Robert Stone talks with Michael Moore at the Traverse City Film Festival
During the summer of 2013, Robert Stone, the director of Pandora’s Promise, was invited to show his documentary at the Traverse City Film Festival. Michael Moore, one of the most famous and financially successful documentary film makers in America, is the founder and president of the festival. After the showing, the two directors chatted about the film and took questions from the audience.
It was gratifying to hear the questions from the audience and to listen to Michael Moore express his own questioning attitude about his preexisting condition of assuming that nuclear energy should be fought by anyone who is “on the left”. As he stated near the end of the discussion, one thing that has encouraged him to think hard is the recognition that wind and solar cannot do the job of replacing fossil fuels. Here is a pertinent quote:
On those days when we have no sun, how am I going to heat my pizza?
Moore also pointed out that the definition of liberal in dictionaries includes having an open mind that is willing to be changed if presented with new information. This discussion is one more illustration of the fact that the conversation about nuclear energy continues to develop positive momentum. The discussions are exposing a far broader base of support than many historically active participants have assumed.
Thank you, Robert Stone, for making your conversation enabling film.
PS – Unless this video is a bootleg version, I would have thought that the production value of a panel discussion at a film festival would be higher than the one above.
This is the first thing I’ve seen Michael Moore in for a long time where he isn’t a raving leftwing fool. Hopefully it will pull some of his legion of leftist fans into the conversation.
First thing out of Moore’s mouth was “Carbon Footprint.” He still sounds like a libtard to me. Carbon effects are being blown totally out of proportion. Do they need to lie to gullible people to pull off a massive population cull? Obviously. Is carbon dioxide the threat? No.
Meanwhile nuclear power could have saved the day, but that has been undermined intentionally. It has been manipulated to be expensive and horrendously dangerous. Piling up used fuel is pure insanity and completely unnecessary. They are lying to us as usual because the PTB do not want mankind to have cheap safe energy.
“Pandora’s Promise” is filled with falsehoods. Its 5 “stars” are unqualified to claim nuclear power is safe.
To learn the truth, read my New York Times review of this film:
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/16/a-nuclear-submariner-challenges-a-pro-nuclear-film/
Dr. John Miller
@NuclearReporter
So what would you suggest, if not nuclear?
A study by McKinsey Associates in 2009 said by 2020 we can cut 23% of electricity use by efficiency. The US Renewable Energy Lab says that renewables can provide 80% of all US power needs by 2050, without building any backup plants.
Wind power’s price has dropped 50% in the past two years.
Amory Lovins’s research says that for a given investment, renewables can provide much more power than nuclear plants, and much faster. We’re already putting up in renewables the equivalent of several 1 GW nuclear plants per year.
Dr. John Miller
@NuclearReporter
So the renewable energy disaster in Germany isn’t occurring? They are still strip mining and burning lignite. Their Co2 levels from electricity generation are in their third year of increases.
Lignite still Germany’s primary energy source ( http://www.dw.de/lignite-still-germanys-primary-energy-source/a-16854175 )
Also even the rosy US estimates from the renewable lab require :
“Increased electric system flexibility, needed to enable electricity supply and demand balance with high levels of renewable generation, can come from a portfolio of supply- and demand-side options, including flexible conventional generation, grid storage, new transmission, more responsive loads, and changes in power system operations.”
They also INCLUDE NUCLEAR:
The renewable technologies explored in this study are components of a diverse set of clean energy solutions that also includes nuclear, efficient natural gas, clean coal, and energy efficiency. ( http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy13osti/52409-ES.pdf )
@John
…Germany … Co2 levels from electricity generation are in their third year of increases…
Sorry but that is wrong.
Below their GHG emissions: (in mln Ton CO2 equiv.)
2010: 944
2011: 917
2012: 931
Since 1996 emissions: -18%; since 1990: -26%.
The only country that reached the Kyoto target (-25% in 2020) already!
They decreased GHG with 12% since 2001, despite closing 10 of the 19 NPP’s they had in 2001. It shows their commitment to keep their environment clean.
No nuclear country comes even close.
No Bas you are incorrect. That is from heat and electricity.
Im getting beyond tired of this.
@Bas : Yes, you really seem to have had a problem reading “CO2 levels from electricity generation” in the sentence above.
Let’s say it again then, the emissions from electricity generation last year were as high as in 1997, at 317 GtCO2 , from http://www.umweltdaten.de/publikationen/fpdf-l/4488.pdf
So whilst solar and wind are touted as the heart of Germany’s CO2 success, in truth other sectors are responsible for all the actual progress.
Bas – Since 1996? Still trying to lie with statistics, eh?
BAS: I believe a large part of the success you are touting was due to shutting down a variety of very inefficient and polluting factories in the former East Germany. That’s laudable, but it is a special circumstance. If you look at more recent data, you get a better picture of the effect, or lack of it, due to the ‘energy revolution’.
For the record, the UBA website (German Environmental Protection Agency) has been reorganized so the link that jmdesp provided doesn’t work. The new one is this:
Carbon dioxide emissions of the German electricity mix, 1990-2012 (in German)
This is offical data and the numbers are clear, CO2 emissions per kilowatt hour of electricity are rising again after 2010, and the current estimate for 2012 is 576 g/kWh, highest since 2007.
@Bas
It would be wise for you to visit one of these Lignite burning plants. In the electric generating industry we call them “dirt burners.” The coal (it you really could call it coal) is a cross between peat moss and the better black soil that you see in some farm land. Pollution wise, you would be better off burning pulverized rubber tires.
@John T:
… incorrect. That is from heat and electricity.
Sorry, I misread your post.
@Jmdesp:
..emissions … last year … as high as in 1997
True, but only part of the story:
1- Choose any longer period, e.g. 1996-2012, and emissions went down. Even during shorter periods, e.g. 2002-2012 emissions went down. This fluctuate depending on weather, economy, etc.
If you calculate a regression line you see the long term trend is down.
2- This happened despite closing 10 of the 19 NPP’s since 2002!
Nuclear delivered 30% of German electricity in 2002 and only 16% in 2012.
So renewable succeeded in (over) compensating the loss of 14% CO2 free generating capacity. A succes!
@Brian:
..lie with statistics..
People here know that:
– Germany closed 8 NPP’s in 20011 (losing 12% of German electricity production);
– That it takes a few years to install new renewable that can deliver those 12%
Still they state that the Energiewende creates more CO2 while they know it is just a fluctuation due to these NPP closings. That is a real lie!
Look at the long term trend.
@SteveK9:
Consider the closings of so much nuclear capacity. Then you see it is a big success during the last few years. Not strange as Germany installed ~10GW/year renewable in 2011 and 2012.
@J.A.:
Thanks for the new link!
Consider my responses above.
@Rich
Efficiency power plants using Coal: ~41%. Using lignite: ~38%.
Regarding CO2: Lignite generates ~20% more CO2 per MWh compared to coal.
Regarding other dirt: In NL and Germany a plant can only get a license if it catches all.
The new power plants use circulating fluidized bed technology (an excess oxygen, low temperature burning process). That allow them to burn combinations of coal, lignite, biomass and waste. So there won’t be a specialized lignite plant.
And it takes even less time to bring online new or old coal-burning plants to make up that difference — even less time than that to start burning more Russian-supplied natural gas.
Yes, the progress made by Germany has depended on the CO2-free electricity production by its nuclear fleet. Even you have admitted that.
@Dr John Miller
I am from Sweden. You might wonder why I start with this information when adressing you. There are two reasons for this:
1, My english might be rubbish and gramatical wrong, it is my second language. I hope that you will read my answer and not judge me for that.
2, Sweden did go the nuclear patch during from early 1970 to 1980.
At that time, we removed heating by oil and electrical production by oil and coal. We cut our particle emissions and we halved our CO2 emissions.
During the same time Denmark (which is a country close to Sweden) did go the rote you said is possible. So far they have installed 4600 MW of windpower. The results? Not one single closed coal plant. Denmarks electrical production and consumtion can be seen at the following link (today is a very good day for wind, producing 1700 MW):
http://energinet.dk/Flash/Forside/UK/index.html
The fun part is that they are dependent on Swedish water and nuclear to import energy when the wind is not blowing.
In Sweden we have tried to replace our nuclear powerplants with special feed in tariffs for windpower and bioenergy. So far we have failed. We have installed 3600 MW and with that we are producing the same amount of electrical energy as Barsebäck (which was closed in early 2000 and had 2 600 MW reactors). So with an installed effect of 3600 MW windpower we are matching 1200 MW of nuclear energy. Sweden has another 9000 MW of nuclear to replace. Wind is failing my friend. Reports can say X but the real world is saying another thing.
@Jmdesp:
..emissions … last year … as high as in 1997
True, but only part of the story:
1- Choose any longer period, e.g. 1996-2012, and emissions went down. Even during shorter periods, e.g. 2002-2012 emissions went down. This fluctuate depending on weather, economy, etc.
If you calculate a regression line you see the long term trend is down.
2- This happened despite closing 10 of the 19 NPP’s since 2002!
Nuclear delivered 30% of German electricity in 2002 and only 16% in 2012.
So renewable succeeded in (over) compensating the loss of 14% CO2 free generating capacity. A succes!
@Brian:
..lie with statistics..
People here know that:
– Germany closed 8 NPP’s in 20011 (losing 12% of German electricity production);
– That it takes a few years to install new renewable that can deliver those 12%
Still they state that the Energiewende creates more CO2 while they know it is just a fluctuation due to these NPP closings. That is a real lie!
Look at the long term trend.
@SteveK9:
Consider the closings of so much nuclear capacity. Then you see it is a big success during the last few years. Not strange as Germany installed ~10GW/year renewable in 2011 and 2012.
@J.A.:
Thanks for the new link!
Consider my responses above.
@Rich
Efficiency power plants using Coal: ~41%. Using lignite: ~38%.
Regarding CO2: Lignite generates ~20% more CO2 per MWh compared to coal.
Regarding other dirt: In NL and Germany a plant can only get a license if it catches all.
The new power plants use circulating fluidized bed technology (an excess oxygen, low temperature burning process). That allow them to burn combinations of coal, lignite, biomass and waste. So there won’t be a specialized lignite plant.
So forty years of large scale US civilian nuclear deployment and not a single civilian causality doesn’t count?
In the same time frame hundreds of thousands if not more have succumbed to coal related illnesses and disasters. Thousands to tens of thousands of casualties related to oil and gas, some examples recently so terrible no remains have even been found. People literally erased from existence.
Doesn’t the fact that reality has not only proved you wrong but that any perspective is totally lacking, and then of course that you keep citing the newest deploying nuclear technology (FBR) in decades old prototype criticisms and conceptualizations, Doesn’t that bother you?
Also that issues of general conventional pollution, climate change and acidification are magnitudes greater worries as well of course.
Are you even aware of any of that?
At the end of WWII, the US decided to invest hundreds of billions of dollars into nuclear. Had it invested the same sum into wind and solar power, we would have saved all the same lives, plus the 16,000 to 24,000 lives that will be lost because of fatal Chernobyl cancers.
Dr. John Miller
@NuclearReporter
Chernobyl is not US nuclear technology and top casualty estimates are around 4000. There is NO SCIENTIFIC consensus on extending low doses to mortality estimates. There is NO body of research that backs that process.
I know the UCS has its “experts” that say otherwise used their own modeling based in their own theories. They are not consistent with radiation findings from other studies.
Not to mention that the 4000 deaths comes from the WHO and they themselves have come out against the methodology they used. Even using the 4000 deaths from the WHO, the casualty rate/MWh is lower for nuclear than wind or solar. So replacing all of the nuclear plants with magic wind/solar farms would have resulted in greater casualties. However all of this won’t matter to the good doctor. He shares in the great traditions of the UCS and others. Half Truths, exaggerations, outdated info, and outright lies are the orders of the day.
I think ive read that somewhere Cory, that they highballed it just to be safe.
But what bothers me most is since when did it become OK in science to offer up a theory and also challenge aspects of the supporting scientific consensus because it wasn’t in line with your theory?
I mean its accepted you create a theory on new offered information and established science. They decided they didn’t like nuclear power then decided to re write the science in a flurry of statistical “studies,” with stated or implied conclusions completely unsupported in consensus science, to better fit their anti nuclear thesis. And not just in this case or with this issue. There are plenty of examples with TMI and Fukushima.
Who does that. How is such, at best, poor reasoning even allowed to occur unnoticed. Especially as many of these people are affiliated with institutions of higher learning. Its a colossal red flag.
@John T
Many experts make real estimates regarding the damage of Chernobyl.
Those involve more Down syndrome, more stillbirth, more congenital malformations, lower intelligence, more DNA damage a.o. visible via the changed man/women ratio in new born.
IAEA/WHO also did not count enhanced perinatal death, etc.
Chernobyl forum considered only 3 countries and that even in such a way that Ukraine government found it necessary to produce a corrective report.
Real objective estimates are in the range of a million. Most still will come as enhanced low level radiation shares the same delay regarding cancer, etc. as that with smoking and low level asbestos (20-60years).
No, those are crackpot fringe estimates. The WHO did thorough work with what reliable data they had. Crackpots, on the other hand, just make up numbers. Idiots repeat them.
All the money in the world cannot increase the energy density of sunlight at the Earth’s surface, or of air moving at a given speed.
@George
That is correct. But why should that be so important?
The Germans have solar panels on about 2% of their roofs. Those have a capacity of ~30Gw.
So if they put the same low yield solar panels on 50% of their roofs, their capacity will be ~750GW. The max. consumption of the Germans is ~65GW (10 times less)!
These PV-panels deliver only ~15% yield, while new panels do ~20% yield and 25-30% is expected within some years (labs show already yields of ~47%. The theoretical max is ~70%).
John Miller,
Chernobyl created far more human damage and death.
It is not widely known as the 2006 Chernobyl forum excluded all research regarding its effects in West-European countries.
This study by the official German responsible research institute in Munich, published in a peer reviewed journal, showed 30% increase in stillbirth frequency, and ~60% increase in congenital malformations, Down, etc. per mSv/a (p<0.001).
They measured the whole population in districts in South-German that got fall-out levels of ~0.5mSv/a and in nearby districts that got almost nothing (because it did not rain there when the cloud passed), during 5years before Chernobyl and 5 years thereafter.
@Bas
It looks like your “peer reviewed journal” has reorganized its web pages. The link you have provided so many times before is no longer working.
@Bas
The conclusions published on page 125 of your linked study are not conclusive. The researchers are not confident in their findings. In fact, they appear to be quite defensive because they know that their work is contradicting the work of many other competent researchers.
(Emphasis added.)
@Rod
Very kind that you notified me about the not working link! The system added an ” at the end of the URL (occurred ~2 months ago also once).
If you want to read the linked article, either take the ” off at the end of the URL or use:
http://www.helmholtz-muenchen.de/ibb/homepage/hagen.scherb/CongenMalfStillb_0.pdf
@Rod
You cite from Discussion and not from conclusions.
They did not write ‘conclusions’ as their results are clear.
They only discuss further implications in Discussion.
Pretty obvious that the researches are careful as:
– earlier studies, also those of other authors with similar results, were attacked (IAEA/UNSCEAR/WHO);
– other researchers found nothing, because they had not such unique sensitive measurement tools.
In the first paragraph that you cite, the authors discuss the problem of missing biological theory/hypotheses and experimental data (Their study is a ‘field’ study. Experimental is in the ‘lab’).
For a scientist it is highly unsatisfactory to find results without a good theory that explains those results.
That discussion has nothing to do with their study results.
Remark: Assuming computer power grows another 100fold in a few decades, I believe the missing biological theory will be solved then.
In the second paragraph you cite, the authors note that their results are more precise than the very unreliable estimates of UNSCEAR and BEIR. Hence the UNSCEAR and BEIR estimations are attacked (low statistical power, etc).
Of course causal inference is difficult, as there is no method to detect wether a specific damage (stillbirth, Down, cancer, etc) was caused by Chernobyl radiation or background radiation or other causes…
But their study in S-Germany districts shows that areas that got Chernobyl fallout delivering enhanced radiation levels of only 0.5mSv/a, also got enhanced levels of stillbirth (~+30% per mSv/a), serious congenital malformations & Down syndrome (~+60% per mSv/a) shortly thereafter. They also showed studies that showed such effects at 0.1mSv/a.
In the 80’s the US made large investment in wind leading to the deployment of 15000 wind turbines in 1986 at Tehachapi.
It built in 1984 the SEGS (Solar Energy Generating Systems) which is still the largest CSP plant in the world.
But despite the limits they have today, those technologies were even less advanced at the time, and they totally failed to have any significant impact. Due to a huge rate of failure, wind turbines at Tehachapi were massively abandoned. SEGS was massively expensive and couldn’t be replicated at any less favorable site.
So you lie, solar and wind were already tried back then, it’s because they failed that not more was deployed, not because the US didn’t try.
@jmdesp
… those technologies were even less advanced at the time…
These were wrong investments. They should have invested in:
– research for bigger wind turbines. EU study found that 20MW is feasible with present technology. We now have 8MW while those wind turbines were ~0.1MW…
– research for solar PV cells and panels with higher yields and lower production costs.
At that time yields were ~5% costing 10 times more than now.
Now standard panels are ~15%, migrating towards >20%. While 47% has been showed.
First of all, these two projects were built 40 years after WWII, after the US government had subsidized nuclear power with billions of dollars. Second, the two projects cost a drop in the bucket of what the government has spent on nuclear power. You don’t just stop after finding a difficulty. You keep supplying money and let research fix the problems.
Dr. John Miller
@NuclearReporter
No you would not, because Denmark did exactly that and they have failed.
@John
…So forty years of large scale US civilian nuclear deployment and not a single civilian causality…
You cannot claim that as:
– there were significant radio-active cloud, etc. emissions (a.o. TMI);
– the stillbirth, Dow syndrome, congenital malformations, child and adult death that these emissions caused cannot be distinguished.
So there is simply no tool to measure it!
But all indications are that LNT applies even at very low level (<0.5mSv/a additional radiation) as West-European research showed after Chernobyl.
And that the unborn are ~600times more vulnerable compared to adults (supported by medical radiation research; so physicians are very reluctant to X-ray pregnant women).
Please provide ONE source of legitimate research.
This is too much. You cannot simply make up ailments not even scientifically connected to any of those doses of radiation.
This is even a bit much for you bas.
Dont do this. You are going to look very foolish.
@John,
Please provide ONE source of legitimate research.
Check the one in my post of September 17, 2013 at 5:50 AM (above);
This study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of USA, by US, UK and Japanese universities and radiation research institutes explains the (im)possibilities around measuring the effects of low doses of ionizing radiation.
I cite from the summary:
“…unlikely that we will be able to directly and precisely quantify cancer risks in human populations at doses much below 10 mSv. Our inability to quantify such risks does not, however, imply that the corresponding societal risks are necessarily negligible; a very small risk, if applied to a large number of individuals, can result in a significant public health problem… “
and regarding LNT:
“…linear assumption is not necessarily the most conservative approach, as sometimes has been suggested, and it is likely that it will result in an underestimate of some radiation risks and an overestimate of others. Given that it is supported by experimentally grounded, quantifiable, biophysical arguments, a linear extrapolation of cancer risks from intermediate to very low doses currently appears to be the most appropriate methodology.“
@Bas
If you cannot measure the effects of low dose radiation, either the effects are too small to worry about or they do not exist.
See “Dunning-Kruger effect”, “poster child for”.
@Engineer-Poet:
“You believe that simply observing someone do something qualifies you as an expert, as in, “I’ve seen Mick Jaeger twelve times, how hard would it be to strut around on stage like that– provided I had access to his wardrobe.””
Oh, I think we *have* to add another name to the Dunning-Kruger list ! In some way, it’s an even worst case than Bas.
From the full report:
“The reader is reminded that this article addresses the risks of
low doses of x- and gamma-rays. ” ( http://www.pnas.org/content/100/24/13761.full.pdf+html )
They go on to theorize about linear low dose responses in SOME cases but present no specifics or qualifications. And even in their area of study they present no conclusive observational data and even state it is extremely difficult to prove either way.
The entire study basically says in general, linear no threshold works best in all cases but on the low end its murky, might work well for some and not at all for others.
It was a 2003 restatement of what was unknown. Which is nothing new, solid or revealing in this a area. Please provide ONE source of legitimate research.
The reference(s) you provided (that worked) also didn’t actually support any of your claims from your post Bas. Did you notice that as well?
So there are logical process and structural errors in there as well.
I dont know where you hang out usually before you come here but they are not encouraging you to learn or think; which requires updates and self correction. I imagine its primarily a lose political endeavor. the kind that usually places more emphasis on your ability to overlook and forget scientific and factual basis.
Dunning-Kruger indeed.
@John T Tucker
I finally looked up Dunning-Kruger. I concur with the diagnosis. It reminded me of a JO who once worked for me. He was a scary combination of stupid, obnoxious and arrogant. He made a lot of mistakes, his watch team hated him and did not always provide adequate backup, and he refused to ask for help. To this day, my wife smiles knowingly if I use his name as an expletive; she heard a lot of complaints while I was dealing with the man.
@Bas
One mile south of TMI is a three unit COAL fired power plant. Each of these plants emits has for the last 40 years emitted more radiation in its flue gas each year than TMI did during the accident. The coal mines in Pennsylvania are laced with Radon, and there are no scrubbers that remove it from the smoke. Most of the time that an area radiation monitor went off on and around TMI it was caused by the wind blowing this radioactive smoke from the coal plant and being detected by the radiation monitors. Lignite is not much better.
Self test – If the small amount of radiation released by the accident killed the number of people you claim or think (actually ZERO), how many does/has the radiation from the coal kill?
Bas – Ahh … so it’s entirely faith based. Good point!
And here we see the difficulties in understanding. You are talking about faith-based consequences, that you believe to be true. Everybody else is talking about evidence-based outcomes, which is what the scientific method requires.
Thus, there is no point in continuing this argument, because the only resolution that would result in consensus would be to change your deeply held beliefs or some sort of brainwashing of everyone else into your anti-nuclear cult. I don’t see either possibility happening any time soon.
“But all indications are that LNT applies even at very low level (<0.5mSv/a additional radiation) as West-European research showed after Chernobyl."
Nonsense!
There are regions on earth where people live that have background radiation levels that differ by FAR more than 0,5 mSv, and there is no difference in health effects. Denver and Fukushima differ by more than 2 mSv, for example. Other regions differ by more than 200 mSv.
You need to put down whatever it is you are smoking Bas. It stinks.
Sorry, I meant mSv, not MSv…
2005 – French Academy of Sciences (Académie des Sciences) and the National Academy of Medicine (Académie nationale de Médecine)
Dose-effect relationships and estimation of the carcinogenic effects
of low doses of ionizing radiation
…. In conclusion, this report raises doubts on
the validity of using LNT for evaluating the
carcinogenic risk of low doses (< 100 mSv) and
even more for very low doses (< 10 mSv). The
LNT concept can be a useful pragmatic tool for
assessing rules in radioprotection for doses
above 10 mSv; however since it is not based on biological concepts of our current
knowledge, it should not be used without precaution for assessing by extrapolation the risksassociated with low and even more so, with very low doses (< 10 mSv), especially for benefit-risk assessments imposed on radiologists by the European directive 97-43….
… An empirical relationship which has been just validated for doses higher
than 200 mSv may lead to an overestimation of risks (associated with doses one hundred fold lower), and this overestimation could discourage patients from undergoing useful examinations and introduce a bias in radioprotection measures against very low doses (<10 mSv). ( http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.126.1681&rep=rep1&type=pdf )
@John T
“… may lead to an overestimation of risks (associated with doses one hundred fold lower), and this overestimation could discourage patients from undergoing useful examinations..
So target was also to minimize refusal of patients to undergo X-ray, CT-scans, etc. in France. Hence they state:
“maylead to overestimation of risks” …with doses of 2mSv.
Note:
– that they also recognize that 2mSv implies some risk is involved;
– that they also did not consider the serious heredity effects.
While a.o. the German Chernobyl study (I posted a link in this thread) showed that those effects are far more serious with 30% more stillbirth and 60% more Down, etc. per mSv/a.
Brenner & Sachs showed shortly after your study was published, that the basis is weak: http://www.raraf.org/journal/reb2.pdf
I quote:
“We suggest that, to the contrary, even if there are sig-
nificant deviations from linearity in the relevant dose
range, potentially caused by the effects of inter-cellular
interactions or immune surveillance, we know almost
nothing quantitatively about these effects. Conse-
quently, we do not know the magnitude, nor even the
direction of any such deviations from linearity—the
risks could indeed be lower than those predicted by a
linear extrapolation, but they could well be higher.”
Unfortunately, while progress goes on, we still do not understand the mechanism. Even now scientists can only speculate (often called an educated guess) …
Firstly, your original article has been amended and rebutted quite robustly by the dot earth blog and in the comment thread respectively. Even Jim Hansen responded to his criticism.
Secondly, Beyond Nuclear had and attempt like yourself to attack Pandora’s Promise, but that was equally rebutted by a Nuclear Engineering Ph.D from the University of Michigan. http://www.whatisnuclear.com/resources/pandoras_promise.html
You should have a look at the “What is Nuclear” website. They are expertly qualified young engineers with a wealth of knowledge and passion.
I read your review as quoted by Revkin, and I have this to say:
You’re not an expert on the physics or design of fast-breeder reactors. You’re not even STEM-educated, just an ideologue. Hansen talks to the experts and takes their conclusions seriously, you ignore them BECAUSE they are experts (in a field of study that you seem to consider immoral to exist). For you to berate Hansen is pure hypocrisy.
When did you do your scholarly work in risk analysis?
Hans Bethe’s calculations (read the paper) included a host of shortcuts in the direction of pessimism, and concluded with this prediction of utter disaster:
Oh, wait, that’s a small fraction of the Chernobyl reactor explosion (estimated at 1 ton equivalent), which itself wouldn’t have breached a standard containment building. But even more to the point,
(a) the worst-case scenario is physically impossible, because coolant could not be removed instantaneously from the reactor core (without shattering it into a sub-critical configuration) and it could neither melt simultaneously nor collapse at the rate postulated in the 1956 analysis (long before finite element analysis was feasible),
(b) loss-of-coolant is essentially impossible with “swimming pool” designs, and
(c) insertion of control rods would prevent a critical configuration from arising regardless.
The EBR-II underwent full loss-of-cooling tests without so much as overheating. Modern designers believe test results, and those say that the most likely result is… nothing. Since you had to know this, your statement can only be deemed a lie.
Diptheria and anthrax toxins are far more deadly, yet you don’t deem them immoral. A number of people have taken considerable body burdens of plutonium, and lived to ripe old age. Fast-neutron reactors are the best-tested and most economic method of consuming (and thus destroying) plutonium, since they can do it at a profit. But most strangely, you talk about material that’s presumably buried as waste… then somehow assume it will wind up as fine particles where people can breathe them. For someone with a Ph.D, you are weak on causal chains. Or do you know that the scenario is bunk, but write about it to produce fear? That qualifies as a lie also.
No you can’t. Weapons-grade plutonium is specially made for purity. Even weapons-grade Pu requires extraordinary care to get it to explode, like implosion designs which compress a spherical shell to a prompt-supercritical lump in a microsecond and neutron generators to initiate the reaction at exactly the right point… which still results in the occasional “fizzle”. It is impossible to turn reactor-grade Pu into bombs.
It might be worthwhile to let the bloody-minded think they can, though. With 29 pounds of it you could could certainly kill yourself with a criticality accident, but not much more. Letting would-be terrorists expend extraordinary effort for a high likelihood of killing only themselves sounds like a worthwhile defensive strategy to me. They would be much more likely to succeed with diptheria, anthrax or Sarin.
Only steadfast enemies know enough to do that? If you actually pay attention to the personal accounts in the film and elsewhere, that is the sort of dishonesty which turns people away from the anti-nuclear ideology. George Monbiot’s story of his break with Helen Caldicott is representative.
We need upwards of 80% reduction in TOTAL (transportation included) carbon emissions to stabilize the atmosphere. Nuclear power can do it. Nothing else can, besides a collapse to pre-industrial civilization (with billions of deaths).
I calculate that if you stood at the focus of a properly-aimed 100 m² parabolic mirror on a sunny day, you would collect a fatal dose of solar thermal radiation in seconds. Even unconcentrated doses can give you skin burns. Better not go out under that unshielded thermonuclear reactor, its radiation is dangerous! And ban di-hydrogen monoxide while you’re at it.
In the AP1000, pumping water in through (provided) auxiliary water supply flanges (mentioned in the PDF) can provide make-up water after 72 hours even if none of the on-site equipment can be started. The only critical water supply is the PCS tank on the roof, which is not itself essential if water is sprayed onto the containment’s steel shell by some other means.
China is expected to fire up its first of 4 AP-1000’s about 13 months from now; they have expressed none of the FUD you proffer in your hatchet piece. The subject of your impassioned hand-wringing is simple heat-transfer calculations, the sort of thing studied by undergrads. I doubt you’ve ever driven from Paradise, MI to Austin, NV; for that matter, it may that nobody has ever driven directly between those two points. Your fear-mongering is equivalent to claiming that good drivers would likely get lost on the way. That’s ridiculous.
You forgot fast-spectrum reactors cooled by liquid lead (Russia’s BN-800), molten-chloride fuel fast-spectrum reactors, and molten-fluoride thermal-spectrum thorium reactors. The last two “melt down” before being started and the fuel remains molten during their operation. They can’t go “boom” because any overtemperature expands the fuel salt, pushing some out of the reactor core and rendering the reactor sub-critical.
After spending a fair amount of space railing at the passive-safety features of the AP-1000, I have to note that you don’t say a word about the passive-cooling features of GE’s S-PRISM fast-spectrum reactor. The outer wall of its coolant pool is fed by convective air chimneys which will dissipate excess heat indefinitely, without any supply of anything.
Everything you’ve written is arguably (and much of it, provably) slanted to reach false conclusions. Why are you lying, Doctor Miller?
Lying? Are you kidding?! Dr. Miller never lies. I know because he told us so himself, and if he never lies, then he must not be lying when he says that he is not lying. That’s just basic logic.
Philistine! Don’t you know that Dr. Miller’s degree is in Social Psychology? As we all know, Social Psychologists never lie and never alter, or even completely fabricate, data simply to prove their predetermined conclusions. No, that would be unethical. The “Dr.” in “Dr. John Miller, PhD” means that he is absolutely incapable of telling a lie. 😉
Oh yes, this follows logically. Because one psychologist faked his data, I’m a liar. Ha ha!
Dr. John Miller
@NuclearReporte
Why don’t you address the very well done critique instead of using Brian’s very funny post as a distraction.
No, Dr. Miller, I wrote emphatically that you are not a liar. You never lie. Didn’t you read what I wrote? After pointing out this fact to us over and over and over, again and again, in countless comments, how can be so confused on this point?
Is this some sort of test? 😉 Like trying to logically determine whether the statement “I am now lying” is true or false? I bet it is, you crafty rascal you!
So, you never lie and you are a liar. Wow! This is starting to become very “quantum” all of a sudden. Where is Schrodinger when you need him?
Nevertheless, I have faith that, any minute now, Dr. Miller will inform us that he knows more atomic physics than the rest of us — just like he knows more nuclear engineering than the rest of us — and he will be able to explain this paradox to everyone’s satisfaction, without lying.
You might want to look up the meaning of this term?
It seems pretty clear to me why this conversation between Stone and Moore is so successful and rewarding (while still generating plenty of points for discussion and an evolution of changing views). First, the two participants have respect for each other. And second, neither appears to adhere to dogmatic views (and appreciates when new information is presented and conventional notions are challenged). I would hazard to guess this has something to do with why 80% or more of the hands went up in the room (and people found the discussion interesting and compelling), rather than being beaten over the head with trite talking points, over-rehearsed canards, and baseless character attacks. I believe we saw that debate already, and it was none too interesting.
Could we be a little more interesting. I’m tired of reading (and responding) to this juvenile and humorless crap (that goes on for pages and pages). Just a thought.
Great expose Engineer-poet. Thanks a lot.
Joris
@Engineer-Poet
Request permission to elevate your takedown to the front page.
Granted.
I would appreciate correction of the superscript in the Hans Bethe quote (I put it in, your blog software removed the <sup> tag) and proper HTML formatting of the list of points just below it instead of the half-assed job that’s the best I can do without the <ol> tag.
And as long as I’m grousing about that, is there anyone to whom you could pass a list of requests to expand the allowed list of HTML tags and character-set escapes? It would be good to have <ol> (with modifiers), <ul>, <li>, ², ³, <sup>, <sub> and probably a bunch more.
@Engineer-Poet
CORRECTED VERSION–PLEASE DELETE THE ORIGINAL VERSION
No, I’m not an expert on fast-breeder design. I’m not an expert at anything nuclear. I was a qualified practitioner of nuclear power, like lots of other Navy nuke officers. I don’t need to be an expert because I provide evidence nuclear power has safety problems.
In the case of breeders, they can melt and they might explode. It is evidence that determines the truth, not someone’s apparent expertise.
Hansen’s error is not to realize that humans often speak beyond their evidence, especially if they are committed to an idea. So Hansen never reads evidence, he just asks his buddies their opinions. What they give back is not evidence, but rather their belief, the Nuclear Dream, the just-so story that nuclear is safe, clean and cheap. It is demonstrably none of those.
Your claim that a fast breeder with sodium cooling cannot melt because it must break into several subcritical pieces is false. You forget that breeders contain several critical masses. Therefore, it’s easy to melt into a super-critical mass and explode. Read Dr. Richard Webb’s classic book, “The Explosion Hazards of the Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor.” He nails it.
Moreover, when the breeder loses coolant, you automatically have a sodium fire that can heat the fuel more towards melting.
If you think an explosion of 160 lbs of dynamite in a fast breeder is acceptable, then you are quite mistaken. Besides, today’s breeders would load much more fuel, and if they exploded, the force would be much larger.
The EBR-2 was never proved to be totally passively safe. While it’s great that you can shut off cooling or the heat sink from 100% power and it will eventually cool down, that’s not the pivotal test. Because breeders are designed with positive void coefficients of reactivity, the most important test is turning off cooling or the heat sink when the reactor is rapidly rising in power. The positive coefficient means that once the reactor gets hot enough to start creating voids of sodium, the power will automatically rise, creating more voids that make power rise some more.
Dr. Charles Till is a giant in getting EBR-2 built in the culture of the AEC at the time, and he fervently believes these plants are passively safe, but until he proves they can handle the automatic rapid rise in power from the positive void coefficient, he hasn’t proved it.
Physically, there is good reason to doubt that the reactor could handle it. The two main negative reactivity coefficients of reactivity, Doppler broadening and fuel expansion, don’t turn on until the plant heats up substantially. But temperature rise has to lag power rise, so the positive reactivity gets a good head start on the negative reactivity.
Diptheria and anthrax are not immoral because humans didn’t create them. Man made plutonium, and it must be sequestered for a quarter of a million years. Why knows if a financial system will even exist then.
Since no one can predict conditions on Earth so far in the future, nobody knows that buried plutonium cannot somehow be unleashed in a breathable form. So we must safeguard it that long.
Your claims that the AP1000 can be cooled after 72 hours are oversimplistic. Had AP1000s been at Fukushima, we couldn’t have refilled them. We had no on-site power for 11 days, and you couldn’t get a fire truck close enough to the plants to even spray water on them.
It’s true there are other possible liquid-metal breeders than sodium-cooled. But none of those systems is nearly as well developed as the sodium-cooled system.
You are absolutely wrong that atom bombs cannot be made with reactor-grade plutonium. The US built and exploded one.
Last, it’s untrue that no system but nuclear can reduce fossil fuel to 20% or less of our use. The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory study said renewables can provide 80% of all our non-transportation energy needs by 2050.
Put my comments into perspective with yours. You are trained as an engineer as an undergrad, and I was not. Yet, in point after point above, what you believe is incomplete. You aren’t aware of evidence I provide. That proves once again that I don’t need to be an expert to find fault with nuclear power. I just need the evidence I have provided.
Dr. John Miller
@Nuclear Reporter
@John
You wrote:
Because breeders are designed with positive void coefficients of reactivity, the most important test is turning off cooling or the heat sink when the reactor is rapidly rising in power. The positive coefficient means that once the reactor gets hot enough to start creating voids of sodium, the power will automatically rise, creating more voids that make power rise some more.
Can you describe what would be causing the rapid rise in power at the time that the cooling is lost?
If humans built it, some human can make power rise rapidly. A terrorist might hack in to a computer with control software and force it to raise power rapidly. When it actually happens, we’ll all say, “Darn, why didn’t we think of that?” But we never do, until it’s too late.
Dr. John Miller
@NuclearReporter
@John
You wrote:
A terrorist might hack in to a computer with control software and force it to raise power rapidly. When it actually happens, we’ll all say, “Darn, why didn’t we think of that?” But we never do, until it’s too late.
Please recall that we are talking about the passive safety tests conducted on EBR-II. Can you describe the computer system/network connectivity that you imagine would have been the pathway for this mythical terrorist to “hack” into the reactor control system of that specific reactor?
I’ll give you a little hint: the test was conducted in 1986.
Gee, why haven’t all these hackers hit and blown up easier and way more numerous deadly targets like chemical and gas plant and refineries by now? They just haven’t thought of it yet or those industries got hack-proof computers??
James Greenidge
Queens NY
@James
My guess is that those who designed and implemented any IP compatible digital control systems had the good sense to leave them isolated from the wider internet.
Seriously, who on this green earth would think it a good idea to expose such vital systems to the internet? It would be like building an incredibly loud speaker into the bow of a submarine that continually blasts the phrase “SHOOT ME, I’M A SUBMARINE ON A SECRET MISSION” in the direction of the open ocean.
@John
The alarmists crying out that power plant control systems can be remotely hacked are assuming that all the computer systems controlling the reactor are (A) capable of internet connectivity and (B) are actually connected to the internet. Okay, perhaps it’s possible that someone could get on site and hack the things directly, but how would they do it? Many of the systems are (from what I am told) bespoke computer systems that are generally rather old and very specialised. The hacker would not be hacking some average run of the mill government machine running windows xp. What’s to say that the hacker actually knows how to deal with old or unusual hardware?
Earlier, you mentioned that weapons had been made using reactor grade Plutonium. As I recall, the 1962 test (the only one conducted by the US, to my knowledge) was created using material from the UK under the 1958 US-UK Mutual Defence Agreement. However, the isotopic composition of the material used in the 1962 test was never released. All that is known about that material is that it has the label “Reactor grade”. How do we know that the material used was not simply a batch of fuel that was only slightly less pure than what the US called “Weapons grade” at the time?
Gareth – The “reactor grade” material was spent Magnox fuel. The UK is shortly about to shut down its last Magnox reactor, and there will never be another one built. Magnox reactors are well-known for their ability to produce weapons grade material if desired.
Anyone who thinks that Maxnox fuel and LWR fuel are in any way similar when it comes to bomb making is a complete and utter idiot. Yes, I mean Dr. Miller.
“Gareth – The “reactor grade” material was spent Magnox fuel. The UK is shortly about to shut down its last Magnox reactor, and there will never be another one built. Magnox reactors are well-known for their ability to produce weapons grade material if desired.”
Yes, I knew that. It was part of their design to be able to create fuel usable for a weapon. Hardly your average “waste” or “reactor grade” material and most definitely not your average reactor either.
“Anyone who thinks that Maxnox fuel and LWR fuel are in any way similar when it comes to bomb making is a complete and utter idiot.”
This I also knew.
“Yes, I mean Dr. Miller.”
Even as an untrained but interested layman, I could tell! Full disclosure, I’m pursuing an undergraduate degree in English literature after having served 6 years in the British army. Definitely not an engineer! I actually just returned from an open day at Oxford university.
No, I don’t believe that he is an idiot. Idiots don’t get doctorates in any field. I believe him to be wrong, you (and many others) know him to be wrong but that does not in any way make him an idiot.
The above comment I posted at September 20, 2013 at 5:14 PM was in reply to Brian Mays.
I really should avoid commenting when I’m this tired!
Thank you for your civility. For the record, I never said a thing about Magnox fuel or LWR fuel. I don’t know where my detractors made that up. So I’m not wrong, because I never claimed any such connection.
As the Aussies say, “Good on you” that you completed six years in the British Army. I’m sure you will do well in your studies, given your open-minded attitude.
Dr. John Miller
@NuclearReporter
“Dr.” Miller – Made that up? Did you or did you not write the following in the comments here:
I think that the record is clear. That “reactor-grade” plutonium came from Magnox fuel.
Are you so frigging stupid that you did not realize that?!! By talking about “atom bombs” made with “reactor-grade plutonium,” you were talking about Magnox fuel.
Geez … “Dr. NuclearReporter” don’t you know anything about the topic you claim to “report” about? You’re “not wrong” in your mind only because you are too damn ignorant to realize that you’re wrong and too damn stubborn to learn any better.
You are wrong. The United States has/had its own dual-purpose reactors since 1943. That’s where we got the plutonium for our atom bombs, and the reactor-grade plutonium that we used once in a bomb to prove it would work.
Your insults say more about the kind of person you are than they do about the kind of person I am.
Dr. John Miller
@NuclearReporter
“Dr.” Miller – No, those are called production reactors, and they produce … plutonium. That is their only purpose.
Considering that the “reactor-grade” plutonium used in the “bomb” came from a Magnox reactor, and the last Magnox reactor in the world will be shut down in a couple of years, I’m not going to lose any sleep over this issue.
@Dr. Miller.
Yet you deployed that old canard anyway. Did you know at the time you said it that it is misleading, our are you just learning that now?
Your comments are entirely speculation. You haven’t given one fact.
Dr. John Miller
@NuclearRepporter
@John
Gareth is correct – there is no possible way that the “reactor-grade” test was done with LWR fuel. It was done with fuel from reactors that are well known for being design to be “dual-purpose.”
https://atomicinsights.com/proving-a-negative-why-modern-used-nuclear-fuel-cannot-be-used-to-make-a-weapon/
Not to mention that the definition of what qualifies as “reactor grade” plutonium has changed since what it was in 1962. If the same test were performed today, the material used would not be called “reactor grade.”
Please give evidence and citations for your assertion.
That’s the WHO number Mr Miller, even if the quote is a bit approximative :
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs313/en/index.html
– 2 million premature deaths mostly in developing countries from indoor air pollution
– 1.3 million deaths worldwide per year from urban outdoor air pollution
Not all of that urban outdoor pollution comes from fossil fuel, however it very strongly impact the two countries where urban outdoor pollution is the most damaging, China and India.
Very fortunately those two countries have understood what the best solution would be, and have both an ambitious nuclear development program. China has currently around 30 GW which construction is finishing and that will be put on-line during the next 3 years, India has a smaller program but still powerful, with for example a new 1GW plant going on-line at full power next month, and a breeder reactor next year.
Thanks for the link. Good to know it’s only 2 million, and not 3 million, from indoor air pollution. I guess the problem is less bad than I thought. Still bad though.
I never said it came from LWRs. Stop making up stuff.
@Gareth
… those who … implemented any IP compatible digital control systems had the good sense to leave them isolated from the wider internet..
That is what the Iranians did.
But still their centrifuges were damaged by the Stux (or variant) virus..
@Bas
Incorrect. Those were specialised industrial control units by siemens. They were not connected to the internet as those units have no provision for internet connectivity (Known as internet protocol, or “IP”). That attack simply could not have come via the internet. No way, no how. It is simply due to the fact that the siemens industrial control units have no IP capability. They do have a limited networking provision, where the devices can be connected to a controlling device (Which *could* be a full, internet capable PC). One could attack the controller via the internet if it were connected, but there is no good reason to connect the device to the internet. What would you gain through opening up the network to the internet? Nothing but an enormous security headache.
It is far more likely that someone got on the inside and attacked the network to which the devices were attached from within the plant. That is of course, assuming that the Iranians were not stupid enough to connect the system to the internet. If that was the case, then they have none to blame but themselves.
@Gareth
…industrial control units by siemens. They were not connected to the internet as those units have no provision for internet connectivity ..
Correct.
So even while a NPP’s control unit is entirely different (no-IP) and without internet connection, such a disastrous attack via a virus can happen (just as in the eighties when ‘nobody’ had internet)!
Your assumption that the attacker got inside is probably wrong.
The Stux virus was almost a year undetected (harmed no PC, etc). It spread itself also on USB-sticks, CD’s, etc.
The general assumption is, that a staff member took either a USB-stick (e.g. with work he did at home) or a CD (e.g. to listen to his favorite music) into the facility despite the ban.
@Bas
“So even while a NPP’s control unit is entirely different (no-IP) and without internet connection, such a disastrous attack via a virus can happen (just as in the eighties when ‘nobody’ had internet)!”
Oh yes, but the odds of an attack like that are far lower than what they would be if the units were IP enabled and connected to the internet somehow. Perhaps a full order of magnitude lower?
But remember, that while the “internet” as we know it today did not exist there were still many computer networks around. Things like “usenet” were the order of the day.
[aside]I assume that you have never seen the movie “Wargames”? [/aside]
Also, back in the 80’s there was generally a far lower concern about network security. Many people back then simply did not realise that intruders could use their systems remotely. To them, network security was all about keeping the physical hardware safe.
“Your assumption that the attacker got inside is probably wrong.
The Stux virus was almost a year undetected (harmed no PC, etc). It spread itself also on USB-sticks, CD’s, etc. ”
Probably wrong? Maybe. But the fact that it spent a year (or more) inside the facility does not necessarily mean that it was not initially placed there by an infiltrator or a worker who had been paid off to just “put this cd into a computer and run the file”.
“The general assumption is, that a staff member took either a USB-stick (e.g. with work he did at home) or a CD (e.g. to listen to his favorite music) into the facility despite the ban.”
Certainly possible, but do you really think that such a set of coincidences would be likely to happen? That by random chance, a staff members home pc is infected with a virus that specifically attacks siemens industrial control units, which then spreads to a cd that said worker burns so he can listen to his favourite tunes at work. His work place just so happens to be a nuclear power plant and his work station just so happens to be connected to the ICUs.
I don’t buy that. Call me cynical, but I just don’t buy it.
Dr Miller,
“Thank you for your civility. For the record, I never said a thing about Magnox fuel or LWR fuel. I don’t know where my detractors made that up. So I’m not wrong, because I never claimed any such connection.”
Earlier you mentioned the ability to create nuclear weapons with reactor grade material, a statement that evoked memories of my reading about the 1962 test which tested a nuclear weapon made from ‘reactor grade’ material. The thing is, that material was (as I recall) sourced from the British, who at the time were using Magnox reactors, reactors that were designed from the outset to create nuclear weapons material.
As far as I know, no weapons have been made from LWR fuel or byproducts but weapons have been made from Magnox byproducts.
While you did not explicitly say it your statments did evoke thoughts about the topic, which is where the 1962 test came in. Combine that with some loose reading and I can see where the idea arose.
By the way Dr Miller, I try to be civil. I’ve always thought it pointless to be an arse to people, unless it becomes necessary. But that doesn’t mean that one cannot disagree with someone who is wrong. Which you are.
@Gareth
“… But the fact that it spent a year (or more) inside the facility…
We do not know how long the worm (actually it is a worm) was in the facility before it became active.
We only know that it was already more than a year spreading itself via internet, USB-sticks, etc. before it was detected by Kapersky lab, a specialized anti-virus software company.
You may assume it was an aimed attack. So the attacker probably used sites / social media / mail circles … that he suspects were often used by Iranian employees of the facility.
The alarming thing is that the worm took full control of the Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems, and that similar systems are used in new NPP’s.
Imagine that the worm then orders the SCADA to ignore warnings, to not display them but display safe values to the operators, and then pull the control rods…
@bas
I’m simply saying that it’s an enormous coincidence that a piece of relatively specialised malware was somehow transmitted to hardware that is effectively isolated from the main route of infection (i.e., the internet). A coincidence so large, that we would be more likely of hitting the moon with a .50 calibre bullet if sensible procedures were followed in the NPP. Assuming that was true, then the only realistic ways for a piece of malware to infect the SCADA hardware are either a hostile infiltrator making their way in and directly accessing the hardware, or for a hostile force to buy off a worker in the plant with access to the systems so that they can access the systems.
The scenario you seem to have dreamed up about accessing SCADA systems over IP and for said SCADA systems to be infected by x86 windows malware is simply ridiculous. I’m not saying that they SCADA systems are unhackable, but they are certainly not vunerable to the same attacks that networked x86 based computers are. In order to attack a SCADA system over IP, a NPP would have to make the idiotic move of putting them on a network that is connected to the internet and the attacker would need detailed knowledge of both SCADA systems as well as x86 based computers, to the point of being able to write malware of sufficient sophistication to attack and successfully comprimise the x86 based PC and then use that PC to deploy another piece of malware (a package within a package) to attack and comprimise the SCADA system. They would then have to route the commands and data through the network to wherever the writer wanted, so that they might cause maximum disruption. Failing that, they would have to depend on dumb luck and write the program to do something along the lines of randomizing the software configuration of the SCADA systems, which may or may not have the desired effect.
That scenario is assuming the plant IS controlled with SCADA hardware and not some bespoke system (which would complicate matters even more) as well as that SCADA system being controlled by an x86 based PC with a standard OS AND that pc is connected to the internet more or less directly, with little in the way of security systems (firewalls etc).
Bas, no offence, but you sound more like someone from years gone by who was shouting from the rafters that TMI was going to burn through the bottom of the containment vessel. (hint, it didn’t and it couldn’t.)
@Dr Miller
Gregory S. Jones would beg to differ. On May 06, 2013 he released a paper that claimed the plutonium used in the 1962 test (ASIDE), which is as far as I know, the *ONLY* test made with ‘reactor grade’ material (END ASIDE) was provided by the UK under the terms of the 1958 US/UK Mutual defence agreement.
http://www.npolicy.org/article.php?aid=1212&rtid=2
Come to think of it, every source I have come across has said the very same thing. That the material came from British reactors and not US reactors. Every single one. Can that be a coincidence?
Excuse me? As you previously noted, I have been nothing but civil. What was it about my posts that you perceived as insulting?
@Gareth
“ ….I’m simply saying that it’s an enormous coincidence that .. malware was somehow transmitted to hardware that is effectively isolated from the main route of infection…”
No coincidence.
It was designed for that by the attacker. Few facts that support that:
– Iranian computers (PC’s) carried ~60% of all infections worldwide!
– The Stuxnet worm contains parts for:
* windows computers that look around for SCADA related files and further only help to distribute it but not at extremely high rate as that would be noticed! Further it makes itself invisible in windows machines as possible;
* parts for the SCADA system that become active once it detects it
(it is not small, ~500KB).
If one can make that and successfully attack the high security Iranian Ultra Centrifuge sites, while the Iranians expected such attacks, then I estimate one can also succesfully attack NPP’s!
@Gareth
Btw.
– The SCADA system does not need an IP connection for the Stuxnet to invade it.
– Apart from Siemens there is a limited number of viable SCADA systems. So even if the attacker does not know which SCADA system, he can adapt it so that it handles the systems most used in NPP’s.
– The nice thing for the attacker is that no NPP producer will develop a new SCADA system special for his NPP’s (expensive and small economy-of-scale).
James,
Smart terrorists who are cost conscious usually aim the local Wall Mart to get good quality supplies at bargain prices.
Even if what you are saying is true, it is just scary tactics from someone that does not understand the risks around you.
A terrorist could easily blow the waterdams that provides 50% of Swedish electrical need. That would mean a massive loss of life.
A terrorist could also hack the two oil refineries in my home town, again a massive loss of life.
A terrorist could attack the natural gas infrastructure that goes through the center of my hometown.
There is always risks out there and crawling back into the woods does not lower that risk. Industrialism has lowered the risks of living a lot.
By the way, please explain how USA will succeed with what Denmark has failed to do for 30 years. Because what you are proposing is the same thing as Denmark has done and they have failed horrible. Denmark has the most expensive electricity in Europe (if not Germany has passed them) because Denmark is throwing money at the wind industry. Results? Not a single coal plant has been closed. Why? Because they have no way to regulate all that installed windpower.
@robjoh
“… what Denmark has failed … Denmark is throwing money at the wind industry. Results? Not a single coal plant has been closed…”
Danish wind turbines generates now ~35% of Denmark’s electricity (share of all renewable >40%). They expand wind towards >50% at 2020.
So apparently the Danish are very happy with their wind turbines!
Not strange as the costs go down faster than expected (due to better designs and bigger turbines).
Suggest you read a little more about the success of Denmark’s wind turbines and renewable.
Regarding their electricity price: Never heard of government energy tax?
In NL renewable policy is virtual. Still we pay 22cent/kWh as government needs money.
Btw.
Not all countries are as lucky as Sweden with a lot of hydro, that can serve others with pumped storage services (earning money with it).
@Bas
Read more? I am following the daily production from Denmarks useless windpower plants that we in Sweden need to back up with our nuclear and water power. Hey when I post this Denmarks wind turbines is producing the massive amount of 19 MW of electricity (insalled effect 4500 MW).
http://energinet.dk/Flash/Forside/UK/index.html
The only way Denmark can expand their wind capacity is more ocean based wind power plant. Which will be even more expensive than it already is.
The rest of the so called renewables that you qoute is burning biofuel, which Europe needs to import because we are not producing enough of biomass.
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21575771-environmental-lunacy-europe-fuel-future?fsrc=scn/tw_ec/the_fuel_of_the_future
Now if Denmark can not regulate their installed wind power without aid from their neighbors (Norway and Sweden). How do you think USA can do it? Do you understand the difference in scale? Denmark has population of 5.6 millions, that is not even New York!
And here is the second thing. Meanwhile Sweden get roughly 30% of our energy use from electricity Denmark is only getting 17%. Which means that not only is the Danish electricity production more dirty and expensive than the Swedish, the total carbon footprint is even worse. The average Danish person uses 8.27 meanwhile the average Swedish person 4.7. That means that Denmark with a population of 5.6 millions emits more CO2 than Sweden with a population of 9.6 million people (not even adding the fact that we in Sweden has more heavy industries than Denmark). The difference? We in Sweden went the nuclear rote.
https://www.google.se/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=en_atm_co2e_pc&idim=country:SWE&dl=sv&hl=sv&q=koldioxidutsl%C3%A4pp%20per%20capita#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=en_atm_co2e_pc&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:SWE:DNK&ifdim=region&hl=sv&dl=sv&ind=false
About your talked about a lot of Hydro in Sweden. We in Sweden could have even more. Do you know why we do not? Because damming up rivers destroys the environment! We have a government mandate to let the last four big rivers be untouched.
Wow – im going by 2011 eia numbers but Sweden does do extremely well in per capita CO2 emissions. (5.8) No wonder, like France the “green” press never mentions them.
Also you are right – dams and reservoirs are thought to be the largest contributors to aquatic extinctions not to mention GG emission issues.
That was in reply to robjoh.
@John Tucker
Even our (the Swedish) environment party is stating that Denmark and Germany is much better than us (that is ideology for you). This is during the same time as the environment party was complaining about that children to the poor could not afford vacations nor joining school activities. Their solution is somehow to increase the price of electricity for the poor. The former communist party has even suggested that rich house owner should get the right for feed in tariff for solar power. Again the poor that has to pay.
Nuclear power halved our CO2 emissions already during the 80:ies. It also reduced particle pollution as we stopped using oil as the central heating source.
@Bas
If the 5.8 number is correct, my calculations above to is incorrect. I took the latest number I could find. Denmark is however still using more CO2 per capita.
@Bas,
I would like to correspond with you directly. If you want to correspond, please contact me at johnmillerATnasw.org.
Dr. John Miller
@NuclearReporter
Sweden has one thing that France doesn’t have, it’s a large proportion of district heating, this gives a lot of flexibility in the heating power source used.
Originally it was oil, but opposite of a distributed solution, it could easily be modified to take advantage of better options, today a majority biomass, waste-to-energy, heat pumps, and waste heat recovery. Sweden is a rather low density country, so has a quite good biomass availability.
@jmdesp
If France had a larger portion of district heating systems available, perhaps it could take advantage of the “waste” heat being produced by its large inventory of Rankine cycle power plants that are initially heated with uranium fission.
They would be following the example of a Swiss village named Beznau.
http://wscsd.org/blog/2005/09/25/nuclear-district-heating-a-solution-or-a-problem/
@Adams
The site of the Swedish former Nuclear power plant of Barsebäck was actually chosen due the closeness to Malmö and Helsingborg. The idea was to supply those cities with a district heating. Sadly the nuclear fear stopped that idea. The district heat system in Malmö is now dependent on natural gas.
@Rod
Indeed that is a nice idea.
However, look at the map.
Then you see they placed most NPP’s away from cities, in areas with low population density and near the borders (so other countries would get the radio-active plume).
Bas – Nice fantasy that you have going.
Just a quick look at the map indicates that France’s nuclear plants are located near bodies of water to provide available cooling. The vast majority are located either on the coast, or near major rivers (e.g., the Rhone and its tributaries).
Once again, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
@Brian&Bas : Both are quite true actually. It’s always near the coast or major rivers, but it’s also areas with lower population density.
And in quite a few case near the border, but also being paid hard money for that, in the case of Fessenheim around 32% paid by Germany and Switzerland.
That depends on what you mean by “low population density” and how far you are willing to consider. When I lived in the second largest city in France, I could easily see the cooling towers of the nearby nuclear plant from the top of one of the hills in town.
While I suppose that very few people live in the commune (town) that hosts the plant, over two million people live just 30 km or so (less than 20 miles) away. That’s not exactly what I’d call “low population.”
Very interesting, had no idea Beznau was doing it, one more reason not to stop the oldest nuclear plant still in operation. According to wna however, it seems it’s Russia that is doing it at the largest scale by far.
They are talks from time to time about it in France (like http://energie.sia-conseil.com/20120321-la-cogeneration-nucleaire-une-formidable-economie-denergie/ ) , but actually it’s not necessarily that easy to make it profitable.
You need a low temperature district heating, or else you’d have to significantly lower the efficiency of the plant to extract the steam at the required temperature, so older network are not suitable.
Also on a long distance, the cost of the tubing is high enough that you’d need to amortize over a very long period.
The central heating systems in our (Sweden) three largest towns, Stockholm, Göteborg and Malmö is for the moment dependent on fossil fuels. Stockholm is using coal meanwhile Göteborg and Malmö is using natural gas. So even with our waste burning and biomass burning Sweden still have to use fossil fuel where the population is very dense. The reason for this is that Sweden might be a low density country, Europe however is not. Swedish biomass is used for much more than energy, you can find it in furniture, houses, paper and so on over a large part of the world. The idea that the Swedish forest can be used for everything is insane.
Some other things I want to point out:
* Our waste-to-energy is through import of waste. The waste to energy has also increased our emission of heavy metals. The waste-to-energy program is also not producing a very large amount of the total energy need Sweden has.
* Heat-pumps is used due to cheap electricity (due to Nuclear power)
* Last time Sweden used 100% biomass for our energy need we started to deforest our nation. That was with less than half our population we have today. The Swedish forrest was saved by two things:
1, A law that forced the large timber companies to plant a new tree for each that was cut down.
2, The introduction of coal into our homes.
Even if Sweden had the biomass for replacing our nuclear fleet (we do not) it would still be an idiotic approach, this is because we in Sweden needs to secure our energy need for our cars, trucks and farming equipment first.
@robjoh
Thank you for providing a perspective from the scene in Sweden. Like you, I am no fan of burning biomass as a source of energy. I have seen the historical photos of the devastation wrought on forests in places like Great Britain and the Appalachian Mountains from a time with far lower human populations living much more energy constrained lives than we live today.
It is seductive to think that plants can be planted again and they will grow back, but the RATE at which that happens is something that cannot be controlled by humans. It also seems pretty obvious to me that forest products that are turned into furniture, housing, and even library books become nearly permanent stores of carbon, quite unlike growing a plant and immediately returning the carbon back into the atmosphere in the form of chemically inert CO2 that will remain in the atmosphere for hundreds of years.
@Adams
No worries, you give a lot of information from the USA that is why I listen to your shows and read your site.
Another thing, Bas stated above that Sweden made money working as a pump storage for Danish wind power. Well are we? This weekend the representatives for the southern part of Swedish industry wrote an article attacking the Swedish energy minister. The reason for the attack is that since the closure of Barsebäck the southern part of Sweden is starved of electricity. Especially when the wind is not blowing in Denmark. The national electrical grid company (Svenska Kraftnät) used to solve that problem by simply reducing the export to Denmark. This was according to EU illegal.
Results? Much more expensive electricity for Swedish industry and citizens living in the southern part of Sweden. Sweden is not making any money working as pump storage. Our industry is loosing competitiveness!
http://www.svd.se/opinion/brannpunkt/hatt-maste-se-till-att-elnatet-byggs-ut_8537620.svd
Some other tidbits from the EU. In the UK the wind power industry is complaining about just getting three times the actual market price for electricity for offshore wind. Is wind really getting cheap? Can poor people afford this?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/10326753/Energy-minister-rejects-demands-for-higher-offshore-wind-farm-subsidies.html
Robjoh,
I should have been more precise, when I wrote that Sweden made money out of pumped storage. So I should have written:
The (assume Swedish) utilities that operate the concerned hydro / pumped storage facilities in Sweden make money.
May be the competition from Norway’s Statkraft, which promotes it’s endless pumped storage capacities, makes it less profitable.
@robjoh : It’s an integrated market. You can’t refuse to sell to the Dane if they offer a higher price than the Swedish industry.
The purpose of the EC was to have enough connection between the European countries that the price would be the same everywhere, and electricity producers would freely compete between each other to provide the cheapest power. That could work if *simultaneously* the EC hadn’t also decided there would be more and more electricity producers on the market that get a guaranteed profitability whatever the price their electricity sells for.
There’s also much to say about if a purely liberal market is the thing to do for hydraulic producers that profit from an essential national common resource, water.
As well as in another way for nuclear, were the potential risk for the nation are a good reason to make it so that the whole country will profit from them, and not just the owner of the plant. Whatever the actual risk is, the situation of getting the potential risk and not the profit is a major reason for being opposed to them.
@jmdesp
I know that is a integrated market. That is not the question. The question is if Sweden gained from being a pumped storage to Denmark. Hint, we do not.
The following is however pure bullshit:
Sweden is gaining from our nuclear plants through:
1, Cheap electricity which power our industry
2, Through the huge tax we have on nuclear power (one third of the operating cost for nuclear power is the special nuclear tax)
3, Energy independence, Sweden has huge resources of uranium and thorium.
4, Our last rivers is allowed to be spared.
But even if we did not get anything from having 45-50% of our electricity from Nuclear it would not matter. Becuase if we where going with the line of thinking that anything that means a risk for a nation should be opposed then Sweden would not have any industry, mining or farming. We should close down all our water dams, our refineries and our chemistry industries. We should forbid solar cells because the might leach heavy metals.
Any risk has to be compared to the risk of not having a the institution that creates the risk. You can not live a 100% safe life. What you can do is reducing the risk. Energy poverty is far worse risk (both for the environment AND humanity) than nuclear.
Even that, the experience from Fukushima and TMI, shows that the risk is quit low. Here we have accidents that has not killed a single person. The experts states that they do not expect any problems so what should I fear?
@robjoh : I think you’re missing some of the subtleties of my position, but that’s OK. You are describing the type of gain I was talking about, it’s just that the public needs to realize them.
If the Swedish green did close 3 reactors, they would both increase the price in Sweden and the pollution. It’s hard to understand why they are still called “Green”.
@jmdesp
“..As well as in another way for nuclear, were the potential risk for the nation are a good reason to make it so that the whole country will profit from them, and not just the owner of the plant. Whatever the actual risk is, the situation of getting the potential risk and not the profit is a major reason for being opposed to them…”
Well said!
@Bas 23, 2013 at 3:39 PM : It seems both you and robjoh took this as an anti-nuclear argument. It’s definitively not. Nuclear already bring a lot to the surrounding population, in every country. This just needs to be communicated clearly.
I would not appreciate a situation where the operator is able to profit from the cheap production of power without the gain being redistributed. But actually people who are very strongly in favor of free markets wouldn’t appreciate either, since this can happen only if nobody else is able to compete for equally cheap power production, in other word, only if excessive regulation and inference of the government has made impossible a fair competition for power production.
@robjoh : thank you for the remarks, You’re right I had totally forgotten it’s Sweden that’s most hit by the waste import problem.
My point is absolutely not about replacing nuclear with biomass, just that nuclear is not ideal for winter heating as it’s not convenient to build plant to use them only in winter. And there comes district heating that has the flexibility to adapt to many different solutions, including waste nuclear heat. The fun thing is that centralized production there also beats distributed one, and contribute significantly to the low carbon performance of both Sweden and Island.
In Island also, district heating is the key for the high use of geothermal heat. Most of the heating is coming from geothermal that’s not hot enough to be usefully used for generating electricity. Actually very little of the electricity in Island is coming from geothermal, 75% is from hydraulic power.
I understand biomass is first useful for the furniture and housing, but I’ve read the trick is you can burn it when they are renewed. Also I had always read that the incinerators were modern enough to emit very little heavy metals.
I missed this, sorry:
“My point is absolutely not about replacing nuclear with biomass, just that nuclear is not ideal for winter heating as it’s not convenient to build plant to use them only in winter.”
Why would you build plants only for heating?
I understand biomass is first useful for the furniture and housing, but I’ve read the trick is you can burn it when they are renewed. Also I had always read that the incinerators were modern enough to emit very little heavy metals.
Still does not have enough biomass to provide the energy we need.
@robjoh : 24 at 10:01 AM
Heating is a major use of fossil fuels, and strongly lowering their use can hardly be done without finding a replacement for them in that usage (especially since some other use, like transportation, are even harder to remove).
The trouble is that heating is very seasonal, so if you wish to use nuclear power for that, you get the problem that the size of your nuclear fleet is good in winter but much too large in summer.
That’s a significant problem in France, that’s partially but not really fully solved by scheduling as much plant reload and maintenance as possible in Summer, and opposite to the US not spending too much money trying to do them as fast as possible.
This is why it’s tempting to check carefully if another solution would not be more suitable for that use.
@Robjoh
“…Heat-pumps is used due to cheap electricity (due to Nuclear power)…”
I do not think that Sweden’s electricity is cheap because of nuclear.
Since:
– Sweden’s Hydro delivers far more than nuclear: Hydro 48%, Nuclear 38%.
– Belgium has more nuclear (50%) and no cheap electricity.
– Tax also has an influence.
Two questions:
Are heat-pumps in Sweden already competitive to install for private houses?
Can you give link then.
What is your motive to downplay that Sweden’s electricity is for ~60% renewable?
IEA gave Sweden compliments for that!
Btw
Europe’s Energy portal shows that Swedish electricity prices are not extreme low.
Furthermore is shows that electricity price of NL (~4% nuclear) is lower than that of Belgium (~50% nuclear) for households as well as for industry:
http://www.energy.eu/
Note: The stated prices may not be fully accurate. E.g. German industry prices (stated as 11cnt) are lower than the Dutch (9cnt), so industry here complains that it hinders our competition against Germany.
Bas – Not true. You have a strong predisposition for lying.
Sweden’s production of electricity from nuclear and hydroelectric are just about equal. The actual values fluctuate from year to year, with the variation probably being dependant on the amount of rainfall received. In some years, more electricity is generated from hydroelectric, in other years, more is generated from nuclear.
If we look at the IEA data for the past decade (2002-2011), the two power sources are equivalent on average, at 44% each, with the average for nuclear being slightly higher. The largest share of production over this period goes to nuclear at 51% in 2004 (hydroelectric’s production that year was only 39%). You cherry picked 2009, which was an unusually high year for hydroelectric and an unusually low year for nuclear.
@Brian Mays
Sweden’s production of electricity from nuclear and hydroelectric are just about equal. The actual values fluctuate from year to year, with the variation probably being dependant on the amount of rainfall received.
Yes and no. If there is a lot of rainfall it happens that some reactors is “downclocked”. Example Forsmark had its reactors running lower than maximal in 2000 due to huge amount of rain.
The big thing from 2006-present is actually that the liberal/conservative alliance got to power. This removed the socialist/environment party coalition from power. The first thing the alliance did was to remove the idea that all nuclear plants should be shut down. This meant that the power companies thought that it was possible to invest in new technology in existing plants.
The investments has prolonged some of the yearly revisions. Example 02 (Oskarshamn reactor 2) is closed down now for almost a year to prepare it for a higher production level. Oskarshamn 1 was updated earlier from 1100 MWe to 1400 MWe. Sweden has only 10 reactors, when you shut down one for a year you will notice it. During 2009 it was R1 and R2 that was closed down.
If the greens comes to power in the election next year they stated this weekend that at least 3 reactors should be closed during the next 4 years. This would be a disaster for Swedish energy production and possibility to act as pump storage for Denmark and Germany.
@robjoh & @Brian
I took the figures from last year 2012 (assuming hydro capacity is still improving).
“…You cherry picked 2009..”
So I did not.
2009 had even much lower nuclear share: 34.7% (from world-nuclear.org).
It you make a regression / trend line, then you see that the share of nuclear goes downwards.
The important thing is that electricity prices are not much related to the share of nuclear.
“…If the greens comes to power … at least 3 reactors should be closed … a disaster for Swedish energy production and possibility to act as pump storage for Denmark and Germany..”
What disaster???
The pumped storage stays the same. Then it will be filled by cheap imported electricity (there is more than enough; check the whole sale prices).
So Sweden will export less and import more cheap electricity from Germany (as we in NL do). Germany has over-production…
Part of the 3 NPP’s production will be replaced by new renewable.
I saw wind turbines when we biked along the Swedish coast from Trelleborg to Helsingborg this spring.
I really do not see the problem…
@Bas
By some reason my answer ended up further up in the comment thread.
It is posted:
robjoh
September 24, 2013 at 2:55 AM
Bas – “Assuming”? Why do you need to assume?
No. The IEA data disagree. The figure for 2009 was 38.2% of total production (ignoring imports and exports of electricity).
For what? For two years?! Are you really that innumerate?
Why don’t we consider the “trend” over the period from 2009 to 2011 instead? In that scenario, the share of nuclear is trending strongly upward. Don’t you agree?
The more useful trend line, however, is the association between generation from hydroelectric and the generation from nuclear. The two compliment each other quite well. (See here Over the 20-year period of 1992-2011, the (Pearson) correlation coefficient between the two is r = -0.72, which means that when hydroelectric is producing well, nuclear produces less, and when nuclear is producing well, hydroelectric produces less. That’s really what is going on.
Robjoh has provided an excellent explanation of the reasons for the figures in recent years. You can either learn from this, or you can continue to spout nonsense. It’s your choice.
The important thing is that your statement, “Sweden’s Hydro delivers far more than nuclear,” is completely wrong.
“If the greens comes to power in the election next year they stated this weekend that at least 3 reactors should be closed during the next 4 years. This would be a disaster for Swedish energy production and possibility to act as pump storage for Denmark and Germany.”
I can see the headline now: “Danish wind energy system in disarray due to closure of Swedish nuclear power plants.” Sweet irony.
@Bas : I remembered that Mestrallet the CEO of GDF was on record in front of the French senate member, about how low the true cost of nuclear was in Belgium and it’s even better that I remembered.
He said that the Belgium regulator, CREG, has estimated the operation cost to be between 17 and 21 €/MWh, and therefore asked him to pay a 550 million a year special tax on the profits. He said this cost includes provisions for dismantlement and waste disposal.
He explained that he considers this estimation to be too low, and his own is more 23,5 €, and then 5 € of back-up should be added to provide for the risk of unexpected repair and technical problems. So the true fair cost for him should be set at 28,5€, which is more than the regulator evaluation, but still fairly low.
He also explain that he owns a part of the Chooz plant. That’s very interesting because he actually owns it through the Electrabel subsidiary, which was bought by GDF around 10 years ago, and at the time of the construction of Chooz was a fully Belgium company. So once again just like for Fessenheim, the plant was built just near the frontier not because of nefarious purpose, but because it was a financial co-investment with the concerned country.
Here’s the source in French, I’ve seen that google translate does a fairly good translation of it : http://www.senat.fr/compte-rendu-commissions/20120305/ce_electricite.html#toc4
@jmdesp
Interesting.
This special tax (550mln/a) was set when NPP licenses were extended to compensate for the extra risk that old NPP’s carry. It is an insurance premium that covers most of the extra risks (at disaster, damage is carried by government & citizens).
After the detection of cracks in 2 reactor vessels, the regulator wanted to raise the premium further as any insurance company would do (don’t know how that argument ended).
I think Mestrallet did his best to maximize profit with that story about more reservations in front of the French senate … (hence less or no special tax in France). So bigger bonus.
@Bas 24, 2013 at 5:26 AM :
He doesn’t directly operate a nuclear plant in France (only owns a part of Chooz, as written, operated by EDF). His objective in front of the senate was that EDF ought be forced to sell him nuclear electricity on the French market at less than the 40-42€ proposed, a fair price being about 32-33€ in his opinion (10% more that the Belgium price, because of the lower load ratio). He lost, but the Greens in France say that 42€ is still a lot less than the true cost of nuclear electricity.
@Robjoh
Thank you for the interesting links; especially the last one.
… Denmark can not regulate their installed wind power without aid from their neighbors …. How do you think USA can … understand the difference in scale?
Of course Denmark can do it! But trading with neighouring countries is more economic!
USA has ~4 times more land per capita (more space for wind turbines), is far more south (much more production from PV-panels), has different climate/winds in different parts of the country, can trade with Canada and Mexico, even has the option to use the 3hour time shift between the east and west.
So for them it is much easier. They only lack the will.
That is illustrated by US Government that cooperated with China against a small CO2 tax for planes flying into, in, or out of the EU
… Danish person uses 8.27 meanwhile … Swedish person 4.7…
Irrelevant for comparing nuclear vs renewable as Sweden has lots of hydro, and Denmark none.
But your link offers the option to compare other countries as well!
So I compared the similar countries Belgium (~51% nuclear), NL (~4% nuclear) and Denmark (0% nuclear, good renewable policy).
Then it shows:
– That since 2000, when it’s renewable took steam, Denmark had significant lower CO2 per capita (while much colder)!
-That Belgium did not better than NL despite their bigger nuclear, but became better since 2006. Probably due their more aggressive renewable policy.
Btw.
Even the UNSCEAR delegates of pro-nuclear Belgium were shocked by the way UNSCEAR denies Fukushima health damage:
http://nuclear-news.net/2013/09/20/even-belgian-delegates-got-mad-at-upcoming-unscear-report-%E3%83%99%E3%83%AB%E3%82%AE%E3%83%BC%E4%BB%A3%E8%A1%A8%E5%9B%A3%E3%81%A7%E3%81%95%E3%81%88%E6%80%92%E3%81%A3%E3%81%9F9%E6%9C%88%E3%81%AB/
Denmark offshore wind farms were built in major seabird flyway areas. It was not studied sufficiently and after they were built some birds were avoiding the area it seems. As many articles seem to also be pushing wind the issue is being effectively swept under the rug IMHO.
Per capita emissions from Denmark (Metric Tons of Carbon Dioxide per Person) – 8.3
Its strange that people cant acknowledge France’s leadership role in per capita emissions (6.2) as a industrialized manufacturing nation they do quite well.
Anyway more turbines wont make the wind blow more regular. That will mean when its blowing more surplus power will be exported on a already saturated renewable heavy grid. (while fossil plants idle in the background).
As of June 2013:
– Total production for the year-to-date was 17 146 GWh. Comparing this to the same period last year shows that:
– Total production was higher by 1 733 GWh, or 11.2%.
– Combustible Fuels production grew by 19.8% compared to the same period last year with an increase of 1 978 GWh.
– Hydro production showed the largest percentage change by energy source, being 77.8% lower.
– Geoth./Wind/Solar/Other production showed a decrease of 4.4% or 238 GWh.
– Trade volume decreased by 1 982 GWh, or 15.2%
( http://www.iea.org/stats/surveys/mes.pdf )
So already there are issues with the numbers (the hydro isn’t significant and should be ignored) as the fossil component is showing a significant jump.
@John T
“…strange that people cant acknowledge France’s leadership role in per capita emissions (6.2) ..
That I do recognize. But you assume that this is because it generates 75% of its electricity by nuclear. And that is wrong.
It has much more to do with the nice climate (far less heating), the history of exceptional high gas prices for car fuel, somewhat less rich (Germany GDP per capita 13% higher), etc.
In every mix, they are several explanation for the final result. But in Germany, the electric sector alone is one third of the emission of the country. In France, it’s only 11,4%, 3 time less. There not a single other sector where there’s a similar large difference, it alone explains most of the difference between the two countries.
Actually because not enough effort was made on insulation, there’s not much difference between France and Germany in the heating use (which is a bad result for France given the nicer climate), except that almost one fourth comes from low carbon electricity in France, and almost none in Germany, way too expensive to do that.
gas price is very similar in France and Germany, I just checked there and the international comparison of FIA gives them almost identical, 1.562 for 95 in France, and 1.568 in Germany.
See the source below for the numbers of France, and Europe as a whole where the result is not much different than Germany, electrictty on average is 32% of emissions :
http://www.statistiques.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/fileadmin/documents/Produits_editoriaux/Publications/Reperes/2011/Climat_2011/FR4%20REPERES%202010%20FR-Partie%204.pdf
Please make an effort and check your claims first for factual inaccuracy.
Bas. You should just say your top priority here is being anti nuclear. Thats cool and honest. These convoluted, on the fly arguments are past old.
I am a nobody with nothing, you don’t even need to bother. Dont still pretend its about anything else like the environment with you. No one would make such fringe justified arguments for that kind of mainstream concern.
Then why do Italy (6.47 t CO2/capita) and Spain (5.86 t CO2/capita), with much milder climates, have higher emissions than France (5.04 t CO2/capita)?
Meanwhile, Norway (7.69 t CO2/capita), Denmark (7.48 t CO2/capita), and Sweden (4.75 t CO2/capita), which are all north of Germany, in the colder parts of Europe, have lower emissions than Germany (9.14 t CO2/capita). Why is that?
Then compare the two countries based on CO2 emissions per GDP:
France: 0.15 kg CO2/2005 USD
Germany: 0.25 kg CO2/2005 USD
Germany’s emissions are 66% higher.
No, Bas, it is you who is wrong. You’re just making yourself look foolish. It’s clear that you don’t know what you’re talking about.
(Data taken from IEA figures for 2011.)
@Brian
“Why is that?”
Your questions regarding CO2:
Norway and Sweden have major hydro. Hence almost all electricity generated without CO2.
Denmark is >10years ahead of Germany regarding renewable.
E.g. You get only a license to build an house if you can show it is and will stay climate, CO2, neutral.
Comparing Germany and France there are more factors involved than Germany’s wealth. Important here is also the temperature difference.
I never spent time to study the situation regarding Italy and Spain. Looking at the figures the differences are only gradual.
I only can tell that I have the experience that Madrid is much colder in winter than Paris and much hotter in summer (you need airco there)…
Looking at latitude and averages is not enough.
Bas – The more likely answer is the simpler one: You are full of crap.
Since the comment feature seems to be broken in this part of the blog, I should point out that my comment was in response to this one.
@Brian
Yes he is, and he is making up shit as he go along…
@ Dr Miller – I know of three facilities that have two or more tanks containing more than a million gallons each of Anhydrous ammonia. All it takes is a high power rifle and the tank is compromised. These tanks are at several hundred pounds pressure and typically in an industrial location, which is usually next to a river. One whaco, one bullet, and an entire city will be wiped out. The river will be poisoned, the atmosphere will poison all that breathe it, probably within a mile or two radius, no drinking water for several weeks, no flushing water for almost as long, Dead animals all over the ground within the radius, dead fish in the river, etc. Millions within 20-25 miles sick enough to need hospitalization. Don’t even need a computer, but could do the same if you had one. Every state, every county with extensive agriculture has several of these facilities. their only security is that they are not broadcasting their location to the general public. But the internet has fixed this. Jus Google them.
Also, are you aware that all of the old salt mines under most of northern Ohio (the ones that they recovered the salt by pumping in water, dissolving the salt, and then processing the brine for salt) are now filled with natural gas? What about those computers? What is the probability they will explode at blast you to the Moon?
@John
You wrote:
Your claims that the AP1000 can be cooled after 72 hours are oversimplistic. Had AP1000s been at Fukushima, we couldn’t have refilled them. We had no on-site power for 11 days, and you couldn’t get a fire truck close enough to the plants to even spray water on them.
Really? I seem to recall video of fire trucks spraying water and then a more effective use of a concrete pumper truck. I’d have to go back to my old notes, but I’m almost certain those images were being shown within 3-5 days of the tsunami. Secondly, I’m also fairly sure that the used fuel pools for the AP1000 are better protected and less likely to lose enough shielding water to cause access issues than the reactors at Fukushima were.
Don’t you think we have learned anything in the past 40 years?
Rod,
Mathias Braun, Peter Volkhoz have published an text titled “Analysis of the Severe Accident Progression in Units 1,2 and 3 at Fukushima Daiichi” in Revue Générale Nucléaire N°1 Janvier-Février 2012 revealing some certainly little known informations about what exactly happened, and that apparently you yourself are not aware of.
There’s a text in French on the laradioactivite.com site that copies most of the information, here’s the Google translation of it : http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=fr&tl=en&u=http://www.laradioactivite.com/fr/site/pages/Fukushima_Reacteur_2.htm&usg=ALkJrhgar698nQE9ma-67Mvj7BIMa3GPmw
In short, a fire truck was already pumping water in the reactor 2 in the middle of the afternoon of the 13 March. It has been damaged by the explosion of reactor 3 on the 14, and very unfortunately Tepco has not been able to take back control of the situation of reactor 2 after that, The depressurization of reactor 2 that followed at 20h35 on the 14 March was the first time a really large amount of radioactivity was released on the site, and the explosion of reactor 2 on the 15 that followed is responsible for the intense plume that contaminated the north-west of the plant up to Iitate.
Comparatively the explosion of reactor 1 on the 12 and of reactor 3 on the morning of the 14 has released very little radiation.
FWIW the comment just above was in response to Rod’s comment of September 18, 2013 at 12:18 PM, but the threading has put down the page instead.
Even if you could use reactor grade pu to make a nuclear weapon (which you can’t) there is still the little problem of machining it, creating an explosive lens assembly, and trigger mechanism. It is not as simple as “if you have 29 pounds of it you can make a bomb” that is a L I E.
Also, I think you tend to confuse a positive void coefficient and a positive temperature coefficient.
Was not plutonium found in Gabon Africa as a natural substance created by the natural fissioning of uranium? Which would mean your argument holds no water.
At least plutonium as a byproduct of energy generation contributed something creating anthrax simply to use as a weapon contributes no good and is actually immoral.
Dr. John Miller would be the kind of person who believes that a supercritical mass is likely to form during the meltdown of a fast breeder reactor. This is indicated by his love of Richard Webb’s fancifull doomsday scenario’s for such reactors. People who believe such fantasy scenario’s are probably likely to believe that a terrorist would have no trouble building a bomb from reactor grade plutonium.
I guess it’s possible that – given enough monkeys and typewriters – one of those monkeys would eventually recreate the works of shakespeare. I guess it’s also possible that if you dump the contents of a jigsaw puzzle on the ground often enough, eventually you will end up with the finished puzzle.
In real life, I prefer to think that nuclear doomsday resulting from civilian nuclear power utilization is less likely than is global ecocide resulting from rocketing GHG emissions. I guess it’s all a matter of how you evaluate risk…
We know about 1 milion people die each year due to fossil fuels usage, and another two or three million die annually from exposure to smoke from primitive wood and dung burning because they can’t afford anything else. If we can save those 4 million people annually by rolling out civilian nuclear power, then I guess even the incredibly remote chance of a fast breeder reactor blowing up and causing something less than a chernobyl type accident is completely acceptable.
The question rabid anti-nukes like Dr. Miller and Bas need to answer is why they think it is just and wise to sentence 4 million people to horrible deaths each year in order to prevent the tiny risk of at most 4000 (?Chernobyl?) people or so dying from the occasional – largely preventable – nuclear accident.
I know what choice I have made. I hate death and suffering, which gives away what choice I made. I hope all environmentalists will do this. Do not let the best be the enemy of the good. Be pragmatic. Go nuclear. Save lives. Save the planet. etc.
Kudos, Green Engineer…
I once worked with a classic habitual liar …the stories he told. Had to back his boat trailer onto a boat ramp to haul a fish he caught out of the water. A nuclear sub once surfaced next to him. He was a fighter pilot on a carrier …that I later discovered was decommissioned before he was old enough to fly, and on, and on. It was a lot easier before the internet arrived.
As renewables proponents like to say, the sun’s always shining somewhere and somewhere the wind will be blowing. The German ones have perspicaciously noticed that the sun doesn’t shine a lot of the time where they live, and have a plan to counter that by building a lot of solar power in the Sahara desert, and running a few cables up to Germany. What they missed is that, as in most temperate countries, peak power demand is actually at about 8 pm. Where they should really be building their solar plants is in Arizona, which will be coming up to noon just about supper time in Berlin. A few down in Chile could be handy as well, since they’ll be in summer when the north American ones are getting less sun. No technical barriers to that are there? Some cables over to the Gobi desert to help cook breakfast and you’ve got yourself a working system!
I continue not to be able to post comments. When I submit them, they vanish, and an error message says the error is HTTP 405, and that the likely cause is a programming error on your site.
If somehow you are simply blocking my comments, please admit to that.
Lots of people commented, expecting responses from me. I can’t give them until you fix this very broken commenting feature.
Dr. John Miller
@NuclearReporter
@Miller
There is no feature on this site aimed at slowing your commenting. No one else has complained. Without being able to observe the steps you are taking, I have no way to troubleshoot.
I keep telling you what I do each time. I write a comment, I click “submit” and I instantly get a screen telling me it can’t deliver the message because of HTTP 405 and sometimes HTTP 500.
John
Are you somehow trying to make a comment too far down in the hierarchy? This site only allows a couple of levels of reply to prevent excessive indenting. If you want to reply to a particular comment, use the @ symbol to address the author of the comment.
Rod, I’ve had a similar problem this past week. After I click submit, the machine sits for a spell and then informs me it could not connect. However, in every case, my comment was properly transmitted. It was just receipt of the response screen which failed. It doesn’t happen every time, and since yesterday or the day before, it seems to have cleared up.
So something is up. I’m using Firefox on a Red Hat box. That may be relevant.
I tried using only “add a comment” and adding @, but my post still vanished and gave me the HTTP 405 error and the HTTP 500 error.
John
@John
Troubleshooting question – what are you doing differently when you post a comment complaining about the comment system? Those seem to post with no problem.
In my case, the message doesn’t get transmitted, as I never see it on your site. I use IE10.
Hey Rod. Since I returned from vacation a week ago, I’ve been getting similar trouble screens after posting. If I hit return arrow, and comment tab again (the post returns), and can be re-submitted. Otherwise, it appears lost and unable to retrieve.
While I can’t be certain about it, I believe these are “timeout errors.” Your site appears to be very slow at times and delayed in compiling information (particularly when adding to SQL databases … which is the case when adding comments).
Have you thought of using a WordPress plugin such as “w3-total-cache.” It turns all of your php coded pages into static web pages, and saves them in a cache file for quick loading and easy retrieval. It significantly lowers load times and also minimizes CPU usage on over-burdened servers. Loading speed is also a significant factor in the Google ranking algorithm.
Just a thought. Worth a look if your site administrators have no other suggestions.
“The Germans have solar panels on about 2% of their roofs. Those have a capacity of ~30Gw.
So if they put the same low yield solar panels on 50% of their roofs, their capacity will be ~750GW. ”
I wonder how many deaths and severe injuries that would involve. Working on rooves is dangerous.
I wonder how 700 GW worth of solar PV owners are going to get paid their FIT’s on a sunny day, while German society only needs 50 GW. Heck, All of Europe will hardly be able to absorb 700 GW of solar power (for a few hours, and then it plummets to zero).
Sheer kookiness. Nobody is helped but owners of PV factories.
Of course, these 750 GW would never be achieved in Germany. The costs would be gargantuan and the wealth transfer from poor to rich would be shocking. Probably, bands of the energy-poor would be ravaging the countryside, thowing a few stones on each PV installation in protest. After all: it’s really very easy to destroy a PV installation …
All you really need to look at is the fact that Germany has spent about $250 billion on this boondoggle already and has not reduced their CO2 emissions at all.
Germany uses about 600 TWHrs of electricity per year. Germany already has enough nuclear reactors to supply 20% of their electricity, so reduce that 600 TWHrs to 480 TWHrs.
A new AP1000 can generate between 11 and 12 TWHrs of electricity per year. So Germany needs roughly 50 new nuclear reactors. At a cost of $5 billion per reactor, boom, for the money already squandered, Germany could have converted **all** of their electricity production to clean nuclear power already. And had a nice over-capacity left over. Not to mention the 3.6% hydro which I didn’t even factor in.
Right now, today, Germany could be at zero carbon emissions for electricity generation, if they had chosen nuclear instead of unreliables. Isn’t CO2 what this is all about?
Makes all the capacity factors, and FITs and how well wind and solar match demand times utterly irrelevant. Germany has gone down a fool’s road. The only question remaining is whether they will ever stop throwing good money after bad.
I left out an important detail. Life expectancy.
No one ever mentions that Germany is running the Red Queen’s race. In less than a decade their wind installations will start reaching end-of-life. Ten years later, similarly for the solar panels. That means that starting in 2023 and accelerating after that, money spent on unreliables won’t go to expand capacity. It will go to replace existing capacity which has worn out. Germany will have to spend an ever increasing amount of money to increase capacity while maintaining current capacity.
Basically, if you can’t afford to install all the unreliables you need within a 20 year time frame, then you can’t afford unreliables.
Nuclear reactors, on the other hand, are good for at least sixty years and most likely for one hundred years or more.
Good point.
It all fits in totally backwards refrain about how nuclear power is somehow a ‘burden on future generations’, while clearly the opposite is true: if anything, future generations are going to be benefiting massively from nuclear power plants that have been long paid off, as compared to their intermittent renewables loving counterparts who are going to be facing nothing but piles of worn down junk, which is all that will be remaining of the energy systems passed down from earlier generations who believed they were removing a ‘burden’ by building out short-lived turbines and solar parks rather than long lived NPP’s.
I had the pleasure of presenting the ‘pro’s and cons’ of nuclear power to a small group of collegues. While making the presentation, I ended up making two slides: one with the con’s and one with the pro’s. The funny thing was that both of the slides were identical except for the qualifiers of each of the characteristics. That happened because all of the ‘con’s’ of nuclear power turn out to be little more than backwards (and wrong) understandings of aspects of nuclear power that are actually pro’s.
For example, one of the popular ‘con’s’ of nuclear power is ‘the nuclear waste’. But the waste is actually a ‘pro’ when looked at critically, because of it’s small size.
Similarly, I noticed that the list of 10 ‘con’s’ I dug up each were actually pro’s if understood for what they really were, rather than what they have been made out to be by the anti-nuke propagandists.
The ~1% enriched uranium would be great fuel for CANDU reactors and give the Canadians less spent fuel per MW-D to deal with.
The ~0.8% plutonium would be perfect for starting fast-spectrum reactors.
The radio-Cs and Sr might be good for eliminating pathogens from foods, drinking water and treated sewage. They’d do what chlorine and hydrogen peroxide do, but without expending power.
Yup, lots of valuable stuff there if given a proper appraisal.
@Jeff
PV-panels and even Wind turbines are, despite being relative simple machines, still in their infancy Both will see big improvements:
– the turbines becoming bigger and delivering output with a wider range of wind speed (a.o. thanks to ICT)
– PV-panels; thanks to yield improvements and automated production.
Once wind and solar industries become more adult, you will see lifetimes of up to a century (as with old dutch wind mills). Especially for PV-panels as they have no moving parts.
Economic lifetime becomes more important.
I think that it will become economic to replace 1MW wind turbines in a wind park that covers certain area, by 20MW wind turbines. The same area will then produce 2 to 4 times more electricity.
@Joris : An important point is that individual solar panel supply the grid only at the standard voltage of personal current distribution 110 or 220 V, which can not escape the local distribution network, to reach the transportation one. Smaller installation frequently aren’t even three-phase electric power, so you can’t do anything with it. You start actually being able to transport the current at 60kV (which is the standard for wind power),
So in such a setup, almost all of the power produced would be wasted.
I don’t have the data, but I strongly suspect some of the power is already wasted this way in Germany. And it’ll get worse.
That’s only a problem if the power is too badly distributed across the 3 phases. The problem also exists with asymmetrical loading, and the solution is more or less the same.
@ Engineer Poet, jmdesp, Joris van Dorp:
I’ve been trying to get a fix on just what exactly the life expectancy of a solar panel is. It’s given as 20-30 years. But the skimpy data I’ve seen indicate that the degradation in output is on the order of 0.5 to 1 percent per year. That implies that after 30 years a panel would still have about 70 percent of its initial output at least. So why would that count as the end of its service life?
I’ve seen various criteria saying that maybe 80 percent output or maybe 50 percent output should count as the cutoff for defining end of service. What’s the rationale behind those criteria? Is there some threshold of output degradation below which a panel can no longer function in some crucial respect?
I’m just a layman trying to figure this out, so any light the engineers can shed (without technical terminology explained) would be greatly appreciated
@Mr. Boisvert.
I recognise your name from the hard-hitting exchange about the energiewende on Dissent Magazine, here:
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/green-energy-bust-in-germany
The PV cells can last extremely long. The earliest PV cells built are still operable today, from what I’ve heard. There is some degradation but it’s not much. 20-30 years seems short to me for a good quality PV cell.
PV panels can be damaged by (freak) hailstorms impacting the panels squarly. PV panels can also be damaged during accidents while cleaning or moving the panels.
What fails far more quickly are the other part of a solar PV system. Batteries are generally short lived, although lithium batteries are getting better. Other exotic battery types also last longer but have their own problems. Cabling will degrade and need replacing before 30 years. Power electronics will need replacing within 15 years or less, although high-cost long-lived invertors appear to be entering the market and heavy duty long-lived outdoor cables are available (though expensive).
Owning a solar PV system will entail cleaning them once or twice a year (or more depending on the intensity of fouling) and replacing the cabling, invertors, batteries and other peripherals at 5, 10, 15 or 20 year intervals depending on local conditions and quality of those peripherals.
This is not my field. I am aware that new PV panels are carrying warranties of up to 25 years (which means they’ll generate 80% of their specified output under reference conditions), but that’s all. I seem to recall that inverters and other equipment are not warranted for nearly so long.
@ Joris van Dorp
Thanks for that helpful info.
Are replacements of major parts like inverters, cables, electronics etc. included in the very low O and M figures one often sees quoted of less than a penny per kwh? Or do those constitute new capital expenditures–a “rebuild” of a system if not an outright replacement of the entire system.
It seems like the question of solar longevity is more complex than a cut and dried life span of 20-30 years, so the comparison with the 60-plus year lifespan of a nuclear plant, which would make the capital costs of nuclear starkly lower, is not quite as clear-cut.
Does anyone know of any data or studies that address these issues?
@Will
For what it’s worth, I accept that 1 ct/kWh O&M costs for solar PV are probably correct. I’ve seen figures as low as 0,5 ct/kWh as well, for large-scale systems, and I don’t find obvious reasons to dispute such low estimates.
There is literature on this, but it is spotty. O&M costs are variously determined in terms of % of investment or ct/kWh, and since the technology is still changing, results from a study undertaken 5 years ago will likely be obsolete today.
I’ve read a few studies and reports throughout the years but didn’t file them where I can readily find them again. I presume your googling skills are at least as good as mine to find them. Otherwise solar PV system suppliers will generally be happy to provide you with detailed life-cycle-cost analyses if you ask them for it. Another good source of information is perhaps companies that offer solar PV solutions under long-term DBFMO (design-build-finance-maintain-operate) contracts, or ESCO’s.
Since I accept that O&M costs of solar PV are likely to be as low as is often claimed, I have not in recent years been spending much time scrutinizing developments in this field.
Finally, I want to add that many people are under the (false) impression that “deserts are ideal places for locating for solar PV”. In fact though, countries with large desert resources such as Middle Eastern countries have found that desert habitats can be extremely punishing for solar PV technology (indeed, any technology faced challenges in the desert), and that this significantly impacts the feasibility of solar-PV-in-the-desert. Particularly things like sandstorms and hailstorms present serious challenges for operating and maintaining solar PV systems in deserts. I recall that this is one of the reasons why several Middle Eastern countries have recently embarked on large nuclear power programs, despite the fact that they would appear (to the casual observer) to have “limitless solar resources” in the form of deserts.
If forgot to mention that deserts also have large diurnal temperature swings, and the highly daytime temperatures reduce PV performance. Condensation at night and baking during the day, in combination with corrosive minerals distributed with the wind, all add to the challenge of maintaining pretty much anything other than mud huts, tents and camels in the desert.
@Will
Just check e.g.
http://global.sunpowercorp.com/products/solar-panels/warranty/
Their panels with >20% yield guarantee <15% degradation of the yield after 25years.
Assume those panels will last 100years or so, as long as you treatment well.
The issue is more that their economic life will end earlier.
I estimate that you may want to replace them with much cheaper panels that produce twice as much electricity after ~25 years.
As that brings you more money from your roof.
I was speaking loosely. Commercial nukes utilize computer software in their operations. BBR-2 was built too soon for this, as you point out, but future LMFBRs might use computer software in reactor control and it could be hacked. It is not crazy to start worrying that terrorist hackers might be able to cause reactors to add reactivity quickly.
Dr. John Miller
@NuclearReporter
@John
Engineering officers should have learned to speak more precisely.
Even if software driven control systems are used, how do hackers get in? Do you honestly believe we have failed to protect against that vulnerability?
For the record, the US NRC has been extremely conservative regarding digital reactor control systems. There are few, if any, in our fleet.
Engineering officers, like all other humans, sometimes make thoughtless mistakes. Shoot me.
A friend of mine claims he has evidence that hackers have gotten into computer systems of nuclear plants in a few places around the world. I haven’t seen his evidence yet.
The whole history of hacking is that the hackers accomplish things the defenders think are impossible, and then a year or two or three later, the defenders catch up to where the hackers were before. By then, they’re still behind a year or two or three behind what the hackers learned to do in the meantime.
Nobody should bet any money that hackers cannot create havoc in a nuclear power plant.
Dr. John Miller
@NuclearReporter
Uh … no, that was an episode in season four of a popular television drama. Perhaps he was describing the plot to you, and you became confused?
That would not be surprising, considering that most of what you have written here and in your articles is pure fiction.
Engineer Officers, even more than engineering officers, should learn to speak more precisely.
In your case, that means stop making claims you know are untrue. You do it in almost everything you write. Were you as truthless when you were in the Navy?
Dr. John Miller
@NuclearReporter
@Rod
“If you cannot measure the effects of low dose radiation, either the effects are too small to worry about or they do not exist.”
This wrong idea caused huge, deadly harm:
In the forties there was evidence that high levels of asbestos fiber in the air caused fatal cancer, and only indications that lower levels would do the same after >20 years. Using your argument, asbestos production and pollution could continue another 50years.
Asbestos could only be banned in the nineties because more sencitive measurement tools (checking all fatal cancers for the specific asbestos type, administer all in a database) could show the size of the harm.
Now the UN estimates at least 100,000 death/a due to asbestos!
A Dutch 2010 study found still 2,000 death/a (~1% of all death) by asbestos, due to micro-fibers still floating in the air, despite the total ban since 2000 (we had no mines, only some small asbestos processing). Researches expect that this death rate will gradually become less in the next 100 year.
Remarkable:
– The asbestos industry also use the argument that the application of asbestos saves lives. E.g. Asbestos brake shoes deliver better brakes! Forgetting that the wear implies huge amounts of asbestos micro-fiber in the air.
– Quebec Canada still exports asbestos to underdeveloped countries (it is banned in all developed countries). Only this year government considers to stop export support: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-s-asbestos-promotion-policy-may-be-ending-1.1341364
Btw.
I could not insert any reaction below your statement.
Bas – Nice straw man, but researchers have been studying radiation for a lot longer than they have been studying asbestos. Besides, asbestos is almost entirely an occupational exposure hazard. Meanwhile, we’re all exposed to low doses of radiation every day of our lives.
But, how rude of me! I’m sorry to introduce silly “facts” into your ongoing campaign against knowledge and science. Please feel free to carry on your war against reason. It’s a farce that makes for some quality entertainment.
Lol I actually have some experience with this issue.
There has been for a good while very strong statistical evidence Asbestos caused cancer. Along with more evidence as time went on.
The exact opposite of very low dose radiation. You could not pick a more striking contrast case.
After those kooky dose numbers Bes gave with no support ive given up till he vindicates himself with something intelligent. And this isnt it.
@John
… strong statistical evidence Asbestos caused cancer…
That is because asbestos caused cancer is very specific. It leaves a ‘fingerprint’.
Thanks to that, measurement tools good be greatly improved. Not so with radiation induced cancers.
There are more similarities with nuclear radiation than the >20years delayed cancer with low levels:
– The density of asbestos particles in the air correlates also with the risks to get asbestos cancer. No threshold below which no damage (LNT).
– All air worldwide contains asbestos micro fibers (air at high altitudes less).
So everybody in the world is exposed to some risk to get asbestos caused cancer.
Concentrations of asbestos particles in the lung vary greatly. In urban areas people have far more. One of the reasons living on the country side (and at higher altitudes, despite raised radiation levels) is mostly healthier.
Check e.g. Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos#Industrial_era
@Brian
…asbestos is almost entirely an occupational exposure hazard…
Almost all of the death in NL (and the world) never worked with asbestos.
Suggest you read a little more about the danger of asbestos:
http://yosemite.epa.gov/r10/owcm.nsf/87b3a0af7a396bf9882564f8002c4080/1892d33bca669504882566d700671e50!OpenDocument
…researchers have been studying radiation for a lot longer…
Asbestos is studied ~80 years, Radiation ~100years.
We understand far less about the mechanism through which radiation causes deadly harm (heart disease, cancers, etc).
The problem that radiation caused damage has no specific ‘fingerprint’ (as asbestos) is one of the reasons.
Do you mean that part that reads: “People who work with asbestos (e.g., miners, insulation workers, automobile brake mechanics) are likely to be exposed to much higher levels of asbestos particles in air than people who work, live, or attend school in buildings containing asbestos products.”
Yes, that “fingerprint” is mesothelioma, which is a rare form of cancer that is primarily contracted by people who had some sort of occupational exposure to the material, as your EPA link explains.
You simply don’t know what you’re talking about. I suggest you read a little more.
Just because no threshold has been established by researchers, that does not imply LNT, but it does not surprise me that a scientific illiterate, like you, would assume that. The LNT, or Linear No-Threshold, hypothesis presumes a linear relation between exposure and risk. For most harmful materials, the relation is nonlinear. For example, it’s generally assumed these days that there is no threshold for exposure to tobacco smoke. Nevertheless, the risk of getting cancer from smoking has a highly nonlinear dependency on exposure. Detailed studies have shown that the risk depends on the number of cigarettes smoked per day, the age at which the person smoked, whether the person has since quit, the amount of time since the person quit, exposure to other materials (like asbestos), etc. The real world is not as simple as your mind.
Once again, Bas, you have demonstrated why you deserve the special distinction of being the person who posts the absolutely stupidest comments on this blog.
@Brian
…Just because no threshold has been established by researchers, that does not imply LNT..
That is the reason I put LNT between brackets. Of course many factors play a role. Also regarding radiation.
E.g. fetuses and babies and children are xxx times more vulnerable as research regarding the Chernobyl radiation showed. Very roughly:
– fetuses ~1,000times more
– babies ~100 times more
– children ~10 times more
Just as nuclear now, the asbestos industry and its supporters have long argued that they had proof of a threshold below which no harm at all.
Just as with radiation, that threshold became lower as research advanced and found damage of at ever lower levels of contamination.
Most discussion ended when lab research showed convincingly that one micro-fiber could be enough. But still the asbestos industry tries to uphold the idea of a threshold.
Radiation research didn’t reach that last phase yet, as lab research regarding radiation caused harm is far more complex.
Germany’s Effort at Clean Energy Proves Complex
A new phrase, “energy poverty,” has entered the lexicon. “Often, I don’t go into my living room in order to save electricity,”
Last year, wind, solar and other nonfossil-fuel sources provided 22 percent of the power for Germany, but the country increased its carbon emissions over 2011 as oil- and coal-burning power plants had to close gaps in the evolving system ( http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/19/world/europe/germanys-effort-at-clean-energy-proves-complex.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 )
Nothing new in all that – we (most of us) already know its a disaster. “Complex” seems to imply its not a failure. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. Rates and emissions wont be coming down in the near future. Rates probably not ever. Everything is pointing to matters getting worse.
Coal also is a bit cheaper and expected to remain so for a bit. ( http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/14/business/energy-environment/us-coal-companies-scale-back-export-goals.html?pagewanted=all )
What is possibly about to occur is a bit more worrisome. Europe will be competing more with Asia for Russian gas. Greece will once again be on the verge of default soon (in months). A colossal real estate collapse is beginning in Spain, as well as a host of other countries on the brink/facing major spending cutbacks. It is an incredibly bad time to increase electricity bills.
Climate trends seem to indicate the likelihood of at least one severe windstorm impacting Europe. If not more than one. (the US also will possibly still see severe problems on the east coast soon with flooding/storms). In general the European winter is expected to be warmer, however as some extremes seem to be the rule, and the arctic surface temps don’t seem as unusually warm as its been, and some ocean temps to the south are, I imagine there could be some severe impulse storm/cold events; as in the recent past. Some of Russia and possibly parts of China may more likely see some significant cold but its too early to tell IMHO.
So Gas prices could see a lot of fluctuation, and in Europe remain high despite bad economic times, and they could even go higher.
The FDP is the only party that wants to slow down with the Energiewende. And the FDP scored an “all time” low in last week’s Germany’s Bavarian state election (4%)…
So you assume that 96% of all Germans went crazy, wanting to continue with a ‘disaster’?
…Rates and emissions wont be coming down in the near future…
Stop peering to the small year-to-year fluctuations.
Only the long term trend is important for climate change.
And that went fine; Germany only country that reached the Kyoto targets already in 2012 (-25% GHG emissions at 2020).
And that also goes first-rate:
Even at the temporary reduced rate (waiting for grid adaptation) they Install at least 5GW renewable per year. The result is that more thermal plants get lower and lower load factors. Hence long term lower CO2/GHG.
This summer some of those plants closed definitively due to the low load factor.
nb.
max. consumption in Germany is ~65GW
Three years more CO2 from electricity. Germany just attempted to block better EU fuel standards for autos. Some of the highest electricity prices in Europe.
Per capita CO2 release by country (In Metric Tons of Carbon Dioxide) :
France 6.2
United Kingdom 8.5
Germany 9.7
( http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/iedindex3.cfm?tid=90&pid=45&aid=8&cid=regions&syid=2000&eyid=2010&unit=MTCDPP )
Whatever you say.
In line with expectation if you look at the temperatures…
Germany is the coldest country and France the warmest, having in general a nice friendly climate.
I learned something today: CO2 is bad … unless it’s cold.
Poland 7.9
Belarus 6.6
Czech Republic 9.3
@John T
CO2 emissions correlate with level of development / economy / wealth.
E.g. take Bhutan that has far, far lower levels.
Belarus is the poorest country, so 6.6 tons of CO2 per capita
Poland more rich, so 7.9
Czech more rich than Poland, so 9.3
All three are far behind Germany regarding level of development / economy / wealth.
So their people immigrate into Germany and NL (big restrictions for Belarus).
UK, France and Germany are in that respect more the same.
Still Germany is clearly the richest, most developed country of those three.
“So you assume that 96% of all Germans went crazy…”
No, that could never happen…
LOL not touching that.
I wish dv82xl still participated here…
We discussed IFR safety before.
https://atomicinsights.com/plutonium-power-for-the-people/
I still believe that all solid fueled fast neutron reactors should be defueled until proponents prove that they can contain a high velocity (high reactivity insertion rate) accident based on fundamental principles of physics.
What would the yield at Chernobyl have been if the neutron generation lifetime was 1,000 times shorter?
Here is a more specific link.
https://atomicinsights.com/plutonium-power-for-the-people/#comment-26731
It’s a shame that Pandora’s Promise long ago lost who would’ve been its ideal poster boy; actor Paul Newman, the consummate Hollywood liberal icon and highly regarded humanitarian, whose early anti-nuclear views were turned around by a expertly educational visit to one of Connecticut nuclear plants — too late to make his mark on erasing the undeserved stain nuclear’s received from those with implacable historical and philosophical anti-nuke grudges. R.I.P. Paul Newman. We needed you like yesterday.
James Greenidge
Queens NY
Bas said:
You somehow managed to miss the entire gist of the comment, and the study, and the two links …30%, not 80%.
Would you mind being my Google monkey? Go find out what renewable energy Denmark is counting on …hydro, biomass, geothermal, whatever, then calculate for me how much they have of it per person so I don’t have to do it for you. Then calculate how much of it the U.S. has of it per person, adjusted for energy consumption per person. Thanks.
Your argument is with the NREL, not me. You can bet your first born child that if they calculate that only 30% will come from renewables by 2050 that it is strongly biased to show that result. In reality, it is highly unlikely that 30% would be attainable.
I’m not trying to convince you of that. I’m using you as a foil to inform any reader following this exchange…; )
@Russ
“… renewables can provide 80% of all US power needs by 2050…”
Denmark has a scenario towards 100% renewable for all energy at 2050.
So I would think that such an 80% target is a piece of cake for USA.
As USA has far more resources (more land per inhabitant, etc).
What is the basis of your ideas that US with its unique resources cannot reach that 80%?
What mistakes made the research staff at NREL?
Cleveland reporter discovers, publishes story about Los Alamos in 1944.
http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/09/20/worst-manhattan-project-leaks/
@John
Thank you for posting that link. It is a fascinating piece of Manhattan Project history with some real investigative journalism thrown in.
That whole era intrigues me. I often wonder how much different our acceptance of nuclear technology would be if Chadwick, Meitner, Fermi, Szilard, Hahn, Bohr and others had made their important breakthroughs at a time when their was NOT an existential menace growing in Germany in the form of the Nazi Party and their mass hypnosis of the majority of German people.
Imagine how people would have felt about atomic energy if the development path had moved from CP-1 to a CP-2, 3, 4, etc that were progressively aimed at capturing fission heat as a better way to boil water, create steam, and turn turbines. The whole weapons detour could have been avoided.
@Rod
You make a very good point. At the least, the unrushed judgments about proceeding would have been more thoughtful. Somebody would have gotten around to telling the President that the whole enterprise required long-term waste storage, and that we shouldn’t embark on a nuclear industry or bombs until we quantified the risk and decided it was not too big a problem to surmount. As it was, I doubt that Truman was ever told how big a problem it was.
Nuclear isn’t a competitor with renewables. Nuclear is a low carbon ally. Thinking that renewables should replace nuclear instead of coal is …somebody pick a word for me.
Miller said:
The NREL study you quote estimated that renewables could provide about 30% of all US power needs by 2050, not 80%. How awkward …without nuclear we don’t stand a chance of decarbonizing our energy sector.
Read: The “we don’t need nuclear energy because renewables can do it all” argument.
And if that doesn’t float your boat, read: The Exaggerated Promise of Renewable Energy
Miller said:
You have already proven yourself to be untrustworthy, so, I doubt that the above is true either. Certainly, here in the U.S., investment in wind stops with any hint that the PTC subsidy will not be extended yet again.
Read Uncertainty and Investment in Electric Generation.
Miller said:
I used to be a big fan of Lovins until one day I realized that he has never gotten anything right. Read: Nuclear Has Scaled Far More Rapidly Than Renewables
This comment cleans up the HTML of a previous one. If the moderator would like to clean up the comment field by deleting my test posts, feel free.
The NREL study’s conclusion clearly says renewables can provide 80% of our power by 2050. Show evidence that it said 30%.
Amory Lovins is single-handedly responsible for the gigantic increases in efficiency from industrial motors and lighting. In the late 70s and early 80s, the US was able to put off some electrical generation construction because we were saving so much more energy than we had before 1974.
Dr. John Miller
@NuclearReporter
@Russ
“…for a given investment, renewables can provide much more power than nuclear plants, and much faster…
As reaction you show only that nuclear scaled up faster. As investment in nuclear was much higher, that is logical.
It does not tell that nuclear delivers less with the same investment.
A 1.5GW NPP costs ~€10billion. That implies that 1,5KW cost 10K
For 10K you can buy a ~7KW solar PV installation on your roof in NL.
For bigger installations it will be ~35 cheaper. So €1 per watt.
And that installation will produce within a few months…
And the operating costs per KW of the PV installation are at least 20 times smaller than those of the NPP.
ummm weird pause. Bizarre-o
Anyway Spain looks like it might actually have some low carbon numbers at the end of the year as fossil fuels for electricity are way down and hydro is way up. Their nuclear is a bit down and import numbers are up so its also a bit of a mixed bag.
Im not sure this has completely passed yet but its worth mention as an approaching issue :
Out Of Ideas And In Debt, Spain Sets Sights On Taxing The Sun
in order to figure out who is producing what level of energy (and, of course, to tax it), all solar panels now have to be hooked up to the grid. Those taxpayers who don’t connect to the grid face a fine of up to 30 million euros ($40 million U.S.). ( http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2013/08/19/out-of-ideas-and-in-debt-spain-sets-sights-on-taxing-the-sun/ )
Ill try to find more specifics. There is also this:
Czech follows Spain in deciding to tax output from solar power
It means that renewable energy facilities switching on after December 31, 2013, will not receive the feed-in tariff or any other subsidy payments, but owners of solar power plants installed after 2010 will have to pay a 10 per cent tax for the full life of each power station. The law will also exclude small and residential systems under 30kW – the most recent recipients of state-supported PV installation.
The move to stem solar growth follows that of the Spanish government, which in July announced a “support levy” on solar power as part of a series of new taxes on green energy. The levy, passed in August, effectively charges a fee – 6 Euro cents per kilowatt-hour – for electricity generated by grid-connected solar panels or other renewable sources and used on-site. ( http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/czech-follows-spain-in-deciding-to-tax-output-from-solar-power-49694 )
I never really had a problem with rooftop solar. Its probably not a doable large scale answer but some people like having it and thats fine. You always in theory had the option of unplugging and going it alone if you really wanted to suffer. Now even that doesn’t look possible.
@Bas
So what you really are saying that a Swedish company should be happy that they can raise the cost of electricity so that they can make more money? Do you understand what that means for people with low income? For their life quality? Do you understand that what you really are arguing for is classical fascism where the poor is sacrificed for the greater good. We are already seeing this in Germany where 600 000-800 000 households cannot pay their electrical bills.
http://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/energie/article107270617/800-000-Deutsche-koennen-Strom-nicht-bezahlen.html
The point I want to get out here is that a solution that is so expensive that the poor cannot pay will mean that a part of the population wont have access to things like a light bulb. That is exactly how bad it is in Germany for the moment. I do not want to see that happen in Sweden.
@robjoh
I traveled this year 4 times through Germany. Two times biking. Spoke many Germans. That I do for ~30 years. I definitively have the impression that they are much better off now than (long) time ago.
Figures show their economy had hardly a fall back in the crisis (no recession as in NL, UK, US, etc.). It is consistently growing.
If the situation would be like the painted picture, than there would have been far more protest voters at the national elections this Sunday.
If they cannot pay the electricity bill than for sure the gas bill either as that is bigger… No such complaint about that.
Anyway, Merkel’s right-wing coalition partner FDP harvested from their actions to delay the Energiewende, which would have delivered a lower electricity bill.
They are now out of parliament…
So now Merkel can only do a coalition with the socialists (SDP) and/or the Greens.
That will deliver a more social government..
E.g. impose minimum wage regulations (which we have in NL already ~50years).
That will help the poor.
@Ron Adams
I have problem to get my answers posted.
@Bas
May I ask if you always are as uninformed when you make statements? I can understand that you have problem reading Swedish sites but you can at least stop making shit up from insufficient information.
I took the figures from last year 2012 (assuming hydro capacity is still improving).
Hydro capacity as in size of dams and the number of hydro plants has not increased in Sweden has not increased for at least 15 years if not 30 years. Due to environment reasons we stopped building new hydro plants during seventies. So what happened during 2012?
1, A very wet year.
2, Ringhals 2 and Oskarshamn 3 was not producing any electricity.
Ringhals 2 was due to that during the revision a vacuum cleaner caught fire. As they wanted to be sure that everything was safe they went through everything (hint it was)
Oskarshamn 3 was due to the final step in project PULS, which raised the maximum production from 1200 MW to 1450 MW.
2009 had even much lower nuclear share: 34.7% (from world-nuclear.org).
It you make a regression / trend line, then you see that the share of nuclear goes downwards.
Yes and again there is a reason for that, large investments and modernization. Sweden has three nuclear plants, Ringhals (4 reactors), Forsmark (3 reactors) and Oskarshamn (3 reactors).
During 2009:
Ringhals closed down R1 and R2 for a complete modernization and preparation for further increases in max production.
Forsmark 2 had a longer revision, again due to modernization.
Oskarshamn 3 made the first step in project PULS mentioned above.
The thing is it is not the hydro capacity that is better, it is the nuclear fleet that is preparing for another 20 years with increased productivity. Each Nuclear plant has plans for increasing the delivered amount of MWe. Oskarshamn just closed down O2 for 9 months in preparation for a increase from 630 MWe to 850 MWe in 2015.
Both Ringhals and Forsmark has plans to increase the total capacity each with ~3 TWh.
The pumped storage stays the same. Then it will be filled by cheap imported electricity (there is more than enough; check the whole sale prices).
Yes the pumped storage stays the same, that is the problem. The only reason why Sweden can act as a pumped storage for other nations is that we do not need that capacity for ourselves. If Sweden close down our nuclear fleet our hydro plants cannot even deliver enough electricity for Swedish peak hours. It does not matter if Sweden can import cheap energy from X or Y during some days. Without any other base load capacity than hydro we can not even power ourselves those days that we cannot import cheap energy.
I saw wind turbines when we biked along the Swedish coast from Trelleborg to Helsingborg this spring.
Here is the problem: Sweden has an installed wind capacity of 3600 MW and produces around 7 TWh. Forsmark and Ringhals produces around 50 TWh. One single reactor in Forsmark produces more than all of our wind turbines. Closing 3 reactors would mean a loss of somewhere between 15-21 TWh. You would need to triple the installed wind capacity. However if you do that you get some serious problem else where:
* Our hydro capacity can only regulate 10-15 TWh (10 is what the hydro industry think, 15 is the more optimistic green vision)
* Risks of overproduction those few days that the wind actually is blowing.
@robjoh
Norwegian Statkraft will be happy to help you out with its pumped storage services.
@Bas
Is that all you can answer when I have proven that you do not know a thing about Swedish nuclear plants? Good for you!
So Norwegian Statkraft should balance, Denmark, Germany, Sweden and who knows which other country. Do you understand how large dams you need to do that? What happens when Denmark and Sweden need 10 000 MW of electricity (probably closer to 13000 MW if Denmark shall close there coal powerplants)?
Here is a number of technical questions you need to be able to answer:
* How large is the Norwegian Dams?
* What is the peak electricity need in Norway?
* What is the maximum possible production of electricity from Hydroplants in Norway?
Because nothing I have seen following the Nordic energy market indicates that Norway can act as the country that should balance the whole Nordic region.