From: Eugene.Leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de
Date: Fri Jun 01 2001 - 13:44:58 MDT
Ifrit wrote:
> How would this be cheaper? And it's safety relies on the producers
Cheaper as in less $$$s paid over kWh produced as integrated over
the entire lifetime of the plants and the whole fuel cycle.
You have to mine the uranium ore, this produces dust and radon load.
You have to produce yellow cake, and uranium metal, and uranium
hexafluoride which is enrichened in large facilities. Which are not
operated in LEO, or on the other side of the Moon, right here on Earth.
Fluorine is not radioactive, but you might notice that it is a nasty
element. Have you ever lived near an aluminum plant?
You have to make the fuel rods, and build a reactor, and maintain a
reactor -- whether in U.S., Russia, Israel, India, China or any other
countries. Hint: nuke power is a lot cheaper in those developing
countries, I wonder why. You might have heard that the reactor leaks
low grade activity (xenon and iodine isotopes), and every now and
then there's a minor malfunction, where some more is released,
and even now and then, the thing blows to high heavens and you're
advised to stop drinking milk and eat mushrooms (well, the heavy
metal load was way too high, anyway) as well as reindeer ragout
because some random monkeys a few megameters away decided to run
an experiment, which blew up, literally so. Oops. It really sucks
to live at the bottom of the same gravity well, with the matter fluxes
so widely coupled.
Then there's the problem of recycling the rods, or burying the whole
shebang -- you might observe that in certain parts of the world
it's associated with serious expenses for police action. Also, you
have political pressure to get rid of the stuff, pronto, by whatever
means it takes. You might observe that Russia will accept hot isotopes for
very little money, I wonder why. Perhaps of their stellar track of
handling nuke power they can profit from economies of scale? Afraid
it ain't so. They just dump'em into the Barents sea. Do you know
where Russian researchers keep their tritium waste? In a leaky Coke
bottle, in the fume hood. Yep.
Now we already have the English dumping their nuclear crap via
Windscale, Sellafield, or whatever its name happens to be today,
so I'd rather not have to dump my fish into scintillation counter,
to see how many hot nuclei I've incorporated today, unneccesarily
so.
Then, do you know how much it costs to dismantle a plant which
exceeded it's expiration date? In a place where burying hot isotopes
1) is intensely frowned upon, so lots of pushing back and forth
ensues 2) the ground is just bloody (<-- that's British, you
ignorant) expensive?
Now then there's the hidden, but very real cost of focusing on an
old technology, instead of developing a set of new technologies.
Like non-Carnot processes, fuel reformers, microturbines,
high-efficiency water electrolysis, photovoltaics, industrial
processes in space so we can eventually establish an industrial
base on the Moon, and start putting serious photovoltaics capacity
in Earth orbit, and similiar.
All of this is expensive, and takes time to develop, and start
profiting from economies of scale. Meanwhile, the developing world
is looking at whatever you're doing, and copycats you, whether it
makes sense, or not.
> following the steps as listed without straying...the same would be
> applicable to the safety of nuclear power.
Steps as listed in which country? You'll notice that standards vary
widely depending on time and place. Following stringent standards
is a lot of hassle, and costs real money, so there's real incentive
not to follow the standards. Perhaps, we shouldn't put some people
in temptation?
> Besides, (this hopefully not applying to too many on the list), people
> still believe that a nuclear power plant will go up in a mushroom cloud
> annihilating all life around for miles. This can't happen in a power
That's so very 1970s, last century. And come to think of it, I know of
a certain plant that did just that.
> plant. Worst case scenario would be a meltdown which can be quite easily
> prevented given intelligent engineers, and even afterwards can be
> contained much better than Chernobyl was.
Meltdown, shmeltdown. You have to look farther than just down your nose.
What is true for some places, is not true for another. Some places are
more advanced than other places, yet in not all aspects, always. There's
a Chernobyl type plant operating in Chechia (or whatever that place is
called today). "Easily prevented" "contained", my ass. How do you contain
something which doesn't even have a containment? Huh? It doesn't follow
Western standards? You can damn well be sure it doesn't.
> In the U.S. thus far, there have been 0 nuclear power related deaths.
Nor have there been nuclear power related deaths in Russia, or Japan,
or Germany. In one case we've got a case of a broken toe, when a spent
fuel rod fell on a worker's foot, smashing it. Otherwise, it's all
peachy clean.
Thanks for proving my point. Whoever may be fit to handle nuke power
at the bottom of this gravity well, monkeys it ain't.
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