Nuclear Power

[secrets0stolen]

What's your view? Why? Discuss.

[desertrat]

I think nuclear power is ok , if the plant is properly run and maintained , and the wast material is properly disposed of . One of the worlds biggest plants the, palo verdie nuc. plant is 50 miles west of me . Half of its power goes to CA. In time solar , wind , and others will take over as they become cheeper . Maby some one will figure out how to use zero point energy . desert rat

[aelle]

Given today's oil and other hydrocarbon consumption, the global warming situation, and the electricity needs, nuclear power is the best available option. Besides, it is also better for the environment and public health than the widespread alternative, thermal power plants (ie that burn hydrocarbons). Just check the levels of asthma, chronic respiratory diseases and cancer next to your local thermal power plant...

That said, and keeping in mind that I very much support nuclear power in today's world, I see a number of issues with it:

- waste disposal is going to be an issue at some point, especially with the additional burden of public opposition to the scientific study of our options (those opposing nuclear power for fear that it's unsafe are actually contributing to making it less safe - what a paradox!)

- uranium is not a renewable energy and as such has similar problems to oil: it is controlled by a small number of powers who could lead us to a uranium crisis, and we will reach peak uranium at some point.

- the political climate necessary: a country that relies on nuclear energy needs to be a police state, for safety reasons. It must maintain a high level of control and regulation. This is a problem for me based on my views of how the world should ideally evolve.
Also, it must NOT be a highly capitalist society, and that is a problem today. The power plants that are designed in France (where nuclear electricity production is centralized and ran by the state) to last 20 years with a very low risk threshold are pushed in the US to be used for two or three times that, to cut costs. Someone somewhere has decided that raising the risk threshold was an acceptable tradeoff for the financial gains. That said, the nuclear industry remains (with the aviation industry) one of the safest worldwide and most closely watched by independent institutions.

[Sain Outre Longfang]

Well said aelle.
While nuclear energy is indeed an unrenewable resource, we will never find a way to get something for nothing. Just as we die and are retured to the earth as raw matter to be recycled, so too will the earth eventually produce more things like rare metals and elements once they find their way back into the cycle.
Even the pollutents that are produced from these types of processes, still come from the earth it's self, and will become something else in time.

[Brutha]

Peak uranium. There some talk that it's only a few years away. The numbers behind the argument don't recognize that a higher price of uranium will allow different option to gather uranium.
Uranium costs are relatively low. Maybe you could even filter uranium out of sea water if the price rises high enough.

Thorium might be better than uranium:
Obama could kill fossil fuels overnight with a nuclear dash for thorium - Telegraph

Bill Gates has also a nice project to produce better nuclear technology:
Bill Gates on energy: Innovating to zero! | Video on TED.com

If you believe the official numbers of death in Chernobyl then Chernobyl didn't create more death than coal pollution in a single year.
I don't really know whether I believe those numbers. Coal is however really bad and replacing it with nuclear would probably be good.

Imagine someone would want to start today with a technology that kills as many people as coal does. Everyone would rightfully deny them the right to burn coal.
Because coal was however introduced centuries ago it doesn't get opposed as strongly.

We need technology that can compete with coal on a cost basis or China and India will double the coal burning of our world over the next decades.

Therefore we should research all possible new technologies.
There an argument over at worldchanging.org that it's better to focus on subventioning existing technology. I don't buy that it's either or. We should do both.

Just as we die and are retured to the earth as raw matter to be recycled, so too will the earth eventually produce more things like rare metals and elements once they find their way back into the cycle.

Uranium gets produced in stars. If it's used up we won't find more uranium on earth.

[Andrew Gubb]

I read in a book that I agree with that Nuclear has never been cost effective; it has been subsidised by govts in order to help get Uranium for bombs. As we all know there was a scandal in Iran when they started trying to get nuclear power. Why? Because they would also be harvesting Uranium for bombs like that. That's why everyone made such a big deal and tried to stop them.

Even this aside, it seems to be too dirty a technology. If we have to deal with it, I guess it can help us stave off global warming a bit. But it's no garden of Eden. The few mistakes that have been made have been devastating, or close to being devastating. Chernobyl made an area the size of a small country uninhabitable. Quite apart from the damage to humans (who were comparitively scarce), I shudder to think of the horror mother Earth must have gone through.

Even a 0.0001% risk of this sort of thing is too much. In time, that risk adds up.

[Brutha]

Even a 0.0001% risk of this sort of thing is too much. In time, that risk adds up.

If the alternative is to poison the air with coal than a low risk isn't too much. It's not only about CO2. Burning coal also releases a lot of stuff that directly poisons the air.

Chernobyl made an area the size of a small country uninhabitable.

It's not nice to live there but there are areas on earth where people life and where there's more background radiation.
For example when you live next to a coal plant

[Sain Outre Longfang]

I thought just about everything was made from stars.... huh...
So, I wonder. Do we know the process it takes for stars to put it togeather?
Guess i'll look that up.

[Brutha]

I thought just about everything was made from stars.

That relatively true.
Nuclear power is about breaking up uranium and transforming it into smaller elements.

Do we know the process it takes for stars to put it togeather?

Yes, it's about having very high temperature and a lot of pressure.

[desertrat]

Here is a link KIDDofSPEED - GHOST TOWN - Chernobyl Pictures - Kidofspeed - Elena A lady has permisson to visit the chernobyl site , her father was an engineer at that plant . She was a little girl when the plant got in trouble , and was sent away . Now she rides her motor cycle through the site , with a giger counter , so she dont " glow in the dark " desert rat

[desertrat]

Here is a link to some of Elenas pics. from Chernobyl elenafilatova.com

[Sain Outre Longfang]

I guess some elements the earth's furnace can't reproduce.
But I wonder if someday we might use a type of vibrational resonance to bind together these types of elements, without the use of so much heat and pressure.
Is that even possible Brutha?
From my humble understanding, heat is just molecules at a high vibrating state.

[aelle]

Originally Posted by Andrew Gubb

Even this aside, it seems to be too dirty a technology. If we have to deal with it, I guess it can help us stave off global warming a bit. But it's no garden of Eden. The few mistakes that have been made have been devastating, or close to being devastating. Chernobyl made an area the size of a small country uninhabitable. Quite apart from the damage to humans (who were comparitively scarce), I shudder to think of the horror mother Earth must have gone through.

Even a 0.0001% risk of this sort of thing is too much. In time, that risk adds up.

There's no such thing as zero risk. What we have to choose is the lower risk, or rather the best risk-to-result ratio. And all risk assessment decisions are necessarily a subjective choice, as I explained higher.

It's very interesting to study how risky (health wise, environment wise, money wise etc - I touch on this as part of my job, even though it's not central) different branches of the industry really are. It has very little to do with objective scientific reasonings (for example, if the staff is scared of a certain process, this process is going to cause more accidents!), and close to nothing to do with the public perception of the industry (like I said, the nuclear power indutry is one of the safest out there).

Originally Posted by Sain Outre Longfang

I thought just about everything was made from stars.... huh...
So, I wonder. Do we know the process it takes for stars to put it togeather?
Guess i'll look that up.

Nuclear fusion. It happens in stars due to very high gravity. If we manage to replicate it on earth (in an energy efficient manner) it would finally turn nuclear power production into a renewable energy source.

[Sain Outre Longfang]

I'm just not a nuclear physicist I guess.
And without understanding something in it's complexities, it's hard for me to comment.
Definately something i'd like to study however.

[LostMyMap]

I spent three years on a nuclear powered ship. I wore a TLD ( radiation detector). I got less radiation being down in the engineering spaces than if I were standing outside in the sun. And no poisons there, versus who knows what while being on the freeway. So I know for a fact that it can be done, and done safely.

I have to do one of these when I see people inevitably bring up Chernobyl. It's about design. I can't really give you the physics, but those reactors were designed in a way that made them tend towards higher power states. So you are always holding them back. Whereas others are made to tend to lower power states. They don't want to run away from you. Bad design by a failed government doesn't automatically invalidate other designs.

My concerns about nuclear power are centered around waste disposal and politics. I don't think we have a good solution to waste yet and we need one. And the process of making the fuel isn't without waste. The politics are pretty well known.

I'd love to see solar/wind/renewables be the solution, but I just don't think they will ever be enough by themselves.

Not really sure about the amount of uranium available, but I do know that oil and coal are for practical purposes non-renewable.

And our current reactors are fission, as stated, breaking down molecules into other ones, vs the sun, which does fusion, creating larger molecules out of smaller ones.

[aelle]

Originally Posted by LostMyMap

I have to do one of these when I see people inevitably bring up Chernobyl. It's about design. I can't really give you the physics, but those reactors were designed in a way that made them tend towards higher power states. So you are always holding them back. Whereas others are made to tend to lower power states. They don't want to run away from you. Bad design by a failed government doesn't automatically invalidate other designs.

That, and the fact that, just to name this one, the Bhopal disaster killed at least 4 times more people than Chernobyl yet no ones talks about putting an end to the chemical industry...

I would love to see a significant development of solar energy, in all honesty. I am pretty sure it will happen as soon as China takes an interest in the matter (probably in the coming decade) because producing on such a large scale will drive the costs down dramatically and boost the research hard. But I also keep in mind that one of the key primary industries leading to the production of solar panels is the chlorine industry, and that every year accidents happen in chlorine plants over the world. Chlorine is also a key industry in the production of composites that windmills are made of, and that will eventually make our planes several order of magnitudes cleaner.
Risk is part of life. We deal with it, learn from it and manage it. If we had always lived a risk free life we'd still be in our caves, without fire.

[desertrat]

Chernobyl was built with out that big containment dome . It keeps any thing from getting out if something goes wrong. I am told the 3 domes at Palo Verdie nuc. plant are tested ever 10 years . They must hold 10 psi , or the unit cant operate . desert rat

[GhostGoat]

Originally Posted by LostMyMap

...My concerns about nuclear power are centered around waste disposal and politics. I don't think we have a good solution to waste yet and we need one. And the process of making the fuel isn't without waste. The politics are pretty well known. ...

This is my main concern about nuclear power also.

I have great hopes for the Bloom box...if it succeeds, it could greatly reduce the need for more nuclear plants.

[desertrat]

Here in the USA they are building a site at Yucca Mt. in Nevada to store nuc. waste . It would nice if it could be used until it was no longer radioactive .

[JSB]

Originally Posted by Sain Outre Longfang

I guess some elements the earth's furnace can't reproduce.
But I wonder if someday we might use a type of vibrational resonance to bind together these types of elements, without the use of so much heat and pressure.
Is that even possible Brutha?
From my humble understanding, heat is just molecules at a high vibrating state.

Heavy elements like uranium are created in supernovae (explosions of large stars at the end of their life cycle).

You can bind the nucleii of atoms together to create heavier elements; that's nuclear fusion and it's what happens naturally in stars. Controlled fusion is possible, but we have yet to make a reactor that sustains itself and releases more energy than it takes to produce the reaction --- this is an engineering issue; we know sustained, net-energy fusion reactions are physically possible because they occur in nature, but we just don't yet know how to make that happen here on Earth. We know how to create a net energy fusion reaction in a hydrogen bomb -- currently, a fission (atomic) bomb is used to create the energy needed to trigger the hydrogen (fusion) bomb, which in turn releases far more energy --- excellent for blowing things up but not so good for generating electric power.

Binding lighter elements together to create heavier elements yields excess energy, but as the elements get heavier, the excess energy from fusing them together gets smaller and smaller. Once you get to iron, there is no more net energy to be gained, and combining them actually costs energy, meaning that super heavy elements (like uranium) can be broken apart to release excess energy.

So to get energy from atomic nucleii, you can either break apart the heavy elements (fission) or combine the light elements (fusion). Fission is a lot easier to do, but there isn't that much fissionable material around, since it isn't so common. Fusion is more difficult, but potentially an unlimited and non-polluting energy source (no long term radioactive waste).

[Sain Outre Longfang]

Originally Posted by JSB

Heavy elements like uranium are created in supernovae (explosions of large stars at the end of their life cycle).

You can bind the nucleii of atoms together to create heavier elements; that's nuclear fusion and it's what happens naturally in stars. Controlled fusion is possible, but we have yet to make a reactor that sustains itself and releases more energy than it takes to produce the reaction --- this is an engineering issue; we know sustained, net-energy fusion reactions are physically possible because they occur in nature, but we just don't yet know how to make that happen here on Earth. We know how to create a net energy fusion reaction in a hydrogen bomb -- currently, a fission (atomic) bomb is used to create the energy needed to trigger the hydrogen (fusion) bomb, which in turn releases far more energy --- excellent for blowing things up but not so good for generating electric power.

Binding lighter elements together to create heavier elements yields excess energy, but as the elements get heavier, the excess energy from fusing them together gets smaller and smaller. Once you get to iron, there is no more net energy to be gained, and combining them actually costs energy, meaning that super heavy elements (like uranium) can be broken apart to release excess energy.

So to get energy from atomic nucleii, you can either break apart the heavy elements (fission) or combine the light elements (fusion). Fission is a lot easier to do, but there isn't that much fissionable material around, since it isn't so common. Fusion is more difficult, but potentially an unlimited and non-polluting energy source (no long term radioactive waste).

Seems like I read somewhere that they were setting off the explosions underground in an attempt to keep the energy from dissipating. Is it just a matter of containment? It seems to me, if we could keep the net reactions close enough indefinitely, then it would sustain it's self....right?

[desertrat]

With a fusion reaction you are talking about very high temps , that would melt any standard reactor . It is a hydrogen bomb . Making a machine that will work under that set of conditions is no small engenering feat . desert rat

[Sain Outre Longfang]

True. A mini sun would be hard to get a handle on.
Anybody an expert on thermodynamics?
And i'd still like to know if a fusion reactor would accumulate it's own mass.....and potentaly how much if it did?

[desertrat]

This is out of my field of expertize , but I think E= MC 2 is in play. Energy = mater x the speed of light squared . As I understand mater is converted to energy , so there is a mass loss . Hydrogen is converted to helium . desert rat

[JSB]

Originally Posted by Sain Outre Longfang

Seems like I read somewhere that they were setting off the explosions underground in an attempt to keep the energy from dissipating. Is it just a matter of containment? It seems to me, if we could keep the net reactions close enough indefinitely, then it would sustain it's self....right?

Yes, it is a matter of containment --- making sure your superheated plasma stays in one place and hot enough to keep the reaction going. In practice, it's really difficult. The joke is that a working fusion reactor is only 20 years away, and will always be only 20 years away. Since the research began in the mid-20th century, every technical problem solved has yielded new technical problems to overcome.

What you need for a fusion reactor is to contain and control the reaction. Nucleii are positively charged so they repel one another due to the electromagnetic force, but if you can get them very close together, the strong nuclear force will over come the electromagnetic force and bind them together (the strong nuclear force is stronger than the electromagnetic force, but only works over very small distances). Stars do this by the force of their own gravity.

The idea is simple, but the physics is complicated. Fission reactions can be self-sustaining (collect enought fissionable material in one place and it will produce enough neutrons to create a chain reaction --- hence the danger of reactor meltdowns), but fusion reactions just fizzle out if the energy density isn't kept high enough.

The two "mainstream" apporaches are the plasma torus and the laser compression methods.

With the plasma torus, a giant donut shaped device contains a super-heated plasma inside magnetic fields (it can't touch the side of the device or it will cool off too much) and energy is added until the stuff heats up so much that all the nucleii are bouncing into each other. The plasma affects the containment field which in turn affects the plasma, and successful fusion reactions give off more charge particles which in turn affect the system, and controlling the whole reaction gets horribly complicated. Luckily, when it fails, it just fizzles out rather than blowing up.

The compression method drops tiny pellets of tritium (a hydrogen isotope) into a vacuum chamber where it is hit with coordinated, high intensity laser pulses from all sides, compressing and superheating it within a small fraction of a second and causing the tritium to fuse.

There are a few less conventional approaches which do have the possibility to work.

The Polywell approach was conceived by Robert Bussard, who was one of the pioneers of fusion research in the 1950's. He believed the new approach had a much better chance of producing a viable reactor in a shorter period of time (and for much less money). Dr. Bussard died recently, but his work continues and has recieved some degree of funding from the US Navy. (See link: Emc2 Fusion Development Corporation)

Focus Fusion is another approach. Focus Fusion Society: Developing an environmentally safe, clean, low cost, unlimited energy source for everyone.

Fusion power holds great promise, but I'm not holding my breath for a working commercial reactor anytime soon. I think the world might be better off investing in thorium fission research in the short term --- thorium is cheaper and much more plentiful than uranium, and produces much less radioactive waste than uranium fission (see link in Brutha's post). Plus, the technical hurdles to mastering thorium fission are much lower than for mastering fusion. Yes fusion would be the best option, but thorium fission would be a great option in the meantime, until fusion can be perfected.

[Brutha]

we know sustained, net-energy fusion reactions are physically possible because they occur in nature, but we just don't yet know how to make that happen here on Earth.

Net positive fusion is only possible for the very light elements. I think it's Hydrogen and Helium (maybe also Lithium of Berylium). Everything that's heavier is net negative and requires external energy for fusion.

[Sain Outre Longfang]

This thread has been very educational thus far. Thank you posters.

[JSB]

Originally Posted by Brutha

Net positive fusion is only possible for the very light elements. I think it's Hydrogen and Helium (maybe also Lithium of Berylium). Everything that's heavier is net negative and requires external energy for fusion.

The atomic nuclei with the highest binding energies are isotopes of iron and nickel, meaning one could theoretically gain energy from fusion reactions involving lighter elements (some types of stars release energy from a nuclear fusion cycle involving carbon).

Two of the proposed fusion reactor approaches I linked to (Polywell and Focus Fusion) involve fusion of Boron + Hydrogen.

[Brutha]

The atomic nuclei with the highest binding energies are isotopes of iron and nickel, meaning one could theoretically gain energy from fusion reactions involving lighter elements (some types of stars release energy from a nuclear fusion cycle involving carbon).

Oh, been quite a time since I read the Stephan Hawkings stuff and had physics in school.

[desertrat]

There were some people playing with "cold fusion " , but I dont know if it is real or not .