Nuclear Power and Chernobyl

[jrustles]

There's nothing stopping your enemies from sabotaging your Nuclear facilities. This, combined with the ever present human fallibility factor, has me pretty solidly against using nuclear fission to boil water.

There are far better (albeit suppressed) sources of electricity that neither require chemical reactions or nuclear fission.

 

[D189379]

Sort of related to the topic, have any of you guys watched "Into Eternity"?

It's a pretty interesting documentary about the storage of nuclear waste. It raised some interesting points;

Whether humans can even build a structure that will last long enough (10,000 years+) to allow the waste to decompose to a safe level.

How to identify the storage sites, which languages to use, what to build the signs out of, etc.

I found it pretty fascinating. It's not a nuclear bashing film either, it's actually pretty neutral.

 

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted By: sayjac
Therefore, based on the outcome I fail to see the "genius' in the design.


It is genius in a way that you can make nuclear weapon grade material (Plutonium) with a power generating facility.

Just like mortgage backed security and other financial engineering, it is genius until it went belly up.

 

[Clevy]

Originally Posted By: Nick R
Originally Posted By: sayjac
Quite frankly I didn't read the OP's entire post but read enough to know there's some [censored] propoganda being posted. Bottom line, the Russians used a cheap no containment design, no matter where the final blame is placed, it doesn't change the fact that a sizable portion of the Ukraine has been forever destroyed. Also, the cancer cases that have resulted and families affected is untold and also unknown. Being cavalier about "if this" or "if that" doesn't change the horrible results the people of the Ukraine have and will have to live with perhaps for eternity.

So I couldn't care less who or what gets the final blame, at Chernobyl the results speak much more loudly. Wondering if the "quite impressive" reactor design had also been located in Saratoga County NY if it would so easy to look at Chernobyl in such a detached cavalier manner.

Now with the foolish attempt to use Chernobyl to justify nuclear power out the way, it's true the nuclear power program in the US is entirely different. The US uses a different design which unlike Chernobyl uses containment buildings. And also unlike the Russians, safety is a priority.

The biggest issue as I see it now is storage of the spent radioactive nuclear fuel. Much of it is currently being on site at nuclear power plants around the country. Perhaps the OP could petition the powers that be in Saratoga County to open a permanent storage facility to help remedy the issue. Somehow I'm thinking that wouldn't pass muster, especially in that area.

U.S. storage sites overfilled with spent nuclear fuel



Yes the Soviet design was flawed, and lots of people died and were displaced by it. That is not in dispute here, but a rational human should be able to admire the ingenuity in the design overall, allowing it to use unenriched uranium.

Also the fact that you went tl;dr and then posted your opinion and evaluation of my opinion makes me shake my head. I' actually planning on visiting chernobyl in the next couple years, to see and feel the emotional part of it, an empty city and no people for miles.


There is a tv show called departures. These 2 Canadian guys take a year off life and see the world. They went to Chernobyl and filmed their visit. The city was very modern,and overnight became a ghost town.
There is a guy still living near there. The army used to bring him wood every fall,but haven't come for a while now.
It's funny. All that radiation yet his farm animals are fine,he has lived there since the incident and he is fine. The Russian president had the utility run a power line
For him. He gets free power til he dies.
The farm had no power before the incident but since the incident he gets it free.

 

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted By: Astro14

Thus demonstrating a LARGE part of the problem...super long half life contamination is not the danger...it's the shorter half life contamination that generates the radiation that is harmful to human life....things like Strontium 90 that has a half life of years...



The super short and short half life radiation waste would have been decayed during burn or while sitting in storage inside the reactor. It is the medium half life ones that are difficult to deal with. The ones that last years, decades, or hundred of years are the one that gives you headache.

In the future most likely the way to get rid of them would involve putting them back into the reactor for a longer burn. Currently with thermal neutron reactor waste their concentration is too low to bother. When the world switch to fast reactor the amount of the short to medium half life waste would dramatically increase, replacing the depleted uranium we see today. Then we would have large enough of a concentration that makes sense to separate them and burn them up again.

 

[simple_gifts]

Originally Posted By: jrustles
There's nothing stopping your enemies from sabotaging your Nuclear facilities. This, combined with the ever present human fallibility factor, has me pretty solidly against using nuclear fission to boil water.

There are far better (albeit suppressed) sources of electricity that neither require chemical reactions or nuclear fission.


+1; commercial interests will cut corners, "influence" regulatory agencies; the best defence are wildly distributed and diverse methods of mid size generation of power to weather regional and industry specific variations.

"All you eggs in one basket" is crazy.

 

[sleddriver]

PBS, of all things, did a Frontline special on nuclear power back in the mid to late 90's if I remember. I still have it on tape. You might still be able to watch it on-line for free.

Very even handed and fact based for them. I remember one woman being interviewed saying that only man-made radiation was bad. Natural radiation was...well...natural and therefore safe. Turns out she was living in an area with high concentrations of radon in the soil.

Re: Chernobyl. There was an interesting article on this talking about the unexpected wildlife boom, I think.

The French are far, far ahead of the US when it comes to utilizing nuclear power...and have been for decades. To them, it's no big deal. And the French reprocess their spent fuel to boot.

 

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted By: sleddriver
Re: Chernobyl. There was an interesting article on this talking about the unexpected wildlife boom, I think.


All things equal, you'll find that animals that have shorter lifespan, reproduce more offspring, and needing fewer percentage of their offspring to grow into reproductive age, to be affected less by radiation or other environmental stress.

Taking the biggest predator out of their food chain also helps more than hurt.

 

[Jarlaxle]

Originally Posted By: ueberooo
The storage issue of the spent fuel makes nuclear energy seem a little impractical. I would probably change my mind if we had a central storage site like Yucca Mt (except not on a fault line) that would be proven to safely store the stuff for thousands of years without risk of getting into any ground water. (And then you would have to prove it is cost efficient with all the future labor and servicing for the spent fuel.)

Thorium reactors either by them selves, or to burn along with reprocessed spent fuel are an interesting idea. They would also have to be incredibly safe. while the risk of something going wrong is small, when they do go wrong, they can affect hundreds of millions of people, and dozens of generations to come.


There is no waste problem. There is only a "peanut-brained idiot in the White House" problem. Every country EXCEPT the US reprocesses waste, which cuts the amount by about 70%. Unfortunately, Carter banned it in the late 70's.

There are also new reactor types that can be FUELED by it, and simply consume it.

 

[Jarlaxle]

Originally Posted By: HerrStig
Originally Posted By: bepperb
I think that a nuclear runaway is far from the largest downside. There is the problem of storage (and cost) of the waste. For local people it greatly increases the potential for an attack of some sort on the area. And the cost of the electricity is still not very low, in fact in Wisconsin we are shuttering a nuclear plant this spring because it's too expensive compared to natural gas power.

So yeah, you can design around the disaster problems. But those aren't the only problems. It's also interesting you mention TMI and Chernobyl and leave Fukushima out. Some disasters cannot be designed around. If you are 100 feet underwater pretty much all bets are off.
I thought the Japanese reactors were standarde issue Westinghouse designs. Of course WHERE you put them is important.


Yes...Fukushima had regular BWR's (though I think GE, not Westinghouse). They are very old (broke ground in 1967, went online in 1971), and weren't really state of the art even then. They are two, maybe three full generations behind state of the art.

And yeah, I am the FIRST to say that building a nuclear power plant on a fault line is a stupid plan!

 

[sleddriver]

Originally Posted By: PandaBear
Originally Posted By: sleddriver
Re: Chernobyl. There was an interesting article on this talking about the unexpected wildlife boom, I think.


All things equal, you'll find that animals that have shorter lifespan, reproduce more offspring, and needing fewer percentage of their offspring to grow into reproductive age, to be affected less by radiation or other environmental stress.

Taking the biggest predator out of their food chain also helps more than hurt.

It was far more extensive than just removing the 'biggest predator' effect. Far more. And maybe far more than my original statement about just the animals.

Chernobyl is the worst nuclear accident to ever occur, period. A non-contained core, exposed to the atmosphere, on fire, that did melt down, burning for days...maybe weeks. It was supposed to be catastrophic to the environment. Scorched earth. Everything dead and would remain so for generations. Completely sterilized. Life as we now it, extinct in the whole area. Nothing but a waste of a waste land.

That was the predictions. And they were wrong. Really wrong. Plants and animals were flourishing which completely surprised all. That was the articles point. Not sure if I bookmarked it or not. Probably wouldn't be too hard to search for though.

Mother Nature is not anywhere near as fragile as some would believe. Otherwise, we wouldn't be here having this remote discussion!

 

[Mr Nice]

PBS did a segment last year on Chernobyl and there are lots of animals in the area. Beavers are building dams and flooding certain areas where they are living. Wolf packs are seen in the city where the workers once lived with their families.

 

[dakota99]

The crazy thing is that only 5% of the fuel was released during the fire and explosion. Five percent did all that damage. Think about twenty percent. That's unthinkable.

Nuclear power can be safe and clean when you do it right.

On the topic of nuclear screw ups, look up the kyshtym disaster. That whole place is irradiated for life as well.

 

[ls1mike]

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chapter1.html

Go through all the chapters.


Nuclear power does not scare (12 years on submarines), and if your enemies want to get you, they are going to get you. They go for soft targets, most Nuke plants are guarded very well.

The DOE regulates civilian plants, just like the Navy reactors.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: ls1mike
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chapter1.html

Go through all the chapters.


Nuclear power does not scare (12 years on submarines), and if your enemies want to get you, they are going to get you. They go for soft targets, most Nuke plants are guarded very well.

The DOE regulates civilian plants, just like the Navy reactors.


I love that site! She also has pics of a pile of WWII stuff, bunkers, pill-boxes.....etc. Stuff we don't have on this side of the pond

 

[Mystic]

I think that in a general sort of way nuclear power is very clean and safe. But there are two problems.

If something does go wrong in a very serious way the consequences are far worse than an oil refinery blowing up. Chernobyl is the best example but Fukushima is also a good example. Mistakes in the design, construction, and operation of a nuclear power plant cannot be tolerated. And mistakes in the location of a nuclear power plant also cannot be tolerated. You can't build one near a known fault line and you can't build one where a tsunami wave can destroy the plant or near an active volcano.

A nuclear power plant could operate for decades with no serious issues. But disposing of the spent fuel and nuclear waste is a big issue. Some nuclear waste can remain dangerous for a very long period of time.

If fusion reactors could be developed they would be far safer and there would be less long term nuclear waste to worry about.

I understand the need for nuclear power, but the endless incompetence of the designers, builders and operators is very worrying to me. Chernobyl is an obvious example but the location of the Japanese nuclear plants that were damaged in the tsunami is a really glaring example of arrogance and incompetence. Too many smart people think they are above and beyond the power of nature.

And the storage of spent nuclear fuel and nuclear waste is also very worrying to me. We can't put poisons into the ground that will remain dangerous for thousands of years and forget about those poisons because they happen to be in an out of the way remote location in a place where few live. People in the past even dumped nuclear waste into the world ocean. Out of sight, out of mind.

For these reasons I am not too eager to see nuclear plants build in large numbers.

 

[Rick in PA]

Some may not be old enough to remember, but is curious how the "free world" found out about Chernobyl. As I remember, reports came out from nuclear power plants in the Nordic countries (Norway, Finland?). The operators of these nuclear reactors were detecting elevated levels of radiation outside their own plants. Fearing a release from their own reactors, they searched for leaks and found none. Then they determined that the source of the elevated levels of radiation was wind-born contamination coming out of the USSR.

 

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted By: Mystic
Too many smart people think they are above and beyond the power of nature.


I have to disagree with that.

They are fully aware of it, but in all things science there is no way (with the previous technology) to do it perfectly. I'm sure they want to build a plant somewhere that has no earth quake, tsunami, etc but they probably couldn't find any. And at the time they though that magnitude 9 quake is impossible. It is like the certain death scenario that astronauts are not trained to handle.

Therefore it is very important that plants in the future must be passively safe. Any over temperature must automatically get the pile out of critical state, It must also be able to tolerate pressure drop, coolant lost, operator's errors, etc without runaway. We don't have that now, so we obviously didn't have that in the 60s for Fukushima.

Originally Posted By: Mystic
We can't put poisons into the ground that will remain dangerous for thousands of years and forget about those poisons because they happen to be in an out of the way remote location in a place where few live.


That's also why fast reactor research is important, it burn up the actinides that have thousands of years half life, and turn them into something much less, like decades. Those plant use waste from the older reactors as fuel and burn them up with much less waste.

So, in a nut shell you need better nuke plant that get rid of the old waste.

 

[javacontour]

I seem to recall we've been talking about breeder reactors since Jimmy Carter was president.

If this could solve two problems, energy needs and nuclear waste, one would think we would see them appearing.

Is this just theory, or are there working examples in the scale to address both energy and waste processing needs?

Originally Posted By: PandaBear
Originally Posted By: Mystic
Too many smart people think they are above and beyond the power of nature.


I have to disagree with that.

They are fully aware of it, but in all things science there is no way (with the previous technology) to do it perfectly. I'm sure they want to build a plant somewhere that has no earth quake, tsunami, etc but they probably couldn't find any. And at the time they though that magnitude 9 quake is impossible. It is like the certain death scenario that astronauts are not trained to handle.

Therefore it is very important that plants in the future must be passively safe. Any over temperature must automatically get the pile out of critical state, It must also be able to tolerate pressure drop, coolant lost, operator's errors, etc without runaway. We don't have that now, so we obviously didn't have that in the 60s for Fukushima.

Originally Posted By: Mystic
We can't put poisons into the ground that will remain dangerous for thousands of years and forget about those poisons because they happen to be in an out of the way remote location in a place where few live.


That's also why fast reactor research is important, it burn up the actinides that have thousands of years half life, and turn them into something much less, like decades. Those plant use waste from the older reactors as fuel and burn them up with much less waste.

So, in a nut shell you need better nuke plant that get rid of the old waste.

 

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted By: javacontour
I seem to recall we've been talking about breeder reactors since Jimmy Carter was president.

If this could solve two problems, energy needs and nuclear waste, one would think we would see them appearing.

Is this just theory, or are there working examples in the scale to address both energy and waste processing needs?


There are, but it seems like many of them have problems one after another including sodium coolant fire, coolant leaks or blockages, cost overrun, etc.

Lots of experiments that got shut down, most likely there are challenges that are expensive to deal with.