Dispute over disposal of nuclear waste brewing between power companies

[kristopher]

Dispute over disposal of nuclear waste brewing between power companies
Pyhäjoki waste would not all fit in Olkiluoto


Disagreement over the final storage of nuclear waste flared up soon after the power company Fennovoima announced on Wednesday that it had decided to build a new nuclear facility in Pyhäjoki on Finland’s west coast.
Fennovoima also indicated that it assumes that it will be able to store the radioactive waste from the plant at the facility being built in Olkiluoto by Posiva, a company set up for the purpose by Fortum and TVO, the two companies that currently operate nuclear power plants in Finland.
Posiva was quick to reject the idea.

“There simply is not enough capacity or space in Olkiluoto. We are currently using all of the space made available by zoning. This fact should gradually sink in at Fennovoima as well”, says Posiva CEO Reijo Sundell....

http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Dispute+over+disposal+of+nuclear+waste+brewing+between+power+companies/1135269639490


Nuclear industry motto: Build first and worry about the fallout later...

[Angry Dragon]

1. .............

:nuke:

[kristopher]

2. What does John Holdren, Obama's science advisor, say about nuclear?

Yucca Mountain was designed to hold all of the waste from the 100+ nuclear reactors in the US reactor fleet. Compare the OP with these estimates on storage from a presentation by John Holdren.

The nuclear option: size of the challenges

• If world electricity demand grows 2% /year until 2050 and nuclear share of electricity supply is to rise from 1/6 to 1/3...
–nuclear capacity would have to grow from 350 GWe in 2000 to 1700 GWe in 2050;
– this means 1,700 reactors of 1,000 MWe each.

• If these were light-water reactors on the once-through fuel cycle...
---–enrichment of their fuel will require ~250 million Separative Work Units (SWU);
---–diversion of 0.1% of this enrichment to production of HEU from natural uranium would make ~20 gun-type or ~80 implosion-type bombs.

• If half the reactors were recycling their plutonium...
---–the associated flow of separated, directly weapon - usable plutonium would be 170,000 kg per year;
---–diversion of 0.1% of this quantity would make ~30 implosion-type bombs.

• Spent-fuel production in the once-through case would be...
---–34,000 tonnes/yr, a Yucca Mountain every two years.

Conclusion: Expanding nuclear enough to take a modest bite out of the climate problem is conceivable, but doing so will depend on greatly increased seriousness in addressing the waste-management & proliferation challenges.


Mitigation of Human-Caused Climate Change
John P. Holdren

It's worth repeating that conclusion: Expanding nuclear enough to take a modest bite out of the climate problem is conceivable, but doing so will depend on greatly increased seriousness in addressing the waste-management & proliferation challenges.

He also addresses renewables:

The renewable option: Is it real?

SUNLIGHT: 100,000 TW reaches Earth’s surface (100,000 TWy/year = 3.15 million EJ/yr), 30% on land.
Thus 1% of the land area receives 300 TWy/yr, so converting this to usable forms at 10% efficiency would yield 30 TWy/yr, about twice civilization’s rate of energy use in 2004.

WIND: Solar energy flowing into the wind is ~2,000 TW.
Wind power estimated to be harvestable from windy sites covering 2% of Earth’s land surface is about twice world electricity generation in 2004.

BIOMASS: Solar energy is stored by photosynthesis on land at a rate of about 60 TW.
Energy crops at twice the average terrestrial photosynthetic yield would give 12 TW from 10% of land area (equal to what’s now used for agriculture).
Converted to liquid biofuels at 50% efficiency, this would be 6 TWy/yr, more than world oil use in 2004.

Renewable energy potential is immense. Questions are what it will cost & how much society wants to pay for environmental & security advantages.

John P. Holdren is advisor to President Barack Obama for Science and Technology,
Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and
Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology...

Holdren was previously the Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University,
director of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program at the School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and
Director of the Woods Hole Research Center.<2>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Holdren

[madokie]

3. "Nuclear industry motto: Build first and worry about the fallout later..."

could not have been put more honest or plainer to understand. There is no way in hell that nuclear energy can supply us with all of our electrical needs so why is the nuclear industry continuing to dream of the day it will. Nuclear energy creates way more problems than it solves. Could you imagine the problems we'd have if we had another 100 nuclear power plants here in America. I can't and I'll fight to keep that from happening as long as there is fight left in me. I've been here before and I'm still here today.

Is there a graph anywhere that shows the rate of cancers in America in comparisons to the building of the nuclear power plants we have now?

[PamW]

4. SCIENTISTS DISAGREE with you!!

here is no way in hell that nuclear energy can supply us with all of our electrical needs so why is the nuclear industry continuing to dream of the day it will.

Is there a graph anywhere that shows the rate of cancers in America in comparisons to the building of the nuclear power plants we have now?
==================================

Nuclear power now provides 20% - 25% of our electrical needs; so what do you "think" is standing in the way of 100%?

Chicago and northern Illinois, the Commonwealth Edison service area, is almost totally nuclear powered, as is France.

As far as cancer from nuclear power plants, once again the SCIENTISTS disagree with you. Any link between cancer and nuclear power plants has been extensively studied by the scientists of the National Cancer Institute who say:

No Excess Mortality Risk Found in Counties with Nuclear Facilities

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/nuclear-facilities

Results were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

You are WRONG as always.

PamW

[txlibdem]

5. Pam, I'm sorry to have to tell you this

The Clean Air Task Force found a higher risk of death and hospitalization due to power plants.

Coal power plants, that is:
http://www.catf.us/coal/problems/power_plants/existing/

...click on your state in the map to see your potential risk of death due to living in a county with a coal power plant.

[PamW]

6. Minimal problems

Could you imagine the problems we'd have if we had another 100 nuclear power plants here in America.
=================================

Evidently this post is due to a misguided and erroneous notion that radiation from the 100+ plants the USA has at present is significant.

From the scientists of the Health Physics Society chapter at the University of Michigan:

http://www.umich.edu/~radinfo/introduction/radrus.htm

We see that the radiation dose due to the entire fuel cycle for the present 100+ plants represents <0.03% of the typical background dose. This means that less than 1 part in 3000 of your annual background dose is due to nuclear power. If we had about 500 reactors, we could meet the entire electrical demand of the USA. The dose would be <0.15% of background.

This would be approximately the same dose as living about 100 feet higher. So if you live in the interior of the USA, or any place where your altitude is over 100 feet above sea level, then you are voluntarily subjecting yourself to an additional radiation dose relative to see level, that exceeds the dose if all electricity in the USA were delivered by nuclear power.

You are already getting about 1000X that radiation due to natural and medical exposures of radiation with no ill effects.

http://hps.org/publicinformation/ate/q616.html

http://hps.org/publicinformation/ate/q4056.html

http://hps.org/publicinformation/ate/cat33.html

PamW

[Kolesar]

8. You still don't have an adequate storage facility for the existing fuel rod waste

We certainly don't need more of that hot, radioactive waste. Adding a hundred new 1000 megawatt plants would be stupid.

BTW, the theme of this thread is nuclear waste disposal.

[madokie]

9. Why bother?

If you'll notice I don't

[kristopher]

10. +1

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=259002#259008

[madokie]

12. LOL

That last paragraph was funny. ROFLMFAO
I often wondered what happened to dr greg
That just goes to show that even though we're miles apart when someone attempts to be something they aren't tombstonitis'll get 'em sooner or later every time.

Peace out :hi:

[PamW]

11. We don't but others DO

You still don't have an adequate storage facility for the existing fuel rod waste
========================================================

Technically, the nuclear waste problem is solved. You reprocess / recycle the spent fuel
like France, Britain, Japan,....do. If you recycle long lived waste components like
Plutonium back to the reactor; then you don't have this "multi-thousand year" waste problem.

You have a problem with a lifetime of a few DECADES, not thousands of years.

This is something the anti-nukes are always so blasted IGNORANT of. Of course,
that's by design, because they caused the nuclear waste "problem". France, Britain,
Japan,.... are not out looking for a mountain or somewhere else to put spent fuel.

Only in the USA do we have the "problem", because the anti-nukes got Congress to
outlaw the solution of reprocessing / recycling back in the late '70s.

Stop listening the to propaganda from the stupid / ignorant anti-nuke activists and
read what a scientist, a nuclear physicist like Dr. Charles Till of Argonne National
Lab has to say:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/interviews/till.html

Q: And you repeat the process.

A: Eventually, what happens is that you wind up with only fission products, that the waste
is only fission products that have, most have lives of hours, days, months, some a
few tens of years. There are a few very long-lived ones that are not very radioactive.


PamW

[kristopher]

13. Good overview of reprocessing by the Union of Concerned Scientists

Nuclear Reprocessing: Dangerous, Dirty, and Expensive

Reprocessing is a series of chemical operations that separates plutonium and uranium from other nuclear waste contained in the used (or “spent”) fuel from nuclear power reactors. The separated plutonium can be used to fuel reactors, but also to make nuclear weapons. In the late 1970’s, the United States decided on nuclear non-proliferation grounds not to reprocess spent fuel from U.S. power reactors, but instead to directly dispose of it in a deep underground geologic repository where it would remain isolated from the environment for at least tens of thousands of years.

While some supporters of a U.S. reprocessing program believe it would help solve the nuclear waste problem, reprocessing would not reduce the need for storage and disposal of radioactive waste. Worse, reprocessing would make it easier for terrorists to acquire nuclear weapons materials, and for nations to develop nuclear weapons programs.

Reprocessing would increase the risk of nuclear terrorism.
Less than 20 pounds of plutonium is needed to make a simple nuclear weapon. If the plutonium remains bound in large, heavy, and highly radioactive spent fuel assemblies (the current U.S. practice), it is nearly impossible to steal. In contrast, separated plutonium is not highly radioactive and is stored in a concentrated powder form. Some claim that new reprocessing technologies that would leave the plutonium blended with other elements, such as neptunium, would result in a mixture that would be too radioactive to steal. This is incorrect; neither neptunium nor the other elements under consideration are radioactive enough to preclude theft. Most of these other elements are also weapon-usable.

Moreover, commercial-scale reprocessing facilities handle so much of this material that it has proven impossible to keep track of it accurately in a timely manner, making it feasible that the theft of enough plutonium to build several bombs could go undetected for years...

http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/nuclear_power_risk/nuclear_proliferation_and_terrorism/nuclear-reprocessing.html

Also see John Holdren's view in post #2

[Kolesar]

14. The cloWns in Finland don't have a reprocessing program

So it is irresponsible for them to create more.
And it is not "the fault" of some antinuclear activists in the US in the 1970s. It's Finland. In Europe

[kristopher]

15. More information on the mythology of reprocessing as a solution

This addresses all of the nuclear industry histrionics above and is available here:
http://www.ieer.org/reports/reprocessing2010.pdf

G. Reprocessing and spent fuel stocks from existing U.S. reactors
As we have seen, statements that 90 or 95 percent of the material in spent fuel can be used are completely invalid without breeder reactors. In this section we will examine some of the implications of a policy that seeks to deal with existing spent fuel by trying to convert the mass of the material into fuel and using it for energy, assuming that breeder reactors will work and can be deployed on a large scale.

We start with a heuristic calculation. A 1,000-megawatt nuclear power reactor fissions about one metric ton of heavy metal per year in the course of energy generation. At present, there are over 60,000 metric tons of spent fuel in the United States. With reactor re-licensing, the total amount of spent fuel could amount to well over 100,000 metric tons by the time the reactors are retired; 95-plus percent of the content of this spent fuel is uranium or transuranic elements (mainly plutonium). We will use a round number of 100,000 metric tons92 of uranium and plutonium content in spent fuel that would be converted into fuel. This corresponds approximately to statements that 90 or 95 percent of existing spent fuel has “energy value” and hence should not be regarded as waste. For instance, such a scheme would appear to be the one that Dr. Miller had in mind and that NRC Commissioner Bill Magwood made explicit in his discussions of spent fuel management.93

Setting aside for the moment a variety of difficult issues, including those associated with the rate of conversion of uranium-238 into plutonium, it is easy to see that it would take 100,000 reactor years (assuming 1,000 megawatt reactors) to convert the heavy metal content of spent fuel from the existing fleet of U.S. power reactors into fission products in a manner that extracts essentially all the physically possible energy value in it.

Assume a reactor operating life of 50 years, accumulating 100,000 reactor years would mean building 2,000 reactors to extract the energy in the total spent fuel from the existing fleet of reactors. This is about 20 times the size of the existing U.S. nuclear power system. It is four times the total electricity generation of the United States and seven or eight times the baseload requirements under the present centralized electricity dispatch system. If the material is consumed in a smaller number of reactors, the time to consume it would be proportionally increased. For instance, it would take 200 years to consume the material in 500 reactors.

THE MYTHOLOGY AND MESSY REALITY OF NUCLEAR FUEL REPROCESSING (pg 37)
Arjun Makhijani, Ph.D.

http://www.ieer.org/reports/reprocessing2010.pdf


For a close examination of the actual state of global processing programs see the work of the International Panel of Fissile Materials' work. Makhijani draws on it, and it is available for download in full here:

February 2010
Fast Breeder Reactor Programs: History and Status
http://www.fissilematerials.org/blog/rr08.pdf

Research Report 8 International Panel on Fissile Materials
Thomas B. Cochran, Harold A. Feiveson, Walt Patterson, Gennadi Pshakin, M.V. Ramana, Mycle Schneider, Tatsujiro Suzuki, Frank von Hippel
www.fissilematerials.org

[Kolesar]

16. "This is about 20 times the size of the existing U.S. nuclear power system"

Presumably, the rate payers and the tax-paying public are supposed to pay for these reactors for the benefit of the nuclear industry.

[PamW]

18. We don't have to burn all the U-238

Arjun is calculating how to burn all the U-238.

We don't have to burn the U-238. We could just put the U-238
back into the ground - that's where it came from.

The U-238 is no more radioactive than the day it was dug out
of the ground. So there should be no qualms about putting it back.

Simple solution somehow escapes you.

PamW

[PamW]

17. They buy the service from the French

The cloWns in Finland don't have a reprocessing program
=======================================================

They don't have their own program - they buy the services from the French.

The Swedes also purchase services from the French.

Japan used to purchase same; until they built their own program.

PamW

[kristopher]

19. Japan’s Plutonium Breeder Reactor and its Fuel Cycle

Japan’s Plutonium Breeder Reactor and its Fuel Cycle
Tatsujiro Suzuki
This paper reviews the history, status, and probable future of fast reactor and associated fuel cycle development in Japan. The fast breeder reactor and its closed fuel cycle have been the cornerstone of Japan’s nuclear-energy development program since the 1950s. For economic, technological, and political reasons, Japan’s development and implementation of these technologies are significantly delayed. The budget for fast breeder reactor development has steadily declined since the mid-1990s, and its commercialization target has slipped from the 1980s to the 2050s. An accident at the Monju prototype reactor contributed to these delays and triggered a fundamental shift from research and development (R&D) and early commercialization to an emphasis on advanced fuel cycles.

Nevertheless, Japan is still committed to fast-reactor development.** This paper examines the motivation for its continued commitment to a fast reactor program and concludes that several non-technological factors, such as bureaucratic inertia, commitments to local communities, and an absence of R&D oversight have contributed to this entrenched position. Japan is currently reorganizing its R&D programs with the goal of operating a demonstration breeder reactor by about 2025. This effort is in response to the government sponsored Nuclear Power National Plan and the Bush Administration’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership Program (GNEP). Breeder R&D programs face significant obstacles, such as plutonium-stockpile management, spent fuel management, fuel cycle technologies, and arrangements for cost and risk sharing between industry, national and local governments. As a result, it is likely that fast breeder reactor programs will continue to slip.... (Pg 53)

http://www.fissilematerials.org/blog/rr08.pdf


**The underlined sentence is no longer accurate...

Japan freezes fast breeder plans
- September 28, 2011

Monju, Japan’s prototype fast breeder reactor, has had its research budget slashed. This might not come as a big surprise, given the anti-nuke sentiment in Japan and the tattered state of its nuclear energy policy. Still, with this latest blow, the woeful state of the ill-fated reactor is all the more striking. It could be maintained — with the help of a one-off Y20 billion yen (US$262 million) allocation — but the annual research budget will be cut 70%~80% from its previous Y10 billion.

Monju reached criticality in 1994 but was shut down the following year because of a fire triggered by a sodium coolant leak. It took the government over 14 years to demonstrate safety, overcome scandals related to tampered video images, and garner local support for restarting operations. But then, three months after it did so in May 2010, something happened that is still difficult to fathom. In August, 3.3-tonne device fell into the reactor’s inner vessel, cutting off access to the plutonium and uranium fuel rods. After a couple failed attempts, they finally dislodged the device in June 2011.

Monju was to be the cornerstone of Japan’s plans to use MOX (mixed oxide) fuel, but those plans seem to have disintegrated...

http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/09/japan_fast_breeder_freeze.html

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[kristopher]

21. You must be getting tired of being wrong...

It is too bad the anonymous internet allows behavior such as yours. In normal interactions it is held in check by shame.

[kristopher]

7. Nuclear is a major diversion from the effort to address climate change and CO2 emissions

http://www.synapse-energy.com/Downloads/SynapseReport.2011-10.UCS.Big-Risks-Better-Alternatives.10-037.pdf

Big Risks, Better Alternatives
An Examination of Two Nuclear Energy Projects in the U.S.
October 6, 2011

Key Findings
Our analysis finds that there are major risks associated with the construction of both the Levy and Vogtle projects. While the AP1000 reactor represents a more standardized design than existing U.S. reactors, it has never been built in this country nor completed in any country. Nuclear power construction is still a very complicated process with numerous unknowns that can negatively impact plant economics. Risks for these projects include cost escalation, construction and regulatory delays, and lack of transparency (for the Vogtle project), all of which could lead to much higher costs to ratepayers. Using the companies’ current cost estimates:
- By 2021, the Levy project will add at least $718 per year to the bill of a typical Progress Energy residential customer using 1,100 kWh per month; and
- By 2018, the Vogtle project will add at least $120 per year to the bill of a Georgia Power residential customer using 1,000 kWh per month.

If history is our guide, these cost estimates are likely to increase dramatically over time. The anticipated cost and rate impact for the Vogtle project, in particular, could increase significantly; the redaction of all cost and schedule data for this project has hindered independent analysis of the underlying assumptions that have allowed Georgia Power to maintain old cost estimates despite major changes in economic and regulatory conditions over the past five years. This lack of transparency puts Georgia Power’s ratepayers at significant risk for major price hikes in the coming years.

By comparison, based on publically available data, there are alternative options readily available to Progress Energy and Georgia Power that could meet consumers’ energy needs and be implemented at a lower cost, with far less risk to ratepayers. Energy sales growth for both of these companies has slowed considerably compared to earlier projections, making it is possible to meet their future retail energy sales growth through smaller increments of alternative demand- and supply-side resources. These options include increased energy efficiency and renewable energy development.

Our analysis shows that both Florida and Georgia have significant room for improvement when it comes to energy efficiency investment. According to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), in 2010, Georgia ranked 37th overall and Florida ranked 30th overall among U.S. states as benchmarked against six energy efficiency categories.4
- In Florida: The Florida Public Service Commission (PSC) recently approved scaled-back demand-side management plans for Progress that are projected to capture a maximum of 2 percent energy savings over a 10-year period.5 If Progress were to pursue an EE target of 15 percent cumulative load reduction over the same timeframe, it could maintain its energy load below peak 2006 levels based on its 2010 10-Year Site Plan retail sales forecast.
- In Georgia: The state currently has no energy efficiency targets. Recent reports support the fact that the state has large, untapped energy efficiency potential.

Both states also have significant potential for increased development of renewable energy resources...

Download the full report here:
http://www.synapse-energy.com/Downloads/SynapseReport.2011-10.UCS.Big-Risks-Better-Alternatives.10-037.pdf

[kristopher]

22. Mongolia abandons nuclear waste storage plans, informs Japan of decision

PARIS -- The Mongolian government told Japan government officials and others concerned in late September that it had decided to abandon its plans to cooperate with Tokyo and Washington and build facilities to temporarily store and dispose of nuclear waste, it was learned on Oct. 14.

Mongolia appears to have judged the plan unfeasible because of opposition movements in the country.

It is the latest turn of events that underscores the difficulties in carrying out international projects to build nuclear waste storage facilities. A similar project was also abandoned in Australia in 2002 due to strong public backlash.

Negotiations on the Mongolian nuclear projects started when U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel B. Poneman visited Mongolia in September, 2010. Officials of Japan, the United States and Mongolia held their first round of talks on the projects in Washington in February this year. Then, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which wants to procure nuclear fuel from Mongolia, joined in the negotiations. In early July, Poneman sent a draft of an intergovernmental memorandum of understanding (MOU) to then-Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Banri Kaieda in an effort to secure a deal by the end of this year.

The Mainichi reported on the secret talks...

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/international/news/20111015p2a00m0na023000c.html