:45Z")
[QUOTE=Snowboarder Bo] My biggest objections to nuclear power are safety and waste. I know that many (perhaps most) nuke plants are designed and operated safely, but the potential for disaster just isn’t the same as with solar or wind. What’s the worst that could happen if a nuke plant breaks down (I suspect that it could be worse than Chernobyl). [/QUOTE] No…Chernobyl was a worst case scenario and also a total fluke. From [Wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster): > [@](#): > > The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear reactor accident in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Soviet Union. It is considered to be the worst nuclear power plant disaster in history and the only level 7 instance on the International Nuclear Event Scale. It resulted in a severe release of radioactivity into the environment following a massive power excursion which destroyed the reactor. Two people died in the initial steam explosion, but most deaths from the accident were attributed to radiation. > > On 26 April 1986 01:23:45 a.m. (UTC+3) reactor number four at the Chernobyl plant, near Pripyat in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, exploded. Further explosions and the resulting fire sent a plume of highly radioactive fallout into the atmosphere and over an extensive geographical area. Four hundred times more fallout was released than had been by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.[1] > > The plume drifted over extensive parts of the western Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Northern Europe, and eastern North America, with light nuclear rain falling as far as Ireland. Large areas in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia were badly contaminated, resulting in the evacuation and resettlement of over 336,000 people. According to official post-Soviet data,[2] about 60% of the radioactive fallout landed in Belarus. > > The accident raised concerns about the safety of the Soviet nuclear power industry, slowing its expansion for a number of years, while forcing the Soviet government to become less secretive. The now-independent countries of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus have been burdened with the continuing and substantial decontamination and health care costs of the Chernobyl accident. It is difficult to accurately quantify the number of deaths caused by the events at Chernobyl, as the Soviet-era cover-up made it difficult to track down victims. Lists were incomplete, and Soviet authorities later forbade doctors to cite “radiation” on death certificates.[3] > > The overall cost of the disaster is estimated at $200 billion USD, taking inflation into account. This places the Chernobyl disaster as the costliest disaster in modern history.[4][unreliable source?] > > 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 deaths among the approximately 600,000 most highly exposed people.[5] Although the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and certain limited areas remain off limits, the majority of affected areas are now considered safe for settlement and economic activity.[6] Why did it happen? Again, from Wiki: > [@](#): > > the accident > > On 26 April 1986 at 1:23:45 a.m., reactor 4 suffered a massive, catastrophic power excursion, resulting in a steam explosion, which tore the top from the reactor, exposed the core, and dispersed large amounts of radioactive particulate and gaseous debris (mostly Cesium-137 and Strontium-90)[8], allowing air (oxygen) to contact the super-hot core containing 1,700 tonnes[9] of combustible graphite moderator; the burning graphite moderator increased the emission of radioactive particles. The radioactivity was not contained by any kind of containment vessel (unlike most Western plants, Soviet reactors often did not have them[10]). Radioactive particles were carried by wind across international borders. > > [edit] Planning the test of the safety device > > During the daytime of 25 April 1986, reactor 4 ( [show location on an interactive map] 51°23′22″N 30°05′56″E / 51.38944°N 30.09889°E / 51.38944; 30.09889) was scheduled to be shut down for maintenance as it was near the end of its first fuel cycle. An experiment was proposed to test a safety emergency core cooling feature during the shut down procedure. > > A very large amount of cooling water is needed to maintain a safe temperature in the reactor core. The reactor consisted of about 1,600 individual fuel channels and each operational channel required a flow of 28 tonnes of water per hour. There was concern that in case of an external power failure the Chernobyl power station would overload, leading to an automated safety shut down in which case there would be no external power to run the plant’s cooling water pumps. Chernobyl’s reactors had three backup diesel generators. The generator required 15 seconds to start up but took 60-75 seconds to attain full speed and reach its capacity of 5.5 MW required to run one main cooling water pump. > A rotor of a modern day steam turbine > > This one-minute power gap was considered unacceptable and it was suggested that the mechanical energy (rotational momentum) of the steam turbine could be used to generate electricity to run the main cooling water pumps, while it was spinning down. Because generator voltage varies with its rotational speed, a special device is required to provide stable voltage to the main cooling water pumps as the turbine spins down. This safety device—a voltage regulating system—was to be tested during a simulated power “blackout”. In theory, it should have been able to provide power for 45 seconds and thus bridge the power gap between the onset of the external power failure and the full availability of electric power from the emergency diesel generators. > > The reactor was designed such that it needed coolant even when not actively operating. In case of an external power failure, the reactor would automatically scram; control rods would be inserted and stop the nuclear fission process (and hence steam generation). However, in the spent fuel, the fission products themselves were highly radioactive, and continued to produce heat as they decayed. This could amount to 1-2 percent of the normal output of the plant. If not immediately removed by coolant systems, the heat could lead to core damage. > > The amount of spent fuel, and thus the amount of decay heat that the cooling system must handle, increased throughout operation and attained its maximum value at the end of the fuel cycle. In the event of core damage, the end of the fuel cycle would present the worst possible point in time, with the maximum accumulated inventory of nuclides to be released into the environment. The experiment would have been far safer to carry out with fresh fuel. This means that the simulated power blackout experiment was performed at the most dangerous point in the reactor cycle.[11] > > It was a design requirement that the rotational momentum of the steam turbine, as it spun down, could be used to generate electricity to run the cooling water pumps to bridge the power gap. A previous test had been unsuccessful. Apparently, the test had not been completed successfully by March 1984 when the unit was brought into commercial operation ahead of schedule and celebrated as a “labour victory”. Under pressure, the director of the Chernobyl station Viktor Bryukhanov signed an acceptance document on the last day of 1983, in order to declare that works planned for that year had been fulfilled. Had he not done so, thousands of workers, engineers and his own superiors would have lost bonuses, awards and other extras. Records were falsified to hide this fact.[12] > > The Chernobyl power plant had been in operation for two years without this important safety feature. The station managers must have wished to correct this at the first opportunity. This could explain why they were so determined to carry out the test, even when serious problems arose, and why the requisite approval for the test was not sought from the Soviet nuclear oversight regulatory body.[13] > > For the experiment, the reactor would be set at a low power setting and the steam turbine run up to full speed, at which point the steam supply would be closed off and the turbines allowed to freewheel, as the results were recorded. > > [edit] Conditions prior to the accident > > Conditions to run the test were prepared during the daytime of 25 April 1986. The day shift had been instructed in advance about the test and was familiar with procedures. A special team of electrical engineers was present to test the new voltage regulating system.[14] As planned, the reactor’s power output had been gradually reduced to 50%. Then a regional power station unexpectedly went offline. The Kiev grid controller requested that the further reduction of output be postponed, as power was consequently needed to satisfy the evening peak demand. The Chernobyl plant director agreed and postponed the test to comply. > > At 11:04 p.m., the Kiev grid controller allowed the reactor shut-down to resume. This delay had serious consequences: the day shift had long since departed, the evening shift was also preparing to leave, and the night shift wouldn’t take over until 12:00 midnight, well into the experiment. The special team of electrical engineers must have been exhausted from the long wait; according to plan, the test should have been finalized during the daytime and the night shift would only have to maintain basic cooling systems in a plant otherwise shut down, though the night shift was not prepared to carry out the experiment. Alexander Akimov was chief of the night shift and Leonid Toptunov was the operator responsible for the reactor’s operational regime, including the movement of the control rods. Toptunov was a young engineer who had only worked independently as a senior engineer for about three months.[15] > > In Valeri Legasov’s posthumous article, he maintains that the operators did not know what the test was about: > > ``` > I have in my safe a transcript of the operators' telephone conversations on the eve of the accident. Reading the transcript makes one's flesh creep. One operator rings another and asks: What shall I do? In the programme there are instructions of what to do, and then a lot of things are crossed out. His interlocutor thought for a while and then replied: Follow the crossed out instructions.[16] > > ``` > > The test plan called for the power output of reactor 4 to be reduced from its nominal 3200 MW thermal to 700–1000 MW thermal.[17] For unknown reasons, Toptunov committed an error and inserted the control rods too far, causing the reactor to a near shut down. The exact circumstances will probably never be known as both Akimov and Toptunov died from radiation sickness. > > The reactor power dropped to 30 MW thermal (10 MW electrical) — almost complete shut down level and approximately 5 percent of what was expected. At this low power output a phenomenon called xenon poisoning, by which high levels of xenon-135 absorb neutrons and thus inhibit nuclear reaction, became predominant.[18]. > > At this low power output it was impossible to carry out the test. The operators seem to have been unaware of the xenon poisoning, perhaps believing that the rapid fall in output was due to a malfunction in one of the automatic power regulators. To increase power, control rods were pulled out of the reactor core, beyond the correct position for normal operations, and also beyond what is allowed under safety regulations. To do this, staff had to use manual controls to override the automatic system.[19] > > Slowly, the reactor’s power only increased to 200 MW, less than a third of the minimum required for the experiment, yet the experiment was continued. As part of the test plan, at 1:05 a.m. on 26 April extra water pumps were activated, increasing the water flow. The flow exceeded the safe limit at 1:19 a.m. The extra water lowered the core temperature and reduced steam voids. However, since water also absorbs neutrons (and the higher density of liquid water makes it a better absorber than steam), this decreased reactor power further. This prompted the operators to remove the manual control rods. > > This produced an extremely unstable condition with nearly all of the control rods removed; a setup for a run-away reaction. The only thing holding the reactor at such a low power level was the high levels of neutron-absorbing xenon. The increased water flow led to a fall in steam production and other changes in the operating parameters. At this point the automatic control system should have shut the reactor down. To avoid this, the operators had disabled the shut down system.[19] > > [edit] Fatal experiment > Aerial view of the damaged core. Roof of the turbine hall is damaged (image center). Roof of the adjacent reactor 3 (image lower left) shows minor fire damage. > > At 1:23:04 a.m. the experiment began. The extremely unstable condition of the reactor was not known to the reactor crew, and the steam to the turbines was shut off. As the momentum of the turbine generator drove the water pumps, the water flow rate decreased, leading to the formation of steam voids. The control rods that were removed earlier were never fully removed and were still partially in the reactor, preventing the heat from reaching the cooling water. The great rise in temperature resulted in a massive steam build up and, due to the fact that the RBMK type reactors are largely positive void coefficient, the power within the reactor only increased. As the reactor power increased, so did the neutron generation. Soon it exceeded what could be absorbed by the xenon poisoning, starting a dangerous cascade. With the manual and automatic neutron absorbing control rods removed, nothing prevented a runaway reaction. > > … > > The control rod insertion mechanism operated at relatively slow speed (0.4 m/s) taking 18–20 seconds to travel the full approximately 7 meter core-length (height). A bigger problem was a flawed graphite-tip control rod design, which initially displaced coolant, before the reaction was slowed. In this way, the SCRAM actually increased the reaction rate. At this point a massive energy spike occurred, and the core overheated. Some of the fuel rods fractured, blocking the control rod columns, and causing the control rods to become stuck after being inserted only one-third of the way. Within three seconds the reactor output rose above 530 MW.[21] By 1:23:47 (seven seconds after the AZ-5 button was pressed) the reactor jumped to around 30 GW thermal, ten times the normal operational output. The rapid increase in steam pressure destroyed fuel channels and ruptured the large diameter cooling water pipes. Fuel rods began to melt and reached the cooling water in the flooded basement.[22] > > At 1:24, 20 seconds after the SCRAM was ordered, the first steam explosion took place. It blew the 2,000 ton lid off of the reactor, damaged the top of the reactor hall, and ejected fragments of material. This ruptured further fuel channels, lifted control rods and sheared off horizontal pipes. A second, more powerful explosion occurred about two or three seconds after the first: > Lumps of graphite moderator ejected from the core. The largest lump shows an intact control rod channel. > > ``` > The second explosion was caused by the hydrogen which had been produced either by the overheated steam-zirconium reaction or by the reaction of red-hot graphite with steam that produce hydrogen and oxygen[23]. According to observers outside Unit 4, burning lumps of material and sparks shot into the air above the reactor. Some of them fell onto the roof of the machine hall and started a fire. About 25 per cent of the red-hot graphite blocks and overheated material from the fuel channels was ejected. ... Parts of the graphite blocks and fuel channels were blown out of the reactor building. ... As a result of the damage to the building an airflow through the core was established by the high temperature of the core. The air ignited the hot graphite and started a graphite fire.[24] > > ``` > > The graphite fire greatly contributed to the spread of radioactive material and the contamination of outlying areas.[25] > > Contrary to safety regulations, a combustible material (bitumen) had been used in the construction of the roof of the reactor building and the turbine hall. Ejected material had ignited at least five fires on the roof of the (still operating) adjacent reactor 3. It was imperative to put those fires out and protect the cooling systems of reactor 3.[26] Inside reactor 3, the chief of the night shift, Yuri Bagdasarov, wanted to shut down the reactor immediately, but chief engineer Nikolai Fomin would not allow this. The operators were given respirators and potassium iodide tablets and told to continue working. At 05:00, however, Bagdasarov made his own decision to stop the reactor, leaving only those operators there who had to work the emergency cooling systems.[27] IOW, it was a bad design and they INTENTIONALLY disabled the safety features to test things…and then they fucked up by the numbers. It was the golden BB of nuclear disasters. And yet, how many actually died? Well, estimates vary (it depends on what you are looking for and how you parse the stats). From [here](http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/chernobyl/inf07.html) though: > [@](#): > > ``` > * The Chernobyl accident in 1986 was the result of a flawed reactor design that was operated with inadequately trained personnel and without proper regard for safety. > * The resulting steam explosion and fire released at least five percent of the radioactive reactor core into the atmosphere and downwind. > * 28 people died within four months from radiation or thermal burns, 19 have subsequently died, and there have been around nine deaths from thyroid cancer apparently due to the accident: total 56 fatalities as of 2004. > * An authoritative UN report in 2000 concluded that there is no scientific evidence of any significant radiation-related health effects to most people exposed. This was confirmed in a very thorough 2005-06 study. > > ``` This was THE worst case scenario for nuclear disasters…and it was bad enough…but direct deaths were less than a hundred (according to this). Indirect deaths…well, probably a lot. I’ve heard as many as tens of thousands (though most range in the 2000-4000 range). This isn’t to say it was good but it was a purely LOCAL disaster…it really didn’t have a global impact. CO2 however DOES. Life is full of trade offs. And this disaster is pretty close to impossible considering our more sophisticated reactor design. Compare this to, say, 3 Mile Island. -XT ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-power/470035/189 "2009-02-24T02:27:22Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > Yeah…lets look to those shining beacons of state of the art engineering, safety, organization, and responsible capitalism for how good nuclear can or should be. > > Thats like looking to the middle east for positive guidance on how to implement separation of church and state. > > I wonder how well those Russian, Bulgarian, and Pakistani wind generator, solar cell and bio fuel projects are going ? :rolleyes: > > I also wonder how that middleofnowheregoatfelcherstan man on the moon project is going these days? You _do_ understand that the point made is that _delays_ occur even when legal issues are not a major factor - not about “how good nuclear can or should be”? :rolleyes: yourself. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-power/470035/190 "2009-02-24T02:30:05Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > This was THE worst case scenario for nuclear disasters…and it was bad enough…but direct deaths were less than a hundred (according to this). Indirect deaths…well, probably a lot. I’ve heard as many as tens of thousands (though most range in the 2000-4000 range). This isn’t to say it was good but it was a purely LOCAL disaster…it really didn’t have a global impact. CO2 however DOES. Life is full of trade offs. And this disaster is pretty close to impossible considering our more sophisticated reactor design. Compare this to, say, 3 Mile Island. > > -XT I did a back of the envelope calc years ago… Basically, radiation release wise, ever SINGLE person on the planet, all six billion plus, would have to have their own personal Three Mile Island to add up to one Chernobyl. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-power/470035/191 "2009-02-24T02:31:45Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > You _do_ understand that the point made is that _delays_ occur even when legal issues are not a major factor - not about “how good nuclear can or should be”? :rolleyes: yourself. When you look to the Pakistani legal system for how the US Supreme court should rule, get back to me. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-power/470035/192 "2009-02-24T02:42:57Z")
[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DEED81F38F934A35756C0A9679C8B63&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/C/Clinton,%20Bill](http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DEED81F38F934A35756C0A9679C8B63&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/C/Clinton,%20Bill) And then XT perhaps someone can explain this to you. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-power/470035/193 "2009-02-24T02:46:33Z")
NRC Chairman Dale Klein noted that potentially necessary grid extensions could lead to further delays of nuclear projects and indicated that he was surprised to learn that “it may take as long to site, permit, and build a transmission line for a new plant as to site, license, and build the plant itself.” And WTF does that have to do with nuclear being a problem? ANY OTHER power generating plant would have the same problem. That just tells me nuclear ISNT a problem, the retards worried about power lines are. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-power/470035/194 "2009-02-24T02:58:10Z")
> [@](#): > > OTOH, what’s the worst thing that happens if a solar panel or a wind turbine breaks down? Glass on the roof? A tower falls over? Well, that’s a totally disingenuous comparison, ehe? You are comparing apples to bananas. Currently wind and solar TOGETHER make up, what? 1% of our total energy grid? Maybe a touch more. Ramp that up to 20-30% and you’ll start seeing more impact on the environment (not even considering the entire life cycle of the product from manufacture to final disposal). The very scale of such a deployment will have a huge impact on the environment…all those solar panels and wind turbines are going to take up a lot of room. Maybe we could put them in Nevada…how would you like to see a large part of the state covered in solar panels? Do you think this would have less or more of an impact than Yucca Mtn would? If no one else decides to tackle your cite from the Las Vegas Sun (a known authority on nuclear waste obviously) I’ll tackle it in a later post. Surly though you realize that that 100 year figure is, um, debatable though, right? > [@](#): > > If the waste isn’t harmful, store it where it was generated. If it is harmful, let’s not produce any more of it. A lot of things are harmful. Nuclear waste is certainly harmful. Also it costs more to keep it in a bunch of decentralized places and it’s a bigger security risk as well. That’s the reason they wanted a safe repository for it. > [@](#): > > If you think it’s such a trivial thing to store thousands and thousands of casks of nuclear waste, and change them into new casks safely every hundred years or so, then please petition the government to store it in your backyard. We don’t want it in ours. Out of curiosity, how much money has the Federal government poured into your state on this project? Would you be willing to give that money back if we agreed to build this necessary project somewhere else? > [@](#): > > IMO the people who produce the waste should store and manage it. Well, you know, the reason you guys have power in Las Vegas is because of that dam thingy, right? Who do you suppose paid for that? -XT ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-power/470035/195 "2009-02-24T03:02:26Z")
[QUOTE=gonzomax] And then XT perhaps someone can explain this to you. [/QUOTE] Explain WHAT to you gonzo? > [@](#): > > White House Debates Fate Of Pollution-Control Suits > The Bush administration is considering pleas from coal and electric companies to drop a series of government lawsuits initiated by the Clinton administration to require the utilities to install modern pollution controls on old coal-fired power plants. This is, again, concerning AIR POLLUTION…not CO2 emissions. Do you understand the difference? I ask this in all seriousness, since it seems that you don’t actually understand the distinction. My request to you was for cites regarding CO2 emissions and you are giving me a bunch of drive by cites with little in the way of explanation that concern air pollution. Air quality isn’t really the matter up for debate in this thread so I’m a bit confused here. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-power/470035/196 "2009-02-24T03:32:51Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Well, that’s a totally disingenuous comparison, ehe? You are comparing apples to bananas. Currently wind and solar TOGETHER make up, what? 1% of our total energy grid? Maybe a touch more. Ramp that up to 20-30% and you’ll start seeing more impact on the environment (not even considering the entire life cycle of the product from manufacture to final disposal). The very scale of such a deployment will have a huge impact on the environment…all those solar panels and wind turbines are going to take up a lot of room. Maybe we could put them in Nevada…how would you like to see a large part of the state covered in solar panels? Do you think this would have less or more of an impact than Yucca Mtn would? You could call it “size pollution” or something of the sort. Or “land hoggishness”. It’s kind of funny considering how fond the “Small is Beautiful” types were about solar; in reality it’s not small at all. And to make it worse, since solar and wind are unreliable sources of power, you’d need to seriously overbuild in terms of generation capacity. If you wanted 30% of the nation’s energy to come from them, you’d need enough capacity to produce that 30% even during the times with the least wind and least available sunlight. Or, you’d need to accept that at unpredictable times, we’d have nationwide blackouts from now on. A nuclear power plant at least produces a known, predictable amount of electricity. And doesn’t eat up gigantic tracts of land in the process. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-power/470035/197 "2009-02-24T03:37:09Z")
Exactly. I wonder how folks pushing solar and wind right now would feel about it once the actual scale starts to sink in. Leaving aside the massive cost, we are talking about entire states worth of solar panels and wind generation plants. We are talking about a huge ecological impact…to avoid a purely theoretical LOCAL environmental threat. There are no silver bullet solutions to this mess we are in. There are only trade offs…something I freely acknowledge. I just wish the anti-nukes would similarly acknowledge that the magic pony actually shits in the woods too… -XT ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-power/470035/198 "2009-02-24T06:12:00Z")
Of course many promoters of wind and solar are big fans of _distributed_ generation. Solar can be integrated into unexploited locations, say roof tops, and perhaps one day built into windows. Wind farms can coexist with other land uses or be located more ideally (for wind resource value) over the water. But even if we were restricting our analysis to commercial scale solar farms and using the cheaper (and therefore more area required) thermal solar technology over photovoltaic solar we are not requiring “entire states worth of solar panels and wind generation plants”. An [example](http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/news/2005/11/69528) are these thermal solar plants of 300 and 500 MW of 2000 and 4500 acres in the desert. (3 1/8, and about 7 sq miles respectively - smaller than many agricultural farms and getting close to the 500 to 1000 MW that traditional coal and gas plants produce.) Am I saying that those solar farms are the way to go and that nuclear is not? No. In fact I would expect that a variety of solutions will be employed in different specific circumstances according to varied specific advantages and disadvantages and local costs. I completely expect that nuclear will be part of the mix. Shoving any particular solution as _the_ answer and choosing the winner in advance and advantaging one over the other (other than by fairly pricing the cost of the carbon) is what I object to. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-power/470035/199 "2009-02-24T06:51:04Z")
[QUOTE=DSeid] Of course many promoters of wind and solar are big fans of distributed generation. Solar can be integrated into unexploited locations, say roof tops, and perhaps one day built into windows. Wind farms can coexist with other land uses or be located more ideally (for wind resource value) over the water. [/QUOTE] I seriously doubt we’ll ever have solar cells that will allow for that kind of density of the cell that will enable solar on roof tops to every account for more than a fraction of our energy needs. Wind located over water has several issues as well, such as line loss if we are talking about long distances from the water turbines to where the energy is going. Maintenance is also bound to be more difficult as well as initial set up costs (I believe one of the Northern Euro countries is setting up just such a farm in the North Sea, so there are probably some good figures on costs and other issues they are running into)…and it’s bound to have some kind of non-zero impact on sea birds and ocean life…though they might actually like the towers so that may be a wash of pros vs cons. > [@](#): > > But even if we were restricting our analysis to commercial scale solar farms and using the cheaper (and therefore more area required) thermal solar technology over photovoltaic solar we are not requiring “entire states worth of solar panels and wind generation plants”. An example are these thermal solar plants of 300 and 500 MW of 2000 and 4500 acres in the desert. (3 1/8, and about 7 sq miles respectively - smaller than many agricultural farms and getting close to the 500 to 1000 MW that traditional coal and gas plants produce.) How many such plants would it take to power, say, Phoenix? I seem to recall that New York takes about 10500 megawatts…which would take over 20 of your 500 MW plants would use…probably more like 30 since it would need to be over engineered and have some kind of backups for in climate weather, maintenance (the panels will get dirty and scratched up in the desert and will require routine maintenance or they will lose efficiency). That would be aprox 90k acres (at 20 500 MW plants), assuming my numbers are correct for New York and yours are accurate for the plants. Of course, there would be no way (atm) to get the power OUT of Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, etc and to the high population centers in the east, not without huge losses. So…if Phoenix using 1/3 of the energy we are still talking about something like 30k acres just to power this one city. And what would the cost be per plant? For the US, we currently use something on the order of 3 TRILLION kWh (my recollection was something like 9000 kWh per person…which, if my match is close, would be about 3 trillion) per year. This is from memory so it’s probably more now…maybe closer to 4 or even 5 trillion kWh per year. Looking at the solar plants you are showing that would be…well, I think ‘states worth’ is fairly accurate if you want to even make a dent in the over all percentages. Especially when you consider that while a coal, gas fired, nuclear or oil fired plant can run in all weathers and 24 hours a day (in theory at least), wind and solar will need to be over engineered or will have to rely on those older technologies to make up the difference on days when it rains or there is no wind (or the winds are variable and outside of the optimum parameters for the turbines), or when turbines are down for maintenance (something I understand is fairly frequent with the current generation of turbines) or when it’s dark out, etc etc. Seriously, the scale of the thing just boggles the mind. And we haven’t even gotten into the cost yet. Say each of your solar plants costs a mere billion dollars to build. That would mean the project for a New York sized series of plants would run over a hundred billion dollars…just for New York (always assuming my half remembered power figures are even in the ball park…or that they weren’t from like 1980 or something). Adding in some kind of backup system and all the maintenance costs and we are talking real money here…just for one city. Even if the plants cost less, say $250 million, that’s STILL something like $30 billion. And since no one has built one of these things into full production afaik (I think the Spanish were or are building one similar but no idea if they finished it yet, what it cost or what issues they have run into) we don’t know what all they might run into as they rapidly prototype the equipment and work out the various issues. > [@](#): > > Am I saying that those solar farms are the way to go and that nuclear is not? No. In fact I would expect that a variety of solutions will be employed in different specific circumstances according to varied specific advantages and disadvantages and local costs. I completely expect that nuclear will be part of the mix. Shoving any particular solution as the answer and choosing the winner in advance and advantaging one over the other (other than by fairly pricing the cost of the carbon) is what I object to. Well, I agree with you. I’m not trying to say that nuclear will be the only power source either. There are no silver bullets and each technology has it’s pros and cons…and each has a niche. I see wind and solar as important niche technologies, augmenting the grid and taking strain off of the older coal fired plants, allowing us to bring some of them off stream while new plants are built and brought into the grid. I would be thrilled and excited if we could get solar and wind up to, say, 10% of our non-peak energy needs in, say, 20 years. I think that is an ambitious goal but it’s do-able. But as the technology stands today it simply can’t compete in the big leagues of our power needs. Coal/gas/oil can…and then there is nuclear, which can also scale up to meet our needs. No other technology today is in a state where it’s ready to be deployed on such a scale…and none of these technologies are going to be ready for deployment in 10 years either. Nuclear is ready today and could be in place and producing energy on kinds of scales we are talking about in 5-10 years…maybe less if we got the anti-nukes out of the way and cleared the path to actually BUILD the frigging things again in the US. -XT ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-power/470035/200 "2009-02-24T13:41:23Z")
Well we seem to be approaching a middle ground at least, even if each would predict a different mix in a decade or so (given fair competition and carbon fairly priced). I do not see nuclear as ready to deploy as you do, for all the reason listed in that linked Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Status Report. But if those experts are wrong, and investors see it as a long term good investment and can raise that sort of upfront capital without putting the financial risk on the rest of us, then fine. Let the games begin. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-power/470035.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-power/470035.md?page=11)