Nuclear Power at TED Conference

[glemieux]

This is a general talk from Stewart Brand in which he gives his reasons to consider nuclear energy as a 'green' technology:

http://www.ted.com/talks/stewart_brand_ ... esies.html

SSTAR and Hyperion are mentioned around 11:50 into the talk. The city and energy portion of his talked combined give a good one-two punch to the importance of implementing small-scale nuclear.

[Art Carlson]

A lively and thought-provoking talk, even though not entirely convincing. I was irritated that he dismissed solar power so lightly, on the grounds that we can't store it. There is a lot that could be said on that topic, but I think the biggest point is that heat from solar thermal power plants in the deserts can easily be stored for hours or days. On nuclear power I am deeply ambivalent. There aren't any knock.down arguments that will make me feel good over the issues of waste disposal and proliferation.

[cybrbeast]

There aren't any knock.down arguments that will make me feel good over the issues of waste disposal and proliferation.

University of Texas at Austin Proposes Compact Tokomak Fusion/Fission Hybrid to Burn Nuclear Waste
http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/01/univer ... poses.html

[Art Carlson]

There aren't any knock.down arguments that will make me feel good over the issues of waste disposal and proliferation.

University of Texas at Austin Proposes Compact Tokomak Fusion/Fission Hybrid to Burn Nuclear Waste
http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/01/univer ... poses.html

Whether it's a fusion-fission hybrid or a high neutron flux fission reactor, I worry that some not particularly small fraction of the nasties gets lost to the low-level waste stream at each step, and that the neutrons burning the bad guys are also producing new bad guys in the surrounding structure and coolant. Breeder reactors also promised to burn up waste but made rather a mess while trying. Maybe it will work someday, but there's too much that can go wrong for me to be happy about betting the future of the world on it.

[MSimon]

There aren't any knock.down arguments that will make me feel good over the issues of waste disposal and proliferation.

University of Texas at Austin Proposes Compact Tokomak Fusion/Fission Hybrid to Burn Nuclear Waste
http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/01/univer ... poses.html

Whether it's a fusion-fission hybrid or a high neutron flux fission reactor, I worry that some not particularly small fraction of the nasties gets lost to the low-level waste stream at each step, and that the neutrons burning the bad guys are also producing new bad guys in the surrounding structure and coolant. Breeder reactors also promised to burn up waste but made rather a mess while trying. Maybe it will work someday, but there's too much that can go wrong for me to be happy about betting the future of the world on it.

Art,

Neutron activation can be controlled by choosing your construction materials.

For years (ex-Naval Nuke) I held an attitude similar to yours. I'm a lot less hostile these days.

Have you seen a naval nuke bone yard? You have these old reactor components (not fuel rods) sitting out in a field covered with transparent poly tarps.

I have spent 15 minutes in a reactor compartment 10 days after shutdown. The whole reactor is pretty cool after a year. The worst stuff is the 50 year half life stuff - short enough to give off significant radiation. Long enough to last a long time.

[glemieux]

A lively and thought-provoking talk, even though not entirely convincing. I was irritated that he dismissed solar power so lightly, on the grounds that we can't store it.

I agree that it is not without its flaws and therefore not entirely convincing. His geo-engineering argument in particular seemed slightly contradictory. In the first portion he discusses the very difficult problem of accurately modeling our very complex climate (his coal vs. nuclear argument) and then goes on towards the end of his talk to suggest 'simple' solutions for reducing the average global temperature. I would submit that geo-engineering is more of a last ditch effort. His point regarding the international agreement on what, if any, geo-engineering should be done is the larger point to come away with in that portion, I believe.

As for the nuclear portion, I see this as more of a coal vs. nuclear argument. Although the funding options are probably not nearly this binary, if my representative was choosing on whether to fund energy from coal, in whatever manifestation, or small-scale nuclear for 'my backyard', I would rather have the small reactor. That said, he did completely ignore the storage problem, but I believe this was probably so that he could emphasize the apparent fact that coal companies do not want to see nuclear implemented to the detriment of their industry.

[StevePoling]

A lively and thought-provoking talk, even though not entirely convincing. I was irritated that he dismissed solar power so lightly, on the grounds that we can't store it...

I'm vacationing in Ludington, MI where the local electrical utility constructed a "pumped storage" facility. It's pretty cool to look at (as in big) consisting of a 1 mile by 2 mile artificial reservoir that's filled with water pumped uphill from Lake Michigan during off-peak times and later emptied to meet peak demand later. I had a lot of fun hiking where they'd let people go, though I don't think the folks at Consumers Power encourage sightseeing. Pity really, b/c it's impressive.

Thus we have an existence proof that you can store electricity. But on the other hand, the facility is so big that it also demonstrates that storing electricity is not particularly easy.

[Aero]

Pumped Storage has been around for quite a while. It works well when paired with low cost, off peak generation such as wind, but not so well with solar. Solar tends to be most productive during peak usage times, one of the reasons it is being pushed so hard even though it is quite expensive. But because solar power is most available during the peak demand time, when pumped storage reservoirs are being drawn down to augment generation, they do not pair up economically.

There is quite a bit of research being done on various storage systems, batteries, ultra capacitors and even electrolysis of water to use the hydrogen in fuel cells. Storing solar power is not necessarily the objective because solar generation matches peak demand so well. Of course solar without storage is not very convenient for night lighting ...

Check out the California Independent System Operator's web site for an idea of how much the demand for electricity varies throughout the day.
http://www.caiso.com/outlook/SystemStatus.html

[Art Carlson]

Art,

Neutron activation can be controlled by choosing your construction materials.

For years (ex-Naval Nuke) I held an attitude similar to yours. I'm a lot less hostile these days.

Have you seen a naval nuke bone yard? You have these old reactor components (not fuel rods) sitting out in a field covered with transparent poly tarps.

I have spent 15 minutes in a reactor compartment 10 days after shutdown. The whole reactor is pretty cool after a year. The worst stuff is the 50 year half life stuff - short enough to give off significant radiation. Long enough to last a long time.

I guess I'm not actually that worried about activation products. Fission products and transuranics. You hardly have any control over the production, and whatever your favorite nightmare is, there's some of it in there. For example, if you belong to the camp that thinks it is not proper to mathematically discount long-term effects, then iodine-129 is biologically active and sticks around doing harm for hundreds of millions of years (half-life 15.7 million years). That's too long to count on containment by any salt dome or granite mountain. I know solutions can be discussed for any particular problem, but every solution introduces new problems and uncertainties, and nuclear fission simply has a lot of problems to deal with.

In the early 1980's I looked in depth at all energy technologies and at nuclear in particular. At that time I was pretty much in favor. Not that any new arguments or information have really appeared since then, but over the years for some reason I have gotten more skeptical. It is interesting that you have gone the other way. It would be nice if we can reach the point that the nuclear question is moot simply because there are alternatives that are cheaper and less controversial.

[Skipjack]

Art, I think that one of the realities is that right now(!) there is no real alternative to fission anyway. At 40 cents per KW/h, solar energy is much more expensive than fission. Get the price for solar power down to 13 cents or so and we might be talking (still more expensive than the 10 cents the average american pays for his kw/h, but probably acceptable to people).
This is a problem. I too am really bothered by the problems of fission that you named here. These are issues and they after all also make fission power more expensive. I dont think that these issues will go away, so we can all agree that fission power is not a perfect solution. The question always has to be however: What is your best alternative. Well at the moment, I dont see anything. Nada, nothing, rien, nichts, njet, nihil.
I hate it and thats one reason why I am hanging out here so much. Because I darn hope that at least one of the fusioneers out there will make it work.

[Art Carlson]

Art, I think that one of the realities is that right now(!) there is no real alternative to fission anyway. At 40 cents per KW/h, solar energy is much more expensive than fission. Get the price for solar power down to 13 cents or so and we might be talking (still more expensive than the 10 cents the average american pays for his kw/h, but probably acceptable to people).

Of course, there's lots of room to argue about the numbers, but there are a lot of apparently serious estimates that are below your 40 cent figure.

http://richardlalancette.blogspot.com/2 ... power.html: Solar thermal costs around 15 to 17 cents a kilowatt hour, according to statistics from Schott, a German company that makes solar thermal equipment. ... That would knock the price closer to 11 cents a kilowatt hour.

http://www.newswiretoday.com/news/25722/: These facilities are to be developed at a levelized cost of about 6 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh), which is about the same as that of coal plants

http://www.photonconsulting.com/the_tru ... _power.php: Today, the »true cost« of solar power is under 25¢ per kWh in most locations and is likely to reach 10¢ to 15¢ per kWh by 2010.

http://www.desertec.org/fileadmin/downl ... 2nd_en.pdf: At present, the cost of power generated by solar-thermal power plants
including its transport via HVDC transmission lines amounts to 10 to
20 euro cent per kilowatt-hour – depending on the location, technology
and form of operation. However, these costs will drop significantly
with economies of scale and refinements in the technologies. If environmental
and hidden costs are properly accounted for, it is likely that
electricity from CSP plants is already cheaper than electricity from
coal-fired or nuclear power plants.

http://www.desertec.org/fileadmin/downl ... _small.pdf: The cost of
a kWh produced by solar thermal power in California today
is 10-12 cents, but estimates by the World Bank project a
cost of 4-6 cents already in 2015.

[chrismb]

Art, I am not so sure you should be excessively concerned about nuclear energy products. Proportionaltely concerned, of course.

France now produces some >75% of its energy by nuclear now, but generates only 40 tonnes of vitrefied waste per year.

On the whole, as you've indirectly pointed out, such substances are dangerous once they get inside you. Just like, err... , toxic chemicals??

There are some interesting links at the bottom of;
http://www.americanenergyindependence.c ... ation.aspx

which qualify much the same point.

I am not making light of the issue, but to say that there are plenty of other harmful chemicals and processes that might equally kill us. The attention to nuclear is generally disproportionate - and if you don't think so then why does the nuclear industry have to work towards much much tighter safety standards (deaths/year) than other industries, and why is it that those standards are so tight that if they were taken literally, then the top 20m of large areas of Cornwall, Devon, and the Scottish borders need to be dug up and re-buried, as they classify as low-level contamination according to the regulations?

But I agree solar has a good deal to offer and I see no reason why a time won't come where every home's roof provides for their own electricity, and HVDC systems are running 5000km from North Africa into Europe....along with fission power!!... (oh, plus a laughably improbable fusion power? )

[MSimon]

Art, I think that one of the realities is that right now(!) there is no real alternative to fission anyway. At 40 cents per KW/h, solar energy is much more expensive than fission. Get the price for solar power down to 13 cents or so and we might be talking (still more expensive than the 10 cents the average american pays for his kw/h, but probably acceptable to people).
This is a problem. I too am really bothered by the problems of fission that you named here. These are issues and they after all also make fission power more expensive. I dont think that these issues will go away, so we can all agree that fission power is not a perfect solution. The question always has to be however: What is your best alternative. Well at the moment, I dont see anything. Nada, nothing, rien, nichts, njet, nihil.
I hate it and thats one reason why I am hanging out here so much. Because I darn hope that at least one of the fusioneers out there will make it work.

You have to deal with cost at the bus bar unless consumption is happening where production happens. As soon as you move the power around you have to pay for the capital and maintenance of distribution. That runs about 1/2 your metered cost.

And you also have to pay for the capital cost of stand by plants to make up for local shortages. (weather, efficiency declines over time, failures, etc.)

Eventually all the problems will be satisfactorily solved. However, the time frame is about the same time frame for a working tokamak.

To solve the liquid fuel problem at reasonable cost the BFR has to come in at about 1/2 the bus bar cost of current sources. That is not a given.

Bottom line: we will be using coal for a very long time. Fortunately there is enough.

[cybrbeast]

A lively and thought-provoking talk, even though not entirely convincing. I was irritated that he dismissed solar power so lightly, on the grounds that we can't store it.

I agree that it is not without its flaws and therefore not entirely convincing. His geo-engineering argument in particular seemed slightly contradictory. In the first portion he discusses the very difficult problem of accurately modeling our very complex climate (his coal vs. nuclear argument) and then goes on towards the end of his talk to suggest 'simple' solutions for reducing the average global temperature.

I think his point is that we need to reduce CO2 emissions to prevent massive global warming, but that he also thinks whatever we do now, we will still face serious consequences from the previous emissions. So to deal with these he suggests geo-engineering.

I really like the idea of a rational environmentalist. We need more of these instead of those misanthropic Greenpeace types.

[MSimon]

Climate Change?