NRC Relicensing Old "Zombie" Nuclear Plants 260
mdsolar writes "In the Dec. 7 edition of The Nation, Christian Parenti details what he considers to be the real problem with nuclear power as a solution to carbon emissions in the US: Not the high cost of new nuclear power, but rather the irresponsible relicensing of existing nuclear power plants by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The claim is that the relicensed plants — amounting to more than half ot the 104 original 1970s-era nukes in the US — operate like zombies beyond their design lifetimes only because of lax regulation spurred by concern over carbon dioxide emissions. But these plants are actually failing, as demonstrated by a rash of accidents. And some of the ancient plants are now being allowed to operate at 120% of their designed capacity. There is a video interview with Parenti up at Democracy Now."
Yawn.... (Score:3, Insightful)
We can't build new nuclear because of the NIMBY crowd. We can't build new coal fired because of the eco-nuts. We can't drill for more oil because of the morons in congress. We don't have to wait for Obama to ruin this country, these groups are doing it for us.
Hey
Re:Chernobyl again? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Chernobyl again? (Score:5, Insightful)
Back to the TFA. Color me unimpressed. Using terms such as 'zombie', "decrepit" and 'unprecidented' without a shred of evidence makes me think that the article and the author have a bit too much bias to really believe. Sure, it could be true, but we run things past their design lives all of the time. With careful maintenance and modification it works well. Perhaps maintenance isn't being done correctly as the article suggests, but lets see a bit more evidence, shall we?
Even though the operators of nuclear plants are shielded from much of the liability of a reactor failure by the feds, no operator wants to Wilson a plant - it's just too expensive.
The sky is falling! (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh no, nuclear energy is being used, the world will end! Must stop this at all costs, or mother nature will be unhappy. Nuclear is evil because it has the word nuclear in it and somehow related to the military! Now that thats settled it's back to firing up some more coal power plants to meet the needs of society....
What do you mean the greens are the ones stopping the building of new nuclear power plants? The FUD power trip on nuclear is so much more important than letting people have clean power.
New stations NOW (Score:5, Insightful)
Greenes did huge damage to this country by instilling fear in nuclear power. While Greens mostly support good things to protect environment their opposition and fearmongering of nuclear plants caused us to build economy on oil.
Besides that we canceled all large-scale development of next generation reactors (breeders, lead-cooled, etc.) capable of burning 99% of fuel and leaving almost no waste.
On the bigger picture in the last twenty-thirty years people became more comfortable and lazy and unwilling to take any risks. This affected everything in the society - cancellation of Space Shuttle program, public safety even kids wearing helmets on the bicycles. If there is no risk there is no reward but it seems we kind of forgot about it.
The real problem (Score:2, Insightful)
Blame the EPA (Score:5, Insightful)
The EPA won't let new nuclear plants to get built. If the plants get decommissioned it will literally cut our energy production by 1/2. It takes 10-15 years to build a new nuclear plant by EPA guidlines, and the population in that zone won't let it get built just as they refuse to let wind turbines to get built.
So our only short term solution is to let the NRC extend the lives of the plants. It is either that or force new nuclear plants to get built but it isn't cost efficient to do so.
there is a real energy crisis looming. Simply because people won't plan ahead, the oil will start to run out roughly when all the fission plants have to go offline do to safety reasons.
Re:Yawn.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Chernobyl again? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster in Pripyat happened because one of its reactors was running at a higher capacity than allowed and after its designed life cycle
No.
The Chernobyl reactor disaster happened because the operators decided to run a test, and turned off the automatic safety shut-down.
Re:Chernobyl again?Christmas gift,shoes,handbags (Score:1, Insightful)
Admins, if this cockspasm insists on using the same href url for all his spam, how about writing a script to nuke anything referring to coolforsale.com?
It's still a long time to Christmas, and this jackass doesn't seem to be going anywhere.
Maybe some truth there, but it's dubious (Score:5, Insightful)
According to him, if you're still running your car after the warantee expires, you've got a "zombie car"-- regardless of how much maintanance you put into it. He says a lot of scary things, but doesn't really have much real information.
Re:Yawn.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Once again, the crowd that wants us to cut back our carbon emissions comes up with things we can't do rather than some suggestions. And their alternatives aren't viable for 10 years or more when they finally get all the kinks worked out, or electricity becomes so expensive they become economical. We can't build new nuclear because of the NIMBY crowd. We can't build new coal fired because of the eco-nuts. We can't drill for more oil because of the morons in congress. We don't have to wait for Obama to ruin this country, these groups are doing it for us. Hey .. mdsolar ... go back and stick your head in the sand until you have grow some more FUD.
Damn straight!
I know exactly where to put the new power plants: in the neighborhoods of the major stockholders and executives of the power plants. Hey, if they're going to be making money on those things, wouldn't they want to be near their investments to keep an eye on them? They sure would!
And you're right about those Eco-Nuts! I for one have no problem with children getting lead poisoning from smelters and mercury poisoning from burning coal! And the old people and small children who are at risk for respiratory ailments from the air pollution caused by burning fossil fuels, well, fuck'em! Darwin baby!
Drilling for oil: tell me about it. Those damn eco-fags and the pussy fishermen too! And the tourism industry homos! They think that no one wants to see oil rigs when they're vacationing? They're wrong! There's nothing more beautiful that seeing an oil rig at dawn - it looks of - victory! Anyway, oil brings in a hell of a lot more money than tourism.
I'm done for now.
Not so (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Chernobyl again? (Score:3, Insightful)
And they were using a HIDEOUSLY old technology for a reactor that would allow for a runaway reaction to happen. It is suspected the reactor was not a normal power reactor but a breeder reactor designed to make weapons grade.
Most of the American old reactors are NOT of a horribly bad design like that. Is there a risk? kinda. but if all we have are 3 mile island incidents that the worst was undetectable by most instruments then I'm all for it. Honestly the damned NIMBY and green idiots that kept us from chasing the nuke power option for the past 40 years are the ones to blame. we would have been mostly nuclear plants now all operating profitably. I guess that is what you get with a very undereducated populace. They get easily scared of technology.
Re:The real problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Not necessarily. While still in the research phase, Fourth Generation [wikipedia.org] reactors look very promising, waste that remains dangerous for decades rather than thousands of years and the ability to use waste from Gen III reactors as fuel.
Even current breeder reactors can use some waste as fuel.
"Zombie nukes?" Puh-leaze (Score:5, Insightful)
I am a nuclear engineering/physics graduate student. Whether that makes me uniquely qualified to comment or just another industry shill is, I suppose, a question of which color Kool-Aid you drank with your Post Toasties this morning. That disclaimer out of the way:
This article is garbage. Others have noted the inflammatory language ("Zombie nukes?" really?). The author is misleading his readers on the issue of radiation-induced embrittlement and stress-corrosion cracking -- whether through ignorance or deliberately deceptive language, it's hard to say. You'll note that of the "shocking" lapses in power plant operations, ZERO led to significant releases of radioactivity. ZERO led to any worker deaths or major injuries. The worst of the bunch, the "six inch deep hole" in the Davis-Besse pressure vessel head, wasn't caused by lax regulation -- it was caused by deliberate fraud. Inspection records were faked, and the people responsible are currently serving time in federal prison. That does point out a legitimate concern: if the operator is willing to lie to the NRC, then bad things can happen. NRC could probably use a shot in the arm, but to suggest it's merely a lapdog of the industry is highly inflammatory, and evidence suggests, not especially accurate.
These reactors were licensed to operate for forty years because that is the maximum time permitted by law. Why was forty years written into the law? Because there was significant uncertainty as to how reactors would hold up in the long haul. The law was written conservatively. Designers built large safety margins into their designs to ensure compliance. Forty years of operational experience has demonstrated to everyone but the most anti-nuke environmentalists that there is sufficient safety margin to operate safely for another twenty years.
As for the 120% operating capacity... sheesh. These plants have had steam generator upgrades. More efficient heat removal allows the turbines to produce more electricity. The nuclear side of the plant is essentially unchanged. They probably drive the primary coolant pumps a little harder, but still well within their designed capacity. So yes, we're getting 20% more energy out of the same number of fissions. No, we're not jamming 20% more fuel into the core. Again: deliberately misleading, or poorly informed? Hard to say.
It's the operators that are the greatest danger (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't feel like nuclear power itself is dangerous. I'm worried about the people who own and operate the plants. Most companies in this world focus on one thing: increasing profits at the expense of everything else. Forget safety. Forget responsibility. Whatever the industry just cut things to the absolute razor's edge to line the pockets of the owners and executives.
The repercussions of this attitude in the nuclear power industry are far greater than other energy producers. Mistakes (or outright negligence) in the handling of materials related to nuclear power production become the legacy of generations, and as usual we will only find out about these problems when it's too late.
Nuclear power can be clean. It can also be relatively safe. It's the people in the equation that make me anti-nuke. I just don't trust the owners, operators or regulators.
Re:Chernobyl again? (Score:3, Insightful)
The Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster in Pripyat happened because one of its reactors was running at a higher capacity than allowed and after its designed life cycle. It was in process of shut down, but it was too late already then.......
This first part is incorrect. The reactor (no.4) was almost brand new having been completed in 1983.
The Chernobyl accident occurred while they were doing a test to see if with the reactor shut down the steam turbine had enough momentum to produce power to run the main cooling pumps for the 60 seconds before the backup diesel generators kicked in.
As part of this test they switched off the reactors safety devices and the rest is history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster [wikipedia.org]
Re:Chernobyl again? (Score:5, Insightful)
The cause of the Chernobyl disaster, however, was the poor design of Russian nuclear power plants.
Yeah, cooling your reactor by pumping oxygen-laden air through a red-hot carbon lattice is a really good idea. Excuse me, I need to go slap someone.
France generates pretty much all of its electricity from nuclear, with reprocessing, using pressurised water reactors. Not only do they have a number of handy engineering benefits such as isolating the water loop through the reactor from the water loop through the turbines, but they also have a particularly useful safety feature in that they're self-regulating --- temperature goes up, power output goes down. France has an excellent safety record; I can find only one major incident, which was a coolant spill in 2008.
They even do their own waste reprocessing into plutonium, which is then reused to generate more power. Unaccountably, terrorists don't seem to have stolen any of it.
Re:Yawn.... (Score:4, Insightful)
+1 insightfull, please, for timeOday ...
do nothing
indeed, the perfect solution, because:
fossil fuels are harmless
plan on increasing the population exponentially
... no harm in planing, except it won't work: population never increased exponentially.
no more worries about Iran
are there any worries about Iran and concerning the energy supply ? The worry is about a regime that does not do well with openness attempting to develop nuclear technology.
Right?
Absolutely right.
Re:High cost??? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's just a measure of fear arising in populace from understanding vs. not understanding something.
Coal powerplant is like a big campfire, right? So how bad can it be? People were doing it since forever and it's quite nice actually!
But nuclear leads them instantly to Hiroshima & Nagasaki bombings, Chernobyl, that scary warning signs at roentgen lab, and so on. Also, "if I can't understand it, surely nobody else can either"
BTW, I remember a "debate" in national TV here few years back. Anti-nuke zealots didn't even know what radiation is when asked.
Re:New stations NOW (Score:3, Insightful)
Well i'm with you on most of it...except the greens supporting good things.
All we seem to hear is 1) Stop doing this-and-that because it's bad and B) 'This' magical technology is the panacea ... at 10x the cost and in 5-15 years when it goes from laboratory process to initial commercial production ... and another 10 for large-scale usage.
I understand that cleaner generation plants, cars, etc. are a good thing but the cost-reward balance is often so far off I can do nothing but shake my head. Remember the father that backed a large SUV over his child? They fought (probably still are) to get a law passed *requiring* every SUV have a back-up camera in it. Never mind that many children aren't visible behind a normal size CAR. So because one person is a complete IDIOT ... we should put a ~$1000+ camera system in *every* car? Funny, my parents just made sure they could see each of us before backing out of the driveway when I was a kid.
Kinda OT but related. Swine flu vaccinations - about 10^5 people die from the (regular) flu every year. Swine flu has claimed what, 10^2? Yet how many millions/billions have been spend on this vaccination? For a sickness that's generally NOT deadly to healthy people? Come on people, stop living in fear and look at the big picture.
Re:Chernobyl again? (Score:5, Insightful)
Comparing Chernobyl to any American commercial reactor and talking about what could happen, without mentioning the severe differences, is just like mentioning a prior dam failure, hinting at the imminent collapse of Boulder dam, and not mentioning the little detail that the prior dam was made of packed dirt and not concrete.
Whoops, it's Slashdot, better go with a car analogy:
It's like planting explosives under one make of car, claiming that model blows up more than another brand, and not mentioning the explosives part.
If I understand it right (Score:3, Insightful)
...the most salient criticism raised by the "Greenes" was that we were not, as a people, disposed to live up to the "zero tolerance" policy for failure that large scale industrial use of nuclear materials really demands. We always make mistakes eventually. Even if it takes 50 or 100 years, then it means we only have 50 or 100 years until a major nuclear disaster and i.e. epic human suffering, unprecedented economic calamity, the depopulation of a major urban area, the success of a fanatical act of terrorism, etc.
This article rather underscores the point. We have become complacent that we are smart enough and organized enough to use nuclear power safely. As we become complacent, this leads to a false sense of security, laziness and corruption on the part of operators and regulators, apathy on the part of the public, and the decline of safety culture. Now I am sure you will have no problem moving your family in down the street from one of these plants, right?
Right?
More great BS from people who have no clue... (Score:5, Insightful)
Tritium laced water is bad in the water supply, I agree. But as the author said, these happened at one location which the original owner thought was going to be decommissioned. It should have been made know to the new purchasers that some maintenance was not done. I mean, really, would you put a new exhaust system on a 15 year old car which has over 250,000 miles on it? No, you would patch up the one you got and get ready to buy a new car, which is what the previous owner did. They did neglect to tell the new owner of the "car" about the issue and that there was only a temporary patch in place...
Re:Odd (Score:5, Insightful)
"Somehow in the last 30 years we lost the ability to undertake large infrastructure, which you would think given the wealth, technology, etc... that it would be easier."
I think Vietnam was the tipping point. A huge military expenditure forced the curtailment of domestic infrastructure subsidies. Which led to industrial stagnation, and those of us who were kids in the 70s remember it being a bit grim: strikes, inflation, gas price rises, quality problems, and so on.
Then came Reagan like the white knight, and his "solution" for Morning In America was to deregulate, which let private infrastructure companies morph into Enron-like shell games. Finance became the new "sunrise industry", alongside microcomputing and networking - the focus was on production of information rather than investment in the old crumbling infrastructure. It was easier and cheaper to make profits by repackaging ownership and debt than doing the hard work. Image, not substance, was what the free market rewarded, so that's what we got.
If you look at early 80s science fiction, like the cyberpunks, you see a lot of sunny optimism, even mixed in with terror, of how efficient private companies were going to be at building infrastructure. But that didn't happen except in computing, and I'm kind of surprised as to why even that occurred - I presume the Pentagon and Wall Street were the main drivers there.
Clinton slowed back a bit but kept mostly on the same privatisation track, and W accelerated it again. Now Obama's trying to reinvest in social infrastructure (healthcare) and gets called the worst of names for that. Far from Kennedy's space race era, half of the USA now sees the mere idea of national-level investment in anything but war as inherently evil. As an outsider, I don't understand why, but I can see the effects.
Space, for instance, was really all just about the ICBM buildout. Once the Minutemen were built, and the military got their spy and comms networks, and computers had shown that a manned space presence wasn't necessary to achieve the military objectives... there wasn't a whole lot left to do. Just more commsats.
Infrastructure is a hard problem to start with. When there's a political movement which actively believes even having a shared infrastructure to be a bad thing and that it's a moral duty to prevent those who don't have their own capital reserves from getting access to services... it gets a lot harder.