They would supposedly work there way into the shifting stuff at the bottom and end up in the Earth’s mantle. I believe he was thinking as geologists do, of keeping the stuff away from people for a very, very long time. 
I read about that theory of disposal, too - the containers are supposed to go down into the subduction zone, head on into the mantle, and be completely melted and mixed in to the general magma.
Yes, the subduction zone.
Thanks, Cat Whisperer.
Trojan cost half a billion 1975 dollars to build, apparently including sub-par engineering and/or materials, considering the repeated steam pipe cracking problems they were having. It was scheduled to go offline three years ago, which is pretty normal for any nuclear power plant. Its output was a mere eleven hundred megawatts, much of which, IIUC, was meant to serve a Reynolds plant that never materialized or never reached expected capacity. Aside from a vicious assault by “the smartest guys in the room”, the region’s electrical needs have basically been dealt with fine without Trojan or Satsop.
Please explain how billion dollar power plants that are usable for less than four decades are cost-effective? Not one can be built without massive government subsidies. Just getting a nuclear plant up and running is by far the greatest expense and hardly at all a “green” enterprise, so far the front end outweighs the rest of the picture, and since replacing a plant must be done more than once in a century, the front end is not going away.
That’s a very large stumbling block, too. It’s a nearly universal constant, that as technologies get more adopted and we see more and more generations of technology, it gets cheaper - are there some reasons that this can’t happen with nuclear power technology (I mean, are there some intrinsic costs that simply can’t be reduced)?
Unfortunately, it can be too difficult to have actual discussions about things such as this. While I believe the OP really is interested in a discussion, like so many other hot button issues, the shouting generally crowds out actual exchanges of opinions.
I am now strongly anti-nuke for East Asia, but don’t really know enough about America for an informed opinion. I have many of the same reservations, though.
I was there in Tokyo during the Fukushima incident, and talked to dozens if not scores of other people, including businessmen and fellow parents. I watched the mood swing from pro to anti nukes and see why the shift happened. I’ve since moved to Taiwan and talked to many people in the anti-nuke camp.
If people are interested why a reasonably intelligent (definitely not a genius but not stupid either), concerned and relatively informed person comes to a different conclusion then I think it could be informative, especially if you are at all interested in finding ways to address people’s concerns.
However, I don’t get involved in shouting matches, and if it’s just more of “you don’t know what you’re talking about” which I get a lot from people who are far less informed, then I can let you get back to a thread where everyone agrees that nukes are the greatest thing since sliced bread.
I used to be pro nuclear, but living in Japan and watching the various nuclear accidents prior to Fukushima, including a [criticality accident occurred in an uranium reprocessing facility, I started to become doubtful, and then Fukushima killed it completely.
The problem can be summed up in a single word. “Betrayal.”
The biggest reason was the complete breakdown in trust and the callous disregard for honesty and openness by the industry and the government, as well as the arrogance, hubris and condescending tone used by the supporters.
I’ll address the last one first because it bothers me personally. Here, in this thread, we’ve got people insulting us because we have reached a different conclusion. In the middle of the Fukushima incident, there were pro nuke posters who flippant about the danger all while we had no idea what was happening. That still pisses me off.
To quote someone here,
That actually cuts both ways. I have found very few pro nuke people who are willing to actually sit down and talk.
I’ve got a degree in electrical engineering, with a minor in physics, which means that I’ve taken several years worth of physics, chemistry and such. I spent an enormous amount of time online researching the actual dangers because I had two small children who were eating vegetables grown in Japan and drinking the water. Was it safe? What kind of danger was there? All of these questions took hours and hours and hours to sort though.
Damn near everyone here gets Fukushima completely wrong. 100%. It’s not the relatively few lives which will be lost. It’s not even the up to US$250 billion in direct costs for cleanup and up to another US$250 billion in economic losses (total economic hit is 250 billion to a half a trillion dollars for those playing along at home).
Then there are the 160,000 people who were forced to leave the permanent “exclusion zones,” over 300 sq mi of contaminated land with most of their possessions behind. Those comparing this to a car accident are badly misinformed.
And for good measure, radioactive cesium among other goodies poured into the ocean, contaminating fish. This is in addition to the widespread contamination on land and in foodstuff. Sure, one contaminated apple isn’t going to give you cancer, but all of this stuff adds up. I’m not in freakout group, but people who try to handwave away the actual damage are badly misinformed or disingenuous.
Back to the betrayal part. I was a believer, growing up in the 60s and 70s. Atomic energy was going to be clean and relatively inexpensive. People who didn’t agree were idiots.
That changed when I moved to Japan. Nuclear power plants were oversold as completely safe with no chance of failure. Until they started to fail. Huge cost overruns. Massive problems which were covered up. A fairly typical problem is Cat’s favorite fast breeder [URL=“Monju Nuclear Power Plant - Wikipedia”]Monju plant](Tokaimura nuclear accidents - Wikipedia) which has cost US$9.8 billion and has generated 1 hour of electricity since it was tested 20 years ago. Latest reports are that it may be shut down for good because the technical and safety problems are not being solved. If it is abandoned, the $20 billion spend on the fuel processing plant will be wasted.
As bad, or even worse than the economic issues is the damage to the credibility of the government, and the consequences that has for society.
I was there in Tokyo on March 11, 2011. My children were in daycare and my daughter, then three thought that earthquakes were fun. “Daddy, let’s do it again tomorrow,” she said.
Immediately everything was sold out. Food, diapers, you name it. Typical panic mode.
I don’t remember exactly how soon I heard about Fukushima, but likely the next day. Initial reports were sketchy. We didn’t know much of what was happening.
Government reports were worthless. Lots of “It’s safe and we’ll get back to you on this.” Tepco, the power company was silent. A Taiwanese engineering friend whose husband was a highup in the transportation department called. No one in his department could get any info. Not even the minister, a cabinet member! We debated the potential danger. Would Tokyo be OK? We were 50 miles away. It should be OK. . .
A lot of sleepless nights on google finally paid off. A physicist in California had posted a Q&A session and his lecture notes, which gave a pretty good lesson on the relative dangers. That was very informative.
More googling lead me to the real danger: spend fuel pools. While the nuke industry loves to show how strong the containment devices are, it fails to point out that the spent fuel is covered by nothing. Well, some water and a tiny bit of concrete in the ceiling of the plant, but basically open air.
Reactor No. 4 was having service work down and all of its fuel rods were in the spent fuel pool. With no backups working, the water was boiling off. By the 15th, four days after the accident, an explosion in building blow off part of the roof and they started trying to dump water from helicopters. It was time to get the hell out of Dodge.
Later reports gave how bad it almost was. How bad? The reports are contradictory. The Prime Minister at the time, Naoto Kan, said in an interview last year that they were considering a possible evacuation of the Kanto area. So what, you ask. That includes all of Tokyo, Yokohama, and Kawasaki, and is home to 30% of the Japanese population and probably 50% of the economic power.
The radiation levels were too high for workers. The plant was coming apart and they were battling against time. Some reports have open rebellion by the plant manager against the Tokyo head office. A core group of people stayed and were able to get things under control.
However, I’ll let PM Kan describe what happened.
This would have been economic suicide. The third largest economy in the world would have tanked. The global repercussions would have been enormous.
And the stupidest thing about this? It could have been prevented. Fairly easily. The problems above were at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant. Did you hear about the problems at the Fukushima Daini power plant, a few miles away? Probably not, because they had made some critical changes to that design which were not made to the Daiichi plant.
The reason I’m against nuclear power in East Asia is that I don’t trust any of the governments here to do it right. The ongoing saga of the continued mishaps and problems at Fukushima amply demonstrate that neither the government nor the power companies can be trusted to do things right.
The concern I have about nuclear power in the States comes from the willful ignorance and hubris of the power industry. I know a nuke safety engineer at GE, and to hear him tell it, there was absolutely nothing wrong except for bad luck.
It was bad luck, but bad luck which could have been prevented. And that’s what I worry about is that the blind faith may be misplaced. I donno. I’m not in the States and I haven’t looked into the situation there as much. What I have read about the huge amount of fuel in spent fuel pools really concerns me, especially since nuclear waste in there is highly radioactive.
The NIMBY problem for nuclear waste needs to be solved and solved quickly. The white paper I read on spent fuel pools, written back in 2004, pointed out the acute danger.
I understand that the alternatives are not pretty. Fossil fuel is a horrible choice. Alternative energy is not there.
But, people are discounting the real dangers and potential for huge catastrophes for nuclear power.
There needs to be an honest discussion, but I seriously doubt people are interested in getting out of their comfort zone.
If they’re so ignorant and blind, how do you explain the US experience with safety at nuclear power sites? For example, how many people have died from radiation exposure in a commercial nuclear power station in the US?
Zero. The last time someone died in a nuclear power plant accident, a generator fell on him. The time before that, an inspector touched a live wire by accident. Cite.
It’s already been solved, until that clown in the White House shut down Yucca Mountain because of another clown in the Senate.
No, not discounting. Pointing out that the risks are lower and more manageable than for any alternative.
That’s true, but at least as true for the anti-nukes as for anybody else. Fear of nuclear power is 90+% due to the human preference for familiar dangers over unfamiliar ones, even if the familiar ones kill lots more people. That’s why people are afraid to fly but not to drive.
Regards,
Shodan
That’s my concern for nuclear plants in North America as well. I understand that there are regulations and inspectors and failsafes out the wazoo, but creative people always find a way to cut corners and do things the wrong way. You don’t even have to be all that creative; the usual pork-barrelling and under the table deals will probably get you there.
I don’t see how from my perspective. Not in the first world anyway. The oversight is enormous. People in the industry take it very seriously. Even for something as mundane as pouring a concrete pad to hold storage tanks. The design has to be approved by a professional engineer, whose job and reputation is on the line. Then the design has to be verified by another independent engineer, whose job and reputation is on the line. The construction site is monitored by a site supervisor from the company itself. Independent engineers and construction project auditors approve construction plans, and monitor the site on an ongoing basis. Certified material test reports are required for the rebar. The rebar is inspected for placement prior to the pour being approved. Every load of concrete is checked for a number of attributes by the provincial regulator, and the results of the check are checked by the auditor.
The results of all these checks, along with approved drawings, material test reports, purchase orders, etc. become part of the history file, which is required to be kept forever.
This is just to pour a concrete pad. No, there is no opportunity for anything foolish or nefarious to take place. It’s simply not possible. The oversight on actual nuclear work is at another level and has the federal regulator involved.
You’ve just described a fairly routine construction site. My husband’s former construction management company wouldn’t take construction jobs in Quebec because of the rampant corruption there. I want to believe that First World countries can do a stellar job in constructing and running nuclear power plants, but I still have my doubts.
Hey, I’ve only been in this industry for four years, but holy cow I’m impressed with the oversight.
I love nuclear power, see it as a relatively safe option, and great from an environmentl POV, but that is big deal to me. This is not a new technology. Research was already underwritten. Underwriting the introduction of the technology was done. I understand doing those things. At some point a technology needs to be able compete on cost on a level playing field though and nuclear has not been able to do so. I am all for approving plants but not for subsidizing it to an unfair level.
Mind you I do think that carbon should priced such that fossil fuel sources have to pay for their waste rather than pawning off that cost on society at large.
TokyoBayer did a much better job of what I’d like to say. I love science and I can understand the pro-nuclear position. But I am continually amazed by the innovative ways that humans find to screw things up, and in this case one screwup can have too much of an impact.
As already pointed out, even with the screw-ups of Chernobyl and Fukashima, (and older designs), nuclear power is still much safer per KWatt of power than any other hydrocarbon-based power. It’s only going to get better.
Yes, it is safer compare to hydro-carbon but nuclear power accident could be prevented by reducing the proportioned of energy generated by fossil fuels.
How many people have died in nuclear accidents? How many people die from asthma exacerbated by fly ash? How many people have died during the transportation of fossil fuels? How much environmental damage have coal mines caused?
The screw ups with fossil fuels cause way more damage than the screw ups with nuclear plants. But with fossil fuels, well it’s just the cost of doing business. The dead person probably doesn’t care whether he died in a rail car explosion vs. a fire at a nuclear plant, but for some reason the reaction from the living is much different.
Actually, I’m talking about how people discuss things and thank you for your post which demonstrates how people simply reread their talking points without addressing the essence of the discussion.
That’s why I said that I don’t get into shouting matches.
As Leaffan points out, there seems to be much more oversight in North America. I don’t know about Quebec, but the rest seems to be much better.
In contrast, look at the link I provided for Monju.
That goes on and on and on. It’s simply crazy.
It has come out the the government nuclear regulatory agency was complicit in covering up irregularities. People assumed that the nuclear reactors were safe, so why sweat the details.
The Japanese government has repeatedly demonstrated that it’s unable to respond well to disasters. I would much rather be living close to a nuclear plant in California than in Japan, as the disaster response system in California is a hell of a lot better than on this side of the pond.
I actually did a lot of detailed study at the time. Here is a paper on reducing the risk of spend power reactor fuel, written in 2000, it pretty much lays out what damn near happened at Fukushima.
It’s a sobering paper, but it’s just much easier to ignore.
Truth be told, had I not lived in Japan, I’d be exactly where the pro-nuke people here are, simply repeating myself again and again that it’s safe.
But, it’s not.
Another factor comes. That comes up with Leaffan’s post.
I’d guess that you’re right about America. Definitely wrong about Japan. I don’t know enough about Europe to say one way or another.
Which is what should happen and what needs to happen because of that nature of the beast. It’s highly poisonous and needs to be contained.
The problem is that typically buildings aren’t made that to that degree of precision and consequently the costs incurred are enormous. Look at the example of the concrete pad. All of those designs, checks, double checks make it cost many times more.
This is what I’ve read, the reason that nuclear power costs so much is because of the cost of compliance to the safety checks. However, as can see from Fukushima, forgoing safety is not an option.
This really is where the debate needs to be. I don’t see that happening. Too many people simply ask how many people have died so far and repeat and repeat.
Nuclear energy seemed to have great potential for clean energy. Unfortunately, it seems terribly expensive to harness that power safely.
Japan started doing something like this for TVs, fridges, AC units and other large appliances. They charge a disposal fee upfront to cover future costs.
Unfortunately, I doubt that there would be the political will to actually enact this.
I’ll bite. How many?
For the rail car, the dead person probably doesn’t care, but it’s not as likely to kill the other 54,000–143,000 with cancer deaths which would happen in a fire at a spent fuel pool.
My major concern with nuclear power in North America is the spent fuel. The risks are simply unacceptable. I think that it’s insane that this situation has been allowed to progress to this point, and this is why I don’t like nuclear power. There isn’t the political will to use it responsibly, and the people who know about it are not informing the public.
If you don’t mind my saying so, this is bullshit. My post spoke directly to what you said. Your claim is that people are not interested in “getting out of their comfort zone”. My point is that this is at least as true for the anti-nukes as the pro-. And I gave what I think is one of the reasons why.
You posted a bunch of stuff about how the US nuclear industry is riddled with the lazy and ignorant. This is not borne out by their safety record, which is very nearly perfect. In what way is this not addressing the “essence of the discussion”. Were you expecting to simply throw this out and not have it be challenged? That’s not how “discussion” works.
No one is shouting.
Regards,
Shodan
TB
Accepted that there is some nonzero risk of a major catastrophic event associated with nuclear power and that barring such an event very few deaths are associated with the power source. Sure the risk is small and with newer plant designs getting smaller but something even major is not impossible. It would be dramatic if it happened. Consequences if that happened? Possibly a 100 thousand dead?
How big is that risk? Unknown. Clearly not 100%. Likely less than 1 out of thousand? Hell, call it a 1% chance at some plant somewhere over say the 40 to 50 years new plants should last (at least). From what I can gather that is a huge overestimate but let’s go with it. 1% chance divided by 50 years comes to something like averaging 200 death a year as a “cost.”
Coal is estimated to cause about 1 million deaths wordwide a year from its effects, not even counting the greenhouse gas climate change ones to come. Natural gas better but not perfect and still contributes (albeit less) to the climate change risks. Plus it only kicks the can down the road a few decades. Alternative green approaches can also be rolled out only so fast and only to so big of a fraction of the grid. Retire nuclear plants without replacing them and that is that much more coal sticking around. It is safe probablistically compared to the alternatives.
The airplane anaolgy was apt. Plane crashes are huge when they happen but overall are a very safe way to travel; car accidents are so common that they just are not news and only kill one to few at a time, they just add up fast is all. A nuclear event would be big news but overall is very safe compared to the daily death toll associated to what it can displace.
The issue to me is and only is cost. Price the carbon fairly and let the possible sources compete in the market. Only subsidization allowed is to bootstrap new technologies that have not yet had a chance to develop economies of scale, and new research in cutting edge technologies.
TokyoBayer
Unfortunately, Japan has limited access to energy sources. It’s either nuclear or vast amounts of imported oil,LNG and coal which will only increase in cost over time and all of which present ecological issues of their own. Unless you (and people who oppose) nuclear power have VIABLE ideas on how to replace nuclear with something then those ideas need to be presented NOW.
Simply stating that “nuclear power is bad” and companies which build and run nuke plants are “corrupt” is frankly, meaningless. People in Japan like the lights to come on when they flip the switch the same way we do here in the US (I was at Misawa AB in the 1980s)
When that doesn’t happen, there are going to be problems. And when people have to pay vastly greater sums for energy than if they had simply worked to create a safer and more responsible nuclear industry then even more problems are going to occur.