Nuclear Power

Capt'n Midnight

you couldn't make it up

A rat may have caused this week's power outage at Japan's tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear power plant, says the Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco).

Curly Judge

No

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

you couldn't make it up

A rat may have caused this week's power outage at Japan's tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear power plant, says the Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco).

If you lot had left the bloody cat alone you wouldn't have to worry about the rat!

Curly Judge

No

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

you couldn't make it up

A rat may have caused this week's power outage at Japan's tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear power plant, says the Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco).

In other breaking news: Swallow poos on high pylon at Bruce A in Ontario.

Capt'n Midnight

Curly Judge wrote: »

In other breaking news: Swallow poos on high pylon at Bruce A in Ontario.

Thank goodness it wasn't Bruce Banner

Capt'n Midnight

I'm constantly surprised at finding out about yet more repeated failures at nuclear power plants.

This post is mostly about recent outages in US Nuclear stations caused by transformer failures.


http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-03-21/nuclear-output-falls-a-9th-day-on-byron-2-plant-shutdown

U.S. nuclear-power generation dropped for a ninth day, the longest such streak since October 2010, as Exelon Corp. (EXC) unexpectedly shut the 1,136-megawatt Byron 2 reactor in Illinois.
...
Byron 2, about 85 miles (137 kilometers) west of Chicago, shut after a loss of generator cooling water caused a manual reactor trip, an event report filed with the NRC showed. The unit had been operating at full capacity.

2012 Last year, an electrical insulator failed and fell off a metal structure, interrupting power to Unit 2 and causing the reactor to automatically shut down. The problem was fixed and the plant resumed operations the next week. Operators returned Byron Generating Station Unit 1 to full power Sunday following the unit’s 18th refueling outage.

Earlier history
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron_Nuclear_Generating_Station
Ground water contamination , various fines , failed insulators / startup transformer problems


Transformer problems are common enough it seems
https://forms.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/staff/sr0933/sec3/107r3.html

Jan 2013 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-09/u-s-nuclear-generation-falls-on-texas-reactor-transformer-fire.html

Unit 2 of the South Texas Project Electric Generating Station declared an unusual event, the lowest-level emergency category, “due to a main transformer fire” at 4:40 p.m. local time yesterday, according to the commission’s event notification report today. The reactor tripped offline following the loss of power, it said.

Nov 2012 - Nuclear industry culture again
http://www.nucpros.com/content/james-fitzpatrick-nuclear-power-plant-ler-transformer-installation-error-causes-loss-site-po

This is an interesting event. The same cause for a loss of Off-Site Power at another nuclear unit cost that station a White Finding, inadequate oversight of contractors.
...
The root cause was determined to be not following the work order instructions as written. A contributing cause was an incorrect design drawing.

July 2012 Limerick shutdown affects mid-Atlantic power supply

One of two reactors was shut down at 8:39 after an electrical problem caused by an explosion in a transformer cut power to a turbine cooling system, officials said.
...
Under normal conditions, he said it takes about a day to get a restarted reactor back to full power.

Feb 2012 NY nuke plant offline for transformer repairs

In November 2010, an explosion in a transformer caused a 17-day shutdown of Indian Point 2, the other reactor at the site in Buchanan, about 35 miles from Manhattan.

June 2009 Electrical explosion shuts down transformer at Davis-Besse nuclear power plant
Other stuff at that plant - including corrosion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davis-Besse_Nuclear_Power_Station

Feb and April 2009 Oyster Creek nuclear plant offline after transformer failure

The transformer that failed on April 25 was a 30-year-old replacement that the nuclear plant's owner, Exelon, brought in during February to replace another transformer that caught fire on Feb. 2, he said.

In 2011 Hurricane Irene took out a transformer at a nuclear power plant
Shít happens. Though in an Irish context the large size of nuclear reactors relative to our system demand shows why they wouldn't be feasible here.


Meanwhile in Canada - unplanned outage of 3 years
http://www.capebretonpost.com/News/Local/2013-03-18/article-3202447/Refuelling-problem-prompts-power-reduction-at-Point-Lepreau-nuclear-reactor/1

Energy production from Atlantic Canada’s only nuclear power plant has been reduced to 35 per cent because of problems refuelling the reactor.
...
The reactor has been online since November following an overhaul that began in 2008.

The original $1.4 billion project to refit the plant cost an extra $1 billion and took three years longer than expected.

Curly Judge

No

Although the South Africans have dropped the ball on the pebble bed reactor,
the Chinese are forging ahead with this technology.
It's a pity that the west are allowing themselves to drop behind and we must now look to the Koreans and the Chinese for advancement in this field.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-Profiles/Countries-A-F/China--Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle/#.UUxxRhyjcuN

Although China intends to become self-sufficient in most aspects of the fuel cycle, it relies increasingly on imported uranium as well as conversion, enrichment and fabrication services from other countries.

China has stated it intends to become self-sufficient not just in nuclear power plant capacity, but also in the production of fuel for those plants. However, the country still relies on foreign suppliers for all stages of the fuel cycle, from uranium mining through fabrication and reprocessing. As China rapidly increases the number of new reactors, it has also initiated a number of domestic projects, often in cooperation with foreign suppliers, to meet its nuclear fuel needs.

Capt'n Midnight

Curly Judge wrote: »

Although the South Africans have dropped the ball on the pebble bed reactor,
the Chinese are forging ahead with this technology.
It's a pity that the west are allowing themselves to drop behind and we must now look to the Koreans and the Chinese for advancement in this field.

What advancements ?

The Germans had a full scale 300MW pebble bed reactor (with added Thorium) working 30 years ago http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THTR-300 and it was based on their earlier 1960 AVR https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVR_reactor. ( problems include dust from pebbles grinding against each other and pebbles jamming where the reactor narrowed )

The Canadians have been running Heavy Water CANDU reactors since 1945 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZEEP , which can run on natural uranium, and by all accounts on nuclear waste , warheads and thorium (you don't need molten salt reactors for that trick). Seriously we could have been burning thorium back in '46 if it was as easy as people like to believe, even using it to extend uranium would have cut costs (The CANDU design means you can refuel on-line so thorium could be added one fuel rod at a time for research )


If they weren't economic or reliable back then I can't see how they will be now, excepting of course that operation in China / India probably mean lower regulatory costs.



Meanwhile in Abu Dhabi a place with no shortage of cheap gas they are using solar to pre heat water to 300 degrees and then gas to bring it up to 500 degrees. This means they are getting more than twice as much energy out of the gas they use or reducing carbon emissions by half etc.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/19/shams_largest_solar_collector/



This is the sort of stuff Nuclear is up against and re-inventing 1960s technology just isn't going to get you ahead of the curve unless you have some new magic to add.

Nuclear boils down to the fact that if you have enough fissionable material in one place it gets hot enough and you can use reactor geometry, fuel placement & type, reflectors , moderators and control rods to achieve control over how quickly it heats up. What's new ?

Curly Judge

No

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

What advancements ?

The Germans had a full scale 300MW pebble bed reactor (with added Thorium) working 30 years ago http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THTR-300 and it was based on their earlier 1960 AVR https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVR_reactor. ( problems include dust from pebbles grinding against each other and pebbles jamming where the reactor narrowed )

The Canadians have been running Heavy Water CANDU reactors since 1945 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZEEP , which can run on natural uranium, and by all accounts on nuclear waste , warheads and thorium (you don't need molten salt reactors for that trick). Seriously we could have been burning thorium back in '46 if it was as easy as people like to believe, even using it to extend uranium would have cut costs (The CANDU design means you can refuel on-line so thorium could be added one fuel rod at a time for research )


If they weren't economic or reliable back then I can't see how they will be now, excepting of course that operation in China / India probably mean lower regulatory costs.



Meanwhile in Abu Dhabi a place with no shortage of cheap gas they are using solar to pre heat water to 300 degrees and then gas to bring it up to 500 degrees. This means they are getting more than twice as much energy out of the gas they use or reducing carbon emissions by half etc.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/19/shams_largest_solar_collector/



This is the sort of stuff Nuclear is up against and re-inventing 1960s technology just isn't going to get you ahead of the curve unless you have some new magic to add.

Nuclear boils down to the fact that if you have enough fissionable material in one place it gets hot enough and you can use reactor geometry, fuel placement & type, reflectors , moderators and control rods to achieve control over how quickly it heats up. What's new ?

China is pumping money into all sorts of energy technology, including your beloved wind and solar.
I'm quite prepared to accept the outcome of their experiments.
Are you?

Capt'n Midnight

Curly Judge wrote: »

China is pumping money into all sorts of energy technology, including your beloved wind and solar.
I'm quite prepared to accept the outcome of their experiments.
Are you?

Difference is solar and wind work and their costs are dropping

I'm not prepared to accept some of the downsides of China. That city where EU E Waste is "recycled" , the scandals of melamine in baby food, just the whole health and safety being much lower than here. The scandal over the trains. Yes they can do marvellous stuff but a lot of stuff has gone pear shaped over there.


Anyway back to software attacks. http://www.forbes.com/2007/08/22/scada-hackers-infrastructure-tech-security-cx_ag_0822hack.html
10 years ago a US nuclear plant was affected.

Extortion is more than an economic problem; racketeers could easily trigger an accident while trying to demonstrate control over a facility, says Marcus Ranum, chief security officer for Tenable Security. "To spin a pump or move a valve, you don't have to be a petroleum engineer," he says. "Then again, you could spin the wrong pump and blow something up."

Not every SCADA sabotage scenario is so hypothetical. In 2000, Vitek Boden, a 48-year-old man fired from his job at a sewage-treatment plant in Australia, remotely accessed his former workplace's computers and poured toxic sludge into parks and rivers; he hoped the plant would re-hire him to solve the leakage problem.

In January 2003, computers infected with the Slammer worm shut down safety display systems at the Davis-Besse power plant in Ohio, though the plant was already shut down at the time. Seven months later, another computer virus was widely suspected by security researchers of leading to a power loss at a plant providing electricity to parts of New York State, despite the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's argument that no evidence of virus-involvement was found.

SCADA systems' lack of security features is a symptom of their age; most were developed at a time when critical infrastructure systems weren't connected to the Internet and needed no intrusion prevention. Some have a 20-year life span, making them obsolete for years after they're installed. And many of the companies that develop SCADA software make installing security patches difficult or, fearing that patches will hamper the software's operation, don't offer customer support for patched systems

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/22/finland_scada_vulnerabilities/

Security researchers in Finland have turned up thousands of unsecured Internet-facing SCADA systems in that country, using the Shodan search engine.

The researchers, from Aalto University, ran their test in January, and found 2,915 exposed systems running functions from building automation to transport and water supply. Those responses were out of a total of 185,000 Finnish IP addresses that responded to an HTTP request.

maringo

http://www.sellafieldsites.com/2011/05/sellafield-ltds-response-to-security-incident/

fullgas

maringo wrote: »

http://www.sellafieldsites.com/2011/05/sellafield-ltds-response-to-security-incident/

Police forces in Cumbria and Greater Manchester are investigating an incident which took place close to the Sellafield site on Monday, May 2.

The Sellafield facilities remained operational throughout, although traffic flow in and around the site was affected for a short time.

Those temporary restrictions have been lifted and the site’s operations continue unaffected.

What was the point in posting the above link??

The "incident" happened in May 2011! The incident wasn't even at the Sellafield plant and was probably a traffic collision or something.

maringo

fullgas wrote: »

What was the point in posting the above link??

The "incident" happened in May 2011! The incident wasn't even at the Sellafield plant and was probably a traffic collision or something.

Sorry, posted wrong link here is latest

http://www.bbc.co.uk/search/news/sellafield

Capt'n Midnight

maringo wrote: »

http://www.sellafieldsites.com/2011/05/sellafield-ltds-response-to-security-incident/

If you are going to post incidents do it properly

Here are some of this month's SNAFU's from the US , lots of dogy parts
http://forms.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/



https://forms.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/2013/20130321en.html
At 1951 CDT on March 20, 2013, Byron Unit 2 Reactor was manually tripped due to the loss of all Generator Stator Cooling Water

https://forms.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/2013/20130320en.html
BROWNS FERRY
MANUAL REACTOR SCRAM DUE TO LOWERING CONDENSER VACUUM
"At 0402 [CDT] on 03/19/2013, the Unit 1 reactor was manually scrammed due to lowering main condenser vacuum




https://forms.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/2013/20130315en.html
WOLF CREEK
At 0149 CDT on 3/13/2013, Wolf Creek declared an Unusual Event due to inoperability of both on-site emergency diesel generators




https://forms.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/2013/20130312en.html
PART 21 REPORT - DEFECTIVE RAW MATERIAL USED TO MANUFACTURE VALVE STEMS ...
The two customers (Wolf Creek Nuclear Plant and Callaway Nuclear Plant) that received the affected parts have been notified of this issue




https://forms.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/2013/20130308en.html
WATERFORD
AUTOMATIC REACTOR TRIP DUE TO LOW STEAM GENERATOR LEVEL

SUSQUEHANNA
HIGH PRESSURE COOLANT INJECTION DECLARED INOPERABLE
This event results in the loss of an entire safety function

CLINTON
AUTOMATIC REACTOR SCRAM ON GENERATOR TRIP/TURBINE TRIP




https://forms.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/2013/20130307en.html
SUSQUEHANNA (yes again)
HIGH PRESSURE COOLANT INJECTION DECLARED INOPERABLE
This event results in the loss of an entire safety function




https://forms.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/2013/20130305en.html
FORT CALHOUN
"It has been determined that the mechanical seals used in two Low Pressure Safety Injection Pumps and three Containment Spray Pumps are made of a material that may not maintain the designed integrity of the systems under certain accident conditions.





https://forms.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event
/2013/20130304en.html
DIABLO CANYON
EMERGENCY BUS INADVERTENTLY DE-ENERGIZED WITH UNIT DEFUELED


Flowserve has been working with the Tennessee Valley Authority's (TVA) Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant to investigate the failure of a Size 10, Class 900 Anchor/Darling motor-operated double-disc gate valve

The following facilities in the United States may be affected:

ANO 1, Browns Ferry, Brunswick, Callaway, Catawba, Clinton, Columbia, Cook, Cooper, Crystal River, Dresden, Diablo Canyon, Duane Arnold, Fitzpatrick, Fort Calhoun, Grand Gulf, Hatch, Indian Point, Kewaunee, LaSalle, Limerick, Maine Yankee, Millstone, Monticello, Nine Mile, North Anna, Oconee, Oyster Creek, Peach Bottom, Perry, Pilgrim, Prairie Island, Quad Cities, River Bend, Robinson, San Onofre, St. Lucie, Surry, Three Mile Island 2, Waterford, VC Summer, Vermont Yankee, Wolf Creek.




PART 21 - DUAL ALARM MODULES THAT MAY CONTAIN FAULTY DIODES IN SINGLE STATE RELAYS

Affected Facilities:

Beaver Valley
Farley
Ginna
Indian Point 2/3
Kewaunee
North Anna
Prairie Island
Surry
Turkey Point




24 HOUR NOTIFICATION OF INOPERABLE SCRAM DISCHARGE VOLUME VALVE BASED ON NRC BULLETIN 80-14



WOLF CREEK an Unusual Event due to inoperability of both on-site emergency diesel generators (again)

Capt'n Midnight

Fukushima - animal taking out electricity ?
yes it's happened before and no one seems to have leant that lesson

http://www.monroenews.com/news/2013/mar/12/fermi-shutdowns-last-year-trigger-extra-inspection/

The most recent unplanned shutdown occurred in November when a hydrogen gas leak developed in the cooling system of the plant’s main electrical generator and operators shut down the reactor. The plant was idled for nearly two months.

In September, a bird flew into an electrical substation and knocked out power to the Fermi site, prompting an automatic shutdown. In late June, one of two big pumps that feed cooling water to the reactor disintegrated, prompting an automatic shutdown.

....
Fermi 2 is a 1,100 megawatt reactor that can supply about 15 percent of DTE’s generating capacity in southeast Michigan but has been limited to 68 percent of power for months because of the damage to the feedwater pump last June.

Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2013 11:00 AM
http://chronicle.augusta.com/news/metro/2013-02-27/vogtle-unit-2-reactor-idled-after-coolant-pump-issue

Plant Vogtle’s Unit 2 nuclear power reactor was offline after excess leakage was detected in a coolant pump.

Once again optimism triumphs over experience
http://www.wickedlocal.com/kingston/topstories/x2082708250/Pilgrim-scram-valve-fails-again

PLYMOUTH —

The second “event” at Pilgrim in as many weeks – the failure of a “scram discharge valve” – is also the second time this particular valve has failed in the last two months.

The scram discharge volume valve – referred to in the event releases as CV-302-22B – failed Feb. 18,
...

That report specifically stated that the valves in question have only a “one in a million” chance of interfering with a reactor shut down.

But the UCS said the Brown’s Ferry Nuclear Power Plant in Alabama must have hit the lottery, because in 1980 a plugged scram discharge valve prevented plant operators from successfully removing all of its control rods, three times, before the reactor staff was able to complete a planned shut down of their reactor.

Forget about the safety / waste issue for a moment.

I trust at this stage people understand that nuclear reactors are subject to unplanned outages and can't be relied upon for continuous power. Dodgy parts are widespread.

Update on Canada - just to be clear on how outages screw up economics.
Point Lepreau nuclear refuelling problem costs up to $600,000 daily:





Look up the cost of Heavy Water, compare it to the average Indian wage and then marvel at how much of it was wasted though poor control. (when used in a reactor you get some radio active tritium in it)

Chloe Pink

Crikey CM - all these incidents and still nuclear rates high on the safety record compared with other forms of generation.

spankmemunkey

Chloe Pink wrote: »

Crikey CM - all these incidents and still nuclear rates high on the safety record compared with other forms of generation.

Can i just ask you a personal question? do you have kids?

Curly Judge

No

spankmemunkey wrote: »

Can i just ask you a personal question? do you have kids?

Why do you ask such a stupid question?

Capt'n Midnight

Chloe Pink wrote: »

Crikey CM - all these incidents and still nuclear rates high on the safety record compared with other forms of generation.

"They have to be lucky all the time - we only have to be lucky once."
Martin McGuinness


This is what cost NASA a shuttle. The normalisation of exception events. It's a culture. If you have lots of near misses you can either modify your behaviour and environment OR you can carry on through regardless because you optimistically think you are lucky.

One of the themes of my posts is that a lot of these "one of , unpredictable" events have happened to other plants in the past and are neither one of nor unpredictable.



Corrosion is a major problem with some reactor configurations. It's one of the reasons I've very sceptical that existing reactors types can become more efficient , things like the Arrhenius_equation predict faster corrosion at higher temperatures. There is a consistent underestimating of the rates of corrosion across the industry. It's the old theme of not learning from the mistakes of others.
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2008/04/how-we-almost-blew-ohio

workers discovered that boric acid deposits had gnawed a rusty, "pineapple-sized" hole almost clear through the six-inch-thick steel cap bolted to the top of the reactor. Had the corrosion gone a third of an inch deeper, through the steel cladding inside the reactor vessel, radioactive steam would have flooded the reactor's containment dome, and Davis-Besse might have become the next Three Mile Island.
...
the Davis-Besse scare highlights a history of regulatory neglect that harkens back to the agency's founding—the NRC was born in 1974 from the ruins of the booster-driven Atomic Energy Commission. The UCS has tallied 47 incidents since 1979 in which the commission failed to adequately address safety issues until the problems forced plant shutdowns. In some cases, the UCS reports, "the NRC allowed reactors with known safety problems to continue operating for months, sometimes years, without requiring owners to fix the problems."

Curly Judge

No

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

"They have to be lucky all the time - we only have to be lucky once."
Martin McGuinness


This is what cost NASA a shuttle. The normalisation of exception events. It's a culture. If you have lots of near misses you can either modify your behaviour and environment OR you can carry on through regardless because you optimistically think you are lucky.

One of the themes of my posts is that a lot of these "one of , unpredictable" events have happened to other plants in the past and are neither one of nor unpredictable.



Corrosion is a major problem with some reactor configurations. It's one of the reasons I've very sceptical that existing reactors types can become more efficient , things like the Arrhenius_equation predict faster corrosion at higher temperatures. There is a consistent underestimating of the rates of corrosion across the industry. It's the old theme of not learning from the mistakes of others.

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2008/04/how-we-almost-blew-ohio

From the same source: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/pro-nuclear-power-environmental-movement?page=2
People following this thread could do worse than read the two page report above.
In addition to the report I would also recommend that you read down through the letters relating to it at the end of the article.
Salem Witch Hunt type, foaming at the mouth, "how dare you propose your filthy nuclear", "we are the way the truth and the light" bigotry and intolerance.
And still, despite all the shouting, no answer to the intermittentcy problem!

Capt'n Midnight

Curly Judge wrote: »

From the same source:
...
Salem Witch Hunt type, foaming at the mouth, "how dare you propose your filthy nuclear", "we are the way the truth and the light" bigotry and intolerance.
And still, despite all the shouting, no answer to the intermittentcy problem!

So I quote some facts from an article written by Judith Lewis five years ago about a specific event

and your response is to compare it to a recent general opinion piece by Keith Kloor.


A much better response would have been to show that the incident I mentioned didn't happen. Or that corrosion isn't a widespread problem in nuclear power plants that costs billions.



As for intermittentcy I think I've shown that reactors can go offline without warning.

It doesn't matter if it's because the backups or valves have failed, or because of a computer virus or transformer malfunction or an animal getting caught in a relay or if the relays/breakers/valves have to be changed because they were counterfeit or the upgrades/refurbishing/refuelling is taking twice as long as planned for or if it's a political decision. It doesn't matter because at the end of the day the reactor is offline. (and can't be restarted till tomorrow)

The world average uptime for nuclear reactors is about 80% , and yes a lot of the downtime is for planned maintenance but there is a huge chunk of unplanned downtime. And if we were unlucky it there could be several years of downtime with little or no advanced notice.

Loosing a few weeks of wind to freak weather isn't nice. But it isn't a problem if we have backup. And we do, 6709.480MW Total Installed non-wind. Peak demand ever was just over 5GW, so not a problem for the foreseeable future


Beyond that options include demand reduction. Smart meters will also help. We have interconnectors.


You can't have it both ways. You arguing that rare events like extended periods of no wind at peak annual demand are a problem, and at the same time arguing that more common events like nukes having unscheduled downtime aren't a problem.


Other news
Norway are starting to commercialise osmotic power. It's like having an extra 120m drop on our rivers. Ardnacrusha gets 86MW from 28.5m - this could in theory get an additional 350MW and we wouldn't even need to depopulate Limerick.

It hasn't been commercialised yet. Flow rates from rivers vary through the year. But it's a technology that could provide continuous power without relying on a single point of failure. Bonus since most cities are built at rivers mouths you save on distribution losses too.

Curly Judge

No

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

So I quote some facts from an article written by Judith Lewis five years ago about a specific event

and your response is to compare it to a recent general opinion piece by Keith Kloor.


A much better response would have been to show that the incident I mentioned didn't happen. Or that corrosion isn't a widespread problem in nuclear power plants that costs billions.

If you don't mind I'll contribute to this site in my own way and in my own time.
The main reason I didn't respond is because the piece is beyond derision!
"The day we nearly blew up Ohio" You know, or at least should know that was not a likely scenario under any conceivable set of circumstances.
The worst that could have happened is a Three Mile Island type emergency and even that would be highly unlikely even if the reactor inner shield was pierced and the other automatic safety devises came into operation.
Corrosion is a problem in all power plants.
The reason it costs billions in a nuclear power plant is because nuclear power plants are capable of earning billions when they are running.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

As for intermittentcy I think I've shown that reactors can go offline without warning.

By your own admission nuclear achieves 80% online and presumably this includes your famous [unique to nuclear] tripping.
A utility managing several different types of plant would have over 40 years of statistics upon which to calculate their "spinning reserve" requirements.
The spinning reserve requirements with nuclear would be approx 20% plus a margin for unforeseen down time.
What would his spinning reserve requirement be for wind?

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

It doesn't matter if it's because the backups or valves have failed, or because of a computer virus or transformer malfunction or an animal getting caught in a relay or if the relays/breakers/valves have to be changed because they were counterfeit or the upgrades/refurbishing/refuelling is taking twice as long as planned for or if it's a political decision. It doesn't matter because at the end of the day the reactor is offline. (and can't be restarted till tomorrow)

Do they not have transformer explosions, relay failures, turbine main shaft overheating or simply fuses blowing in conventional power stations?

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

The world average uptime for nuclear reactors is about 80% , and yes a lot of the downtime is for planned maintenance but there is a huge chunk of unplanned downtime. And if we were unlucky it there could be several years of downtime with little or no advanced notice.

See above

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Loosing a few weeks of wind to freak weather isn't nice. But it isn't a problem if we have backup. And we do, 6709.480MW Total Installed non-wind. Peak demand ever was just over 5GW, so not a problem for the foreseeable future

Of course it's not a problem for wind. It's never a problem when someone else steps in and takes up the work you should have been doing in the first place.
We had a guy like that in one of the companies I once worked in, and like wind, although he was often missing when the heavy lifting needed to be done, he was there with the hand out every Friday, same as if he was pulling his weight like the rest of us.
20% wind penetration needs 20% backup.
Not a big problem!
100% wind needs 100% backup.
Very big problem!

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Beyond that options include demand reduction. Smart meters will also help. We have interconnectors.

For demand reduction read: blackout.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

You can't have it both ways. You arguing that rare events like extended periods of no wind at peak annual demand are a problem, and at the same time arguing that more common events like nukes having unscheduled downtime aren't a problem.

Where did I argue that?

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Other news
Norway are starting to commercialise osmotic power. It's like having an extra 120m drop on our rivers. Ardnacrusha gets 86MW from 28.5m - this could in theory get an additional 350MW and we wouldn't even need to depopulate Limerick.

It hasn't been commercialised yet. Flow rates from rivers vary through the year. But it's a technology that could provide continuous power without relying on a single point of failure. Bonus since most cities are built at rivers mouths you save on distribution losses too.

At 1 watt per square meter of osmotic barrier..... best of luck with that one.
The replicator in Star Trek will be up and running before that one is out of the traps.
Nice quip about depopulating Limerick though.

SeanW

No

GarIT wrote: »

I'm not in favour of it, even if the risk is minimal its too high. I much rather move to more expensive sources such as wind or solar rather than risk human life.

While I respect your convictions on this matter, I feel that you have been mislead by propoganda from the environmental-left, on two key points:

1. That the risk of a Chernobyl style accident is significant enough to be even worth considering.
2. That "more expensive sources such as wind or solar" are actual alternatives not requiring backups, and not, in reality, literally as dependable as the weather.

Disingenous, but carefully crafted Green propoganda would have you believe both, but both misconceptions fall flat in the face of actual facts.

Here's what environmental-leftists like Greenpeace and world Green Parties won't tell you:

Nuclear accidents, such as Chernobyl.

1. The historic record is clear - nuclear electricity is the safest per-TW/h form of power generation. ALL other forms of power generation cost more human lives per TW/h than nuclear power. Without exception, that includes wind and solar. http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html
2. The only nuclear accident to date to cause both large scale land contamination and loss of human life has been the Chernobyl accident in the former Soviet Union.
3. The Fukushima accident has, so far, a fatality rate of two persons - crane operators who died when the earthquake shook their crane to the ground.
4. The RBMK reactor designed used for the Chernobyl-4 plant was never used outside the Soviet Union, because everyone outside the USSR knew it had a dangrously high positive void coefficient. Sadly, this proved to be one of many deciding factors on April 26th 1986.
5. The RBMK design was so large that it was not feasible to protect it/the ecosphere with double containment vessels, instead there was only a partial primary containment of an "Upper Biological Shield" on the roof.
6. The RMBK design was intended primarily to produce nuclear weapons material with electricity as a byproduct. Although Chernobyl was a civilian reactor complex, State Secrecy kept the operators in the dark about serious design flaws and caused severe confusion at key times. This contributed to a chain of fundamental errors on the night.
7. A tragically comical chain of decisions taken the days and minutes before the accident could only have occured in a Communist country or somewhere with similarly spectacular awful governance, e.g. Zimbabwe.
8. A hypothetical Irish nuclear programme would not even need to use conventional large reactors at all - and certainly not RBMKs - it would be feasible to use Toshiba 4S Micro Nukes or Pebble Bed Reactors, ranging from 10MW to 120MW. These are small and often can be kept underground. Some designs also have passive safety features that limit the amount of fission that can occur.
9. Nuclear electricity and nuclear weaponsa are not - as claimed by the environmental left - "blood brothers." Many countries have civilian nuclear electricity without nuclear weapons nor any desire to obtain them, while Israel has nuclear weapons and no nuclear power. As did Pakistan until very recently.

Renewables.

1. Wind and solar, in the limited cases they are cost effective, are literally as dependable as the weather. All renewable installations must be backed 100% by traditional power plants. In most parts of the world, renewable power will never displace a single traditional power station.
2. The costs are ridiculous, with most "Green" countries having bizarre and punishing electricity costs.
3. Scale. Exluding, for the sake of argument, the total unreliability of renewables, getting a decent amount of power from them would involve wallpapering our countries with wind turbines and solar panels. For example, to supply 1/6th of the United Kingdoms electricity requirements would require covering an area the size of Wales with wind turbines.
4. Despite unprecedented political support for renewables, excluding hydroelectricity, they supply less than 2.6% of world power needs, and that is likely to fall in the years ahead as Asian countries continue to grow at unprecedented rates.
5. Coal, on the other hand, provides over 40% of global power needs, a plurality among sources, contributing to a total of approximately 70% by all fossil fuels. A very large portion of this is directly attributable to the environmental left and their irrational, infantile and bizzare opposition to nuclear electricity.

My name is URL wrote: »

It would be quite Irish to start building Power Plants at a time when wiser and more sophisticated nations are phasing out the use of nuclear power

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_phase-out

Yes, "wiser and more sophisticated nations" like Germany?
The same Germany that has been just behind China in its rate of commissioning new coal fired power plants?
The same Germany that's recently increased its consumption of Russian gas, effectively handing German national soverignty over to Russia? Yes, that's really "wise" and "sophisticated" ...

Curly Judge

No

Just as the perverse actions of the IRA keep pushing back the day of a united Ireland, so the actions of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth keep putting off the day we can effectively tackle global warming.

Grudaire

Curly Judge wrote: »

Just as the perverse actions of the IRA keep pushing back the day of a united Ireland, so the actions of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth keep putting off the day we can effectively tackle global warming.

Well that escalated quickly! That's as close to a Godwins law I've seen on this thread so far :pac:

Curly Judge

No

Cliste wrote: »

Well that escalated quickly! That's as close to a Godwins law I've seen on this thread so far :pac:

I think you'r guilty of: diversion or even censorship, fallaciously miscasting an opponent's argument as hyperbole when the comparisons made by the argument are actually appropriate.

Capt'n Midnight

Curly Judge wrote: »

If you don't mind I'll contribute to this site in my own way and in my own time.
The main reason I didn't respond is because the piece is beyond derision!
"The day we nearly blew up Ohio" You know, or at least should know that was not a likely scenario under any conceivable set of circumstances.
The worst that could have happened is a Three Mile Island type emergency and even that would be highly unlikely even if the reactor inner shield was pierced and the other automatic safety devises came into operation.
Corrosion is a problem in all power plants.
The reason it costs billions in a nuclear power plant is because nuclear power plants are capable of earning billions when they are running.

Last bit first. EDF will earn billions because they are set to make 10p per unit on the new UK plants. It's a good price for a peaking plant with a low capital cost.


This is AH so you have to pander the audience a little , spice it up a bit:pac:

OK let's be boring and go to the regulators site
http://public-blog.nrc-gateway.gov/2011/10/03/under-the-magnifying-glass-davis-besse%E2%80%99s-reactor-vessel-head-replacement/

Davis-Besse is getting a brand new reactor vessel head this fall — its third since 2002. And we’re going to invest more than 400 inspection hours to make sure the replacement is done right, and safely, for the workers and the public.

New reactor heads have been installed at 36 out of 69 pressurized water reactors in the U.S.

This head replacement, however, is a major milestone because of the history at Davis-Besse. This is the location where, in 2002, a football-sized cavity was discovered in the reactor vessel head. Because of corrosion found on the head, only a thin stainless steel liner remained between the reactor and the containment building.

36 reactors heads replaced , they aren't cheap or quick to replace.
That corrosion is very specific to nuclear reactors because only they use borax in the water.

By your own admission nuclear achieves 80% online and presumably this includes your famous [unique to nuclear] tripping.
A utility managing several different types of plant would have over 40 years of statistics upon which to calculate their "spinning reserve" requirements.
The spinning reserve requirements with nuclear would be approx 20% plus a margin for unforeseen down time.
What would his spinning reserve requirement be for wind?

The rule is you need enough capacity to handle the biggest single point of failure. For windfarms that's the biggest wind farm, derated by the predicted amount of wind.

I keep pointing out we have predictions for wind, wind just doesn't suddenly stop in the way a thermal plant can.

Do they not have transformer explosions, relay failures, turbine main shaft overheating or simply fuses blowing in conventional power stations?

Of course they do.
BUT those plants don't need them for cooling an off line reactor. The diesel generators are a backup, they aren't intended to replace mains.

And there have been a lot of transformer incidents.

20% wind penetration needs 20% backup.
Not a big problem!
100% wind needs 100% backup.
Very big problem!

Oh dear , strawman.

50% of actual demand from wind happens
I've posted before that we have the backup already with over 6GW on this side of the border. With the new plants being built we'll peak at something just over 10GW dispatchable capacity by 2016.

Spinning reserve just isn't an issue. And while spinning means using some fuel it's nothing close to the amount used when you are generating.

100% wind :rolleyes: - not unless we have ridiculous storage / interconnectivity AND denounce all other renewables including the contractually obliged waste to energy stuff and the CHP that's going to happen anyway

For demand reduction read: blackout.

what if we had a nuke and it was offline for six months ?

Where did I argue that?

Can you accept that nuclear needs spinning reserve for 100% of the power it is supplying ( one 1.6GW reactor + hydro would provide our summer night valley ). Can you accept that wind doesn't suddenly die off country wide. ( In general we've 4 days to prepare for new weather fronts )

At 1 watt per square meter of osmotic barrier..... best of luck with that one.
The replicator in Star Trek will be up and running before that one is out of the traps.
Nice quip about depopulating Limerick though.

2MW plant in Norway.

In theory a much smaller membrane could be used , it's an optimisation problem. Unlike nuclear this is a scalable technology.

The thing about nuclear R&D is that in most cases it only applies to nuclear. Short of genetically engineering organisms to sequester uranium in their bodies I don't see many crossovers to other disciplines. Power from osmosis will benefit from the research into water purification / desalination and that is a huge growth area worldwide.


And yes you can already hook up 3D scanners to 3D printers to replicate solid objects.

Capt'n Midnight

SeanW wrote: »

While I respect your convictions on this matter, I feel that you have been mislead by propoganda from the environmental-left, on two key points:

1. That the risk of a Chernobyl style accident is significant enough to be even worth considering.

Fukushima was a repeat of the incident at a French power plant. Flooding. Even the rat taking out the power recently was a repeat. Many US power stations have a similar design to Fukushima.
I've posted earlier that other Japanese stations could be considered near misses.

We can't predict the exact time of an earthquake.

Predicting that Japan will get hit by a large tsunami / earthquake during the 60-70 year life span of a nuclear power plant on the other hand... It's like when people try to explain the 10 plagues of Egypt no one needs to explain locusts.

The US shut down one reactor that was expected to have a 10,000:1 chance per year of getting damaged badly by an earthquake

[*]The only nuclear accident to date to cause both large scale land contamination and loss of human life has been the Chernobyl accident in the former Soviet Union.

You guys don't talk about Kyshtym

[*]A hypothetical Irish nuclear programme would not even need to use conventional large reactors at all - and certainly not RBMKs - it would be feasible to use Toshiba 4S Micro Nukes or Pebble Bed Reactors, ranging from 10MW to 120MW.

A - they are still vapourware,
B - they are designed for places where other sources of power are prohibitively expensive like

while Israel has nuclear weapons and no nuclear power.

http://forcesmilitary.blogspot.ie/2010/10/israels-largest-nuclear-reactor-in.html
I'd be certain that they don't just let all that heat go to waste, especially when there are all those gas centrifuges to run.

[*]The costs are ridiculous, with most "Green" countries having bizarre and punishing electricity costs.

Nuclear costs 10p a unit.
UK nuclear decommissioning costs are £100Bn
Wind turbine refurbishing costs are ~10% of new build.

Capt'n Midnight

As for the magic bullet of Thorium

The US is spending half a billion dollars to downblend their stock of it.

[edit]background http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/24/us/uranium-233-disposal-proves-a-problem.html?_r=0[/edit]

http://energy.gov/em/articles/em-plan-accelerates-uranium-233-disposal-saves-taxpayers-half-billion

For more than 50 years, the uranium-233 (U-233) supply has been stored at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s (ORNL) Building 3019.
...
The EM project is ultimately responsible for the disposition of 450 kilograms of this fissile material, which is mixed with nearly 2 metric tons of total uranium and stored in approximately 1,100 canisters.
...
Under the new approach, the project is scheduled for completion in 2018 with an estimated life-cycle cost of approximately $511 million.

List of reactors where Thorium has already been tried
http://thorium1.com/thorium101/history.html

Report on ShippingPort 1977 Thorium/U233 reactor.
This ran for 5 years and stopped over 30 years ago.
http://www.inl.gov/technicalpublications/Documents/2664750.pdf

SeanW

No

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

I've posted earlier that other Japanese stations could be considered near misses.

That would certainly bolster your argument if it was accepted :pac:

We can't predict the exact time of an earthquake.

Predicting that Japan will get hit by a large tsunami / earthquake during the 60-70 year life span of a nuclear power plant on the other hand... It's like when people try to explain the 10 plagues of Egypt no one needs to explain locusts.

All true - indicating that any new nuclear plants built in Japan (or indeed anywhere with earthquake liability) should be built to an appropriate standard. Fukushima was built at a time when Japan was a developing country and thus had inadequate earthquake/tsunami defences.

The US shut down one reactor that was expected to have a 10,000:1 chance per year of getting damaged badly by an earthquake

Perhaps the plant in question can be retrofitted. Perhaps it should not have been located there in the firstplace.

You guys don't talk about Kyshtym

Another Soviet screw up ... the setup at Osyorsk was so hopelessly pathetic it makes an RBMK reactor look state of the art.

Wikipedia wrote:

All six reactors were on Lake Kyzyltash and used an open cycle cooling system, discharging irradiated water directly back into the lake. Initially Mayak was dumping high-level radioactive waste into a nearby river

So to improve this they added radiocontaminated water storage tanks in 1953, but in true Soviet fashion they screwed it up.

There were no immediate casualties as a result of the explosion, but it released an estimated 20 MCi (800 PBq) of radioactivity. Most of this contamination settled out near the site of the accident and contributed to the pollution of the Techa River, but a plume containing 2 MCi (80 PBq) of radionuclides spread out over hundreds of kilometers.

Ok so from the accident, 80 Peta Becquerls of radiocontamination made it out of the plant gate. This is however, only a fraction of the radiocontamination resulting from deliberate releases prior to 1953:

The affected area was not virgin - the Techa river had previously received 2 ¾ MCi (100 PBq) of deliberately dumped waste, and Lake Karachay had received 120 MCi (4000 PBq).

An 80PBq accident versus of 4100PBq of intentional releases ... if it wasn't so serious I would find it funny.

In addition, as was Soviet practice when they screwed up, large scale health effects were caused when Communist authorities failed to tell the locals in time that it had gone tits up.

At least 22 villages were exposed to radiation from the disaster with a total population of around 10,000 were evacuated. Some were evacuated after a week but it took almost 2 years for evacuations to occur at other sites.

They did the same thing after Chernobyl (it took them 36 hours to decide to evacuate Pripyat, possibly more for the smaller towns and villages) and it was responsible for unnecessary mass exposure there too.

Oh and before I forget, here's the best bit:

Wikipedia wrote:

After World War II, the Soviet Union lagged behind the US in development of nuclear weapons, so it started a rapid research and development program to produce a sufficient amount of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium.

Emphasis mine. In other words, it has absolutely nothing, whatsoever, to do with nuclear electricity. Nada. Squat. Zip.

But you're right, it was SOOOOO negligent of me not to mention it. :rolleyes: More fool me, for not considering mid 20th century Soviet military research screw ups in the context of proposed Western civilian nuclear power programmes, because there is so much overlap between the two :rolleyes:

A - they are still vapourware,

Things such as Pebble Bed Reactors are still in the research stage, to be sure, doesn't mean that they will never come, or that we should not use them if they do.

B - they are designed for places where other sources of power are prohibitively expensive like

That is true of the smaller ones such as the 10MW version of the Toshiba 4S planned for use in Galena, Alaska. But there is a proposed 50MW version of the same reactor and some PBRs/PBMRs may be more economical.

http://forcesmilitary.blogspot.ie/2010/10/israels-largest-nuclear-reactor-in.html
I'd be certain that they don't just let all that heat go to waste, especially when there are all those gas centrifuges to run.

1. They're still military reactors.
2. The amounts involved are not significant.
3. You have no evidence that any of the juice in question makes it onto the Israeli electricity grid (not that it would matter even if it did).

This is yet another argument that is just silly and bizarre.

Capt'n Midnight

SeanW wrote: »

That would certainly bolster your argument if it was accepted :pac:

That's the point, normalising the exception is unacceptable.

Fukushima was built at a time when Japan was a developing country and thus had inadequate earthquake/tsunami defences.

Fukushima was built in 1967 by which time Godzilla was on his eight film.

I cba looking up when the Japanese moved away from producing transistors using diffusion, which is the point they jumped into the top division of semiconductors. Also your standard TV aerial is a Yagi-Uda. And a lot of the earlier unpleasantness in the region was facilitated by Japan being the most developed country there.

Like I posted earlier one of the other near miss plants had it's tsunami wall completely sealed just a few days prior.

Perhaps the plant in question can be retrofitted. Perhaps it should not have been located there in the firstplace.

Hindsight is a precise science. At which US plant did they build one of the two retrofitted walls backwards ? Captain Obvious could earn his pay in the nuclear industry.

Oh and before I forget, here's the best bit:
... it has absolutely nothing, whatsoever, to do with nuclear electricity. Nada. Squat. Zip.

That is very important to remember. In a lot of cases the decision to use nuclear power has nothing to do with economics.

Things such as Pebble Bed Reactors are still in the research stage, to be sure, doesn't mean that they will never come, or that we should not use them if they do.

What research ? They closed the last full scale one 30 years. All the basic research was done by the 1960's.
It's reinventing the wheel

That is true of the smaller ones such as the 10MW version of the Toshiba 4S planned for use in Galena, Alaska. But there is a proposed 50MW version of the same reactor and some PBRs/PBMRs may be more economical.

Back in 2008 the 10MW version power costs were estimated at 15 cents to 25 cents per kWh in the study, Chaney said. Toshiba has estimated the cost of the 4S reactor at $25 million and that cost is with Toshiba picking up all the tabs.
Even if we pretend that the 50MW version can halve the cost of power it's still way over our current market price.

Lets remember that the UK are paying 10p (not 10c) a KWh because of economies of scale you get with a 1,600 MW reactor and thats still nearly double the market price.

This is interesting when compare the subsidies give to just one UK plant to that will be given to wind country wide, especially when you take into account to the wholesale market price.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/03/26/uk-britain-energy-nuclear-idUKBRE92P0K620130326

EDF could expect revenues of about 88 billion pounds from its two planned 1,600-megawatt reactors in Britain based on a strike price of 100 pounds per MWh over 35 years and other assumptions, CF Partners' Vetter estimated.