So, yesterday was 10/11/12, October 11th 2012. "Why is that significant?", you ask. Just look at it - 10/11/12.
November 12th of next year will be similar, as will December 13th in 2014 (which will be a Saturday, not a Friday).
Unless I approach Guinness-level long-life status, 12/13/14 will be the last nerdily cool date like yesterday that I will see during my lifetime. Do you know what actually will still be alive and running when January 2nd, 2103 (01/02/03) rolls around?
1. Many of the Small Modular Reactor designs being designed today that will start up in the early 2020's could very possibly still be safely operating 80 years later.
2. The AP1000's to-be-built in Florida in Levy County and at Turkey Point to start up in the early-to-mid 2020's could quite possibly be safely operated for 80 years too, with proper operation and maintenance.
If I could have my way planning out the energy future of America, the primary threat to not having those plants operating the next time calendars read 01/02/03 will be nothing approaching safety issues, though. What I hope the main threat is, is that we have nuclear power plants that are simply miles better economically (making far more efficient use of our naturally occurring and already-produced fissile resources), and in terms of safety, that 80-100 year old technology simply won't be able to compete.
We have our work cut out for us, but the future can be bright, and it doesn't absolutely require energy austerity by any means.
You may or may not have known it yet, but the Wall Street Journal has been conducting an online poll regarding the question "Should the World Increase Its Reliance on Nuclear Energy?". (Helpful Hint: click on the 1st entry of these search results, the WSJ gives access to things when accessed via Google search results). The poll has been up for at least several days, and I am not sure how much longer it will be up. If you have read any of the posts here, or met me in person, you could probably guess that my answer would be a resounding "HECK YES!! and faster than what we've done during any point in my lifetime (which began in the mid-80's)".
Within the past few days, commentary from Mark Lynas on the "pro-nuclear" side and from Peter Bradford on the "anti-nuclear" has been added. Mark Lynas is a British environmentalist and has relatively recently come to the realization that increasing the usage of nuclear power is an imperative for the world to have a successful future. Peter Bradford was a Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Commissioner from 1977 to 1982. He has since made a bit of a career for himself as an anti-nuclear activist.
I will let Mark's words stand on their own (although I make zero claims of possessing climate change expertise).
In this post, however, I will break down Mr. Bradford's editorial, add some corrections and/or things he omitted, and add in a video of a song from my favorite musicians, the chorus of which makes me think of anti-nuclear folks almost every single time I hear it. My strong speculation is that almost anyone who would wish to get in touch with Mark Lynas would have an opportunity, by simply Tweeting him. I imagine/speculate Mr. Bradford is much tougher to get in touch with (and I will leave it to the reader to guess how that sways my idea of the overall integrity of each man).
Additions: 1. My assertion regarding ease of getting in touch (despite an Atlantic amount of distance) has been proven true in under 12 hours. 2. Check out Leslie Corrice's commentary on Bradford's writing over at his Hiroshima Syndrome site.
The Breakdown/Analysis/DeBunking:
Bradford starts off with a straw man argument comparing the utilization of nuclear power to using caviar to fight world hunger. This is not even close to a comparable comparison on a cost basis. Additionally, many of the costs associated with nuclear construction have been concocted precisely by the actions of anti-nuclear activists combined with the timing of extreme inflation rates within the U.S. (see: this chapter of a free online book written by Bernard Cohen).
Bradford goes on to make the claim that the full impact on people's health from Fukushima won't be known for years, if ever (cue cheesy, scary sound effect). I disagree. The majority of the region around the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant following the Great East Japan Earthquake has had radiation levels far below those that cause harm to humans and far below the naturally-occurring levels of quite a few places around the world that experience no negative health effects. The over-exaggeration of potential negative health effects is, from my viewpoint, highly immoral in that it has caused actual harm while preventing no real harm. I agree with Mr. Bradford that people not being able to return to their homes is a tragedy, but I actually realize that it is efforts of people like Mr. Bradford himself that are the biggest impediment to those people being allowed to return home, rather than trivial amounts of radiation that could be easily managed/worked around. Next
Pete B., what do 1970's advertisements have to do with anything regarding the present discussion? The Shah was basically a puppet ruler put in place by the U.S. government, who was overthrown by the people of Iran. U.S. over-extension in Iran in 1953 is a major contributor to the Iran situation today. Bringing that up has ZERO relevance to today's nuclear power discussion. Next
"If the next nuclear-power-related catastrophe is a bomb........." - Yet another fallacy. Nuclear power and nuclear weapons are not a "Like-for-Like" equivalent, Pete. The bomb pre-dated nuclear power. Diverting fissile material from a nuclear power plant to create a bomb would be a far-far-from-optimum way to obtain nuclear weapons. Find another straw man. Next
"Of course new reactor designs are safer." Thanks, for admitting that, Pete. Maybe we can actually get somewhere with this discussion. "However, safety depends on more than design." I agree completely, Pete. Operations are highly important. I mean, Technical Specifications specifying the minimum requirements of plant OPERATION make up an integral portion of a plant's OPERATING license granted by the Commission you were once a part of (a fact you have utterly milked in your activities subsequent to 1982). Oh, you didn't mention that operations and maintenance also ensure safety. I'll grant that you simply forgot that. Next
"A world more reliant on nuclear power would involve many plants in countries that have little experience with nuclear energy.........." Mr. Bradford, to suggest that these countries wouldn't be completely willing, able, and eager to learn all the things that they would need to know to properly build, maintain, and operate nuclear power plants screams of an air of arrogance on your part. People are capable of learning, particularly if the reward will enhance their society's well-being. Next
Expense - I covered this above Next
Quoting John Rowe - See the Rod Adams collection on John Rowe. I will summarize for you. The way Exelon is currently structured and positioned, they have basically no incentive to build new plants as extra capacity would merely hurt the profit margin of their existing TWENTY-TWO CASH COW plants. (Lengthy Disclosure: I have been intending to purchase Exelon stock for months now, and at under $36/share, I need to do it soon particularly with the possibility of a normal amount coldness this winter leading to considerably increased natural gas demand and somewhat increased natural gas price which equals increased profit margins for Exelon's TWENTY-TWO already-built, operating nuclear plants). Next
Then, Peter Bradford goes into full-on, Tea Party market-based capitalism-mode, which I doubt he would do for ANY other topic. I admit that there is a severe disconnect between "pure" free-market capitalism and the utility industry as a whole. There are rather complex and diverse market structures involved (including the U.S. Government Corporation that is the Tennessee Valley Authority). This disconnect is not reason to abandon nuclear power, it is a reason to figure out methods of properly figuring out how to plan for, pay for, and build nuclear power plants.
You can't decide you want a nuclear power plant one day and start getting power from it the next. If you could, a "pure" free-market capitalistic approach would show, unequivocally, in the long term that nuclear power is the most cost-effective energy source.
Now the Music:
And now for a song from my present favorite musicians. These guys are my favorite in large part because I have 2 brothers (one of whom actually called in the middle of me writing out this sentence), but also because these guys are extremely talented and put tons of ENERGY and emotion into their songs.
"How does this song apply to anti-nuclear activists?" you might ask. The chorus starts off with a slightly obvious statement "The weight of lies will bring you down", but the part that always made me think of anti-nuclear folks was the end of the chorus, "so when you run make sure you run; to something and not always from; cause lies don't need an aeroplane, to chase you down".
The anti-nuclear movement is a move away from technological progress. I see no way to argue against that. Turning away from peaceful atomic energy would be a step backward for humanity, and would lead to enhanced energy scarcity in a time when increased energy abundance is needed to minimize physical human suffering. Bill Gates understands the situation, thus he has helped fund TerraPower.
Thus, I say we (the World) should run TO increased reliance on Nuclear Power, so vote YES in the Wall Street Journal poll while it is still open.
I have said it before, but I will re-iterate it again, this blog wouldn't exist if Rod Adams didn't publish Atomic Insights. I might not even be the hard-core pro-nuclear person that I am today if not for Rod's blog. I might be a money-hungry, greedy, rent-seeking, future-mortgaging purveyor of something far less valuable to society than the ABUNDANT, CLEAN ENERGY that peaceful nuclear power provides (already!).
Some would call Rod or I propagandists or worse, but the simple fact is that we recognize that future generations DESERVE to (and CAN, w/ nuclear) have access to the levels of energy that have been enjoyed by those of us in the period from around 1970 until today. We have been lucky enough to enjoy the wonders of modern electric appliances which save time that would otherwise have to be spent washing clothes or dishes or engaging in some task requiring inordinately more man-power than is needed with the use of electric tools. We get to enjoy HVAC (the topic of most of my senior design project for my Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering) which has allowed all sorts of people to enjoy living in places such as Texas, Arizona, or the American Southeast that were practically unbearable places to live prior to electricity-powered refrigeration cycles.
Without increasing Peaceful Nuclear Energy's overall primary energy market share up to 15-20% by 2040 from its present level of roughly 4.88% (see page 41 of this and divide 599.3 MTOe for nuclear by 12,274.6 MTOe total), this world (our only presently livable one) will be less pleasant to live in than today and in quite a few ways. Constrained fossil fuel resources are already either directly fought over, or the security of their transport necessitates protection by the NUCLEAR-POWERED U.S. Navy (especially the submarines and the 11 aircraft carriers) patrolling the Strait of Hormuz. Conflict over these limited resources will almost certainly increase with added imbalances between available supply and inevitable demand.
Despite all the claimed wonders of fracking for natural gas and the possibility (which has already been demonstrated in North Dakota) that some lessons learned from that practice can be translated to petroleum extraction, there is still going to be FAR AND AWAY insufficient petroleum to satisfy the demand sure to be present from both the already-developed and the quickly-developing world (particularly the BRIC countries: Brazil, Russia, India, and China). China and India by themselves will soon have 2.5 BILLION people that would love to have even 25% the level of access to energy that the mere 300 million-ish Americans (even the lowliest of us) enjoys. Can anyone make anything close to a rational argument that Americans should have any more right to access to energy than Chinese or Indian people (please, don't even try).
The math is simple. Nuclear energy is a necessity. Without sufficient access to economical sources of energy, technological progression is virtually an impossibility. No technologically progression equals one of only 2 possibilities: 1. Declining in overall quality of life as the human race
-or- 2. Major reductions of human population (morally reprehensible, as far as I am concerned) .
Another morally reprehensible side of the nuclear power debate is all of the disingenuous people who grossly exaggerate the risk of their fantasized nuclear power plant accidents (which are generally detached from the realities of the laws of physics). Such people do mankind a major disservice. One of the worst of this kind is "Dr." Helen Caldicott. I put Dr. in parentheses in her case due to my strong suspicion that she has not actually treated a patient as a physician maybe anytime within my lifetime (spanning from the mid-1980's until today). I did happen to see the following funny meme of a picture of her today though.
And in case you are curious, Rod, your plug gave my site traffic a bump of about 550 views above the recent baseline level with me never finding time to post. Around 600 total views in under 20 hours thanks to the plug is not too bad. I still wish my check for having this blog would come in (tongue-in-cheek).
From the grapevine, I have heard that Grand Gulf Unit 1 within the past 48 hours has achieved its new 100% power output of greater than 1,440 MWe Net. Way to go to everyone that was involved in that project.
I am disappointed that Entergy hasn't put out any kind of press release related to this impressive achievement. If I am not mistaken, this places Grand Gulf neck-and-neck with Sweden's Oskarshamn Unit 3 as the 2 HIGHEST capacity operational nuclear power units in the ENTIRE WORLD. Is that not worthy of at least 1 little press release bragging about such an accomplishment?
When I heard that Grand Gulf had finally ramped all the way up, I had the thought that that might have put them into the top spot worldwide, since no EPRs have come online quite yet. I looked over this list from wikipedia, and Oskarshamn 3 was the only one that jumped out at me as being in the same ballpark. If I am mistaken, someone please let me know in the comments.
Prior to today, I had never heard of the August 9, 2004 event at Mihama Unit 3 in Kansai Province in Japan. If I were a Flow Accelerated Corrosion (FAC) specialist, I probably would have. The really short (I refrain from saying condensed) story is that a condensate pipe was not being tested regularly enough, the wall thinned, and the pipe ruptured while workers were in the vicinity. Very sadly, this event took the lives of some 5 workers.
I normally like to remain upbeat and positive on this blog, but I am bringing up this event for a specific reason. A few nights ago (8/7/12), I simply retweeted an article about communities loving living near nuclear power plants (my Twitter). That retweet ended up causing an anti-nuclear Twit(?) to tweet that I was spreading propaganda and peddling deception. I bring up the Mihama anniversary simply to show that the nuclear power industry is actually rather transparent, and actively shares lessons learned. Click on the link I included at the top of this post to find plenty of information and lessons learned about the Mihama incident (and learn more about FAC, if you so desire).
Alternatively, the anti-nuclear Twitterer never did fulfill what I thought was a polite request either for a link or simply for a search term so that I could try to learn something about their claim of having lived near a nuclear plant that experienced a catastrophic failure. Without any further information, I have no place to even begin a search to find out more about some past mistakes to be sure to avoid.
Who's the one peddling the deception? There was no hiding of the deaths and injuries of those unfortunate workers at Mihama Unit 3, and there is also no hiding of any negative health effects resulting from radiation from Fukushima Daiichi.
The fear of radiation has significantly greater negative health effects (contributing to something around 761 deaths) than the low doses of radiation that could be received from the Fukushima incident itself (zero deaths so far, and none in the future that will be distinguishable from the cancer rates from all other factors). Also, I highly recommend this article about anti-nuclear advocates peddling excessive and unwarranted fear of low level radiation. Anti-nuclear advocates have done far more harm than they have ever prevented, both to economies by way of decreased nuclear power production and to the environment via the resulting higher levels of fossil fuel use.
Putting on my optimist hat, this claiming of victory is probably actually premature. I think this ruling will end up applying sufficient
pressure to finally stop the perpetual kicking of the can down the road
on the nuclear “waste”
issue, finally resolving this perceived issue. The spent fuel issue has, in reality, been a hurdle to building
new nuclear power generation. Once an actual decision is made on fulfilling the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA), at least a slight uptick in interest in new nuclear builds in America should follow. The NWPA states that the Department of Energy (DOE) is to take custody of spend nuclear fuel. Rather than the DOE simply being a charitable organization, the idea was that the funding for the DOE's handling of the Spent Nuclear Fuel was to be paid for via a very meager tax on each kilowatt-hour of nuclear power that has been sold over a number of years. If I remember correctly, something in the neighborhood of $25 BILLION has so far been collected for this purpose. In reality, nuclear waste from power generation isn’t actually a problem. The high level waste that is the crux of the issue is PARTIALLY spent nuclear fuel. This spent (and future) fuel is in solid form (with some gaseous fission products embedded
within the solid fuel rods). Solid wastes are easy to contain since solids, by definition, do not flow. The ash
ponds at the Kingston Fossil Plant, alternatively, were in basically a slurry form.
Other fossil fuel waste products are mostly in gaseous form and are
freely dumped to the atmosphere as part of NORMAL OPERATION. Containing these is very difficult. Many estimates have placed the toll of these coal plant emissions in the neighborhood of 25,000 premature deaths per year, just in the U.S. (for everyday operation of the facilities). Here is a further explanation on the decision, from the NRC's official blog.
3. Ben Heard Aussie Nuclear Debate
I highly recommend listening to this 9 and a half minute introduction to a debate held recently in Australia. I hope to find time in the near future, between my active role in adding actual new nuclear power generation, to be able to listen to the entire debate.
Today is July 4th, 2012, a day better known as Independence Day for those of us in the U.S.A.(Happy 236th, America!), not to be confused with the classic Will Smith film.
Aside: I missed a great opportunity to complete dork out and tie last year's 235th birthday of America in somehow with the only naturally-occurring fissile isotope being Uranium-235. So sad. /End Aside
Not
This This
America's Independence Day celebrates America declaring independence from England with the July 4, 1776 signing of the Declaration of Independence and becoming a sovereign nation. Being recognized as a nation did not happen overnight, of course, as the American Revolutionary War was waged up until 1782 and the Treaties of Paris and Versailles were signed on September 3, 1783 (I need to research whether that date relates to the celebration of Labor Day in America.). Dan Yurman actually took a break from blogging about nuclear things and instead posted relating to this holiday at his blog Idaho Samizdat.
In keeping with (or really still only starting) a tradition, I thought I would publish a post today that is at least somewhat holiday-themed, like I did prior to beginning my own blog as a guest author on MLK, Jr. day over at Atomic Insights and like on Memorial Day here at Entreprenuclear. I'll try to continue beginning the tradition with this post.
Energy Independence has been lauded as a goal since probably long before my birth. Independence from the volatility of the global crude oil market was the main factor that sparked France to convert their electricity supply to mostly nuclear (80-ish%) in the mid-1970's. For a really quick look at how that has turned out price-wise for French electricity consumers, look at the chart in this link from World Nuclear News. As mentioned in Sunday's posting, electricity (as well as other forms of dispatchable, non-human-powered energy) is a vital need once people become used to using it. Depending too much on outside nations to supply the primary sources of that vital energy can get otherwise sovereign nation's into sticky situations. Energy really is the Master Resource/the Ultimate Resource.
With sufficient energy, other resources are attainable, whether via trade or recycling of other materials or some other means. Julian Simon's theory of basically unconstrained resources that I linked in the above paragraph could actually become nearly practical if Peaceful Nuclear Energy is allowed and encouraged to reach its full potential in the future.
A Few Recent Energy Independence/Nuclear Case Studies
Germany is currently on the verge of increasing their reliance on Russia to provide their energy (via the Nordstream pipeline through the Baltic Sea). Time will tell how wise this combination of moves to shut down their nuclear fleet (by 2022) and rely more on Russian natural gas will turn out, but my guess is not well. Already, an aluminum producer (see: energy-intensive industry) has been unable to survive with Germany's recent availability of economic energy. Also, within the past few days, it has been announced that an Airbus assembly facility is being placed in Alabama, a state which just happens to have rather low electricity rates, and guess what, FIVE nuclear power plants that are major contributing factors to those low rates (3 Units at Browns Ferry and 2 Units at Farley). Aside: I happened to ride in an Airbus plane twice within the past week, and it was a nice experience. /End Aside
How does nuclear power relate so directly to energy independence? That is a good question, glad you asked. Nuclear fuel is extremely energy dense in comparison to any other useful fuels, with about ten million times as much energy released per fissioned atom as per combusted hydrocarbon molecule (link here). From this superior energy density, it is possible to only need new fuel shipments once every 18-24 months for present plants and for those shipments to fit on just a handful of trucks. Those capabilities provide a significant level of independence.
Additionally, many countries within the world have more than adequate supplies of either fissile or fertile materials that will someday be suitable as reactor fuel at least in Gen IV reactors, if not suitable for the commercially operating reactors of today. I dare say that any nation in the world that acts with civility in international matters and makes the necessary capital investment in building Peaceful Nuclear Power Plants will have zero issues with obtaining adequate supplies of nuclear reactor fuels at an economic price so long as they maintain their manner of sufficient civility, regardless of the level of thorium and/or uranium that those nations were blessed with. Once Generation IV reactors are ready for widespread deployment, nuclear fuels will not be a constrained resource for quite some time.
For several specific examples of countries that are developing their nuclear industries the right way, let's consider the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabian plans to build fleets of nuclear reactors. These countries have made this decision to give themselves the independence to not rely solely on their bequeathments of fossil fuels to provide electrical power for their nations. This will give those countries the opportunity to sell some (or all) of the hydrocarbons that they would have otherwise burned to generate electricity on the potentially very lucrative international markets. As the article I linked relating to Saudi Arabia mentioned, "why burn domestic crude that can be bought for $4.50/barrel when you could sell it on the open market for $125/barrel" (which was about what the price was when the article was written). The decision by these countries has been a wise one, and will pay off for them throughout the 60-80 year lifetimes for the plants that they will soon commence building.
While I am sure Iranians would argue that these nations have foregone a degree of independence by not developing indigenous enrichment capabilities, the security of availability of reasonably-priced nuclear fuels for Saudi Arabia and the UAE will never be in doubt so long as those countries continue to act as grown ups in the international political arena.
From where I am sitting, Peaceful Nuclear Energy is by far the only feasible path to long-term Energy Independence for any nation. Getting to that point of true, sustainable Energy Independence does, and will continue to, require that a nation acts with civility on the world's stage.
The topic for this post had been born yesterday after seeing a few posts on a football message, complaining about the power being out and mentioning the local utility. The topic hit home harder after seeing a Facebook post from my mother pleading for help for my grandparents and aunt and uncle who are without power and may remain so for an unknown amount of time, up to several weeks. I hate that I am about 15 hours away from them and don't feel like I can do much of anything to help. They actually own 2 generators as a backup for when they lose power, but they are both presently out of commission. Purchasing electrical generators in the region where they live is presently not a possibility. A tractor trailer carrying generatorsoverturned earlier this morning on I-77. My grandparents use a well for their drinking water, so having access to electricity is quite vital.
Things are so bad that President Obama has declared an emergency in West Virginia. Additional problems within my grandparents' area include the fact that gas station pumps require electricity to pump gasoline. I heard that lines are about 2 hours long to get fuel at one station that actually had a backup generator. Also, credit/debit card machines require electricity, so some of the establishments that have been able to remain open are presently only able to accept cash. Luckily, hospitals generally have reliable backup sources of power.
In checking Twitter last night as I ate some BBQ (my favorite "food group"), I saw about 4 or 5 Tweets from Entergy wishing safety to their workers headed up to help restore power within the AEP service territory, but I didn't think too much about it again until seeing the plea from my mother. If I'm not mistaken, this outage is also affecting people in the town where Atomic Insights author Rod Adams lives, Lynchburg, VA. I have yet to get a reply from tweeting Rod, but perhaps he is simply doing something else rather than disconnected due to lack of power.
The theme of this posting is not to say anything bad about American Electric Power for only generating 6% of their electricity via nuclear (although they should strongly consider increasing that percentage in the future). My point here is to simply re-state just how vital electricity is to modern American life and to encourage people not to take it for granted and to realize that providing electricity is neither a trivial nor simple task. These outages are due to storms affecting transmission assets rather than inadequacy of generation assets, but in other areas within the U.S., utilities ARE actually calling on customers to cut down on usage to help out (and prevent potential outages).
Providing sufficient and reliable electricity requires a great deal of planning and investment in infrastructure. I am greatly annoyed by people complaining about possibly having to pay a bit for Construction Work In-Progress (CWIP) on their electrical bills. Do those people not realize that their electricity doesn't simply magically appear? I am also annoyed by people suggesting that reducing energy usage is a worthy goal. Increasing access to non-human sources of energy has very likely been the greatest contributor to increasing people's freedom within the past several centuries. I would find it difficult to be convinced that reversing that trend would be anything other than amoral.
There are hundreds of thousands of people without power at the moment within the region stretching from the U.S. midwest through the mid-Atlantic. While that is especially sad because so many aspects of people's lives within those regions have become reliant on access to reliable electrical power, how much more sad is the situation for the approximately 2 billion people in the world that basically never have access to electrical power?
Now that I am pretty well settled into my new location and job, I should be able to post more regularly.
8:00 pm Eastern update:
Rod Adams is indeed without power. My other friend who lives near Lynchburg (but about 25 miles away) had his power restored by about 7:30 pm yesterday. My uncle took one of the broken generators to a lawn mower repairman, who was able to get it running, so they should have some power by now.
