[P_Marlowe]

helene_t, on Oct 11 2007, 05:26 PM, said:

P_Marlowe, on Oct 11 2007, 10:55 PM, said:

If an accident happens, however unlikely that may be, if it
does happen, the result will be devastating, ... and it will
happen.

How do you know? Gerben said that the requirements for the Finish plant was that noone would have to be evacuated in the event of an accident.

Chernobyl was a disaster but that was because of several factors that do not apply to modern, Western nuclear plants

Simply put: Human make errors, and you
cant prevent Humans from making errors.
And if you think that the Chernobyl disaster
cant reoccur, you are simply wrong, it will
happen again, for what ever reason.
And afterwards everyone will say, nobody
thought that 1), 2), 3) and ... could happen
together.

Any strategy to create systems, which make
technology more error friendly, and the error
friendlines of systems improved a lot (I am
not disputing this) are still strategies developed
by humans.

We may be forced to use Nuclear energy, because
of a lack of alternatives, but we should try hard
to avoid using this technology.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[mike777]

I agree 100%. Some disaster will occur that equals Chernobl.
1) How many died in Chernobl?
2) As of what date?
3) See disaster that that happend after date, and killed more!


So what is your point??????????????

I predict 100% that more will die in a disaster than Chnernobl.


You heard it here first!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

[hotShot]

Lets take a look at the space shuttle program:

Everybody involved in panning, building and maintaining a space shuttle, knows that any error or material weakness will cause the death of the shuttle crew. They have the highest quality controls and everything is checked more than once.
All this was not good enough to prevent 2 disasters in 116 shuttle missions.


Remember this plain crash?
One of the safest airplanes existing crashed, because the pilot allowed his children to visit him in cockpit during flight.

During the disaster in the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl the safety system did not fail. The engineering crew switched off all security systems to test a new idea for a safety system. They thought they could handle it. This could have happened anywhere in the world, it's human nature and no technical issue.

All this shows that humans are incapable of running a technical system over a longer period of time, without loosing their concentration and without making errors.


Nuclear energy is cheap on paper, because the costs for securing radioactive waste for the next 10000 to 100000 years are set to 0. But this is a period of time that is long enough for geological changes to happen. And you won't be able to hold anyone to account if anything happens in 15000 years.

I think that the maintenance and safety of a chemistry plant is comparable to that of a nuclear power plant. Maintenance and safety reduce profit and I guess you remember the Bhopal disaster. I would not trust profit organizations very much in this area.

[mike777]

"I would not trust profit organizations very much in this area."



Fair enough...how many died under nonprofit or some gov org in this area?
What is a gov org?


Egypt?
Greece
Rome?
etc etc etc?

[helene_t]

Suppose an airplane crash or a terrorist attack, or a tornado, hit the ashes deposits from a coal-powered plant close to a major city. Thousands of tons of nasty carcinogenic particles plus tons of toxic heavy metals spread in the air and polluting nearby drinking water reservoirs. Or think of the movie "Kuwait in flames".

Those horror scenarios may be silly, but are they more silly than movies like "the China syndrome"?

[Codo]

I really thougth that the majority of people are opposite nuclear power, so I am quite surprised about the postings so far.

I am not in a position to judge whether NP is good or bad, but I have some notes:

1. The nuclear plants are still not 100 % sure. Just a month ago we had a fire in our local plant in the control post. This was not dangerous in case of a meltdown or freeing radioactifity, but before it happen they say: "This could not happen."
So I believe that there are still risks which even Gerben do not know.

2. A meltdown is not the only possible risk. Radioactivity in the water or in the air is an issue.

3. At least for me it is far from clear whether or not nuclear power is a cheap energy. I have seen no convincing invoice which includes all the possible costs for the buildings, the problem and costs with the waste for more then 100.000 years and the risks of a significant breakdown. But the overall costs are hardly well researched for oil and coal either.

4. Some nuclear plants are able and used to produce of material you need for nuclear bombs. With less of this stuff produced the risk of using it is getting lower.


5. I had never expect that an terroist had been able to fly a Boeing 747 into a building. But if they had been able to do this, why shouldn´t they be able to create a disaster with a nuclear plant? (maybe and hopefully this is impossible, but I am not sure about it)

6. To hold onto high standards like they have in in France German and Finland costs money. If you bring NP to poorer countries they will have a different view what is necessary for their safety. This happened in Chernobyl and worlwide.

7. The conclusion from point 4 to 6 is, that possibilities to abuse nuclear plants are much higher then when you use other possibilities. In a stable enviroment, this may be no problem, but I would not gurantee a stable society for the next 50 years. Can you?

8. If the risk of a major disaster is something in the area of 10.000.000 to 1, it can (and will) happen. It is like playing lottery. The chance "to win"is reomote, but if this case does happen, the consequences are enormous.

9. I believe that we cannot hold our today standards of using energy with solar, hydro, wind and other "nice" energies. But maybe we can have enough energy out of this mix and still have a more then nice life. Espacially as it is possible to "earn" energy from regrowing cultures.

Anyway, despite these points I still belive that the pain and costs which exist while living from oil and coal are much higher, so I can still life with nuclear power.

[helene_t]

Codo, on Oct 12 2007, 01:14 PM, said:

I really thougth that the majority of people are opposite nuclear power, so I am quite surprised about the postings so far.

The proportion of people who have college-level science education is probably higher among BBF posters than in the general population of any country. Scientists and engineers are relatively likely to support nuclear energy.

[Gerben42]

Quote

1. The nuclear plants are still not 100 % sure. Just a month ago we had a fire in our local plant in the control post. This was not dangerous in case of a meltdown or freeing radioactifity, but before it happen they say: "This could not happen."
So I believe that there are still risks which even Gerben do not know.

You can claim misinformation here. My work is to do "probabilistic safety analysis" and I could probably find you the path in the event tree that actually happen, complete with estimated frequency.

What happened was a relatively severe error which meant that the reactor had to stop running for the moment, but the safety net worked as it was designed to do, but... it happened only a few days before an important energy meeting "Energiegipfel" and Vattenfall wanted to keep the information away from those involved because it would make them look bad at the meeting. That's why what started with a transformator fire (which happens sometimes in ALL kinds of power plants) suddenly became a big story.

Quote

2. A meltdown is not the only possible risk. Radioactivity in the water or in the air is an issue.

Only if there is a meltdown. Otherwise, no. Unless you live near a coal plant, but then pollution is a bigger issue anyway.

Quote

3. At least for me it is far from clear whether or not nuclear power is a cheap energy. I have seen no convincing invoice which includes all the possible costs for the buildings, the problem and costs with the waste for more then 100.000 years and the risks of a significant breakdown. But the overall costs are hardly well researched for oil and coal either.

For the plant operators running a nuclear power plant is like printing money. Unfortunately studies have shown that prices will stay high anyway for the consumers... But you don't pollute the air or produce CO2 with nuclear power.

Quote

4. Some nuclear plants are able and used to produce of material you need for nuclear bombs. With less of this stuff produced the risk of using it is getting lower.

Even with most of them destroyed, the US and Russia still have so many nuclear weapons to destroy all civilization 10 times over. I wouldn't be worried about Iran having nuclear power. I would be worried about terrorist organization getting hold of one of these already-finished bombs. This risk is huge in comparison to that of power plants.

Edit Due to connection problems this post was cut off

[hrothgar]

Sorry to be so late to the conversation. Its been a hectic week at work.

My position is probably best described as a pro-nuclear energy green.

1. I am very concerned about the various externalities associated with power production.

2. From what I can tell, the environment impact associated with fossil fuel plants are a hell of a lot worse than the impact of nuke plants.

(The obvious problems with nuke plants is that many of the risks are localized while the costs from coal plants are distributed across millions of folks which makes it much easier to lobby against nuke plants). Unfortunately, many of the fundamental tradeoffs in evaluating the different systems require estimating the frequency of a black swan event, which is never a fun thing.

Long term, I have high hopes for some combination of solar thermal and wind. (I have some friends who are managing some big private equity accounts. I've been trying to get them to consider developing investment instruments based on a right of first refusal or an option on Wind Power or Solar power generation on different patches of real estate. I think that these would make some really interesting financial instruments)

Regardless, from what I understand, widespread nuclear power generation will be limited by "peak uranium" long before any significaqtncapacity can be brought online. Speaking of which, I heard claims that we may have hit peak oil this year)

[Al_U_Card]

When things impact your person and your loved ones, they get a lot more serious.

Three Mile Island occurred when I was on a golfing junket in North Carolina.

We took a big detour to go west of the site on our way back up north to stay out of any radiation release zone.

Our second child (and closest that I ever got to having a daughter) was stillborn at 5 months gestation in 1981. I read some years later that 3MI was responsible for an increase in incidents of birth defects and pregancy terminations in the St. Lawrence river valley where we lived in Montreal.

People die every day. When it is people that I love, maybe it shouldn't make a difference, but it does. When that death is premature and might have been preventable, that makes it all the more tragic.

[Gerben42]

Quote

5. I had never expect that an terroist had been able to fly a Boeing 747 into a building. But if they had been able to do this, why shouldn´t they be able to create a disaster with a nuclear plant? (maybe and hopefully this is impossible, but I am not sure about it)

You cannot breach the containment of a nuclear power plant with a Boeing 747. You can knock down one of the auxiliary buildings but there is another one of those on the other side. If you try hard enough you could break anything, I guess.

Quote

6. To hold onto high standards like they have in in France German and Finland costs money. If you bring NP to poorer countries they will have a different view what is necessary for their safety. This happened in Chernobyl and worlwide.

I notice even in everyday work that cutting cost as a tradeoff to security is NOT an option where I work.

Quote

7. The conclusion from point 4 to 6 is, that possibilities to abuse nuclear plants are much higher then when you use other possibilities. In a stable enviroment, this may be no problem, but I would not gurantee a stable society for the next 50 years. Can you?

If that is the case, we have bigger problems. All the military might of the Soviet Union when the country broke up was suddenly in the hands of... who? Much more dangerous.

Quote

8. If the risk of a major disaster is something in the area of 10.000.000 to 1, it can (and will) happen. It is like playing lottery. The chance "to win"is reomote, but if this case does happen, the consequences are enormous.

Not like a 2nd Chernobyl for a modern "generation II" plant. For the new generation III plants (EPR now under construction in Finland), not even evacuation will be needed in case of a major accident.

[jkljkl]

Gerben42, on Oct 12 2007, 07:18 AM, said:

For the plant operators running a nuclear power plant is like printing money.

and we all experience several times a year that the operators of nuclear plants will lie with no end to us regarding security accidents. One thing will never change amongst us "Money First". Do I want to put my security in their hands? You bet not.

Let's have a look direction France. Hey there coworkers of atomic plants commit suicide due of pressure regarding cost cuts even in security matters. Do I want to put my security in their hands? You bet not.

To not talk about such blessings as having nuclear threats as a good excuse to make war. What a blessing the cutting of our civil rights due of a possible dirty bomb.

I turely belive that we would be better off if we would leave Uranium & Co under the earth.

ciao stefan

[Wackojack]

Accepting all that previous points in Gerben's post particularly about safety and the neccessity to have a "mix" of electricity generation, I would still like to comment on the summary below.

Gerben42, on Oct 11 2007, 10:15 AM, said:

In short, nuclear power gives you:

* Cheaper energy
* Clean and safe energy
* Political independence from Middle-Eastern oil and Russian gas

Cheaper Energy:

Yes operator nuclear stations are cheap operate because the uranium fuel cost is low compared with fossil fuel. Yet the power companies in UK seem very reluctant to build new nuclear stations. As I understand it this because they are much more expensive and take longer to build than conventional fossil fuel stations and decomissioning costs at the end of their life are enormous. (The cost of the clean-up) Commercially they take much longer to pay back. So they won't get built unless government provides some inducement.

Clean and safe energy:

In UK as in other parts of the world, nuclear stations are sited away from centres of population, mostly in quite remote areas. Yet gas fired stations are now sited right in the middle of cities and coal stations not far away. In London right in the centre we had Bankside until the late 80's, an oil fired station which at the end of its life was turned into "Tate Modern". And we have dear old "Battersea Power Station" they do not know what to do with. Build a nuclear station on the old site? Outrageous! They built Didcot a 2 Gigawatt coal fired power station near Oxford in the 1970's nowhere near any coal field. If nuclear power was considered to be safe by the GEGB (the public ownership national generating authority at the time) why not nuclear there. Not far from Harwell the government nuclear weapons research unit. Was it public acceptance or was risk management the reason that Didcot wasn't nuclear?

Another anxiety is that 30 years ago we were having exactly the same discussions about how to deal with radioactive waste as we are having now. I do not detect any progress whatsoever.


Political independence from Middle-Eastern oil and Russian gas:

Yes a mix of nuclear, fossil and renewables must be right with a phasing out of fossil and perhaps building cleaner (less carbon emmissions) fossil stations. Wind power incidentally does not have to be just for electricity generation. It could be used to manufacture hydrogen to replace gasoline as the fuel for transport.

[helene_t]

Wackojack, on Oct 12 2007, 06:53 PM, said:

cleaner (less carbon emissions) fossil stations.

But the scope for reducing CO2 emissions from fossil fuel is limited. One mol of coal produces one mol of CO2 and the amount of energy you can squeeze out of it is limited by it's per-mol free energy. Some talk about CO2 sequestering. Sounds like science fiction to me but what do I know.

As for the fact that nuclear plants are not placed in the center of cities, obviously there are some policymakers who disagree with Gerben's assessments or some politicians who fear that their voters might, but they don't have to be right. Personally I would rather have a nuclear plant than a conventional power plant in my backyard but I'm sure many people feel different about it.

The public's attitude to risk can be extremely irrational. Alcohol and tobacco were part of our culture long before we grew up to be concerned about our health, so people consider it normal that those substances kill hundred of thousands of people, while LSD and magic mushrooms are relatively new, so whenever a single person or two are killed by those, people start crying for stronger enforcement of the ban on them. Same goes for airplane accidents compared to car accidents, and mad cow disease versus colon cancer. And also old-fashioned air pollution versus the marginal (if not non-existent) risk of a nuclear melt-down.

[Codo]

Hi Gerben,
you really work for a company wich builds nuclear plants.

1. Vattenfall et al did lie before and they will do it again. Why should I trust them if they give me any "facts" about the safety? They are liars. Proofen liars.

2. There is really no complex technology which works without problems. We have problems in ships, cars, planes, starships, buildings, mines, any kind of industry, really anywhere. There is simple no way that this will be different in nuclear plants.
We make really big efforts to make the industry safe. But there are still accidents- anywhere and in each technology. Everybody believes that his special pet is different. But it is not. Machines make mistakes, men make mistakes.

3. There can be water polution without a meltdown. You just need (more then one) leckages.

4. We do have problems with nuclear material already which came into the black market after the end of the USSR. But these problems will get worse if we have plutonium from other states too. That we have a problem allready is no excusion to make it bigger.

5. I doubt that someone will use a B747 to crash it into a NP. What about working there or just start a millitary attack? As I said before, I don´t know if it is still possible to produce a meltdown by pure will from the runners, but if it is, this is a real danger. What about using shelter crushers?

6. If your safety standards are not cut down due to reducing costs, I believe you. After all you work in Germany. But I don´t believe that this is true anywhere and anywhen.
We really pay a lot for our safety. But this is not standard all over the world. And maybe we will decide in some dacdes that our standards are too expensive too.

7. I agree that EPR plants are much safer then normal plants, but they are just safe when in the case of trouble there troubleshooting system works. Just in case that you are able to get the melting uranium in the freezing area (sorry for this horrible translation), no meltdown will happen. But nobody knows whether this will always and everywhere work. At Chernobyl they thought that they can handle everything too. They erred. Men often err, even engineers.

8. That the runners of a nuclear plant do earn a lot of money is nice for them (and bad for us) but one reason for this is that they do not pay all the costs we have because of the nuclear plant. We had political descissions where the state paid at least a part of some plants. And as nobody knows how expensive the keeping of the waste will be for the next 100.000 years, nobody sends an invoice about this to them.
I

[mike777]

You guys keep limiting the discussion to power plants but what about, machines that run on some combination of nukes and supercomputers and travel our world or solar system.

They exist now and we will only make more of them in the next 40 years, more movable machines with nuke power and super smart computers.

I think you guys are discussing and solving the Last War(3 mile island, cherynobl) not the near future.

What about future nanobots that move on solar(nuke) power? I think we need to worry about the near future nuke problems not last centuries.

[keylime]

I am an advocate for nuclear energy, and Gerben's cogent and well-articulated argument has reaffirmed the rationale that nuclear energy if properly designed will be a viable alternative.

Coal, even with the cleaner technologies that are in existence to date, is at best, an 100 year old solution for the United States.

It is understandable the apprehension about accidents and such with regards to nuclear. However, I'd happily take that small risk and exchange it for less acid rain, less CO2, H2S04, and many heavy metals. In addition, it would lessen our energy dependence on Canada and would aid in building some redundancy into the electrical grid.

Another area to consider too, is the fact that nuclear energy would substitute for the need to build numerous refineries to process oil, the last one of these built in the U.S. being in 1976 in Garyville, LA for Marathon (there's been expansions of older ones, but this is the newest one). Due to incredible environmental pressure, we now owe the pleasure of paying nearing three bucks a gallon in fuel (that, and the over 130 different formulations of fuel in the U.S. for clean air purposes).

[Al_U_Card]

There was a good article in Scientific American not long ago about the costs ($ and enviro etc.) of creating and dealing with nuclear (or new-cue-lar as W likes to imagine it is pronounced) energy. Decommissioning costs, when done properly, are quite prohibitive. The problem is that often the builders or exploiters reap the profits while the tax payer gets the hit for the clean-up.

[mike777]

Al_U_Card, on Oct 12 2007, 03:34 PM, said:

There was a good article in Scientific American not long ago about the costs ($ and enviro etc.) of creating and dealing with nuclear (or new-cue-lar as W likes to imagine it is pronounced) energy.  Decommissioning costs, when done properly, are quite prohibitive.  The problem is that often the builders or exploiters reap the profits while the tax payer gets the hit for the clean-up.

thank goodness only the taxpayer takes the hit.

Soon if you count every child and adult in America less than 50% may end up paying taxes......
We can only hope that soon less than 50% of the voters will pay taxes so we who do not pay can really sock it to them that do.

[matmat]

mike777, on Oct 12 2007, 03:45 PM, said:

Soon if you count every child and adult in America less than 50% may end up paying taxes......
We can only hope that soon less than 50% of the voters will pay taxes so we who do not pay can really sock it to them that do.

that is a totally different issue... a big issue, but totally different.