Kudos to Obama's Nuclear Ambitions

[ASUMountaineer]

Such as? Please elaborate.

The government promised the nuclear industry they were going to take care of the waste and they haven't followed through. Yet the nuclear industry has to jump through every hoop that the feds mandate.

Nuclear power should be generated on the moon and beamed to Earth as microwaves. Low gravity and no atmosphere means it would be simple to build a magnetic rail gun that could launch the waste into the sun.

Solar power should also be collected in space, eliminating the problem of getting juice after the sun sets.

[Ursus A. Horribilis]

Yucca Mountain was unworkable. There are much better alternatives.

Baltimore?

A couple more years and McNulty & Lester would have had that place completely cleaned up.

[clenz]

I can support this 100%. I'm a big proponent of nuclear power.

[Pwns]

Obama is probably smart enough to realize that cap-and-trade is a lost cause and that he will waste a ton of time and energy to try and pass it just as he did with healthcare. That, and I think that he has come to the realization that his wind and solar plan is a complete fantasy even if you can get around all of the hurdles of where those generators can be placed.

The question is, will the Pelosi/Feinstein wing of the democratic party derail it and delay the path to energy independence even more?

[HI54UNI]

Hope everybody is ready to pay for these new nuke plants too. If we are lucky the electricity coming out of them is going to be in the 14-16 cent a kwh range and that cost is at the plant. You still have transmission and distribution costs to add to it.

[ngineer]

It's just lip service at this point. Barry's budget is going to kill Yucca Mtn. We can't keep building nukes if we don't have someplace to store the waste.

Yucca Mountain was unworkable. There are much better alternatives.

Not a science geek at all, but it would seem to me that one area we really could use some 'good ol' American ingenuity' is to come up with a means to 'recycle' or have some kind of use for the waste. Anyone out there with a background in that 'stuff' to know how realistic that is?

I think the 'far left' will still blow a gasket, but so what? If you're going to be a leader, you are going to piss off a few people all the time, and some of the time it will have to be your allies. But I think this is the right move.

[CID1990]

Yup, it's about time. Worst mistake we made was moving away from nuclear energy so many years ago. It can and is done correct and safely so there's no reason not to do it. France's support of nuclear energy has really helped to make a lot of inroads in how to deal with the waste that is generated from nuclear power as well. Until there's a better option, and we're decades away from one, we should make as much electricity from nuclear power as possible.

We needed to move away from nuclear energy as we were doing it then. It wasn't safe and the waste could be enriched to weapons grade stuff. Things are different now and nuclear makes sense as a transitional source.

We could have a better option within one decade if we really wanted to because more energy than we could possibly use strikes the planet every day. I believe that looking back we will see that Obama's biggest mistake was in making health care his first priority. If he had made energy independence, in the form of an Apollo-style crash program, his primary objective, the Republicans would have been forced to cooperate and the savings generated through reduced defense spending alone would have been enough such that every American citizen could enjoy the kind of health care you need to be elected to Congress to receive now.

We went to the moon with less computer power on-board than the average wrist watch has today, we can have solar, wind, and geothermal energy in enough quantity to make us independent of the Saudis, and we can have it soon. Right now we have an energy policy that was written by Enron.

That's not entirely accurate.

It is ironic that you mentioned the Apollo Program, because all of the Apollo spacecraft were powered by hydrogen fuel cell technology. The only source of energy we can currently produce that will divorce us from foreign oil is hydrogen. It is the ultimate clean fuel, and its volume-to-energy ratio is similar to that of fossil fuels.

However, producing hydrogen takes electricity. A LOT of electricity. In fact, if we crack water with electricity produced from coal and oil fired plants, the tradeoff in decreased pollution from So in order to make hydrogen viable for use in cars (and making cars run on something other than oil or oil-produced electricity is the holy grail of getting off Saudi oil) we have to be able to make electricity without using oil (and without coal, if we want to make the carbon folks happy).

The truth is that we cannot have enough solar, wind and geothermal energy to produce enough hydrogen to send the Saudis back to the desert. We are many, many years away from having the power infrastructure in those sources to produce enough hydrogen. We can supplement electricity use in buildings and factories to lower our power drain on existing power sources, but the acres and acres of solar collectors, wind turbines etc that would be needed to reproduce the output of just one medium output nuclear plant is prohibitively large.

We could cover every free space in this country with wind turbines and solar panels, but for the foreseeable future, nuclear is hands down the more practical choice. Your great grandchildren will not see the US reliant on solar or wind as a primary source of energy.

[Gil Dobie]

Yucca Mountain was unworkable. There are much better alternatives.

Not a science geek at all, but it would seem to me that one area we really could use some 'good ol' American ingenuity' is to come up with a means to 'recycle' or have some kind of use for the waste. Anyone out there with a background in that 'stuff' to know how realistic that is?

I think the 'far left' will still blow a gasket, but so what? If you're going to be a leader, you are going to piss off a few people all the time, and some of the time it will have to be your allies. But I think this is the right move.

With the good ole American Ingenuity, nuclear waste could become a mute point in 10 to 20 years.

[Pwns]

That's not entirely accurate.

It is ironic that you mentioned the Apollo Program, because all of the Apollo spacecraft were powered by hydrogen fuel cell technology. The only source of energy we can currently produce that will divorce us from foreign oil is hydrogen. It is the ultimate clean fuel, and its volume-to-energy ratio is similar to that of fossil fuels.

However, producing hydrogen takes electricity. A LOT of electricity. In fact, if we crack water with electricity produced from coal and oil fired plants, the tradeoff in decreased pollution from So in order to make hydrogen viable for use in cars (and making cars run on something other than oil or oil-produced electricity is the holy grail of getting off Saudi oil) we have to be able to make electricity without using oil (and without coal, if we want to make the carbon folks happy).

The truth is that we cannot have enough solar, wind and geothermal energy to produce enough hydrogen to send the Saudis back to the desert. We are many, many years away from having the power infrastructure in those sources to produce enough hydrogen. We can supplement electricity use in buildings and factories to lower our power drain on existing power sources, but the acres and acres of solar collectors, wind turbines etc that would be needed to reproduce the output of just one medium output nuclear plant is prohibitively large.

We could cover every free space in this country with wind turbines and solar panels, but for the foreseeable future, nuclear is hands down the more practical choice. Your great grandchildren will not see the US reliant on solar or wind as a primary source of energy.

Personally, I think the next big thing will be thorium fission. It has some kinks to work out, but we've barely begun to explore ways to get around the problems.

[Grizalltheway]

That's not entirely accurate.

It is ironic that you mentioned the Apollo Program, because all of the Apollo spacecraft were powered by hydrogen fuel cell technology. The only source of energy we can currently produce that will divorce us from foreign oil is hydrogen. It is the ultimate clean fuel, and its volume-to-energy ratio is similar to that of fossil fuels.

However, producing hydrogen takes electricity. A LOT of electricity. In fact, if we crack water with electricity produced from coal and oil fired plants, the tradeoff in decreased pollution from So in order to make hydrogen viable for use in cars (and making cars run on something other than oil or oil-produced electricity is the holy grail of getting off Saudi oil) we have to be able to make electricity without using oil (and without coal, if we want to make the carbon folks happy).

The truth is that we cannot have enough solar, wind and geothermal energy to produce enough hydrogen to send the Saudis back to the desert. We are many, many years away from having the power infrastructure in those sources to produce enough hydrogen. We can supplement electricity use in buildings and factories to lower our power drain on existing power sources, but the acres and acres of solar collectors, wind turbines etc that would be needed to reproduce the output of just one medium output nuclear plant is prohibitively large.

We could cover every free space in this country with wind turbines and solar panels, but for the foreseeable future, nuclear is hands down the more practical choice. Your great grandchildren will not see the US reliant on solar or wind as a primary source of energy.

Personally, I think the next big thing will be thorium fission. It has some kinks to work out, but we've barely begun to explore ways to get around the problems.

The video cleets posted about cold fusion a few weeks back gave me the impression that it's looking ever more promising.

[Ibanez]

When do we start using the Flux Capacitor?

[oldsloguy]

Not a science geek at all, but it would seem to me that one area we really could use some 'good ol' American ingenuity' is to come up with a means to 'recycle' or have some kind of use for the waste. Anyone out there with a background in that 'stuff' to know how realistic that is?

Background
The bowl that my wife is munching her salad from is glazed with pure uranium oxide, UO3 to be exact. The radiation emission within about 6 inches of this bowl is over 1000 times natural background.

So what does that mean?
There is only one thing that goes into a nuclear reactor for fuel, actinides, of which the most relevant for reactor fuel purposes are uranium, plutonium and thorium (uranium in current US reactors). The fuels fabricated from any of these elements are stable, durable ceramic pellets. The physical and chemical properties of the pellets are very similar to the glazing material on my wife’s bowl.

What comes out in spent fuel is a mixture of unused actinides and fission products. When the fission products are removed during reprocessing all of the remaining actinides can be used again as fuel in an appropriately designed reactor. The fission products, all of which are metal oxides will be melted together into stable, durable glass or ceramic pellets for storage. Within 300 years or so, those fission products will be less radioactive than the bowl from which my wife is eating her salad.

http://www.nae.edu/Publications/TheBrid ... spx#Author

Most fission products decay with half-lives of decades or shorter, and after 300 years the total fission-product inventory decays to a radiotoxicity level lower than that of the original ore (OECD, 1999).

Actually, my wife is eating off of pure uranium oxide, probably concentrated a factor of a 100 or so than the ore. There is absolutely no practical need to store them for millions of years as the enviro-ignoratics insist. After a few hundred years you could glaze my dinner dishes with fission products.

In addition, reprocessing reduces the volume of this waste by a factor of over 100 times. Yes, that is how much Yucca Mountain is oversized.

What else to do?
Interestingly, Canada and other countries are interested in taking, and will eventually take, un-reprocessed spent fuel from US reactors. Canada and other countries currently operate over 20 nuclear reactors (CANDU) that run on natural un-enriched uranium (0.7% U235) and burn that down to about 0.2%. U.S. LWR reactors on the other hand start with uranium enriched to between 3% and 5% and burn that down to about 1.5% fissile content. The Canadians propose to use the nuclear waste from U.S. LWR reactors directly for fuel in their CANDU reactors.

http://www.nuclearfaq.ca/brat_fuel.htm
CANDU technology offers another unique option for the back end of the LWR fuel cycle, which completely avoids the need for wet reprocessing and fissile-material recovery. The "DUPIC" fuel cycle, or "direct use of spent PWR fuel in CANDU", utilizes the non-separated, non-enhanced waste product of LWRs directly as CANDU fuel (Keil, 1992).”
The transfer from LWR to CANDU can be literally "direct", involving only the cutting of spent LWR fuel rods to CANDU length (~50 cm), resealing (or double-sheathing), and reengineering into cylindrical bundles suitable for CANDU geometry.

The Canadian reactors would purr like kittens on the spent US nuclear waste. My personal guess is that spent fuel will be allowed to cool radioactively until the point it can be trivially handled and then used for fuel in the CANDU’s. This has the additional advantage of reducing the spent fuel from the CANDU’s by over a factor of two over using natural uranium.

[oldsloguy]

....the waste could be enriched to weapons grade stuff.

I assume that when you say “the waste could be enriched to weapons grade stuff” you are referring to extraction of the plutonium in the reactor waste.

Although it is theoretically possible to produce a nuclear explosive device with LWR reactor waste it would be a daunting task. Even with the highest weapons grade plutonium it is extremely difficult to produce an explosive device as the high specific neutron yield makes assembly of the device during ignition very unstable. The design of a Pu weapon is so difficult that none of the 10 countries known to have produced weapons have chosen Pu over enriched uranium for their first try. And that is even considering the difficulty of enriching the uranium. Design of a uranium weapon would require a government sized effort involving thousands of people but could done without testing provided they had top quality physics and nuclear engineering people. Design of a plutonium weapon (using weapons grade Pu) would require a government sized effort involving thousands of people but IMHO could not be done without testing.

Spent reactor fuel contains a lot of PU240 and 242 that makes this problem even worse.
Yes, theoretically, experienced designers at places like Livermore and Los Alamos could probably do it. Testing again IMO would be required. If you are determined to build a weapon from Pu, it would much easier to build a graphite reactor and make the “good stuff” rather than futzing around with the junk from a power rector. Proof, every country that has made Pu weapons has taken the easiest path and built a graphite reactor to provide the material.

[danefan]

I don't know crap about nuclear power, but I feel smart just posting in this thread after oldsloguy.

All we need is Cleets and JMUDJ to jump in and we'll be all set.

[clenz]

I don't know crap about nuclear power, but I feel smart just posting in this thread after oldsloguy.

All we need is Cleets and JMUDJ to jump in and we'll be all set.

No shit. I'm glad i posted before sloguy so it doesn't look like I'm just jumping in to look smart

[oldsloguy]

Hey, I worked 30 years as a mechanical/nuclear engineer. I enjoy the stuff and I enjoy talking about it! It really bugs me that the public perception of nuclear power and waste is that they are unsafe and toxic. They are not. So I, as well as many of the guys I used to work with try to disseminate accurate information when the subject arises.

Sorry, just felt a little disappointed getting smacked for something I enjoy and am enthusiastic about.

[danefan]

Hey, I worked 30 years as a mechanical/nuclear engineer. I enjoy the stuff and I enjoy talking about it! It really bugs me that the public perception of nuclear power and waste is that they are unsafe and toxic. They are not. So I, as well as many of the guys I used to work with try to disseminate accurate information when the subject arises.

Sorry, just felt a little disappointed getting smacked for something I enjoy and am enthusiastic about.

I hope you don't feel like I was smacking you. Wasn't my intention.

I appreciate your insight on a subject that I know nothing about. Part of the reason this board is so great. You get different perspectives on issues that would have never gotten in your everyday life.

[CID1990]

oldsloguy-

You sound like you know people in the industry.

Do me a favor...

Tell whoever will listen that when the housing industry pops back up, Beazer and others are going to start buying up properties all around my farm in NC. It is 500 acres of pristine wildlife conservation land. When the housing vampires start coming back into the area to turn Caswell County into a suburb of Hillsborough and Chapel Hill, I will sell the land to the DOE for 1 million dollars for use as a nuclear waste facility. There's bedrock about 100 feet down, and then it's all igneous for miles downward. It would be perfect.

With all the cookie cutter neighborhoods around, I am beginning to think that the property might be somewhat indefensible for my planned compound that I will inhabit when the country falls into anarchy and I want to buy something out in Idaho or Montana.

So just tell whoever to give me a holler.

[oldsloguy]

oldsloguy-

You sound like you know people in the industry.

Do me a favor...

Tell whoever will listen that when the housing industry pops back up, Beazer and others are going to start buying up properties all around my farm in NC. It is 500 acres of pristine wildlife conservation land. When the housing vampires start coming back into the area to turn Caswell County into a suburb of Hillsborough and Chapel Hill, I will sell the land to the DOE for 1 million dollars for use as a nuclear waste facility. There's bedrock about 100 feet down, and then it's all igneous for miles downward. It would be perfect.

With all the cookie cutter neighborhoods around, I am beginning to think that the property might be somewhat indefensible for my planned compound that I will inhabit when the country falls into anarchy and I want to buy something out in Idaho or Montana.

So just tell whoever to give me a holler.

I'll can talk plenty, however, not even my dog listens to me!

[travelinman67]

Hey, I worked 30 years as a mechanical/nuclear engineer. I enjoy the stuff and I enjoy talking about it! It really bugs me that the public perception of nuclear power and waste is that they are unsafe and toxic. They are not. So I, as well as many of the guys I used to work with try to disseminate accurate information when the subject arises.

Gotta get down there this year, crack a cold one and talk shop. Former bro-in-law was #2 out at Rancho Seco...ended up at Palo Verde.

Being the "political" type...I wound up debating anti-nuke numbnuts on radio during the "Shut Seco" campaign. The most notable observation is how poorly educated most people are regarding nuclear power (as your discussion has underlined). The anti-Rancho Seco organizers used posters of a mushroom cloud coming out of a cooling tower...and during one debate I had at Sacramento City College, the student (a female) actually stated that the "tower" was an actual depiction of what could happen "during a meltdown".

Truth is, I really felt like walking over and slapping the f**ing crap out of her as soon as the words left her mouth. It really went beyond pathetic ignorance. I'm just sorry SMUD didn't fight it.

Most of the youngsters around here missed those days (I vividly remember all the Diablo Canyon protests and court battles), and the remnants of that ignorance still echoes when you hear crap from obstructionist ideologues like dback pronouncing Yucca Mountain's lack of suitability.

Some of the Seco kids, trying to get closer to thee, my Lord...


Couldn't find the mushroom cloud poster Tom Hayden and Bob Mulholland used during the campaign, but this old China Syndrome game promo is almost as hinky...


...and just for you sloguy...



(the url in case you want to enlarge the image)
http://sloblogs.thetribunenews.com/slov ... ncertb.jpg

Can you believe that silver-spooned moron Guv. Moonbeam may be running for governor again?

Only in California.



(in case I forget, oldsloguy, I'd like to get your take on the new B&W modular units...so far, seems like a fantastic design/idea...but since none are in service...there's no bad press...yet...

...which will undoubtedly come from the pipefitters/millwrights locals... )

[houndawg]

Hey, I worked 30 years as a mechanical/nuclear engineer. I enjoy the stuff and I enjoy talking about it! It really bugs me that the public perception of nuclear power and waste is that they are unsafe and toxic. They are not. So I, as well as many of the guys I used to work with try to disseminate accurate information when the subject arises.

Gotta get down there this year, crack a cold one and talk shop. Former bro-in-law was #2 out at Rancho Seco...ended up at Palo Verde.

Being the "political" type...I wound up debating anti-nuke numbnuts on radio during the "Shut Seco" campaign. The most notable observation is how poorly educated most people are regarding nuclear power (as your discussion has underlined). The anti-Rancho Seco organizers used posters of a mushroom cloud coming out of a cooling tower...and during one debate I had at Sacramento City College, the student (a female) actually stated that the "tower" was an actual depiction of what could happen "during a meltdown".

Truth is, I really felt like walking over and slapping the f**ing crap out of her as soon as the words left her mouth. It really went beyond pathetic ignorance. I'm just sorry SMUD didn't fight it.

Most of the youngsters around here missed those days (I vividly remember all the Diablo Canyon protests and court battles), and the remnants of that ignorance still echoes when you hear crap from obstructionist ideologues like dback pronouncing Yucca Mountain's lack of suitability.

Some of the Seco kids, trying to get closer to thee, my Lord...


Couldn't find the mushroom cloud poster Tom Hayden and Bob Mulholland used during the campaign, but this old China Syndrome game promo is almost as hinky...


...and just for you sloguy...



(the url in case you want to enlarge the image)
http://sloblogs.thetribunenews.com/slov ... ncertb.jpg

Can you believe that silver-spooned moron Guv. Moonbeam may be running for governor again?

Only in California.



(in case I forget, oldsloguy, I'd like to get your take on the new B&W modular units...so far, seems like a fantastic design/idea...but since none are in service...there's no bad press...yet...

...which will undoubtedly come from the pipefitters/millwrights locals... )

Rancho Leako was a boondoggle from the get go, glad to hear they finally got their act together from the days when an operator changing a light bulb in the control panel could cut off power to the ICS and throw things into a panic for half an hour while the water temp dropped precipitously........

[oldsloguy]

Gotta get down there this year, crack a cold one and talk shop.

(in case I forget, oldsloguy, I'd like to get your take on the new B&W modular units...so far, seems like a fantastic design/idea...but since none are in service...there's no bad press...yet...

Crack'in a cold one sounds like a good Idea to me. My wife is an IPA hound, so she is always willing.

I also really like the modular unit design. I think it could jump start the U.S. back to the top of the nuclear supply business if done right. I'm afraid that if we started building large scale plants again that we might end up importing most of the equipment. One other thing to be thankful for: B&W's I&C group from the 70's is almost certainly all retired by now!

[oldsloguy]

Rancho Leako was a boondoggle from the get go, glad to hear they finally got their act together from the days when an operator changing a light bulb in the control panel could cut off power to the ICS and throw things into a panic for half an hour while the water temp dropped precipitously........

Well, I don’t know that I would call it a boondoggle, but it certainly was a sad episode. The utility district was just in over it’s head. They should have just taken a 2-year shut down and completely replaced the entire ICS.

BTW, how is that new Toyota truck doing, you know, the one I helped pay for. Had any wild rides lately? Just kidding, just kidding!

[AZGrizFan]

Yucca Mountain was unworkable. There are much better alternatives.

Not a science geek at all, but it would seem to me that one area we really could use some 'good ol' American ingenuity' is to come up with a means to 'recycle' or have some kind of use for the waste. Anyone out there with a background in that 'stuff' to know how realistic that is?

I think the 'far left' will still blow a gasket, but so what? If you're going to be a leader, you are going to piss off a few people all the time, and some of the time it will have to be your allies. But I think this is the right move.

Bullets fired from one of these:



are made from depleted uranium.

It fired 3,000 rounds per minute. Might take a while, but we could go through a lot of depleted uranium!

[travelinman67]

Rancho Leako was a boondoggle from the get go, glad to hear they finally got their act together from the days when an operator changing a light bulb in the control panel could cut off power to the ICS and throw things into a panic for half an hour while the water temp dropped precipitously........

Well, I don’t know that I would call it a boondoggle, but it certainly was a sad episode. The utility district was just in over it’s head. They should have just taken a 2-year shut down and completely replaced the entire ICS.

Bingo.

As I recall, they had recurring problems with the Westinghouse turbine design, which accounted for several of the unplanned outages. Not saying the ICS wasn't a serious problem, but from a safety standpoint, most of the Operations guys were do-or-die ex-Navy, who could have built a Saturn rocket with a hammer and a box of chiclets...not necessarily what the public or NRC wanted to hear, but I suspect that heavily influenced mgmt's decision to INCESSANTLY postpone ICS upgrades and/or replacement...why spend the $119m when ol' Mike and the boys can engineer a workaround: Ultimately Seco's downfall. I think it was pretty apparent the mega-class B&W reactors, though common, were the most problematic. Kinda hard to engineer a single turbine to handle that much energy...particularly since the designs were extrapolations from the 50's and 60's before modeling became a daily use tool. And like you suggest, the I&C team at B&W were probably carrying around slide rules until they retired.