EnviroLink Forum

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has acknowledged the massive Sandy storm could impact both coastal and inland nuclear power plants. At least 16 reactors are in the storm’s projected path, including North Anna and Surry in Virginia; Calvert Cliffs in Maryland; Oyster Creek, Hope Creek and Salem in New Jersey; Indian Point in New York; Millstone in Connecticut; and Vermont Yankee. So far, there have been no reports of reactors shutting down, despite operating under licenses that require them to do so if weather conditions are too severe.



http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/20 ... -portugal/

Hurricanes schmurricanes.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/rea ... -a-tornado



I recall the Grand Gulf, MS tornado in the late 70's. My dad worked there. An F3 took a bite out of the cooling tower.

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TANG SOO!

Interesting article, Fosgate;
"In 1974 the first major regulations for tornado-resistant design came out, requiring that nuclear plants in most of the U.S. be capable of surviving a total wind speed of 360 miles per hour — a figure that was literally off the charts, as the F-scale topped out at 318 mph. That raised the question of how tornado-resistant pre-1974 plants were. A mid-70s study of nine early plants found the odds of serious tornado damage in any given year were less than one in 5 million, with damage likely limited to the backup power systems. The chance of a tornado-induced core meltdown was calculated at 1 in 15 million over a reactor’s 30-year life span.

To the jaded modern ear, those numbers may sound too reassuring to be right, and in fact research established that severe damage can occur at much lower speeds than Fujita initially thought. This gave rise to the Enhanced Fujita scale, or EF-scale, introduced in 2007, which greatly lowered estimated wind speeds for the most destructive tornadoes (EF3 and higher).

The current design standard requires that nuclear plants be able to withstand “the most severe tornado that could reasonably be predicted to occur at the site,” based on a study of more than 50 years of tornado data. Today nuclear plants in the midwest and Great Plains must be designed for total wind speeds of 230 mph, which isn’t a relaxation of the earlier standard but rather reflects a better understanding of how much damage can occur at that speed."

I would like to know why we and the world have not been replacing all coal fired power plants with GenIV nuclear that also can withstand tornadoes? Why weren't population control measures brought in by everyone last century, except the half hearted attempts by the Chinese? Why are people, in general, behaving more like ruminants than beings that can think ahead 7 generations?

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"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”
― Chief Seattle

Right. Nucler energy? We are not forwad thinknig with this particular technology .... rght? How do we dispose of it .... ever?
























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I like all those blank lines (but not enough to copy them)! I am not a fan of nuclear either but I look at it as containing a naturally occurring dangerous substance. I think nuclear waste is safer then the uranium hanging around somewhere undiscovered and more radioactive (but less concentrated). The damage that weather change can cause will far outlive the nuclear waste half-life and involve the entire planet rather then some remote area we hide the nuclear waste in.

My objections to nuclear power are
It is the most expensive way yet thought of to generate power.
Half the nuclear power plants ever started did not end up generating power.
Nobody has yet built a facility to take the nuclear waste on a commercial scale.
The clean up after a nuclear plant is decommissioned is horrendously expensive and estimates of up to a hundred years or more have been made.
They take too long to build Historically about 15 years actual figures vary from about 5 years to well over 20 with many being abandoned during the construction phase.
The risks of major accidents are fairly low but the cost when things do go wrong are astronomical for example following the Japanese earthquakes.
Lets not even think about the potential for terrorism related activity in relation to the sites.

From a climate perspective the process still generates CO2 during construction, decommissioning, mining, transportation of fuel and later waste, refining of fuel, the building of disposal facilities of waste disposal sites and that is only a list of the most obvious items..

Using current commercial technology we do not have enough nuclear fuel to make a useful impact on our emissions.

The nuclear industry was originally started to in order to provide nuclear material for bombs with power generation being essentially a by product.

We have numerous ways that we can generate power from sustainable sources which I am convinced are cheaper than any nuclear power plant that is on the horizon, without any of the attendant problems associated with nuclear materials.

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Pollution is not the solution

Read Hansen's "Storms of My Grandchildren". It is a common misconception to lump Gen IV nuclear with the other ones. Gen IV reactors use the waste of the other reactors and produce very little and only 10 year half life waste themselves. There is enough nuclear waste stored to power all of them replacing coal fired plants for 500 years and then they can run off of deuterium in sea water, no more uranium mining needed, ever. Good designs were trashed by Clinton in '94(to appease the anti-any-nuclear supporters) and those people who worked on the plans are mostly still around and remember. There are now 8 of them running well around the world, and we need thousands more by 2020. By the way, they have no proliferation danger either---read Hansen's book.
It would be nice if everywhere was perfect for solar as here.

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"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”
― Chief Seattle

The nuclear industry has been telling this sort of thing for 60 years I am not holding my breath.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor
So we start building them around 2030 then we spend another 20 years sorting out the bugs, in the meantime we have a technology that we know works. Yes there are some problems associated with implementing large scale renewables but we do have the theoretical knowledge to sort them out.
The Nuclear power industry is simply a problem desperately looking for a reason to be.

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Pollution is not the solution