Observing the nuke power issue in the US

[TLAM Strike]

13 miles from trusty Ginna nuclear power plant.

For those who don't know Ginna is right on Lake Ontario. Luckily there is very little risk of a Tsunami there!

[Gargamel]

You also have to remember when these plants were built. The vast majority are from the 70's and early 80's. While The western states were no slouches in population then, it was reasoned that all of the power needed could be done by hydro or oil/coal plants. The resources for those were plentiful then.

But as the east coast found out, Coal runs out. Or at least gets harder and more expensive to mine as the easy stuff disappears. Hydro on the east is good for local communities (Check out the Northern part of New York, Adirondack park, Most of the villages through out the park have little hydro plants of their own), but aside form Niagara, there aren't a lot great places to put any more hydro plants that weren't already done or n the process of.

Nuclear was deemed to be the best way to supply large quantities of power without requiring huge amounts of infrastructure to be built, which the east had little room for. The west did, and kinda still does have plenty of room for those types of construction projects.

[Torplexed]

Originally Posted by Growler

And with the rivers and waterways of the Northwest, of course it makes sense there'd be hydro-power instead of nuke. The East has the rivers, but also has a LOT of boat traffic on those rivers; the West made better use of rail than the East did, so the rivers can be used to generate power more than they're needed for shipping.

The irony is that the environmental crowd out here is always lobbying like mad to have some of these dams torn down to restore salmon runs and make the rivers "wild" again. I love salmon as much as the next guy, but I have a feeling that keeping about 90 million people in electricity is probably more important right now.

[Growler]

Originally Posted by Torplexed

The irony is that the environmental crowd out here is always lobbying like mad to have some of these dams torn down to restore salmon runs and make the rivers "wild" again. I love salmon as much as the next guy, but I have a feeling that keeping about 90 million people in electricity is probably more important right now.

I guess fish ladders just don't do enough, but I can't argue with the power to the people logic, either - I was lucky enough to avoid the consequences of the East Coast Blackout of 2003 by virtue of being a few miles outside the directly-affected areas, but I remember the edge of panic in the media that went with it.

I think it's safe to say that there's a ton of variables that have played a role in the dispersal of nuclear plants in the States.

Would I be happier with "cleaner" power? Truth be told, there really is no cleaner power out there, once you remove the spent fuel from the equation. We're basically talking steam-generated power, which is tremendously efficient; it's just our means of generating the steam that have been the problem all along, whether it was coal, oil, or nuclear.

I think that whoever finds something to do with spent nuclear fuel that doesn't involve shoving it under a mountain with a "Do Not Open Until 20,000 CE" on the door will be a very rich person.

I'd rather see one mountain turned into a nuclear waste repository than see all the mountains reduced to gravel while they try and pry the coal out of them, or see the oceans with an oily sheen over them.

And like MattJ said, it's not like the Fukushima reactors didn't just go through a metric shed-load of grief before having the problems they're having; certainly more trouble than any reactors anywhere else in the world have had to go through. And while we're hearing about Fukushima, we're NOT hearing about all the other Japanese reactors that are still online and working fine.

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by Torplexed

I'm afraid decommissioned and entombed reactors don't generate much electricity. But is the place polluted? You bet.

When i asked this here some time ago, someone provided a photo, where all the Navy reactors were stored in the open, visible on a photo.

So you say they put the reactor hulls there, and buried the fuel rods elsewhere ?

The reason me asking this some time ago was that according to Bellona net, the US had sunk severeal reactors in the Bering strait - which was - according to the post back then - wrong.


As far as i know the US west (edit .. gawd) coast is a bad idea for reactors just because of the plate tectonics and earth quakes, and less due to political influence or reasons. At least that is what i would think looking at the map, as a geologist. As well as long as you have terrain suitable for water power (like i.g. in Switzerland) you do not need nuclear energy, because there is enough terrain altitude differences to use gravitational (water) power via turbines.

Greetings,
Catfish

[Torplexed]

Originally Posted by Catfish

So you say they put the reactor hulls there, and buried the fuel rods elsewhere ?

I never brought up the decommissioned naval reactors. The Third Man did in his usual, breezy "let's go off-topic" manner. I was speaking more to the nine civil and military nuclear reactors that used to be on that site which have since been closed. However, the naval reactors are there. They are placed in a large open pit about seven miles from the Columbia River. I can't speak for where the fuel rods are. Needless, to say that with 60 plus years of heavy-duty nuclear activity behind it, Hanford is the most polluted nuclear site in the US and the clean-up costs have and will continue to be enormous. By design and planning, it was established on a remote tract of land. But it's not as remote as it was when it opened in 1943.

[ASWnut101]

Originally Posted by Growler

I think that whoever finds something to do with spent nuclear fuel that doesn't involve shoving it under a mountain with a "Do Not Open Until 20,000 CE" on the door will be a very rich person.

I'd rather see one mountain turned into a nuclear waste repository than see all the mountains reduced to gravel while they try and pry the coal out of them, or see the oceans with an oily sheen over them.

It interests me that so many people don't know about Deep Borehole Disposal. You basically just dig a 3-4 km deep hole, dump about 1km worth of high level waste into it, then fill the hole back up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_borehole_disposal

I'd say definitely the most promising method of disposal. 3-4 km deep holes makes any potential recovery extremely difficult, and the amount of space between the surface and the waste level is so great that peak irradiation of the surface should any material leak out would occur millions (movement of about 200m/1Ma) of years later, and be many times below the natural background rate.

We do have a realistic solution for nuclear waste disposal. The only reason we aren't using it is because some people think we may have a use for all that crap in the future. Sounds to me that they're just hedging their bets.

As far as i know the US west (edit .. gawd) coast is a bad idea for reactors just because of the plate tectonics and earth quakes, and less due to political influence or reasons. At least that is what i would think looking at the map, as a geologist. As well as long as you have terrain suitable for water power (like i.g. in Switzerland) you do not need nuclear energy, because there is enough terrain altitude differences to use gravitational (water) power via turbines.

I agree, to an extent. The western US has quite a few options for large scale power generation. Since most of the issues with earthquakes and tsunamis could be resolved by placing NPPs far away from the coast line, I really like the idea of solar thermal towers (in the desert SW) and underground hydroelectricity (in the NW) agumenting a base load powered by NPPs and the Hoover Dam.

[Growler]

Originally Posted by ASWnut101

It interests me that so many people don't know about Deep Borehole Disposal. You basically just dig a 3-4 km deep hole, dump about 1km worth of high level waste into it, then fill the hole back up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_borehole_disposal

I'd say definitely the most promising method of disposal. 3-4 km deep holes makes any potential recovery extremely difficult, and the amount of space between the surface and the waste level is so great that peak irradiation of the surface should any material leak out would occur millions (movement of about 200m/1Ma) of years later, and be many times below the natural background rate.

We do have a realistic solution for nuclear waste disposal. The only reason we aren't using it is because some people think we may have a use for all that crap in the future. Sounds to me that they're just hedging their bets.

Sweet - I learned something new today. Thanks for this - I did NOT know of this until today.

[Catfish]

"Deep borehole disposal"
The inner earth is radioactive deep down, but it isn't done with some 4 kilometers of drill hole depth to get rid of radiating stuff.
You need liners and cementation and this whole idea may easily be more expensive than switching technologies all over.
At interesting reservoir dump depthts (interesting, financially speaking because any bit deeper it is not worth the drilling costs) you still have ground water, gas pressure releases, stress - strain cracks in the deeper ground. Guaranteed for the next some 10,000s of years to come ?
Scientists here already thought about that, and gave it up quickly.

But then as long as it's not visible any more lol

Greetings,
Catfish

[Growler]

No doubt, the solution will be expensive - after all, isn't that what free market economies are all about?

From the things I've read so far, deep boreholes, or subcritical reactors look to be good solutions - maybe not great, but good, at least. Certainly better than storing the stuff in big swimming pools under perfectly good water, running lots of power to keep cool.

[ASWnut101]

Originally Posted by Catfish

"Deep borehole disposal"
The inner earth is radioactive deep down, but it isn't done with some 4 kilometers of drill hole depth to get rid of radiating stuff.
You need liners and cementation and this whole idea may easily be more expensive than switching technologies all over.

Eh, as opposed to hollowing out a mountain to put just a fraction of all the stuff, spending countless hours and billions of dollars (We're up to $10 billion USD, and the Yucca mountain site hasn't even been finished yet) in an attempt to do something never before accomplished in human history (building a structure that will not be entered for thousands of years)? I doubt it.

At interesting reservoir dump depthts (interesting, financially speaking because any bit deeper it is not worth the drilling costs) you still have ground water, gas pressure releases, stress - strain cracks in the deeper ground.

3-4km is well below the crystalline basement rock and all but the deepest of aquifers (which would be avoided, obviously). There's no ground water to seep up, and the waste would be sealed at the top of the hole before having 3 km of dirt and rock piled on top.

The radionuclide seep rate in the vertical is estimated to be around 200m per 1 million years. You do the math to see how long it takes to reach even the deepest aquifers.

If digging very deep holes were such a problem, we wouldn't have our precious oil to drive our SUVs around, would we?

Guaranteed for the next some 10,000s of years to come ?
Scientists here already thought about that, and gave it up quickly.

As guaranteed as it gets for on Earth storage, yes. Only other option that would last longer would be to shoot it off into the sun or out of the solar system altogether, something just not feasible at the moment.

And if anyone really goes looking for and tries to recover the waste, it wont be an accident.

I know some anti-nuclear activists would just like to say "Oh nuclear is evil, there is no solution so we shouldn't even try." Sorry, but we humans are a little too damn creative to just throw the towel in when we hit the first obstacle. For the longest time, space travel was impossible. Look at us now, naysayers.

Originally Posted by ASWnut101

For the longest time, space travel was impossible. Look at us now, naysayers.

Not doing anything particularly mindblowing on that front in years?

[Growler]

Originally Posted by Rilder

Not doing anything particularly mindblowing on that front in years?

Missed the whole ISS thing, have you?

[kraznyi_oktjabr]

Originally Posted by Growler

Missed the whole ISS thing, have you?

What is so special in ISS? It is basically expanded version of Soviet space stations. First of which was Salyut I in 1971. Ofcourse ISS has more advanced technology but in my opinion it's nothing really revolutionary although certainly evolutionary.

[Growler]

Originally Posted by kraznyi_oktjabr

What is so special in ISS? It is basically expanded version of Soviet space stations. First of which was Salyut I in 1971. Ofcourse ISS has more advanced technology but in my opinion it's nothing really revolutionary although certainly evolutionary.

Evolutionary being the point; where the former orbital platforms (Mir, SKYLAB) were essentially launched as is from the ground, and modified by necessity, they were not truly in-flight assembled platforms from components sent into orbit. Also, the other platforms were not hugely multi-national efforts; ISS is. It's "revolutionary" in that its designed intent is to be as near a permanent orbital station involving crew from many nations, rather than an orbital game of oneupsmanship to prove which nationality is technically superior.