Learning About Energy

April Nuclear Energy Facts Report Available

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This is the latest edition of the Nuclear Energy Facts Report.  The Facts Report itself contains only facts that manifest in the physical world; no opinions, conclusions, recommendations, or attempts at consensus-building.  But we have found it helpful to precede the Facts Report with some explanatory material on energy production, and conclude with some comments on the historical context.
 
As always, we welcome input from readers.  This is not intended to be public relations document for the general public, but an interactive reference document, for people who work in, or report on, the energy production field.

Ted Rockwell

Five myths about green energy

A Washington Post column in the Sunday, April  25, 2010 "Outlook" Section, stirred up a lot of discussion among its readers.  One can take issue with almost any claims about energy these days, but I thought the points the columnist raised were worth thinking about.  I commend them to your attention and consideration:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/23/AR2010042302220.html?referrer=emailarticle

Ted Rockwell

Only nuclear advocates would work so hard to hurt themselves

People  ask me, "Where does all that nuclear subsidy money go?  I've never seen any of it."  Well, some of it goes to research that may or may not have an impact on the real world.  But more of it goes for  activities that nobody but a nuclear advocate would think up.  No other community, with such a commendable record for safety and reliability, would keep thinking up ways to make themselves look bad.  Nukies themselves started it with the Price-Anderson Act, which assumes that only nuclear power could suffer an accident so horrendous that it would overwhelm all the resources of the world's insurance companies and require the government to cover the losses.  Then, they set up a program that involved several nations in a coordinated, billion-dollar  research effort over several decades, to determine the consequences of the worst realistic accident or terrorist act.  That program proved that the worst we could expect would result in "few if any deaths off-site."  In other words, there is no substantive basis for the Price-Anderson Act. 

"You don't understand," I'm told.  "We need that law so that, in case of an accident, people don't sue the supplier of every little widget in the plant."  Well, we shouldn't have to create an apocalyptic myth to accomplish that simple task.  What I do understand is, that the tougher and more mysterious a task is, the more grant money you get.

But the topper is this one:  When Bill Richardson was Secretary of Energy, a council of economists was set up (yes, economists!) that studied "some previously discredited reports" (their words) by people like Ernest Sternglass, Steven Wing, and Alice Stewart.  Despite valid evidence to the contrary, they decided that radiation was killing workers in DOE facilities and persons living as far as several hundred miles downwind of A-Bomb tests.  Richardson made great publicity from this, stating that although his predecessors had covered up this information, he was going to compensate these "cold war heroes" for their involuntary suffering.  He then sent out teams of eager investigators to visit retirement communities and old age homes, and ask former nuclear employees there if they were suffering from any health symptoms.  If any of the symptoms could possibly be attributed to the radiation they were exposed to fifty years previous,  they were urged to apply for the new program, where they would get a minimum of $150,000. 

I don't know whether these bounty-hunters had a quota, or were rewarded for bringing in large numbers of "victims," but there were several consequences from this program.  The congresspeople who voted to hand out this largess gained support from this new special interest group, but the "victims" themselves were generally  turned down when the facts were examined, because the radiation levels in question were not significantly above the natural background and other radiation sources we all encounter in daily living.  Despite this, the taxpayers were still tapped for over a billion dollars so far, with more to come.  And the nuclear enterprise was labeled by Congress an "ultra-hazardous activity" despite insurance statistics to the contrary.  I presume that the money spent in this program is included in "subsidies to nuclear" to compare with subsidies to wind, solar, and other energy sources.

Now, I learn that there is a move by some senators to lower the eligibility barrier still further, to admit greater numbers of "victims."   

And this is just ONE example.  There's the case of a critic asking about terrorist-driven aircraft, right after 9/11.  The nuclear spokesman replied that we had never previously considered such a problem.  When a number of us pointed out that, in fact, the issue of aircraft collisions has been specifically dealt with, our spokesman replied, yes, but we had not thought about terrorist-driven aircraft.  

Do you know any other industry that pays so much to shoot itself in the foot?

Radiation is not THAT special!

Despite our detailed knowledge of the subject, nuclear technology still suffers from a belief that it is more dangerous than anything else--by an immeasurable amount.  This provides extra income for workers in the field, but it loads an unreasonable burden on its economic future.  This problem is well illustrated by a few paragraphs in the book, "Prescription for the Planet" by Tom Blees, on the discharge of radioactive materials from power plants.  Tom has agreed to let me quote those words here.  I commend them to your thoughtful consideration.  This is an exact quote, but I won't encumber each paragraph below with quote marks.

• A typical power plant annually releases 5.2 tons of uranium (containing 74 pounds of fissile U-235...and 12.8 tons of thorium) 
• Total U.S. releases for 1982 came to 801 tons of uranium (containing 11,371 pounds of U-235) and 1971 tons of thorium.
• Worldwide releases totaled 3640 tons of uranium (containing 51,700 pounds of (U-235) and 8960 tons of thorium...

By the year 2040, cumulative releases of radioactive materials from these plants will have reached the following levels:

• U.S. releases: 145,230 tons of uranium ( including 1031 tons of U-235) and 357,491 tons of thorium.
• World releases: 828,632 tons of uranium (including 5883 tons of U-235) and over two million tons of thorium.
• "Daughter products" produced by the decay of these isotopes include radium, radon, polonium, bismuth and lead.

Why is this not splashed all over the front pages?  Who in their right mind can consider this acceptable?

[And then Blees springs his punchline, citing a well-known report by Alex Gabbard of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory  (Feb 5, 2008)] : These are the radioactive release figures for coal-fired power plants!

Population exposure to radiation from coal-burning power plants is over a hundred times higher than anything conceivably coming out of nuclear power plants...[and then Blees quotes Gabbard:]

"Large quantities of uranium and thorium and other radioactive species in coal ash are not being treated as radioactive waste.  These products emit low-level radiation, but because of regulatory differences, coal-fired power plants are allowed to release quantities of radioactive material that would provoke enormous public outcry if such amounts were released from nuclear facilities.  Nuclear waste products from coal combustion are allowed to be dispersed throughout the biosphere in an unregulated manner.  Collected nuclear wastes that accumulate on [coal-fired] electric utility sites are not protected from weathering, thus exposing people to increasing quantities of radioactive isotopes through air and water movement and the food chain."

[Blees continues:]  If this isn't crazy enough for you, ponder this little factoid: The energy content of the nuclear materials released into the environment in the course of coal combustion is greater than the energy of the coal that is being consumed.  In other words, coal consumption actually wastes more energy than it produces...[End of Blees quote.]

The important point here is NOT that the radiation from coal combustion is a public health problem.  It is not.  (Inhalation of the soot particles, production of acid rain, release of mercury, etc. are another story) But radiation from burning coal is not a hazard.  And thus, treating radiation released from nuclear plants, which is at least 100 times lower, as a problem, is not scientifically defensible, and concern over radiation release from nuclear plants is not rational.

The Nuclear Waste Scam

It seems that we've managed to convince people that nearly every one of nuclear power's unique advantages is an unprecedented, and perhaps unsolvable, problem.  I'm astonished that this could be accomplished, for even a fleeting moment.  But many people are solidly holding on to, and defending, these illogical conclusions, as the years go by without any support for them.

1. Radiation is said to be scary and spooky because "you can't see it, or feel it or taste it."   But in fact, cheap and simple instruments can detect radioactivity down to the level of a single atom.  You simply cannot even envision doing better than that.
2. Some people claim that nuclear power is somehow alien or unnatural, and that "being exposed to radiation" is the worst thing that can happen to you, whereas radiation has been a fundamental part of the natural universe since before the emergence of any life forms, and life apparently cannot survive in the absence of nuclear radiation.
3. Some people express concern that nuclear technology is harmful to the earth, despite the fact that atomic fission does its job using a millionth as much material as any non-nuclear process.  No research can change that fact, which is based on the difference between the binding energy of the atomic nucleus , and the binding energy of the chemical molecule.  Of course, the derivative energy sources, like solar, wind and waves are even more dilute and inefficient.
4. The early developers of nuclear power realized that one of its great advantages is that its waste problem is trivial.  Now we find that many power plants that should have been nuclear have been coal-fired, because people were afraid of "nuclear waste."
5. "Nuclear waste" is a misnomer for an extremely valuable material made up of three components:  a) partially used fuel that will be recycled in breeder reactors to generate more fuel in the very process of generating electricity; b) fission products worth billions of dollars, that will be recovered; and c) a small amount of material that has no further use.  That material (about 2 pounds, produced from each persons's lifetime's worth of electricity), is in the form of a refractory ceramic, clad is stainless zirconium alloy, or other material that is fused into a hard glass.  We know from tests with millennia-old glass objects, that even primative glasses are impervious to efforts to leach anything out of them.  It is hard to see how this material could ever cause any harm to people or the environment.  So, in real world terms, just what is this "nuclear waste problem" that we keep hearing needs to be solved?

          It's hard to see why anyone was ever convinced that this was a problem, requiring a multi-billion dollar solution (except that one person's wasted money is another's bread and butter).

        Below is a link to a brief essay on "The Nuclear Waste Scam."

Download The Nuclear Waste Scam

How fast can we build new reactors?

There has been a lot of speculating and theorizing about how few new nuclear power plants one can realistically plan on completing per year.  The more the matter is pondered, the less capable we seem to become.  So, in line with my policy of tackling political and theoretical questions by drawing on events in the real world, let's look at what we actually produced in the Naval Reactors program, in building the first, large-scale power reactors, first for ship propulsion, and then for the world's first fully commercial nuclear power station under President Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace Program. .

Download NR KeyDates

Yes, today we lack much of the manufacturing capability we had then, but we had almost none of the relevant knowledge and materials, and none of the experience.  Without arguing the point, can't we get some inspiration from what we demonstrated could be done, with enough determination and organizational skill?  That's what the French did, after the OPEC oil embargo of 1973.  They decided to go nearly all nuclear, and they just did it.  They did it safely and reliably, and they've been selling nuclear electricity at a profit ever since.

Talking with the Obama Administration

Download 100315 0900-Holdren_Letter_and_Cosigners[1]

Many of us ordinary citizens want to communicate our ideas to the federal Government, but don't seem to be able to get through.  That didn't stop John Shanahan, a civil engineer in Denver, who is a supporter of the IFR (Integral Fast Reactor), a system which takes the "nuclear waste" from current nuclear power plants, and uses it as fuel to burn, not only the remaining fissionable material, but also to convert the non-fissionable uranium and transuranic isotopes into fuel, while making electricity.  That program was killed for political reasons, way back in Jimmy Carter's days as President, and has not yet been reinstated.  With the rest of the world now rapidly building new nuclear plants, America is falling behind.

So John contacted a number of his nuclear friends, and they drew up a letter to the President's Science Advisor, John Holdren.  Shanahan had met Holdren in California, forty years ago, and they had kept in touch, off and on, since then.  The letter made three suggestions as to what needs to be done, to get America into the Nuclear Renaissance that is engulfing the rest of the world:

    1. The biggest uncertainty for the American nuclear program is how quickly and how effectively the regulatory system will work, after 30 years of inaction, to approve new plants for operation.  That uncertainty makes investors nervous, and runs up interest rates.  The only way to test it is to apply for a license and run it through the system.  For this, we should use a design that has the fewest unanswered regulatory questions, i.e., a design much like those already in operation.

    2.  A fast reactor design, like the IFR, should be put back on the schedule, so that the optimum fuel reprocessing system can be proved out.  Since that will take a while, we should get started as soon as possible.

    3.  We no longer have any reactors in America that can make the wide variety of medical isotopes needed for research, diagnosis and treatment.  Some ten million medical procedures involving radiation or radioactivity are run every year, and we now depend on other countries for all those isotopes.  Since many of these are short-lived (only a few hours or less), that is not easy.  This is a serious problem, and needs to be corrected on an urgent basis.

The link above will show you the letter that resulted, and the long list of highly qualified supporters.

Dr. Holdren has just responded, saying that the Administration now fully supports these objectives and is working to meet them.  Stay tuned!

Ted Rockwell

 

New Nuclear Power Report from India

Download TR-NuPower 23, 29-34 (2010)

Nu-Power, an international journal of nuclear power, now in its third decade, published quarterly in India by Nuclear Power of India, Limited Corporation (NPILC), an Indian government enterprise, has a survey article on nuclear power by your blog host in its latest edition, available at the link above.  The magazine itself is a very attractive, industry-oriented journal, with in-depth articles of interest world-wide, which I urge you to get familiar with, if you have not yet done so.  I was sent a copy electronically by the publisher, and I encourage you to look it over, via the link below.

Download Nu-power new

It's the Dose that Makes the Poison: The Importance of Numbers

Sometimes people claim that nuclear radiation is uniquely scary because you can't see it, or smell it, or detect it with any of the human senses, implying that "ordinary hazards" are not so sneaky.  We're even told that a single gamma ray can kill us--a statement that affronts both science and common sense.  Like all such claims, we need to examine this one in light of real-world experience, not by the exchange of uncheckable rumors.

Let's look first at other, non-nuclear, hazards that surround us daily.  How about germs that fill the air when people around us sneeze, cough, or just breathe?  How good are we at detecting germs?  From birth to death, we are continuously immersed in germs, but healthy bodies protect us from harm.  We don't need to see them.  Similarly, we are continuously irradiated by cosmic rays and the natural radiation of the soil, water, air, and the flesh of our bodies.  Life first arose in a prehistoric earth many times more radioactive than today's. 

We minimize our chances of getting disease, not by trying to develop germ-free bodies (not compatible with life), but by trying to maintain a healthy immune system.  Similarly, the natural radiation levels we encounter just by living, are not a danger, and that presumably is why humans have developed no organs to detect radiation.  It is not a danger.    Of course, there are levels of germs, and levels of radiation, that are harmful, but we don't normally encounter them in the natural world.

(Aha!  But how about the unnatural world of nuclear reactors?)  I won't tackle the theological issue of whether we can properly exclude humankind and its products from the natural world.  Let's just look at the numbers.  The proto-scientist, Paracelsus, said in 1540 that nothing is poison but the DOSE makes it so.  That is the basis for vaccination.  That is why ancient king-poisoners knew they could safely swallow a small mouthful of poisoned food, which in larger amounts could kill.  It's a fundamental principle of biology that assaults that don't kill you make you stronger.  

So the relevant numbers here are that the average natural radiation level where people live is hundreds of times the radiation levels permitted for exposure to the public from nuclear reactors and other sources of human-made radiation.  Natural radiation levels on this radioactive earth vary hundreds-fold from one place to another.   And the measured fact is, the higher the background radiation, the LOWER the cancer rate.  So if we had no radiation whatsoever from nuclear power plants, we could hardly measure the difference in human exposure, because the nuclear contribution to our total radiation dose is trivial.

A further irony is that our dose from increased use of medical irradiation in life-saving procedures is now commensurate with high natural backgrounds, further invalidating concern over the negligible doses from nuclear facilities.

The facts just stated show how we should respond to occasional reports of leakage or other incidental exposure of radioactivity.  The phrase "exposed to radiation" tells us nothing about hazard.  It's the dose that makes the hazard (if any).  The anti-nuclear activist, Sheldon Novick, correctly noted that "nuclear waste" is no more hazardous than many other industrial wastes, so if we hear of a spill of radioactivity, we should judge its hazard as we would a spill of oil or any other biologically harmful chemical:  What's the toxic dose?

While we're talking numbers, let me divert for a moment to talk units.  The unit of radioactivity used to be the Curie, which was about one gram of radium.  A gram is one-twenty-eighth of an ounce, so that's a reasonable unit.  When the metric system came in, the unit of radioactivity became the Becquerel, named after another radiation research pioneer.  The Becquerel (Bq) is a single atomic disintegration per second.  There are 37,000,000,000 Bq in a curie.  So levels of radioactivity that are entirely harmless are now measured in millions or billions of Bq, instead of a few milliCuries.

What does all this mean in the real world?  One example is the case of tritium, which is an isotope of hydrogen that usually shows up as water. It is used widely to light exit signs without electricity.  It doesn't stay in the body long, and its radiation is low-energy.  So its biological impact if ingested is low, and the US permissible limit in drinking water is 20,000 picoCuries (millionths of a millionth of a Curie) per liter, which is estimated to give the body a 4 mrem dose.  This is about 1% of the average dose we receive from natural  radiation background. 

Recently, some tritium was detected in the soil near the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, leading quickly to demands that the nuclear industry be shut down.  Previous minor leaks elsewhere led to industry promises to make all plants "zero leakage."  I've always avoided, as a matter of principle, promising there will be no more accidents. One cannot be sure to deliver on such promises.  What we should promise, is that we will ensure that accidents will not cause significant harm to people or the environment.  And that is the situation here.  If we look at the potential dose (i.e. toxicity) from such a leak, we find that it is considerably LESS than from numerous small leaks of oil and other chemicals that occur from time to time.  

In these more hazardous cases of non-radioactive spills, we devote a modest effort to cleaning up the area, leaving earth or concrete permanently stained and contaminated to the degree that, if you tried to eat it, you might suffer some deleterious effects.  And we rightly conclude, that's a reasonable course.  (Maybe we should post OSHA warning signs: DO NOT EAT THE DIRT.)  There is no realistic justification for requiring that the ground be decontaminated to hospital or "clean room" standards.  

Radioactivity is not unnatural, nor uniquely hazardous per se.  Many of the new chemicals we use in abundance, such as pesticides and other organics designed to interfere with natural functions, more nearly fit that characterization.  Radioactivity does not multiply, like germs; instead it decreases in toxicity.  We should stop viewing radiation as demonic and recognize its place in the natural world, and its special role in healing.  Even after large spills of oil (and there are many), we don't demand that the oil industry be shut down.  Let us base our judgments of danger on measured toxicity, not some panic-driven demand for a radiation-free planet.

How to Avoid Haggling

A Great Truth just dawned on me, and I can't wait to pass it on.  I hate haggling, especially over something as important as energy policy.  When you're trying to convince someone, you're supposed to start by giving a little, to show you're reasonable and not dogmatic.  But I would not feel honest, starting a conversation by trying to say something nice about windmills.  I hate the damn things!

(Oh, now you're showing that you're biased.  Gotcha!)  No, I never claimed that I could look at all those facts and not come to a conclusion.  I'm  not a zombie.  But here's the Great Truth (and I've just recently come to see this.):  Suppose the next time a guy comes up and wants to argue about energy sources, you say something like this:  "Aw, I'm too tired to argue right now.  I'm working on a Facts Report.  Not worrying about convincing anybody about anything.  Just trying to identify all the relevant facts.  You have a different view of these things.  Maybe you could help.  If we could agree on what the relevant facts are, it ought to help make a better argument later, no?  Take a look at what I've got, and see if you see any facts I've left out.  Or maybe you don't agree with some I've got.  If you've got better, or later, info, we'll put it in."

Now, I expect few people will argue against trying to line up relevant facts.  And, freed of the obligation to half-heartedly "agree" to something you don't really believe, discussing facts is less apt to get heated.  In that situation, your "opponent" is more likely to learn a thing or two that you could never beat into him in an argument.  And YOU might even learn something yourself.  What a concept!

Try it.  You'll like it!