Nuclear power: A solution to our energy problems

[Zorba]

Originally posted by: newmachineoverlord
The other major problem with nuclear is the waste. Unfortunately, most pro-nuke websites generally avoid discussing the waste products of the different reactor types and potential fuel cycles, so it is difficult to obtain complete objective information on the topic. As far as I can tell, the CANDU style reactors from canada would be able to take our nuclear "waste" and burn it as fuel, with no transuranic waste products. All radioactive waste from this process should have short half-lives, less than a hundred years. If this is accurate, then it would make sense to build these types of reactors as a means of disposing of the waste from the many other reactors we have, as well as the plutonium from disarmed warheads.

Shorter half lives are actually much more dangerious than long ones.

If you follow the simple equation of:
Radioactivity = (0.6931/Halflife)*(Number of radio active atoms)

It is easy to see that substances with lower half lives put off much more radiation than say those with longer half lives.

For example:
Take an equal number of atoms of each of the following:
Thoriem 233 (Half life of 22.1 minutes)
Uranium 238 (Half life of 4.51x10^9 years)

The thoriem would be ~110000000000000 (1.1x10^14) times more radioactive than the U238. Personally, I think I would rather have the U-238 laying around.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: Zorba
Shorter half lives are actually much more dangerious than long ones.

If you follow the simple equation of:
Radioactivity = (0.6931/Halflife)*(Number of radio active atoms)

It is easy to see that substances with lower half lives put off much more radiation than say those with longer half lives.

For example:
Take an equal number of atoms of each of the following:
Thoriem 233 (Half life of 22.1 minutes)
Uranium 238 (Half life of 4.51x10^9 years)

The thoriem would be ~110000000000000 (1.1x10^14) times more radioactive than the U238. Personally, I think I would rather have the U-238 laying around.

Depends on how you define 'safe'. If properly contained, those materials with shorter half-lives will have less long-term environmental impact. If left exposed, they would have a shorter, more intense impact.

For those who believe that nuclear power is not financially viable, I present evidence to the contrary. I once thought the same until I read this link. Of particular interest is this figure, which gives a breakdown of costs for each general type of power consumption based on operations/maintenance cost, capital costs, and fuel costs, plus a factor to account for emissions of CO2. For those too lazy to click the link, the total cost per MWh (megawatt-hour) in Euros is as follows:

Nuclear: 23.7
Gas: 39.2
Coal: 44.3
Peat: 54.2
Wood: 44.3
Wind: 50.1

The site is somewhat dated, but it's basically a literature review of relevant studies from around the world. I notice now that it doesn't include solar data, but any such data would likely be obsolete now anyway.

 

[Zorba]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: Zorba
Shorter half lives are actually much more dangerious than long ones.

If you follow the simple equation of:
Radioactivity = (0.6931/Halflife)*(Number of radio active atoms)

It is easy to see that substances with lower half lives put off much more radiation than say those with longer half lives.

For example:
Take an equal number of atoms of each of the following:
Thoriem 233 (Half life of 22.1 minutes)
Uranium 238 (Half life of 4.51x10^9 years)

The thoriem would be ~110000000000000 (1.1x10^14) times more radioactive than the U238. Personally, I think I would rather have the U-238 laying around.

Depends on how you define 'safe'. If properly contained, those materials with shorter half-lives will have less long-term environmental impact. If left exposed, they would have a shorter, more intense impact.

If properly contained, they should all have almost no enviromental impact, except for the inside of one mountain. The problem is, if a substance with a half life of 100 years leaks it will cause much more devastation than for hundreds of years, than the long half life stuff.

The results over a couple thousands years might be worse for the longer half life stuff, though. So yeah, it does depend on how you define safe.

 

[sonoma1993]

I think we should start building more nuclear power plants, instead of building more coal, oil and natural gas plants. In my area, they are looking into building another natural gas or coal power plant. We already have 3 or 4 coal plants in my area, plus the ones across the river in sarnia, ontario and all of their oil chemical plants over there. Building a nuclear plant in this area would really benfit us.

 

[Aegeon]

It does sound like there are at least plans that go in the right direction.

The US nuclear power industry has been virtually frozen since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, but in the US Congress 2005 energy bill, tax credits worth $3.1 billion, along with liability protection and compensation for legislative delays, were added for the industry. On 30 December 2005, for the first time in years, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) certified the design of a new reactor?the 1000-MW Westinghouse advanced passive (AP) reactor.

Six US power-plant operators are preparing combined construction and operating license (COL) requests to the NRC that could restart construction in the next five years. NuStart Energy, a consortium of nine nuclear energy companies, submitted plans for a General Electric simplified boiling water reactor at the Grand Gulf nuclear station near Port Gibson, Mississippi, and an AP-1000 reactor at the Bellefonte nuclear plant near Scottsboro, Alabama.

Two AP-1000 reactors may be built in the Carolinas by Duke Energy, along with another reactor by Progress Energy. "Preparing this application provides us the option to continue using a diverse fuel mix in the future," says Brew Barron, Duke Energy's chief nuclear officer.

Constellation Energy of Baltimore, Maryland, is in partnership with AREVA, a large French?German engineering firm, to submit COL requests for a European PWR at the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant site in southern Maryland and the Nine Mile Point nuclear plant in Oswego, New York. Entergy, another NuStart member, announced it was preparing its own COL request for a new reactor at its River Bend Station power plant in St. Francisville, Louisiana. On 6 December, two electric utilities, Scana Corp and Santee Cooper, filed a letter of intent with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build two new reactors north of Columbia, South Carolina, to meet growing regional power demands.

According to representatives of the electric utilities involved, the US government and the reactor technology suppliers are paying for most of the $150 million the certification process costs. "The utilities are waiting to see if they can get any more subsidies out of the government," says Lyman, "so it's still premature to say if any of them will go ahead." A satisfactory means for disposal of their radioactive waste products has not yet been announced.

But the nuclear power industry believes the first new US order is only two years away. Says NuStart Energy president Marilyn Kray, "Our country needs these advanced nuclear plants."

http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-59/iss-2/p19.html