Is Nuclear Power in Trouble, or is It Media Hype?

hopefully they will fast track Thorium based reactors. Uranium was fast tracked for bomb making purposes, the Thorium cycle is better and makes less pollution and can consume waste from Uranium based reactors. Google will provide more data

http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/2006/10/a-nuclear-reactor-in-every-home/

http://www.thorium.tv/en/thorium_reactor/thorium_reactor_1.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium

But what is the political motivation for fast-tracking thorium reactors? Just because it makes sense does not mean it makes sense to politicians...

It makes sense more and more each year

We - not we in Europe - but China IS building and has a quite ambitious plan (see Wikipedia):

"Long-term development plan for nuclear power industry from 2005 to 2020".^[15]

There aim is 200GW installed until 2020, which is then about one third of their already installed 652GW fossile power plants.

Currently they are commissioning about 8 NPP with over 20GW or so and they re-check their designs to comprise new findings from the Fukushima incident.

In the US there is also some NPP´s under construction/commissioning, AFAIK. Only Europe is really seriously hit by the media hype and politically influenced by the bad news. So nuclear power is in trouble in these European countries but probably not very much in the rest of the world.

My vote goes to media hype and to an attitude that another site calls the "Hiroshima Syndrome." The general public seems to be afraid of anything with the word "nuclear" in it. There is a well-known medical test now known as "Magnetic Resonance Imaging." In college we called this "Nuclear Magnetic Resonance."

The media does not put out the word about newer nuclear technologies. I have heard of an "Integral Fast Reactor" (IFR) that sounds good--less waste, waste with shorter half-life, and able to use the "waste" from current thermal neutron reactors as fuel; thus reducing the amount of "waste" that must be stored. But I don't know yet if this is theory or fact.

IFR does limited reprocessing, chemically extracting the fission poisons as radwaste, and can use most of the fissionable material for power. Plutonium is never separated.

Way too sensible for politicians.

Plutonium is separated from special reactors for weapons.

Plutonium is also separated from used fuel rods for MOX elements - TEPCO used these in some reactors. As further use is unlikely Sellafield is closing the production for this.

Reprocessing is done large scale in LaHague/France and Sellafield/GB for many European reactors.

This is a political decision dating back 60 years, not logical today but a matter of fact.

RHABE

Fukushima was just the last big nail in Nuclear's coffin. It has already fallen far behind renewables in up-front costs, let alone cleanup. Overall, the media is under reporting the industry problems, not hyping them.

Agreeing with Easyway, the Japanese radiation contamination has spread and intensified, contaminating more ground and populations, but it's hard to find an article a in the media about that. After the media terriers have shaken the rat for all it's worth they sensationalize the next rat in the bright lights.

I think that while the media tried very hard to "shake this rat" I think that 2 things happened... one was the "glad it wasn't in my backyard" mentality combined with the lack of TV viewable casualties and destruction that kept a lot of people from freaking out. the second was that I think that even the most casual observer has had the sense to realize that even though Fukishima is a horrible disaster and the area is screwed for a long time, the fact that the facility took the brunt of arguably once in a lifetime globe changing event smack in the face and didn't disappear in a mushroom cloud is oddly very comforting. Did this event serve as a wakeup call to a lot of folks in this industry? you betya!! Are some people gonna get their asses kicked for the procedures that led to the compounding factors that made this accident far worse than it need to be? One would certainly hope so. Hopefully this has served to educate all involved to make this process safer for all and maybe accelerate the other technologies.

The writer wants hits

The publication wants hits

Sensation gets hits

99% of reporting on nuclear depends only on how many clicks a story might get.

The writers typically have zero idea about nuclear.

Nuclear power plants are not trivial technology. There are risks and trade-offs as with any energy source. Aside from the nervousness over nuclear accidents -- mainly, meltdowns -- there is the issue of storing nuclear waste. And the main problem is summed up by NIMBY... or someone's potential back yard.

Just so happens that I watched a documentary this weekend entitled, "Crude Awakening." The subject is peak oil. The subject is controversial from what I gather from my brief exposure to the it. (The explanation of how reserves were suddenly increased a couple of decades ago and have not diminished in the slightest, since, is food for thought and defies common sense. It's like the track record of Bernie Madoff -- it just didn't add up. The film cites Saudi Arabia as one such country, whose "reported" reserves never change.) But one of the "experts" being interviewed (and they were all well-credentialed people) was saying that thousands of nuclear power plants would have to be built to make up for the energy that would be lost, if the peak oil scenario is true. And therein lies the main concern over any alternative source, be it nuclear, wind, or solar. Nothing approaches the energy density of fossil fuel and we've established a lifestyle based on it. If we have peaked, there will come a time, sooner than we are ready for, when the lifestyle we have been accustomed to for the last 50 years will drastically change. I would recommend the documentary, not as absolute truth, but as a conversation starter, so to speak. Bicycles anyone?

One approach that maybe can shed some light on the issue not only of petroleum use, but the magnitude of the problems with replacing it with alternatives is the concept of the "cubic mile of oil". The Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubic_mile_of_oil) offers an image of how much oil we actually use, and how many of various alternative sources would be required to replace current consumption. Not encouraging...

You might also be interested in David Mackay's "Sustainable Energy- Without the Hot Air", available for free download.

Thanks for the link! I've downloaded it and it looks interesting as well as informative.

The US Taxpayer is now the de-facto owner of all nuclear waste produced by the industry. The industry pays 1 tenth of one cent for each kilowatt hour of energy produced into the Nuclear Waste Fund. In return the US taxpayer takes responsibility for the transportation, processing, and storage of all high level commercial waste. By definition this includes the "high level" waste of the plant infrastructure itself after the life cycle of the plants.

This isn't opinion. It is the current law of the land.

Perhaps the taxpayer should pay the operators back the funds, with accrued interest, give them back the responsibility for waste and high level plant infrastructure and let them compete with the other forms of energy production.

Repeal the "Nuclear Waste Policy Act" and liquidate the Nuclear Waste Fund, if the nuclear power industry is as an economically efficient industry as we are told then there should be no opposition from the nuclear lobby that promoted this law in the first place.

I have no problem with the safety issues - these guys have got that science down - it's the economics on which I focus. If the industry can compete in the market place using reprocessing or whatever other technology available to them then let them have at it. But let us taxpayers off the hook. We didn't buy into this thing in the first place and handing this bag of crap back to the industry for 30 billion dollars sounds like one hell of a good deal to me.

Gavilan

Personally I like the idea, but the public/media won't.

They'll worry about taking nuclear materials out of government control, thus about proliferation and all that. The public seems to be scared of anything with "nuclear" in the name, so they'll react negatively to transportation, reprocessing, storage, etc.

Now, how can we get them to let go of all their worries?

I'm Ok with it myself, because any problems that arise can be solved by reasonable people. I don't think there is enough real estate for solar, wind, and water power to meet our wants; people don't like "dirty" coal, they don't like fracking to get natural gas; besides all those are limited (don't know how limited though!) Looks like we are left with nuclear; hopefully utilizing fast neutrons which will enlarge the fuel supply and reduce the waste.