From the Global Warming Policy Foundation
The nuclear emergency is Japan will be a disaster for global warming activists. For a start, Japan’s own emissions will most likely rise in the medium term, now that so many nuclear plants – one of the most greenhouse-friendly power sources – have been knocked out: ‘Analysts think Japan will compensate for the shutdown of its 10 nuclear reactors by relying more heavily on traditional fossil fuels.’ —Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun, 16 March 2011
Carbon dioxide emissions in Germany may increase by 4 percent annually in response to a moratorium on seven of the country’s oldest nuclear power plants, as power generation is shifted from nuclear power, a zero carbon source, to the other carbon-intensive energy sources that currently make up the country’s energy supply. –Sara Mansur, Breakthrough Institute, 15 March 2011
It was only a matter of time before environmentalists would point toward Japan, say, “We told you so,” and then declare a moral victory for anti-nuclear activism. Merely for the sake of argument, let’s pretend they are right. Eliminating nuclear power might be a nice experiment. But there is one big problem: Environmentalists are trying to eliminate all the other alternatives, as well. All sources of energy pose some sort of risk or cost. Risk-free, cost-free energy is a complete myth and simply does not, and will not, exist. Groups that never propose realistic solutions are simply not worth taking seriously. — Alex B. Berezow, RealClearScience, 15 March 2011
The main problem with energy supply systems is that for the last 100 years, governments have insisted on meddling with them, using subsidies, setting rates, and picking technologies. Consequently, entrepreneurs, consumers, and especially policymakers have no idea which power supply technologies actually provide the best balance between cost-effectiveness and safety. –Ronald Bailey, Reason Online, 15 March 2011
For all the emotive force of events in Japan, though, this is one issue where there is a pressing need to listen to what our heads say about the needs of the future, as opposed to subjecting ourselves to jittery whims of the heart. Most of the easy third ways are illusions. Energy efficiency has been improving for over 200 years, but it has worked to increase not curb demand. Off-shore wind remains so costly that market forces would simply push pollution overseas if it were taken up in a big way. A massive expansion of shale gas may yet pave the way to a plausible non-nuclear future, and it certainly warrants close examination. The fundamentals of the difficult decisions ahead, however, have not moved with the Earth. —Editorial, The Guardian, 15 March 2011
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In soviet japan, nuclear emergency is YOU!
White House press secretary unprepared:
Check this out. A massive earthquake hits Tokyo roughly every 70-80 years. This one is about 10 years late.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50839082/michael-lewis-japan-quake-1989
amabo,
Thanks for the memories:
“In America, you can always find a party. In Soviet Russia, Party finds YOU.”☺
Noelene says:
March 17, 2011 at 12:14 am
That article seems a bit alarmist.
The IEAE says that reactor
The reactors are not the problem at the moment. It’s the cooling pools that are the problem. This is one point where confusion is coming in.
Just some thoughts: I think we need better education on the matter. I have realized that my knowledge of nuclear plants dated from… James Bond! And 60s Bond at that. I had no idea how the reactors work. And from the total blank from MSM journalists, they had no idea either. So education.
Secondly, the Japanese’s media management has been terrible. It has made things worse.
One of the worst things about nuclear is all the hush-hush secrecy. My grandfather worked for civil nuclear power and his job was only discussed in hushed tones as he had had to sign the Official secrets act.
Get some light in there! (And l don’t mean solar !). It’s easy to spook people because they have no idea about even the first principles.
Obviously there are lessons to be learned. Technical ones, not just the obvious “don’t take any notice of the Greenpiss experts” lesson.
But anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of the history of the Industrial Revolution will be aware of the fearful disasters in early coal mining, with early steam engines, early power generators and so on.
Even today, it is likely that many more people die every year in Chinese coal mines than have died from nuclear power, across the world, ever.
If the response in the early days had been to shut everything down in kneejerk reaction, most of us would still be spending our days out in the fields with only a few horses or oxen to help out.
Of course the Greenies would think this was a GOOD thing. So long as they didn’t have to do anythng useful.
Building them on the East Coast was wrong. The West Coast is less exposed to tsunamis, and is less vulnerable to earthquakes. The longer transmission lines needed are a price worth paying.
I’ve read analyses on the Zero Hedge site that state that it would take months to fill the pool at the rate a water cannon can deliver it. (Assuming it’s 100% on-target.) Of course, it’s the lowest foot that’s the most important, because that’s where any melt-down puddle is located.
So what’s going on with those self-contained Toshiba mini-nukes made for small service areas?
“I’ve read analyses on the Zero Hedge site that state that it would take months to fill the pool at the rate a water cannon can deliver it.”
Well I haven’t seen the analyses but I found a water cannon on the net that releases 250 gallons/minute, which is enough to fill an olympic-sized swimming pool in 1.8 days.
China has 13 reactors working right now, has 27 under construction and an additional 83 in its longer-view forecast. That would be 123 compared to 52 outside of China today. China has 48 coal-fired plants coming on-stream in the next 4 years.
How do the warmists say China is “green”? It is just getting power from where it can at the levels it will need.
As the rest of the world has to do. If Germany stops nuclear, can’t afford solar, can’t depend on wind, WILL NOT retreat to candle power (obviously), then Germany must be (if not coal) looking to shale gas. From Russia. (CO2 generated out-of-state is not a German enviro-problem.)
Crispin in Waterloo,
Re your eulogy for CANDU reactors, remember they are efficient PU 239 producers and it was a Canadian supplied reactor that India used to supply the fissile material for its first nuclear weapon test in 1974.
From Philip Finck on March 17, 2011 at 9:08 am:
Somewhat, but not totally. You could read the Wikipedia entry, but for detailed info The Canadian Nuclear FAQ by Dr. Jeremy Whitlock is very good. The most-relevant sections are:
A.15 How are CANDU reactors controlled?
D.2 What are the CANDU safety systems?
Besides the containment, there are 3 main safety systems, all independent and fully automated. The control rods in question are dropped in by gravity. A high-pressure neutron poison, gadolinium nitrate, can be injected into the low-pressure heavy water moderator. Both are sufficient to shut down the reaction. Then there is the Emergency Core Cooling System (ECCS), first phase uses high-pressure water injection using pressurized nitrogen.
Note the reoccurring theme, everything is loaded, primed, and just waiting for their individual triggers to be pulled, which is normally done automatically but can be done manually.
You are correct, if the heavy water drains away then the reaction shuts down. But that stuff is pricey, it is highly preferred that heavy water is not released into an open environment nor diluted with light water. Thus I expect they are designed to not allow the heavy water to drain out in an emergency.
Just a general question about spent fuel, raised by one of Ian H’s comments above. If the spent fuel is so hot, why is it no longer used to generate energy? Can it not be used in a different technological configuration, even if it is no longer fissioning sufficiently for the needs of the nuclear reactor itself?
From vigilantfish on March 17, 2011 at 7:34 pm:
After reprocessing to separate out the different radionuclides, they can be used in radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTG’s), where thermocouples transform the heat to electricity. They’re used in satellites, the Soviet Union was fond of them for unmanned facilities. There were even small plutonium-238 “long life batteries” used in pacemakers.
But what is “spent fuel” from a light water reactor, where the fuel is surrounded by neutron-absorbing light water, is usable fuel for a CANDU reactor.
When thinking about all this spent fuel laying around in cooling pools, and how in the US we lack both reprocessing and a long-term disposal facility where “spent fuel” can be sent instead of reprocessing, you may see why I’m so upbeat about CANDU’s. That “spent fuel” from the light water reactors is fuel waiting to be packed into a CANDU, we can start with less-dangerous un-enriched uranium as well as other fuels, and efficiently “burn” the fuel more completely than in a traditional light water reactor. Add in the built-in safety factors, and what’s not to like? All of our nuclear power plants should be CANDU’s.
From Dave Andrews on March 17, 2011 at 2:50 pm:
Ha, good one. That was the CIRUS reactor, which was decidedly NOT a CANDU.
Wikipedia: CIRUS reactor
The Canadian Nuclear FAQ by Dr. Jeremy Whitlock: F.2 Did India use a CANDU reactor in the 1970’s to make an atomic bomb?
CIRUS was a research reactor, based on the NRX research reactor which “…initially served as a prototype heavy-water plutonium production reactor, conceived during the days of the WWII Manhattan Project under a tripartite agreement between Canada, the U.S., and Britain…” It was designed for making plutonium for atomic bombs, and had other uses.
CANDU reactors are NOT efficient producers of Plutonium-239, no more than an ordinary light water power reactor. There is a large section about this in the Canadian Nuclear FAQ, reading it may help alleviate your knowledge deficit.
F.4 How easily can an atomic bomb be made with spent CANDU fuel?
Power reactors produce reactor-grade plutonium, which is a mix of isotopes that is highly undesirable for nuclear weapons. Weapons-grade plutonium, containing 93% or more of Pu-239, is normally produced in a special weapons-grade plutonium-production reactor. While not technically impossible to eventually separate out weapons-grade plutonium from spent reactor fuel, it is very difficult and very risky. Nations producing atomic bombs have far more efficient ways of obtaining weapons-grade plutonium than messing around with spent nuclear fuel. Would-be terrorists likely wouldn’t have the expertise or equipment, it’s far easier for them to obtain and use non-nuclear explosives, plus spent fuel is safeguarded which makes it very difficult to steal.
From the Guardian article linked:
Well, aside from the obvious fact that these old units handled the most severe earthquake in Japan in recorded history just fine — the online units automatically SCRAMmed* — and the fact that the FSAR (Final Safety Analysis Report) required before licensing to construct a plant in the US typically consisted of perhaps ten meters of bookshelf full of binders, about a quarter of which was devoted entirely to seismic studies IIRC, this silly twit may have a point.
The actual Guardian editorial from which the article’s quote is taken is at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/15/nuclear-power-after-the-flood …
=====
* SCRAM refers to rapidly dropping the control rods fully into the reactor to shut down the nuclear reaction as fast as possible. Engineering legend hath it that the term comes from “Safety Control Rod Axe Man”; in the first experimental reactor, one engineer was standing on a catwalk above the reactor vessel with an axe ready to cut the rope holding up the control rods in case of some design miscalculation.
This is probably apocryphal, but you never know…
Ian W (March 16, 2011 at 3:28 pm) points out that the warmed cooling water from electric plants provides a haven for wildlife.
Just to reinforce the point: The outlet from the old Zion-Benton plant on Lake Michigan near the Wisconsin/Illinois border was a favorite of the local fish. I used to participate in sailboat races out of Waukegan harbor; one of our race markers was near the outlet (some 30 feet or so below) and shooing the trolling fishermen out of the way was always a nuisance. (The Great Lakes are coooold; falling off the Yacht Club dock during a party will sober you right up! Apparently the fish don’t like it much either…)
Is it my imagination or has some astronmically bully kicked our beehive.
@ur momisugly kadaka (KD Knoebel)
Thanks for the information. I live near a CANDU reactor, but had never heard of the possibility of reusing the spent fuel from LWRs. I suspect the environmental extremists would get all up in arms if that were attempted (dangers of transporting the stuff, plus the fact they want to avoid making reactors more efficient and hence more attractive to the public).
Henry@CraigGoodrich
Hi Craig! I am getting conflicting statements on whether that warmed water is good or bad. My instinct also says it must be good.
Maybe it is different if the nuclear plant uses salt water or fresh water? (so far I have seen at least two reports saying that it is not good for marine life).