Nuclear Power - A Solution To America's Energy Needs?

[RiversideGator]

Excellent article (although admittedly from a conservative periodical) on nuclear power in France:

Parlez-Vous Nucleaire?
By William Tucker
Published 5/12/2008 12:08:37 AM

For more than a year I've been giving a speech about nuclear energy that proclaims, "The French keep all their nuclear waste from thirty years of producing 80 percent of their electricity in one room at La Havre."

Last week I got to stand in that room. Somehow I had imagined it was a bit smaller -- maybe the size of a modest visitor's center. Actually it's about the size of a basketball gymnasium. Still, it's one room. Scattered around the concrete floor are about 40 two-and-a-half-foot manhole covers stenciled with the logo of Areva, the French nuclear reactor company. The lids are so tightly sealed, with no visible handles, that I had to wonder whether they could be removed.

"They're magnetized," explained our guide. "There's an overhead crane that lifts them off. Beneath them is another set of seals with screw-tops and handles." Beneath that, stacked vertically in small rings to a depth of about 20 feet are two-foot-long canisters containing fission products, the most intensely radioactive of what is commonly mislabeled "nuclear waste."

You'd think people would be interested in this stuff back in America. While I was touring Areva's major facilities, the French company announced a proposed uranium enrichment plant in Idaho Falls, a $2-billion project that will be an important link in America's nuclear revival. Yet the story didn't even make Associated Press. A couple of Idaho papers ran the press release but inevitably paired it with a manifesto from the Snake River Alliance that such a temple to idolatry will never be built in their Garden of Eden.


SO IT GOES. I've spent almost three years trying to find a publisher for a book on nuclear power and global warming, called Terrestrial Energy. Two publishers -- one conservative, one liberal -- bought the manuscript and then decided they just couldn't publish it -- too touchy a subject, too declasse. Even conservatives have trouble embracing the technology. Just let Ralph Nader have his way on this one and concentrate on debunking global warming. Finally, a small progressive house called Bartleby Press picked it up off this site and will bring it out next September.

After years of trying to convince New York editors that nuclear power has a future, touring France's three-decade-old infrastructure was like a trip through Narnia. One Areva brochure begins: "In a gigantic nuclear explosion, nuclear energy made the curtain rise on the history of the universe. From distant stars to the earth's core, it continues its constructive work. Man has learnt to master one nuclear reaction, fission, taming it into a clean and inexpensive energy."

That's the precise theme of my book. Nuclear energy is a perfectly natural phenomenon. It heats the center of the earth to 7000o F, hotter than the surface of the sun. We're just borrowing it, as we do all things in nature. The crucial difference is that nuclear energy is so highly concentrated -- 2 million times more powerful than burning coal and 20 million times more powerful than solar energy -- that it leaves virtually no environmental footprint -- just a couple of canisters beneath a concrete floor near Cherbourg. This is Greek to sophisticates from New York to New Mexico, all of them wringing their hands about global warming. In France, however, it's boilerplate in marketing brochures.

And that's why the French are sprinting ahead of us in bringing nuclear energy to the world. Areva is in the process of building new plants in Finland, China, and the United States. It is reprocessing all of Japan's spent fuel. Its most spectacular success is at the MELOX plant in Avignon, where we toured Monday. There the French are taking thousands of tons of bomb-grade uranium that the Russians had stockpiled for weapons and "de-enriching" it down to reactor grade to be burned in American power plants. One out of every ten light bulbs in America is now powered by a former Soviet weapon. You'd think people would be dancing in the streets. Instead, all we get is press releases from the Sierra Club announcing how nuclear is a "backward energy policy."


MAKE NO MISTAKE, nuclear material is powerful and dangerous stuff. At La Hague, just before we visited the storage gymnasium, we stood before a foot-thick window watching a 50-foot column of spent nuclear fuel being lifted through the floor of the receiving room like some giant benthic organism being raised from the deep.

"Why is the glass so yellow," I asked our guide in one of those innocent questions that usually leads somewhere.

"It's treated with lead so that it filters out most of the light," he said. "It's for radiation protection."

"What's the radiation coming out of that thing?" I asked, staring at what now looked like a sinister sea creature dangling behind the glass.

He consults for a moment with a nuclear scientist who only speaks French. "Une milliard millirads," the answer comes back. "About a million millirads."

Quick calculation. That's 1,000 rems, about double the exposure you would have gotten by standing next to the atomic bomb when it exploded at Hiroshima. "No one has been in that room for fifteen years and no one will for decades to come," says our guide. "They would be killed instantly."

But we are standing 15 feet away -- with the thick walls and lead-tinted glass between us.

"What happens when something needs repair in there?" I ask.

"Right here," he demonstrates. Next to the window are a pair of handles that manipulate two long mechanical arms that stretch across the room. There are eight windows placed around the 2500-square-foot receiving space so that every remote corner can be reached. Right beneath us, on the other side of the glass, is a set of tools fitted for the mechanical arms, including -- incongruously -- a paintbrush, apparently used for dusting.

"You should see those guys work the handles," says our guide. "It's amazing what they can do. We should have brought someone down to show you."


IN PARIS WE TALKED with Jacques Besnainou, a cheerful vice president of recycling, who modestly claimed that France is only moving ahead with what America originally invented. "Glenn Seaborg [the Nobel Prize winner and one-time head of the Atomic Energy Commission] discovered the solvent that would extract plutonium after a long effort in 1944," Besnainou tells us. "The technology hasn't changed much since."

Still, it's hard to avoid those cat-that-ate-the-canary smiles. When I mention Yucca Mountain, they almost turn sympathetic. "Why would anyone dig a hole in a mountain to bury material that is valuable for recycling?" asks Besnainou. "You recycle household garbage. Why not reprocess spent fuel? We're calling these spent fuel assemblies 'the new uranium mines,' there's so much fuel potential in there."

Face it, the French are now miles ahead of us. Nuclear electricity is the country's third largest export, behind only wine and agricultural products. Natural gas imports are less than half that of Germany and England. Carbon emissions are 20 percent below the rest of the continent. Signs in Paris direct you to recharging stations for electric cars. Nuclear power is keeping the whole economy afloat.

When the French government was selling nuclear power to the public in the 1970s, they had a slogan: "We don't have any oil, but we have plenty of ideas." In America for the past thirty years, we've lived by a different slogan: "We may not have any ideas, but we've got plenty of coal."


William Tucker, a frequent contributor to The American Spectator, is a writer living in Nyack, New York. His latest book, Terrestrial Energy, will be published by Bartleby Press this fall.

http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=13189

[Midway ®]

Why bother with nuclear power? Expensive and complicated.

Coal fired plants are much cheaper, and since they don't hurt the environment, because as you have already proved beyond any reasonable doubt, global warming is just a hoax, so go with coal.

We have plentiful supplies of coal in this country, and the technology for coal fired generating plants is mature and readily available on short notice.

All that burning coal produces is a little bit of ash and smoke, which the wind just blows away someplace.

And besides, let's take the scenario that nuclear power might be cheaper than coal; in that case the power companies would actually earn less money than if their expenses were higher, because their profit is a percentage of their revenues, and if their costs went down, their revenues would decrease, which in turn would lead to lower profits, which would hurt the widows and orphans that own their stock, as you have previously stated.

So, to sum it up, I just don't understand why you would propose something like this that would be a detriment to industry, widows and orphans.

You must hate America!

[Midway ®]

Temperature of the Earth's core:

Ask A Scientist
General Science Archive
   
Temperature of the Earth's core

Question:
How hot is the Earth's core, approximately, and how can it be measured?
kathleen n mecham

Answer:
There is no way to measure the temperature at the Earth's core
directly.  We know from mines and drill holes that, near
the surface of the Earth, the temperature increases by about
1 degree Fahrenheit for every 60 feet in depth.  If this
temperature increase continued to the center of the Earth, the
Earth's core would be 100,000 degrees Celsius!

But nobody believes the Earth is that hot; the temperature increase
must slow down with depth and the core is probably
about 3000 to 5000 degrees Celsius.

This estimate of the temperature is derived from theoretical
modeling and laboratory experiments.  This work is very
difficult (and speculative) since nobody can reproduce
in a laboratory the high temperatures and pressures that
exist in the core.  Also it is not known exactly what
the core is made of.
-Grant

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/gen99/gen99256.htm


Temperature of the sun:

The Sun is the most prominent feature in our solar system. It is the largest object and contains approximately 98% of the total solar system mass. One hundred and nine Earths would be required to fit across the Sun's disk, and its interior could hold over 1.3 million Earths. The Sun's outer visible layer is called the photosphere and has a temperature of 6,000°C (11,000°F). This layer has a mottled appearance due to the turbulent eruptions of energy at the surface.

Solar energy is created deep within the core of the Sun. It is here that the temperature (15,000,000° C; 27,000,000° F) and pressure (340 billion times Earth's air pressure at sea level) is so intense that nuclear reactions take place. This reaction causes four protons or hydrogen nuclei to fuse together to form one alpha particle or helium nucleus. The alpha particle is about .7 percent less massive than the four protons. The difference in mass is expelled as energy and is carried to the surface of the Sun, through a process known as convection, where it is released as light and heat. Energy generated in the Sun's core takes a million years to reach its surface. Every second 700 million tons of hydrogen are converted into helium ashes. In the process 5 million tons of pure energy is released; therefore, as time goes on the Sun is becoming lighter.

The chromosphere is above the photosphere. Solar energy passes through this region on its way out from the center of the Sun. Faculae and flares arise in the chromosphere. Faculae are bright luminous hydrogen clouds which form above regions where sunspots are about to form. Flares are bright filaments of hot gas emerging from sunspot regions. Sunspots are dark depressions on the photosphere with a typical temperature of 4,000°C (7,000°F).

The corona is the outer part of the Sun's atmosphere. It is in this region that prominences appears. Prominences are immense clouds of glowing gas that erupt from the upper chromosphere. The outer region of the corona stretches far into space and consists of particles traveling slowly away from the Sun. The corona can only be seen during total solar eclipses.

The Sun appears to have been active for 4.6 billion years and has enough fuel to go on for another five billion years or so. At the end of its life, the Sun will start to fuse helium into heavier elements and begin to swell up, ultimately growing so large that it will swallow the Earth. After a billion years as a red giant, it will suddenly collapse into a white dwarf -- the final end product of a star like ours. It may take a trillion years to cool off completely.

http://www.solarviews.com/eng/sun.htm

As is plain to see, the article posted by Mr. Gator gets the temperatures of both the core of the Earth and the surface of the Sun wrong. I guess that the article was written by a historian. I wonder what else is wrong with it? There also seems to be no mention of any nuclear reaction going on in the core of the Earth either. Oh well, thats just a minor omission. Who would be interested about nuclear fission going on at the center of earth, anyway?

[Midway ®]

Here is the writer's bio:

William Tucker

Email: editor@spectator.org

WILLIAM TUCKER is a writer in Brooklyn, New York, and a frequent contributor to www.spectator.org.

Sounds qualified to talk about nuclear power to me! He is equally qualified as Mr. Gator.

[RiversideGator]

I think the main thrust of the article is that nuclear power is clean, cheap and safe.  And, I dont believe that the author claimed to be a nuclear physicist.  Are you?  (What was your field again?)  Regarding the accuracy of the article, the questions we should concern ourselves with are:
1)  Is it true that France generates much of its energy from nuclear power?
2)  Is it true that the power generators are safe and operated without serious incident?
3)  Is it true that the nuclear waste can be recycled and the unrecycleable remnants safely stored in a manner that does not harm humanity?

Finally, as to the global warming theory, I have always stated that there is some chance it is true.  If so, nuclear power is the obvious solution.  The fact that liberals have resisted its use tends to indicate that their real goal is not to prevent warming but rather is to thwart progress.  Also, there is clearly such a thing as localized pollution and bad air quality both of which can be made worse by burning coal.  So, nuclear would aid with these problems regardless of the accuracy of the GW theory.

[RiversideGator]

Here is the writer's bio:

William Tucker

Email: editor@spectator.org

WILLIAM TUCKER is a writer in Brooklyn, New York, and a frequent contributor to www.spectator.org.

Sounds qualified to talk about nuclear power to me! He is equally qualified as Mr. Gator.

Mr. Gator is "equally qualified" as you (until you tell us all what your field is). 

[RiversideGator]

Article from the WSJ re subsidies for various energy producing methods:

Wind ($23.37) v. Gas (25 Cents)
May 12, 2008; Page A14

Congress seems ready to spend billions on a new "Manhattan Project" for green energy, or at least the political class really, really likes talking about one. But maybe we should look at what our energy subsidy dollars are buying now.

Some clarity comes from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), an independent federal agency that tried to quantify government spending on energy production in 2007. The agency reports that the total taxpayer bill was $16.6 billion in direct subsidies, tax breaks, loan guarantees and the like. That's double in real dollars from eight years earlier, as you'd expect given all the money Congress is throwing at "renewables." Even more subsidies are set to pass this year.

An even better way to tell the story is by how much taxpayer money is dispensed per unit of energy, so the costs are standardized. For electricity generation, the EIA concludes that solar energy is subsidized to the tune of $24.34 per megawatt hour, wind $23.37 and "clean coal" $29.81. By contrast, normal coal receives 44 cents, natural gas a mere quarter, hydroelectric about 67 cents and nuclear power $1.59.

The wind and solar lobbies are currently moaning that they don't get their fair share of the subsidy pie. They also argue that subsidies per unit of energy are always higher at an early stage of development, before innovation makes large-scale production possible. But wind and solar have been on the subsidy take for years, and they still account for less than 1% of total net electricity generation. Would it make any difference if the federal subsidy for wind were $50 per megawatt hour, or even $100? Almost certainly not without a technological breakthrough.

By contrast, nuclear power provides 20% of U.S. base electricity production, yet it is subsidized about 15 times less than wind. We prefer an energy policy that lets markets determine which energy source dominates. But if you believe in subsidies, then nuclear power gets a lot more power for the buck than other "alternatives."

The same study also looked at federal subsidies for non-electrical energy production, such as for fuel. It found that ethanol and biofuels receive $5.72 per British thermal unit of energy produced. That compares to $2.82 for solar and $1.35 for refined coal, but only three cents per BTU for natural gas and other petroleum liquids.

All of this shows that there is a reason fossil fuels continue to dominate American energy production: They are extremely cost-effective. That's a reality to keep in mind the next time you hear a politician talk about creating millions of "green jobs." Those jobs won't come cheap, and you'll be paying for them.

See all of today's editorials and op-eds, plus video commentary, on Opinion Journal.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121055427930584069.html

[Midway ®]

I think the main thrust of the article is that nuclear power is clean, cheap and safe.  And, I dont believe that the author claimed to be a nuclear physicist.  Are you?  (What was your field again?)  Regarding the accuracy of the article, the questions we should concern ourselves with are:
1)  Is it true that France generates much of its energy from nuclear power?
2)  Is it true that the power generators are safe and operated without serious incident?
3)  Is it true that the nuclear waste can be recycled and the unrecycleable remnants safely stored in a manner that does not harm humanity?

Finally, as to the global warming theory, I have always stated that there is some chance it is true.  If so, nuclear power is the obvious solution.  The fact that liberals have resisted its use tends to indicate that their real goal is not to prevent warming but rather is to thwart progress.  Also, there is clearly such a thing as localized pollution and bad air quality both of which can be made worse by burning coal.  So, nuclear would aid with these problems regardless of the accuracy of the GW theory.

And the main thrust of my comment is that this guy does not know even the simplest thing, so why should I accept anything in that article as fact?

And furthermore, I am 100% in favor of placing a nuclear power plant in Riverside. Since it is so safe, I'm sure you will have no objections.

[Midway ®]

Here is the writer's bio:

William Tucker

Email: editor@spectator.org

WILLIAM TUCKER is a writer in Brooklyn, New York, and a frequent contributor to www.spectator.org.

Sounds qualified to talk about nuclear power to me! He is equally qualified as Mr. Gator.

Mr. Gator is "equally qualified" as you (until you tell us all what your field is). 

Ahh, but the essential difference here is, that I am not writing articles that you are posting, so I don't need to know anything, because I am not the one that is making the prognostications here.

And BTW care to give me an over/under on global warming, since you think it might be true?

[Midway ®]

Article from the WSJ re subsidies for various energy producing methods:

Wind ($23.37) v. Gas (25 Cents)
May 12, 2008; Page A14

Congress seems ready to spend billions on a new "Manhattan Project" for green energy, or at least the political class really, really likes talking about one. But maybe we should look at what our energy subsidy dollars are buying now.

Some clarity comes from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), an independent federal agency that tried to quantify government spending on energy production in 2007. The agency reports that the total taxpayer bill was $16.6 billion in direct subsidies, tax breaks, loan guarantees and the like. That's double in real dollars from eight years earlier, as you'd expect given all the money Congress is throwing at "renewables." Even more subsidies are set to pass this year.

An even better way to tell the story is by how much taxpayer money is dispensed per unit of energy, so the costs are standardized. For electricity generation, the EIA concludes that solar energy is subsidized to the tune of $24.34 per megawatt hour, wind $23.37 and "clean coal" $29.81. By contrast, normal coal receives 44 cents, natural gas a mere quarter, hydroelectric about 67 cents and nuclear power $1.59.

The wind and solar lobbies are currently moaning that they don't get their fair share of the subsidy pie. They also argue that subsidies per unit of energy are always higher at an early stage of development, before innovation makes large-scale production possible. But wind and solar have been on the subsidy take for years, and they still account for less than 1% of total net electricity generation. Would it make any difference if the federal subsidy for wind were $50 per megawatt hour, or even $100? Almost certainly not without a technological breakthrough.

By contrast, nuclear power provides 20% of U.S. base electricity production, yet it is subsidized about 15 times less than wind. We prefer an energy policy that lets markets determine which energy source dominates. But if you believe in subsidies, then nuclear power gets a lot more power for the buck than other "alternatives."

The same study also looked at federal subsidies for non-electrical energy production, such as for fuel. It found that ethanol and biofuels receive $5.72 per British thermal unit of energy produced. That compares to $2.82 for solar and $1.35 for refined coal, but only three cents per BTU for natural gas and other petroleum liquids.

All of this shows that there is a reason fossil fuels continue to dominate American energy production: They are extremely cost-effective. That's a reality to keep in mind the next time you hear a politician talk about creating millions of "green jobs." Those jobs won't come cheap, and you'll be paying for them.

See all of today's editorials and op-eds, plus video commentary, on Opinion Journal.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121055427930584069.html

The premise of this article is basically insane.

To complain about the renewable energy industry getting "$16.6 billion in direct subsidies, tax breaks, loan guarantees and the like", is selective cherrypicking at it's very best. The whole premise of the article is both laughable and moronic. 

Look very carefully at this phrase, which the whole article is constructed around: $16.6 billion in direct subsidies, tax breaks, loan guarantees and the like. Now tell me how many other things just like that the government is doing that have absolutely no return at all.

This article is simple minded stupidity that would have never have passed muster when the WSJ was owned by the Bancroft family. It's just more graphic proof of how News Corp is destroying the credibility of the WSJ, and turning it into another worthless propaganda rag. It is sickening.

[RiversideGator]

The premise of this article is basically insane.

To complain about the renewable energy industry getting "$16.6 billion in direct subsidies, tax breaks, loan guarantees and the like", is selective cherrypicking at it's very best. The whole premise of the article is both laughable and moronic. 

Look very carefully at this phrase, which the whole article is constructed around: $16.6 billion in direct subsidies, tax breaks, loan guarantees and the like. Now tell me how many other things just like that the government is doing that have absolutely no return at all.

This article is simple minded stupidity that would have never have passed muster when the WSJ was owned by the Bancroft family. It's just more graphic proof of how News Corp is destroying the credibility of the WSJ, and turning it into another worthless propaganda rag. It is sickening.

The words insane, laughable, stupid, sickening and moronic now mean ideas and facts which conflict with midway's preconceived and faulty notions about the world.  It really is amusing to go through and pick out all of the extreme, negative adjectives in each of your posts.   

Back to the topic, are you claiming that "green" energy can go head to head with say coal fired plants and tie or beat them on cost per kilowatt hour?

[Midway ®]

Well, it's an extremely stupid and uninformed article.

And as I said before, I am 100% in favor of a Nuclear power plant in Riverside. The cost per kilowatt hour is exceedingly low, so it is therefore deemed to be good.

[gatorback]

Does that kilowatt per hour include the cost to remediate say a Chernobyl? Basically, the cost for humans to have evacuated the contaminated zone for say 200 million years.

[Midway ®]

Only need about 50,000 years. And anyway the cleanup would be done by Haliburton, and funded by the Government, so what's the problem?

[gatorback]

Oh well, okay then.  Bring...it...on.