Continuing a blog dialog with Climate Progress on the value of developing nuclear energy
The comment that I made yesterday on Climate Progress that questioned why the blog has such an antinuclear stance did not make it through the moderation step and did not appear. However, there is a useful conversation going on there about an important topic. If an organization claims that preventing climate change is its reason for being, how can it justify an antinuclear stance? It requires a high degree of self delusion or intellectual gymnastics to make that combination work since nuclear energy is proven on a large scale to operate without producing any greenhouse gas emissions. As a side benefit, it also does not produce any acid gas emissions, does not release any mercury, and does not release any fine particulate matter.
There is no doubt that nuclear energy is not perfect and has some issues – mainly related to cost and construction schedules – that need to be solved. Anyone really concerned about climate change should be encouraging the implementation of solutions to those issues, not merely critically attacking the progress that has been made so far.
Here is the contribution that I made today to the discussion on Climate Progress’s post titled Sen. Lamar Alexander plans to nuke his own agenda.
I will try again to join the conversation, fully recognizing that “JR” may not appreciate or approve my comment. That’s okay, it’s his blog.
In response to a comment that pointed out a technically inaccurate statement about the radioactivity of plutonium by an organization that calls itself the Union of Concerned Scientists, there was a parenthetical response by the blog host that minimized the importance of the statement as follows:
“[JR: UCS statement was poorly worded.]”
I have done a bit of technical document editing for scientists and engineers who are often guilty of “poorly wording” their work, but they are normally careful about maintaining technical accuracy. A UCS document that reads well but has technical inaccuracies reinforces my continued assertions that the organization has more lawyers and activists than “scientists”, despite its name. It is interesting that the authors of this particular Climate Progress blog entry chose to quote the UCS, but carefully edit the following statement to take out the assertion that reprocessing somehow turns plutonium into something that is not radioactive:
From the perspective of terrorists seeking a nuclear weapon, reprocessing changes plutonium from a form in which it is highly radioactive and nearly impossible to steal to one in which it is not radioactive and could be stolen surreptitiously by an insider, or taken by force during its routine transportation.
Note: The above quote was still on the UCS web site as of December 5, 2010 at 0551
Another parenthetical comment deserves some response:
“[JR: Areva has lots of problems selling reactors anywhere in the world as the links show. They won’t even give a guarantee for the current $8 billion price for a new nuke.]”
Yes, design decisions made more than 20 years ago when the EPR project started have been haunting Areva’s sales efforts. At that time, their predecessor company and their partner in the EPR project – Siemens – determined that the best way to design a reactor that could attract customers was to layer on as many safety “features” as possible. They added such bells and whistles as a massive “core catcher”, full scale aircraft impact protection, and four separate safety chains. The computed core damage frequency of the EPR is incredibly low.
The problem is that the market today is not interested in paying for the cost and schedule impacts associated with a component that will never be used – the core catcher. (Based on analysis of the core pressure vessel of TMI unit 2, melted “corium” is unlikely to even penetrate the pressure vessel cladding, and has no probability of penetrating the pressure vessel, or the standard containment boundary.) They are also willing to accept a minute amount of risk associated with a direct precision attack by a large, fuel filled aircraft if accepting that incredibly small risk means that they save a lot of money on the plant construction costs.
With the EPR, Areva is stuck in the position of Rolls Royce – it is marketing what is arguably the “safest” reactor in a market where there are other adequately safe reactors available at a much lower price. There is nothing inherently wrong with the design, it just does not match what the customers wants to buy. That is why Areva is also marketing both a BWR (KERENA – http://bit.ly/g02hpX) and a PWR (ATEMA1 – http://bit.ly/h1vn48) that are simpler and produce a bit less power and why they are investing into some SMR projects as well.
Once again I have to ask – if the goal of Climate Progress is to help alleviate the real problems associated with dumping fossil fuel waste into the atmosphere, why not discuss ways to take away some of the barriers to nuclear energy and solve some of the technical challenges rather that simply throwing critical stones at the technology and the people who are working feverishly to improve it.
As a former submarine engineer officer, I cannot get past my own personal experience with nuclear technology. If a power system is clean enough to operate inside a sealed ship and reliable enough to use just one reactor in a place where a power failure can be fatal, then it is worth pursuing and solving the challenges. Unlike JR, I did not cut my teeth in the energy world at the feet of a guy who never bothered to finish school and thinks that finding a cheap, abundant source of energy would be a bad thing.
I suspect the financial motives of anyone who claims to be focused on solving climate issues and ignores nuclear while accepting natural gas as being a sufficiently less polluting that coal. Even the very best gas plants still produce about 500 grams of CO2 per kilowatt hour while the best nuclear plants – with enrichment done with centrifuges powered by nuclear reactors – produce less than 10 grams of CO2 per kilowatt hour for their entire life cycle.
Rod Adams
Publisher, Atomic Insights
Update: (Posted on December 6, 2010 at 0509) There is an article titled Nuclear power running on fumes that has been published at ClimateChange.foreignpolicyblogs.com. Articles like this make rational people suspicious that the real agenda and the stated agenda of people who claim to be focused on reducing the effects of pumping CO2 into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels are at odds with each other. There are legitimate reasons for concern, but serious people who want to solve the problem recognize that it is illogical to avoid using the most capable tool in the solutions box.
I tried as well to contradict the nonsense on the common dreams thread and was like you blocked.
I take Rolm apart whenever I find him in other blogs.
The Zak blogger is doing a decent job though.
Its fair ball to point out how hypocritical Climate Progress is being with their anti nuclear stance. “JR” is Joe Romm, and he never fails to pile on whenever he thinks he can make nuclear look bad, with assertions he must realize can only be taken to be lies by people who are not ignorant. One of his own former teachers is Ernie Moniz, who is on the Commission looking into America’s Nuclear Future. Moniz shared a stage with Romm at Dartmouth a few months ago. Romm cranked out so many anti nuclear lies Moniz told the audience several times what Romm was saying was “not true”. Romm kept it up. Moniz then used a story told by a professor he knew Romm would grant public respect to to call Romm a “scoundrel”, to his face, and in front of the crowd.
But, it has to be said that there is a certain hostility to the climate issue among supporters of nuclear power. Mays once attacked me for being some sort of religious zealot because I take climate science seriously. When Rod questions the science on ozone depletion he misunderstands how intertwined climate science and ozone depletion science are. Climate scientsts often refer to “the well mixed greenhouse gases” when they talk about what is causing the climate problem. All of the common ozone depleting gases Rod was adamant could not be mixed into the atmosphere in quantities large enough to cause the ozone problem are accepted by all climate scientists to be “well mixed” into the atmosphere in large enough quantities to be causing a significant part of the climate problem as well. The single greatest success in international action on climate is the Montreal Protocol, because in limiting production of ozone depleting gases, it limited the concentration of this group of potent greenhouse gases so the net effect is greater than the total of what anyone has done anywhere to limit CO2.
@David – I know we have gone on about this before, but I maintain there is a wide difference between CFCs and CO2. The cumulative world production of CFCs as of the time that the Montreal Protocol was passed was on the order of 25 million tons. Here is a difference in the scale of the problem:
25,000,000 tons CFC total from all recorded history, much of which is still inside sealed systems like refrigerators, freezers and air conditioners
30,000,000,000 tons CO2 every single year
The other difference is associated with the “well mixed” atmosphere. As I understand it, CO2 does its heat trapping work throughout the vertical distribution of the atmosphere, so the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere makes a difference in the overall ability of the Earth to emit heat into space. In contrast, CFCs can only damage ozone after they have diffused up into the stratosphere and then gotten exposed to sufficient quantities of UV radiation to break them apart. After that happens, each of the free Cl atoms is assumed to be a catalyst for a reaction that destroys thousands to tens of thousands of molecules of ozone.
However, if the 25 million tons of CFCs are uniformly mixed within the atmosphere, aren’t the vast majority of the CFC molecules located where the vast majority of all other atmospheric molecules of N2, O2 and trace gases like CO2 and Ar are located – in the dense part of the atmosphere at low elevations where most of us live and breathe? There just is not much of the well mixed atmospheric gases located in the stratosphere.
I get that dumping 30 billion tons of long lived waste products into the atmosphere every year for many decades can lead to some unintended and unpleasant consequences. I still cannot get my head around how some leakage from sealed air conditioners and refrigerators of a stable gas produced in far lower quantities can cause severe damage to a layer of fragile molecules located about 10-50 km above the earth’s surface. When you tell me that I am supposed to genuflect and believe both of these assertions with equal fervor, you add to my belief that there are ulterior motives behind at least some of the cataclysmic pronouncements of the people professing to be focused on climate change.
I think I have figured out what the real issues and real dangers are. I will join forces with those who want to reduce CO2 emissions because I think they are correct, but I will not buy into wasting money on solar and wind. I especially will not buy into any idea of using biomass as somehow being “carbon neutral” because there are a lot of other problems associated with burning biomass. Besides, if we are really going to avert major climate changes in the future, biomass growing should be a carbon sink, not just a carbon neutral activity.
I still think that Rowland, Molina and the other CFC alarmists made some fundamental errors in their modeling assertions. I believe that their efforts were readily accepted because it helped further some existing agendas and made some powerful people a fair bit of return on their investment. I recognize that position will not win me any friends. So be it.
Rod, it wasn’t just a little leakage of CFCs used as working fluids.
CFCs were used in fire extinguishers, propellant in all sundry aerosol spray bottles(e.g. hair spray, asthma inhalers, canned ‘air’, deodorants, spray paints, insect repellants, degreasers), blowing agent in foams(e.g. styrofoam, urethane foam), dry cleaning fluid, all sorts of places.
I’m not sure, but I don’t think leakage was what was most worrisome thing about CFCs used in heat pumps. A lot of those systems would have not have been carefully recycled, just land filled or crushed.
You remembered! I’m touched. 😉
What frosts me off the most is that unlike coal, oil, and bitumen, natural gas is the lest threatened of all the fossil fuels by nuclear. Even if they were to lose baseload generation, there is still peaking, and transportation markets that hey could develop ( and be treated like heroes for doing so.) Why they feel they need to take this sort of underhanded approach is beyond me.
@DV82XL – in the US today, fully 1/3 of all gas production is burned in electric power plants. That is the portion of their market that is growing. They like selling their product at high prices, but those high priced destroyed the demand for gas in chemicals and fertilizer production. The gas industry did not care about losing those customers because they believed they had created a far less price sensitive market in electrical power. Once you build a “cheap” gas fired power plant, you lock yourself into using that fuel source. There are a few dual fueled gas turbines out there, but the cost per unit heat from oil is almost always quite a bit higher than it is for gas.
Since the power companies built gas turbines almost exclusively throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, they have no real choice but to pay whatever the market price for gas happens to be if they are going to produce reliable power. Because of the risk that gas prices can skyrocket, nearly all of the regulated utilities have convinced their public utility commissions to allow them almost automatic and frequent fuel adjustment surcharges. That policy allows the utilities to escape the risk of higher gas prices by passing it on to captive customers.
All commodity businesses LOVE finding customers who are dependent and price insensitive. Those are the most profitable kind of customers. (I know, I used to sell commodity plastic products.)
You are right of course, I was just lamenting the fact that they could take the high road here without taking a loss if they played their cards right. But I know expecting ethical behavior from them is na
Thanks for keeping up the dialog, Ron. You have important information to share, and you have a follow-the-money perspective that I believe is largely correct. Everyone who is concerned with global climate change deserves to hear it. The censorship at Climate Progress reflects poorly on that organization.
If natural gas replaces coal and oil on a widespread scale, it may be that the total reduction of US CO2 emissions would be disappointing (to Climate Progress and other “natural gas environmentalists”). It probably would not be enough to stave off climate impacts or even mitigate them significantly.
According to this report, natural gas electricity emits 60-65% of the greenhouse gas per kWh as coal electricity. Switching to natural gas electricity would therefore seem to offer significant greenhouse gas reductions. On the other hand, according to this report the methane emissions from natural gas production are major, and to a large degree offset any advantage offered by a switch to natural gas electricity.
In the transportation sector, many are promoting a switch to natural gas vehicles to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, this analysis finds that natural gas obtained by fracking shale has a 65% bigger greenhouse gas impact than gasoline or diesel, due to methane leakage. Most or all of the projected growth in US natural gas supply is forecast to come from fracking of shale formations.
And in a more recent update, the same author writes:
“We urge caution in viewing natural gas as good fuel choice for the future. Using the best available science, we conclude that natural gas is no better than coal and may in fact be worse than coal in terms of its greenhouse gas footprint when evaluated over the time course of the next several decades. Note that both the National Academy of Sciences and the Council of Scientific Society Presidents have urged great caution before proceeding with the development of diffuse natural gas from shale formations using unconventional technology.”
Sorry, should have written “Rod” not “Ron.”
@Laurence – No worries. It happens all the time. (Something tells me that your name is also frequently misspelled.)
Rod, I agree with the thrust of your post.
I do believe that a full meltdown accident should be in the design basis. Solid core reactors should have a core catcher, which does not add a great deal to the cost.
With that in place, a meltdown accident has no risk of killing anyone or producing a large uncontrolled release. The emphasis on preventing core damage is reduced to an economic analysis only.
Safety related systems could be greatly simplified, industrial grade components could replace much more expensive nuclear qualified, often identical components, reducing construction time and cost. O&M cost would be reduced due to fewer active components to be maintained, and capacity factor can go up with fewer unplanned trips.
The EPR is the Mercedes of reactors, we need a Chevy.
@Bill – according to a well researched, tested and peer reviewed article published in Science in the September 20, 2002 issue, even without a core catcher there is no chance of a full core melt accident killing anyone.
You say that core catchers do not add much cost. Can you quantify that? What about their effect on schedules – how long do they take to pour and qualify before other phases of construction can proceed? Wasn’t the core catcher concrete the source of a major delay in Finland?
Before we could do the simplification that you advocate, we would have to change the NRC licensing goals for the probability of Core Damage Frequency of 1 in 10^-4 per year.
I’m not a nuclear engineer, but…even if you have a core catcher, I would argue that such a core catcher may reduce the possibility of – but certainly does not preclude – the containment from being challenged. How can you assure that all of the core falls into the core catcher, rather than some side penetration or seam of the RPV blowing out in a PME, which subsequently leads to DCH?
From what I understand, the best way to arrest a core melt accident is to act before anything has melted by maintaining a coolable geometry using a robust, redundant, and diverse AFW/ECC system, and if that fails, and the core melts, to maintain the pressure boundary by cooling the RPV from the outside. Personally, I like the ESBWR’s passive approach to emergency core cooling – which makes it practically impossible for any core damage to occur in the first place – just by the application of natural circulation, pressure, and gravity.
I do agree with Rockwell et al’s analysis of the realistic consequences of a core melt accident (the article that Rod mentioned in the September 2002 issue of Science, I believe) but regardless of whether there are fatalities or not – whether the containment is breached or not – whether the primary pressure boundary is penetrated or not – a core melt accident will lead to large-scale direct damage to the utility whose reactor’s core melted, and large-scale collateral damage to the nuclear industry, and ought to be avoided at all costs.
Besides, a reactor is pretty darn expensive. I would argue that simple financial prudence on the part of the owner – and the owner’s property insurers – in protecting their investment in their plant – would require emergency cooling systems of a very similar magnitude to the ones that the NRC requires.
“Wasn’t the core catcher concrete the source of a major delay in Finland?”
Rod – You got anything to back that up? I doubt that the core catcher would have been a significant source of a delay. Of all of the enormous amount of concrete that goes into a new EPR, the concrete in the core catcher should have one of the more accommodating quality standards. Most of it is “sacrificial concrete,” meaning that it doesn’t have to contain anything, I just has to fall apart and get mixed up in the corium (melted core) as it spreads out along a flat surface to cool.
Rod, I do not have data on core catcher cost. It could be as little as zero if you are right. The concept is to spread the melt into a thin sheet or droplets and passively supply enough water to solidify the melt and extract waste heat while the short lived fission products decay.
The end cost of a core catcher depends on the creativity of the design engineers. I believe that for a blank sheet reactor design the marginal cost would be small, and the benefits would more than compensate for it.
Anti nukes have been clubbing us with the China Syndrome accident for decades; it would be nice to take that away from them.
I apologize – I didn’t know the RPV was surrounded with a radiation shield, though that would make sense, people have to be able to enter the containment, even for limited times while the reactor is on. (There aren’t many diagrams or descriptions of containment internals out there that the public can access, just as a FYI.)
Your argument is beginning to make sense. I can see how it could be easier to accept that the occasional meltdown will happen and have a system set up to contain it, rather than trying to prevent and arrest it at all costs in the first place.
> I suspect the financial motives of anyone who claims to be focused on solving climate issues and ignores nuclear…
You insinuated Dr Romm was dishonest based on a strawman, your comment was removed and now you’re whining about it. Grow a pair and get a clue.
BlueRock – I can prove that I “have a pair”. I am the father of two lovely ladies. If Dr. Romm would like to prove that he has no financial relationship with the natural gas industry that would be pretty easy to do. If he does not want to talk about it on his site, he can come here and visit.
My position about the efforts of the gas industry to handicap and spread FUD about its competition is not whining – it is a direct result of many years worth of research with quite a bit of formal documentation.
> I am the father of two lovely ladies.
No, ‘grow a pair’ is not a literal reference to growing testicles. It’s common vernacular which – in this context – means ‘toughen up’.
> If Dr. Romm would like to prove that he has no financial relationship with the natural gas industry that would be pretty easy to do.
Can you prove that you have not had sex with goats?
Someone of a cynical nature might think you’re just employing the ‘Glenn Beck’ smear tactic of demanding people defends themselves against allegations in order to give the allegations credibility. A weak, despicable tactic used by weak, unpleasant people.
> My position about the efforts of the gas industry to handicap and spread FUD about its competition is not whining…
You’re not following the chain of conversation. You made the passive aggressive “whine” of “Just in case the moderator fails to approve my comment – which is not uncommon at Climate Progress…”
You then made a comment that insinuated Dr Romm is corrupt and so, quite rightly, your comment was deleted. Again, it raises the suspicion that you are not an honest, decent person.
P.S. Very funny that you’re accusing others of spreading FUD when you are the author of the dishonest quote mine piece ‘Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tells the Colorado Oil and Gas Association that Wind and Solar Plants are Gas Plants’. People who live in glass houses….
Glen Beck smear tactic? Hmm … seems to me that this tactic was most recently used by the Obama administration against the American Chamber of Commerce.
Rod – Looks like you’ve got a live one from the CAP.
@BlueRock – would you care to elaborate on what – exactly – I was dishonest about with regard to RFK Jr.’s comment to the Colorado Oil and Gas Association? I did not make that up, in fact, I posted a video clip with a very clear audio track that shows him saying exactly what my headline said and I provided links within that post so that people could go and watch the entire speech in context and hear the man’s pleas for political alliance and other forms of support from the gas industry.
http://atomicinsights.blogspot.com/2010/11/robert-f-kennedy-jr-tells-colorado-oil.html
In case you cannot watch the video, or you want to copy and paste the quote somewhere, here is what he said after describing the solar thermal power plants being built by BrightSource, a company on whose board he sits – presumably not for free.
“But, if a cloud passes over or during the evening, the utility wants to baseload. And the way that we are going to deliver that baseload is by powering it with gas. We’re building these all over the country and one of the questions that we ask is that we need about three thousand feet in altitude, we need flat land and we need 300 days of sunlight and we need to be near a gas pipe. Because you know for all of these big utility scale power plants whether it is wind or solar everybody is looking at gas as the supplementary fuel. The plants that we are building, the wind plants and the solar plants, are gas plants. (Emphasis in the original.)”
Ummm.. Blue Rock you appear not to be following the chain of conversation.
Where in Rod’s first comment which Climate Progress, i.e. Joe Romm or JR, blocked was any insinuation that Mr. Romm was dishonest? And how can you claim that was the reason Rod’s comment was removed since Rod posted his blog entry AFTER his comment was deleted or blocked?
All I see in both of Rod’s entries, that were never allowed by Climate Progress on their blog, is a questioning attitude about Climate Progress’ continued fight against nuclear power when their supposed goal is a reduction in GHG emissions.
Wind and solar will never be able to generate sufficient on-demand power for our national needs in a cost effective way. Never.
(As an aside, why does it always seem like it is the politically oriented physicists who do not seem to understand the issue that wind and solar can never replace coal generation. Case in point, Romm has a PhD in physics and Lovins was educated in physics but never received a formal degree. End aside.)
So anyone who is advocating transforming our grid system to more wind and solar in an effort to replace coal is actually helping the natural gas industry increase their market penetration. Natural gas is not a green gas as some of the “environmental” side like to advertise since it does produce GHG’s.
Therefore, many of us who are nuclear supporters as the only reasonable method to replace GHG emitters on a utility scale believe people like Joe Romm and Amory Lovins are more about being anti-nuclear then they are about reducing or eliminating GHG emissions from our utility industry power generation. The next logical question to ask is why are they so anti-nuclear if they are adamant about eliminating GHG
“(As an aside, why does it always seem like it is the politically oriented physicists who do not seem to understand the issue that wind and solar can never replace coal generation. Case in point, Romm has a PhD in physics and Lovins was educated in physics but never received a formal degree. End aside.)”
It’s not just politically oriented physicists who make this mistake. Physicists, in general, tend to be somewhat enamored with solar power because there’s some really cool condensed matter physics (“solid state physics” for the old folks) going on there. They rarely look beyond the cool physics factor, and frankly, they just don’t have the training in engineering fundamentals to understand how design tradeoffs work in the real world. Asking a physicist about energy policy is like asking a blind man to describe the color of the sky.
Ted Rockwell has some interesting things to say about the difference between physicists and engineers when it comes to making realistic assumptions. His story about correcting Edward Teller’s assumptions about potential radiation releases from nuclear submarines should be required reading for any physicist who wants to discuss nuclear power.
“So are Mr. Romm’s ultimate goals more focused on ‘efficient’ energy usage in the Amory Lovins/RMI model or climate change and reduction of GHG’s?”
From what I’ve read of Romm’s writing, his goal is focused on attacking the opposition, whoever that might be. He’s essentially the attack dog for the Center for American Progress when it comes to energy and climate issues. Since his sponsor is aggressively partisan, he is aggressively partisan, which probably meshes well with his personality anyway.
> Ummm.. Blue Rock you appear not to be following the chain of conversation.
Ummm… Bill Rodgers, it’s you. Read and learn:
> Where in Rod’s first comment which Climate Progress…
Shocker: Adams’ output is not restricted to one comment. I’ve already quoted the relevant pieces. Maybe read them again?
> All I see in both of Rod’s entries
None so blind as those who refuse to see.
> Wind and solar will never be able to generate sufficient on-demand power for our national needs in a cost effective way. Never.
Yeah, I read that a lot on the internet. Funny how it keeps getting deployed. Also, you’re arguing against a strawman – wind + solar is not the entire solution. Maybe do some reading on the subject?
> As an aside, why does it always seem like it is the politically oriented physicists who do not seem to understand the issue that wind and solar can never replace coal generation. Case in point, Romm has a PhD in physics and Lovins was educated in physics but never received a formal degree. End aside.
Replace ‘wind and solar’ for ‘nuclear’ and your nonsense claim will make as much sense.
> Natural gas is not a green gas as some of the “environmental” side like to advertise since it does produce GHG’s.
NG = ~400 g CO2 / kWh; Coal = ~1000 g CO2 / kWh. It is the perfect stepping stone to renewables – low cost, quickly deployable, relatively low CO2, dispatchable.
> …many of us who are nuclear supporters as the only reasonable method…
Reality and multiple expert analyses show you are misinformed. E.g. (no links to avoid moderation queue – obvious Google searches provides evidence):
– European Commission report projects that 41% of all energy installations in the next 20 years will be wind. Another 23% will come from other renewables like solar, biomass and hydro. 17% of new capacity to come from gas, 12% from coal, 4% from nuclear and 3% from oil.
– China has raised its target for renewable energy to 500 GW by 2020.
> Mr. Romm
“European Commission report projects that 41% of all energy installations in the next 20 years will be wind. Another 23% will come from other renewables like solar, biomass and hydro. 17% of new capacity to come from gas, 12% from coal, 4% from nuclear and 3% from oil.”
Was this report issued before or after heavily subsidized markets for renewables like Spain’s collapsed under their own weight of poorly planned government largess?
@ Brian Mays:
> Was this report issued before or after heavily subsidized markets for renewables like Spain’s collapsed under their own weight of poorly planned government largess?
Can you not read the date on it? I’ll help: “The manuscript was completed on 4 August 2010.”
The Spanish have admitted that they overheated their solar FITs in the middle of a global recession. That didn’t make it a failure nor does it mean they are abandoning their renewable program.
Now, why don’t you look at Germany’s experience? Massively successful with over ~70,000 employed in the industry, billions of
BlueRock – You sure have a funny definition of “success.” Here is the breakdown of electricity generation in Germany for 2008:
Fossil-Fuels: 61%
Nuclear: 23%
Everything Else: 16%
By the way, solar contributed just 0.7%, a pitiful showing. It appears that Germany is only good at is wasting money on stuff that does not work very well.
Your problem is that you don’t understand figures. If you did, you wouldn’t be crowing that Germany “added 1% of their electricity generation from solar PV in just the first 8 months of 2010.” B.F.D. Now, if they could do that for another two decades, they just might eventually have enough solar power to compare to the electricity generated by the nuclear plants that the German public irrationally wants to phase out.
Is there any wonder that Germany’s Environment Minister was pushing last year for Germany to build “eight to twelve new coal plants”? If Germany’s renewable program is an environmental “success,” I’d hate to see what a failure looks like!
From 2000 to 2006 (the last year for which I have reliable figures), the increase in electricity generation worldwide by nuclear plants outpaced the increase in electricity generation from all non-hydro renewables by over 20% or 37 TWh (roughly the output of four large power plants). In spite of all of the hoopla surrounding them, renewables are just not able to keep up with nuclear.
I guess you don’t read the papers much. Spain might not be “abandoning” their renewable program, but they are not helping it much either. The collapse continues:
Spain Slashes Subsidies for Solar Thermal, for Some Wind-Energy Plants – Dec 3, 2010
“Spain reduced subsidies paid to solar thermal power plants and some wind farms to limit the cost of electricity for homes and businesses.
“The government reduced the subsidies earned by wind-power generators registered under the 2007 Royal Decree 661 by 35 percent until 2013 and eliminated support for solar thermal plants during their first year of operation at a cabinet meeting in Madrid today, the Industry Ministry said in an e-mailed statement. Both technologies will face limits on the number of hours they can earn subsidized rates.”
Spain’s program has been a dismal failure for homes and businesses.
This trend is not limited to Spain.
France to halt subsidies for new solar projects – 6 December 2010
“The French government is planning to suspend feed-in tariffs for new photovoltaic installations above a capacity of 3 kilowatt hours for a period of four months, according to a draft decree discussed at a government meeting on Thursday.”
And returning to Germany:
German minister says no guarantees on solar tariffs – Dec 1, 2010
“Germany will not guarantee that existing rules for feed-in tariffs for solar power will be continued after 2012, environment minister Norbert Roettgen said on Wednesday.”
@ Blue Rock
>>Wind and solar will never be able to generate sufficient on-demand power for our national needs in a >>cost effective way. Never.
>Yeah, I read that a lot on the internet. Funny how it keeps getting deployed. Also, you’re arguing against >a strawman – wind + solar is not the entire solution. Maybe do some reading on the subject?”
Several points from one who works in the electrical generation and delivery business with many talented and educated energy professionals. (This is a long post and in two parts) Wind and solar by themselves or combined with some other “renewable” generation source will never be able to replace coal as the primary method of delivering reliable, cost effective 24/7/365 on-demand power generation. Not now and not 60 or 80 years in the future. If CAP
@ Blue Rock
Part 2
I have to deal with actual rules and regulations that requires my company to deliver power 24/7/365 at a cost effective rate to both people and the businesses that employ those people while also balancing political rules to use wind when wind is not available.
Tell me how I talk to a senior citizen on a fixed income that her power bill will increase because the politicians pushed a wind and solar fits-all-bill through Congress due to a number of influential anti-nuclear advocates who have made a living for over 30 years by spreading fear and doubt.
Please tell me how wind and solar combined with other
@ Bill Rodgers:
P.S.
> All I see in both of Rod’s entries, that were never allowed by Climate Progress on their blog, is a questioning attitude about Climate Progress’ continued fight against nuclear power when their supposed goal is a reduction in GHG emissions.
Rod Adams: “Unlike JR, I did not cut my teeth in the energy world at the feet of a guy who never bothered to finish school and thinks that finding a cheap, abundant source of energy would be a bad thing.”
If you cannot work out why that is nothing but false, cowardly, offensive smearing, then it says a lot more about you – and anyone else who defends it – than it does about Dr Romm.
Rod Adams has exposed himself – to anyone capable of rational thought – as just another weak and dishonest nuclear ideologue, uninterested in civil, evidence-based discussion.
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black…
I note, as does everyone else here, that the person who you describe as a coward, lets negative opinion about himself be posted on his blog, but (brave?) and ethical Romm blocks such remarks about himself on his own pages. Any rate there is nothing untrue in the statement that Romm is a dropout, and that he has asserted that cheap, abundant energy, would be a bad thing for humanity.
@DV82XL – thank you for standing up for my courage against an anonymous critic. Though I am pretty sure that your comment included an honest mistake, I need to correct something. Dr. Joe Romm has a legitimately earned PhD in Physics. My allusion was to his early job with the Rocky Mountain Institute, which is headed by Chief Scientist Amory Lovins, a man without any earned degrees who often proclaimed that he was “educated at Harvard and Oxford” up until he changed his tune and admitted that he dropped out of both schools due to a lack of discipline in completing an approved course of study.
You are right, in fact I knew that too, I tend to mix the two up in my mind. However I should have been more careful. Sorry
@ Blue Rock
“Rod Adams: “Unlike JR, I did not cut my teeth in the energy world at the feet of a guy who never bothered to finish school and thinks that finding a cheap, abundant source of energy would be a bad thing.”
Fact: Mr. Romm worked for RMI and Amory Lovins.
Fact: Amory Lovins has never earned a college degree and has campaigned against inexpensive, abundant power.
Fact: Amory Lovins has never worked for a utility company directly and has only consulted with those that were willing to pay for his services for whatever reason.
Fact: Mr. Romm has never worked for a utility only for DOE, which sets policy and mandates technology research by the use of Congressionally approved funding tools.
Fact: Mr. Romm
By the way, keep in mind that the operators at TMI turned off all the backup cooling systems, thinking the reactor was overfilled with water, after the reactor protection system started them up automatically.
More or fewer emergency injection systems would not have changed that. Passive safety systems including a core catcher make it very difficult if not impossible for operator error to kill people outside the plant.
@Bill – even with all of the mistakes made by the operators at TMI and even though the plant did not have a “core catcher” no one inside or outside of the plant was injured, much less killed. Post accident analysis showed that the maximum penetration of the core pressure vessel by the corium – even in a situation where there was insufficient water remaining to keep the core covered – was less than 5/8″. That is part of the basis for my assertion that core catchers are completely unnecessary. I am not alone in that assertion; if you would like a copy of the Science article that I mentioned in a previous response, please send me an email and I will send it to you.
Joe Romm has a long history on censoring comments on his blog. Romm is a major league fruit cake, and simply refuses to acknowledge comments he cannot answer. I stopped paying attention to Romm a couple of years ago.
Yeah, I used to spend a lot of time writing responses to Romm, but as it’s pointless, I decided I had better things to do. Also, I noticed that many professional climate researchers seem to be pretty infuriated themselves by Romm’s attitude–Barry Brook and William Connelley, for instance. Keep in mind that nuclear advocates are far from the only people Romm has alienated, as he attacks those who question any aspect of his narrow views regarding how to combat climate change. In the real world, actually making a climate deal would require a major compromise on nuclear energy to get GOP support; even if you consider nuclear energy as unnecessary, as Romm (wrongly) does, it’s still a political necessity-but he’d apparently rather not have a climate law than compromise with the Republicans.
Romm actually came up in my documents in the National Archives a few weeks ago–FEMA’s press clippings file contained a book review he wrote for the BAS when he was an undergraduate!
Sovietologist, for all his faults, Romm’s a bit harder to categorize. Maybe “opinionated blogger, who’s passionate about his subject, but sometimes wrong, and a bit thin-skinned and too emotionally invested in bad arguments”. Describes 90% of the blogosphere.
On the one hand, he has admitted that, to get Republican support, a climate/energy bill could support Nuclear power. He’s also said some not bad things in a few posts about fourth generation Nuclear power.
But, he relies upon a lawyerly (i.e, unscientific and cherry-picked) reading of the evidence on the problems Nuclear had, has, and will have. He is also become a nutty radiophobe, posting credulously about cell-phone radiation fears, for example. Or tritium fears. I find it ironic: climate change deniers use this same tactic of selective reading of sources coupled with a belief that there’s conspiracies everywhere to deny truth.
His main thesis is one that I agree with: that the climate problem, if it is to be solved, will have to be done with technologies that are presently sufficiently developed, in a cost effective manner. (He just doesn’t argue this thesis as honestly as he should.) I agree with his annoyance of people believing that rather than solve the problem now with the best tools we have, we should instead wait for “breakthroughs”. I agree with him, to a point, that Americans, because they have not thought clearly about the issue, waste energy though inefficiencies that could be corrected at little or even negative cost.
I just don’t get why he deprecates nuclear energy, clearly the leading sufficiently developed technology we have today that can be useful at reducing carbon dioxide, nor why he ignores the problems that will come from ramping up certain renewable technologies. There is a lot about Romm that’s good: I think what would do him good is to take a 3 month break from blogging, and rethink all of his assumptions, using his dormant physicist powers.
“His main thesis is one that I agree with: that the climate problem, if it is to be solved, will have to be done with technologies that are presently sufficiently developed, in a cost effective manner. (He just doesn’t argue this thesis as honestly as he should.)”
I agree with this 100%-both the need to address climate change with present technology and that Romm is less than honest in arguing his case for it. And it’s true that his flaws are all too typical in the blogosphere. But Romm is not just some random guy with a blog-he has a physics Ph.D. from MIT and has relatively broad media exposure. So when he criticizes nuclear energy, someone needs to point out the flaws in his argument. It doesn’t matter why he’s against nuclear power; it’s not entirely clear to me, although I’ve noticed that CAP’s “energy experts” are, in many cases, veteran antinuclear types. Go figure.
Rod: First thank you for sharing about his blocking your comment. I can support ‘moderation’ to prevent stuff like personal attacks, spam-vertisements, outright slander, etc. I’m pretty sure we can all agree that such moderation is justifiable and prudent. But, to silence opposing viewpoints is a step too far, so I make a policy if just ignoring such blogs. If they don’t want to let others be heard, they have no right to be heard by me.
Second, man, reading the comments in that blog, there just seems to be so much illogic, it just makes my head spin. I had to stop after only about 15 or 20, I couldnt take it anymore. There are other, better venues to try to convince people about the benefits of nuclear power. I would recommend answering such articles/comments at places like CNN, MSNBC, etc – places with broader audience reach – and blogs which are more ‘neutral’ ground, where the audience hasn’t made up their mind to embrace deeply flawed arguments and ‘studies’ like the NC Warn study which showed that ‘solar is cheaper than nuclear’, and which I noted was linked to in the first page of comments by one of the posters.
It’s simply a waste of time to argue with people who have no interest in listening, or finding the truth of the matter.
Jeff, the point of such debate is never to change the mind of the opponent. the point is to sway the audience.
Ok. I give up. No more attempting to add profile pics.
Oh, I agree that, if you can, you want to try to reach the audience. I just am not convinced that on such a completely biased blog, that is even a remote possibility. If the blog owner is censoring reasonable, intelligent comments that add to the discussion, how can you hope to reach the audience?
I don’t play Calvinball. ( http://calvinandhobbes.wikia.com/wiki/Calvinball )
Again, we each have rather limited time to surf the web and post comments. I’d rather try to do it in a broader-audience, more neutral venue than a censored blog of someone who is ideologically opposed to even considering the facts. But, to each their own.
Again, I just don’t think that certain elements of the environmental movement are rather serious about climate change, as they keep spoiling a united front effort against climate change using nuclear power as the anti-carbon strategy of choice.
The bottom line is that people like Joe Romm are endangering the future of this planet for the sake of throwing a temper tantrum over not getting their way about nuclear power.
If your concern is climate change, it would behoove you to work with the elements of the country who are responsible for major carbon emissions to implement their favored carbon-free power source, nuclear power, not YOUR set of favored carbon-free power sources, which simply
DON’T
WORK
WELL
ENOUGH.
Period.
End of discussion.
@ Bill,
Respectfully.. I disagree.
1. Except that accuracy has never stopped a movie from being made.
Or
2. stopped scary reports exaggerating the effect of some “disasters” while ignoring others.
3. Thus, I doubt that the new media with such a juicy story as a “nuclear accident at TMI” would have stopped the scary stories and reassured the public. No money in that one.
4. Public support for nuclear is already at 60% and rising. If our elected officials, who still reply to my every letter with “waste needs a resolution” as though this is a technical issue rather than a political one, would respond to nuclear (some are) with a positive reaction it would do much more that core catcher to assure the public.
5. Yes, we could save a whole bunch of money. Especially by moving quickly to pebble bed reactors, which are practically – that is in an engineering sense – possible in the next couple of years. In other words we could do them NOW. Somewhere I remember some company that had a design for that back in the 90’s….
6. Anti nukes will never stop insisting that the core could land in your living room, today, and melt your dishwasher.
Core catchers do nothing but add engineering, regulation, and construction costs. Small reactors don’t need them at all.
@David – I have heard that the small company with the pebble bed design still exists and still dusts off the notebooks just in case anyone is ever making the required fuel.
@ Rod,
I have been wondering lately what is stopping you from making the fuel yourself? It is technical, financial or regulatory? Do you need to wait for the experimental work to be completed or could take those old German designs and make a go? How dead is the South African project?
I still think this is the very best approach for nuclear and meets nearly every challenge in a simple package.
Mind if I ask a quick question about nuclear pebbles? I admit I’m a bit ignorant in this subject, but my basic understanding is, the pebbles are each a fuel ‘pellet’ of some sort, surrounded by graphite, then that is further surrounded by a thin layer of some sort of ceramic (the name of which now escapes me)?
Now, people often talk about Chernobyl, and say that one of the critical flaws, was that it used graphite as a moderator, that graphite is flammable, and that in the Chernobyl accident, the reason it was as bad as it was was because the graphite set on fire, then burned for three or four days, and the graphite ‘ash’ took radioactive particles along for the ride, spreading the radioactive contamination MUCH farther than it would ever otherwise go. So far, so good?
So, I’m still confused about why graphite is used as the moderator for pebbles? I guess the idea is that the fuel configuration is such that, unlike the radioactive core of chernobyl, because all the pellets inside the pebbles are ‘spaced out’ physically by the graphite and ceramic, the fuel can never, ever reach the temperatures necessary to light the graphite on fire, is that right? Because, in order for the reaction to get that hot, the distance between all the pellets at the heart of the pebbles, would have to become much closer/denser (by density, I mean the amount of fuel per cubic meter or whatever) than they are allowed to get?
The pebbles are mostly small spheres of graphite. Each pebble is roughly the size of a billiard ball. The actual fuel is contained in tiny particles, each being about the size of a poppy seed. The particles are embedded in a carbon matrix to form the graphite pebbles. Each pebble contains only a small amount uranium. The pebble itself might weigh about 200 g, but it contains less than 10 g of uranium. Most of the pebble is carbon.
Contrary to popular belief, nuclear-grade graphite is not inflammable in air. You can take a blow torch to it, heat it until it is white hot, and it will not ignite under normal atmospheric conditions. For graphite to be able to burn, it must contain impurities, and nuclear-grade graphite is very pure. It has to be, because any impurities can cause all sorts of problems — e.g., they can absorb neutrons, which is generally not desirable.
The infamous “fire” during the Chernobyl accident was nothing more than red-hot graphite that was heated by the decay heat from what was left of the core. The high temperatures caused the graphite to oxidize, which did help to disperse radionuclides during the accident, but this is not the same as what most people think of as a graphite fire. After all, unprotected iron, if left exposed to the environment, will oxidize, but you wouldn’t say that the iron burns, you would say it rusts. In any case, the real problem with Chernobyl was that it did not have a robust, redundant method of containment.
Pebble Bed Reactors use graphite as a moderator, because they operate at temperates that are sufficiently high to make water impractical. Most reactors operating today use the hydrogen atoms in water to slow the neutrons (i.e., as a moderator). Since there is no water, carbon atoms are used instead.
Lighting the core on fire is not an issue. Even if the entire core were filled with charcoal briquettes dowsed in lighter fluid, it could not catch fire, because there is no oxygen. The entire primary circuit is filled with inert helium gas.
@Brian – excellent description. One minor quibble on your second to last word. You wrote:
Even if the entire core were filled with charcoal briquettes dowsed in lighter fluid, it could not catch fire, because there is no oxygen. The entire primary circuit is filled with inert helium gas.
There are a couple of other gas options that might work pretty well. Tom Sanders likes supercritical CO2 as the coolant for high temperature reactors; I have a particular affection for N2 because it behaves enough like air to allow the use of almost “off the shelf” turbo machinery that is currently being manufactured in series production for the combustion or process heat industry.
Helium is an unusual enough gas that it poses certain practical difficulties as soon as you move off of the paper and into real machinery development. One of the reasons that the PBMR program, and GA have never produced any power is that the cost of solving those problems overwhelmed their limited resources of time and money.
(The issues associated with helium turbo machinery are eminently solvable, but turbo machinery design is a bit different from turbo machinery manufacture. When GE or Pratt-Whitney get asked to make improvements on existing jet engines, they generally expect that effort to require a billion dollars or more, which they will make up with sufficient volume sales of the improved engine. If you ask them to develop and deploy a new machine from scratch, the estimate will be several multiples of that cost.)
Rod – Now it’s time for my quibble. You wrote:
“… the PBMR program, and GA have never produced any power …”
Actually, GA’s plant, Fort St. Vrain, produced power for about a decade. You don’t need large turbo-machinery if you use steam generators. The Germans took this approach as well.
I was commenting on existing technology, and all of the currently running high-temperature prototype test reactors (in Japan and China) use helium as a coolant. Helium is not the only choice, however.
In terms of efficiency, the optimal choice of coolant depends on the operating temperatures, actually.
@Brian – your correction is absolutely true. In addition to the Ft. St. Vrain, THTR, AVR and Peach Bottom helium cooled reactors with steam plant secondaries, the Chinese are currently operating the HTR-10 and building two larger HTR-PM. My analysis tells me that part of the Chinese clean and cheap energy plan is to test those reactors and then start using mass production techniques to build them as furnace replacements for a growing number of the modern coal fired steam plants that they are currently pumping out with impressive regularity.
The nice thing about gas cooled reactors is that the steam temperatures are very close to the temperatures achievable in a coal fired boiler plant. That was one of the big selling points for the Ft. St. Vrain HTGR and the ten follow on orders that were on GA’s books in the early 1970s. After selling a 50% interest in the company in order to finance construction of those high efficiency, low emission steam plants, GA’s salesmen spent the next year working to convince customers to cancel their orders. My guess is that the new partner’s other interests had something to do with that program of negative salesmanship.
And now, GA’s profitable business line is selling Predators.
[ Except that accuracy has never stopped a movie from being made.]
Good point David. So, if reactors were specifically certified to contain a full meltdown;
1
@ Bill,
“Then we agree that small reactors do not need core catchers and large ones do. ”
I am NOT an expert in these matters, but the research I have done over the past three years in reading and studying about nuclear and in promoting it tells me that.
1. Large reactors since TMI already have vastly improved safety systems. That the likelihood of a release of any kind – using realistic – or actual probable accidents is so close to zero that it should not be considered a hazard at this point, much less a danger and than is without core catchers. Ted Rockwell is very clear on this point.
2. Despite a nearly perfect safety record in human fatalities whenever I ask people what the first word that comes to mind when I say nuclear they say “dangerous.” This is a perception – not a reality. They are amazed when I tell them the actual number of accidents and the actual number of people killed. Core catchers will increase costs and NOT change perceptions. In fact, I would argue that adding core catchers not only will not reassure the public it will frighten them. I believe they will think – “well if we needed this fancy dancy core catcher to make it really safe then we have just been lucky all these years.” In other words our current engineering is excellent!! It is safe! It is safer than any other technology we use on a regular basis. Saying we need to “add a core catcher” says it is NOT safe. This is an untrue assertion.
My understanding is – and some of our fellows that have actual training can help me if I am wrong – that once a core melts it looses it’s critical configuration and thus the reaction stops or slows so greatly that the thermal energy is all dissipated before any serious penetration of the shielding can take place. This is Rod’s point about the actual penetration at TMI.
The advantage of small reactors (below 250MW thermal) is that the amount of heat generated is small enough that simple passive cooling can keep a core from ever melting – it becomes impossible for it to melt with good design. But – even if a series of events happens and a large reactor melts – the melted core cannot escape from the current designs – they are already very good.
So, I am not in favor of adding additional safety features in the hopes that now finally the public will feel safe and support the technology. I am in favor of promoting the current excellent safety record and emphasizing that “waste” is fuel mixed with valuable metals we can use.
@Bill Hannahan – I say again – please read the September 20, 2002 article in Science Magazine titled “Nuclear Power Plants and Their Fuel as Terrorist Targets” that briefly summarizes an effort on which the US spent about a billion dollars over more than ten years to experimentally provide realist data to allow one to determine the worst possible outcome of a nuclear plant accident. That program of experiments about the behavior of fission products in the environment of steam, metal, concrete, and air was aimed at trying to show what would happen when you make the initial assumption that the core of a large reactor was melted and the containment was breached.
What the researchers did not want to do was to make the kinds of wildly impossible assumptions that some math and modeling dominated people had made in the past in which they assumed that the core of a nuclear reactor could somehow become instantly vaporized and distributed by the wind in a plume that targeted people, ending up inside their bodies. These researchers had enough experience in the material world in which that kind of even could never happen that they resisted making unrealistic assumptions that violated basic laws of gravity, chemistry and physics.
The bottom line – which is documented in the peer reviewed article and its accompanying page worth of references – is that even 2nd generation light water reactors without a core catcher and with an initial assumption that the containment building was breached could not more than “few if any” injuries to the general public. Here are the words the article uses:
“But suppose it (a full reactor core meltdown) happens, through terrorist action or other; what then? Well, the TMI meltdown caused no significant environmental degradation or increased injury to any person, not even to the plant operators who stayed on duty. It has been said that this lack of public impact was due primarily to the containment structure. But studies after the accident showed that nearly all of the harmful fission products dissolved in the water and condensed out on the inside containment surfaces. Even if containment had been severely breached, little radioactivity would have escaped. Few, if any, persons would have been harmed.
To test how far the 10 to 20 metric tons of molten reactor penetrated the 13-cm-thick bottom of the reactor vessel on which it rested, samples were machined out of the vessel and examined. The molten mass did not even fully penetrate the 0.5-cm 64 cladding, confirming tests in Karlsruhe, Germany, and in Idaho, that the
David, I am in agreement with the general thrust of your comment. If we could take emotion and ignorance out of the equation we would find that every technology has an optimum level of safety that provides the best quality of life at the lowest cost. A TMI accident every week would kill fewer people than the routine operation of one coal plant. Coal still generates nearly half our electricity because, in part, nuclear plants are too expensive.
Let
@Bill Hannahan – so let’s take your worry to the next steps in a realistic calculation. How much power does it take to melt the core material? Once the core material melts – and that takes a finite amount of time, during which the rate of heat production is dropping rapidly as short lived fission products decay – how much heat power does it take to begin melting the thick core pressure vessel? Remember, no matter what happens, there is no instantaneous disappearance of the thousands of gallons of water, so some of the heat has to be dissipated in heating and/or boiling that water away.
When the corium impacts the pressure vessel barrier, it will spread out, so the heat that is being produced by radioactive decay is spread out a bit over that surface.
The experimental result show that the heat production by the time that the corium reaches the pressure vessel is not enough to even penetrate the cladding, much less penetrate the pressure vessel.
This result is not surprising to anyone steeped in the world of physical materials and tools.
Have you ever watched thick steel being cut with a torch and seen what kind of concentrated heat it requires to melt through several inches?
Rod, it is my opinion that in a rational world a reactor with the proven ability to contain a full core meltdown can be cheaper and faster to build than one that depends on an array of active systems for safety. I cannot prove that with the resources I have, but have seen no convincing evidence that I am wrong.
If existing designs can be proven to contain a full meltdown without modification, the savings can be greater.
[Remember, no matter what happens, there is no instantaneous disappearance of the thousands of gallons of water]
In a large break event it nearly all blows out, like a well shaken campaign bottle with the top knocked off. There are pressurized accumulators to rapidly re flood the reactor vessel.
Offhand I cannot think of a single event where the core flood tanks saved a core. If the NRC and utility would accept a tiny increase in risk of core damage, the cost of building and maintaining the core flood system could be eliminated. if the fault tree analysis shows that eliminating the flood tanks results in a slight added risk of a meltdown, that risk would be acceptable if a meltdown was proven to not increase risk to the public.
[When the corium impacts the pressure vessel barrier, it will spread out, so the heat that is being produced by radioactive decay is spread out a bit over that surface.
The experimental result show that the heat production by the time that the corium reaches the pressure vessel is not enough to even penetrate the cladding, much less penetrate the pressure vessel.
This result is not surprising to anyone steeped in the world of physical materials and tools.]
If that statement can be proven true it would be great news, but it would surprise me. There are fascinating photos of the remains of the Chernobyl core that melted and flowed into lower levels of the building. The TMI pumps were restarted when the new crew recognized the conditions. What would have happened if the pumps stayed off?
A reactor core has a lot of space between the fuel pins and inside the fuel pins for fission gasses. In a full meltdown it coalesces into a much smaller volume at the bottom of the reactor vessel. The reactor shield will absorb some heat at first, but in time it acts as a blanket, impeading heat transffer out of the vessel.
My main point is that reactors that can passivly contain a full meltdown can be safer and cheaper than reactors that rely on active safety systems.
@ Bill,
“My main point is that reactors that can passively contain a full meltdown can be safer and cheaper than reactors that rely on active safety systems.”
This is a point that I think most people who follow this blog will wholly agree with. As I read your comment it seems to me that you are preferring a core catcher for a melt down possibility rather than the current design choice – which is to prevent a core melt down using several systems. Utilities would rather not deal with a melt down and so prefer safety systems that keep their business in operation. The core catcher is a type of safety device that limits potential liability when a melt down occurs. Much better in my mind to build large Nukes with redundant cooling and ignore the catcher.
Frankly, I don’t understand how a reactor shield will ever impede heat transfer – unless the steel reaches it’s melting point which is very very unlikely.
“If existing designs can be proven to contain a full meltdown without modification, the savings can be greater.”
I believe this is exactly what we have been saying – that existing designs – as demonstrated by Ted Rockwell and company – can do exactly that.
“Utilities would rather not deal with a melt down and so prefer safety systems that keep their business in operation. The core catcher is a type of safety device that limits potential liability when a melt down occurs.”
You can argue the merits/drawbacks of a core catcher until you’re blue in the face. It’s an engineering design decision, and like all such decisions, it involves tradeoffs. Naturally, people will have different opinions about such tradeoffs.
Personally, I’m rather skeptical that this one feature presents a significant portion of the cost for a very large nuclear power plant. Sure, the plant is cheaper without one, but much cheaper? I doubt it.
Ultimately, the whole topic of the core catcher boils down to the following. Having of a core catcher will make the regulator happy. Never having to ever use the core catcher will make the owner of the plant very happy.
It’s like the airbags in your car — a feature that you hope you’ll never have to use.
@Brian – you may be right, but Areva’s spokesman will not help me try to quantify the cost of this particular feature.
My main point in this whole discussion is that the designer of any product has to understand that customers have a wide variety of measures of effectiveness. If you watch NASCAR, you will know that it is quite within our technical capability to build cars that can withstand 200 MPH collisions and allow the driver to walk away without even a need for a hospital visit. Of course, such cars require a number of tradeoffs and also some cooperation on the part of the drive to wear the right kind of protective clothing and strap into the right kind of harness.
The hundreds of millions of cars on the road that do not have such safety equipment tells me that there are things that the customers value over absolute safety.
Core catchers may or may not provide any additional value over the life of a 60-80 year investment. They may or may not cost very much money or add very much time to the schedule. However, they are a part of a design decision process that, for whatever combination of reasons, has produced a power plant that is not winning too many orders at this point compared to the alternatives.
“However, they are a part of a design decision process that, for whatever combination of reasons, has produced a power plant that is not winning too many orders at this point compared to the alternatives.”
Rod – Well, that depends on how you pick your comparisons. You’re talking exclusively about the US market, and you’re comparing the EPR to only Toshiba reactors (the AP-1000 and ABWR). If you widen the scope, the picture is a bit different. In the US, the EPR hasn’t done any worse than GE’s ESBWR.
In Europe, they’re building EPR’s, not AP-1000’s. Your blog has already covered why China is building more AP-1000’s than EPR’s, and it has little to do with the comparative merits of the two designs.
Personally, I would not have picked the EPR as the design to market in the US. This reactor was intended for the European grid, with big utilities that monopolize or dominate the market. It was designed as the next generation of plants to replace the aging fleet of French and German nuclear reactors. (This was before the German nuclear phase-out, of course.) It follows the French philosophy of building a standard set of plants all at one, with each new generation larger than the last. It also follows the current philosophy of German nuclear plants. Germany does not have many nuclear plants (only 17 reactors), but they are big nuclear plants and they have run quite well.
When it comes to the US market, I’m not sure how much the number of orders reflects differences in the technology and how much it reflects differences in salesmanship.