Safe Nuclear Power with Hydrogen byproduct?

Nuclear is one option we have to look at. Just as us North Americans have an appetite for gas guzzling pickups and suv's, we also have an appetite for huge homes, central A/C, and electric gadgets that suck up huge amounts of electricity

I like the CANDU reactor system, as it is extremely efficient. You don't need highly enriched fuel loads, and once past the initial fuel load, you can use thorium, which is much more plentiful than uranium is.

CANDU allows this as CANDU is a "breeder" by design. A lot of folks seem to have forgotten how deeply involved Canada was in the cold war arms race, CANDU is one result of that.

We also have to look at waste stewardship, which is an issue mostly ignored by nuclear power proponents

Given the currently high cost of oil, with expected much higher costs, nuclear is becoming a bit more justifiable. Folks don't want to accept Peak Oil, it doesn't mean we're actually running out of oil

Peak Oil means the supply of cheap, easily pumped oil is on a steep downward trend. There is plenty of oil out there, with correspondingly poor EROEI (Energy Return On Energy Invested)

All that cheap oil we used to have, in places where you literally jabbed into the ground and oil oozed out, had EROEI of perhaps 100:1. Most oil now has EROEI's of under 20:1.

The tar sands in Alberta everybody is all excited about has 10-15% recoverable oil. At current costs, around $26-$30 a barrel, so for a long time the Canadian taxpayer very generously supported the money losing operation. EROEI is about 7:1

Ironically, one way to improve the tar sand EROEI is to use CANDU reactors instead of fossil fuels. Thats ironic, no?

Much like oil offshore, where you need a platform in a mile or more of water, in addition to drilling 1-5 miles under the seabed. Not cheap at all

Factor in demand from China and India, our free ride is over

 

I careful to base my opinions on anything Patrick Moore says, especially when people use his old title with Greenpeace to color the information.

"Patrick Moore is a former Greenpeace activist who has been a corporate consultant since at least 1991. He began working for the Nuclear Energy Institute front group, the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, in 2006. The Coalition was organised and funded by the Nuclear Energy Institute, with help from the public relations firm, Hill and Knowlton that has a $8 million account with the nuclear industry" ~ SourceWatch.com

Patrick doesn't have the best name considering his industry connections. On the other hand, Sir James Lovelock also heavily endorses nuclear energy but he seems to be losing it in his late years. lol

Nuclear energy has potential but I would not claim it to be the best alternative. It is simply another tool in our toolbox, one that needs to be carefully considered before using.

 

Took the time to read the article. It's very painful to read some statements that are really wrong, but cleverly inserted to augment a questionable point. Specifically,
1) "Three Mile Island was the only serious accident in the history of nuclear energy generation in the United States". Look up SL-1 Accident on Google. (That US Reactor Exploded, killing three and spreading contamination widely)

2) "Wind and solar power have their place, but because they are intermittent and unpredictable they simply can't replace big baseload plants such as coal, nuclear and hydroelectric." With 9 Concentrated Solar Plant spanning 15 years of operation, and the advanced work in thermal heat storage, it really takes industrial level ignorance to make that statement. (e.g. Kramer Junction Plants)

3) "Within 40 years, used fuel has less than one-thousandth of the radioactivity it had when it was removed from the reactor. And it is incorrect to call it waste, because 95 percent of the potential energy is still contained in the used fuel after the first cycle." ....and with a wave of the hand, the nuclear waste problem is shown to be trivial......

I'll stop here, since this an article of emotion, rather than fact.

 

Does Kramer Junction provide baseload power? I kinda doubt it. Even with the thermal storage, there are short comings. Isn't Kramer backed-up with NG though? That seems to be the way to go, but there are CO2 emissions. I wonder how reduced they are compared to a standard NG plant of comparable size. That would be an interesting stat.

The waste problem can be mitigated with breader reactors (like the CANDU). The disadvantage, as I understand it, is that you end up with enriched, weapons grade stuff after a while. That is generarlly seen as a bad thing.

There are a handful of wind farms that used compressed air as a means of storing excess energy. There's a farm in Iowa that stores air in a suitable geologic stucture. Obviously wind isn't currently providing much in the way of baseload power.

I agree that nuclear has some potential, but it needs to be done carefully and as one component of a well thought out scheme. The real goal is to phase out coal.

 

One dollar spent on conservation would probably be worth about $100 spent on nuclear power.

Let me list the scary downsides of conservation:

 

I'd rather see a switch to hydro, wind. wave, solar and geothermal energy than leave 5000 generations of humans the responsibility of looking after our nuclear waste.

Look at the mess GM is in that they didn't put aside 70 years of retirement funds, they just left it for the future to find a solution. What will the earth be like after not putting aside 100,000 years of waste management costs.

Nuclear is OK as long as the cost includes the real cost of waste management.

 

I'm well aware of the population issue as well as HIPPO, I=PAT (see below) and numerous other gloom and doom issues that afflict humanity (rather it inflicts upon itself). The problem is, using nuclear to supply large portion of our energy needs does not fix any of those other problems which are equally as deadly. Nuclear also has a very lasting legacy. I'd rather endure energy shortages for a while so people get it through their heads that they need to conserve and support alternatives rather than putting other sources online so fast that they can continue to be energy gluttons and not even take a peek into what kind of degradation their lifestyle is imposing in the here and now as well as the future. To paraphrase Jared Diamond, "If you solve 11 of the 12 main problems the 12th will still kill us". A lot of scientific environmental folk are not against nuclear but most I've talked to do not see it as our savior either. Like I and other have stated above, it is a tool we should use carefully. A reduction in consumption is our low hanging fruit which has MANY benefits.

Definitions:

HIPPO - Habitat Destruction, Invasive Species, Population, Pollution, Overharvesting (factors endangering species). You can learn more by watching this short video by E.O. Wilson

I=PAT - One of the earliest attempts to describe the role of multiple factors in determining environmental degradation was the IPAT equation1. It describes the multiplicative contribution of population (P), affluence (A) and technology (T) to environmental impact (I). Environmental impact (I) may be expressed in terms of resource depletion or waste accumulation; population (P) refers to the size of the human population; affluence (A) refers to the level of consumption by that population; and technology (T) refers to the processes used to obtain resources and transform them into useful goods and wastes. The formula was originally used to emphasize the contribution of a growing global population on the environment, at a time when world population was roughly half of what it is now. It continues to be used with reference to population policy.

 

Ok other than retyping what you wrote in the post before mine do you know what happens to spent fossil fuels? They don't stay in the atmosphere and water forever in that form. They can be recycled into their constituant parts and reused by organisms (most of the chemicals can anyway). Bioremediation, the carbon cycle, transportation infrastructure, reduction in consumption, alternative technologies, and large scale plant filtering can go a long ways towards cleaning everything up but to assume that building a ton of overpriced, POLLUTING, and inefficient nuclear plants which produce waste products that last for a VERY long time and are not bioavailable for recycling (fungi store but do not break down nuclear waste) is kind of stupid. I never said rolling blackouts were going to reduce consumption directly. Being afflicted with energy shortages makes people change their minds about what's important and their purchasing decisions change and alters the I=PAT formula by introducing less harmful technologies like electric cars and solar arrays or even algae driven hydrogen? The point is you are are standing on a soap box and screaming from an emotional aspect, instead I'd rather see some honest facts spewed out that take into account ALL SYSTEMS not just the human one. If you forget everything else in life just remember this one thing, everything is connected.

I doubt we will reach the 18 billion mark. Most experts believe we will not top the 10 billion mark for very long.

As for breathing nuclear waste, I would say it is not likely right now but many have in the past and many still are. Look into nuclear weapons testing procedures and nuclear fallout for more info there.

 

I think you need to stop posting and read more threads in this forum before you make such an assumption.

You have less than a dozen posts under your belt and you come in screaming about an environmental issue that has been talked about quite a few times in this forum. I think you would enjoy some of those post so do a search for nuclear and if you are feeling bored and need some heavy reading seach "global wamring" in this section as well. LOL

To save you time searching for my academic background I'll list it for you here:


33yr old student

• AAS in Computer Technology
• Biology major with special focus in Ecology and Biodiversity (this includes classes on soil and natural resource conservation)
• Vice Predident of the Sierra College Environmentally Concerned Organization of Students
• Intern with a non-agressive Land Trust (conservation group)
• Member of the California Rangeland Conservation Coalition
• Volunteer and contract with Dry Creek Conservancy

I'm very worried about rapid climate change and ocean acidification but I realize we cannot trade one bad technology for another and do it wholesale.

 

Correct. A lot of Canadians are shockingly ignorant of the part Canada played in supplying plutonium to nuclear weapons programs in the US, France, and the UK

Actually, Canada has a long history of innovation in fuel enrichment. Eg, gasseous diffusion using uranium hexaflouride was invented at McGill University. The nuclear reactors used in India and Pakistan are copies of older model CANDU designs.

There is also a legacy of waste in the Canadian arctic - especially the Port Radium operation at Great Bear Lake - and around Uranium City, Saskatchewan

The Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility

I'm under the impression a lot of Canadians would rather pretend none of it happened.

 

These are not realistic solutions to the need of power required to run most cities in the world. Many places do not have reliable sources of solar, wind, or geothermal energy to even supply a few percent of the power needs for such cities. Go to Chicago or any of the thousands of North American cities on a typical winter day and you will realize these are not realistic solutions for even a fraction of a percent of the power needed to keep these cities running.

Nuclear works. A nuclear plant can supply tremendous amounts of power 24/7. With no pollutants. We already have a solution for our nuclear waste. Yucca Mountain in Nevada has the capability to store safely over a hundred years of projected waste with no impact to the surrounding environment. The opposition simply exists because many in Nevada are simply holding out for more money. Simple politics in action.

As with AGW, carbon credits and such, it is all about the money...

Rick
#4 2006

 

LOL!

It was actually just to show you that I do care. Care enough to dedicate my life to environmental studies. On the other hand, you probably should care about someone's educational and professional background when they are giving you their opinions.

 

Again, energy efficiency is the key to any solution being practical for the future. Simply tapping into new resources without a corresponding decrease in consumption will simply put us in the same boat we are in now just 10yrs down the road. That is assuming other factors don't take us out first.

 

The plants were designed for Natural Gas Operation when the Solar Output was insufficent. Turned out that the sun was rather reliable. Additionally, when the sun was covered (counted on one hand per year), the air conditioning demand was down as well.

The core point was that 15 years of accumulated operation has shown that concentrated solar plants cannot be called "unreliable" when nuclear plants have much longer down time per year. I know of no case where a solar plant had to be refueled or any case where a nuclear plant did not need refueling.