IS THERE A FUTURE IN
NUCLEAR POWER?
TALK GIVEN AT EARTH, WIND, & FIRE ENERGY SUMMIT
DALLAS, TEXAS, OCTOBER 4, 2014
ARJUN MAKHIJANI , PH.D.
WWW.IEER.ORG
Nuclear binary: All or nothing
(24/7 or 0/365)
More than five dozen light water reactors prematurely shut for the long term or
forever since 2011. Five in the United States for various reasons in 2013.
Nuclear is 24/7 until it is 0/365. Not so “baseload” as the industry would have you
believe.
Nuclear is the most inflexible supply and incompatible with variable renewables.
National Renewable Energy Lab high solar and wind scenario noted the need for
flexible complements.
Nuclear is arguably the most undemocratic of all energy sources, though of course
there are all the wars for oil to factor in.
Making plutonium just to boil water makes no sense.
Spending a lot of money and time on it makes even less (so we are in negative sense
territory here).
But nuclear is a low CO2 source of energy. Can we do it without nuclear.
First some detail on nuclear.
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Nuclear reactors – proliferation
Need 3,000 reactors – one a
week to address CO2 globally
in part.
2 to 3 uranium enrichment
plants per year (one
proposed for Idaho, 50 miles
from Jackson Hole)
Courtesy of Urenco
Annual global spent fuel:
contain 90,000 bombs worth
of plutonium per year if
separated
Photo courtesy of the U.S. Department of Energy. Image ID 2000033
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Fresh fuel vs. spent fuel
Fresh fuel 0.09 watts per metric ton
of heat
Typical adult: 100 watts, more than
thousand times as much as a ton of
fresh fuel.
Fresh unirradiated fuel: low specific
activity and once fabricated, very
low risk.
Fresh spent fuel: death in seconds (if
within a foot for instance).
100-year-old spent fuel: lethal dose
in a few hours at one yard.
No good answer to the waste
problem. So stop digging the spent
fuel hole first.
Spent fuel from present U.S. reactor
fleet
There will be ~100,000 metric tons of spent fuel (may be more) from the existing
reactor fleet (exact amount will depend on relicensing)
It contains ~1,000 metric tons of plutonium, enough for ~120,000 nuclear bombs, if
separated.
Indefinite storage could be catastrophic. Heuristic illustrations:
Strontium-90 in US inventory would, if diluted uniformly, contaminate the entire
fresh water supply (groundwater and surface water) of the world to about 60 times
the U.S. drinking water.
The Sr-90 inventory of a single twin-reactor nuclear power plant on Lake Michigan,
such as the Donald C. Cook plant, would contaminate all the water in Lake Michigan
to more than the drinking water limit even after a time lapse of more than 300 years:
dispersal would be uneven and make make a wide area around the plant unlivable.
Plutonium-239 from one-twin reactor plant would be sufficient to contaminate all its
water to more than the drinking water limit for about 80,000 years.
How about French approach?
How about France? The waste story
75-80 percent nuclear electricity
Reuse some Pu as fuel
Pay more ~$ 1 billion per year
10,000 bombs equivalent surplus Pu stored
in France
100 million liters of liquid radioactive waste
into English Channel per year pollution all
the way to the Arctic
11 of 15 OSPAR government parties want it
stopped
~99 percent waste content of spent fuel
piling up – no repository yet and much
opposition
Copyright Pierre Gleizes / Greenpeace
Increase in repository waste volume – HLW
plus GTCC
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LWR System Radwaste volumes (m3)
with and without reprocessing
Federal repository history
Early failure: Lyons. Kansas
1979 – preferred path for high-level waste and spent fuel is a repository – Interagency task Force
1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act
1982-1986: a process marked by dismal science, ending with the political cancellation (after a meeting in the White House with
then VP Bush’s staff) of the second repository.
1987: a political choice of Yucca Mountain, estimated in 1983 to be possibly the worst site (by the National Academies, though they
did not say so in words – but data are there in the dose estimates) because there is no surface water for dilution (among other
reasons).
Changing standards when Yucca Mountain deficiencies become evident (both EPA and NRC)
Since 2009 present impasse with Yucca Mountain in legal limbo, taxpayers paying for storage, and no path forward.
2012: court says NRC does not have a valid waste confidence document.
Note: The Department of Energy has never met a repository it did not like since the 1960s.
2014: WIPP fire and no valid analysis of cause
Temporary storage may well become permanent since all pressures to take it elsewhere will be lifted. As the history of utility
contracts with DOE shows, legal documents are not enough to lead to actual action.
Basic geologic isolation system
Three elements of an isolation system:
Spent fuel, containers, engineered barriers
Repository backfill and sealing system (including shaft and drift sealing)
Host rock and geologic setting
Each element must be evaluated. Natural analogs for materials have
been studied and need more attention. All elements must work
together for containment and to provide redundancy. For instance,
metal containers in an oxidizing environment, as in Yucca Mountain,
invite problems. Metal containers in a reducing environment, as in
Sweden, provide a sounder approach.
Should there be consolidated
storage?
No repository
No safety standard
No scientific research on the technical feasibility of a geologic isolation
system to meet safety standards
No independent institution apart from waste creators (governmental
and private) to manage the repository process
An NERC that assumes that storage on site can be secure and can last
for thousands of years with the government appropriating funds
“Consolidated storage” creates one more site, needless transportation
risks
Inviting it is uninformed consent
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Electricity system
characteristics
1.
Reliability
2.
Resilience
3.
Reasonable cost
4.
Consumer choice and energy democracy
5.
Low to zero emissions – not just low CO2 but also SOx, Nox
6.
No drastic side effects like nuclear proliferation, catastrophic accidents,
and wastes whose effects are multi-generational
7.
Low water use and consumption
8.
Resistance to malevolent actions
Nuclear has one out of eight – a failing grade in my book.
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Residential and Commercial
Efficiency Examples
Efficiency improvement of 3 to 7
times is possible per square foot
Residential Efficiency
70,000
60,000
Existing homes more costly to
backfit but much is still economical
Standards at the local and state
level are needed
Zero net CO2 new buildings and
communities by 2025 can be
mandated
50,000
40,000
Btu/ft2
30,000
20,000
10,000
0
U.S. Average,
residential
Takoma co-housing
Hanover house
Com m ercial Efficiency
120,000
100,000
80,000
60,000
Btu/ft2
40,000
20,000
0
US average,
commercial
PA DEP
Durant Middle
School, NC
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Refrigerator standards and
cost
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750 kW US Navy San Diego Parking Lot
Credit: DOE/NREL (NREL-12373). Credit: SunPower Corporation
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Source: BSW-Solar 2012
First the great news – German
small-medium system PV prices
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Bright day, looming clouds
Credit: Avesun | Dreamstime.com
Source: www.mpoweruk.com
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Dealing with intermittency
Smart grid: consuming devices talk to producing devices; storage devices,
smart meters, mediate conversation.
Store heat while the sun shines.
Store cold while the wind blows.
Solar and wind integration
Existing hydro backup
Existing natural gas standby (U.S. has enormous surplus capacity), longterm: replace fuel with biogas (use aquatic plants, such as microalgae, as
feedstock)
IGCC solid biomass (e.g., algae), geothermal, CHP
Other storage elements, medium- to long-term (compressed air, including,
vehicle-to-grid, dispatchable wind – produce compressed air instead of
electricity at the turbine and generate electricity when needed, e.g.,
General Compression http://www.generalcompression.com
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COMPRESSED AIR
ENERGY STORAGE
Compressed
Air Energy
Storage
Currently most
promising in a
wide variety of
settings. Like
compressed
natural gas
storage.
Source: http://www.sandia.gov/media/NewsRel/NR2001/norton.htm
Geology
requirements have
to be met.
The Ice Bear - Designed for building controls, reliability and
serviceability – courtesy Ice Energy, www.ice-energy.com
• Hinge with positive
stop and “latch”
• Door on opposite
side for access to
compressor and
water pump
• 30” door swing
• magnetic “catch” in
open position
• Compressor
location
• CoolData
Controller™
• Refrigerant pump
uses 100 W on peak
CoolData™ Controller is designed to monitor and control up to 200
building data points, serve as FDD and communicate with Ethernet
Courtesy of Ice Energy
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Tesla: 0 to 60 in 4 secs. (goal); 200 mile range, 0.2 kWh/mile,
off-the-shelf lithium-ion batteries combined in special battery
pack
Courtesy of Tesla Motors
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Sodium sulfur batteries with
wind power in Japan
Courtesy of NGK Insulators
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Modeling 100% Renewable
MN
Mon
Tues
Wed
Thurs
Fri
Sat
Sun
Utah: Hourly demand, renewable supply and storage,
summer week, fully renewable scenario. Note large
amount of “spilled energy”
Electricity production
5000
4500
4000
Billion kWh
3500
3000
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
0
2010
2015
2020
2025
2030
2035
2040
2045
2050
Year
Coal
Oil
Hydropower
Biomass (solid)
Geothermal hot rock
Solar PV central station and intermediate
Solar thermal and other
Natural gas
Nuclear
Geothermal, wood waste, landfill gas, etc.
Biomass derived gas standby
Wind
Solar PV small scale
Combined Heat and Power
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End note
Slides are primarily a summary of Carbon-Free and NuclearFree: A Road Map for U.S. Energy Policy by Arjun
Makhijani
Find the source citations in the downloadable version of the book,
available at no cost, on the Web at
http://www.ieer.org/carbonfree/CarbonFreeNuclearFree.pdf or contact
IEER.
The book can be purchased in hard copy at www.ieer.org.
Graphics also from: Renewable Minnesota (2012) at
http://www.ieer.org/reports/renewableminnesota, and eUtah, a
Renewable Energy Roadmap (2010) at
http://www.ieer.org/reports/eUtah2010.pdf.
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