Posts Tagged 'Nuclear Power'

Is Environmentalism Anti-Science?

Published May 27, 2012 Agriculture , Nuclear Power Leave a Comment
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We recommend Keith Kloor’s short essay on the anti-science, anti-GMO activists. Keith doesn’t discuss this, but aren’t there strong parallels to the anti-nuclear ideology? I speculate there is a lot of overlap between the two anti- populations. E.g., Greenpeace.

As I try to answer Keith’s captioned question, I think of the example environmentalists that we know by reading or personal contact. Those who have a science/engineering background are much more likely to be influenced by the data than by some politically-correct ideology. Can you name a person who understands the peer-reviewed literature who is anti-nuclear or anti-GMO?

We are pro-people and anti-anti. Our interest is how to feed ten billion affordably. Especially the Bottom Billion — that will grow to at least two bottom billion around 2050 – all wanting a share of the low-cost energy and low-cost food enjoyed by today’s rich countries. There are no anti-GMO activists amongst the hungry.

Here’s an excerpt from Keith:

(…) I’ve been particularly interested in this question lately. In doing some catch-up reading, I came across a fascinating roundtable of views in a 2009 Seed magazine article, set up by this introduction:

Most Europeans don’t consider themselves to be anti-science or particularly technophobic. In fact, Europe’s full embrace of the scientific consensus on another environmental issue, global warming, has enabled the continent to take the clear lead on climate change, with the most ambitious emissions targets, the first carbon trading market, and the greenest urban infrastructure plans on the planet.

Europe’s scientific disconnect is more broadly true of eco-minded citizens worldwide: They laud the likes of James Hansen and Rajendra Pachauri but shrink in horror at the scientist who offers up a Bt corn plant (even though numerous studies indicate that Bt crops—by dramatically curbing pesticide use—conserve biodiversity on farms and reduce chemical-related sickness among farmers).

So why the disconnect? Why do many environmentalists trust science when it comes to climate change but not when it comes to genetic engineering?

Before you click on the link to learn some of the proffered reasons, think about it first.

Utilities join Westinghouse SMR alliance

Published May 22, 2012 Nuclear Power Leave a Comment
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It appears there is some momentum building behind the Westinghouse SMR effort. I don’t know what financial commitment the new partners are making. What we know is they are working together to win the DOE $450 million funding contribution – much of which will be consumed by first of kind licensing costs.

Three major US nuclear utilities have joined an alliance formed by Westinghouse and Ameren to support the licensing and deployment of Westinghouse small modular reactor (SMR) technology.

Plant based on Westinghouse SMR
How a plant based on Westinghouse’s SMR technology could look (Image: Westinghouse)

Exelon, Dominion Virginia and FirstEnergy are among a dozen power utilities and electricity suppliers to sign up to the NexStart SMR Alliance – a group formed by Westinghouse and Missouri Electric Alliance to help secure investment funds from the US Department of Energy (DoE).

Also signing up to the NexStart Alliance are Tampa Electric Company; Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corporation; and Savannah River National Laboratory. The Missouri Electric Alliance is led by Ameren Missouri and its members include Missouri Public Utility Alliance; Associated Electric Cooperative; Association of Missouri Electric Cooperatives; Empire District Electric Company; and Kansas City Power and Light Company.

Members of the NexStart SMR Alliance have signed a memorandum of understanding that recognizes “the importance of advancing nuclear energy in helping secure clean, safe and reliable electricity in the future by deploying the Westinghouse SMR.”

Discussions are said to be underway with other utilities and enterprises considering membership to NexStart in order to support the potential deployment of a Westinghouse SMR at Ameren’s existing Callaway nuclear power plant site in Missouri.

The DoE announced in March 2012 that a total of $450 million would be available to support first-of-a-kind engineering, design certification and licensing for up to two SMR designs over five years. The DoE is seeking proposals for SMR projects that have the potential to be licensed by the NRC and to be in commercial operation by 2022. The total funding, through cost sharing agreements with private industry, is expected to provide a total investment of about $900 million.

(…)

Finnish Green Party Backs Nuclear?

Published May 22, 2012 Nuclear Power Leave a Comment
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Thanks to Mark Flanagan at NEI for this encouraging tidbit:

fin-nuke(…)

And here’s the Finnish Green League:

In addition, the party’s policy on nuclear energy will be in the spotlight. According to Holopainen, a large proportion of voters who back the Greens, nowadays also back the use of nuclear power.

See? Fairly consistent – wait, what? I couldn’t find much more about this – the story is about the formation of the party platform and the speaker is Hanna Holopainen, a delegate. We’ll have to wait until after this weekend to see if the Green League goes nuclear.

Color me curious.

Where the energy is – the yellow labels show the two Finnish sites. The one labeled as TVO is usually called Olkiluoto.

Finland has four nuclear reactors, producing about 30 percent of its electricity, the most of any source. Coal handles most of the rest, with hydro bringing up the rear (and causing electricity shortages in dry years.) The country is currently building a fifth reactor. More here.

[From Green Party to Go Nuclear?]

Renewable Limits: the power planners challenge

Published April 9, 2012 Energy Policy , Nuclear Power Closed
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There is a valuable, very well-informed conversation going on at BraveNewClimate in the Renewable Limits topic. I don’t have time for details right now – but I will recommend an entry point into the conversation. David B. Benson outlines the power planners challenge:

(…) We require reliable, on demand electricity and now also low carbon. So here is an exercise which deescribes in a simplified manner the problem faced by power planners.

Every day is exactly the same as the one before with regard to electricity requirements: from 6 am to 11 pm the grid requires 28 GW and from 11 pm to 6 am 20 GW. Using low carbon tecchnologies only [NPPs, wind, solar] design the least cost [LCOE basis] system of generators to service this demand while maintaining, most of the time, a 2 GW reserve. [Or 4 GW reserve if you insist.]

If one allows thermal storage on NPPs (I see no reason why not but nobody has actually built just as yet) the least cost is NPPs with thermal storage. Such a system can encourporate up to 29% solar PV [nameplate, so maximum of 8 GW] without difficulty. The solar PV component would, on average, generate about 5.8% of the power requirement. It turns out that more than that tends to become more expensive.

If indeed one has NPPs with thermal storage then some level of wind generation would indeeed lower costs if the cost of wind turbines and transmission is sufficiently low. Unfortunately, wind turbine LCOE is now beginning to rise due to mature technology, increased costs of materials, and the best sites are already occupied. My estimates of the LCOE for wind and for NPPs with thermal storage are such that no particular advantage can be found in using the wind resource, even with the nifty thermal stores to act as balancing agents.

However, I might have misestimated and it is rather a close call. Please try this exercise yourself.

If you search all the BNC comments for “David B. Benson” you will find that David has been investing a lot of effort into an objective characterization of the energy options for a low carbon world. Hopefully there is a book in the works (?)

David MacKay, DECC’s chief scientific advisor

Published March 21, 2012 Energy Policy , Nuclear Power Closed
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Shortly after his appointment to DECC, The Engineer published a concise interview with Dr. MacKay.

There are some topics that seem to turn placid engineers into passionate politicians and hard-nosed politicians into expert engineers. At the top of the list are energy and climate-change issues, which, according to David MacKay, have been responsible for fuelling some of the most emotionally charged and misinformed scientific debates of the current decade.

As the chief scientist at the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), MacKay is on a mission to bring some clarity to the haze of misinterpretation and hyperbole surrounding the energy debate. ’A lot of the things that are being held up as part of the “green” solution are just fluff,’ he said. ’My impression is that lobbyists, some governments and some people in industry often say misleading things, either deliberately or academically.’

The issue, believes MacKay, is that many things that allegedly make a difference just don’t add up. He cites the example of the BBC’s advice to unplug mobile-phone chargers when they are not in use. In reality, a typical charger consumes only 0.01kWH a day – equivalent to the energy used by driving a car for one second. ’The debate on energy is fundamentally about numbers,’ he claims. ’But numbers are rarely mentioned.’

MacKay seems as amused as anyone to be at the heart of government machinery that has contributed to the misinformation on climate change. ’I wasn’t trying to become a senior civil servant,’ he said. ’But about five years ago, I started paying attention to the excitement, debate and emotional conversations on the radio about energy and a lot of what I heard just drove me crazy.’

(…) What I wanted to do was to get all the options on the table,’ he said. ’Today’s [UK] energy consumption in all forms is 300GW. That’s 300 Sizewell Bs. The exchange for one nuclear power station is around 2,000 wind turbines, but you have to consider where you would put all those. If people want to be anti-nuclear, that’s fine with me. I don’t mind what solution we end up with, but it has to add up.’

(…)

Read more »

Fukushima Syndrome

Published March 21, 2012 Nuclear Power , Nuclear Risk Assessment 1 Comment
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Martin Freer is Professor of Nuclear Physics at the University of Birmingham and Director of the Birmingham Center for Nuclear Education and Research. He is a member of the University of Birmingham’s policy commission on nuclear energy, which later this year will publish Nuclear Power: What Does the Future Hold?

The dramatic events that unfolded at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear-power plant after last year’s tsunami are commonly referred to as “the Fukushima disaster.” We need look no further than this description to begin to understand the significant misconceptions that surround nuclear energy.

mackay_deaths_per_gwy.jpg

It was the tsunami, caused by the largest earthquake ever to strike Japan, that killed more than 16,000 people, destroyed or damaged roughly 125,000 buildings, and left the country facing what its prime minister described as its biggest crisis since World War II. Yet it is Fukushima that is habitually accorded the “disaster” label.

In fact, although what happened was shocking, the events in the hours and days after a giant wave slammed over the nuclear plant’s protective seawall might be interpreted as a remarkable testament to nuclear power’s sound credentials. To be sure, the environmental impact on those living close to Fukushima may take many years to remediate. But the response in many quarters – not least in Germany, Switzerland, and other countries that immediately condemned and retreated from nuclear energy – once again typified an enduring lack of knowledge concerning two fundamental issues.

The first is safety; the second is radiation. We need to promote a much more inclusive and informed dialogue about both if nuclear power is to be assessed on its genuine merits, rather than dismissed on the grounds of little more than ignorance and intransigence.

Would the many people who would ban nuclear power also prohibit air travel? After all, the parallels between the two industries are central to the question of safety.

We are often told that air travel, statistically speaking, has a better safety record than any other form of transport. The numerous interrelated reasons for this might usefully be summarized by comparing an airplane to a bicycle.

(…)

Read more. The Freer article is one of several in Project Syndicate’s Fukushima special issue.

The chart at left, of fatality rates for our main energy options, is courtesy of Cambridge physicist David MacKay, from his not to be missed “Sustainable energy without the hot air“. Dr. MacKay is now Chief Scientific Advisor for DECC (UK Government Department for Energy and Climate Change).

UK moves a step closer to nuclear waste solution

Published March 19, 2012 Energy Policy , Nuclear Power Closed
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Don’t miss the Mark Lynas post regarding the UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) consideration of the GE Hitachi PRISM proposal.

Something potentially rather interesting is happening deep within the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), the branch of the UK government responsible for dealing with nuclear waste overall and the country’s 100-tonne plutonium stockpile in particular.

(…)

Luckily the civil servants at the NDA, and their cousins over at DECC, the Department for Energy and Climate Change, are not stupid. They know a MOX plant will never actually be built, and that Areva has wasted billions already on what is essentially obsolete technology. That’s bad for Areva, and therefore the French taxpayer, but isn’t our problem. Hence the very intriguing spin put on the NDA statement, which is that the authority is “seeking proposals on potential alternative approaches for managing the UK’s plutonium stocks” even as it simultaneously “progresses its preferred policy of converting the material into mixed oxide fuel”.

In other words, the NDA is looking for a way out of the MOX dead-end before the policy process grinds so far forward that they find themselves too politically committed. No doubt Areva is knocking loudly on the NDA’s door and vociferously lobbying anyone who will listen, but the fact this they have backed the wrong horse and will lose big-time – because there is a far better option already on the table. That – as this World Nuclear News piece suggests – is GE’s PRISM fast reactor concept.

Last month I had a meeting with some of GE’s top people, including the chief engineer for the PRISM – and I have to say I found their strategy highly compelling. The PRISM is a metal-fuelled fast reactor cooled by molten sodium. It operates at atmospheric pressure – meaning no expensive pressure vessel – and the characteristics of the fuel and the molten-sodium coolant (which conducts heat away from the core 90 times more effectively than water) make it fully passively-safe. (An early version, called the Experimental Breeder Reactor, was subjected to a loss-of-coolant flow experiment in 1986 – it duly shut itself down with no outside intervention.)

Perhaps more importantly, fast reactors can burn up all the energy in the uranium and plutonium fuel, whilst utilising MOX only increases the energy use from 0.6% to 0.8%. Because of this, as the Guardian recently reported, if all the UK’s spent fuel, depleted uranium and plutonium stockpiles are combined, they include enough energy to run the country for 500 years at current electricity use rates – without the need to mine another scrap of uranium, and without the emission of a single tonne of CO2. (Greenpeace is vociferously opposed, despite its supposed great concern for global warming, no doubt because a solution to nuclear waste leaves it high and dry after 35 years of misguided anti-nuclear activism.)

Read the whole thing »

US NRC intervention increased Japanese public fear factor

Published March 19, 2012 Nuclear Power , Nuclear Risk Assessment Closed
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Barry Brook’s BraveNewClimate.com offers a wealth of information and commentary on climate and energy policy issues. The value of comments is enhanced by contributors who make their living in various energy-related professions. Today we have a perfect example of such informed commentary:

The Japanese reaction to shutdown most of their reactors following the Fukushima event was caused in part by the US NRC intervention to expand the exclusion zone to fifty miles. This greatly increased the public fear factor and made the Japanese officials appear more inept in dealing with the crisis. Japan cannot afford to keep the nuclear plants shutdown without suffering an economic meltdown. What is needed now is an indepth review by an international expert panel to provide Japan with the basis to safely restart their plants. The US should lead this panel since the Japanese nuclear program is a mirror of the US program in all respects but crisis management.

Ray A. Hunter
Former Deputy Director,
Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology
United States Department of Energy.

What does he know about reactor safety and management of nuclear accidents? Here’s some relevant bits of his resume:

(…) Mr. Hunter was selected to serve on numerous working groups in developing DOE Orders for Radiological Protection, Safeguards and Security, Occurrence Reporting, Safety Analyses, Conduct of Operations, and restart of Nuclear Facilities following shutdown for safety reasons. At the request of the Manager of the Savannah River Operations Office, he recommended corrective actions for restart of the tritium production plants. He was assigned the leadership role in resolving contamination events at several of the national laboratories and he was responsible for the action plan to address suspect parts in the DOE complex.

Mr. Hunter also served as the Department of Energy’s senior technical advisor to the Department of State on nuclear technology matters. He accompanied State Department Officials to South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia to develop support for addressing proliferation concerns with North Korea’s nuclear program. He visited Chernobyl multiple times to develop specific technical recommendations for the Shelter Stabilization Project for damaged Unit 4. His recommendations were accepted by the State Department and the international group sponsoring the project. In discussion between State Department Officials and Chinese Officials on nonproliferation, China requested a nuclear technology cooperation agreement with the U.S. Mr. Hunter prepared an agreement and presented it to the Chinese delegation. He received the Pride Award from Secretary Federico Pena for the nuclear cooperation agreement between U.S. and China.

Mr. Hunter, the former #2 nuclear guy at DOE, retired from DOE in 1998. Today Mr. Hunter is a member of the Science Council for Global Initiatives, the powerhouse energy policy group which includes such as James Hansen, Barry Brook, and the IFR honchos Yoon Chang and Charles Till (and many others – read the details at the Science Council website).

The Making of a Radiation Panic

Published March 18, 2012 Nuclear Power , Nuclear Risk Assessment 1 Comment
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Breakthrough Institute founders Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus examine some of the range of journalism on Fukushima. Of particular interest is background on Japanese politics – why has the government reaction been so weak?

(…) Despite the over-reaction in Japan and Europe, Fukushima has not slowed the pace of new nuclear plant construction globally (something we predicted last year). Against claims made in this week’s Economist, the number of reactors planned and under construction is virtually unchanged. In the US, the main obstacle to the expansion of nuclear has not been fear of radiation but rather the abundance of cheap natural gas from shale — a reality which similarly challenges the expansion of renewables.

There was nothing inevitable or natural about Japan’s panicked reaction to Fukushima. Growing mistrust of the government long pre-dates the tsunami. “The hysteria about radiation reflects a breakdown in trust, as witnessed by endless media accounts quoting people who doubt the government’s monitoring of food and soil,” wrote former Tokyo correspondent for the Washington Post, Paul Blustein. “Tokyo’s political class, which was eager to appear unified after the disaster, is consumed anew with score-settling and power maneuvers of the sort that have given the country six prime ministers in the past five years.”

Perhaps the most important lesson to be drawn from Japan’s radiation scare is the need for new, credible sources — independent of both electric utilities and governments — able to soberly put the risks and benefits of energy technologies in context. Alas, if the Natural Resource Defense Council’s slickly demagogic “nuclear fallout crisis” map is any indication, such credible sources won’t likely come from the traditional environmental movement.

See NPR’s coverage, which cites Breakthrough analysis by Jesse Jenkins, here: Nuclear Woes Push Japan Into A New Energy Future.

You can find our full collection of nuclear analyses and coverage here.

[From The Making of a Radiation Panic]

Risks and Effects of Radiation: Putting Fukushima in Context

Published March 15, 2012 Nuclear Power , Nuclear Risk Assessment 1 Comment
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The Health Physics Society panel held 1 March 2012 should be an excellent source of objective Fukushima risk assessment. The proceedings have not yet been published — meanwhile here is the HPS announcement:

As the world remembers the one-year anniversary of the 2011 tsunami that devastated Japan and set off a tragic chain of events that included the nuclear reactor incident in Fukushima, the panel of leading scientific and medical experts reported on the risks and effects of radiation on the Japanese and other populations. A first-hand account of the impacts on the Fukushima population was provided by two members of the distinguished panel. The discussions included the health effects of radiation immediately following the event to present day and an analysis of future risks for the population.

The panel consisted of John Boice, ScD; Robert Emery, DrPH, CHP, CIH; Robert Peter Gale, MD, PhD, DS. (Hon); Kathryn Higley, PhD, CHP; and Richard Vetter, PhD, CHP. It was moderated by Howard Dickson, CHP, CSP, and CIH.

Members of the Washington panel agreed that while they considered the physical health risks from the exposure too small to measure, the accident would still have an impact. Psychological trauma from the evacuation and months away from home could end up being the biggest health risk from the accident.

Dr. Gale said he believed the exaggerated environmental and health risk claims from alarmists could backfire by making it harder for people in Fukushima Prefecture to resume their normal lives and businesses. “Already we see a stigmatization of people from that area or products from that area,” he said. “It’s very hard for them to survive. It’s quite unfortunate.”

While the quake and tsunami killed an estimated 20,000 people, radiation has not killed anyone so far, and members of the Health Physics Society, drawn from academia, medicine, and the nuclear industry, suggested that the doses were too small to have much effect. “There’s no opportunity for conducting epidemiological studies that have any chance of success,” said Dr. Boice. “The doses are just too low. If you were to do a proposal, it would not pass a scientific review.”

Members of the press asked several questions of the panel during the press conference and visited individually with panel members after the event.

A video of all the proceedings will be available in a few days. Watch for it on the HPS website (hps.org).

Nuclear Energy Overview summarized some of the presentations here:

(…) Dr. Robert Gale, visiting professor at Imperial College London, pointed out that although approximately 20,000 people died from the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and subsequent tsunami, none of those deaths are attributable to radiation from the Fukushima accident.

However, Gale said, “The fact that everyone is here today, shows that the public’s focus is really on Fukushima. You hear very few things about the earthquake and tsunami.”

Gale presented preliminary data on the 10,000 inhabitants near the Fukushima plant thought to have received the highest doses of radiation showing that:

  • 5,800 received doses less than 1 millisievert (mSv).
  • 4,100 received doses between 1 and 10 mSv.
  • 71 received doses between 10 mSv and 20 mSv.
  • 2 received doses between 20 mSv and 23 mSv.

By comparison, each year a resident of the United States receives an average total dose from background radiation of about 3.1 mSv.

Gale said it was important to translate these doses into something the general public could easily understand. These radiation doses indicate an “incredibly small” increase in risk of death from cancer of only 0.001 percent for a member of the Japanese public, he said. The increased risk of cancer incidence would be only 0.002 percent for a member of the Japanese public.

Such a small increase in the cancer rate would make it very hard to scientifically verify an increase in cancers that could be directly linked to the Fukushima accident.

“The exposures to the population are very, very low,” said John Boice, professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and President Nominee of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements. “As such, there is no opportunity to conduct epidemiological studies that have any chance of detecting excess [cancer] risk. The doses are just too low.”

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