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Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

nytimes.com

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Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#381

Post by sqeaky »

inapis wrote: post #380
toomuchtodo wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is large scale energy storage any better than just using nuclear energy? Yes. > but modern batteries and capacitors are still very dangerous and have a lot of environmental hazards to go along with them. This is just absurd compared to handling nuclear fuel and waste. https://electrek.co/2016/12/19/tesla-fire-powerpack-test-saf... "Tesla set fire to a Powerpack to test its safety features – the results are impressi…

> "Tesla set fire to a Powerpack to test its safety features – the results are impressive" This is cherrypicking to make a point. The batteries still contain chemicals which are toxic to life and environment. There will come a time when those batteries are "consumed" and the chemicals within them need to be dealt with in some safe manner. As far as I know, there's no battery technology with any side effects. Tesla's…

Isn't there large economic incentive to recycle large batteries?

I agree many won't be recycled, but until we snag ourselves and asteroid, we have a finite supply of lithium. People will do their best to not lose something worth money.

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#382

Post by luca_ing »

opo wrote: post #181
kpil wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The total cost for storing and securing shit for 100.000 years is also 'externalized.' Both costs are more or less impossible to establish upfront.

Right now waste can and should be recycled which would reduce the amount of waste. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste Soon it will be possible to use most of the waste as fuel: "...Fast reactors can "burn" long lasting nuclear transuranic waste (TRU) waste components (actinides: reactor-grade plutonium and minor actinides), turning liabilities into assets. Another major waste component, fission products…

The remnants of decommissioned reactors can't be recycled though.

There will be literal mountains of moderately to highly dangerous rubble.

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#383

Post by jhartmann »

kpil wrote: post #45
hackuser wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it seems the real reason, as in all things, is economics The economics might be different if we paid for the real cost of carbon-based energy, instead of imposing that cost on the world as an externality.

The total cost for storing and securing shit for 100.000 years is also 'externalized.' Both costs are more or less impossible to establish upfront.

There is absolutely no reason to store anything for 100,000 years. If we were sane and reprocessed our fuel (like France), something like 400-500 years would put us below standard ambient radiation levels. Still a long time, but no we don't need to store anything for 100k years. Remember, almost all the long lived Transuranics are generally usable as further fission fuel. The other Transuranics and fission by products will typically decay rapidly to something stable or barely radioactive within a reasonable timeframe.

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#384

Post by philipkglass »

spangry wrote: post #378
philipkglass wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the 1980s and later parts of the 1970s, nuclear projects in the US did face the impossible challenge of regulations that shifted as projects were underway. But that doesn't apply here, AFAICT. The American AP1000 projects began work on their nuclear sections, starting with basemat concrete, in March 2013. The regulations haven't changed since the new American units began construction. Regulations were supposed to…

The regulations haven't changed since the new American units began construction. Regulations were supposed to be factored in to the cost/schedule estimates. Yet the original cost/schedule estimates turned out to be badly mistaken. Maybe you weren't following closely enough... John Ma, a senior structural engineer at the NRC was quoted on his stance about the AP1000 nuclear reactor: "In 2009, the NRC made a safety cha…

Those design changes from 2009-2011 happened before American AP1000 construction began in March 2013. The bankruptcy filing doesn't mention anything about the Chinese projects driving bankruptcy. It's due to problems at the American sites. Those problems occurred after construction began with finalized designs. If the design revisions that finished in 2011 mandated significantly higher complexity, higher costs, or longer schedules, then the cost/schedule estimates should have been updated before March 2013 and communicated to the utilities. Not modified reactively, repeatedly after the fact, as milestones kept getting missed.

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#385

Post by spangry »

philipkglass wrote: post #384
spangry wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The regulations haven't changed since the new American units began construction. Regulations were supposed to be factored in to the cost/schedule estimates. Yet the original cost/schedule estimates turned out to be badly mistaken. Maybe you weren't following closely enough... John Ma, a senior structural engineer at the NRC was quoted on his stance about the AP1000 nuclear reactor: "In 2009, the NRC made a safety cha…

Those design changes from 2009-2011 happened before American AP1000 construction began in March 2013. The bankruptcy filing doesn't mention anything about the Chinese projects driving bankruptcy. It's due to problems at the American sites. Those problems occurred after construction began with finalized designs. If the design revisions that finished in 2011 mandated significantly higher complexity, higher costs, or lo…

All fair points; I basically agree with you. I probably went a little overboard in my reply to your comment. However, I think it would be fair to say that even though two years between re-design and construction commencement sounds like a lot of time, given the size and complexity of the project (and the time required to do a proper redesign and regulatory approval), much of their original planning and scheduling would have been thrown into disarray.

But your point is well taken; the obligation was on Westinghouse to communicate (probably in 2011) that delays were likely and to update their timing and cost estimates. In hindsight, staying quiet and hoping everything would somehow work out probably wasn't the best strategy...

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#386

Post by vkou »

lostlogin wrote: post #350
vkou wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also dishonest to claim (Without any qualifications) that spent nuclear fuel will be deadly for hundreds of thousands of years. Which isotopes? Deadly in what amounts? How many people do you expect our spent fuel will kill over the next ~100 years? ~1000 years? ~100,000 years? How many people do you expect coal pollution/AGW will kill over the next ~100 years? ~1000 years? How many people will hydro dam disaster…

Is there dispute over the long term toxicity of nuclear waste? It's not hard to find numerous toxic, long lived isotopes. The world has no shortage of waste and the volumes are growing, not shrinking. Im not a proponent of coal, and at the scales my part of the world needs, hydro fills most the need. Yeah, it needs maintaining but that's unlikely to be more costly than nuclear. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-li…

No, but there is a dispute over how dangerous it is - or more specifically, how many people it's likely to kill.

We're close to capacity for the world's utilization of hydro. It can only grow ~20% in the next 30 years - which would let it... Take ~10% of coal's contribution to power generation.

Hydro power is generally cheaper then coal. If we could use more of it, we would be.

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#387

Post by cmdrfred »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #379
cmdrfred wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you generated all of the energy you used via atomic power at the end of your life the total size of that waste is about the size of a coke can. 1. How much lithium waste will be produced each year by this process? Aren't we talking creating more batteries than we ever have before by several orders of magnitude here? We send most of our ewaste to the third world to be burned currently, this sounds like an ecologica…

> How much lithium waste will be produced each year by this process? It doesn't matter. It can all be recycled. > Do you really believe that in 75 years time the United States won't have the ability to safely store or simply hurl 400 million coke cans at the sun? I don't believe we're competent enough to manage nuclear waste in any form.

>It doesn't matter. It can all be recycled

It can be, it isn't happening currently: "As of 2017, the recycling of Li-Ion batteries generally does not extract lithium since the many different types of Li-Ion batteries require a different extraction process.[6] Another reason why it isn't being done is because the extraction of lithium from old batteries is 5x more expensive as mined lithium"

Even so when recycled it still creates toxic waste in large quantities. What shall we do with that?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_recycling

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#388

Post by toomuchtodo »

cmdrfred wrote: post #387
toomuchtodo wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How much lithium waste will be produced each year by this process? It doesn't matter. It can all be recycled. > Do you really believe that in 75 years time the United States won't have the ability to safely store or simply hurl 400 million coke cans at the sun? I don't believe we're competent enough to manage nuclear waste in any form.

>It doesn't matter. It can all be recycled It can be, it isn't happening currently: "As of 2017, the recycling of Li-Ion batteries generally does not extract lithium since the many different types of Li-Ion batteries require a different extraction process.[6] Another reason why it isn't being done is because the extraction of lithium from old batteries is 5x more expensive as mined lithium" Even so when recycled it s…

https://www.tesla.com/blog/teslas-closed-loop-battery-recycl...

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#389

Post by WalterBright »

Neliquat wrote: post #377
WalterBright wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This bit's in backward It should be impossible to install components backwards in a critical system (learned that when working on designs at Boeing).

Thats just a challenge to a construction worker. "Stupid pointy headed geeks got it backwards again dale! Help me get er in there right." Meaning only to keep the project rolling. This is why choice of crew, not just management, is critical in building.

Boeing is well aware of the problem with workers forcing things to fit the wrong way anyway, and take that into consideration, making it as hard as practical to do so.

For example, if the hydraulics are hooked up backwards, the controls are reversed, which is a disaster. So the design:

1. uses different port sizes for the input and output 2. one port uses left hand threads, the other right hand 3. the lines are physically not long enough to reach the wrong port 4. very clear labeling 5. inspections and signoffs

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#390

Post by hackuser »

vidarh wrote: post #351
hackuser wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The biggest externality of coal in particular is not carbon emissions but the massive health costs and human suffering The carbon emissions cause climate change, which causes human suffering at a scale, as I understand it, far beyond that of the pollution you describe (which is also substantial).

While that is true, coal is just one of the sources that play into that, and the point that you yourself made was that it can be offset. While the dust and radioactivity released by coal plants kills hundreds of thousands of people now , and we can't meaningfully offset it by trading quotas - it's not like having more kids makes up for killing other people.

Great point, though let's not assume 100% effectiveness for offsets.
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