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Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

americanaffairsjournal.org

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Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#61

Post by jacquesm »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #8

> France’s nuclear buildout, beginning in the 1970s, achieved the greatest decarbonization in human history; ... In North America, the mantle belongs to Ontario, whose nuclear plants replaced its coal fleet.1 I am dubious of this claim, but it probably depends on exactly how you define it. But switching from a country to a province immediately sends up red flags.

Ontario and France are not that dissimilar in surface area, though in population they are quite different.

I think the author tried to focus on the former when of course it is the latter that should have been primary.

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#62

Post by fundatus »

Manuel_D wrote: post #52
locallost wrote: post #27

The article starts by praising the French nuclear program in the 70s. Yet, that same nuclear program is currently going through a complete debacle, failing to provide for its own country's needs, and is partially the reason prices are going into the stratosphere on the whole continent. If you can't factor in the reality of what is actually happening as we speak as a potential risk for your analysis, well... The Frenc…

Nuclear power is cheaper when built in serial production. That's the basic conclusion of any analysis of the history of nuclear power construction. There's nuance as to why, but the basic pattern is that putting an order of 40 steam generators [1] is cheaper than a run of just 4 of them. Similar deal with specialized pumps and other nuclear power components. Suppliers can re-use infrastructure and expertise, and get…

> Nuclear power is cheaper when built in serial production. That's the basic conclusion of any analysis of the history of nuclear power construction. There's nuance as to why, but the basic pattern is that putting an order of 40 steam generators is cheaper than a run of just 4 of them. Similar deal with specialized pumps and other nuclear power components. Suppliers can re-use infrastructure and expertise, and get better deals on input materials by guaranteeing a stable demand.

Unintuitively though, this is incorrect - both for France[1] and the US[2]. Building subsequent versions of the same reactor design increases the cost - instead of it staying the same or going down.

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014...

[2] https://news.mit.edu/2020/reasons-nuclear-overruns-1118

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#63

Post by hef19898 »

Georgelemental wrote: post #50
locallost wrote: post #27

The article starts by praising the French nuclear program in the 70s. Yet, that same nuclear program is currently going through a complete debacle, failing to provide for its own country's needs, and is partially the reason prices are going into the stratosphere on the whole continent. If you can't factor in the reality of what is actually happening as we speak as a potential risk for your analysis, well... The Frenc…

France's nuclear plants are failing to provide for the country's needs because incompetent politicians shut down perfectly functional plants like Fessenheim, and in general refused to invest to maintain the system and preserve expertise. French nuclear didn't fail on its own merits, it was sabotaged.

Not sure how politicians are directly responsible for a Europe wide drought making it close to impissible to get enough cooling water to nuclear plants to producr anywhere near nominal capacity.

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#64

Post by Swenrekcah »

throw827474737 wrote: post #30
jdasdf wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The pro-nuclear lobby has no argument against Chernobyl~ We could have a chernobyl every year for the next hundred years, and you would cause less environment damage, and human deaths than we did by operating fossil fuel plants in 2021. There is no argument against chernobyl because chernobil is quite frankly irrelevant beyond an economic cost to cleanup and contain, both of which can be accounted for, and arguably…

Yes, tell that those chernobyl children who still suffer visibly today? Not every country has that much square meters for landfills or nuclear wastelands, too. Nuclear won't save us from not realizing we cannot grow forever and resources are finite. > arguably are already accounted wtf?

I believe you missed the point. They acknowledged the terrible cost of Chernobyl but the point is it can happen every year for a long time before causing the same amount of harm and suffering that fossil burning did just last year.

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#65

Post by fundatus »

WalterBright wrote: post #11

Effective CO2 reduction can only happen if a sensible and effective policy is taken, to wit: 1. a tax on the carbon content of fuels 2. nuclear plants for base load power and the rest will be taken care of by natural market forces. Green energy will never be practical without nuclear power: https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-the-energy-transition-will-...

It's literally natural market forces that are "killing" nuclear energy. It's simply too expensive compared to modern, emission-free alternatives.

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#66

Post by Lammy »

mwattsun wrote: post #33

The accident at Three Mile Island and the film "China Syndrome" turned the public against it in America. The prejudice still lingers. I was working as a reactor tech on a nuclear submarine shortly after and decide before I got out that there was no future in nuclear. I became a computer programmer instead. Alvin Toffler's book "The Third Wave" convinced me to do this.

The saddest part of the TMI accident is that the entire thing could have been avoided if TMI had modified its cooling system with the lessons learned from an identical series of events that happened two years earlier at an identical Babcock&Wilcox BWR in Ohio, except Davis-Besse was operating at 9% power instead of at 100% like TMI in Pennsylvania in 1979: https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1920/ML19208C067.pdf#page=4

"On September 24, 1977, Davis Besse Nuclear Power Station Unit No. 1 experienced a depressurization when a pressurizer power relief valve failed in the open position. The Reactor Coolant System (RCS) pressure was reduced from 2255 psig to 875 psig in approximately twenty-one (21) minutes. At the beginning of this event, steam was being bypassed to the condenser and the reactor thermal power was at 263 MW, or 9.5%. Electricity was not being generated. The following systems malfunctioned during the transient:

a. Steam and Feedwater Rupture Control System (SFRCS).

b. Pressurizer Pilot Actuated Relief Valve.

c. No. 2 Steam Generator Auxiliary Feed Pump Turbine Governor"

"At approximately 21 minutes into the transient, the operators discovered that the pressurizer power relief valve was stuck open. Blowdown via this valve was stopped by closing the block valve, thus terminating the reactor vessel depressurization. The RCS pressure recovered to normal and cooldown of the system followed."

"The reason for the spurious 'half-trip' of the SFRCS has not yet been determined. An extensive investigation revealed several loose connections at terminal boards, but nothing conclusive. Investigation into the failure of the pressurizer pilot actuated relief valve revealed that a 'close' relay was missing from the control circuit. This missing relay would normally provide a 'seal-in' circuit which would hold the valve open until the pressure dropped to 2205 psig. Without the relay the power relief valve cycled open and closed each time the pressure of the RCS went above or below 2255 psig. The rapid cycling of the valve caused a failure of the pilot valve stem, and this failure caused the power relief valve to remain open."

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#67

Post by hindsightbias »

There should be a meme for not very serious articles about nuclear issues.

“We need fewer, clearer, and more sensible regulations.”

And not a single example of which regulations to drop. How about redlining the appropriate docs and posting those? If they’re all so bad it should be a trivial excercise.

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#68

Post by qqqwerty »

Manuel_D wrote: post #52
locallost wrote: post #27

The article starts by praising the French nuclear program in the 70s. Yet, that same nuclear program is currently going through a complete debacle, failing to provide for its own country's needs, and is partially the reason prices are going into the stratosphere on the whole continent. If you can't factor in the reality of what is actually happening as we speak as a potential risk for your analysis, well... The Frenc…

Nuclear power is cheaper when built in serial production. That's the basic conclusion of any analysis of the history of nuclear power construction. There's nuance as to why, but the basic pattern is that putting an order of 40 steam generators [1] is cheaper than a run of just 4 of them. Similar deal with specialized pumps and other nuclear power components. Suppliers can re-use infrastructure and expertise, and get…

From the article:

So many orders came in that “[w]ith only two companies building plants, a rapid increase in orders escalated costs for major components and strained the limited supply of qualified labor.”

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#69

Post by Georgelemental »

jmyeet wrote: post #13

I'm familiar with the argument that nuclear power is the answer to greenhouse gas emissions. Still, this article is the next level of pro-nuclear propaganda as it launches into quite the anti-environmentalist screed. For example: > The postwar American environmental movement began as an outgrowth from the eugenaics movement. and > Having fallen out of favor during World War II due to its associations with Nazism, eug…

Chernobyl happened because the Soviet Union did insane things with an insane reactor design never used anywhere else. Nuclear reactors built and operated by organizations that are not as murderous and psychotic as the USSR literally cannot fail in the same way. We ignore it as an irrelevant outlier because it is one.

And even if we do not ignore Chernobyl, nuclear power is still by far the safest way to produce energy. Fossil fuels release deadly smog, dams can break, solar panels leach nasty chemicals. Every option has some risk, but nuclear has the least by far.

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#70

Post by jjk166 »

fundatus wrote: post #56
jdasdf wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The pro-nuclear lobby has no argument against Chernobyl~ We could have a chernobyl every year for the next hundred years, and you would cause less environment damage, and human deaths than we did by operating fossil fuel plants in 2021. There is no argument against chernobyl because chernobil is quite frankly irrelevant beyond an economic cost to cleanup and contain, both of which can be accounted for, and arguably…

After Chernobyl clouds containing radioactive material where blown westwards by the wind and eventually those clouds rained down over parts of Germany. To this day if you go out hunting for example wild boards in those areas they have to be tested for radioactivity before they can be processed further, since their diet mostly consists of mushrooms and plants that contain a lot of Caesium-137 from that rainfall back i…

Hundreds of thousands of people dying per year vs mild inconvenience for wild boar hunters is hardly a difficult choice.
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