patrick.net

thunderlips11 says

My challenge to nuclear power is easy.

Let one nuclear facility be privately insured. Not just the plant itself, which insurance companies will insure, but external damages to people and property in the surrounding area.

Insurance companies would love to charge big premiums on something they "know" is safer than coal, solar, etc. they already insure.

Why won't insurance companies take easy money, if solar kills more people from falling panels than nuclear power does or would? They love to sell insurance outside the airline gates, or life insurance for babies born in 1st world countries!

Or have insurance companies come to a different conclusion?

(PS I'm not opposed to nuclear - I certainly am interested in the newer plants - I just find this tack a stumbling point when advocates claim near-perfect safety.)

I don't understand your point. Are you saying nuclear power isn't feasible because insurance companies won't cover damages from a nuclear accident to private property?

If that's your argument I will point out earthquake insurance here in CA as a comparable. Earthquake insurance is very expensive, has high deductibles and will quickly run dry in the face of a large scale event yet this fact does not prevent Californians from paying horrendous amounts of money on homes built in danger zones.

New Renter says

I don't understand your point. Are you saying nuclear power isn't feasible because insurance companies won't cover damages from a nuclear accident to private property?

If that's your argument I will point out earthquake insurance here in CA as a comparable. Earthquake insurance is very expensive, has high deductibles and will quickly run dry in the face of a large scale event yet this fact does not prevent Californians from paying horrendous amounts of money on homes built in danger zones.

WIthout government insuring them there never would have been a nuclear power plant built in the us. Look up the Price-Anderson act. Insurance is on the hook for 12.6 billion in an accident. Everything after that is picked up by the taxpayers. That's not anything like earthquake insurance.

As long as the holds on the upper echelon russian personal bank accounts are lifted and sean connery is permitted to sail out of Sevastopol as a russki...

Strategist says

When push comes to shove they will go with the West just like in the past.

it's just a negotiating asset.
everybody collects them.

thunderlips11 says

That's because the missile shield and radar was never for Iran, which neither has an atomic bomb or a missile capable of flinging one as far as Europe (maybe not even Israel).

without a nuke, sure.
with nukes on long range missiles, it's a different game for everybody.

indigenous says

Out of all the middle eastern countries, Iran is the least threatening to the US.

SoftShell says

with nukes on long range missiles, it's a different game for everybody.

According to the the link that is not there intention.

Actions speak louder than words, always have, always will.
Witness the taking of Crimea, a part of a sovereign nation.

Now imagine if texas, from houston to the souther border held an illegal referendum on becoming a part of mexico. And it supposedly passed after mexican military incited riots in the land in question, and the mexican military surreptitiously provided military aid to the rioters... all the while denying any involvement and no intentions on taking this land.
what do you think the USA should do? Give it up without a fight?

indigenous says

SoftShell says

with nukes on long range missiles, it's a different game for everybody.

According to the the link that is not there intention.

This is a shot across the bow that the baltic states are next in line for annexation.
Putin has declared NATO irrelevant and is now poised to prove it with the Neville Chamberlains of the world in charge...

Oilwelldoctor says

2. All systems of global collective security now lie in ruins. There are no longer any international security guarantees at all. And the entity that destroyed them has a name: The United States of America.

SoftShell says

Actions speak louder than words, always have, always will.

Witness the taking of Crimea, a part of a sovereign nation.

How is that related to Iran?

SoftShell says

Actions speak louder than words, always have, always will.

Witness the taking of Crimea, a part of a sovereign nation.

Now imagine if texas, from houston to the souther border held an illegal referendum on becoming a part of mexico. And it supposedly passed after mexican military incited riots in the land in question, and the mexican military surreptitiously provided military aid to the rioters... all the while denying any involvement and no intentions on taking this land.

what do you think the USA should do? Give it up without a fight?

indigenous says

SoftShell says

with nukes on long range missiles, it's a different game for everybody.

According to the the link that is not there intention.

Your analogy is inapt as Mexico did not lose millions of young men freeing Texas from the occupation of Canadian Nazis.

Putin sees it clearly.

The US -- a nation of 300 million -- is like Belgium and the world is the Congo, circa 1960.

We can't keep doing it all so strongmen like Putin need to take care of regional security.

Here is another guy who says the same about Iran, Daniel McAdams. The evidence is quite damming, we have to be careful about inadvertently accepting propaganda from the war machine.

"The US foreign policy establishment, infested as it is by interventionists of the Left and Right, simply make up new rules as they go along, insisting that the US is not to be bound by said rules. The US is the exceptional nation; rules are for the others to obey. Is it any wonder the rest of the world is disgusted with US foreign policy?"

http://www.lewrockwell.com/2013/11/daniel-mcadams/warmonger-whoppers/

indigenous says

Here is another guy who says the same about Iran, Daniel McAdams. The evidence is quite damming, we have to be careful about inadvertently accepting propaganda from the war machine.

Are you saying the neocons lie? No, say it ain't so joe. Without the Iran boogieman who would we blame for all the worlds problems?

bob2356 says

Are you saying the neocons lie? No, say it ain't so joe. Without the Iran boogieman who would we blame for all the worlds problems?

Sactly

bob2356 says

New Renter says

I don't understand your point. Are you saying nuclear power isn't feasible because insurance companies won't cover damages from a nuclear accident to private property?

If that's your argument I will point out earthquake insurance here in CA as a comparable. Earthquake insurance is very expensive, has high deductibles and will quickly run dry in the face of a large scale event yet this fact does not prevent Californians from paying horrendous amounts of money on homes built in danger zones.

WIthout government insuring them there never would have been a nuclear power plant built in the us. Look up the Price-Anderson act. Insurance is on the hook for 12.6 billion in an accident. Everything after that is picked up by the taxpayers. That's not anything like earthquake insurance.

Hold on, earthquake insurance will cover up to a very limited amount with a huge deductible. After that its up to the homeowner to try to get federal disaster aid which "may" help cover losses beyond the scope of the policy:

http://www.bankrate.com/finance/insurance/federal-disaster-assistance-1.aspx

Of course that's only true if the damage is declared a federal disaster zone but a major earthquake tends to fit that bill.

Of course this act was written to cover relatively primitive Gen I reactors and extended to cover Gen II as well.

The easy solution to all this is to build all new plants with safety rather than efficiency and cost cutting as the top priorities. Way back in 1986 the Argonne fast reactor showed that a reactor can be designed to automatically shut down in the event of a catastrophic loss of coolant and most of the active safety systems overridden:

http://www.ne.anl.gov/About/hn/logos-winter02-psr.shtml

Such reactors should make the prospect fo insurance far less daunting. The newer reactors are even better.

(yawn) The fuckers who lost previous Cold War are asking for another, but this time being much smaller, much more dependent on oil and gas exports and without real allies (sorry, Nauru doesn't count)? Bring it on, remakes are en vogue.

Not as inept as your spelling.
Blurtman says

Your analogy is inapt

it's related to what putin said in the link..
indigenous says

How is that related to Iran?

New Renter says

Hold on, earthquake insurance will cover up to a very limited amount with a huge deductible. After that its up to the homeowner to try to get federal disaster aid which "may" help cover losses beyond the scope of the policy:

http://www.bankrate.com/finance/insurance/federal-disaster-assistance-1.aspx

Of course that's only true if the damage is declared a federal disaster zone but a major earthquake tends to fit that bill.

I don't see try to get federal disaster aid being the same as the fed is required by law to pay for everything over a certain amount. Can you explain it to me how they are the same thing. Especially since a really big nuclear reactor event could be well into the trillions. The cost of a a nuclear cleanup is many orders of magnitude over some earthquake damaged buildings. No nuclear reactor would have ever been built without the aec backstopping them with unlimited liability.

Doesn't matter what the Gen is it's the law till 2026 then will certainly be renewed.

It really does seem like our leaders are intent on rekindling the (profitable) Cold War with Russia. Otherwise, what reason would we have for (yet again) beating our plowshares into swords.

They are more intent on holding onto the spoils of the cold war victory.
unfortunately there's no one guarding the prize.

Quigley says

It really does seem like our leaders are intent on rekindling the (profitable) Cold War with Russia. Otherwise, what reason would we have for (yet again) beating our plowshares into swords.

bob2356 says

Can you explain it to me how they are the same thing. Especially since a really big nuclear reactor event could be well into the trillions.

Try to imagine a Fukushima or Boxing day 2004 magnitude quake hitting the SFBA. A 9.5 magnitude quake would likely cause massive damage, likely into the trillions in one of the most important technical and financial centers in the world. Do you really think the federal government and the rest of the world is going to just say "sucks to be you"?

And what kind of "big reactor event" are you envisioning here? Even Chernobyl didn't do that much damage to the surrounding countryside. Most of the area was habitable within a year after the event as evidenced by the fact people snuck back into their homes and stayed without any ill effects.

And BTW much of the SFBA is already a toxic superfund dump. Hasn't affected property values yet so a little radiation won't be noticed.

New Renter says

I don't understand your point. Are you saying nuclear power isn't feasible because insurance companies won't cover damages from a nuclear accident to private property?

If that's your argument I will point out earthquake insurance here in CA as a comparable. Earthquake insurance is very expensive, has high deductibles and will quickly run dry in the face of a large scale event yet this fact does not prevent Californians from paying horrendous amounts of money on homes built in danger zones.

I mean that no insurance company will write a policy on liability for a meltdown or other nuclear accident. Nor will reinsurance companies insure the insurer on nuclear plants.

Every nuke plant's liability in the world is entirely or almost entirely guaranteed by the State, from France to Japan to the USA.

They will write policies on tank farms, refineries, chemical plants surrounded by dense population centers, wind farms, munitions dumps, etc. etc. etc.

Why not nuclear liability?

Why not take the free money for something that's basically safe?

indigenous says

According to the the link that is not there intention.

Multiple Eastern European MPs and leaders have already committed gaffes by publicly admitting that Iran is just the cover story and it's all about Russia.

thunderlips11 says

Multiple Eastern European MPs and leaders have already committed gaffes by publicly admitting that Iran is just the cover story and it's all about Russia.

Iran is a pawn?

thunderlips11 says

indigenous says

According to the the link that is not there intention.

Multiple Eastern European MPs and leaders have already committed gaffes by publicly admitting that Iran is just the cover story and it's all about Russia.

Do you have any links related to this please? This is pretty interesting stuff, I want to read more about it.

thunderlips11 says

Why not take the free money for something that's basically safe?

Because of irrational fear, not facts. People have been trained to fear nuclear power because historically its a threat to coal and oil.

There was a documentary a few years ago - Pandora's Promise - which profiled former anti-nuclear activists who had come around to see nuclear power as a positive thing. When they talked about their former objections they admitted they were based primarily on fear and hysteria, not facts. One woman showed a flyer which had been passed around supporting the shutdown of Shoreham before it even opened. The flyer supported solar power rather than nuclear as a safe alternative.

The flyer was published by the local heating oil company. The company knew damn well solar was (at the time) a pipe dream and unlike nuclear power could never be a competitor (solar doesn't work so well in the winter)

Reading the anti-nuclear response to the documentary "pandora's false promise" its clear the hysteria, fear, misdirections and lack of facts are still alive and well.

FortWayne says

Do you have any links related to this please? This is pretty interesting stuff, I want to read more about it.

http://scotthorton.org/

or google Daniel McAdams and Iran

I gotta dig those up Fort Wayne, I know that somebody in Poland, and another guy I think in the Czech Republic back in the Bush Admin said these things.

Here's a few links related, not exactly the ones I'm talking about.

Poland wants ABM missiles ASAP - for Russia - Wikileaks
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/06/wikileaks-cables-poland-russia-shield

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/world/europe/22poland.html?scp=5&sq=missile&st=cse&_r=0

I'll search a bit more later on.

New Renter says

Because of irrational fear, not facts. People have been trained to fear nuclear power because historically its a threat to coal and oil.

Right. I agree that anti-nuclear advocates overstate their case, but I believe "Nukes are totally safe, nobody ever died, etc." advocates overstate their own.

Insurance companies can make big bank using public fear to charge massive premiums on something that is basically safe. The fact they are unwilling, and that reinsurance is unwilling to insure an insurance company's potential nuclear plant account, means something is up.

Insurance companies are great assessors of risk, and I'd love to discover why not. I don't believe the fear factor is a reason since actuaries are unmoved by perceived risk - unless to exploit a fear for profit - and look at the numbers.

No homeowners policy in the US covers radiation damage in any shape or form, from any source, no riders available for it, either.

New Renter says

There was a documentary a few years ago - Pandora's Promise -

Definitely something to watch later tonight. I do believe nukes are the only way to get through the transition period to a non-fossil fuel economy, given the weakness of wind and solar (ie charging electric buses - cars aren't feasible and never will be due to rare materials and expense - at night when solar is not available).

thunderlips11 says

New Renter says

Because of irrational fear, not facts. People have been trained to fear nuclear power because historically its a threat to coal and oil.

Right. I agree that anti-nuclear advocates overstate their case, but I believe "Nukes are totally safe" advocates overstate their own.

Insurance companies can make big bank using public fear to charge massive premiums on something that is basically safe. The fact they are unwilling, and that reinsurance is unwilling to insure an insurance company's potential nuclear plant account, means something is up.

Insurance companies are great assessors of risk, and I'd love to discover why not. I don't believe the fear factor is a reason since actuaries are unmoved by perceived risk - unless to exploit a fear for profit - and look at the numbers.

Sure, I agree. As I've said more than a few times on this forum my father was a nuclear engineer. He shared quite a bit of insight on the industry and overall he was always very positive regarding the safety of nuclear power provided the rectors are built and operated properly. It was the politics and poor management that killed nuclear.

Case in point - the US Navy has "5400 reactor years" accident free.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_navy

These are mobile power plants subjected to stresses and events a civilian rector could never experience. The Naval track record proves nuclear power can be safe, even for the men living within a few hundred feet of the reactor 24/7 for months at a time.

(Unless of course you have some real data which says otherwise that I am not aware of.)

My guess its a combination of the size of the claims reserve (too much money tied up in savings) and a lack of hard data regarding a real US nuclear accident. Hurricanes, tornadoes, even major earthquakes happen with far more frequency than nuclear events. Honestly I doubt even a serious nuclear accident would cause as much damage as Katrina or Sandy.

There is the long term question of fallout but as Three Mile Island, Fukushima and Chernobyl all showed the long term effects are nowhere near as bad as the anti-nuclear crowd would have you believe.

New Renter says

Case in point - the US Navy has "5400 reactor years" accident free.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_navy

These are mobile power plants subjected to stresses and events a civilian rector could never experience. The Naval track record proves nuclear power can be safe, even for the men living within a few hundred feet of the reactor 24/7 for months at a time.

Navy reactors are tiny. They are operated under a very strict safety regime. They are also very expensive. If commercial reactors were built and operated to Navy standards, which would be ideal, then none would have ever been opened They would have been far to expensive.

I'm not arguing as someone anti nuclear. But there are real risks and real financial issues. There are massive subsidies. Nuclear would have a very hard time standing on it's own financial attributes.

You keep saying Chernobyl wasn't a big deal. Chernobyl is in the middle of nowhere. Yet belarouse and the ukraine are still spending 6-8% of their entire budget on chernobyl clean up 28 years later. That's down from 25% 15 years ago. That's pretty damn substantial. Many US reactors are very close to major population centers.

Go find a copy of We Almost Lost Detroit somewhere. It's written with an anti nuclear slant, but the facts are the facts. There were major accidents, that required huge amounts of money to clean up all around the world. The title refers to the fermi reactor 25 miles upwind of detroit that literally came within a heartbeat of blowing up. This was a sodium cooled breeder reactor, not water cooled. What would have been the cost? This was a plant designed by top nuclear engineers who believed is was perfectly safe to operate

bob2356 says

The title refers to the fermi reactor 25 miles upwind of detroit that literally came within a heartbeat of blowing up.

Would Detroit have looked much different if it had?

indigenous says

bob2356 says

The title refers to the fermi reactor 25 miles upwind of detroit that literally came within a heartbeat of blowing up.

Would Detroit have looked much different if it had?

Yea, it would. Plus there's an awful lot of stuff downwind besides detroit. Like buffalo, toronto, rochester,Cleveland (ok cleveland doesn't count)), all of new england.

You want to see balls of steel and people committed to Science?
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=dcc_1221342348
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=5ab_1178102816

.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a2d_1406895113

I can't find the footage again, but these same men in the first link - with no more protection than taping their trousers to their shoes - will eventually get closer and closer personally to the core. (Of course, they're just sharing a rolled cigarette, not smoking weed as the poster suspects).

This is part of a longer BBC documentary that I can't find. These guys stayed for months on site and as scientists they knew it would kill them eventually. While the soldiers and crews were volun-told, these scientists did volunteer - and they could read the instruments for themselves; no BS Would work on them. Men of Iron.

bob2356 says

Navy reactors are tiny. They are operated under a very strict safety regime. They are also very expensive. If commercial reactors were built and operated to Navy standards, which would be ideal, then none would have ever been opened They would have been far to expensive

I wouldn't call a carrier reactor "tiny". They are expensive because they are designed to fit into a very confined space, be stealthy and do so while surviving conditions a stationary civilian reactor would never be subjected to, like evade multiple torpedo attacks. They are an extreme example of reactor design yet they operate flawlessly 24/7/365. My point is reactors CAN be designed, built, and operated with an excellent safety record.

As to the use of sodium as a primary cooling loop what a coincidence! Dear old dad was an engineer on a fast breeder which used such a primary sodium loop. His project was to design a rupture disk system which would allow a breech to vent to a reservoir designed to contain just such an event. I'm not anymore concerned about using metallic sodium to cool a reactor any more than I am using it to cool automotive exhaust valves right next to the head water coolant.

Still you do bring up good points and without hysterical fear mongering.

Thanks for that.

thunderlips11 says

I can't find the footage again, but these same men in the first link - with no more protection than taping their trousers to their shoes - will eventually get closer and closer personally to the core. (Of course, they're just sharing a rolled cigarette, not smoking weed as the poster suspects).

This is part of a longer BBC documentary that I can't find. These guys stayed for months on site and as scientists they knew it would kill them eventually. While the soldiers and crews were volun-told, these scientists did volunteer - and they could read the instruments for themselves; no BS Would work on them. Men of Iron.

Brave men indeed. Much like the 911 responders..

New Renter says

My point is reactors CAN be designed, built, and operated with an excellent safety record.

Yes but can it be done for less than $10 a kw? The point isn't that safe nuclear isn't feasible, it's that safe nuclear isn't even close to being cost effective against natural gas at $4.00 mmbtu even with huge subsidies. Cost isn't an issue in the military.

New Renter says

As to the use of sodium as a primary cooling loop what a coincidence! Dear old dad was an engineer on a fast breeder which used such a primary sodium loop. His project was to design a rupture disk system which would allow a breech to vent to a reservoir designed to contain just such an event. I'm not anymore concerned about using metallic sodium to cool a reactor any more than I am using it to cool automotive exhaust valves right next to the head water coolant.

He didn't have a lot of choices which reactor. Clementine, EBR I, EBR II, and Sefor were small research fast breeder reactors. The Fast Flux Test Facility in hannaford was a full size (400mw) research reactor. The fermi was the only commercial sodium loop reactor ever built. That didn't end well at all. Although the problem was only a loose piece of shielding it blocked coolant flow of the ONLY coolant outlet. Redundancy? I think not. I'd be very interested to know what the plan was in your father's rupture disk system for cooling the red hot core after all the sodium coolant went into a reservoir. The temps would have climbed almost instantly to fuel melting range if the plant was on line.

The people working the control room at fermi truly didn't know if they were going to be blown up or not. It obviously wound't be an atomic bomb, but there would have been a really big explosion if the melted fuel went critical. A really big explosion with a couple hundred tons of (mostly melted) highly enriched uranium (breeders use much more enriched fuel) and plutonium thrown high into the air. That would have been a slightly worrisome problem with detroit 3 hours downwind on an average day. This was 1966. They started decommissioning in 1975 and expect to be fully decommissioned in 2035. That's correct 60 years.

There is a world of difference between a fraction of an ounce of sodium in an exhaust valve and tons of liquid sodium in a reactor. Like the difference between an m80 firecracker and the fat man atomic bomb. I'm sure I could come with the difference in energy if I wanted to.

bob2356 says

I'd be very interested to know what the plan was in your father's rupture disk system for cooling the red hot core after all the sodium coolant went into a reservoir. The temps would have climbed almost instantly to fuel melting range if the plant was on line.

Here you are:

http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ML0813/ML081360594.pdf

There were TWO sodium cooling loops, the intermediate one was the one that interfaced with water. A breech would have left the primary sodium loop intact. Due to the high thermal conductivity of sodium (about 100x that of water) which makes the entire primary loop pretty good cooling fin. Heat capacity is about half that of water:

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/tables/liqprop.html

This does somewhat limit how much heat it can absorb from the reactor without dumping it, however its boiling point is 1621F at 1 atm. The normal operating temp is 1000F so there is a 621F buffer there, compared with pretty much nothing from a water cooled reactor

bob2356 says

They started decommissioning in 1975 and expect to be fully decommissioned in 2035. That's correct 60 years.

Obviously decommissioning is not a high priority. What advantage is there to taking it apart faster?

bob2356 says

There is a world of difference between a fraction of an ounce of sodium in an exhaust valve and tons of liquid sodium in a reactor. Like the difference between an m80 firecracker and the fat man atomic bomb. I'm sure I could come with the difference in energy if I wanted to.

That all depends on distance doesn't it? An M80 ignited next to your head will kill you instantly while even a Tsar Bomba a few thousand miles away will just rock you to sleep.

New Renter says

There were TWO sodium cooling loops, the intermediate one was the one that interfaced with water. A breech would have left the primary sodium loop intact. Due to the high thermal conductivity of sodium (about 100x that of water) which makes the entire primary loop pretty good cooling fin.

So that's why the paper, whatever it is, talks about challenges to the structural integrity of the reactor and the critical mass of melted fuel. Because the primary loop will be intact and cool the core. I see. So was this theoretical safe breeder reactor ever built? Let me guess, it was so safe that it was 100% insured by private insurance, the AEC didn't have to insure it at all. Not.

New Renter says

That all depends on distance doesn't it? An M80 ignited next to your head will kill you instantly while even a Tsar Bomba a few thousand miles away will just rock you to sleep.

That's just stupid. You really didn't understand the point obviously.