Is there a role for nuclear energy?

[Jovial Monk]

A new type of reactor, Integral Fast reactor. Breeder reactor, reducing hugely the rate at which available uranium is used up. few wastes.

Look here at larvatus prodeo

(LP a good source of ideas and info, but rather academic infested Also tends to over-analyse everything. Pro ALP generally.)

If these could be built quickly would reduce GHG emissions heaps and provide a ton of jobs!

[Outlaw Yogi]

A new type of reactor, Integral Fast reactor. Breeder reactor, reducing hugely the rate at which available uranium is used up. few wastes.

But like Light Water Reactors the uranium in Integral Fast reactors requires plutonium enrichment, thus requiring (and so justifying continued existence of) fast breeder reactors to make plutonium. And so in effect just another high priced psuedo-technofix to legitimise manufacturing ingredients for nuclear weapons.
Considering that nuclear power is the most expensive electricity generation method ever devised and has never existed anywhere on the planet without massive up front construction grants and operating cost subsidies, and is totally reliant on electricity from the grid to start the reactor [reactors cannot self start], who'd be silly enough to invest in infrastructure which cannot obtain insurance?


Fast breeder reactor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_breeder_reactor

The fast breeder or fast breeder reactor (FBR) is a fast neutron reactor designed to breed fuel by producing more fissile material than it consumes.

Here is Britain's experience with Fast Breeder Reactors:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... nservation
Robots scour sea for atomic waste

Two kilometres of beach outside the Dounreay nuclear plant have been closed since 1983, and fishing banned, when it was found old fuel rod fragments were being accidentally pumped into the sea. The cause was traced and corrected but particles - including plutonium specks, each capable of killing a person if swallowed - are still being washed on to this bleakly beautiful stretch of sand and cliff on mainland Britain's northern edge.

The UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), owners of Dounreay, was eventually fined £140,000 at Wick Sheriff Court last year for 'very grave errors' that led to the beach's contamination. The authority's safety director, Dr John Crofts, admitted the release represented 'an unacceptable legacy.'

The seabed clean-up, which will take years to complete, is only one part of the major operation to close down Dounreay. For 40 years, test reactors - part of Britain's fast breeder reactor construction programme - operated there but the technology turned out to be messy. Fast breeders use liquid metal coolants and their contaminated remnants still await removal. 'At the time, engineers were only interested in building reactors. No one thought how we might dismantle them,' said Colin Punler, Dounreay's communication manager. 'This was at the birth of Britain's nuclear industry.'

Although the UKAEA kept no precise accounts for building and running Dounreay, it is known to have cost several billion pounds. Now a further £2.5 billion will be spent returning the site to its pre-nuclear condition, leaving only a vault, covered with grass, to hold low-level nuclear waste while high-level waste will probably be shipped to a central UK nuclear store yet to be approved. 'An immense amount of money was spent here,' admitted Steve Beckitt, a senior Dounreay project manager.

PROLIFERATION RESISTANCE ASSESSMENT OF THE INTEGRAL FAST REACTOR
Harold F. McFarlane
Argonne National Laboratory
P. O. Box 2528
Idaho Falls, Idaho 83415, USA 208/533-7106
http://www.ipd.anl.gov/anlpubs/2002/07/43534.pdf
http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:Hf ... d=38&gl=au

In the classic IFR concept, the actinides are quantitatively removed from the salt prior to its
disposition into the waste stream. However, during the treatment of the EBR-II fuel, the plutonium
has been intentionally directed to the waste stream. The salt must be discarded when its heat
generation rate reaches the design limit for the process vessels or when the composition of the salt
reaches a point where it is no longer molten at a sufficient margin below the prescribed operating
temperature for the process.

As one of the cornerstones of the IFR concept, affirmation of proliferation resistance has been
necessary to the continued, albeit erratic, development of the fuel cycle technology. The envisioned
system relies on active plutonium management, maintaining a large inventory of plutonium, but
only as much as needed to maintain a nuclear island with power plants and a fuel cycle facility. The
material would remain continuously in a sequence of highly radioactive matrices within
inaccessible facilities. The cost of safeguarding the material would be compensated by the sale of
electricity.

If these could be built quickly would reduce GHG emissions heaps and provide a ton of jobs!

Why is that? ... nuke reactors have not done so previously.

Does nuclear energy produce no CO2?
http://www.peakoil.org.au/news/index.ph ... no_co2.htm

Proponents of nuclear power always say that one of the big benefits of nuclear power
is that it produces no Carbon dioxide (CO2).

This is completely untrue, as a moment's consideration will demonstrate that fossil fuels, especially oil in the form of gasoline and diesel, are essential to every stage of the nuclear cycle, and CO2 is given off whenever these are used.

Energy analysis
http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/artic ... r_se74.php

Using appropriately adjusted results obtained from studies involving a technique known as energy analysis, preliminary estimates of the effective release of carbon dioxide were derived for a selection of energy technologies and energy efficiency measures. Results, showing the average annual amount of carbon dioxide emitted for a given amount of electricity, either generated or saved, equivalent to the lifetime output of a 1,000 MW PWR (171TWh), are summarised in Figure 1. The relative contributions to current carbon dioxide emissions from a typical PWR and associated fuel cycle over its entire 35 year life are illustrated in Fig. 2.

The results clearly indicate that the selected renewable energy technologies and energy efficiency measures release considerably less carbon dioxide than currently operating PWR nuclear power stations. However, nuclear power does, at the moment, offer dramatic reductions in carbon dioxide emissions over electricity generation from conventional coal-fired power stations. Even greater savings might seem possible when it is realised that the bulk of carbon dioxide emissions associated with nuclear power at present arise from fossil fuel-fired power stations that are providing the majority of electricity used in uranium fuel enrichment.

Such enrichment is mainly achieved using the gas diffusion method which will eventually be replaced by much more efficient techniques which include the gas centrifuge method. If this occurs and all the electricity used for construction, manufacturing and fuel cycle operation, including enrichment, is provided solely by nuclear power stations then the carbon dioxide emissions from nuclear power might be reduced from the present average figure of about 230,000 tonnes per year to approximately 21,000 tonnes per year. This estimate can be taken as representative of the ultimate nuclear power system, based on existing technology, which provides electricity for all needs.

Cost of nuke waste storage to the OZ taxpayer aprox $300 million
http://www.ccsa.asn.au/nic/NucWaste/dump.htm

Between 1945 and 1964 the CSIRO investigated the processing of uranium ore at its laboratories at Fisherman's Bend in Melbourne. This work led to radioactive contamination of the soil which was not cleaned up until 1990. The soil was packed into drums, transported by road to ANSTO's nuclear facility at Lucas Heights NSW where it was stored for four years.
As a result of court action brought against ANSTO by the Sutherland Shire Council, about 10,000 drums of radioactive waste were transported by road to Woomera in December 1994. The CSIRO waste was generally considered to be dry, but during transport liquid was found to be leaking from one of the drums.
In 1995 a further consignment of radioactive waste was transported by road to Woomera. This second load came from an Australian Defence Industries Ltd. facility in St. Marys NSW.
Both the Department of Defence and CSIRO wastes are now stored at Woomera. The CSIRO waste is stored in a 50 year old disused aircraft hanger. The St Marys waste is stored in a 50 year old, above ground, concrete and earth bunker which has been fitted with an extra roof to prevent rainwater leakage and two wind driven vents to extract the radioactive radon gas released by the waste.
Storage of Commonwealth radioactive waste in SA was the first step in making SA the site for all of Australia's radioactive waste. This in turn makes SA the target for dumping the world's radioactive waste.

THE REGIONAL INCOME AND EMPLOYMENT IMPACTS OF NUCLEAR POWER STATIONS
McGuire, Alistair (1983) The regional income and employment impacts of nuclear power stations. Scottish journal of political economy, 30 (3). pp. 264-273. ISSN 0036-9292
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/21739/
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/jour ... 5/abstract

[Jovial Monk]

Wow, a HUGE post.

Will take some time to plough through that!

The IFR will breed its own fuel, i.e. doesn't need a separate breeder reactor.

The main arguments about nuclear reducing GHG is that it will take 20 years to build & commission a plant and all the GHg emitted mining/refining the uranium and commissioning/decommissioning the plant. The IFR would largely reduce the mining costs at least. No idea about how long it would take to build & commission an IFR.

[xbz]

If you want 3 eyed fish and a possible meltdown yeah. I personally would love to live next door to one just as much as I would love to live next door to a sewerage treatment plant.

[Jovial Monk]

So put it somewhere other than the CBD.

I don't think nuclear is the answer but that reactor seemed to have fewer problems. There is no rampant radiation around nuclear power stations, people work in them after all.

Without breeder reactors there is only 30 years uranium. that is no longer a problem. Waste is much less a problem too.

[Pastafarian]

If you want 3 eyed fish and a possible meltdown yeah. I personally would love to live next door to one just as much as I would love to live next door to a sewerage treatment plant.

And yet we have sewage treatment plants in this country and no one has a bitch. Grow up and get real and learn science.

[boxy]

[Outlaw Yogi]

Nuclear Renaissance Runs Into Trouble
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/29/busin ... 9nuke.html

After four years of construction and thousands of defects and deficiencies, the reactor’s 3 billion euro price tag, about $4.2 billion, has climbed at least 50 percent. And while the reactor was originally meant to be completed this summer, Areva, the French company building it, and the utility that ordered it, are no longer willing to make certain predictions on when it will go online.

Delays in Finland underline reactor design problems
http://www.nuclearcounterfeit.com/?tag=finland

For nuclear power to have a high impact on meeting the rising demand for power and reducing greenhouse gases, the Nuclear Energy Agency at the Organization for Economic Coordination and Development in Paris estimates that an average of 12 new reactors would have to be built each year until 2030, reaching 54 reactors per year in 2030-2050. Yet not enough reactors are under construction to replace those that are reaching the end of their working lives.

Of the 45 reactors being built around the world, 22 have encountered construction delays and nine do not have official start-up dates, according to an analysis prepared this year for the German government by Mycle Schneider, an energy analyst and a critic of the nuclear industry.

Robots scour sea for atomic waste
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... nservation

[Outlaw Yogi]

A Decade Later: NRC Reactor Oversight Process Has Failed to Improve Reactor Safety, New Report Finds
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2011/02/04-8

http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/

[Super Nova]

The future requires us to look to Fussion. It is going to take some time to master this.

fusion is the process by which the Sun, and other stars, transmute matter, transforming hydrogen into helium to release colossal amounts of energy. The fused nuclei are a fraction lighter than their atomic ingredients, so – according to Einstein's famous equation E = mc² – that tiny loss of mass results in a colossal release of energy. Harness that release in an efficient way, and the world's energy needs are solved: near-infinite power, almost no harmful by-products.

If the gamble pays off, the last quarter of this century will see the end of the age of carbon, and usher in a future of almost limitless potential.

We must develop a means to harness Fusion. If we don't we will not be able to master our own destiny. We need energy for our ecconomies and growth. The well being of the planet may depend on how we get our energy and what we could use it for. I think our long term future depends on it.

See article.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/6754 ... uture.html

When we get there we can get rid of the old dirty fission reactors.