China Syndrome - You’re trying to use logic and facts to overcome sensationalism and irrational fear brought on by ignorance of basic science and engineering principles. Good luck.

Mike Shellenberger writes at Forbes that we should stop letting our "ridiculous fears of nuclear waste kill the planet"

Ridiculous?

Our current level of fears, fed by Hollywood sensationalism and the Chernobyl / Fukushima incidents, may be ridiculous, but nuclear power is not without its costs and so concerns, at some level, are warranted.

Any power generation method has its costs and produces waste - disposal of used batteries and components, disposal of spent fuel, air and water pollution, etc.

The trick will be to choose the method with the lowest overall cost; one that can be deployed and maintained in Third World and developing countries that have lower education levels, less environmental regulation, and fewer trained engineers.

Thomas Edison employed sleazy scare-based tactics in an attempt to gin up public outrage against the Westinghouse/Tesla AC-based system, and thus protect his own DC-based technology.

If today's political climate had existed back then, he probably would have gotten away with it.

Look, nuclear energy comes with dangers and problems but right now our biggest problem is getting C02 under control, and nuclear is our current best option. Solar and wind come with problems too, they just aren't large scale enough yet to be an issue. But nuclear is the best option we have now. I hope better ones with even less risk will become viable, but in the mean time, baby steps are better than no steps.

The biggest problem with nuclear is it is slow. Turning a plant on and getting is synced up is a very slow process. So nuclear plants typically can't react to variable loads. To fix that natural gas plants are paired so nuclear take the baseline power requirements and natural gas takes the variable power requirements.

As for the waste, nuclear is one of the best. With fuel reprocessing the eventual waste product has negligible radioactive content (less than many common household fixtures). And the volume isn't that big either. You dig a hole and drop it in. By comparison coal dumps tons of radioactive material into the air and produces far more solid waste. Solar has a lot of dangerous byproducts just in the manufacturing not to mention the eventual disposal of spent solar panels.

On safety nuclear is unquestionably the best. Far less human deaths per kilowatt-hour. Wind is actually the worst. People fall off of those towers. They catch on fire. Fall down on people. Solar is second most dangerous.

On CO2 output nuclear is once again one of the best. Far better than any renewable. Due to the variable nature of solar or wind they need natural gas plants to take up more than just variable load. They also have to take up some of the baseline when the renewable isn't producing.

But in the end none of that matters. The US hasn't made serious progress in nuclear power for almost 75 years. And doesn't look like it will any time soon.

.,,but right now our biggest problem is getting C02 under control.... ~ NicoleK at October 16, 2018 6:38 AM

Plant more trees. Lots more.

right now our biggest problem is getting C02 under control

Really? tell me then, where is the discussion about the optimum level of CO2 for life on earth? somehow we got wedded to this notion that 270 ppm is the gold standard.

Again, when the people who keep telling us it is an emergency start acting like it is an actual emergency and stop jet setting around the world just because they can - looking at you, DiCaprio - then I might take them a tad more seriously.

Plant more trees. Lots more.

We already do, which is one reason why there are more trees in the CONUS than at the founding of the country. And other parts of the world are starting to green, such as at the edges of the Sahara were they where once brown. At some point, the vegetation will start pushing the desert back.

right now our biggest problem is getting C02 under control

Really? tell me then, where is the discussion about the optimum level of CO2 for life on earth? somehow we got wedded to this notion that 270 ppm is the gold standard.

Again, when the people who keep telling us it is an emergency start acting like it is an actual emergency and stop jet setting around the world just because they can - looking at you, DiCaprio - then I might take them a tad more seriously.

Plant more trees. Lots more.

We already do, which is one reason why there are more trees in the CONUS than at the founding of the country. And other parts of the world are starting to green, such as at the edges of the Sahara were they where once brown. At some point, the vegetation will start pushing the desert back.

Humans are phobic and have a terrible time assessing risk. If you feel in control, you view the risk as less. People certainly feel in control when walking and thus ignore the very real risk of getting hit by a car (6000 fatalities last year, even more injuries). The greatest threat people feel is from "contamination" since it feeds into our sense of revulsion at uncleanness. Thus people fear GMOs, pollution, etc when in fact the air and food are so much cleaner than ever and lifespan is at a record high.

As to the CO2 question above, people ignore that during the last ice age CO2 got so low (220ppmv) that plants were having trouble, and at high elevations (were atmos pressure is lower) could not survive. Life almost went extinct (180ppmv would end life).

I R A Darth Aggie Says:

"Again, when the people who keep telling us it is an emergency start acting like it is an actual emergency and stop jet setting around the world just because they can - looking at you, DiCaprio - then I might take them a tad more seriously."

So let me get this straight... you aren't going to take science seriously until celebrities stop jet setting???

Who cares what celebrities say or do... they are irrelevant.

What is relevant is the science and that part is clear and doesn't "jet set".

You are looking for excuses to ignore science... and apparently DiCaprio is excuse enough despite the fact that he is meaningless in this discussion.

Conan Says:

"Plant more trees. Lots more."

This strategy cannot resolve the overall issue if we fail to reduce our output.

If your diet consists of 5000 calories a day, it is a bit flippant to suggest exercise alone will help you to lose weight.

Exercise would be good and all, but if the caloric intake is not addressed that person will continue to put on the pounds.

Simply put, your flippant proposal cannot and will not adequately address the issue at hand.

Simply put, your flippant proposal cannot and will not adequately address the issue at hand. ~ Artemis at October 16, 2018 9:46 AM

Artie, you need to learn to take the world a bit less literally.

We already do, which is one reason why there are more trees in the CONUS than at the founding of the country. ~ I R A Darth Aggie at October 16, 2018 7:59 AM

I don't know, Darth. I have my doubts about that claim. Early settlers cleared a lot of acreage and cut down a lot of trees to build farms, towns, and housing. It may be that we have more, but younger, trees; certainly our count of mature trees, or the average age of our trees, would have to be lower.

"Turning a plant on and getting is synced up is a very slow process. So nuclear plants typically can't react to variable loads."

Simplistic - so much so, I wonder why you said it.

Gas turbine installations are installed for peak service because they are easy to get permits for, not because they are easy to get "synced up".

One might ask, "Why aren't ALL of our generators gas turbines?"

Natural gas plants are essentially just a fossil-fuel plant that doesn't burn coal.

A reactor startup certainly is deliberate, but after that, networking allows the Rx to go to 100% and stay there, and the only difficulty operators face is operation under about 10% power when transitioning from 100% due to decay heat.

The electrical generators work exactly like their fossil-fuel counterparts w/r/t voltage, RPM and synchronization.

For an energy usage chart that shows American power distribution, usage and waste heat issues, see the included chart for the whole story.

>> right now our biggest problem is
>> getting C02 under control

> Really?

> I R A Darth Aggie at October 16,
> 2018 7:59 AM

✔

VG

Planting trees to fight the evil climate change it's like thinking that best eating habit you can do is to go vegan.

Planting trees to fight desertification? Now that's a different story.

In any case, three quarters of the planet are covered in water, and we're getting most of our oxygen from phytoplankton in the oceans. IMNHO, fertilizing the ocean could have a more siginificant impact on atmospheric CO2 levels.

But, there's a catch:

http://news.mit.edu/2015/fertilize-ocean-cool-planet-0908

Conan Says:

"Artie, you need to learn to take the world a bit less literally."

Conie, I didn't take you literally... that is why I called your proposal flippant.

You were showing a lack of seriousness for an important topic and a lack of respect for a fellow contributor.

When I accuse you of being flippant I am not taking you literally... I am well aware that you weren't being serious... that was the entire point of my objection.

I suppose that went over your head.

"Simplistic - so much so, I wonder why you said it."

Because that is the level most people on this site are at with regards to power plants. Yes you can dump the excess energy, in a variety of ways. But in actual practice you don't. If you can pair with a natural gas plant to handle the variable load it is cheaper than overbuilding the nuke plant and throwing away the excess. This isn't a physics choice, it's an economic one.

Ben Says:

"So nuclear plants typically can't react to variable loads."

That is what the control rods are for Ben.

I am not sure why you believe the issue with nuclear power is an inability to control power output.

Please become educated on a subject before you make more of a fool of yourself Artemis.

Prior to the Carter administration, we had to option to recycle our used nuclear fuel.

Before it goes into the reactor, "nuclear fuel" is uranium which is about 3% U235, 97% U238.

After being used through an entire fuel cycle, "spent" nuclear fuel actually has about 97% of its U235 remaining. The reason the fuel is no longer useful comes from the fission byproducts that have built up in it, all kinds of things which interfere in the chain reaction. Remove those byproducts, and your fuel rod is ready for another round.

Instead, we scrap it. What we currently do with our nuclear plants is kind of like buying a car, driving it from NYC to LA, and then parking it in a junkyard. And then complaining that there are too many "spent" cars laying around, because someone made it illegal to change the oil.

George W. Bush rescinded Carter's executive order banning spent fuel reprocessing, and during his term Congress repealed the Carter-era law, but that happened twenty years too late. The infrastructure we had in 1979 to reprocess spent nuclear fuel no longer exists.

Ben Says:

"Please become educated on a subject before you make more of a fool of yourself Artemis."

You always say ignorant things like this when you are the one who is mistaken and/or lacking information.

Modern nuclear reactors located in France and Germany already operate in load-following mode with the capability of making large power changes on a regular basis.

Whatever "education" you have on this subject is apparently way out of date.

Ben,

If you actually care to educate yourself on the subject I suggest starting with the following paper published in 2015:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S036054421401295X

Here is a relevant part of the abstract:

"Load following is the potential for a power plant to adjust its power output as demand and price for electricity fluctuates throughout the day. In nuclear power plants, this is done by inserting control rods into the reactor pressure vessel."

This portion of the abstract directly contradicts your initial statement that the problem with nuclear power is that it simply isn't agile enough to handle variable loads:

"The biggest problem with nuclear is it is slow. Turning a plant on and getting is synced up is a very slow process. So nuclear plants typically can't react to variable loads."

Calling it slow is in fact an indictment of the physics and engineering of the plants... your original argument was not an economic one despite your desire to step it back after radwaste corrected you.

In any event, even the economic issues can be addressed with cogeneration as detailed in the paper I cited.

In other words… first you objected on the basis of physics and you were wrong... then you objected on the basis of economics and you were wrong again.

Modern reactor designs can and do address all of your objections.

Their speed is still no where near that of a gas plant Arty. Rad was 100% correct on how these things are typically done. But as I stated he was wrong on the economics. You on the otherhand are still determined to be ignorant.

Artemis,

Good grief Ben... you mentioned the speed as being a restrictive element barring implementation.

Once that was proven wrong you shifted to it being economic barriers to implementation.

Then once that was proven wrong you are moving to a "relative agiligy" argument.

That isn't the point though... nuclear power doesn't have to be as agile as gas to be implemented... it just needs to be agile enough to support the grid.

It meets thos requirements.

I might as well say that gas plants are no good because large battery stacks are even more agile than those... so we should apparently just charge up huge batteries to have the most rapid power control imaginable... even though that kind of versatility isn't necessary for the grid to be operational.

The problem is you always are shifting the goal posts instead of admitting you were mistaken.

Ben Says:

"But as I stated he was wrong on the economics."

Rad never said anything about the economics, so it is kind of difficult for him to be wrong about something he never mentioned.

Don't you see what you are doing here Ben?

You are actively seeking to be right about something... anything... even when no one discussing this with you have made an erroneous claim.

You were wrong about the physics/engineering... you were wrong about the economics... and finally you have managed to say something correct but completely unimportant and for that you want to declare some kind of victory.

And you do all of this while saying everyone else is ignorant despite the fact that the only one in this part of the discussion to get anything wrong is you.

You are projecting. Simply put, you aren't the expert in nuclear power that you seem to believe you are.

When did I ever say nuclear power is no good? I only said "The biggest problem with nuclear is it is slow." Then I pointed out it is common to pair nukes with faster sources to alleviate this problem, improving line regulation.

And I never claimed to be an expert on nuclear power. My post never claimed it was solely about physics. Rad said it was extremely simplified and he is right.

You can't even read Arty. And you amply demonstrated you don't even understand the subject matter. You paper on load following highlighted that. Rad's comments were correct and demonstrated he understood exactly what I was talking about.

But as usual you get lost and blame others for your lack of knowledge. Arguing with an idiot only proves you are a fool. I have indeed been foolish.

Ben,

This is your exact quote:

"The biggest problem with nuclear is it is slow. Turning a plant on and getting is synced up is a very slow process. So nuclear plants typically can't react to variable loads."

The plain meaning of this block of text is that you believe that nuclear power will not be able to cover the grid because it lacks the agility of fossil fuel power generation.

This isn't an issue of my ability to read.

It is that you are not having a good faith conversation where you own what you said after it has been demonstrated that you have no clue what you are talking about.

Look, I know your type... you probably are the smartest amongst your small group of friends... the issue is that your small group of friends is probably rather stupid.

Here is the point you need to understand... even if you are the smartest baboon in the troop, you are still a baboon.

And yet despite the fact that you have continually been incorrect, and keep trying to rewrite history to somehow eek out some sense of accomplishment... you continually assert that other folks lack knowledge.

There isn't one fact I have put forth in this discussion that you have proven to be wrong... yet you keep saying I am the one lacking knowledge.

What a moron.