Guest Post by Ira Glickstein
The recent Japanese earthquake and tsunami, which shut down several reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex in northeastern Japan, followed by a failure of the backup cooling systems that resulted in hydrogen gas explosions and fires, has me re-evaluating my support for nuclear power. Non-nuclear technology, such as clean coal, is looking even better than when I wrote about it here on WUWT (see this and this).
Don’t get me wrong, I still favor nuclear power as part of what Sen. John McCain called an “all of the above” energy policy. We need all the energy we can get to power a vibrant, growing world economy. Our energy future should include nuclear along with clean coal, gas, oil, and renewables, as well as improved energy efficiency and usage. I welcomed the recent resurgence in interest in building more nuclear power plants in the US, a policy supported by both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Obama re-iterated that support today.
ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF NUCLEAR AND CLEAN COAL POWER
The graphic lists the major pros and cons for nuclear and clean coal electrical power technology.
Nuclear is Clean & “Green”, with no production of “greenhouse” gases (GHGs). The waste products, while radioactive, are relatively small in quantity and can be stored safely when proper procedures are followed. US and other well designed nuclear plants, with substantial containment vessels, have been relatively safe. There has been no loss of life (though Fukushima may change that fact). Finally, nuclear fuel is reasonable in cost, and represents only a small portion of the cost of generation of electricity.
On the negative side, the media over-hypes nuclear accidents, emphasizing the worst that could happen. Radioactive waste disposal is a difficult issue mainly due to political opposition and over-played fears of the unknown.
Clean Coal technology is ready for prime time in the US, where the fuel is plentiful. Coal may be gasified or liquefied at the mine site, for more convenient transport and use. As I pointed out on WUWT, CO2 Is Plant Food which should be used to improve agricultural yields in elevated CO2 greenhouses, rather than what seems to me to be a foolish idea of sequestering CO2 in abandoned oilwells.
On the negative side, coal trains have been dubbed “death trains” by Global Warming Alarmists, such as James Hansen, the head of NASA GISS. The supposed possibility of human-caused, catastrophic “runaway warming” (CAGW) has been way, way over-hyped and is more political than science-based. On the other hand, coal and other fossil fuel technology is responsible for some air pollution and disposal of the waste products can be troublesome.
SUPPORT FOR NUCLEAR POWER
In Fukushima, there has been a partial meltdown of some of the cores, release of some radioactive gases into the atmosphere, and there remains a real risk of further radioactive material spewing over the surrounding countryside. The news is bad for the nuclear industry worldwide. As happened with Three Mile Island in the US in 1979, the media are over-hyping the dangers. Even if the crisis doesn’t worsen, it may be a long time before the nuclear industry regains its footing.
While bicycling in France a few years ago, I was impressed by the nuclear powerplants that seemed to be everywhere. See here for an account of how we were almost arrested for trespassing at one plant. Decades ago, the French made a major commitment to nuclear from which they now get some 80% of their electrical power.
In contrast, the US gets only about 20%. Less than a year ago, I kayaked fairly close to the nuclear plant at Crystal River, Florida, that happily co-exists with dolphins and paddlers. When the US cautioned Americans living within 50 miles of the Fukushima nuclear plant to evacuate or stay indoors, I was relieved that I live a full 52 miles from Crystal River, but concerned abut the fact that plant is 34 years old.
The 1979 movie The China Syndrome dramatized a hypothetical, catastrophic core meltdown, where the molten material burns through the bottom of the containment vessel and melts partway through the crust of the earth. Of course, the molten material could not actually penetrate all the way to China, but the coincidence of this movie coming out only a short time before Three Mile Island essentially shut down the US nuclear industry for three decades.
In 1986, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Russia had the worst nuclear power plant accident in history, sending radioactive materials over parts of Russia and other areas in Europe. That plant had no containment vessel so there is no basis of comparison to either Three Mile Island or Fukushima.
The Japanese earthquake, and -especially- the resultant tsunami flooding, has most likely resulted in the deaths of 10,000 or more people who were living in low-lying fishing villages along the coastline. Yet, no one is calling for an end to fishing villages.
Though the Three Mile Island accident resulted in no deaths at all, and the Fukushima accident will most likely have only a limited number of casualties, there is a hue and cry to close existing nuclear plants and reverse the recent resurgence in interest in expansion of “green” nuclear power. I think that reaction, while all too human and understandable from an emotional standpoint, is unwise.
SYSTEM ENGINEERING FAILURE
Although my bachelors is in Electrical Engineering, I do not claim to be any kind of expert on electrical power plants. However, based on my long career conceptualizing and designing highly reliable, robust and redundant military avionic systems, and my advanced degrees in System Science, I do know something about complex systems. In my opinion, both Three Mile Island and Fukushima were system engineering failures. Yes, there were hardware failures in both cases, but the major fault was in how the system was designed and how the operators misunderstood what was actually occuring and how best to reverse or limit the damage.
According to Wikipedia:
The [Three Mile Island] accident began … with failures in the non-nuclear secondary system, followed by a stuck-open pilot-operated relief valve (PORV) in the primary system, which allowed large amounts of nuclear reactor coolant to escape. The mechanical failures were compounded by the initial failure of plant operators to recognize the situation as a loss-of-coolant accident due to inadequate training and human factors, such as human-computer interaction design oversights relating to ambiguous control room indicators in the power plant’s user interface.
In Fukushima, the backup systems proved to be inadequate. It appears that the earthquake or, more likely, the flooding due to the tsunami, disabled the backup generators which were supposed to power the pumps and keep the cooling water flowing over the cores. There was also a battery backup that failed. It is not clear if the automatic shut-down system worked properly. With the benefit of 20:20 hindsight, it is clear that the backup generators should have been sited above above the maximum flooding level or otherwise protected from water damage. The connection between Fukushima and the national electrical grid was severed by the tsunami. A new power line is currently being run to that plant and, when connected, it may power the pumps if they are still operational.
The system and design engineers most likely thought that power for the pumps would be available from other nuclear generators in the complex, or, in a reasonably short time period, from the national electrical grid. They seem to have ignored the possibility that a single incident would shut down all the generators as well as the backups and access to the grid. Of course, at 8.9 or 9.1, this was over 100 times more powerful an earthquake than the 7.0 for which the system was apparenty designed. However, backup systems must be designed to withstand whatever might cause the primary systems to fail. This they failed to do.
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Bush’s Demonstration Clean Coal power plant has been in operation in Polk County Florida for a few years. Read more at this link — http://www.tampaelectric.com/news/powerstation/polk/
Not only is it less polluting, it is far more efficient … Lower’s electricity costs in the bargain. For the Saudi Arabia of coal what’s our problem. Oh yeah, Obama.
The USA has more coal energy than the world has proven oil reserves, about 30% of the known world’s coal. That includes the low sulfur coal that Clinton made into a wild horse reserve so the USA could buy their low sulfur coal from Indonesia’s Riady … Big donor to the Democrats.
The truth is what it is.
Yes, coal and nuclear is needed and gas for peak periods. The knee-jerk reactions to nuclear accidents, while understandable, isn’t warranted. Does anyone really believe that nuclear power will go through eternity without a very serious disaster or two? You live (most of us) and you learn. To everything, there is a cost. When things like Fukushima occur, we figure out what went wrong and why. (I don’t believe we’re getting very good information from there, yet.) And then you takes steps to correct it. I fully expect this to be the path the Japanese will take. If we’re wise, we’ll learn through others’ mistakes without having to repeat them here.
Fukushima is presently at level five in the severity scale, and even the Japanese are describing it as “very grave”. This eventuality was unclear at the outset, as TEPCO did not divulge information about the vulnerability of the spent rods storage and the risk exposure. Had they done so, remedial action may have prevented the deterioration of the crisis.
Regardless of whether the situation deteriorates further before it stabilises, nuclear power plants will be a lot safer from now on. I would be very surprised if the world permitted any new nuclear plant that requiring the continued operation of active cooling systems for safety after being shut down. Especially in unstable environments!
The lessons will be learned.
Dr Glickstein,
The systems engineering failure you note extends to the overall design.
The biggest risk here is the likely exposure of decades worth of spent fuel kept on site, co-located with the reactors.
This mass of fuel is now overheating and boiling off the volatile radio nucleotides such as cesium 137. The DOE did a study well over 20 years ago that identified this risk, suggesting a plausible outcome would be to make enough emitted pollution to make hundreds of square miles uninhabitable.
The only good thing to date is that the wind has been blowing offshore, sparing the nearby countryside. That may not last.
The same storage pools exist here in the US for similar design reactors, such as the Vermont Yankee plant for instance. In light of the recent event, this should be changed quickly.
The inadequacy of the back-up systems in Fukushima was that the back ups were all subject to the same risk. Rather than all standby generators at the plant, there could have been an off-site generator available to be brought in, or elevated storage for cooling water. These would have each had their own risks, but different risks, giving the operators more options to deal with emergencies.
Seriously? Re-evaluating? Antiquated nuclear plants in the way of an unprecedented catastrophy and here we are a week later worried about tiny radiation leaks? Yes the public paranoia caused them to try to vent the plants in a stupid manner, but the fact that 3/4 of the nuclear plants, the newer ones, are still running doesn’t tell you anything? which of the other power sources you site would do as well? would a “clean coal” plant have survived? Would the operators still be alive?
Like three mile island this incident is actually evidence of nuclear safety. The very slow nature of a nuclear accident allows the media to scream for weeks taking advantage of irrational fears. In a fossil fuel plant, the plants destruction kills everyone around instantly, a much less enduring story.
We have what? 25,000 dead? and millions homeless and all we are doing is talking about tiny radiation doses and doing our best to scare people
Wikipedia is once again a less than reliable source.
Doesn’t matter in the long run. Nuclear fission will eventually be our only option. I agree that we need to use everything possible until it is too expensive, like wind power–it is already too expensive for most applications. Besides, nuclear is still safer than anything else available for primary power production. (Fusion is a possibility, but we need breakthroughs that may not happen.)
In my opinion we don’t have a lack of options with regard to electric energy sources. What we have is a lack of resolve to do anything. My suggestion is to shut down all electricity generating plants for 1 week next January. After shivering in the dark for a week people will be demanding new power plants of any and all types.
Well I wouldn’t really do that but I think it would take something like that to get the ball rolling.
Actually, this Nuclear problem in Japan as a result of the earthquake makes me feel a lot better about Nuclear.
1) It was the strongest earthquake in Japan’s recorded history, this plant was not designed to take such a powerful quake.
2) All plants in Japan went successfully into shutdown when Quake hit. All Nuclear fission STOPPED, in spite of the huge amount of energy released, the mechanisms functioned as designed.
3) Only 1 nuke plant despite many others being in the crosshairs of the Tsunami had a problem.
4) This plant was using a 1960s designed Gen-2 reactor. This is OLD technology, and it still survived both the earthquake and the tsunami without release of any core material.
IMHO, they made a design mistake when they put the external-power circuits below ground level near the ocean. It was flooded as a result of the Tsunami topping their seawall, which was one of the initial major problems with getting external AC power back up for the cooling systems. Japan also has to deal with Typhoons, so I can see why they might not want it on a huge tower, but this seems like a glaring mistake in design to me. This is a backup system, and as such should be designed to *always* be available in the worst of circumstances. Change the design of this one reactor to have two available external power circuits, one above ground and tsunami level, and this whole “disaster” at this plant never happens, it all cools down safely.
So yes, when you consider the enormous improvements in reaction control and cooling with Gen 3 and Gen 4 reactor designs, this event has convinced me that Nuclear power is probably safer in practice than most other forms of energy. We should build MORE nuke plants, not less.
Sorry Ira, I am not disagreeing with your points, but rather with giving in to the publics misunderstandings.
The backup generators at Fukushima were of the correct power but overwhelmed by the tsunami which got into the engines meaning a complete re-equip. The power generation brought into the site were not the required power of 6kw which is what is needed. This is in process of being corrected so some improvement should come over the W/E.
You gotta read this:
High Efficiency Nuclear Power Plants Using Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor Technology
http://embeddedlab.csuohio.edu/PowerGroup/Papers/Liquid%20Fluoride%20Thorium%20Reactor%20Technology.pdf
In theory they can get 50% conversion of thermal energy to electricity. 50%! And the fuel is ordinary old Thorium, of which there is enough to power reactors for thousands of years, and it’s a waste product of all kinds of mining opperations. Compared to traditional nuclear a tiny amount of waste is produced and it’s only dangerous for 300 years, not 10,000. It is physically impossible for the plant to melt down, “negative temperature coefficient of reactivity,” basically means that if the power goes out the system naturally cools off.
Seriously, LFTR’s are Mr. Fusion.
Let me get this right Ira, the fifth strongest earthquake in over a century strikes almost underneath a nuclear power plant and is then hit almost immediately with one of the largest tsunamis ever and the worst that happens is the release of some short lived radionuclides? And that, mostly N16 spikes in steam?
The earthquake was five times stronger than the plant was designed for. The tsunami far higher than designed for. And one of the the reactors was two weeks shy of its 40 year design lifetime.
Truthfully, you could hardly have picked a worse location on the entire planet at any moment in time for over a century to put a set of aged, operating nuclear reactors. More people will die from adverse reactions to iodide pills.
You have heard, haven’t you, that this earthquake, so close as it was to the plant, released so much energy that the spin of the planet was measurably affected?
If this event does anything other than reinforce your prior support for nuclear power then, sir, I think you are just weakly ceding the win to global “media personalities” who so showed their breathless concern in front of their cameras by endlessly spouting the most garbled stream of dangerous misinformation the world has ever seen.
Please give this issue some more thought, Ira. You might also want to check some of the excellent coverage over at The Register:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/18/fukushima_friday/
“With the benefit of 20:20 hindsight, it is clear that the backup generators should have been sited above above the maximum flooding level or otherwise protected from water damage. ”
Exactly right. The backup systems and even the used fuel storage needs to be hardened against outage. This is something that can and should be done right now.
Further we should replace reactors that are nearing EOL with gen III and gen III+ reactors. We need leadership to make this happen. Sadly we have virtually no pro nuclear power leadership in government.
I say we need “nuclear diesel”: Build dozens of nuke plants to displace more and more coal from making electricity; use the displaced coal to make more and more pristine clean diesel – and jet fuel – which displaces imported oil.
More nuclear power, roughly the same amount of coal, and a drop in oil consumption nets out to, in essence, nuclear-powered cars cruising down our highways. and nuclear-powered jets darting across our skies.
It is similar to the proposed benefits behind calls for hydrogen-powered cars, since the only way to make prodigious amounts of hydrogen would be to greatly increase our stock of nuclear power plants. Yet, it is patently obvious that “nuclear diesel” would be much easier and safer to implement than hydrogen on the highway.
We’re talking proven, off the shelf technology and an incremental expansion of an existing diesel delivery infrastructure vs. building a hydrogen-based system from scratch.
I recommend the daily coverage of Fukushima by Lewis Page.
I wonder what the typical AGW alarmist is saying about the “meltdown”?
http://search.theregister.co.uk/?author=Lewis%20Page
I read recently that China now produces 50% of the C02 the US does. The Chinese and other emerging countries will no slow down their economies for C02 unless the cost of the replacement is roughly expansion neutral (that is, does not slow down expansion). I can’t imagine the Chinese expending dollars to sequester C02, and I doubt they would use the C02 as fertilizer approach on a large scale. So that leaves cheaper nuclear as a solution.
I think we should be thinking thirty years ahead to inexpensive and safe nuclear reactor designs. Forget about what is happening today and the backlash to forty year old nuclear designs. Obama screwed up. Instead of spending money on solar panels for schools with his stimulous money, he should have spent it on Nuclear.
The tsunami is most dangerous
The chart at the start of the article fails to include the significant danger that coal involves for those who mine it. According to the CDC “During 1900–2006, a total of 11,606 underground coal mine workers died in 513 U.S. underground coal mining disasters” . And in 2010, 48 US coal miners died in such disasters.
I’m all in favor of exploiting coal as much as possible. But we must realize that ALL option involve significant risks. And the option that has the MOST risk is not having abundant energy.
I’m afraid I disagree with your views on the future for nuclear power. The nuclear plants in Japan in spite of being old, have so far withstood one of the biggest earthquakes on record plus a major tsumani. Yes there has been a number of scares, but so far it appears, out of the thousands of people who have been checked, that no one has received any level of radioactivity over the accepted safety level, and the news today is that they appear to be getting the problem under control. Let us repeat that there were no deaths resulting from the Three Mile Island fire, and twenty years after the Chernobyl plant explosion, there are only 56 deaths recorded as a result of that explosion, Although more are likely to die in future years. This to my mind underlines the safety factor in nuclear power and is probably bad news for the greens, the anti nuclear lobby and the environmentalists. Fukushima is therefore going to prove that nuclear power is safe and that more modern plants than the Japenese models will prove to be 100 percent safe. I find it difficult to understand why you consider the anti nuclear press to be one of the reasons why you are becoming less enthusiastic about nuclear energy.
The idea of using the warmed water and CO2 from burning coal to generate electricity as the inputs to industrial scale green houses growing massive amounts of food is so much more appealing than using massive amounts of energy to grow food so that this can be turned into inferior quality fuel for automobiles.
Real sustainability.
The plant survived a quake an order of magnitude greater than its design, and an unprecedentedly gigantic tsunami that obliterated a huge portion of the nation. Unfortunately the engineers didn’t foresee the backup generators running under salt water. Hard to put too much blame on the designers.
Industrial explosions that blew the buildings to bits may not have hurt the containments. That, and whether the reactor vessels contained any melted cores (as they were designed to do) remains to be seen, but I’m betting they did.
We’re going to have more injuries from potassium iodide poisoning than radiation.
I really don’t get.
Why the focus on the risks of Nuclear technology. Cheap reliable electrical power brings enormous benefits (coal, nuclear or gas fired – it would seem to be a no-brainer). Just consider for a moment how many people are protected and saved each and every day because we enjoy reliable electrical power ?
Driving a car can be lethal in certain situations causing a catastrophic accident – should we debate abolishing this technology too?
To put things in perspective, how many have died directly from the Fukishima nuclear power plant issues compared to those who have died from the earthquake/tsunami?
Why are we not discussing the insanity of hundreds of thousands living along vulnerable shorelines of the US West coast and other areas of the globe where earthquakes and Tsunamis are not a matter of IF but simply WHEN?
If we are actually worried about the risk of loss of life then why focus on the relatively insignificant risks of an industrial accident at a power plant?
If you google Wikipedia about the Lisbon earthquake/tsunami of 1755, it is interesting to read how that the disaster provided intellectual fodder for philosophers – for over a century.
FWIW: Discussing the merits of equipment based on its ability to safely withstand an event with a probability of around 1 in 1000 years is pretty much teh definition of insanity. If you did this then you probably would never get in a car, bus, train, boat or plane…
“Jeremy says:
March 18, 2011 at 7:38 am
Actually, this Nuclear problem in Japan as a result of the earthquake makes me feel a lot better about Nuclear.”
I agree with jeremy – in fact it is quite amazing how well the 1960s reactors at Fukushima have stood up.
This “nuclear disaster” will most likely underwhelm the fearmongering hype – and never be reported as underwhelming…
Tsunami dead = thousands, fukushima dead = 0.
Ed Barbar says:
March 18, 2011 at 8:17 am
I read recently that China now produces 50% of the C02 the US does.
That’s an old figure, the Chinese passed the US last year as ‘Top plant food producer’.