I know I said I’d post one every day for the rest of the year, but I think I’m going to have to stop here.
First, I think I’ve covered most of the main topics. Second, I need more time to write articles for the main site.
I hope nobody was too attached to them. If there were any misconceptions or arguments that I didn’t cover, email me and I’ll collect them into a post.
Filed under Chernobyl, International, Safety, Site
Posted on May 31, 2006 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »
“Chairman of the KGB of the USSR, Comrade IU. V. Andropov, reports about the low quality of construction work on various sections of the second unit of the Chernobyl AES of the USSR Ministry of Power and Electrification.”
Which not only had nothing to do with the accident but were in a different reactor.
Filed under Chernobyl, Industry Performance, International, Safety
Posted on May 31, 2006 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »
AECL is moving toward licensing of the ACR-700 and/or ACR-1000–safer, enhanced versions of the CANDU that has operated in Canada for years.
From “Energy Policy in the Shadow of Chernobyl” (April 26):
-Pressurized Heavy-Water Reactors (PHWRs) use heavy water (the heavy hydrogen in the H2O is twice as heavy as ordinary hydrogen) in place of light water. Heavy water is a better moderator than light water, which allows a PHWR to use natural uranium and produce more fuel than it consumes under almost all circumstances. PHWRs usually have subtle design differences from PWRs due to the high cost of heavy water and to allow exploitation of the better moderator. The most common PHWR uses heavy water as the moderator and coolant but in separate pressurized systems; this type is known as a CANDU (some more modern ones, using light water coolant and heavy water moderator, are known as Advanced CANDU Reactors or ACRs). CANDUs place their fuel rods in heavy-water-filled high-pressure tubes, which are embedded in a tank of heavy water. Heavy water is pumped through the tubes, which then boil light water to generate steam to turn a turbine. In LWRs, the coolant and moderator are the same thing: the water. In the CANDU, the coolant and moderator are separate, which can cause a problem: if the coolant absorbs neutrons (which moderators also all do to some degree), removing it will allow more neutrons to get through. Instead of slowing down the reaction, boiling the coolant can then speed it up. The design of each pressure-tube reactor is different, though, which is why the CANDU’s positive void coefficient is small enough for the other passive safety effects and active safety systems to compensate, but the other major design that uses separate water coolant and moderator–the Russian RBMK–can go out of control, and the ACR’s void coefficient is actually negative. A meltdown in CANDU reactors would probably involve only one pressure tube, and would immediately stop the reactor. CANDUs can also run directly on nuclear waste from LWRs and refuel online. They do not use burnable poisons but rather distribute old and new fuel with the online refueling system.
Please support licensing–and put pressure on the NRC to keep the review going.
Filed under Activism, Physics, Politics and Regulation, Safety
Posted on May 31, 2006 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »
“Most of this waste production is entirely unnecessary”
This highlights something that many people do not know about nuclear waste: most of it, known as low-level waste, is not actually any more radioactive than it was before it came into the plant. Coffee, for example, is naturally radioactive. Coffee that passes through a nuclear power plant is carefully isolated and contained, then placed in a lined trench and monitored for indeterminate periods.
Why?
Political pressure.
Filed under Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Politics and Regulation, Waste
Posted on May 31, 2006 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »
“The power station will be replaced by a thermal energy giant.”
Chernobyl, which killed up to 4,000, was replaced with a plant of the type that kills 30,000 per year in the US alone. Makes sense. Sure.
Filed under Alternatives, Chernobyl, Environment, International, Safety
Posted on May 30, 2006 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »
“Bodies of Iraqi soldiers abandoned in the desert. Charred black by fires ignited by depleted uranium projectiles, they look all too familiar to those of us who have seen the A-bomb Memorial Museum in Hiroshima.”
-The Human Cost of Depleted Uranium
And do you know what they do first when they try to make an A-bomb? They take all the depleted uranium out. That’s what ‘depleted’ is from–it is ‘depleted’ in fissile material.
Filed under Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Fuel Cycle, Health, Proliferation
Posted on May 30, 2006 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »
“Chernobyl’ has become a metaphor not only for the horror of uncontrolled nuclear power but also for the collapsing Soviet system and its reflexive secrecy and deception, disregard for the safety and welfare of workers and their families, and inability to deliver basic services such as health care and transportation, especially in crisis situations.”
Uncontrolled nuclear power is the 16 passively safe natural BWRs at Oklo. Chernobyl was very controlled–the RBMK’s fatal flaws had to be designed in for the purpose of weapons-grade plutonium production. The simplest, most basic reactors are the safest.
Filed under Chernobyl, International, Physics, Politics and Regulation, Proliferation, Safety
Posted on May 29, 2006 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »
“He is an Indiana native with a degree in mechanical engineering from Purdue University, so, when he talks about nuclear reactors, he has technical expertise.”
Filed under Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Clueless, Scientific Method
Posted on May 29, 2006 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »
“Billions of rubles have been spent, and billions more will be needed to relocate communities and decontaminate the rich farmland.”
Is it needed? At what point does the cost to the cohesion of communities become greater than the health benefit?
Incidentally, a ruble is worth about 3 1/2 cents.
Filed under Chernobyl, Economics, Health, International, Safety
Posted on May 28, 2006 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »
“The site is very close to the three dams that support the Basilicata water system holding some 450 million cubic metres of water and considered to be the biggest in Europe”
…which would seem to be more of an indictment of the safety of hydropower than of spent fuel storage…
Filed under Alternatives, Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Safety, Waste
Posted on May 28, 2006 by Stewart Peterson | 0 Comments »
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