Energy: Are Nuclear Power Plants Really Safe?

Reader markymark states:

Reactors are so safe, that I wouldn't object to having one in my backyard (thats a bit of a stretch) and I am an environmentalist.

What about Chernobyl? Highly radioactive fallout, 56 direct deaths and 4,000 more from cancer.

What about Three-Mile Island? No loss of life, but a partial meltdown occurred.

What about the other nuclear accidents? (ahem)...none. Out of "12,700 cumulative reactor-years of commercial operation in 32 countries" these are the only two accidents.

A friend of mine is trained to run nuclear power plants and submarines, and he verifies markymark's comments on redundancy:

Even with all the varied designs in the US, the safety systems are extraordinarily redundant.
For every safety component there is a duplicate component. Each of the components is monitor by safety code written by two different programmers using different programming packages. All of this reports to two separate master systems. If any of the monitoring systems fall out of step by 1 millisecond it initiates an alarm sequence.

What about terrorist attacks? Check out this video of a test of a jet vs. reinforced concrete. I'll give you a hint...the jet lost...96% of the aircrafts kinetic energy goes back into destroying the aircraft itself, with the remaining 4% entering the reinforced slab of concrete. Pretty cool seeing things disintegrate...

Also, this from the Australian Uranium Association:

The analyses used a fully-fuelled Boeing 767-400 of over 200 tonnes as the basis, at 560 km/h - the maximum speed for precision flying near the ground. The wingspan is greater than the diameter of reactor containment buildings and the 4.3 tonne engines are 15 metres apart. Hence analyses focused on single engine direct impact on the centreline - since this would be the most penetrating missile - and on the impact of the entire aircraft if the fuselage hit the centreline (in which case the engines would ricochet off the sides). In each case no part of the aircraft or its fuel would penetrate the containment. Other studies have confirmed these findings.

I am proud to say that I do practically have one in my backyard.

Energy: On the Path to Energy Independence

As we see Congress flail around attempting to develop some sort of coherent energy policy, kowtowing to environmentalists one moment and succumbing to corporate welfare the next, Robert Zubrin, in his book Energy Victory has a very simple, inexpensive idea that seems to make sense to me (I haven't yet read the book). Clifford May at NRO outlines the idea:

Right now, 97 percent of the cars on America's roads run on gasoline. Only three percent are Flexible Fuel Vehicles (FFVs) — automobiles that can be powered by either gasoline or alcohol fuels, or any mixture of the two. The additional cost to make a new car an FFV is only about $100 per vehicle

For the sake of individual security, the government mandates that all cars have seat belts. For the sake of national security, Dr. Zubrin proposes, the government should mandate that all new cars be FFVs.

In three years, the change would put 50 million FFVs on the road. The free market would then mobilize to do what it does best: Entrepreneurs would compete to produce alternative, non-petroleum fuels for these potential customers.

I've said before that I think that an energy policy is a federal matter and federal mandates, though not popular in my book, seem to be practical in this case...

But mandates are required to solve the chicken-and-egg dilemma. Dr. Zubrin writes: “Filling stations don't want to dedicate space to a fuel mix used by only three percent of all cars and consumers are not interested in buying vehicles for which the preferred fuel mix is extremely difficult to find.” This is one of those very rare problems that actually can be solved just by passing a law. Build the cars. The non-petroleum fuels will come.

The simple fact is that until we change our consumption habits, we will continue to finance those that proclaim "death to America!"-- and this will have a much greater impact than the silly outlawing of my wonderful 100w Reveal light bulbs.

Energy Bill: Comments

In reaction to this post on the energy bill, astute reader markymark says:

One the issues that struck me with Duke Energy (and the US) is this: every single reactor was custom built.

In France there are two basic designs. Thats it. As an engineer I can walk into any French facility and understand the safety system layout within 10 mins. In the US: 2-3 weeks. In some cases 2 months.

Their entire nuclear energy system is close to a perfect model. Even their use of breeder reactors to process spent fuel rods is 10+ yrs ahead of anything used in the US.

This buttresses my point that we've been incredibly lax in developing upgraded nuclear systems and pursuing ways to produce energy on our own. No new plants in 30 years, with the last license granted in 1995 (see graph).

France is way ahead of us as they derive over 75% of their electricity from nuclear energy, while we come in at around 20%. This is one time where I think we should use France as a model.

The federal government, in addressing a national problem, should at the least be encouraging uprates of existing plants - a much more cost-effective and immediate boost to energy production, according to the Energy Information Administration.

This article talks about these issues and sees a possible resurgence of nuclear power on the horizon.

Energy Bill: Federal Meddling

When the federal government continues on the path laid down by incorporation of the 14th Amendment, it always makes life more difficult.

Take just one example: the freewheeling elimination of the incandescent bulb. Why do you suppose federal grandaddy thought that it was necessary to tell me how to light my home? Is he really concerned about reducing my electric bill? Or maybe it's energy consumption. EarthEasy tells me (with no substantiation)

Replacing a single incandescent bulb with a CFL will keep a half-ton of CO2 out of the atmosphere over the life of the bulb. If everyone in the U.S. used energy-efficient lighting, we could retire 90 average size power plants. Saving electricity reduces CO2 emissions, sulfur oxide and high-level nuclear waste.

Well, there you have it... grandaddy is going to "retire 90 average size power plants" and save the world by forcing me to purchase light bulbs that are not as brilliant and contain mercury, which makes disposal more difficult and possibly costly.

Don't get me wrong...I have compact fluorescents...I just don't want grandaddy mandating something that he doesn't understand...something that Congress has shown a marked propensity for doing lately.

Want to know why this is in there? Two words: Corporate Welfare

Manufacturers expect over the next decade to provide consumers with other choices as well, since CFLs don’t work as well in applications such as reading lamps.

“It’s the right thing to do,” says Randall B. Moorhead, vice president for the North American affiliate of Royal Phillips Electronics NV of the Netherlands. “But we’re also hoping we’ll make some money. It’s not entirely altruistic.”

No kidding.

Energy Bill: Higher Costs, Lower Return

The President has said he will sign the new energy bill today. We have needed a new energy policy for years and we're finally getting one...what's not to like? Three things: 1. Increasing food costs with no reduction in fuel costs, 2. Continued foreign oil dependence, and 3. a failure to pursue nuclear technologies.

1. The bill requires additional spending on ethanol which has spiked the demand for corn in the past two years. Simple supply and demand then requires that supply must increase to meet demand. If the supply doesn't increase at the same rate, the mechanism that market uses to level out the disparity is price. Higher priced corn = higher priced food = higher grocery bill. In addition, opportunity cost comes into play here. The farmers have gone all out in producing corn because that is where the money is. What are they not producing now because they switched over to corn. This reduces supply of a particular commodity, thereby increasing price.

2. Continued foreign oil dependence. The omnibus bill passed by both houses last night

prohibits funding for oil shale commercial regulations which makes commercial production of the United States’ 2 trillion barrels of oil shale resources is impossible.

3. Failure to pursue nuclear technologies. Not a word. This is the surest path to energy independence and it is rarely even discussed.

Oh, and grandaddy federal government is telling us we can't use 100 watt bulbs any more...