Are fossil fuels the retro fallback option for a nuclear-free future?
Nuclear power's back in the news. Last month the Japanese government reversed its post-Fukushima decision to become nuclear-free, and this week the Kansai Electric Power restarted the No. 3 nuclear unit at its Ohi plant in Fukui in the western part of the country.
Ironically, a report released on Thursday by the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission concluded that last year's accident in northeastern Japan at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant operated by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) was "profoundly a man-made disaster -- that could and should have been foreseen and prevented."
While the official story has been that the accident was caused by the "once-in-a-millennium" tsunami, the report concludes that damage resulting from the earthquake (before the tsunami struck) could have been liable as well.
Earthquakes are a fairly common occurrence in Japan, and so, if the earthquake was indeed the cause of the accident, it would call into question the safety of much of Japan's nuclear fleet, including, presumably, the reactors at the Ohi plant.
The commission was also quite critical of the response by Tepco and the government to unfolding events, and blamed "collusion" between the company, the government, and the plant operator and the country's "reflexive obedience; our reluctance to question authority" as the root cause of the accident.
To be fair, it should be pointed out that this latest report is not the first to be issued about the Fukushima accident (and probably won't be the last), but none of them so far as I can tell has implicated the earthquake (or the Japanese culture), and it's unlikely that this most recent study will settle the matter. (For more information see here and here.)
Meanwhile, state-side, another nuclear mini-drama is being played out. The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, located in the very populous corridor between Los Angeles and San Diego, has been shuttered since January after it was discovered that damage to the steam tubes that carry radioactive water (caused by a computer modeling error and a flawed generator design) had led to a small leak of radioactive steam. A spokeswoman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission described the leaks as "unprecedented," and the plant will remain offline indefinitely until officials of Southern California Edison, the plant's operator, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission deem it safe to restart.
While anti-nukes have used the incident as a rallying point to keep San Onofre closed for good (as these advocacy sites here and here illustrate), officials from the California Independent System Operator, charged with keeping electrons flowing through the California grid, have had to scramble to devise a contingency plan [pdf] to keep the lights on and the air conditioning running as California enters the hot part of the summer season. (Read more on the San Onofre closure.)
What to do when your favorite nuclear plant gets shut down? One option would be to just do without. Another option, and the one that Japan and California have chosen, is to replace the lost nuclear power with another source. And what do you suppose the source of choice is? Fossil fuels of course.
The shutdown of Japan's nuclear power plants corresponded with a more than doubling in the consumption of fuel oil and crude oil (primarily for electrical generation) in January 2012 compared to January 2011. There was also a 27 percent increase in liquid natural gas usage, although coal usage went down by eight percent. This, despite the fact that overall energy usage in Japan dropped sharply since the disaster. Overall, Japan's carbon dioxide emissions for 2011 increased by about 2.4 percent.
The cost of all that extra fossil fuels has been huge. For the first time in decades Japan has experienced a trade deficit. The economic damage caused by the shutdown of Japan's nuclear fleet is perhaps an explanation for why the prime minister has decided to take a baby step back toward nuclear power with the restarting of the Ohi plant.
California's experience with the loss of San Onofre is like a miniature version of Japan's. Since the San Onofre shut down, two retired natural gas units at Huntington Beach [pdf] have been called back into service.
So what to do if you are uneasy about nuclear power and worried about climate change? Many experts opine that you would be foolish to think we could immediately do away with both -- you've only got two options: choose nuclear or choose fossil fuels. As Per Peterson, an engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley, told the New York Times: "We are really faced with a choice, at least in the next decade. Do we turn off nuclear plants first, or do we turn off coal plants first? You have to do one or the other."
Is he right? Are we caught between a rock and a hard place, or is the either-or proposition a false choice?
Crossposted with TheGreenGrok. | Follow us on Facebook.
Follow Bill Chameides on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TheGreenGrok
Nuclear power returns to Japan amid scathing report
Negotiations resume at Pilgrim nuclear plant, two weeks after union rejected ...
TOKYO, July 21 (Reuters) - Kansai Electric Power Co said its 1,180-megawatt No. 4 reactor at its Ohi nuclear plant resumed supplying electricity to the grid on Saturday
http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/07/21/japan-nuclear-reactor-idINL4E8IL04L20120721
The Yomiuri Shimbun
"The health ministry is investigating allegations that a construction company ordered its workers at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant to cover their dosimeters with lead to indicate lower exposure levels, according to sources."
The use of lead shielding on dosimetry is not acceptable to those of us in the US nuclear industry and would not be tolerated, by the workers or management. It's difficult to understand a culture which would allow this behavior it is not indicative of a Safety Conscious Work Environment.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T120722001780.htm
Why not commit to building natural gas generation to serve as a transition to the next generation of clean, safe and reliable long term nuclear power? Natural Gas is very inexpensive right now, can be built quickly and CO2 emissions are 40% below that of coal.
Using natural gas as a transition to the next generation nuclear would provide us with the lowest cost power, minimize climate change and provide safe electricity generation well into the future.
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/news/2012/12-028.iv.pdf
Federal regulators Thursday concluded that the operator of the San Onofre nuclear power plant in California did not mislead the government about modifications to its troubled steam generators, where unusual damage has been found on scores of tubes that carry radioactive water.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2018724252_apusnuclearplantproblems.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wASENB_bChE
NRC Vogtle liccense approved without safety improvements
Vogtle Deays and cost over runs
The issue of fresh water withdrawal is also a problem for the drought prone Georgia aquifer. Power plant stress on water supplies
http://canadianenergyissues.com/2012/07/10/ontario-nuclear-performance-in-the-recent-heat-wave/
Canadian Study Shows Geothermal Potential at One Million Times Current Energy Demand | Jeanne Roberts
Great Lakes Offshore Wind Farms Agreement Reached Between 5 States And Federal Government
I suppose I should reiterate, then, that my disagreement with commercial nuclear power has very little to do with direct health effects, and has much more to do with my concerns about the frequency of engineering design flaws in competitive commercial markets.
Fukushima, as I've mentioned before, requires electric power to cool its reactors. Many American plants share the same design by the same manufacturer, General Electric. Additionally, land-based facilities require very large quantities of open water - so much so (typically lakes and oceans) that some plants have had to shut down during droughts, and watchdog groups have noted that a significant percentage (about 1/4) of American plants reside in areas that experience droughts frequently.
Naval plants, however, were designed under different criterion which, in turn, drove different advancements. With deeper pockets and a drive for quieter, more stealthy boats, S8G plants were designed for "natural circulation" (i.e. flow that is established and maintained by a thermal driving head). Not only do S8G plants not need electrical power to cool themselves (a capability Fukushima lacks), that is also their natural operational state.
Overall, though, I find that the circumstances are much more favorable for naval plants - they're smaller, more manageable, farther away from the public and vice versa (particularly in the event of an incident)... there's no lack of water, no "drought season", no hurricanes/earthquakes/tsunamis to be concerned about...
Ingested particles is the reason. A single nuclear decay particles will rip through several cells giving you that ideal spread of killed to barely harmed cells out of which cancer can form. Repeated over and over on the same small local group of cells adjacent the particle.
http://www.epa.gov/radiation/docs/federal/402-r-99-001.pdf
EPA radionuclide exposure coefficients
all radiation is different and routes of exposure matter.
http://rense.com/general93/decon.htm Busby
Rosalie Bertell, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalie_Bertell
http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/eij/article/the_nuclear_body_count/
9.7 million cancers from bomb and plant accidents.
6.6 million cancers from the "routine discharges" of nuclear power plants.
Rosalie Bertell
http://www.ccnr.org/bertell_bio.html No Immediate Danger agrees
Chris Busby should submit his study for peer review!!
http://www.greenaudit.org/about-green-audit
"Chris [Busby] has a first-class Honours degree in Chemistry from London University and a PhD in chemical physics from the University of Kent. He is Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk and a member of the UK Department of Health Committee Examining Radiation Risk for Internal Emitters (CERRIE) (www.cerrie.org). He also sits on the UK Ministry of Defence Depleted Uranium Oversight Board (www.duob.org) and in National Speaker on Science and Technology for the Green Party of England.
It is for these reasons that, while internal monitoring is occasionally performed (twice per individual career in the US Navy), the only required monitoring mechanisms on work sites consist of devices that approximate whole-body external dose (such as a TLD worn on the belt).
It only takes on cells to go rogue. Even with a relatively low probability, over years it will happen.
The LNT and hot particle estimate of cancers from nuclear power of 6 million people is only 1% of the total cancer deaths and nearly impossible to measure epidemiologically.
The TP53 data is preliminary and contradictory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P53
Internal organ are exposed by ingested particles, and that's the big problem.
TP53 is still known as a tumor suppressor (no controversy), and it's been studied for over two decades. I'm sure there's plenty more to learn, but I wouldn't dismiss basic or foundational findings as "preliminary".
Why would you think people would be ingesting charged particles? What kind of power plants are you thinking of?
"will happen" isnt "stochastic" which is a probabilty. LNT is about stochastic effects from deterministic acute effects from exposures greater than 0.1 Sv, not chronic low low exposures.
I dispute its even a "can"
(1/2) Actually, they teach the ramifications quite well - what you're referring to are the biochemical mechanisms by which damage occurs and the degree to which it happens for a given exposure (dose). While there are many unknowns in this area, this is largely owed to the fact that low-level radiation does *not produce appreciable damage in the first place (all studies conclude that results are consistently below thresholds for detection, which neither confirms nor denies total safety). Regardless of these unknowns, however, the ramifications remain the same - if you're careful, mindful of what you're doing, and treat it as though it's extremely dangerous, you'll be about as fine as you can be anywhere else at any other job (this is why we maintain extremely conservative limits on exposure with myriad other precautions and extensive containment procedures). Moreover, on a submarine, we are not exposed to the 300 mrem/yr that you receive just by being around natural materials (primarily, we are not exposed to Radon or sunlight)
There Is No "Safe" Exposure to Radiation | NationofChange
http://enenews.com/posts-mentioning-leukemia-deleted-japanese-man-diagnosed-acute-leukemia-after-311
http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=3162
Radiation Causing Unusual Changes: What's Happening to Children Now? (July 14, 2011) - YouTube
There are alternatives to the false either-or propaganda, but since the economics and politics of level playing-field development and funding/tax-breaks/disaster insurance coverage benefits between alternative green power and old-school poisonous methods are so skewed (and we as a consuming culture refuse to conserve) we are kept dependent on the most potentially deadly and polluting means available. The pro-nuke cheerleaders and BS propagandists on these threads spew their phony rubbish as predictably as night follows day; unfortunately some gullible fools lap it up like Mother's Milk (already radioactive) and allow the potential for a catastrophic event to build.
I would guess the exposure is principally due to potassium-40's high-energy gamma ray.
For starters, I began posting on this article by boldly expressing my disagreement with commercial nuclear power (go ahead and look). Apologetics? What part of "there ARE legitimate reasons to be concerned about nuclear energy" sounds like a coverup or an excuse to you? And false dichotomies? You mean like when everyone here addressed the pros and cons of renewable energies? Or when many of us suggested that nuclear only be used as a "short term" solution? (that is, of course, in stark contrast to a "long term" solution) How much more do we need to spell this out for you? For all your protests about nuclear propaganda and irradiated sheep, the only predictable entities at this table are the ones who didn't come here to have an informed dialog in the first place.
Furthermore, you should not consider education to be an indication of bias. The reason we expose you to facts is simply because of our interest in you not being egregiously misinformed about reality. So I will now tell you that you receive more radiation from your consumer products than you do from our reactors... and I still don't approve of commercial nuclear power. Now please take your pre-written comments elsewhere.
There are many pro-nuke comments on these threads that attempt to hide & distort data, claim limited choices, & manipulate public opinion by downplaying the effects of radiation releases & exposures on public health & the environment; “accidents" don’t exist in their world; their intent is not to have an "informed dialogue”, but to obfuscate & confuse. The future of sustainable/non-deadly power generation is stifled by governmental collusion, gifts, & non-regulation given nuclear by the lap-dog NRC; I have been to numerous NRC meetings re re-licensing the Indian Point plants.
Being so sensitive is a waste; you’re either part of the problem or the solution. Rather than castigate my criticism & experience with nuclear power & those profiting from it, you could comment on radiation from bananas or sleeping together, the NRC as industry regulator, or how the industry hides dangerous radiation release spikes by averaging data.
http://www.nuclearpowerdanger.com/plume-maps/methodology.php
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/11/nuclear-apologists-radiation
http://www.acereport.org/downloads/Download_03.pdf
Where the report falls seriously short, however, is the aspect that has drawn the most approving attention: its conclusion that the near-cataclysm at Fukushima was, at bottom, a cultural mishap. It is both a copout and a cliche to fall back on Japan’s “groupism” and say that “had other Japanese been in the shoes of those who bear responsibility for this accident, the result may well have been the same.” Japan is hardly the only country where safety regulations are poorly enforced and old-boy networks protect industry interests. Witness the 2006 Sago mine explosion in the U.S., where hundreds of earlier safety violations brought only low fines, and the revolving door between the coal mining industry and the U.S. Department of Interior was in full swing.
Moreover, notwithstanding the commission’s lament about the Japanese “reluctance to question authority,” many citizens did repeatedly express their concerns about the safety of Tepco’s Fukushima reactors, including legislators from Japan’s Communist Party.
-----------
I think when you get an "independent" look by the likes of Gundersen and left wing activists, you get what you pay for.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-08/japan-s-nuke-report-undercuts-itself-with-cultural-copout.html