Would you prefer that the Legislature pursue nuclear or coal power in Kansas?

The Lawrence Journal has put this question to the Kansas community. Impressively, the phrasing of the question clearly recognizes that, for the majority of the electrical energy production of the state, in practice, it’s a choice between nuclear energy and burning coal.

Let’s look at the comments from the four citizens interviewed:

“Given a choice between the two, I’d go with nuclear. I think it’s cleaner for the now. You can at least sequester the waste, whereas with coal you can’t. Coal-burning plants seem too archaic.”

This person recognizes coal to be a problem, and nuclear energy is recognised as a clean alternative to replace coal.

“I’ll go with coal. It’s cheaper for the consumer, and the resources are more readily available here.”

This was the first thing that came to my mind as a response to that.

“I’d say nuclear. I think it’s more efficient; it doesn’t consume as many resources, and the output is better for the environment.”

Another person who recognises nuclear energy as something which is important as a realistic alternative to large-scale coal-fired electricity generation, and the grave effects of same.

“I’m definitely against the use of coal-burning power plants, because it seems too much like going backward for a quick fix. But I really don’t know enough about nuclear power to endorse it as an alternative.”

It’s great to see these kinds of comments in the community, too. This woman recognizes the problems posed by coal, but doesn’t pass any judgement on nuclear energy, since it wouldn’t be sensible to do so since she doesn’t know enough about it, and wants to learn more.

The majority of the people interviewed are clearly opposed to coal-fired generation - that’s good to see.

Whilst the, uh, signal-to-noise ratio of the comments on the comment board isn’t particularly appealing, there are still some positive and interesting comments.

I gotta go coal. I just don’t really trust the whole nuke thing… I think leaving all the radioactive waste for later is worse than leaving our kids with a deficit, or dirty air.
Not that I like coal either. There just isn’t any free ride when it comes to energy.

Coal, by God. It’s better for the State’s economy.

Unfortunately, decades of cheap, pollution-ignored coal and fear have held us back from getting to work on improved, refined, and simplified nuclear plants.

And, for those who aren’t aware, Lawrencians get about 100 times the radiation dose from Uranium and Thorium emitted in the flue gases and only nominally restrained ash piles at our KPL coal plant than the people of Coffey County do from Wolf Creek.

But, given these limited choices, I’d pick nuclear over coal.

As always, do consider leaving your comment, if you’re interested.

The battle for Chernobyl.

Last month I got into a discussion with some people about the Chernobyl disaster, following the 22nd anniversary of the catastrophic Soviet reactor accident, and this documentary film was mentioned:

The Battle for Chernobyl.

To put it lightly, this film is an astonishing bunch of rhetorical baloney.

I’m not trying to downplay the public health consequences of the Chernobyl accident - but I’m downplaying the inaccurate or false claims made by certain groups, as distinct from the body of evidence of real, documented and substantiated (and very significant impacts).

Despite the known public health impacts, some people continue to make claims that are either just not true or are completely unsubstantiated - for example any claim that there are children, today, with an increased incidence of thyroid cancer, which just isn’t true - any children who were exposed to the short-lived iodine-131 source term in 1986 are adults today, 22 years later, and the iodine-131 decayed away quickly, within months.

Now, to look at the video:

From the gaping hole, a spray of fire, charged with radioactive particles in fusion, sprays a thousand meters into the sky.

Right from the outset, it’s completely obvious that for the next hour and a bit, science is tossed aside, and rhetoric is the first and only order of affairs.

The radioactive fallout is going to be 100 times greater than the combined power of the two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Some simplistic comments have often been made in which the radioactive release of the Chernobyl event is claimed to be 300 or 400 times that of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. However, in sensible terms of radiological impacts, the two events can not be simply compared with a number suggesting that one was x times larger than the other.

Radioecology after Chernobyl - some good literature.

The total combined energy yield of both of the nuclear weapons used in Japan was about 35 kilotons of TNT equivalent - or about 41 gigawatt-hours. The Chernobyl Unit 4 reactor, with a thermal power output of about 3 gigawatts, produced that same amount of energy, and created about the same amount of fission-product activity, every 13.6 hours or thereabouts. Given that a nuclear power reactor contains fuel that has provided that kind of power output for perhaps as long as several years, of course there’s a larger inventory of radioactivity contained in the reactor fuel.

Iodine tablets swallowed to counteract the effects of radioactivity.

Iodine prophylaxis only prevents the body from uptaking iodine from the environment - which might be contaminated by radioactive iodine-131. It in no way “counteracts the effects of radioactivity”.

“The radiation level above the reactor is over 3500 R, almost nine times the lethal dose.”

3500 R over what length of time? The strength of an ionising “radiation field” in such a situation can only sensibly be expressed as roentgens (or sieverts or similar unit) per hour (or per unit of time).

0:36:40

If over six hundred pilots were “fatally contaminated with radiation”and killed, and this is known to be true, why have the Chernobyl Forum, the IAEA, the WHO, the UNDP, the UNSCEAR, Russian or Ukrainian governments never mentioned it? Can it be proven to be true, before the international community, by these people?

0:37:08

Why does none of this film show any artefacts on the film resulting from radiation damage?

0:38:20

The infamous “elephant’s foot” “magma” doesn’t look “white-hot” at this stage, although that’s how it’s described.

0:43:45

Again, the level of radioactivity is implied to be so very high - and it was high - yet it was not high enough to leave artefacts on the camera film. I don’t know exactly what sort of radiation dose is required to effect a piece of photochemical film (Remember that stuff, that was used before digital photography?), but I really expect it to show some damage under these conditions.

0:44:45

If you’ve got documentary evidence of these lives lost as a direct result of the disaster, that don’t appear in any of the UN’s findings, then I’m sure the UN would love to hear about it.

0:52:30

Oh dear - it’s “imagined” health physics, romanticised Hollywood fiction style.

“It finds a way in, and knocks you out”.

1:03:00 or thereabouts:

7000 R/hr - and still no effect on the video camera film. I wonder how strong the ionising radiation field needs to be to affect it?

1:12:30 -

“…The visit stirs up painful memories. He was fatally exposed to radiation during the seven months he spent covering the battle. Since then, he’s had to be hospitalised for over two months each year.”

He was fatally exposed to radiation? Oh, really? So you’re reanimated a dead man to interview for the program?

Chernobyl showed us the true nature of nuclear energy in human hands

No, Chernobyl showed us the potential for folly associated with the Soviet way of doing things back then. Keep in mind that the non-Soviet world has never even come remotely close to experiencing such an accident.

1:31:20:

“Inside, there are 100 kilograms of plutonium.

One microgram is a lethal dose for a human being. That means there is enough plutonium to poison 100 million people.”

Even assuming that “one microgram of plutonium is a lethal dose for a human being”, which it isn’t, I expect that somebody who is really a nuclear physicist should know how to count, and not allow such a glaring error of arithmetic to go uncorrected.

“The half-life of plutonium is 245,000 years.”

In order of descending half-life:

Pu-244: 80 million years

Pu-242: 373,300 years

Pu-239: 24,100 years

Pu-240: 6564 years

Pu-238: 87.7 years

Pu-241: 14.35 years

Pu-236: 2.858 years

The nuclides bolded are the most common ones. I don’t know about you, but Iexpect someone who is a nuclear physicist to get that right, and not just pull some nonsense number out of thin air! Again, not one of these plutonium nuclides has the half-life claimed in the film. What’s more, no credible nuclear physicist would state that “the half-life of plutonium is such-and-such” without specifying which nuclide he was talking about.

But wait - if you’ve watched the video, there are a couple more scenes that you almost certainly haven’t overlooked:

“Yet, it is thanks to these men that the worst was avoided. A second explosion, ten times more powerful than Hiroshima, which would have wiped out half of Europe.”

Yes, you heard that correctly. They claim that a  150 kiloton nuclear detonation could have happened. See below, for what I think of that.

0:34:00 - 0:35:00

The ensuing chain reaction could set off an explosion, comparable to a gigantic atomic bomb.

“Our experts studied the possibility, and concluded that the explosion would have had a force of three to five megatons. Minsk, which is 320 kilometres from Chernobyl, would have been razed, and Europe rendered uninhabitable.”

A 3 to 5 megaton nuclear detonation.

I apologise for putting this bluntly, but there’s only one thing I can say to that. What complete and utter bullshit.

They trump out the nuclear weapon explosion stock footage and everything. This is quite possibly the most blatantly shameless, ridiculous, completely falsifiable and utterly ridiculous example of shameless and absurd anti-nuclear-power propaganda I have ever seen.

More on uranium mining.

You may wish to take a look at Dr. Gavin Mudd’s briefing paper, Uranium Mining: Australia and Globally.

This isn’t something that’s been written for the peer-reviewed academic science literature, but it provides a little more of a look into the kind of position that the author of the paper discussed yesterday is coming from.

You may also want to take a look at the “energyscience” organisation, hosting the above. It’s not difficult to see what kind of position they’re pushing.

(Aside: For the sake of impartiality, since I linked to the above, I might take the opportunity to include a link to nuclearinfo.net as well.)

“What comes out of the stack is, basically, a moist air”

“Moist air” !? How stupid do they actually think people are?

No, unfortunately - I’m pretty sure this one isn’t satirical. I wonder how much mercury will end up in those fish?

If the embedded video player doesn’t work for you whatever reason, here’s the direct YouTube link.

” Nuclear’s CO2 cost ‘will climb’”.

The BBC is reporting that:

The case for nuclear power as a low carbon energy source to replace fossil fuels has been challenged in a new report by Australian academics.

It suggests greenhouse emissions from the mining of uranium - on which nuclear power relies - are on the rise.

Availability of high-grade uranium ore is set to decline with time, it says, making the fuel less environmentally friendly and more costly to extract.

A significant proportion of greenhouse emissions from nuclear power stem from the fuel supply stage, which includes uranium mining, milling, enrichment and fuel manufacturing.

Others sources of carbon include construction of the plant - including the manufacturing of steel and concrete materials - and decomissioning.

You can read the rest of the original BBC article here.

Perhaps more significantly, you can download the original academic paper in question here.

I will quote a couple of paragraphs worth:

Overall, the data clearly show the sensitivity of sustainability assessments to the ore grade of
the uranium deposit being mined and that significant gaps remain in complete sustainability reporting and accounting. This paper is a case study of the energy, water, and carbon costs of uranium mining and milling within the context of the nuclear energy chain.

In summary, the extent of economically recoverable uranium, although somewhat uncertain, is clearly linked to exploration effort, technology, and economics but is inextricably linked to environmental costs such as energy, water, and chemicals consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and broader social issues. These crucial environmental aspects of resource extraction are only just beginning to be understood in the context of more complete life cycle analyses of the nuclear chain and other energy options. There still remains incomplete reporting however, especially in terms of data consistency among mines and site-specific data for numerous individual mines and mills, as well as the underlying factors controlling differences and variability. It is clear that there is a strong sensitivity of energy and water consumption and greenhouse gas emissions to ore grade, and that ore grades are likely to continue to decline gradually in the medium- to long-term. These issues are critical to understand in the current debate over nuclear power, greenhouse gas emissions, and climate change, especially with respect to ascribing sustainability to such activities as uranium mining and milling.

So, to summarise exactly what the paper says:

There are some inputs of energy  associated with the nuclear fuel cycle on a whole-of-life-cycle during uranium mining and milling, and in practice at present there are some carbon dioxide emissions associated with these energy inputs.

As reserves of easily recoverable high-grade uranium ore decline, assuming that the greenhouse-gas intensity of the energy inputs into the mining operations remain comparable, the whole-of-life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions intensity of nuclear energy might be expected to increase somewhat.

I think we already know that. Everyone already knows that.

The lead author of the paper, Gavin Mudd, is an Australian academic with a background in geohydrological engineering. He is a nuclear energy skeptic - well, not so much a nuclear energy skeptic as someone who is skeptical of the ecological sustainability of current uranium mining practices. His main area of expertise and interest with regard to nuclear energy is uranium mining.

I use the term “nuclear energy skeptic” because it’s reasonably clear that he’s anti-nuclear-energy - but I think it’s almost uncharitable and unfair to put an academic who puts forward their arguments in terms of reasonably well constructed academic papers in peer-reviewed science journals in the same category as the likes of Wasserman, Gunter or Caldicott.

This paper does not at all say “nuclear energy is unsustainable” or “uranium mining is unsustainable” - once the journalists apply a little spin to it, however, it’s easy to see how many could try and apply this paper, and especially press articles like the above, towards evidencing such a conclusion.

Describing the fact that there are energy inputs associated with uranium - which we already know - doesn’t answer the real question at all - How does the whole-of-life-cycle greenhouse gas intensity per MWh of electricity generation actually quantitatively compare to the whole-of-life-cycle greenhouse gas intensity of other energy generation technologies?

Sure - it’s somewhat reasonable to suggest that these quantities will change over the long term, into the future. Quantitatively, how will they be expected to change?

I should add, finally, that this paper is notable for being - perhaps - the first ever nuclear-skeptical study of the energy and greenhouse gas intensity of the nuclear fuel cycle that does not invoke the work of van Leeuwen and Smith. In fact, in terms of the quality of the source material cited, this paper seems pretty good.

Another very interesting blog.

Please check out Lightbucket.

A selection of recent blog posts of interest:

Energy payback ratios for electricity generation.

A roadmap to magnetic confinement fusion.

Carbon emissions from electricity generation - the numbers.

A little coal-fired satire.

If the embedded video above doesn’t work properly on your web browser, use this link.

Some thoughts on the economics of domestic solar photovoltaic installations

Let’s say that 1 kW of solar PV nameplate capacity installed on your roof costs about $12,000. The figures that I’ve seen quoted around are typically $13,000-$12,000 for a 1 kW on-roof PV array installation.

(These are Australian-centric quoted costs, in Australian dollars, by the way).

With the rebate of $8/W for installed PV capacity (capped at $8000) offered by the government to encourage decentralised household generation, that’s $8000 offset from the cost of the 1 kW system.

With this incentive included, that’s $4000 you need to pay for such a system.

Now, based on realistic capacity factors for such a PV system, 1 kW of nameplate power capacity will generate about 5.1 kWh energy in total per day - The PV installation industry expresses this overall capacity/availability factor as “peak sun hours per day” for any given location. The 5.1 kWh is the actual figure quoted for Sydney, Australia.

Household electricity consumption in Australia is 7 MWh annually in Australia, according to EnergyAustralia. That’s 19 kWh per day.

A 1 kW solar PV installation is just not enough to completely offset your electricity bill and start making money off it.

The typical electricity cost to the domestic customer is about 14 c per kWh. It has been proposed, however, that the government could see the price paid for electricity sold into the grid from these decentralised household installations fixed at an elevated price of 44c/kWh

At a feed-in rate of 44c per kWh, that’s $820 dollars per year offset from your electricity bill - so, the solar PV installation takes just under 5 years to pay off. If you’re selling the electricity at the same rate that the domestic customer buys it at, 14c per kWh, it’s over 15 years.

However, suppose you want to consider the case of installing enough capacity to completely satisfy your household electricity needs, so that you can be making money of it all together.

(This all assumes that you’re an “average household”, presumably with several family members in the household, and “average” levels of electricity efficiency)

You’re going to need a system with 4 kW of nameplate capacity.

How much will that cost - well, we might assume that it can be done for cheaper than $48,000 - I don’t know, really, so I’ll just guesstimate $45,000. (Some economy-of-scale is to be expected, but I am not an economist, and it’s not an area which I’m familiar with in any real detail.)

Less the $8000 rebate, and that’s $37,000.

Now, you’re generating 20.4 kWh per day, and and consuming 19 kWh, with 1.4 kWh sold back into the grid at 44 c per kWh.

In this scenario, no overall electrcity purchasing is required - so overall, it’s a revenue source.

That’s $225 per year from selling the electricity, plus $971.5 saved from not having to buy the electricity that you use.

$37,000 / $1196.5 gives you a payback time of 31 years. In all likelihood, that will exceed the working lifetime of the photovoltaics.

With the government rebate of $8/kW capped at $8000, going over that amount gets a whole lot more expensive rather quickly.

Pro-Nuke? Anti-Nuke? Talk About It With the Experts.

The Mother Jones Blue Marble blog is taking on the nuclear energy debate.

There is an active comments board - however, unfortunately, it seems to be a little dominated by some very, very dubious arguments from the likes of Harvey Wasserman.

I encourage you all to check it out, and have your say on the comments board.

(My reply was posted immediately… it looks like they’ve turned off comments screening, perhaps?)

Anti-nuclear-energy rubbish article of the week.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080512/parenti/print

“Wall street doesn’t like nuclear power,” says Arjun Makhijani of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. The fundamental fact is that nuclear power is too expensive and risky to attract the necessary commercial investors. Even with vast government subsidies, it is difficult or almost impossible to get proper financing and insurance. The massive federal subsidies on offer will cover up to 80 percent of construction costs of several nuclear power plants in addition to generous production tax credits, as well as risk insurance. But consider this: the average two-reactor nuclear power plant is estimated to cost $10 billion to $18 billion to build. That’s before cost overruns, and no US nuclear power plant has ever been delivered on time or on budget.

Anti-nuclear-energy dogmatists like Makhijani wouldn’t know the difference between a loan guarantee and a subsidy if it jumped up and bit them.

Spent nuclear fuel rods are refined for weapons-grade plutonium and enriched uranium

What a load of rubbish. Weapons-grade plutonium and HEU are produced from “spent nuclear fuel rods”? What an idiot. A sentence like that is only an embarrassment to the author.

In this nether realm, where industry and science seek to reproduce the process that occurs inside the sun, even basic tasks–like moving the fuel rods, changing spare parts–become complicated, mechanized and expensive.

Actually, the nuclear fusion of hydrogen within the stars and the nuclear fission of uranium are two completely different things.

Atom-smashing is to coal power, or a windmill, as a Formula One race-car engine is to the mechanics of a bicycle. Thus, it costs an enormous amount of money.

OK, suppose that, on the surface of it, that that’s a sensible statement. However, a race-car engine produces a whole lot more energy, and runs continually for a much longer time, with much higher reliability, than a bicycle, and it will take you a much greater distance in a given amount of time.

If you want to have a bicycle as your only sole means of transport, as opposed to a (non-polluting, non fossil fuelled) Formula One car, then there’s a reasonably convincing case to be made that you’re not much more than a Luddite.

Moore is also a huge champion of GMO crops, which are notorious for impoverishing farmers in developing economies and using massive amounts of pesticides.

Actually, GM crops require much less pesticide than traditional plant species.

“One of these days a plant will blow,” says Sidebotham, with just a touch of a genteel but steely New England accent. “And when it does, it will cause a great many deaths and widespread suffering, not to mention extraordinary economic damage.”

A plant is going to “blow”, huh? It’s going to “blow” -like a nuclear weapon, maybe? So, exactly what, in terms of real-world physics, is going to happen? What is going to “blow”? How?

What a load of baloney!

There’s a lot more nonsense where that came from, but I’m just one mortal man, with finite patience, and it’s getting late.