At 09:12 24/02/2013, Pete wrote:
(PV) I disagree, in as much as problems at Hanford do not reflect
anything about the current state of nuclear technology.
Hanford is not a commercial power station, it is a federal
research establishment and part of the weapons infrastructure
The closest Canadian equivalent would be Chalk River, but
there is really no equivalent as we made no attempt to refine
isotopes for weapons in Canada.
(KH) Our equivalent in the UK is Sellafield with scores of waste tanks
(some leaky) contaning radioactive liquids of long half-life that should
have been sequestered decades ago. One of the reasons why a solution has
not yet been found is the poor quailty of scientists and engineers
attracted to a career in nuclear projects. Whereas, 70 years ago, it took
dozens of the world's most brilliant physicists to construct the nuclear
bomb, today, most UK universities (201 out of 203) eschew teaching nuclear
engineering because they can't attract students of any calibre. Our
Nuclear Inspectorate has been under strength.
(PV) But Chalk River was a reasearch institute active during the
early years of exploring nuclear energy, and it also has
great warehouses full of hazardous materials.
We have learned much from the activities in these projects,
and no one today would consider storing nuclear wastes as liquids
in tanks, certainly not from power plants, which shouldn't
produce such material.
Canadian heavy water reactors, which I might remind you, can
run quite happily on what is considered the spent fuel of a US
light water reactor, typically run on unenriched uranium, which
requires no exotic processing to prepare, and when spent, in
a CANDU reactor, it is really quite spent, and can be prepared
as a solid waste block encapsulated in glass, and stored
underground in the same mines from which it was extracted,
nested in gravel beds in the Canadian Shield, where there is
zero risk of groundwater contamination nor exposure via earthquakes
or whathaveyou.
(KH) I didn't know the above, but the point is taken -- apart from "zero"
risk.
(PV) I don't have any really strong opinions about the adoption of
nuclear energy one way or the other, but most criticisms I hear
of the industry just aren't up to speed with the current state
of the technology. Pointing at 60 year old mistakes as a reason
to dismiss the current technology makes no sense.
(KH) One 60 year-old mistake is that no insurance corp has yet agreed to
cover nuclear reactors. Another fact of the last 60 years is that no civil
engineering firm that has been all too eager to design and build a reactor
has yet agreed to run them and to supply electricity at the price stated on
the tin (that is, the low price that politicians keep on telling us is the
real price) -- or indeed to run them at all. What's more -- considerably
more -- is that the cost of sequestering radioactive wastes year after
year, or rather century after century, has never yet been estimated and
published. (Even glassified blocks, buried at very deep level has to be
inspected regularly so that its safety for hundreds of generations of
humans is assured.) The long and the short of both of the above facts is
that nuclear power has had to be subsidised before, during, and after
construction. We've never been given the true costs of nuclear-generated
electricity.
Keith
-Pete
On Sun, 24 Feb 2013, Keith Hudson wrote:
> It was good to read this because I think it comes just at the right time to
> permanently affect new build in the advanced countries. The news of these
> leaks comes on top of the realization of universal shale gas and ought
now to
> finally stop the bleatings (and false propaganda) of the wannabe power
station
> constructors (who, be it noted, are not the slightest bit interested in
> running them once built).
>
> Keith.
>
>
> At 21:56 23/02/2013, Natalia wrote:
> > Most of you have probably read this by now. Given what this news reveals,
> > how can more new builds of such plants be justified?
> >
> >
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57570857/wash-state-governor-6-underground-nuclear-tanks-leaking/
> >
> > Natalia
> > _______________________________________________
> > Futurework mailing list
> > [email protected]
> > https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
>
> _______________________________________________
> Futurework mailing list
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>
>
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