NPR Story on the Future of Nuclear Power 353
deeptrace writes "The Living on Earth show on NPR recently had a segment on the future of Nuclear Energy. The nearly hour long show is available as an mp3 and in transcript form. It talks about hot fusion, cold fusion, and Pebble Bed Reactors. It provides a well balanced and informative overview of progress towards their use for future nuclear power generation. Most interestingly, they talk with Dr. Pamela Boss and Dr. Stanislaw Szpak at the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in San Diego. Dr. Szpak says of their cold fusion experiments: 'We have 100 percent reproducible results'."
Re:Of Astronauts and rods (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, right now we are sitting in a car with the engine running and the garage door closed. I think we are better off with the revolver.
Re:Pebble Bed reactors (Score:2, Interesting)
I'd love to see PBRs being built here in the UK. Using them to desalinate sea water would also be an amazing boon; large parts of the UK are already facing drought-like conditions this summer. We're surrounded by water, we should take advantage of that. Hell, it could even be an export oppurtunity in the coming century!
Small Scale (Score:5, Interesting)
Each plant being so big and so custom made to the area, also makes them hard to inspect; each one is different to some degree.
The French have been building small scale N-Plants w/ passive cooling; meaning if something goes wrong it shuts itself down without any need (or room for) equipment failure. (an example being using the pressure from the reaction to hold back water. If there is less pressure or more pressure the water enters an shuts down the plant.
It seems to be passive cooling and uniform construction is key to safety. Building them smaller means there are more of them and they are closer to "you." So not sure how I feel about size. Also there is security risks, more plants to watch equate to more risk.
Re:The major problem is still people. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Small Scale (Score:3, Interesting)
All light water reactors have this system. It is called Safety Injection.
Furthermore, most French reactors are basically identical to most US reactors, they are the same Westinghouse designs.
The idea of re-using the heat appeals, but worries (Score:5, Interesting)
It seems like you're re-using the same heat from that coolant quite a few times. You can't use the coolant directly without the exchanger, I assume, since it would be contaminated -- and what good would desalinated but otherwise radioactive water be to anyone?
Re:Pebble Bed reactors (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Pebble Bed reactors (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's just kick this "clean" nuclear energy out the window. Nuclear plants produce some of the most toxic substances known to man. (Plutonium comes to mind).
Nuclear power plants keep their waste in shielded rooms deep inside the plant, which are then sealed up and stored so the waste doesn't get released. Coal plants, however, release more radioactive waste into the atmosphere. Coal contains traces of uranium, and as it burns, we get uranium dust in the air. Nuclear power doesn't have this problem. So, let's just kick this "clean" fossil fuel energy out the window. And unless you have a way to use hydro, solar, or wind power to produce as much energy as either fossil fuel or nuclear, we're left with this choice: store our radioactive waste deep underground, release clean steam; or burn massive quantities of coal, release tons of dirty smoke and radioactive particles in the air.
Re:Pebble Bed reactors (Score:4, Interesting)
Personally, I think these are all bloody awful ideas. In fifty-odd years we'll be running short of the uranium fuel that our current reactors use - and which pebble-bed reactors will also burn. Unless nuclear fusion has really come on by then, at that point we'll begin building breeder reactors - which will burn the waste from the previous generation of plants.
That nuclear waste will suddenly represent an enormous fuel resource. You could probably run the UK for centuries just off the amount of fissile junk stacked up at Sellafield already. And we'll really be kicking ourselves if we've thrown it all into a subduction zone.
Bury it deep, sure - but bury it somewhere it can be dug up if we realise we actually want the stuff someday.
Re:The major problem is still people. (Score:2, Interesting)
Are you not aware that turning off the powerplants in the US is not an option? Where would you get the energy from? Hurriedly building 1000 water dams or 1000000 windmills? Coalplants? Burning the rapidly dwindling oil? Either way, Electricity prices would multiply by 20 and you'd have an instant major recession.
-Filik
Re:Pebble Bed reactors (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's see... This web page [arizona.edu] lists the LD50 for Clostridium botulinum for mice as 30 picograms per kilogram of body weight, and C. botulinum neurotoxin at 200 picograms/kg. We're so nonchalant about botox that people have parties where they inject themselves with it to get rid of wrinkles. See also this portion of the Wikipedia entry on plutonium. [wikipedia.org]
Re:The idea of re-using the heat appeals, but worr (Score:5, Interesting)
For the desalination or hydrogen cracking, I believe they are talking about that being the *primary application* of the reactor. In a place where you need power, you use the heat to make electricity. In a place where you need water, you use it to desalinate. In a place where you need hydrogen, you use it to crack water.
Electricity is great for running stationary objects like buildings, but not so good at vehicles. A storable fuel is better for that.
Consider some seaside urban area that is outgrowing its supply of fresh water. Since these reactors are modular, you could install one reactor to make electricity, one to make water and one to make hydrogen for the cars. The power, water and hydrogen distribution grids are all in place and benefit from economies of scael, and you can share the administrative/training/regulatory overhead of running the reactors.
Need even more power/water/H2? Install another module.
Re:Prove it (Score:5, Interesting)
Humans can't help but be bias, this is due to them being human.
NPR's news is written and recited by humans.
Therefore NPR is bias.
Bias isn't always obvious and is rarely on purpose. The UCLA study [ucla.edu] on bias found that journalists often will use the WORDING of a story to slant it one way or another. For instance, they'll say that Newt Gengrich "gained notoriety for his time as house leader" instead of saying "he was the house leader." Of course, this is not word for word from the study, please read it before deciding how much you believe it.
Getting back to your request, the study states that NPR does indeed have bias but not much more-so than the average publication such as Time magazine, for instance.
I equate being a partisan to having a mental disorder, due to a study I read [stanford.edu] on how the rational thinking center of the brain of a partisan literally shuts down when exposed to a differing viewpoint. The reason partisan journalists are bias is because they think all facts point towards their viewpoint as "truth."
The brain will cut off information input at some point because if we really knew how many variables we DIDN'T know, we'd never make any decisions. That's why I don't vote
Excess heat & Cold Fusion (Score:5, Interesting)
The amount of excess heat is usually about a few Watts per square centimeter of palladium electrode.
During some experiments this excess heat is believed to achieve much higher value:
One event described here which is not described in the technical literature is an extraordinary 10-day long heat-after-death incident that occurred in 1991. News of this appeared in the popular press, but a formal description was never published in a scientific paper.
Mizuno says this is because he does not have carefully established calorimetric data to prove the event occurred, but I think he does not need it. The cell went out of control. Mizuno cooled it over 10 days by placing it in a large bucket of water. During this period, more than 37 liters of water evaporated from the bucket, which means the cell produced more than 84 megajoules of energy during this period alone, and 114 megajoules during the entire experiment. The only active material in the cell was 100 grams of palladium. It produced 27 times more energy than an equivalent mass of the best chemical fuel, gasoline, can produce. I think the 36 liters of evaporated water constitute better scientific evidence than the most carefully calibrated high precision instrument could produce. This is first-principle proof of heat.
A bucket left by itself for 10 days in a university laboratory will not lose any measurable level of water to evaporation. First principle experiments are not fashionable. Many scientists nowadays will not look at a simple experiment in which 36 liters of water evaporate, but high tech instruments and computers are not used. They will dismiss this as "anecdotal evidence."
It is a terrible shame that Mizuno did not call in a dozen other scientists to see and feel the hot cell. I would have set up a 24-hour vigil with graduate students and video cameras to observe the cell and measure the evaporated water carefully. This is one of history's heartbreaking lost opportunities. News of this event, properly documented and attested to by many people, might have convinced thousands of scientists worldwide that cold fusion is real. This might have been one of the most effective scientific demonstrations in history. Unfortunately, it occurred during an extended national holiday, and Mizuno decided to disconnect the cell from the recording equipment and hide it in his laboratory. He placed it behind a steel sheet because he was afraid it might explode. He told me he was not anxious to have the cell certified by many other people because he thought that he would soon replicate the effect in another experiment. Alas, in the seven years since, neither he nor any other scientist has ever seen such dramatic, inarguable proof of massive excess energy.
Here is a chronology of the heat-after-death event:
Total evaporation equals:
In South Africa? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:But the uranium! (Score:3, Interesting)
We don't want to use breeder reactors today (bacuase of the risks associated with enriched uranium), but we might want to do so in a few hundred years (because of limits on uranium supply), so we're stuck with the expensive proposition of storiing waste where we can get it again in a few centuries. Not an optimal situation.
Re:Of Astronauts and rods (Score:3, Interesting)
If that's a "live round", then I'm going to have to say that I'm not very worried.
TMI had a flawed reactor design. The control rods were designed as a single unit. Therefore, when one rod was unable to be reinserted into the reactor, none of them were. Oops. Now we have an unregulated reaction going out of control -- pretty much the nightmare scenario, right? Well, fortunately some other engineer didn't trust the control rod engineer, and put a bed of graphite pebbles underneath the reactor. When the reaction got hot enough, the core melted and dripped into the bed, which spread out the uranium and slowed the reaction.
The radiation that was released while the reaction was uncontrolled was contained by the shell, and the outside area was largely unaffected. Chalk one up for good design and back up safety systems.
We've only gotten better since then, and learned from the TMI accident. TMI has been used as a bogey man against nuclear power since it occured when it never warranted that status and certainly doesn't today. Fusion will be great when it comes, but in the mean time fission is a great way of providing power.
Re:Great! (Score:3, Interesting)
We have started understanding the mechanisms that make irradiated steels brittle like the migration of chromium away from grain boundaries and the collection of "black dot" (black dot damage is a few interstitials or vacancies created by radiation in a materials lattice.) damage into larger faults. Hopefully with good science and unbiased reporting we can solve the materials and waste problem associated with nuclear energy.
Re:Of Astronauts and rods (Score:3, Interesting)
3 mile island was an econimic desaster but killed no one. Chernobyl caused a notable loss of life, but nothing nearly as bad as recent coal desasters. Given that Chernobyl's design was about as safe as playing hot potato with nitro glycerine, I think nuclear power has a pretty good safety record.
Re:But the uranium! (Score:3, Interesting)
As for breeders - find out about them, paticularly superphoenix and learn from the mistakes instead of ignoring them. They may be a possibility but there is still work to be done.
There are not yet thorium breeders or any type of thorium plant, but research is ongoing into using thorium as a fuel.
Anyone who pushes a single energy source is selling something or has been deluded - nuclear scales up, the only way to remotely consider it on economic grounds is large base load stations running at a constant output. Other things can cover the peaks.
Pebble bed covers the safety angle by having units too small to fail catastrophicly. However, the big advantage of thermal power is you can build huge plants and get well over double the amount of power produced for twice the size of plant (as distinct from photovoltaics - get two and you only get twice the amount, which is why they are used as a comparison by anyone with a large scale energy source that wants to fool people). The small unit size of pebble bed makes it an unattractive way of generating electricity - unless someone works out a clever way of using multiple units working together. The first full size pilot plant is going to be constructed in China so we'll soon find out if it is a viable idea.
Re:But the uranium! (Score:3, Interesting)
If you have ample high-temperature nuclear power, you can make hydrogen at 70% efficiency, and thus oil at around 30-50% efficiency through Fischer-Tropsh. Of course, if electricity is cheap, expect more electric or partial electric vehicles. Expect factories burning heating oil to switch to electricity. Etc.
As for breeders - find out about them, paticularly superphoenix and learn from the mistakes instead of ignoring them. They may be a possibility but there is still work to be done.
I'm not fond of sodium breeders. Superphoenix was just the start - look at Monju and its sodium leak which almost ate through its protective steel plating (i.e., it would have encountered the concrete; sodium + concrete is explosive). I much prefer lead and lead-bismuth breeders, as well as thorium breeders (which use moderated neutrons, so no need for liquid metal).
There are not yet thorium breeders or any type of thorium plant, but research is ongoing into using thorium as a fuel.
This is incorrect. There have been, and are, many thorium breeders. They're all classified as research reactors (i.e., none in mass production), but they've been working quite well. India has the majority of them currently in operation, as they want to replace their uranium reactors with thorium (India has much larger deposits off thorium).
Pebble bed covers the safety angle by having units too small to fail catastrophicly.
Building more little plants means many little failures instead of a few big failures. That doesn't buy one anything