Time To Rethink Nuclear Power?
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Economy, Environment, Science, Technology
France embraced it long ago, and it’s paying big dividends…
Because nuclear plants emit no greenhouse gases, France has the cleanest air in the industrialized world, and because the price of oil is now around $60 a barrel, it has the lowest electric bills in Europe. In fact, France has so much cheap electricity, it exports it to its European neighbors. French nuclear plants supply power to parts of Germany, Italy and help light the city of London.
Ahh yes, but what to do with the nuclear waste?
While the United States decided to store its nuclear waste, the French embraced the idea of reprocessing it. Instead of burying the spent fuel rods underground or underwater, they decided to build a massive plant on the coast of Normandy and recycle the used fuel and reuse it.This entry was posted on Monday, April 9th, 2007 and is filed under Economy, Environment, Science, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.The high security facility stretches for two miles along the coast. All of France’s spent nuclear fuel eventually ends up at the plant in pools of water.
After the fuel rods have cooled five years, the French recycle them to make new fuel. The process drastically reduces the amount of nuclear waste, but one of the by-products of this is high-grade plutonium that can be used for nuclear weapons.
April 9th, 2007 at 2:09 am
And given our agreement with Russia the more nuclear plants we have the less weapons grade fuel rods they have laying around. Which is the main reason I suspect W has been such a strong proponent of nuclear energy.
April 9th, 2007 at 2:24 am
there is absolutely no need for nuclear power in the US because there is a simple mature technology available that can deliver huge amounts of clean energy without any of the headaches of nuclear power.
I refer to ‘concentrating solar power’ (CSP), the technique of concentrating sunlight using mirrors to create heat, and then using the heat to raise steam and drive turbines and generators, just like a conventional power station. It is possible to store solar heat in melted salts so that electricity generation may continue through the night or on cloudy days. This technology has been generating electricity successfully in California since 1985 and half a million Californians currently get their electricity from this source. CSP plants are now being planned or built in many parts of the world.
CSP works best in hot deserts and it is feasible and economic to transmit solar electricity over very long distances using highly-efficient ‘HVDC’ transmission lines. With transmission losses at about 3% per 1000 km, solar electricity may be transmitted to anywhere in the US. A recent report from the American Solar Energy Society says that CSP plants in the south western states of the US “could provide nearly 7,000 GW of capacity, or about seven times the current total US electric capacity”.
In the ‘TRANS-CSP’ report commissioned by the German government, it is estimated that CSP electricity, imported from North Africa and the Middle East, could become one of the cheapest sources of electricity in Europe, including the cost of transmission. A large-scale HVDC transmission grid has also been proposed by Airtricity as a means of optimising the use of wind power throughout Europe.
Further information about CSP may be found at http://www.trec-uk.org.uk and http://www.trecers.net . Copies of the TRANS-CSP report may be downloaded from http://www.trec-uk.org.uk/reports.htm . The many problems associated with nuclear power are summarised at http://www.mng.org.uk/green_house/no_nukes.htm .
April 9th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Reading this article is making me rethink my total opposition to nuclear produced electricity. I would like to see more information on the safety record of the French plants, as well as those worldwide. Reprocessing the spent fuel rods seems to be a great idea, especially when compared to our current method of storing the spent fuel.
I would especially like to see more honest reporting of safety issues within this country. One example: the original Fermi plant near Monroe, MI was an experimental breeder plant that failed upon its startup & has been encapsulated since. As I recall, this accident was also a partial meltdown which was controlled at literally the last few minutes. Telling the whole truth makes all of us less skeptical than spin does.
I also recognize that solar & wind can supply only part of our electricity needs, although more research could improve their viability. Additional research into making coal environmentally friendly is also a good idea, both for use within the US & in countries like China & India.
I am well aware that we have roughly 100 operating nuclear plants in operation without a major accident for the past 25 years. Most of them are due to be taken off line within the next 10 years due to age. What will become of these plants, once closed? Perhaps they will be encapsulated in place, which is well & good until a major disaster like a severe earthquake splits them open. (Some are built on or near known fault lines.) Something to think about.
April 9th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
Bob in fl:
The safety record for atomic power plants has been closely scrutinized and reported for many years. Unless the industry is simply incredibly lucky, the bottom line is that it is safe. Almost everyone can list 50% or more of the industry’s accidents in a single breath. That is a pretty good testimony considering the fact that the industry has been around for 50 years and produces about 7% of the world’s energy.
There are certainly challenges facing the industry and the work is not done, but it sure seems better to me to use a technology that can be sealed up inside a submarine than one that must built tall smokestacks just to keep from fouling its own nest. Of course, that kind of waste handling simply moves the deadly fossil fuel wastes to somewhere else.
I am comfortable enough with nuclear power to want to put a plant in my own backyard and I am working with a number of investors that feel the same way. Of course, that is no reason to trust me - take a good look around the web and you can find out plenty of solid information about the technology.
Rod Adams
Adams Atomic Engines, Inc.
April 9th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
I agreed completely with the 60 Minutes piece. Another part of the piece that Justin didn’t quote dealt with the fact that there are new reactor designs that are even safer than the current generation of reactors.
April 10th, 2007 at 1:35 am
Unfortunately nuclear energy, when it causes an accident, often causes it in a big way. Psychologically, people are far more likely to remember, say, a plane crashing and 100 people dying than they are to realize that 1000 people died that same day in car crashes. Big events, like terrorist bombings, tend to be remembered for decades.
That having been said, the only real nuclear accidents America has suffered were in plants that were built decades ago with unproven and untested technology, and in plants that were so wrapped up in red tape and governmental super-regulation that they could barely breath. Today’s manufacturing methods and knowledge of nuclear power generation are miles beyond what they were then, and if only we can let science and engineering savvy make the manufacturing decisions, we should be able to have relatively safe nuclear power within a few decades.
April 10th, 2007 at 7:05 am
[...] Donklephant notices an interesting observation by 60 Minutes: Because nuclear plants emit no greenhouse gases, France has the cleanest air in the industrialized world, and because the price of oil is now around $60 a barrel, it has the lowest electric bills in Europe. In fact, France has so much cheap electricity, it exports it to its European neighbors. French nuclear plants supply power to parts of Germany, Italy and help light the city of London. [...]
April 10th, 2007 at 5:36 pm
http://thethoughtsontheworld.blogspot.com has a similar article on nuclear power:
http://thethoughtsontheworld.blogspot.com/2007/03/nuclear-power-energy-of-future-or-as.html
The 60 Minutes report was very intriguing, but it never went much in to the science of nuclear power.
April 10th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
sleipner said “Unfortunately nuclear energy, when it causes an accident, often causes it in a big way.” Interesting concept, but false. There has never been a “big way” nuclear accident in the US. So “often” is quite a stretch. Chernobyl wasn’t a nuclear accident, it was another Communist crime against humanity. In the US, compare the Three Mile Island accident with the Willow Island accident, the Donora accident, or the Buffalo Hollow accident.
http://wvgazette.com/static/series/buffalocreek/NYDEN.html
Of course there are many other examples of energy accidents in the US that individually were much worse than all US nuclear accidents combined.
April 11th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
Good point Don…perhaps a better way of saying it is that nuclear accidents cause a far bigger media splash than their actual effect warrants, at least in part due to public hysteria which (falsely) links the dangers of nuclear power to that of nuclear weapons.
April 11th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
sleipner that’s what I’m talking about.
April 15th, 2007 at 1:22 am
Earthship Training Program in Normandy France
normandy.earthship.net
April - May 2007
This spring an experienced Earthship crew will be starting construction on Europe’s first residential Earthship to have a building permit. The total project consists of enclosing the structural shell of the building; tire walls, roof beams, insulation, greenhouse framing, and glazing. The water and power systems will also be installed enabling the project owners to utilize solar power and the water caught on site for further construction purposes. Greywater planters will be constructed, interior walls will be built, and with time permitting finishes will be started.
normandy.earthship.net
July 2nd, 2007 at 7:34 am
[...] France embraced it long ago, and it’s paying big dividends. Because nuclear plants emit no greenhouse gases, France has the cleanest air in the industrialized world, and because the price of oil is now around $60 a barrel, … …more [...]