Recycling nuke waste in Candus… hmmm
My Clean Break column today takes a look at Canadian-designed Candu reactors and their ability to run on spent fuel from competing light-water reactors from Westinghouse, Areva and GE. Using the so-called DUPIC process (you can read the article to find out what the acronym means), the Candu can become a way for countries with light-water reactors (specifically, pressurized water reactors) to reuse/reduce their waste and somewhat cut their dependency on enriched uranium. I’m not a big fan of nuclear, but this is one of those lesser of evils stories: We’ve got light-water waste, we need to deal with it, so why not reuse it to slow down the accumulation of this waste? There are other benefits, and a bunch of risks — read the story to find out what they are.
Tyler Hamilton is senior energy reporter and columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the cleantech market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper. Tyler can be reached at tyler@cleanbreak.ca
February 13th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Hi Tyler…Why exactly are you adversed to Nuclear ???
In light of the fact that most of the big Hydro projects/potential outside of China and Quebec are already developed (ie littel future potential), and solar/wind are nowhere near close to productive enough (and not for a long time yet) to fill current much less future needs..That only leaves fossil fuels (and marginal conservation) as the supportable sources. Why not support the clean Nuclear sources? Can you cite verifiable negative stats to support your position on any purported Nuclear pollution or environmental damages – versus those clearly being produced by every other significant form of energy production ?
February 13th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
Nuclear is expensive, takes too long to build, and produces nasty waste that we haven’t figured out how to dispose of in a permanent, safe way. Uranium mining is also pretty messy. I consider nuclear a necessary evil, one that we should strive to replace — not with another silver bullet, but with a combination of approaches that include conservation, energy efficiency, combined heat and power, solar, wind, biomass, geothermal and hydro. In fact, I’d much prefer tapping hydro in Quebec and Manitoba through an east-west grid, and capturing the benefits of smaller hydro projects along the way, than to commit to a technology that is supposed to last until 2070, that produces waste we can’t get rid of, and which tends to need expensive mid-life repairs much earlier than mid-life. Choosing nuclear is replacing one problem — global warming — with another problem — accumulation of nuclear waste that future generations (my daughters) will be stuck with. In this sense, it’s not a solution as much as a stop-gap measure.
Choosing nuclear as a long-term solution is laziness because it merely avoids the more difficult job of designing a distributed, intelligent energy system made up of all sorts of different technologies.
“Can you cite verifiable negative stats to support your position on any purported Nuclear pollution or environmental damages?”
I don’t think it’s any secret of the *potential* for things to go wrong with nuclear and how bad things can get if it does go wrong. It’s also safe to assume that the more nuclear plants you build the greater likelihood of something going wrong — it’s a statistical certainty. You’re playing a game of odds, and I don’t think societies on a whole should get into the habit of gambling. If we had verifiable negative stats with nuclear, there’s a good chance that the evidence would be millions of deaths. I’d prefer not to get those stats, thank you very much.
February 13th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
Nasty waste ?
Have you taken a sniff of your car’s exhaust pipe lately?
Your defensive retort sounds like little more than baseless and simplistic allegation….Your own automobile will likely emit more toxins into the environment than all nuclear reactors in Canada combined! (feel free to multiply that fact by total cars on the road).
Have you checked what kind of waste is produced by well over 50% of power generation in Ontario alone? Ontario’s Nuclear waste on the other hand is self-contained by nature, and is thoroughly and safely stored inside a few facilities the size of a large municipal swimming pools…and has been so since day 1 of it’s clean track record… Can you say the same for all other significant energy sources, that use the sky and rivers to distribute toxins into the world?
Can you cite facts from any industrial accidents that support your claim that nuclear is just an accident waiting to happen (again?).
You’re dreaming in colour if you think Solar/Wind/Biomass/Geothermal is ANYWHERE NEAR close to being able to replace fossil fuel electricity…Hitching your wagon to such marginal supplies like those (above) is simply avoiding factual reality, and encouraging society to take complacent comfort in marginal “green actions” while it continues to burn up fossil fules for another decade or two while those marginal technologies start to even come close to powering the economy adequately. Talk about playing “sure odds”…That sounds like a very long time to let the ACTUAL certainty of global warming play itself out Tyler. There’s your “sure bet”…and a serious shot at your credibility as well Tyler.
You also need to check into the many reasons why Hydro power is becoming almost impossible to economically and quickly develop in Canada…In the remaining areas where this is even a geographic possibility. There’s a good research project for you, rather than making a simpleminded claim that Hydro is your prefered and easy ’silver bullet’.
Speaking of propagating falsehoods…Nuclear is too expensive you say? Have you checked the fully amortized cost per killowat on solar/wind/geothermal? Go ahead and project economy of scale into that, and you’re still looking at wasting another 2 decades with good intentions and marginal impact that still won’t measure up on the bottom line…while the world continues to burn more fossil fuel. You should stick to facts Tyler, because the ice your trying to stand on is melting.
You apperantly feel comfortable in idlely projecting “millions” of deaths due to nuclear energy accidents? You irresponsible, myopic, fear-mongering imbecile Tyler….What do you base this claim upon?
Chernobyl was a cataclysmic failure in the management and bureaucracy of an unsafe (though cheap) form of nuclear generation that would have been decommisioned instantly under a responsible democratically elected government. The results from the collapse of the Soviet regime in the Ukraine, and the chaos that ensued produced the most horrific failure in Nuclear power generation known to man…Please feel free to state the total numbers of deaths (plus damages) from this horrible tradgedy, and feel free to add that to the total deaths caused by nuclear energy…Now go do some quick math on the number of documented deaths that have occured just in coal mines alone in the past century alone (only underground…not even factoring the damage caused once it’s processed and burned)…This is a factual history that is easy to extrapolate from. Since it is based on actual disaster and damages…not speculative fear-mongering on what might happen if the entire world went to hell in a handbasket….or whatever the hell you’re proposing is possible.
Your easy allegations are almost as out of whack as your projected numbers on how many people are supposedly going to die from imaginary nuclear power generation disasters – As some form of apocalyptic chaos causes nuclear plants to be left untended, and auto-safeguards somehow bypassed, rather than being safely shut down by their operators.
Conversely…How many millions are actually going to suffer 30 years from now if we keep burning more fossil fuel for electricity over the next 2 decades, while we wait for alternatives to mature and become economical? Unlike speculative science adn economics, Nuclear energy is an immediate and clean stop-gap solution, that will get us to the next ‘energy economy’ without adding to the problem in teh meantime. You seem to prefer the danger we can’t see as it dissapates into the environment, versus the visible and manageable risk that is already safely contained and harms nobody.
The price for this containment of risks adn dangers of course, is to remain vigilent over a few dozen waste sites, that are safe enough to build and live around…You would have us beleive that letting fossil fuels fill that gap is safer though (since you have no viable alternative), as we wait another deccade or two for viable/realistic alternatives to mature, all while the stacks continue to belch poison into the sky that we all share….Rather than containing toxins inside of a few thousand square meters of off-limits storage space.
Now stick to facts if possible, and consider how nuclear power would change the CERTAINTY (not just “chance”) of what will happen to the environment over the next 2 or 3 decades as Coal/Oil/Gas continue to fill the gap while clean sources can mature. Try not to simply apply projected odds of an imaginary crapshoot on a nuclear disaster of some sort. Let’s talk facts Tyler…not fabricated fear-mongering. That’s just poor form from somebody claiming to be a journalist.
Where are these “odds” stated that you refer to as being part of your imminent doomsday scenario that you base your argument on? How many more severe smog alerts will we see during the time required for your claim to become valid with some form of prophetic disaster scenario materializing? If you cannot substantiate your claims with fact, then you’re just simply evading the quesation by inventing “odds” that don’t even exist on record anywhere…not even in Vegas.
That’s pretty weird and ignorant science there Tyler. Think about that when you turn your ignition key tommorow morning, and pat yourself on the back for still being part of a problem by denigrating a clear interim solution (albeit a complex one that is easier to discredit with populist fear mongering, than to take a hard, pragmatic, and scientific look at – An especcially sad tactic for a PC pundit who seems more adept at recycling news releases into opinions for a living, than applying critical and factual thought to immediate stop-gap solutions).
Go ahead and delete this – if you’re also a coward Tyler.
February 13th, 2007 at 10:11 pm
If one wants to support nuclear power then the answer to these questions is required. Please use facts with references in the reply, not arguments:
1/ Ontario Hydro’s debt restructuring left $38 billion dollars to be paid off (22 as stranded debt, 16 operating debt), the access to information act restricts details available on this debt, but no available information shows it to not be from the nuclear program in Ontario. This debt is about $3,200 per capita in Ontario. Why would new plants with anti terrorsit features be cheaper, I don’t want cost projections of Candu proponents, I want data from plants that have been built to the standards our country has set. Please provide facts for cost of new plants, that is something all other power generators can provide, and the tax payer does nto bail out the others when they have cost overuns.
2/ Please obtain a quote from a reputable insurance agent (Lloyds) for the new nuclear plants that will be built. Let’s level the playing field between nuclear and other energy sources and remove nuclear power insurance exemptions. (Hint – you will not be able to get insurance). Please explain why you cannot provide a competitive insurance quote that covers the full liability cost of your new plant.
3/ Please obtain a quote for permanent disposal of nuclear wast from Ontario’s nuclear plants. All our waste is temporarily stored and needs a home for several thousand years. After 30 years there is no plan for disposal. I dont want all the reasons why it can be stored here or there, I want a quote for disposal.
4/ Please show me the test data for the successful resistance of a nuclear plant to a small nuclear explosive device detonation either delivered by aircraft or truck.
I need defensible solid factual costed answers to these questions to be convinced my future is better with nuclear power.
Cheers
February 13th, 2007 at 10:21 pm
Why would I delete this when it so clearly demonstrates the kind of foul-mouthed pitbull you are? As for being a coward, I prefer (Should I call you Mr. Testicular?) to tell the world who I am rather than hide behind silly names.
I will repeat, however, that I consider nuclear a necessary evil, and the lesser of evils, when compared to coal and other fossil fuels. And as you mention several times in your polite reply, a stop-gap measure we have to consider. I don’t dispute your comments about how bad coal and oil are for the pollution and health issues they create, and I don’t hang the solution on a silver bullet (as you suggest). But clearly nuclear presents a different kind of risk (it’s not fear-mongering, it’s reality), and I believe we can reduce our need for it by applying the kinds of things which you see easily dismiss as “dreaming in technicolor.” Fact is — and I’m only speaking in the Ontario context here — we *don’t need* new nuclear reactors in a province that could easily consume half as much energy annually per capita if any degree of thought and effort and financial support went into it. Coupons at Home Depot don’t cut it.
That said, I look at countries such as China and think, pick your poison. If forced to choose, damn right I’d say go nuclear than coal, because I do accept that with the kind of growth and energy demands we’re seeing from this and other regions the kinds of things I think are possible in Ontario will be a much bigger challenge. But I’m not ready to drink the nuclear Kool-Aid, and I’d prefer you respect that view rather than be a self-righteous dick (your name is Testicular, after all — or should I just call you Richard?) about your own *anonymous* view.
February 14th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
All t his bickering over the safety of nuclear energy reminds me of the time of my 18th birthday I went to see a movie called the “China Syndrome.” It was about a nuclear plant that almost melts down because a stuck water gauge fooled the plant manager into thinking he had too much coolant pressure when in fact he had too little and made the decision to drain the water causing exposure of the uranium core rods to open air and thus almost leads to a melt down. The plant manager discovers this error before the worst happens and saves the plant from a catastrophic melt down.
When I saw this in a movie theatre in my native New Jersey town I remember the nuclear industry spokespeople saying that what happened in the film could never happen and that it was all Hollywood hype. Well the very next day after I saw the film a nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania partially melted down. The scenarios surrounding the meltdown were very similar to what happened in the movie. This event was a public relations catastrophe for the U. S. nuclear power industry from which they have never recovered.
And this isn’t the only recorded account of a nuclear catastrophe. I would suggest you check the CBC archives from around 1994 where Sunday Edition did a report on the so-called Green Run. December 19th 1949 the filters in the stacks at the U. S. nuclear weapons plant in Hanford, Washington were turned off and 11,000 curies of iodine-131 were released into the atmosphere. It goes down as one of the darkest days of the United State’s abuse of nuclear technology. Over the decades
A stop has to be put on nuclear technology for both weapons and electrical power generation. This technology is too risky to be used.
February 14th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
Testicular, how can you be so blind to not see the risks in nuclear? Tyler is just being a realist by being cautious about nuclear. Did you even read the article that this forum was supposed to be about? He’s seems fairly open to opportunities in nuclear, and doesn’t dismiss it as many others would. I’m sure you have some very strong feelings about nuclear and are frustrated that many people view nuclear negatively, but I don’t believe you help its image any by ranting like a madman.
February 24th, 2007 at 3:13 am
Testicular, I am all with you. Tyler is numerically challenged and rarely backs up his sometimes fantastic assertions with figures. He interviewed this conspiracy theorist Muslim (read: oil and lack of adherence to the basic rules of empirical reasoning) who is pushing a questionable peak lithium theory (as to kill EVs) with completely bogus numbers, and Tyler did not bother to even verify his claims with a simple Google search on world lithium reserves and production.
FYI Tyler, life cycle cost of electricity generation for nuclear is 3 cents a kilowatt hour, for small hydro 7, for large hydro 5 (not including environmental costs), for dirty coal 3, for gas 6, for clean coal with CO2 capture 15 or more, for PV 35, and for wind 10.
However, I certainly appreciate Tyler’s adherence to a central tenet of liberalism that one should allow opposing criticism to be expressed, even on his own blog. Credit must be given where it is due.
Tyler, giving short shrift to the science, to the math, to the empiricism, and instead fixating on rationalizations, idealisms and social utopianism, is not progressive – but can be argued to be the exact opposite and reactionary, in so far as it promotes obscurantism and serves the interest of the anti-enlightenment.
February 26th, 2007 at 2:18 am
Even when expenses for taxes, decommissioning and yearly capital additions are added to production costs to yield a total electricity cost, nuclear-generated electricity typically clears the market for less than 2.5 cents/kwh. By comparison, production costs alone for natural gas-fired power plants averaged 7.5 cents/kwh in 2005, according to Global Energy Decisions data.
The industry’s average capacity factor—a measure of efficiency—was 89.9 percent last year, according to preliminary figures. …
http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2007/02/recordlow_produ.html
February 26th, 2007 at 8:59 pm
No one has answered the simple questions I posed a few posts ago. If you do post numbers for the cost of nuclear $/kWh, provide the reference and whether they are inclusive or exclusive of waste and insurance costs. I have found all sorts of $/kWh costs, non of whoch reflect the cost of a plant built under today’s constraints, and none with full-up insurance costs.
No more arguments, give me the answers.
Thanks
February 27th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
Why place the burden of proof on others ?
These are your claims, therefore any conclusions that you want to make from them should be based on your own verifiable sources of data…Do your own research, rather than trying to stymie a debate with your own supercilious requirements to have others provide proof you need to support your own claim !
Do your own homework lazybones !
February 28th, 2007 at 9:15 am
My point in asking the questions was:
1/ Neither I nor you nor any company can get insurance for a nuclear plant to cover actual total liability.
2/ Neither I nor you can determine the cost of nuclear power, no waste has been disposed of permanently, and no cost is known for this requirement.
Conclusion, we cannot claim to know the cost of nuclear power in comparison to other sources.
Why would you not use your name on this forum if you want your comments to have any weight? Obviously if you google my name, you will see I do work with renewable energy, I do not debate nuclear because I have an interest is renewables, I have an interest in renewables because I see an unecessary bias towards nuclear, with reultant expense and risk to society that outweighs the benefits. Can we turn the electricity system over to renewables overnight, no of course not, but let’s make it our goal, not a future with even more nuclear and its unanswered questions.
cheers
February 28th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
If anyone is to follow the specious argument that you now propose and base on the ‘total cost” including insurance and anti-terrorist measures….Rather than simply validating your original claims about the huge “odds of millions dying”…Then you will need to first show where you have factored in the “total cost” of the fossil fuel generation that would need to replace the nuclear power which you deem as unsafe – as yet without full validations.
Note that you are presuming that Canadian nuclear sites are high enough on a list of terrorst targets (presumably after all primary U.S. military and industril targets have been acheived), and that the required airborne delivery of a penetrative nuclear warhead exists in the hands of imagined terrorist enemies to Canada, despite the total lack of credibility for such a claim.
You also avoid the fact that hydro dams are a far easier target for terrorists using much simpler conventional weapons…but which curiously don’t require any of the counter-terrorism measures, or bizare types of “liability insurnace” which you speak of.
You seem to expect readers to simply ignore your previously made, but as yet unvalidated points of argument against nuclear power in Canada versus fossil fuel energy ( messy mining, allegedly unsafe waste, unsecured terrorist targets, etc..)…As such we can presume that you either suffer from ADD, or cannot present nuclear energy as being more dangerous based on your own original claims.
Here’s a quick debunking of Tyler’s original claims:
- Stored nuclear waste is clearly more safe and secured than the waste that is currently raising the temperature of the planet, and already killing humans every day. Though sisnce it is contained (rather than released), Tyler would like to factor in projected storage and insurance costs, while ignoring the uninsurable costs of toxins that continue to be spewed into the environment.
- Nuclear sites are already secured against Tyler’s imaginary delivery-truck terrorist threats(can he provide an example of such a weapon being used previously?), and airborne nuclear terrorist threats have yet to materialize anywhere in the world’s warzones, or prime U.S. targets…let alone at non-military Canadian nuclear energy sites. Nice scare tactic though Tyler…(You clearly write for the Star with those sorts of ethics.)
- There is no evidence anywhere of a weapon designed to penetrate the construction of a nuclear plant AND destabalize a reactor core, AND also disable all fission control systems, while ALSO destroying the containment structures for any radioactive coolant leakage.
To the best of my knowledge there is not an insurance broker on earth that is currently offering liability insurance against any terrorist threats to power generating plants, much less insuring against the toxic by-products of energy production….Id’ love to know why Tyler thinks that private individuals can obtain such quotes on behalf of these power generating corporations. Much less determining who he thinks is already insuring the liabilities being produced of every smokestack and tailpipe on Earth….In order to make a true comparative analysis according to his own specious argument even remotely possible.
This notion of needing to factor this imaginary liability insurance (from Lyodds as you suggest?) is at best a weak point of argument that is at least good for a chuckle at your naive, self-rightousness Tyler. Thanks
If we were to forget your previously unsupported points, and move forward at all with your new “total cost” comparative basis for argument though…and presuming that you still wish others to do your research for you…Then you should at least start the process by answering your own questions in relation to oil/gas/coal fired plants for an even comparison (you know…akin to the balanced reporting principals practiced by true journalists)….Since these sources of enviro-damage and toxins are presumably already insured and secured according to the ridiculous points of argument that you now wish to focus on (ie. damage and waste insurance and counter terrorism costs).
As such…Where and what are the costs of the “liability insurance” against environmental damages in gas/oil/coal fired electric plants…Since you are clearly presuming that such liabilities are even remotely insurable. A laughable point of argument, but it’s your claim, so go ahead and support it.
While you’re at it you might also consider the liabilities involved in obtaining the resources nescesary for fossil fuel power. So please also remember to factor in oil wars, all environmental damages including greenhouse emmisions, and also the running total of human deaths resulting simply from the aquisitions of fossil fuel…before it is even burned!
Are you really prepared to follow through on this ‘total cost’ argument of yours Tyler?…Or are you just blowing more smoke to avoid supporting your original claims about the “odds of millions dying” from nuclear energy.
If you cannot place your own argument on an even comparative basis with the innevitable burning of fossil fules to replace nuclear energy, then your open-ended (ie. non-validated) “total cost” points of argument are also and equally moot (check) and nothing more than deflectory from the original question. (mate)
Originally:
What exactly makes nuclear more dangerous than fossil fuel energy as an interim source of energy over the 10-20 years that it will take for greener sources to mature into truly viable sources of energy?
February 28th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
Boy, you are a miserable person.
First of all, why are you making stuff up regarding what I have argued or claim? I’m reading your *anonymous* (and hence cowardly) post and see these childish stabs against me and I’m wondering what is this person smoking and why are you so disturbingly angry?
How can you so simply deny the historic cost issues related to nuclear? Unanswered questions about *long-term* storage. You ask for *proof* or *evidence*, and the simple fact that for many of these things there is no proof or evidence — either for or against — and that in itself should be a major concern. I think you’re arrogant to believe we know how the world will be like 100 years from today — politically, environmentally, economically — and believe it will be stable enough to let that storage thing work itself out.
Also, why do you insist doing a direct comparison between nuclear and fossil fuels? I’ve *already* said in an earlier post that I prefer nuclear over coal as a lesser of evils. Why do you continue to have a problem with this position? Why do you have a problem with the perfectly reasonable position that, when possible, we should try to avoid nuclear? Nowhere — I repeat *nowhere* — have I ever said we should completely eliminate nuclear from the mix. Rather, my position is one that supports sustainable long-term planning that prefers conservation, renewables and distributed generation over big central plants that are either nuclear or fossil-fuel based.
Do you completely deny the terror risk? The long-term storage risks? The problem with your own argument — if you can call your insulting rant an argument — is that it assesses risk based on current information, current politics, current technologies, etc… and doesn’t account for instabilities in the world 10, 20, 30 or 50 years from today. You say “10-20 years,” but a nuclear plant is supposed to last more than 50 years. Why would I want to lock into nuclear for that long if, in a couple of decades, there are matured, greener sources that are economical to deploy on a large scale?
Why don’t you stop being an attack dog and start engaging in reasonable, constructive debate. You might just get some of the answers you’re looking for. Maybe, just maybe, you can then stop being anonymous and have the courage to tell the readers of this blog who the person is that so passionately believes in nuclear and so passionately discredits and disrespects those who find it a hard, but sometimes necessary pill to swallow.