Why I advocate for Nuclear Power

[barbos]

Well, I have already. 1 gram is 100mil decays per second - quick death.
1 milligram (ingested) will give you 100K decays, natural level according to wikipedia is around 4K. So I would say 10 milligram may not klill you but would increase cancer chances significantly.

do you have a real example? which element? which type of radiation?

I have, but you would have to pay me for that.

 

[barbos]

Bottom line, in a thousand years our descendants would likely be paying for storing the waste from today's nuclear plants.
And these storage facilities will be powered by solar panels. And they will be saying "These idiots, could not do the math"

 

[Bomb#20]

Well, I have already.

I am sorry but I just searched through this thread and could not find where you presented a specific example of an isotope with a half life of about 500,000 years that will kill a human quickly, or how much would do so.

1 gram is 100mil decays per second - quick death.
1 milligram (ingested) will give you 100K decays, natural level according to wikipedia is around 4K. So I would say 10 milligram may not klill you but would increase cancer chances significantly.

I am sorry but what isotope is this?

Peez

The closest real example is bismuth-208; it's 368,000 years. Barbos is talking in broad terms about a generic hypothetical radioisotope, and he's discounting the difference the decay mode makes. For example, bismuth-208 emits positrons; different radioisotopes kill faster or slower depending on what they emit as well as on how often. He's also glossing over atomic weight. For example, thorium-230 and nickel-59 have almost identical half-lives (75,000 years), but per milligram that's a lot more nickel decays per second than thorium decays per second, since each thorium decay takes out a much larger atom. I don't think any of those details really affects the point he's making.

 

[Peez]

Search again.

1 gram is 100mil decays per second - quick death.
1 milligram (ingested) will give you 100K decays, natural level according to wikipedia is around 4K. So I would say 10 milligram may not klill you but would increase cancer chances significantly.

I am sorry but what isotope is this?

The one with a half life time of 1 million years, you can't read?

lol!

OK, sorry I wasted my time trying to engage you in discussion.

Peez

 

[Peez]

I am sorry but I just searched through this thread and could not find where you presented a specific example of an isotope with a half life of about 500,000 years that will kill a human quickly, or how much would do so.

I am sorry but what isotope is this?

Peez

The closest real example is bismuth-208; it's 368,000 years. Barbos is talking in broad terms about a generic hypothetical radioisotope, and he's also discounting the difference the decay mode makes. For example, bismuth-208 emits positrons; different radioisotopes kill faster or slower depending on what they emit as well as on how often.

This is why I was trying to get to a real example, but it seems that barbos is not interested in addressing reality.

Peez

 

[James Brown]

Cleanup is not, and never has been, a problem for the civilian nuclear industry...There is not now, nor is there ever likely to be contamination of ground water by civilian nuclear waste.

This is something I wonder about. Any human-directed enterprise is vulnerable to mishaps, no matter how careful they might be. Are you saying that civilian nuclear waste would indeed be an awful thing to deal with if it got out of control, but who cares, because it will never get out of control?

Or do we just swallow hard, agree that the risks of using nuclear power are quantifiably less than the risks of other methods of energy generation after we've equalized their benefits in terms of output?

 

[bilby]

Cleanup is not, and never has been, a problem for the civilian nuclear industry...There is not now, nor is there ever likely to be contamination of ground water by civilian nuclear waste.

This is something I wonder about. Any human-directed enterprise is vulnerable to mishaps, no matter how careful they might be. Are you saying that civilian nuclear waste would indeed be an awful thing to deal with if it got out of control, but who cares, because it will never get out of control?

Or do we just swallow hard, agree that the risks of using nuclear power are quantifiably less than the risks of other methods of energy generation after we've equalized their benefits in terms of output?

There's no need to 'swallow hard'. Nothing is perfectly safe, so every choice has safety implications both positive and negative.

Avoiding something with a minuscule risk, at the cost of exposure to a risk many orders of magnitude greater is just crazy.

Nuclear waste isn't the kind of thing that 'gets out of control'. It's heavy ceramic pellets; Where are they going to go?

I was discussing this recently with someone who casually referred to dry cask storage of spent fuel above ground as 'safe as houses' (this is how most spent fuel is stored today). Another person challenged that characterization, because the fact is that by any reasonable measure, dry cask storage is FAR safer than houses. Houses kill and injure people all the time; Nobody has ever been killed or injured by spent nuclear fuel from a power plant.

The risk of a given course of action is the dangers it poses, minus the dangers of whatever else you could do instead. People die by getting tangled in their bedsheets; But staying in bed is less dangerous than walking down the street. If we banned beds because of the small, but demonstrably real, risk they pose, then we would actually kill more people. The same is true of banning or opposing nuclear power. Nuclear power has a net negative risk when compared to any other way of making electricity.

Since it's inception in the 1950s, nuclear power has killed fewer than 100 people, (almost all at Chernobyl; a handful in uranium mining); In the same period, it has saved about 1.8 million people from death due to air pollution from the coal that would otherwise have been burned. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunction/nuclear-power-may-have-saved-1-8-million-lives-otherwise-lost-to-fossil-fuels-may-save-up-to-7-million-more/

If safety is the number one concern, then it makes no sense to worry about the tiny risk of nuclear power, when to do so implies exposure to the much larger risks of other sources of electricity - even wind and solar power cause more deaths per unit of power generation than nuclear.

Heavy, solid and insoluble ceramic pellets in a strong container are a non-risk. Sure, if you ate one, it would kill you. But that's true of lots of things that are far less well protected - there are mushrooms in the woods that are just as deadly (and far more hazardous because they are uncontained, unguarded, and look like food).

Nuclear waste isn't glowing green goo that is trying to escape its containment and come after us; It's actually pretty boring stuff. It's dangerous because it's energetic. Like a red hot poker is dangerous because it's energetic. The trick is not to get too close.

http://www.iaea.org/inis/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/29/015/29015601.pdf

But let's imagine that some waste did get 'out of control'. A fully fuelled up 747 crashes into a dry cask full of spent fuel, a few miles from a town; There is a huge fire as all that aviation fuel burns off, the contents of the cask are scattered over an area of several hundred yards. (That's actually pretty unlikely, the casks are essentially solid blocks of thick concrete, so even in this extreme scenario the spent fuel would likely be contained; But lets make this as scary as possible).

Who dies? The people on the plane, obviously. Perhaps a couple of workers on the ground - But all of those casualties are from the plane crash, and they are dead before they are exposed to any radiation. Who else is at risk? If the fire department is unaware that the crash site is used to store spent fuel, then a couple of dozen firemen could be at risk. But it's pretty implausible that they would be unaware. The spent fuel isn't going any further, once the crash is over. It's not soluble, so it's not going into the groundwater; It's not flammable, and it is heavy, so it's not spread by the smoke to any noticeable degree. Our scenario is like Chernobyl, only far smaller, and with far less radioactivity - all the really dangerous stuff at Chernobyl killed people who were right there at the site; Except for the radio-iodine, which was the big hazard to people in the surrounding area. But radio iodine is only present in an operating reactor; With a half-life of just over a week, there is none left by the time spent fuel is placed into dry casks. Our attempt to reproduce a 'mini Chernobyl' by having a huge fire in a pole of uncontained spent nuclear fuel would be a damp squib. The death and injury toll from radiation would be similar to that at Fukushima - probably zero. And that's for a hugely implausible worst case scenario.

 

[Elixir]

...staying in bed is less dangerous than walking down the street. If we banned beds because of the small, but demonstrably real, risk they pose, then we would actually kill more people.

Especially considering that they're now walking down the street with no sleep!
I was listening to John Hall's version of the song "Power" and had to bite my lip because my wife (who put it on) is an old friend of his. But it rankled me no end. "Take your atomic poison power awaaayaay..." Yeah, dam up all the rivers for hydro, kill off migratory fish populations, fill those rivers with coal ash... but at least you're not kept awake at night (walking down the street) afraid of an un-detectable horror that is rotting your DNA from the inside out! AAaaaak!!
There is an awful lot of ignorance out there, and I have to wonder how assiduously and for how long that ignorance has been cultivated by the fossil fuel industry.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

barbos:
I think you are the one who is misunderstanding of how nuclear half life works. People are not worried about most radioactive waste. They are worried about stuff with half life longer than few years. And I would like you to see eating spoonful of something with a half life let say million years

To put it very simply, radioactive isotopes are radioactive because the nuclei are unstable and break down. This break down releases radiation and leaves a different nucleus (often a different element). The 'half life' is the time it takes for one half of the nuclei to break down in a given sample. The shorter the half life, the faster they are breaking down, and the greater the amount of radiation released. Isotopes with very long half lifes break down very slowly and release little radiation.

Peez

Right, except isotopes with a half life of a million years are radioactive enough to kill you rather fast (assuming tangible amount of it)
So it's long lasting isotopes which is a problem for nuclear waste. You have to keep them contained pretty much indefinitely, ... or dilute them in the ocean, but good luck selling that as safe and proper way.

Lets look at those isotopes with a half life of a million years. (I'm looking at 1M to 2M years):
(Note that I previously had one more in this list but when I dig deeper I find that's old data, it's half life has been revised.)

Beryllium-10: Not a fission product.
Zirconium-93: 6% from a uranium-based reactor, 3% from a plutonium (ie, breeder) reactor.
Gadolinium-150: Not a fission product.

Note that zirconium is used in the cladding of fuel rods. While the reactor isn't improved by the use of zirconium-93, neither is it harmed. Thus it's "disposal" technique perfectly well could be in the cladding of new fuel rods.

Thus nothing with a half life of a million years goes in the waste pile in the first place if you're doing it right.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

From models to real world. Hanford site leakage has entered water tables allowing it to read the Columbia river north and east of the site raising water temperature in the river from 1 to 4 degrees C. endangering Salmon fisheries on Columbia and tributaries a not small effect.

Yes, Hanford is responsible for about 2/3 of plutonium in US arsenal which is a big fraction. Still leakage is more likely to enter water tables than to reach ground levels which is an obvious flaw in the Finnish studies, let alone the fact that at Hanford leakage began almost immediately after containment rather than the minimum 1000 years cited in the Finnish study.

We have plenty of examples of secret military programs not even paying lip service to environmental regulations.

They should not be used as an example of what will happen in a properly regulated environment.

- - - Updated - - -

View attachment 16351

Rebuttal: Thorium.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Right, except isotopes with a half life of a million years are radioactive enough to kill you rather fast (assuming tangible amount of it)
So it's long lasting isotopes which is a problem for nuclear waste. You have to keep them contained pretty much indefinitely, ... or dilute them in the ocean, but good luck selling that as safe and proper way.

Perhaps it would be useful to focus on a specific example of an isotope with a half life of about 500,000 years that will kill a human quickly (and how much would do so).

Peez

We have bismuth-208 at 369ky and aluminum-26 at 717ky as the two closest to your 500ky mark.

Finally found some good data on the risks:

Aluminum-26 comes from cosmic ray bombardment of meteorites (and thus can be used to date when they fell) and from atom smashers. Something is wonky with the safety sheet but Oak Ridge lists it as >10uCi/mL for Al-26 in 1M HCl. From the EPA data this translates to a risk of >1.73E-4 from drinking that mL. (Not that drinking 1M HCl would be a good idea!) Thus, a bit less than a 2 in 10,000 of killing you. Note that this is a cancer risk, there's no chance of dropping dead from it (other than due to the acid.)

For the previously mentioned teaspoon that's a 1 in 1,000 risk.

Bismuth-208 only comes from atom smashers. The EPA table omits bismuth-208 but figuring from the data it does have the risk appears to be at least 10,000 fold less than for the aluminum. I can't find it's radioactivity or any safety data on it.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Search again.

1 gram is 100mil decays per second - quick death.
1 milligram (ingested) will give you 100K decays, natural level according to wikipedia is around 4K. So I would say 10 milligram may not klill you but would increase cancer chances significantly.

I am sorry but what isotope is this?

The one with a half life time of 1 million years, you can't read?

You are referring to a nonexistent isotope. I had to do 1M to 2M years to get three of them.

I'm not finding radioactivity for either beryllium-10 or zirconium-93 and gadolinium doesn't even make it into the EPA data.

 

[bilby]

A million decays per second sounds like a lot, but it's really not. It's a common joke that the unit of 'decays per second' is the Bugger-all.

One Curie is 37 Billion (with a 'B') Bequerels.

 

[barbos]

Search again.

The one with a half life time of 1 million years, you can't read?

You are referring to a nonexistent isotope.

No shit, Sherlock.

I'm not finding radioactivity for either beryllium-10 or zirconium-93 and gadolinium doesn't even make it into the EPA data.

I am sorry to inform but despite what Swedes tell you you you can't eat long living isotopes in teaspoons.
.

 

[barbos]

I am sorry but I just searched through this thread and could not find where you presented a specific example of an isotope with a half life of about 500,000 years that will kill a human quickly, or how much would do so.

I am sorry but what isotope is this?

Peez

The closest real example is bismuth-208; it's 368,000 years. Barbos is talking in broad terms about a generic hypothetical radioisotope, and he's discounting the difference the decay mode makes. For example, bismuth-208 emits positrons; different radioisotopes kill faster or slower depending on what they emit as well as on how often. He's also glossing over atomic weight. For example, thorium-230 and nickel-59 have almost identical half-lives (75,000 years), but per milligram that's a lot more nickel decays per second than thorium decays per second, since each thorium decay takes out a much larger atom. I don't think any of those details really affects the point he's making.

I am not writing a PhD dissertation here. All I wanted to do is to debunk retarded idea that long lived isotopes are harmless and can be eaten with teaspoons.

 

[barbos]

Right, except isotopes with a half life of a million years are radioactive enough to kill you rather fast (assuming tangible amount of it)
So it's long lasting isotopes which is a problem for nuclear waste. You have to keep them contained pretty much indefinitely, ... or dilute them in the ocean, but good luck selling that as safe and proper way.

Lets look at those isotopes with a half life of a million years. (I'm looking at 1M to 2M years):
(Note that I previously had one more in this list but when I dig deeper I find that's old data, it's half life has been revised.)

Beryllium-10: Not a fission product.
Zirconium-93: 6% from a uranium-based reactor, 3% from a plutonium (ie, breeder) reactor.
Gadolinium-150: Not a fission product.

Note that zirconium is used in the cladding of fuel rods. While the reactor isn't improved by the use of zirconium-93, neither is it harmed. Thus it's "disposal" technique perfectly well could be in the cladding of new fuel rods.

Thus nothing with a half life of a million years goes in the waste pile in the first place if you're doing it right.

Do you enjoy posting worthless and stupid posts just to annoy people?

 

[fromderinside]

From models to real world. Hanford site leakage has entered water tables allowing it to read the Columbia river north and east of the site raising water temperature in the river from 1 to 4 degrees C. endangering Salmon fisheries on Columbia and tributaries a not small effect.

Yes, Hanford is responsible for about 2/3 of plutonium in US arsenal which is a big fraction. Still leakage is more likely to enter water tables than to reach ground levels which is an obvious flaw in the Finnish studies, let alone the fact that at Hanford leakage began almost immediately after containment rather than the minimum 1000 years cited in the Finnish study.

We have plenty of examples of secret military programs not even paying lip service to environmental regulations.

They should not be used as an example of what will happen in a properly regulated environment.

-

When you come up with a properly regulated environment, one not distorted by payoffs, bribes, fraud, seconds, cheap faile quick designs, or any other form of power or money interference then you can say whatever you want about government, on the record, programs.

Why was storage at Fukushima on the ocean protected by an unsatisfactory barrier wall. Can you say chiseling, cheating, corner cutting, etc. Why wa s the damn thing sitting astride a tsunami causing fault line in a low property value area? refer back to pervious reason string.

Got anything on valves, inspections, monitoring circuit design to mitigate TMI?

Hell, even as recently as five years ago we were shipping oil in tanker cars with only one walled container not two or three now with proper safety built in to routes traveled even now.

Its endemic throughout the entire energy industry, the lack of safety or preparedness.

We we were required to have triple redundancy on commercial A/C guidence and control systems, yet we brought all three lines past an inferior containment structure enclosed jet engine which brought down the plane in Iowa in the eighties. Most all crashes are the result of human or engineering error. Most failures in hot liquid channel systems, power reactors, are do to engineering errors or human error. Hell, my son was taking a course in nuclear energy in 1984 when he set of alarms all up and down the coast between San Diego and Naval Post Graduate school when he irradiated an alumnum specimen wrapper ias part of his daily lessons.

Error and failure are endemic in human systems so commercial nucs aren't really safe at all.

And yes it was that great father of the nuclear Navy, Admiral Hymen Rickover, who wanted to do away with human engineering and R&M design review in nuclear systems designs since they were so brassy and easily controlled.

Yeah, I got a pain all the way from my arse up to the back of my neck about what's FUed about power systems, particularly nuclear power systems.

No. I'm not limiting myself to French nuclear power systems. We FU any system because we don't want to do proper sequenced design 'cause that costs money. So I'll just bmb away with tail rotors not greased, bad containment vessels, it matters not where, stupid solutions, bad man machining, bad Reliability and Maintainability design and verification, because where ever there is cost there is some wise ass finding exceptions and workabouts 'saving' money and time that wind up killing 10s, 100s, 1000s and now, with Trump millions. Even that idiot in the movie who talked about 'costing lives was one of those who wanted to do it with sticks and discipline rather than verified processes.

Wax on finished.

Wax off.

 

[Peez]

Right, except isotopes with a half life of a million years are radioactive enough to kill you rather fast (assuming tangible amount of it)
So it's long lasting isotopes which is a problem for nuclear waste. You have to keep them contained pretty much indefinitely, ... or dilute them in the ocean, but good luck selling that as safe and proper way.

Perhaps it would be useful to focus on a specific example of an isotope with a half life of about 500,000 years that will kill a human quickly (and how much would do so).

Peez

We have bismuth-208 at 369ky and aluminum-26 at 717ky as the two closest to your 500ky mark.

Finally found some good data on the risks:

Aluminum-26 comes from cosmic ray bombardment of meteorites (and thus can be used to date when they fell) and from atom smashers. Something is wonky with the safety sheet but Oak Ridge lists it as >10uCi/mL for Al-26 in 1M HCl. From the EPA data this translates to a risk of >1.73E-4 from drinking that mL. (Not that drinking 1M HCl would be a good idea!) Thus, a bit less than a 2 in 10,000 of killing you. Note that this is a cancer risk, there's no chance of dropping dead from it (other than due to the acid.)

For the previously mentioned teaspoon that's a 1 in 1,000 risk.

Bismuth-208 only comes from atom smashers. The EPA table omits bismuth-208 but figuring from the data it does have the risk appears to be at least 10,000 fold less than for the aluminum. I can't find it's radioactivity or any safety data on it.

Thanks for digging that up. It appears that actually eating such waste carries minimal risk, so dumping it in a disused mine does not seem to be a big problem. However, perhaps there is something else that is a serious risk. Can someone post any suggestions?

Peez

 

[steve_bank]

You must not have read the link I poste on your other thread. There is or will be a solar plant in North Africa deeding electricity to Europe through cables in the Mediterean.

Here in the USA electricity comes from a distance in may cases. The Northwest Bonneville hydro power makes its way down to California.

The remoteness of a solar installation is not an argument for nuclear power.

Nuclear has a problem with deterioration. Up here the Trojan plant on the Columbia river was decommissioned and torn down. I believe there are others scheduled for decommissioning. There is the cost problem. Nuke plants are expensive to design and build, a natural gas turbine plant is straightforward and can be maintained indefinitely.

Nuclear makes sense as part of a global strategy.

Back in the 50s there was an energy industry promotional film om on nuclear power. It claimed electricity was going to be so cheap it would not be metered. you would pay a monthly fee. It was believed back then was all they had to do was scale up Navy sub realtors, and that obviously was short sited.

 

[bilby]

You must not have read the link I poste on your other thread. There is or will be a solar plant in North Africa deeding electricity to Europe through cables in the

There is not; And may never be. But even if there ever is, it won't generate power at night, and North Africa is in the same time zones as Europe.

Here in the USA electricity comes from a distance in may cases. The Northwest Bonneville hydro power makes its way down to California.

Sure, long distance transmission is perfectly doable. But it's not as efficient as local generation - Even with very high voltages, losses are significant.

The remoteness of a solar installation is not an argument for nuclear power.

Yes it is. It's not even close to being the only, or the decisive argument; But it's definitely an argument.

You might have noticed that it forms a tiny part of a much larger and more wide ranging set of arguments, that in total add up to a compelling and unavoidable conclusion.

Nuclear has a problem with deterioration. Up here the Trojan plant on the Columbia river was decommissioned and torn down. I believe there are others scheduled for decommissioning.

Everything has a problem with deterioration. No technology is immune from the second law of thermodynamics.

There is the cost problem. Nuke plants are expensive to design and build, a natural gas turbine plant is straightforward and can be maintained indefinitely.

Nuclear plants can easily run for sixty years. Natural gas plants are amongst the most expensive ways we have of making electricity that is in wide use.

Nuclear makes sense as part of a global strategy.

No shit, Sherlock.

Back in the 50s there was an energy industry promotional film om on nuclear power. It claimed electricity was going to be so cheap it would not be metered. you would pay a monthly fee. It was believed back then was all they had to do was scale up Navy sub realtors, and that obviously was short sited.

The 'too cheap to meter' claim was true - based on 1950s assumptions that you would need to pay a small army of meter readers to walk house to house. That's not how metering is done anymore; So it didn't happen.

The phrase doesn't come from any 'promotional film' either; It was a throwaway remark by AEA Chairman Lewis Strauss in a 1954 address to science writers. And he was talking about the very long term implications of nuclear technologies, including fusion power. He wasn't making any kind of claim about nuclear fission, which only started generating electricity commercially that year. https://public-blog.nrc-gateway.gov/2016/06/03/too-cheap-to-meter-a-history-of-the-phrase/amp/

The only reason that nuclear power has become so expensive is that the anti-nuclear activists have deliberately made it so - and despite their efforts, it's still cheap enough to be a viable competitor for fossil fuels; and FAR cheaper than intermittent renewables, when you include the costs of the storage that intermittent renewables demand if they are to be anything other than a front for the burning of natural gas.