Could Nuclear Power Wean the U.S. From Oil? 1615
bblackfrog asks: "Is a Federal nuclear energy program viable? That is, can the USA eliminate our economic dependence on crude oil with a large scale federal program to build and maintain enough nuclear power plants to replace our current oil-based energy needs? The obvious political hurdles are (a) the left opposes nuclear energy, (b) the right opposes federalizing energy, and (c) the oil companies and Saudis wield a lot of clout. This makes a federal nuclear energy program far fetched I admit, however I'm more interested in the economics. Slashdot has covered advances in nuclear power technology. China's doing it." (Read more, below.)
"How much energy is required to replace our fossil fuel consumption? What are the initial costs of the program, and just how cheap could the electricity be? How expensive would it be for our industries to convert? How expensive for home and auto conversions? How much of this cost should be picked up by the government? Bottom line: is nuclear power cheaper than our current oil-driven middle-east policy, with all of its blowback?"
Uranium is a finite resource (Score:5, Informative)
With respect to conventional nuclear energy, what many people don't realize is that Uranium is a finite resource which will run out way before oil. Based on what's on this [slashdot.org] page (this was just a quick google, there probably is better data out there), with 4 million t available and at the rate of 34K t per year, there is only 117 years of Uranium left.
So if it's going to be nuclear energy, it will need to be a process that does not require Uranium.
Re:Uranium is a finite resource (Score:5, Informative)
Replaces coal not oil (Score:3, Informative)
Oil is popular for uses that require portable power storage (planes, cars, etc.).
Re:You mean run cars and jets off nuclear power? (Score:5, Informative)
Biodiesel (Score:5, Informative)
* runs in existing diesel engines.
* less toxic than regular diesel, in fact biodegradable.
* creates more demand for US soybean crop.
* no new infrastructure needed, just more diesel engines.
* emissions better in almost also cases than existing diesel emissions.
* can mix in any percentage with existing diesel fuel.
yes i know it would take *a lot* of soy crop to meet the US oil consumption - but check out some of the research on using algae for biodiesel production at a much higher land density.
overall there are a *lot* of pros vs. cons regarding this alternative fuel IMHO.
for more information:
http://www.grassolean.com/ [grassolean.com]
http://www.biodieselnow.com/ [biodieselnow.com]
http://forums.tdiclub.com/postlist.php?Cat=&Board
Re:Uranium is a finite resource (Score:5, Informative)
The uranium will run out a lot less slowly than oil (in the US) or gas (in Europe) if this is taken into account.
Unfortunately, public anti-nuclear hysteria will prevent us from properly exploiting these resources until our backs are firmly against the wall. If Bin Laden were to disrupt the flow of gas from Siberia to Europe and plunge the continent into chaos, cold, darkness, sickness and death, maybe the politicians will do something about it. However, until their is a major disaster either involving economics (high oil prices) or logistics (Siberian gas supply) nothing will get done.
Meanwhile, we're still developing nuclear fusion [fusion.org.uk] which is coming along a lot better than most people think...No uranium (or oil or coal or gas) required.
Re:Yes, definitely. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:First you need to ask yourself these two questi (Score:5, Informative)
It should be reused for fuel. This allows a reactor to get more energy out of less nuclear material, resulting in both reduced cost and waste. The only reason why the US doesn't do this, is the concern over terrorists or spies obtaining bomb-grade materials.
2) Do we have enough fissionable fuel to accomplish this?
The estimates are that we'd have a ~100 year supply of Uranium if all power was switched to nuclear power today. This figure does not take reprocessing and non-uranium fission into account.
Re:First you need to ask yourself these two questi (Score:5, Informative)
2) Nuclear power supplies about 20% [doe.gov] of the total power generated in the US. There is a lot of uranium and plutonium in the world. We have enough in order to supply it. Epsecially if we start re-enrichment of the waste.
Re:First you need to ask yourself these two questi (Score:5, Informative)
Personally, I think that we need to start getting a more balanced policy. That would include not only nukes, but more alternative as well as money to research on energy storage. Sadly, over the last few years, the US admin cut a lot of alternative research and has invested in oil all the way.
Nuclear power - but not as we know it... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Its funny how the left is against Nuclear Power (Score:3, Informative)
It is striking though. The left believes in centralization and the right in decentralization, supposedly. Nuclear power works well in a tightly controlled civilization and disastrously in a loosely controlled one. Yet the left is horrified by it and the right is enthusiastic about it. The behavior of the right is as bizarre as that of the left in this matter if we look at it philosophically.
Culturally, the right is pro-military and the left is anti-military, which has the same character. The right supports centralized power and the left opposes it where the military is concerned, despite what they claim to believe. I think the nuclear energy position just inherits this paradox from its military association.
As for me, I am pronuclear because I am deeply concerned about global warming. That position is logically consistent but doesn't appeal to either "side".
Re:Uh... (Score:1, Informative)
"From the beginning of the program to its end, French contracts accounted for 8% of the total. They were Iraq's eighth-largest supplier...
(LA Times)
No, but it could get us off coal (Score:3, Informative)
Oil 39%
Natural gas 24%
Coal 23%
Nuclear 8%
Hydropower 3%
Other 3%
The coal, nuclear, and hydro are almost all for electricity generation. If we got up to roughly four times as many nuclear plants as we currently have, we could stop burning coal, and we'd be up with France (see here [doe.gov] in total energy from nuclear power.
Oil is used mostly for transportation (and feedstock for the chemical industry). Without a major breakthrough in transportation energy (hydrogen, fuel cells, batteries), nuclear can't replace oil for transportation,
Re:Power? (Score:5, Informative)
saving resources upfront (minimal packaging) is much, much more effective than say recycling.
Exactly. What most people don't understand is that reduce, reuse, recycle is listed in that order for a reason. Reduction is the best policy; if you can't do that any further, reuse what you can; failing that, recycle.
Recycling is better than landfill, but it's not the best answer, either.
Re:The Bush Factor (Score:3, Informative)
If you watch the PBS documentary Meltdown at Three Mile Island [pbs.org] you will see a bunch of plant workers running around in the background of the news footage. Their jackets have "Halliburton" across the back.
Fool me once, shame on me
--
There is no easy solution (Score:2, Informative)
Problem: Nobody wants to have one anywhere near them, and there's the problem of the waste...
Problem: birds get killed around them because they don't recognize the danger. The result is that this is one of the least favorite possibilities of the animal lovers. If the wind turbines are placed off the coast, then people complain that the warning lights on the turbines ruin the view of the ocean at night.
Problem: Many environmentalists insist that this method of power generation is a hazard to marine animals. This option also gets complaints about any warning lights.
Problem: Some are afraid that the microwaves involved will cook them, if the beams were aimed wrong.
Obviously, this is not a complete list, nor does it provide all of the arguments against the alternative.
There are many more ideas that would help to alleviate the need for oil (foreign and domestic), but for each one, there are many who scream "NIMBY!" out of fear, paranoia, or just because they think that the initial costs would be prohibitive.
In order to be able to actually do something, though, we'll have to take the risk of offending someone. Everything has its price.
Actually,.... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:And what'll wean us from nuclear power? (Score:2, Informative)
We are thinking about joining PECO's [peco.com] Wind program [pecowind.com].
Basically, we pay PECO to buy power for their grid from wind suppliers on our behalf based on either a contracted number of electrical blocks (100 kWh, 250 kWh, 500 kWh, etc) or on actual usage. The charge to do this is $.0254/kWh.
So, for about $15/mo, all our electrical "usage" will be from wind power. Obviously, our actual source of power hasn't changed, but, as a whole, PECO will have to generate 600 kWh less power from their non-green resources with us in the program.
Interestingly enough, even if your local provider does not offer such a program, you can buy blocks directly from the wind power generation [newwindenergy.com] company and those blocks will be added to some other grid in the country.
- Tony
If the mideast didn't have oil... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Power? (Score:3, Informative)
Your one word was a perfect example of why nuclear power had to grow up and become the best solution that it is now. Chernobyl was an ancient Soviet power plant, badly designed and very badly run. New nuclear power plants are failsafe (see the referenced slashdot discussion) and have zero chance of radiation leakage, unless you set off a nuclear weapon next to one. Then again, set a nuclear bomb off next to any power plant and you have radiation 'leakage'.
Weapons grade? Who are you kidding? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Europe is diversified (Score:2, Informative)
They sell it to others.
Norway is energywise blessed with its geographics. Mountains with steep slopes and heavy rainfall equals more cheap hydro-power they can consume, even with plenty of power-consuming industry.
Re:Pop quiz: (Score:1, Informative)
Re:First you need to ask yourself these two questi (Score:5, Informative)
No, you get about a ton of waste fuel from a ton of fuel. The mass->energy conversion is a tiny fraction of the fuel's mass. And once the U or P atoms are split, the daughters can't be split again.
And then you have the problem that the neutron flux inside the reactor makes _everything_ radioactive. And _everything_ in the fuel processing cycle becomes radioactive.
All that radioactive stuff is waste. It must be stored carefully, for long periods of time. And noone has a solution that works both politically, geologically, and medically.
Forgot:-Floats your boat. (Score:1, Informative)
Also lets not forget that process mentioned in discover magazine about the breaking down of waste into a useful fuel.
We have alternatives, we're just NOT using them.
Re:And what'll wean us from nuclear power? (Score:5, Informative)
That's just U-235. U-235 accounts for only 0.7% of the uranium available. The other 99.3% is U-238. U-238 can't be used as fuel in our current reactors, but can be used in breeder reactors. What's more, spent fuel from current reactors can also be fed into a breeder reactor. With breeder reactors that 100 years turns into about 100,000. And we haven't even touched on non-uranium fueled reactors yet.
Prototypes (Score:3, Informative)
new reactors (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Yes, definitely. (Score:4, Informative)
Kilo, m? Don't mix Units. kw/m^2 is kilowatt per METER squared.
a square mile is 2589988 square meters? 1609 * 1609 meters roughly. That's 2,589,988 kilowatts per square mile. You have 114,006 sqmi, so . . . *taptaptap*
. . . carry the three . . . 295,274,171,900 kilowatts
Discuss.
Re:Yes, definitely. (Score:4, Informative)
We did? Not that anybody has admitted in public. When they proposed such a basing system for the MX, it was shouted down for security and safety reasons.
Energy saving is the key ... (Score:5, Informative)
Per capita the US uses more than 12000 KWh per year, Japan ~7500 and Germany ~6000 (source [nationmaster.com]) ). Same for oil: US per capita: 68 gallons, Japan: 42, Germany 33 (source: source [nationmaster.com]). So we're comparing the three of the whealthiest and industrialized nations on Earth and one uses more than two times the energy. There's not a single reason for this depite the fact that the US wastes energy like noone else on this planet.
When atke into account that less than half of the US energy comes from Oil and that a not that small part comes from domestic sources, I guesstimate that by saving less than a third of the current energy usage the USA could become completly independent from foreign oil. And you would still use more energy than Japan for example.
This goal is reachable rather easy as you can see in Japan or Germany.
Sell your SUV, buy a Volkswagen/Audi TDI (will use less than half of your energy). Switch off your AC when you leave or when you don't need it. Change to energy saving light bulbs (will use less than 15% of your original energy usage). Throw away your old fridge and buy an energy saving new one (will use less than half of your old). Etc. pp.
It's doable. It's easy.
Bye egghat.
Re:First you need to ask yourself these two questi (Score:5, Informative)
You would think that such a huge chunk of high-strength steel would be impervious, but the neutron radiation does weaken all the parts over time.
I call bull...t (Score:1, Informative)
Then explain this: "In mid 2004 the board of EdF decided to build the first demonstration unit of an expected series of 1600 MWe Framatome ANP EPRs. Construction of France's first unit is expected to start in 2007, following public consultation which will include finalising the site, and licensing. Construction is then expected to take 57 months to start up in 2012. EdF is aiming to firm up an industrial partnership with other European utilities or power users for construction of the initial EPR before the end of 2004 - negotiations continue with German utilities. (Finland is also building an EPR unit at Olkiluoto.)
EdF is expected to announce its preference of sites following discussions with representatives from several places eager to have it. The leading candidates are apparently Penly and Flamanville in Normandy. After experience with the initial EPR units, a decision would be taken about 2015 on whether to build more of them over 30 years or so to replace the present EdF fleet, or switch to alternative designs such as Westinghouse's AP1000 or GE's ASBWR."
which can be found at: http://www.uic.com.au/nip28.htm/ [uic.com.au]
Re:Individually wrapped cheese (Score:3, Informative)
America doesn't need Nuclear Power to get off oil (Score:3, Informative)
This is not a lightweight document. The previous book by these authors, Small Is Profitable [smallisprofitable.org] was The Economist's Book of the Year in 2003, and this book has heavy, heavy political and scientific credibility. The foreword is by George Shultz.
What's the plan? Roughly:
1> Double the average efficiency of the current vehicle fleet over twenty years, using established technologies like hybrid power trains, and new technologies like lightweight car bodies.
2> Replace the fuel supply, half-biodiesel, half hydrogen. Hydrogen initially to be made from natural gas, and transitioning over to renewable resource hydrogen, mainly from wind.
The entire book is available for download. I suggest you read it, and actually take a look at the numbers, before casually suggesting that the plan won't work.
They're RMI. They've been right about every major innovation in the energy sector for about thirty years, as far as I can tell. They know which way the wind blows, and their technical and scientific approaches are impeccable. This isn't some eco-hippie dream, this is a plan. America can get out of the Middle East completely by 2025 and make Arab Power a thing of the past.
You don't need nuclear power or a federal program. (Score:2, Informative)
You don't need nuclear power or a federal program to eliminate the United State's dependence on foreign oil. From an article on thermal depolymerization [sovereignty.org.uk]:
"Changing World say that converting all of the US agricultural waste into oil and gas would yield the energy equivalent of 4bn barrels of oil, roughly equal to the volume of US oil imports in 2001."
That's just the agricultural waste. Add municipal waste, and all the carbon locked up in our landfills. The process was developed by Changing World Technologies [changingworldtech.com]. They have a demo plant [res-energy.com] at a Con-Agra turkey processing facility in Missouri, which is producing 100-200 barrels of oil a day. At a price of about $15 a barrel to produce, it seems to me that freeing up the carbon in our waste stream is a cheaper alternative.
Re:First you need to ask yourself these two questi (Score:3, Informative)
Energy Amplifier [unh.edu]
or more realistically, Integral Fast Reactor [berkeley.edu].
Both reuse waste.
Re:Individually wrapped cheese (Score:1, Informative)
Returning plastic soda bottles back into the stream is a pretty efficient process chemically. It's much easier to return 100,000 flattened plastic soda bottles than it is to return 100,000 crushed glass bottles...
Plus, a lot of Snapple, Sobe, and other tea and fruit drinks do still come in glass bottles... I think plastic is cheaper only at some level of scale that Snapple, Sobe et al. haven't reached yet compared to Coke, Pepsi and Ocean Spray.
Re:Power? (Score:5, Informative)
The Chernobyl reactor was poorly-designed. Any reasonable reactor designer would have been able to say as much: the design allowed each and every one of the safety mechanisms to be disabled at the same time. Worse, construction was shoddy at best: parts were often misaligned by several degrees, and when they needed more concrete but didn't have enough cement, they just added more sand, weakening the resulting mix. It was a disaster waiting to happen.
The #4 reactor was to be shut down for an experiment to determine what would happen in the event of a blackout. The reactor relied on power from other plants to maintain its basic functionality -- office lights, computers, and the cooling systems for the reactors. The reactors fed their own power off to the grid, and other plants were similarly dependent on Chernobyl for their basic functionality. Because of this dependence and the concern for how long they would have before a possible serious failure may occur, they wanted to see how long the inertia of the spinning turbine blades, combined with residual heat from the reactor, would continue to generate power. They thought that perhaps they might gain a little extra time to react in case all power from the grid was somehow lost.
The experiment was apparently the idea of the plant manager, who had never run a nuclear plant before (being an expert in turbines). His chief assistant had come from conventional power plants. Only a couple of high-level assistants had ever had any experience with nuclear power, and then only with small reactors. No approval for the experiment was ever recieved, but they went ahead with it anyway.
On the afternoon of April 26, 1986, the reactor output was lowered to about half of normal output, one turbogenerator was brought offline (the remaining one was to be used for the test), and the emergency core cooling system -- the automatic system that moderates the reaction in a critical situation -- was disconnected. A request soon came in to postpone the experiment until late night so that electricity demand would be lower. This was approved.
At 11pm, the experiment continued. The reactor was brought to its minimum output of 700MW. Above this level, automatic systems keep enough cooling water running through to prevent a runaway reaction. Below it, coolant may not be available in sufficient quantities, and another system will initiate a shutdown. This system was, of course, disconnected.
The output dropped to 30MW, and radioactive decay began producing excess iodine, which contaminated the fuel rods. This contamination interfered in the chain reaction, making it hard to bring the power back up to acceptable levels. The engineers had to either shut down the reactor or try to bring the power levels back up, and shutting down the reactor would mean that the experiment could not continue, so they tried to power it back up. This meant lifting more of the graphite control rods out to allow the reaction to increase by attempting to "burn off" the iodine contamination. Too many were lifted out -- over the initial protests of one of the engineers -- and the real problems began.
As technicians increased the flow of water over the rods, the reaction was moderated by the coolant, which meant less steam. Less steam meant less power, which meant more control rods were lifted. More water was also being pumped to prevent buildups in other areas of the system since not as much steam as expected was being generated. The whole system was balanced on a knife-edge.
Finally, the experiment began. The last safety system, linked to the remaining oeprational turbogenerator and capable of automatic reactor shutdown, was disconnected. Steam to the turbogenerator was blocked, and the turbine began to spin down. With less power, the pumps (already working beyond design capacity) slowed and provided less cooling water to the reactor. Steam, blocked from its normal exit path, built up,
Yes. Have you studied nuclear physics? (Score:5, Informative)
Bomb makers get rid of this problem by very short irradiation of a depleted uranium element; if the Pu-239 is not allowed to build up it cannot be transmuted. On the other hand, building up fuel is the purpose of a power-producing breeder reactor.
An excellent summary with a table of typical isotopic compositions for weapons-grade Pu and spent reactor fuel is here [isis-online.org]. It was the first hit I got with the search string "PWR fuel plutonium isotopes" in Google; what's your excuse?
Re:Power? (Score:4, Informative)
led to no deaths or injuries to plant workers or members of the nearby community [nrc.gov]
Chernobyl: April 25-26, 1986
Thirty-one people died in the Chernobyl accident and its immediate aftermath, most in fighting the fires that ensued. There have been news reports of additional deaths subsequent to the 31, but details are not available. Delayed health effects could be extensive, but estimates vary. [nrc.gov]
We learned our lesson after TMI, and Chernobyl happened seven years afterwards. Mostly due to bad reactor design and stupidity.
This is like making statements about car safety and fuel efficiency for today based on a '57 chevy.
Re:Individually wrapped cheese (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Yes, definitely. (Score:3, Informative)
At 17% efficiency, 2 trillion kWh becomes 340 billion kWh. 25% system loss brings that to 255 billion kWh. At 100 kWh per day per household, that'd be 2.5 billion households. Okay, so you could generate enough to power every house in the country about 2,500 times.
I don't know the power requirements of industry. Is it 2,500 times that of personal requirements?
Still, that'd be a hell of an expensive system: $750 trillion? ouch!
Re:Yes, definitely. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Ahh, but who said anything about solar cells? (Score:3, Informative)
Oil is more than energy (Score:4, Informative)
My dad worked at an oil refinery. He told me stories about how the oil was refined and opened my eyes to how many uses besides gasoline for cars. He said that over 300 products were created from the crude. (Interestingly, he also told me that the refinery was profitable just from the sale of coke, the last product off the line.)
So my question: How will we replace all the non-fuel uses for crude oil? Asphalt, fertilizers, and plastics are a pretty big part of modern life afterall...
This link [chevron.com] lists the products that come out of crude oil:
This space for rent.