Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

blatham wrote:

oralloy wrote:

If the plant is properly designed, there is no risk of a Chernobyl-like incident.

An optimistic take on the perfection of humans.

I think it's rather an optimistic take on the kind of reactor designs that is likely to be implemented under democratic institutions. Chernobyl reflects a failure of dictatorial government secrecy more than one of nuclear energy. Did you follow the story of the chemical hazard in China two weeks ago? It is chemical, not nuclear, but like Chernobyl the hazard was created by a government with no incentive to get things right, and every incentive and power to shut people up for complaining about it beforehand, and reporting about the accident realistically after it happened.

You have my full agreement as to the dangers that accrue from dictatorial-style government secrecy. But we can see the same sort of dynamics at work where governance and corporate interests are tightly intertwined, serving to reinforce each other's power and influence (K street project) and serving to protect each other through diminishment of regulations and protocols designed to forward transparency and citizen protections.

An optimistic take on the consumer-safety perfectionism of capitalist economies. That's a bit of a tease as you aren't speaking in absolutes as oralloy had done.

blatham wrote:

An optimistic take on the consumer-safety perfectionism of capitalist economies. That's a bit of a tease as you aren't speaking in absolutes as oralloy had done.

It's also a bit of a red herring, because I hadn't compared governments to markets. I had compared dictatorial governments to democratic governments constrained by free speech about them. And in all modesty, my conclusion was one that you'd think a libertarian and a liberal could agree on. Your knee-jerk reflex is understandable here. I may well be guilty of the same reflex more frequently than you are, making us at least even. Nevertheless, your knee did mislead you this time.

blatham wrote:

You have my full agreement as to the dangers that accrue from dictatorial-style government secrecy. But we can see the same sort of dynamics at work where governance and corporate interests are tightly intertwined, serving to reinforce each other's power and influence (K street project) and serving to protect each other through diminishment of regulations and protocols designed to forward transparency and citizen protections.

These are more or less universal human failings. They persist in government because of its relative power and immunity from close examination and scrutiny. Corporations always run the risk of being destroyed by competitors that make an advantage out of better methods or by exposing the hidden flaws of their competitors.

However you should recognize that these human frailties infect all aspects of government equally. The bureaucracies that manage health programs. education, environmental policies are equally at fault, as are the single issue NGOs which - without any competition - grind away at their own issues and, more to the point, self interest.

It seems to me that you are often very selective as to just what government and government-like organizations you apply this criticism.

You are as aware as I of the litany of deceits, misrepresentations and refusals to provide transparency which this present American administration has demonstrated in environmental issues and health issues, for example.

Of course what we differ on is the solution. My diagnosis is that government is evil, so I want a government that offer the sell-outs a bare minimum of things to sell out. Your diagnosis is that the American government is in the hands of the wrong people, so you want to bring it back into the hand of the right people. I predict that if the next American president is a Democrat, you will be quite disappointed come 2010.

Bernie,

I would be interested in learning some of this "litany" from you. It seems to me that, from Kyoto to the recent furor over modifying the air standards for coal-fired power plants, this administration has been truthful and candid to a fault, while their critics have indulged in continuous misrepresentation, hysteria and hyperpole.

Is it true that China ALONE cancels any benefits from Kyoto ev een if the US joined and participated???

I had discounted fast breeder reactors, a decades old technology, but one which I doubt would ever gain approval due to the proliferation problem.

Given that we haven't licensed a nuclear powerplant for over 20 years, I am very skeptical of any new technology getting more than tentative or experimental approval.

Fuel reprocessing in the U.S. for commercial plants is against the law, thanks to Jimmy Carter.

Even with the most conservative approach, it is virtually impossible to accurately forecast how long it will take to get a license. The sad examples of Shoreham in Long Island, Rancho Seco in California (and WPPS in the Northwest) have effectively deterred any investment in these technologies or in new plants for two decades. That won't change easily.

WILMINGTON, N.C. -September 26, 2005 : -- The U.S. utility industry has announced plans to prepare license applications to build a new generation of nuclear reactors at three sites in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana, with two projects featuring GE Energy's advanced reactor design, the Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR).

On September 22, U.S. utility consortium NuStart Energy Development, LLC announced it would develop a federal construction and operating license (COL) application at a site adjacent to member utility Entergy's Grand Gulf Nuclear Station in Port Gibson, Miss. GE's ESBWR is NuStart's preferred reactor technology for this project.

Separate from its NuStart project, New Orleans, La.-based Entergy said it also will simultaneously develop a COL application to potentially build and operate a second ESBWR, this one adjacent to the utility's River Bend nuclear power plant near St. Francisville, La.

The COLs could be among the first such license requests in three decades. Utilities must obtain a COL from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to have the option of building a new reactor.

"We look forward to working closely with NuStart and Entergy to begin more detailed, site-specific engineering work required to complete the construction and operating license (COL) applications for the ESBWR projects," said Andy White, president and CEO of GE Energy's nuclear business.

The ESBWR is a new reactor design of the "Generation III+" class, designed to be safer and more cost-effective to operate due to "passive" safety systems, simplified design and a smaller footprint - thus reducing its construction schedule and costs.

NuStart's selection of Grand Gulf
Grand Gulf was a natural choice of NuStart for a 1,500-megawatt ESBWR. The plant's owner, Entergy, is the nation's second largest operator and a leader for the next generation of nuclear energy in the United States.

In addition, Grand Gulf has received strong state and local community support, and Entergy is on track to receive an early site permit from the NRC by early 2007, the first under the federal agency's new licensing process.

Grand Gulf is one of two sites that NuStart announced would potentially host new advanced reactors. NuStart has also selected the Tennessee Valley Authority's (TVA) unfinished Bellefonte plant in Scottsboro, Ala. for a potential Westinghouse AP1000 reactor.

"With NuStart's announcement of the two sites, a U.S. nuclear renaissance is clearly within reach," noted GE's White.

"Today's announcement means we will be taking the necessary steps to have the option to build new nuclear capacity - especially if nuclear energy continues to be the lowest cost, best option for its power customers in the future," said Dan Keuter, Entergy's vice president of nuclear business development. "Our customers want a stable, low-cost electricity source that also does not contribute to climate change. Advanced reactors like the ESBWR can provide both."

NuStart will prepare separate COL applications on behalf of Entergy and the TVA. The industry group plans to submit the COLs to the NRC for review in late 2007 and early 2008.

After a two-to-three year review process, the NRC could issue the two COLs in 2010. At that time, any NuStart member company, or alliance of companies, could take over one or both of NuStart's COLs and proceed with construction at the site identified in the given license.

If Entergy decides to proceed with building an ESBWR at Grand Gulf, construction is expected to take up to four years, with commercial operation beginning as soon as 2015.

I'm not sure if the following two statements are entirely consistent. If they aren't could you perhaps resolve this, oralloy and georgeob1? You seem both have evidently investigated this much more carefully than I have.

oralloy wrote:

I don't know the percentage, but the liquid in question is what would be left after the spent fuel was processed to remove some of the more valuable isotopes.

If we plan to extract all the fissionable isotopes for use as fuel, all of the currently-solid spent reactor fuel will have to end up as liquid.

In Post 1729298, georgeob1 wrote:

Generally the economics of disposal strongly favor concentrating the waste by separating the innocuous components from the radioactive ones. This usually means separating the solid component from any waste generated in liquid form. The principal liquid wastes generated are cleaning solvents and, in the case of fuel reprocessing plants, the nitric acid solution into which the spent fuel is dissolved and from which plutonium and other useful nuclides are precipitated. This latter is one of the principal legacy problems at the Hanford Washington site where it was simply stored in large buried tanks and with little control of just what went in them.

If, as George says, "the economics of disposal strongly favor concentrating the waste", wouldn't it be economical to distill the nitric acid away and recover the spent fuel dissolved in it? In that case, the spent fuel would not "end up as liquid", as oralloy put it.