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The Forum > Article Comments > Nuclear power, Watt a waste > Comments

Nuclear power, Watt a waste : Comments

By Jim Green and Natalie Wasley, published 6/12/2010

The fatal flaw in nuclear power is its rubbish.

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The volumes of rock we are talking about are really quite small compared to the mining of sand, gravel, iron ore, bauxite and coal overburden. Like all rocks coal is mildly radioactive but unlike the others some of the metal content gets vaporised. Fly ash from the coal boilers contains minor isotopes and heavy metals and may be in the cement inches away from you. In contrast the high level waste from a nuclear power plant may only be a few cubic metres per year. It needs to be saved and reprocessed for later generations of reactors.

When that waste is recycled there will be a much smaller amount of material that needs to be buried deeply. I suggest sending it back to Olympic Dam area rather than Muckaty. I find it odd to question whether people 10,000 years from now will be endangered. If it's down a deep mineshaft what the hell are they doing there? 10,000 years from now I'd be more worried about the buildings in Sydney CBD falling on top of people.

The way we are headed coal and gas are going to get expensive, with or without carbon taxes. The idea of a grid powered by wind and solar seems novel but it would be several times as expensive as nuclear. It would also be visually intrusive with frequent reliability issues. The issues with nuclear waste are small scale and manageable; energy poverty isn't.
Posted by Taswegian, Monday, 6 December 2010 8:57:36 AM
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Jim - for once I find myself in agreement with Taswegian. Go back and look at your article. The volumes you cite are actually tiny; easily accommodated in a remote site and Australia has lots and lots of remote sites. In fact, there are many places that really should be nuclear waste sites, as its difficult to think of what other use they would be to anyone, even native species (plenty of desert out there fellas), or why anyone would want to go there even in 10,000 years. The repository could easily be arranged to so that radiation levels are maximum natural background (certain provinces in India).

If anyone does go there, they will have a lot more problems than radiation from the facility.
Posted by Curmudgeon, Monday, 6 December 2010 9:47:05 AM
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You wouldn't expect a Greenie to write a piece in support of nuclear power, would you? Nuclear is the way to go, I reckon. The waste and safety issues have been blown way out of proportion, and as others have said, there are plenty of potential sites around Australia. Ever seen the "Moon Country" between Oodnadatta and Coober Pedy in SA? Absolutely nothing there, hardly a blade of grass to be seen since it's a gibber plain. While solar and wind power are good for some remote locations, I'm surprised that Greenies haven't twigged to the quite large toll of birdlife and bats that wind turbines take. They used to rave on about high power transmission lines, but turbines are OK, it seems. Ever visited Exmouth in WA? One of the windiest places in Au, yet they have a diesel generator converted to run on gas. The gas is TRUCKED in from somewhere hundreds of kms away, with two roadtrains going back and forth to fill up with natural gas.
Posted by viking13, Monday, 6 December 2010 10:23:09 AM
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Jim/Natalie, Please forward your article to the French and share any response with us.
Posted by spindoc, Monday, 6 December 2010 10:55:54 AM
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Once again the greens cannot help themselves. They obviously feel the need to exaggerate figures and statistics to give their cause legitimacy.

Olympic dam mine primarily mines copper, of which a small portion of uranium is produced as a side product. It is not surprising then that the tailings per kilo of uranium are about 10 x that of primary uranium producers such as the Ranger mine.

As the primary driver for production at Olympic dam is the copper demand, the additional demand for uranium in Australia is unlikely to change production at Olympic dam at all, let alone to power all 50 reactors. This makes their use of this data deliberately false.

If one uses real figures the low level tailing produced by 50 reactors over 50 years would be about 150 million tonnes or at the average density of rock, about 60 million cubic meters of tailings.

Hazelwood power station (equivalent to one modern reactor) in this 50 year period burns about 650 million tons of coal, producing over 50 million tons of ash and would pump out 20 million tonnes of ash into the air (which contains low levels of radioactivity and heavy metals).

As other coal fired plants are not much better, nuclear power is far more environmentally friendly than coal, even if climate change is not factored in.

I certainly would not buy a used car from these authors.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Monday, 6 December 2010 11:29:09 AM
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I don't have time to think through the figures here, so perhaps should not comment. However the contention argued in this paper has surface plausibility. Generation of stashes of highly dangerous wastes does not seem a sensible procedure by any reckoning. However, i don't think waste is the only fatal flaw. Human incompetence is another. NO amount of regulation in the end prevails against the moment of fatigue or the normative establishment of short-cut strategies that can bring on disaster. Think Karen Silkwood. There is also the matter of downwind pollution and the consequent ill health of those who live in the vicinity of a functioning reactor. Reactors have destroyed the ambience of the Loire Valley in France. One can only pray that they do not end up destroying the Valley itself. Why create high potential dangers. Who stands to gain? Follow the money? Stop those who will get rich by building reactors from bribing the decision-makers.
Posted by veritas, Monday, 6 December 2010 11:35:39 AM
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As usual in such articles emotive comments are evident wherever possible.
The mine site spoil is mainly overburden or mined material virtually devoid of uranium.
Depleted uranium is almost pure U238 which has a half life of a billion years so is about as dangerous as the average beach from a radiation hazard point of view.
The authors use tonnes in some places and cubic metres in others but if the 750000cm of low and intermediate waste was mixed with the 900 million cm of mine waste and built as a mountain in the virtual desert a few km form Olympic Dam or buried at the mine excavation the concentration of waste would be 0.08% and the radio-activity in the vicinity would probably be less than in the actual mine.
Posted by Foyle, Monday, 6 December 2010 11:56:40 AM
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veritas, the nuclear reactors in France just look like a large warehouse, nothing like a power station. I noted on my visit last month that they even paint these power stations with nice, colour blended pastel colours, same in Spain. The big blight in the Loire valley is the wind farms, absolutely horrific visual destruction of a sensational location.

As for the nuclear power stations, I doubt anyone would notice they were there. We didn't and we were looking for them.
Posted by spindoc, Monday, 6 December 2010 12:03:11 PM
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Good on you Taswegian. Let's get all this into perspective. Nuclear energy will continue to be progressively used throughout the world and I am quite sure that waste will become a small problem when compared to many of the alternatives, although I am the first to admit we need a mixture where suitable.. We are faced with far greater disaster with the climate change and acidification of the oceans through carbon dioxide.

I wrote a comment recently about the thousands of people killed each year in the mining of coal and the fact that the emotional degree attached to anything remotely connected with anything nuclear was out of all proportion to the fatality rate. I was disappointed that most of the replies were too flippant to even consider as serious, but then I sometimes wonder whether we can get some good debate on this forum. Today seems to be an exception.

We are uniquely positioned here in Australia with all our desert and stable geology to store and process the waste, so maybe we could do it for many other countries and make it an export market.
Posted by snake, Monday, 6 December 2010 12:17:09 PM
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I have seen metion that China has some 250 nuclear power stations planned.
If this is so it must mean that reprocessing is a real option and will
reduce significantly the amount of waste. Otherwise there would not be
enough fuel for all those reactors.
I believe with level of reprocessing the radioactivity is a lot less.
Anybody know by how much ?
Posted by Bazz, Monday, 6 December 2010 12:37:28 PM
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This is so typical.

>>China has some 250 nuclear power stations planned.<<

I've no idea whether the number is correct, but it wouldn't surprise me one little bit.

Developing nations are analytical, decisive and action-oriented. We - like much of Europe and the entire US - have turned indecision into an art form.

In our over-developed nation, with the vast majority of the population living in comfort and prosperity, we resist change - any change - with the ferocity of a mother tiger defending her cubs.

The most conservative in the population - in our case, we call them "the Greens" - will summon up our deepest fears, of nuclear holocaust, of dying of thirst, of being overrun by immigrants - and play them back to us over and over, to discourage all forms of progress, and make a virtue out of doing absolutely nothing.

Meanwhile, developing countries will invest in their long-term future, to the benefit of their entire population.

In twenty years time, when we have been finally relegated to the economic position of "the cheap holiday destination in the south", the reactionaries who ensued us this position will still be saying "no" to absolutely everything they cannot, or will not, understand.

Incidentally, veritas, have you actually been to the Loire valley? The last time I was there I cycled past the Chinon nuclear plant in Avoine. It is entirely unremarkable - Avoine itself isn't exactly picturesque - and if it hadn't been marked on the map, you wouldn't give it a second thought.
Posted by Pericles, Monday, 6 December 2010 1:26:03 PM
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I hardly think the Greens are panicking about "Australia being overrun by immigrants". Aren't they the ones who'd allow an "open door" policy for "refugees" from every failed state on the planet? Sure, they think Australia's overpopulated- I'd agree on that point, but they make an an exception for "refugees".

Good point, the one about more people killed by coal mines than nuclear reactors (or uranium mines). To that number could be added the many whose lives are blighted by coal-fired power station emissions, espwecially in developing countries with poor pollution regulation.

I don't have any great problem with wind turbines- provided they're a decent distance from my house (they make a racket). I'd be happy living next door to a nuclear reactor. One issue with solar power rarely mentioned is the pollution from the rare elements used in their manufacture (like gallium).
Posted by viking13, Monday, 6 December 2010 1:44:18 PM
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What I dislike about the nuke power industry is how it is always sold on the promise of solutions to come. What other trader gets away with illegal 'bait and switch' advertising?

As for the claimed ease with which nuclear waste is disposed of 'safely', President Obama has inherited the poisoned chalice of all US presidents, a big hole in the budget for storing tons of waste that cannot be successfully stored anywhere despite the availability of deserts in the US and claimed safe deep storage.

As usual and since WW2, the 'safe' solution for storing waste has always been 'just around the corner'. If so, why does Obama and George Bush before him have a problem?

What the US needs, as does the world, is a compliant, soft, ingratiating ally to take the crap. They have figured that out with the cradle to grave concept (the originator takes the poisonous crap back), but that is politically intolerable (in Oz) until Oz gets in the game too.

Getting into reactors is easy, just create new taxes :( But eventually disposing of those old tech, ie present tech, reactors is gut wrenchingly expensive and all for old technology that produces a lot of waste. After being feted by George Bush and the US State Department, the sycophant John Howard thought that Australia would take waste because it was 'valuable' for reprocessing. Since when did Uncle Sam give away anything 'valuable'?

Who wants to buy reactors to give others the leg-in to use Australia as the nuclear dump for the world?
Posted by Cornflower, Tuesday, 7 December 2010 1:44:37 AM
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I believe that a lot of the remarks you are making, are on the grounds that Martin Ferguson is intelligent enough to make these decisions, however I doubt that any person of any party, has that kind of genuine knowledge, and I would prefer to hear from people who have had real experience of nuclear process. I don't want to be here today and gone tomorrow, many might like that idea, but it doesn't suit me.
Posted by merv09, Tuesday, 7 December 2010 4:34:52 AM
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Admittly, we would receive more value out of using it ourselves, considering the hugh amount of imports we get of clothing, tools and other goods, all articles we used to made here before our idiot politicans decided to export our coal and iron ore etc. I would like to see the return of the industries, manufacturing etc that we used to have before we got those really smart politicians since 1970, who believe in destroying everything Australian.
Posted by merv09, Tuesday, 7 December 2010 4:44:44 AM
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cornflower "What I dislike about the RENEWABLE power industry is how it is always sold on the promise of solutions to come. What other trader gets away with illegal 'bait and switch' advertising?'

There, fixed .. what happened to all the green jobs we were promised from renewable sources, what happened to all the new jobs from "renewable innovation" .. all BS, bait and switch, get the subsidies using taxpayer money, and deliver bugger all.

How come it is a protected species?

Wind and solar will never replace base load power generation, so why all the subsidies? In Tasmania, the wind isn't blowing "like it should", so they are losing millions after government (taxpayer) subsidies to build them.

Hot rock power (Tim Flannery's folly) has sucked up over $100M of taxpayer money now for zero result.

So why not nuclear? At least we know it can generate base load power .. it's not a bait and switch, what's the switch?

you get power and you deal with the waste, like many countries do now
Posted by Amicus, Tuesday, 7 December 2010 4:50:17 AM
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Amicus, "it's not a bait and switch, what's the switch? you get power and you deal with the waste, like many countries do now"

You are so right, it is just plain old-fashioned fraud to sell nuke power generation on the basis of solutions that aren't there yet. All of that BS about fast breeder reactors that produce less waste when what you are really buying is existing old technology with the same old waste problems. On top of that there is the surreal cost of decommissioning old technology nuke power stations.

Now do you reckon that the good old USofA would find it just as easy to convince the Oz govt to take those old mountain hills of nuke waste as they did to get our Joolia to denounce one of our own citizens, namely Julian Paul Assange? In the Howard government there was that fishnet stockinged buffoon Alexander Downer who volunteered his home State of South Australia and right where there was a fault line. Talk about bending over backwards, and forwards, for Uncle Sam.

Oh and would we have to wait for Wikileaks to tell us if the Oz government ever secretly undertook to take Uncle Sam's waste? Assuming that such agreements would always be protected by security against both government's own citizens. One continually wonders who the Australian government is working for.

I am not opposed nuclear power, but I see no reason whatsoever to panic into buying existing old technology. Nor do I believe we should supply our plentiful, quality coal to others but not use it ourselves.
Posted by Cornflower, Tuesday, 7 December 2010 7:21:35 AM
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Cornflower,

The reprocessing technology is presently available and being used in France successfully under government control.

In the US as all nuclear plants are privately owned, a law was passed forbidding reprocessing, as one product of this reprocessing is plutonium.

The US is considering repealing this legislation in favour of a federal body in charge of reprocessing the spent fuel rods. If this occurs, there is no longer need for the hugely expensive Yucca mountain repository, as there will be far less uranium to handle, and it will have only a tiny fraction of the radioactivity, and none of the deadly isotopes.

Technology is moving forward, and the scare campaigns of the greens is proving empty.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Tuesday, 7 December 2010 8:19:42 AM
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Shadow Minister,

I was not supporting Greens' policy. There are questions that must be properly answered and to the satisfaction of voters before Australia takes the step. For instance, what do we do about our coal reserves and contracts?

As you admit yourself through the Yucca example, the 'solutions' to waste are always just around the corner. It has been that way for a very long time, for generations.

Australian governments have a poor record, allowing the Brits to pollute Australia through testing nuclear weapons and then being allowed to renege on the clean-up. All because a Liberal PM wanted an Oz nuclear bomb and hoped the Brits would hand over bomb secrets if they were allowed to test in Australia. Fat chance and they never did.

As recent but minor example, in NSW contaminated soil was removed from a location and dumped as land fill in another. Not a big deal but it reminded the public that promises and rules are made to be broken.

That sort of stuff just doesn't fill the public with confidence. Especially where a PM (Howard) can go to the US and after being feted by the US State Department, undergo a sudden, miraculous conversion to become George Bush's No1 salesman for nuclear power and for making Australia into a nuclear waste dump.

We need statesmen with an eye for Australia's interests. Obviously they are few and far between. Maybe that is the biggest problem. However, the first written warranty must be that Australia never will become the waste dump for other countries, particularly the US and UK. It is too easy isn't it, Indigenous land rights has ensured a convenient way to get dumps approved, while avoiding it as an issue for all Australians.
Posted by Cornflower, Tuesday, 7 December 2010 9:59:38 AM
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Cornflower,

In my previous post, I said that as used in France for decades, the technology exists and can be used safely. In the US and other countries, what is missing is the legislation framework.

This compares starkly to the renewables industry, which not only has strong legislative support and incentives, but even after decades of development, lacks the technology to provide cheap power, or any form of base load to replace coal.

France is the only country in the world that has already meet the Kyoto targets whilst maintaining growth and amongst the lowest electricity prices in Europe.

Notably the "Green" countries are striving to meet their emission targets by buying significant amounts of nuclear generated power from France.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Tuesday, 7 December 2010 11:34:50 AM
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People just don't seem to care that nuclear waste is soon to be worth $30 trillion dollars. Australia should be offering to 'dump' the world's waste so that we can guard this incredible asset!

GenIV reactors are coming, and when they are finally commercialised they'll burn the waste. When this happens, just the nuclear waste we already have sitting around could run the world for 500 years! Finally, after being run through a GenIV reactor there *is* still a tithe of that original waste left over but it only has to be stored for about 300 years and then is safe.

What waste problem? Waste is the solution!

Check my poster about nuclear waste being the solution here.
http://eclipsenow.wordpress.com/nuclear-posters/

(Free to download and print out, and redirects people across to Dr Barry Brook's nuclear blog).
Posted by Eclipse Now, Tuesday, 7 December 2010 2:52:48 PM
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Shadow Minister

Thanks and we can afford to wait for the Gen4 reactors.

I wasn't commenting on the 'Green' solutions, which should continue to be developed but are problematical for a host of reasons. We use some of the solar solutions on a property and it is more suitable for niche applications than a power grid.
Posted by Cornflower, Tuesday, 7 December 2010 7:29:50 PM
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Will the proponents of nukes be building waste management into upfront costs for nuclear power or will they dump that cost onto future generations?

(Given that waste will need to be managed for safety and security for around a million years and every time it is re-packaged the volume of waste will grow as containment materials become contaminated)
Posted by maaate, Tuesday, 7 December 2010 7:33:53 PM
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maaate, you lie. We WILL NOT be storing it for a million years. Go back a few posts to my last post. Nuclear waste is far too valuable to 'store' for a million years. That would be like digging up our best oil only to bury it back in a depleted aquifer! Ridiculous! Rather than a 'cost' to be factored in, have you factored in that nuclear 'waste' is only once-through fuel, and that today's waste alone could run the world for 500 years? That it is accumulatively worth $30 TRILLION DOLLARS!

Didn't know about GenIV reactors that 'eat' waste did you?

The problem with nuclear waste is not that we have too much, is that we don't have enough. We need to build a bunch of Gen3 reactors while they commercialise the proven physics behind Gen4 reactors. By the time the Gen4 reactors are ready, we'll have enough waste to run the world for 1000 years... and who knows what we'll have to power the world by then! So basically I see us mining uranium for the next 30 or so years and then closing the mines while the world burns through centuries of reprocessed 'breeder' fuels.
Posted by Eclipse Now, Tuesday, 7 December 2010 9:10:20 PM
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If we are to go down the nuclear power station path should we be starting to train the engineers and technicians that will be needed to run the plants.

Or are we going rely on overseas to provide the expertise - again?

I believe there is a world shortage of suitable staff and seeing it could take 20 years to train a nuclear plant manager we may have problems unless we start now.
Posted by PeterA, Wednesday, 8 December 2010 8:25:17 AM
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Hi PeterA,
I agree with the point: if we are going to go down the nuclear pathway it will need to be BIG TIME and a whole new industry in Australia will be born. But 20 years to train a manager? Isn't that a bit excessive?

The other thing we need to keep in mind is national, or even international, manufacturing and safety standards. Rather than custom build each nuclear power plant the expensive way, GE are developing a modular GenIV reactor that can be manufactured on the assembly line in modular components that are then trucked to the site and clipped together there.

The emphasis is on unified standards, increasing speed, decreasing cost and getting the job done! (Woah, that sounded like an add for GE. What I'm mainly enthusiastic about is any approach that can save us from peak oil and global warming, and I'd support any reputable firm that developed a safe, fast, cheap reactor chain).

Check it out: it's on the way. We already have 300 reactor years with breeders. We can do this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-PRIS
Posted by Eclipse Now, Wednesday, 8 December 2010 8:39:26 AM
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Why 20 years to train a manager - would you want a new graduate to run a nuclear power station.

Or would you want the manager to get the experience (training) working in the industry before he takes over running a multibillion project.
Posted by PeterA, Wednesday, 8 December 2010 2:52:29 PM
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The waste problem has not been solved.

We have to store (the waste) until a possible new reactor maybe able to recycle the waste.

As the technology, for new reactors, does not exist then it may not happen and we should be planning for that - not on the hope that it will be OK.

We could be looking at fifty or more years of storage.
Posted by PeterA, Wednesday, 8 December 2010 3:05:09 PM
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Traing any technical staff is a problem. The local TAFE does not even
have an electrical trades course !
Any nuclear project will need a large staff of electrical and
electronics workers. Let alone the scientific staff and generation
engineering staff.
It can only be done if the government does what it always says it will
do and crank up the TAFEs and engineering courses instead of importing
temporary staff.
Posted by Bazz, Wednesday, 8 December 2010 3:54:48 PM
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Peter A,
Fifty years? Really? Don't you mean 5 to 10 years, at least for the prototype? Then when commercialised, they'll be rushing these things out on the assembly line to deal with peak coal which is coming soon.

"AIKEN, S.C.--27 October 2010-- GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) and Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, LLC, (SRNS) today announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to explore the potential of deploying a prototype of GEH’s Generation IV PRISM reactor as part of a proposed demonstration of small modular reactor technologies at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Savannah River Site.

The MOU sets the stage for continued discussions on the potential NRC licensing and deployment of a 299-megawatt (MW) PRISM reactor at the federally owned facility. SRNS is the management and operating contractor for DOE at Savannah River Site (SRS)."

http://tinyurl.com/268bnfa
Posted by Eclipse Now, Wednesday, 8 December 2010 4:16:47 PM
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OK 50 years may be wrong but seeing no one is putting a time line up it is a good an estimate as any one else's.

If the consumption from one new plant is equal to the production of the old then we need as many new units as existing and proposed.

That is 500+ reactors at present.

Then we need more reactors to start consuming the stored waste, how many? 50? 100? 500?

So how many reactors are needed to consume all the waste?

How long are Gen 4 reactors going to take to build? 1 a week? 1 a month? 1 a year?
How long will it take to build a production plant(s)?

Till then the waste has to be stored and will be increasing every year.

So saying the new generators are the solution does not seem to me to be correct.

We have a waste problem.
Posted by PeterA, Thursday, 9 December 2010 8:22:43 AM
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Pffft. All the world's nuclear waste could be stacked in barrels 1 layer high on a football field. Compare that to coal tailings! Waste problem indeed. I say again, with GenIV reactors it could run the world for 500 years and so is worth $30 trillion dollars! Do you think a nation should invest a little money to try to protect that asset? ;-)

What we have coming is a whole new world where nuclear 'waste' will be called 'once-used fuel', where it moves onto a nuclear facility and NEVER leaves, where it is bred and processed and used again and again on site, where the final waste product is so small it can be stored in a bunker on site for 300 years, and where all today's 'waste' will be in the breeding-fuel use/fuel creation process within a generation or so (and not sitting around waiting to be used), and where by the time we are done burning all today's 'waste' the first generation of *real* nuclear waste will already be safe and decommissioned from storage!

Nuclear 'waste' is not the problem, it is the solution! I should know — my poster says so. ;-)

http://eclipsenow.wordpress.com/nuclear-posters/
Posted by Eclipse Now, Thursday, 9 December 2010 9:06:04 AM
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'Pffft. All the world's nuclear waste could be stacked in barrels 1 layer high on a football field.'

There is no point in saying put it in a barrel as no existing technology exists to do so.

If it was possible then why has in not been done?

Why are countries trying to find a hole to bury the huge amount of waste if they thought it could have been put in a barrel.

And it has not answered my question on how many GenIV reactors are required and how are we going to build them.

And what about the waste until the 1000 reactors are built, if ever!!

By making statements is not good enough, that something in the future may happen and may fix a problem, in the mean time what?
Posted by PeterA, Thursday, 9 December 2010 10:08:33 AM
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Peter A,
They do store it in barrels, for now, not for the ‘long term’. Many in the know in the nuclear industry are not that worried about looking for longer term storage because they anticipate what is coming. We have 300 reactor years experience with breeders, we know the fuel cycle, and are just working out how to commercialise it cheaply. It’s coming.

GenIV reactors were cancelled because of a misunderstanding over the fuel cycle — it breeds plutonium from uranium, but plutonium that is not pure enough to make a bomb.

So, how many need to be built? Let me answer by asking how much power do you want?

Once IFR's are on the production line in China the world will quickly run out. We don’t have ENOUGH waste to kick start the first generation of IFRs if we build them as fast as we need to!

It takes a few fuel cycles to BREED the uranium into plutonium.

When the world wakes up to the fact that the IFR is the only way to provide reliable baseload power for the next generation it will become the ONLY new power station built. China will pull these things off the production line so fast we’ll be shutting down coal stations and plugging these guys in. AT THAT RATE WE DON’T HAVE ENOUGH ‘WASTE’! It will all enter the fuel cycle and we’ll run out. So we'll have to build Gen3 reactors and keep mining uranium to feed the Gen4 reactors. Storing waste is not the problem mate. We'll have too many GenIV reactors in about 20 years. When the word gets out how valuable 'nuclear waste' is, we'll guard it like diamonds, like platinum!
Posted by Eclipse Now, Thursday, 9 December 2010 10:26:33 AM
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Eclipse Now, "Pffft. All the world's nuclear waste could be stacked in barrels 1 layer high on a football field."

So how come the major powers haven't called on you for advice in disposing of all of those reactor cores from their nuclear warships? Twenty plus years behind they are. You would be most critical of the US Defence department for continually running out of storage space, for starters. Phone Obama, their budgets for storage are bleeding him white.
Posted by Cornflower, Thursday, 9 December 2010 10:43:49 AM
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Whatever the amount of money wasted at Yucca mountain for largely political reasons due to misunderstanding the kind of plutonium used in IFR's, please remember that many of these fuels can be reprocessed and used up in IFR's.

EG: Nuclear warheads can be processed into the fuel cycle. Check out Megatons to Megawatts.

"From 1995 through September 2010, 400 metric tons of highly-enriched uranium from Russian nuclear warheads have been recycled into low-enriched-uranium fuel for U.S. nuclear power plants. This program has eliminated the equivalent of 16,000 nuclear warheads. The Megatons to Megawatts government-to-government program goal of eliminating 500 metric tons of warhead material is scheduled to be completed in 2013. Currently, one in 10 American homes, businesses, schools and hospitals receive electricity generated by this Megatons to Megawatts fuel See:
http://www.usec.com/megatonstomegawatts.htm
http://nnsa.energy.gov/news/2592.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megatons_to_Megawatts
Posted by Eclipse Now, Thursday, 9 December 2010 1:40:01 PM
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Cornflower,

The storage of waste is not "bleeding the nuclear industry white" as presently the majority of it is stored in drums in warehouses, mostly on the generating sites.

The issue with any waste problem is to reduce it and make what remains less dangerous. Some similarities can be drawn with household waste. Because of the cost and undesirability of land fills, house hold waste is sorted at source into plastics, paper, garden waste, and rubbish. The plastics, paper, and garden waste are recycled generating the council revenue, and the small fraction of house hold waste can either be incinerated, or taken to landfill. Similarly, the spent fuel rods while highly radioactive contain much value.

Natural mined uranium contains about 0.5% of the active U235, which needs to be enriched to 5%, the 90% depleted uranium has such a low radioactivity that it is almost not measurable and is used in industrial machinery and munitions.

once the rods have been spent, they still contain 1.5% U238 along with small quantities of other highly radioactive nasties such as Iodine and plutonium. The reprocessing process removes the plutonium which can be used for fast breeder reactors, and the Iodine, which is used for medicine etc, and leaves the now far less active U238 which can be used directly in CANDU type reactors or mixed with more highly enriched (20%) fuel and re used in standard reactors.

The end result is a tiny fraction of the waste we have today.

The downside is that it increases the fuel cost, but in comparison to the cost of renewable power, it is still cheap.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Thursday, 9 December 2010 3:43:35 PM
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Eclipse Now 'So, how many need to be built? Let me answer by asking how much power do you want?'

Say a 1000.

'We'll have too many GenIV reactors in about 20 years'

And there is not even a prototype been built.

No production plant planned.

Could go on but a waste of time it just will not happen in that time scale.

Totally pie in the sky.
Posted by PeterA, Friday, 10 December 2010 5:57:09 AM
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[Deleted at request of the author of the comment.]
Posted by Eclipse Now, Friday, 10 December 2010 7:44:03 AM
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PeterA, please forgive my tone in the last post. I have asked to have it deleted.

But back onto the topic at hand. You said you wanted 1000 reactors?

China opens a coal plant *every week*. That's just for their domestic energy market. Prototype IFR's are planned in India and Russia, let alone the proposal I showed you for America.

Now just imagine China finally sees a working IFR in India or America. They'll quickly figure out how to modularise IFR's — which is really the whole point of GenIV reactors to bring the price down and ensure their market share. (That's the radical nature of GE's plans for the S-PRISM IFR — whacking nukes up on the assembly line!)

Imagine China DECIDES (in a way democracy's seem incapable of unless threatened with war) to build a few IFR manufacturing plants, and as they hit peak coal start pumping out IFR's at the same rate they open coal fired power stations. 1 a week.

That's at least 50 nukes a year, and in 20 years? There's your 1000.

However, we haven't figured in here the fact that both India and China might end up competing to EXPORT the lowest cost assembly line IFR components shipped to the rest of the world. It would become a MAJOR earner, like a few car multinationals combined!

I submit that once IFR's hit the assembly line, the sky's are not even the limit. We'll have IFR's in space, running a Moon base, even running Mars. And once we're in space or running a moon-base, then launch costs from the moon are much lower and we might even get Space Based Solar Power running.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_based_solar_power
Posted by Eclipse Now, Friday, 10 December 2010 10:21:18 AM
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Eclipse
Don't take that coffee, you're on a high already. Can I respectfully suggest you calm down instead.
Posted by bonmot, Friday, 10 December 2010 10:35:02 AM
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What is not to like about the IFR? Breeds nuclear waste as fuel for 500 years — and the point of my post above is WHO KNOWS what we'll have developed by then?

As for your implication that the IFR is unrealistic any time soon...

"In October 2010, General Electric-Hitachi signed a memorandum of understanding with the operators of the Department of Energy's Savannah River site, which should allow the construction of a demonstration reactor prior to the design receiving full NRC licensing approval[3]."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-PRISM
Posted by Eclipse Now, Friday, 10 December 2010 10:49:14 AM
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Eclipse
Who was your post (Friday, 10 December 2010 10:49:14 AM - following mine) directed at? You didn't acknowledge anyone in your response.

For what it's worth, I am totally supportive of IFR being rolled out as soon as practicable, passing all QA/QC of course.
Posted by bonmot, Friday, 10 December 2010 11:13:00 AM
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