The End of Nuclear

Is nuclear fission going to make a comeback and plug the gap in our energy needs? Will nuclear fusion ever become energetically viable?

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Peter1010
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Post by Peter1010 »

biffvernon wrote: The most amazing thing is that there are still some folk who think that more nuclear power stations will be built in western democracies. I believe there is very little chance of that.
But when we get power cuts on a regular basis; what will the people demand? Unfortunately they will demand BAU and the government will look again at nuclear power. of course, by then the country will be in so much debt that we wont be able to afford to build them.
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biffvernon
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Post by biffvernon »

Hmmm....power cuts. Government response - build nukes. But they take ten years to build. Not many votes there.
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mr brightside
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Post by mr brightside »

biffvernon wrote:Not much hope for the nukes at sea level or in earthquake-prone areas (Japan). It's just a matter of time before the next big one.

Proper failsafes weren't in place and still aren't in any Westinghouse BWR design. It could have been far worse and we don't yet know know how bad this one will get. There are the remains of three reactors still leaking radioactive steam out the top and radioactive water out the bottom 24/7 and a completely unenclosed spent fuel pond holding several hundred tons of the most highly radioactive fuel in a structurally unsound building. The three molten cores will take a decade to cool down and need isolating from the environment for ever. We don't even know exactly where they are right now.

The most amazing thing is that there are still some folk who think that more nuclear power stations will be built in western democracies. I believe there is very little chance of that.
I agree with you that the situation in Japan is very serious and that the reactors haven't finished with us yet. It's only my personal opinion, whimsy if you will Inspector, but TEPCO have represented the nuclear industry appallingly in every way; and rather than go for a knee-jerk ban, the operational procedures and 'Defense in Depth' methodology should be closely scruitinised (from a control/failsafe standpoint) and brought back into line using what happened in Japan as a worst case scenario.

Right now, today, i believe nuclear power to be a better alternative to fossil fuels and that solar and wind etc are just not ready yet. In 100yrs time better photovoltaic cells will be available and hydrogen fuel cell technology will be more mainstream and we won't need fission reactors any more, but for now we may well be damned if we do and we may turn out to be damned of we don't.
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biffvernon
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Post by biffvernon »

Be careful not to make TEPCO the scapegoat. They were acting within the parameters set by the Japanese government, which in turn, is a product of the culture of the worlds second largest industrial economy. The power plant itself was designed by Americans.

The Chernobyl accident could be waved away by blaming communism and crazy Russians. That excuse doesn't work this time.

Fukushima is a long way from being a worst case scenario. Almost all of the radioactive material is in heaps under the rubble and not scattered over Tokyo.
An Inspector Calls

Post by An Inspector Calls »

Good heavens, the discussion suddenly becomes intelligent after all these months!

Building nukes next to the sea (but not at sea level) is entirely feasible: the problem of pumping cooling water more than 10 metres below the heat exchangers is easily and cheaply solved.

I said some time ago that it was possible that TEPCO was not the main culprit. The safety case limits would have had to have been agreed with the Japanese nuclear inspectorate, and clearly, this has not been adequate.

Will the Japanese abandon nuclear? Who knows? But if they do, the questiuon of where they get their energy (all imported) becomes very difficult. What's their alternative?

What about the UK?

I have a suspicion we won't get any more nukes in the UK simply because there has been so much mis-management of government energy policy no investor will accept the project risk. (The same applies to offshore wind).

The onshore wind industry is also not delivering. If we are to achieve anything like the coverage described in McKay's analysis (10 %) then it's noticeable that we're building no windmills in the SE of England. Considering that we don't allow build in the National Parks (and I hope AONBs) then the available area for that 10 % falls considerably. The natives are getting restive in mid Wales; Scotland is, for the moment, blocked by grid problems and besides it will always be remote from the UK load centres.

Wave generation doesn't work. It hasn't worked after 20-30 years of pootling around, and probably never will simply because the machines have to contend with a huge range of wave energy densities.

The government has rejected the Severn barrage - the wrong policy decision again!

Biomass is the biggest renewable energy source at the moment, but it's starting to compete for the resource that we use to make particle boards and plywood - an inspired fuel choice!

Gas? Let's hope shale comes good.
goslow
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Post by goslow »

Japan has about 25% of its electricity from nuclear. I doubt in fact they will abandon it completely, but if they did, they will certainly be in the market for more gas like everyone else.

There is not much info about Japanese renewables. They probably have a lot of scope for developing that further, particularly offshore wind (I see the offshore windfarm they do have survived the tsunami!). They also have a target of 10% of primary energy to come from solar by 2050. The Japanese are usually pretty determined when they put their minds to something.

As the UK and Japan are both industrial island nations at a similar latitude, and now the UK has less of its own fossil fuels, we have similar energy issues.
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mr brightside
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Post by mr brightside »

biffvernon wrote:Be careful not to make TEPCO the scapegoat. They were acting within the parameters set by the Japanese government, which in turn, is a product of the culture of the worlds second largest industrial economy.
During my criticism of TEPCO i was referring more specifically to the decision to run the reactors whilst the backup generators were offline; i'm assuming this decision was taken by TEPCO, maybe a manager inside the Fukushima Daiichi plant itself. I would expect parameters set by the Govt. to advise against having 3/6 units operational under these circumstances.
JAIF has reported that TEPCO sent the emergency report because emergency diesel generators at the two sites are out of order.
Somebody somewhere should have known better, if such a situation arose from instruction outside TEPCO then i have misrepresented them.
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biffvernon
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Post by biffvernon »

mr brightside wrote: During my criticism of TEPCO i was referring more specifically to the decision to run the reactors whilst the backup generators were offline;
I don't understand that. The reactors shut down automatically at the earthquake. The earthquake knocked out the incoming power lines and the backup generators started up. Then came the tsunami and these generators were flooded. Some backup backup batteries may have operated for a while before running out. After a few hours of no cooling the reactors had heated to the point of their being history only.

So, nobody took a decision to run a reactor without backup generators.
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mr brightside
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Post by mr brightside »

biffvernon wrote:I don't understand that. The reactors shut down automatically at the earthquake. The earthquake knocked out the incoming power lines and the backup generators started up. Then came the tsunami and these generators were flooded. Some backup backup batteries may have operated for a while before running out. After a few hours of no cooling the reactors had heated to the point of their being history only.

So, nobody took a decision to run a reactor without backup generators.
I've just been reading a report from the IAEA dated 1st June and yes, you are right- i apologise and stand corrected. I based my post on earlier information which was unspecific about how many generators were offline and what they fed.
Although all off-site power was lost when the earthquake occurred, the automatic systems at TEPCO`s Fukushima Dai-ichi successfully inserted all the control rods into its three operational reactors upon detection of the earthquake, and all available emergency diesel generator power systems were in operation, as designed. The first of a series of large tsunami waves reached the TEPCO`s Fukushima Dai-ichi site about 46 minutes after the earthquake.
The paragraph does suggest that not all generators were operational. All 6 reactor bulidings contained fuel which required cooling though 4-6 contained it in the ponds- presumably the necessity for cooling would in turn require a dedicated and operational backup generator not shared with another unit.

Again, apologies for my earlier keyboard warrior antics, i should have checked for up to date information before posting.
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biffvernon
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Post by biffvernon »

I think the fuel for #5 & 6 were in the reactors in cold shutdown and only #4 was empty with all the fuel plus about two older reactor-fulls of fuel in the spent fuel pond.

I don't recall hearing that there was any shortage of on-site emergency generation capacity during the short interval between earthquake and tsunami, though there are serious suggestions that the earthquake itself may have done significant damage before the tsunami.
An Inspector Calls

Post by An Inspector Calls »

There's nothing wrong or unusual with TEPCO having diesel generators closed down - presumably for maintenance. When the disaster started, the remaining diesels all seem to have started and provided adequate cooling. That far, perfectly normal, acceptable behaviour.

Then they lost the diesels, and again, their backup systems (batteries) kicked in.

But they'd lost all grid connection because of the tsunami and communication problems meant they couldn't connect emergency generation so when the batteries were exhausted, they were sunk. The safety case was flawed.

At a UK magnox station: the reactors can cool by thermal syphoning. Even if you have to vent boiler steam it's not contaminated, and you can replace the water from the station reservoir. All magnox reactors had (have) huge emergency reservoirs, again gravity fed. We'd got this covered in the 60s.
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Potemkin Villager
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Post by Potemkin Villager »

An Inspector Calls wrote:
They say they have a plan! I hope it's well thought out!

.........

And this is going to be fun to watch. This is a colosal green experiment. If this turns pear-shaped there'll be an interesting back-lash.
If I remember rightly the civil service response when Jim Hacker
came up with this sort of thing was along the lines of "Yes Prime Minister - a very brave decision indeed".

My feeling is that she may turn out to have made the right call for all the wrong reasons but it has not yet sunk in just how exceedingly cunning a plan is actually required.
Overconfidence, not just expert overconfidence but general overconfidence,
is one of the most common illusions we experience. Stan Robinson
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PS_RalphW
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Post by PS_RalphW »

US nuclear plant, same design as in Japan, yesterday.


Image

Currently being refueled.

Currently suffering cooling problems with the spent pool pond, 2 mile aviation exclusion zone.

Same as Japanese reactor #4...
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biffvernon
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Post by biffvernon »

Picture Caption
The Fort Calhoun nuclear power station in Fort Calhoun, Neb. , currently shut down for refueling, is surrounded by flood waters from the Missouri River, Tuesday, June 14, 2011. On Tuesday, the releases at Gavins Point Dam in South Dakota hit the maximum planned amount of 150,000 cubic feet of water per second, which are expected to raise the Missouri River 5 to 7 feet above flood stage in most of Nebraska and Iowa. AP [The Missouri River is at lower right.]
There was an electrical fire that knocked out the spent fuel pool cooling for 90 minutes on June 7th.
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mr brightside
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Post by mr brightside »

biffvernon wrote:I don't recall hearing that there was any shortage of on-site emergency generation capacity during the short interval between earthquake and tsunami, though there are serious suggestions that the earthquake itself may have done significant damage before the tsunami.
The report that spoke of generators being out of order was dated 11 March, and posted on the Nuclear Engineering International website:
JAIF reported that Fukushima Daiichi 1, 2 and 3 automatically shut down; units 4, 5 and 6 were in maintenance outages. Fukushima Daini 1, 2, 3 and 4 automatically shut down.

JAIF has reported that TEPCO sent the emergency report because emergency diesel generators at the two sites are out of order.
I incorrectly inferred from the report that generators were out of order prior to the quake and tsunami, the report is unspecific as to when and how many.

I was reading a blog post last night that announced news that all Jap nuclear sites have been instructed to install two emergency genny sets per reactor, instead of the current regulation one per reactor. I understand that the americans currently have...

1 reactor- 2 generators
2 reactors- 3 generators
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