An interesting russian concept. Solves the problem of NIMBY, out of sight
out of mind.
No CO2 emmisions to boot. I wonder if these could be built and stored
unfueled for
use in an emergency, say fuel became unavailable for conventional land based
power
stations we could simpley fuel the reactors and start generating power
fairly quickley
until another fuel supplier could provide fuel for the conventional land
based plants.

http://www.upi.com/Energy/Briefing/2...nuclear_plant/


Best Regards
Tom.

On Tue, 9 Oct 2007 06:17:32 -0700, "azotic" wrote:

An interesting russian concept. Solves the problem of NIMBY, out of sight
out of mind.
No CO2 emmisions to boot. I wonder if these could be built and stored
unfueled for
use in an emergency, say fuel became unavailable for conventional land based
power
stations we could simpley fuel the reactors and start generating power
fairly quickley
until another fuel supplier could provide fuel for the conventional land
based plants.

http://www.upi.com/Energy/Briefing/2...nuclear_plant/


Best Regards
Tom.

Hey Tom,

I can't say I follow exactly your equation, but here in Ontario we
are in a race (apparently!!) to close the coal-fired power generation
plants we have. This has become a hot political football, what with
the Ontario Provincial election coming tomorrow.
In any event, about your comment....Saturday I was at a fall fair a
few miles from where we live, and near the fair there is one of the
larger of the coal-fired plants that is under "attack". They had an
information booth set up at the fair, mostly handing out literature
about what a large scale employer they are, and the effect of loss of
those jobs on closure of the plant; about how they are not as bad a
polluter as they are ascribed to be, as they have some very late
technology scrubbing equipment in place already and are willing to do
more; and most important of all, the need for rapid and multitudinous
changes of power required over the course of any 24 hour period
(sometimes as high as 1500 change-orders per shift) and which nuclear
plants at present are not able to modulate. This last item is what
I'm writing about.

Nuclear power generation in land-based large plants is set to a "base
level" of possible production. Nominally, this seems to me to be
about 80%. In other words, a nuclear plant is ramped up from 0% to
80% over some period of many hours, if not of days, to this 80% level,
and then continues to produce that much power (80% of its full
capacity) regardless of the power usage requirement it is delivering
to !! The load variation of off-peak to full-peak times is presently
handled by the coal or gas fired plants. These plants are capable of
rapid changes and of short term rapid dissipation of excess (steam)
which the nuclear plants are not. Until the time when a viable method
of either controlling the nuclear output or delivering excesses of it
to either storage or conversion is standardized, the coal-fired plants
are required.

But the day will undoubtedly come when that problem will be
surmounted, and the coal-fired plants will be closed.

So, I asked the gentleman at the booth why not just build a nuclear
steam generation unit alongside the coal fired plant, shut down the
coal fired boilers and use the nuclear produced steam to operate the
turbines? That way, we'd still have the generation capability in
place where it is now.

His answer was that, at the moment, all the nuclear plants in Ontario
produce high volumes of steam at relatively low pressures and they run
turbines at a 1200 RPM (no explanation as to why to either), whereas
coal-fired plants produce steam at high pressure and rotate at 3600
RPM. So there is no compatibility.

Which is why I'm replying about the Russian portables. Who is going
to set a "standard" for compatibility for their use? And will they
require being able to float into position? Both questions are
rhetorical of course!

Take care.

Brian Lawson,
Bothwell, Ontario.

"Brian Lawson" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 9 Oct 2007 06:17:32 -0700, "azotic" wrote:

An interesting russian concept. Solves the problem of NIMBY, out of sight
out of mind.
No CO2 emmisions to boot. I wonder if these could be built and stored
unfueled for
use in an emergency, say fuel became unavailable for conventional land
based
power
stations we could simpley fuel the reactors and start generating power
fairly quickley
until another fuel supplier could provide fuel for the conventional land
based plants.

http://www.upi.com/Energy/Briefing/2...nuclear_plant/


Best Regards
Tom.

Hey Tom,

I can't say I follow exactly your equation, but here in Ontario we
are in a race (apparently!!) to close the coal-fired power generation
plants we have. This has become a hot political football, what with
the Ontario Provincial election coming tomorrow.
In any event, about your comment....Saturday I was at a fall fair a
few miles from where we live, and near the fair there is one of the
larger of the coal-fired plants that is under "attack". They had an
information booth set up at the fair, mostly handing out literature
about what a large scale employer they are, and the effect of loss of
those jobs on closure of the plant; about how they are not as bad a
polluter as they are ascribed to be, as they have some very late
technology scrubbing equipment in place already and are willing to do
more; and most important of all, the need for rapid and multitudinous
changes of power required over the course of any 24 hour period
(sometimes as high as 1500 change-orders per shift) and which nuclear
plants at present are not able to modulate. This last item is what
I'm writing about.

Nuclear power generation in land-based large plants is set to a "base
level" of possible production. Nominally, this seems to me to be
about 80%. In other words, a nuclear plant is ramped up from 0% to
80% over some period of many hours, if not of days, to this 80% level,
and then continues to produce that much power (80% of its full
capacity) regardless of the power usage requirement it is delivering
to !! The load variation of off-peak to full-peak times is presently
handled by the coal or gas fired plants. These plants are capable of
rapid changes and of short term rapid dissipation of excess (steam)
which the nuclear plants are not. Until the time when a viable method
of either controlling the nuclear output or delivering excesses of it
to either storage or conversion is standardized, the coal-fired plants
are required.

What the coal guy may not have explained is that the cost of fuel for nukes
is around 2% of their operating cost, so it's no hardship to run them at
high capacity all the time.

--
Ed Huntress

On Tue, 09 Oct 2007 12:53:56 -0400, Brian Lawson wrote:

His answer was that, at the moment, all the nuclear plants in Ontario
produce high volumes of steam at relatively low pressures and they run
turbines at a 1200 RPM (no explanation as to why to either), whereas
coal-fired plants produce steam at high pressure and rotate at 3600 RPM.
So there is no compatibility.

Of course he'll say it's not feasible - he works for the coal plant! ;-)

Cheers!
Rich

On Tue, 9 Oct 2007 13:00:58 -0400, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:


"Brian Lawson" wrote in message
.. .
On Tue, 9 Oct 2007 06:17:32 -0700, "azotic" wrote:

An interesting russian concept. Solves the problem of NIMBY, out of sight
out of mind.
No CO2 emmisions to boot. I wonder if these could be built and stored
unfueled for
use in an emergency, say fuel became unavailable for conventional land
based
power
stations we could simpley fuel the reactors and start generating power
fairly quickley
until another fuel supplier could provide fuel for the conventional land
based plants.

http://www.upi.com/Energy/Briefing/2...nuclear_plant/


Best Regards
Tom.

Hey Tom,

I can't say I follow exactly your equation, but here in Ontario we
are in a race (apparently!!) to close the coal-fired power generation
plants we have. This has become a hot political football, what with
the Ontario Provincial election coming tomorrow.
In any event, about your comment....Saturday I was at a fall fair a
few miles from where we live, and near the fair there is one of the
larger of the coal-fired plants that is under "attack". They had an
information booth set up at the fair, mostly handing out literature
about what a large scale employer they are, and the effect of loss of
those jobs on closure of the plant; about how they are not as bad a
polluter as they are ascribed to be, as they have some very late
technology scrubbing equipment in place already and are willing to do
more; and most important of all, the need for rapid and multitudinous
changes of power required over the course of any 24 hour period
(sometimes as high as 1500 change-orders per shift) and which nuclear
plants at present are not able to modulate. This last item is what
I'm writing about.

Nuclear power generation in land-based large plants is set to a "base
level" of possible production. Nominally, this seems to me to be
about 80%. In other words, a nuclear plant is ramped up from 0% to
80% over some period of many hours, if not of days, to this 80% level,
and then continues to produce that much power (80% of its full
capacity) regardless of the power usage requirement it is delivering
to !! The load variation of off-peak to full-peak times is presently
handled by the coal or gas fired plants. These plants are capable of
rapid changes and of short term rapid dissipation of excess (steam)
which the nuclear plants are not. Until the time when a viable method
of either controlling the nuclear output or delivering excesses of it
to either storage or conversion is standardized, the coal-fired plants
are required.

What the coal guy may not have explained is that the cost of fuel for nukes
is around 2% of their operating cost, so it's no hardship to run them at
high capacity all the time.


Hey again Ed,

You are correct, in that "costs" never came up in my chat with the
guy. At all !! I have heard someplace that it is scary to compare
the cost of establishing a nuclear plant to the cost of establishing a
coal fired plant, even when the same manufacturing companies do both
(Babcock-Wilcox et al).

But neither is your statement inclusive of all the points here. My
point, or rather their point, (and hence my previous reply/question to
the OP) is that the fuel "burning" plants have a great and fast
flexibility, and the "nuclear" plants do not. Can one of these
Russian inventions really BE used? The nuclear plants WILL produce at
a relatively "fixed" rate, whether it is required or NOT (at least in
short time terms). Hence, SCRAMing when that output consumption can
not meet production on an instantaneous distribution or use basis.

In the pro/con debates going on here in Ontario, and I assume across
Canada, one of the research thoughts being pursued would be for any
instantaneous excess nuclear generation be used to immediately produce
hydrogen, which can be stored and used at later time, thereby
consuming the over-production and nullifying the present problem with
this inflexible production (which is PART of what the coal-fired
plants do now). Whether the hydrogen produced would be used in motor
vehicles or other transportation, or even to replace the coal in
thermal plants with a "cleaner" fire, was not discussed. But it is a
starting point.

Personally, I hope that maybe you and I, or at least our children,
will see the day when nuclear will produce electricity in quantity
without steam as intermediary.

Take care.

Brian Lawson

"Brian Lawson" wrote in message
...
, the need for rapid and multitudinous
changes of power required over the course of any 24 hour period
(sometimes as high as 1500 change-orders per shift) and which nuclear
plants at present are not able to modulate. This last item is what
I'm writing about.

That is not true. Nuclear reactors can modulate their output perfectly
well. In fact, a pressurized water reactor (that is the most common type of
reactor) changes power nearly automatically to match demand because of its
negative temperature coefficient .

(Vaughn gets a far away look in his eyes) Back in my nuclear reactor
operator days, I could watch power vary from (say) 10% to well over 50% and not
touch a single control. Larger power changes just took a little bump of the
control rod position.

Commercial nuclear reactors are operated near their full power capacity for
economic reasons, not because they are not capable of being modulated.

Vaughn

"Brian Lawson" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 9 Oct 2007 13:00:58 -0400, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:


"Brian Lawson" wrote in message
. ..
On Tue, 9 Oct 2007 06:17:32 -0700, "azotic" wrote:

An interesting russian concept. Solves the problem of NIMBY, out of
sight
out of mind.
No CO2 emmisions to boot. I wonder if these could be built and stored
unfueled for
use in an emergency, say fuel became unavailable for conventional land
based
power
stations we could simpley fuel the reactors and start generating power
fairly quickley
until another fuel supplier could provide fuel for the conventional land
based plants.

http://www.upi.com/Energy/Briefing/2...nuclear_plant/


Best Regards
Tom.

Hey Tom,

I can't say I follow exactly your equation, but here in Ontario we
are in a race (apparently!!) to close the coal-fired power generation
plants we have. This has become a hot political football, what with
the Ontario Provincial election coming tomorrow.
In any event, about your comment....Saturday I was at a fall fair a
few miles from where we live, and near the fair there is one of the
larger of the coal-fired plants that is under "attack". They had an
information booth set up at the fair, mostly handing out literature
about what a large scale employer they are, and the effect of loss of
those jobs on closure of the plant; about how they are not as bad a
polluter as they are ascribed to be, as they have some very late
technology scrubbing equipment in place already and are willing to do
more; and most important of all, the need for rapid and multitudinous
changes of power required over the course of any 24 hour period
(sometimes as high as 1500 change-orders per shift) and which nuclear
plants at present are not able to modulate. This last item is what
I'm writing about.

Nuclear power generation in land-based large plants is set to a "base
level" of possible production. Nominally, this seems to me to be
about 80%. In other words, a nuclear plant is ramped up from 0% to
80% over some period of many hours, if not of days, to this 80% level,
and then continues to produce that much power (80% of its full
capacity) regardless of the power usage requirement it is delivering
to !! The load variation of off-peak to full-peak times is presently
handled by the coal or gas fired plants. These plants are capable of
rapid changes and of short term rapid dissipation of excess (steam)
which the nuclear plants are not. Until the time when a viable method
of either controlling the nuclear output or delivering excesses of it
to either storage or conversion is standardized, the coal-fired plants
are required.

What the coal guy may not have explained is that the cost of fuel for
nukes
is around 2% of their operating cost, so it's no hardship to run them at
high capacity all the time.


Hey again Ed,

You are correct, in that "costs" never came up in my chat with the
guy. At all !! I have heard someplace that it is scary to compare
the cost of establishing a nuclear plant to the cost of establishing a
coal fired plant, even when the same manufacturing companies do both
(Babcock-Wilcox et al)

Yup, the investment in a new nuke is huge.
..

But neither is your statement inclusive of all the points here. My
point, or rather their point, (and hence my previous reply/question to
the OP) is that the fuel "burning" plants have a great and fast
flexibility, and the "nuclear" plants do not.

True enough, but I believe that nukes can be run at outputs greater than
their load with no significant cost penalty. I'm a little rusty on this, but
that's my recollection.

Can one of these
Russian inventions really BE used?

I'm sorry but I didn't read the whole thread, so I don't have a clue. All I
can think of is, "From those wonderful folks who brought you Chernobyl."

The nuclear plants WILL produce at
a relatively "fixed" rate, whether it is required or NOT (at least in
short time terms). Hence, SCRAMing when that output consumption can
not meet production on an instantaneous distribution or use basis.

In the pro/con debates going on here in Ontario, and I assume across
Canada, one of the research thoughts being pursued would be for any
instantaneous excess nuclear generation be used to immediately produce
hydrogen, which can be stored and used at later time, thereby
consuming the over-production and nullifying the present problem with
this inflexible production (which is PART of what the coal-fired
plants do now). Whether the hydrogen produced would be used in motor
vehicles or other transportation, or even to replace the coal in
thermal plants with a "cleaner" fire, was not discussed. But it is a
starting point.

Personally, I hope that maybe you and I, or at least our children,
will see the day when nuclear will produce electricity in quantity
without steam as intermediary.

I just hope we start building nukes in a big way. My personal feeling is
that it's inevitable anyway, and it would be a huge benefit to the economies
of many countries and to the environment.


Take care.

You too, Brian.

--
Ed Huntress

"azotic" wrote in message
...
An interesting russian concept.

I don't know if is a Russian concept or not, but it certainly is not a new
concept. Some were built back in the 1950's for the US military. One was used
in Antarctica for some ten years. (See below) As I recall, a prototype of one
of these reactors had a grisly accident that left an operator skewered to the
roof of the containment building by a control rod.

Vaughn

(From: http://www.almc.army.mil/alog/issues/SepOct01/MS684.htm)
"The Army Nuclear Power Program"
"The military considered the possibility of using nuclear power plants to
generate alternate fuels almost 50 years ago and actively supported nuclear
energy as a means of reducing logistics requirements for coal, oil, and
gasoline. However, political, technical, and military considerations forced the
closure of the program before a prototype could be built."

"The Army Corps of Engineers ran a Nuclear Power Program from 1952 until
1979, primarily to supply electric power in remote areas. Stationary nuclear
reactors built at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and Fort Greeley, Alaska, were
operated successfully from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. Portable nuclear
reactors also were operated at Sundance, Wyoming; Camp Century, Greenland; and
McMurdo Sound in Antarctica. These small nuclear power plants provided
electricity for remote military facilities and could be operated efficiently for
long periods without refueling. The Army also considered using nuclear power
plants overseas to provide uninterrupted power and defense support in the event
that U.S. installations were cut off from their normal logistics supply lines. "

"In November 1963, an Army study submitted to the Department of Defense (DOD)
proposed employing a military compact reactor (MCR) as the power source for a
nuclear-powered energy depot, which was being considered as a means of producing
synthetic fuels in a combat zone for use in military vehicles. MCR studies,
which had begun in 1955, grew out of the Transportation Corps' interest in using
nuclear energy to power heavy, overland cargo haulers in remote areas. These
studies investigated various reactor and vehicle concepts, including a small
liquid-metal-cooled reactor, but ultimately the concept proved impractical. "


Solves the problem of NIMBY, out of sight
out of mind.
No CO2 emmisions to boot. I wonder if these could be built and stored unfueled
for
use in an emergency, say fuel became unavailable for conventional land based
power
stations we could simpley fuel the reactors and start generating power fairly
quickley
until another fuel supplier could provide fuel for the conventional land based
plants.

http://www.upi.com/Energy/Briefing/2...nuclear_plant/


Best Regards
Tom.

"Vaughn Simon" wrote in message
...

"azotic" wrote in message
...
An interesting russian concept.

I don't know if is a Russian concept or not, but it certainly is not a
new concept. Some were built back in the 1950's for the US military. One
was used in Antarctica for some ten years. (See below) As I recall, a
prototype of one of these reactors had a grisly accident that left an
operator skewered to the roof of the containment building by a control
rod.

Vaughn


History channel had a segment about that very incident, they interviewed
some of
survivors and rescue workers. As i recall it was a stuck control rod that
caused the
accident. They did show fotage of the plant after the accident and described
finding
a missing worker impailed by a control rod that blew out of the reactor and
went threw
the roof of the reactor building.

Best Regards
Tom.

On Tue, 09 Oct 2007 21:04:15 GMT, Rich Grise wrote:

On Tue, 09 Oct 2007 12:53:56 -0400, Brian Lawson wrote:

His answer was that, at the moment, all the nuclear plants in Ontario
produce high volumes of steam at relatively low pressures and they run
turbines at a 1200 RPM (no explanation as to why to either), whereas
coal-fired plants produce steam at high pressure and rotate at 3600 RPM.
So there is no compatibility.

Of course he'll say it's not feasible - he works for the coal plant! ;-)

Cheers!
Rich

Hey Rich,

Not sure what you mean, but he "works" for Ontario Power Corporation.
They operate all the plants, both nuclear and conventional fuel-fired.
That's not to say that he isn't biased by where his home is, of
course. But I doubt he would be slinging too much BS. He'd be more
likely to lose his job doing that, than losing it by losing the plant.

Take care.

Brian Lawson,
Bothwell, Ontario.

Test plan

During the daytime of April 25 1986, reactor 4 at [show location on an
interactive map] 51°23€²22.39€³N, 30°05€²56.93€³E was scheduled to be shut
down for maintenance. A decision was made to test the ability of the
reactor's turbine generator to generate sufficient electricity to power
the reactor's safety systems (in particular, the water pumps), in the
event of a loss of external electric power. A RBMK-1000 reactor requires
water to be continuously circulated through the core, as long as the
nuclear fuel is present.

Chernobyl's reactors had a pair of backup diesel generators, but because
there was a 40-second delay before they could attain full speed, the
reactor was going to be used to spin up the reactor's turbine generator.
Once at full speed, the turbine would be disconnected from the reactor
and allowed to spin under its own rotational momentum. The aim of the
test was to determine whether the turbines in the rundown phase could
power the pumps while the generators were starting up. The test was
previously successfully carried out on another unit (with all safety
provisions active) with negative results €” the turbines did not generate
sufficient power, but because additional improvements were made to
reactor four's turbines, there was a need for another test.

Conditions prior to the accident

As conditions to run this test were prepared during the daytime of April
25, and the reactor electricity output had been gradually reduced to
50%, a regional power station unexpectedly went offline. The Kiev grid
controller requested that the further reduction of output be postponed,
as electricity was needed to satisfy the evening peak demand. The plant
director agreed and postponed the test to comply. The ill-advised safety
test was then left to be run by the night shift of the plant, a skeleton
crew who would be working Reactor 4 that night and the early part of the
next morning. This reactor crew had had little or no experience in
nuclear power plants, many had been drafted in from coal powered plants
and another had had a little experience with nuclear submarine power
plants.[4]

At 11:00 p.m., April 25, the grid controller allowed the reactor
shut-down to continue. The power output of reactor 4 was to be reduced
from its nominal 3.2 GW thermal to 0.7€“1.0 GW thermal in order to
conduct the test at the prescribed lower level of power.[5] However, the
new crew were unaware of the prior postponement of the reactor slowdown,
and followed the original test protocol, which meant that the power
level was decreased too rapidly. In this situation, the reactor produced
more of the nuclear poison product xenon-135 (the xenon production
rate:xenon loss rate ratio initially goes higher during a reactor power
down), which dropped the power output to 30 MW thermal (approximately 5%
of what was expected). The operators believed that the rapid fall in
output was due to a malfunction in one of the automatic power
regulators, not because of reactor poisoning. In order to increase the
reactivity of the underpowered reactor (caused unknowingly by neutron
absorption of excess xenon-135), automatic control rods were pulled out
of the reactor beyond what is allowed under safety regulations.

Despite this breach, the reactor's power only increased to 200MW, still
less than a third of the minimum required for the experiment. Despite
this, the crew's management chose to continue the experiment. As part of
the experiment, at 1:05 a.m. on April 26 the water pumps that were to be
driven by the turbine generator were turned on; increasing the water
flow beyond what is specified by safety regulations. The water flow
increased at 1:19 a.m. €“ since water also absorbs neutrons, this further
increase in the water flow necessitated the removal of the manual
control rods, producing a very precarious operating situation where
coolant and xenon-135 was substituting some of the role of the control
rods of the reactor.

Fatal experiment

At 1:23:04 the experiment began. The unstable state of the reactor was
not reflected in any way on the control panel, and it did not appear
that anyone in the reactor crew was fully aware of any danger. The steam
to the turbines was shut off and, as the momentum of the turbine
generator drove the water pumps, the water flow rate decreased,
decreasing the absorption of neutrons by the coolant. The turbine was
disconnected from the reactor, increasing the level of steam in the
reactor core. As the coolant heated, pockets of steam formed voids in
the coolant lines. Due to the RBMK reactor-type's large positive void
coefficient, the steam bubbles increased the power of the reactor
rapidly, and the reactor operation became progressively less stable and
more dangerous. As the reaction continued, the excess xenon-135 was
burnt up, increasing the number of neutrons available for fission. The
prior removal of manual and automatic control rods had no substitute,
leading to a runaway reaction.

At 1:23:40 the operators pressed the AZ-5 ("Rapid Emergency Defense 5")
button that ordered a "SCRAM" €“ a shutdown of the reactor, fully
inserting all control rods, including the manual control rods that had
been incautiously withdrawn earlier. It is unclear whether it was done
as an emergency measure, or simply as a routine method of shutting down
the reactor upon the completion of an experiment (the reactor was
scheduled to be shut down for routine maintenance). It is usually
suggested that the SCRAM was ordered as a response to the unexpected
rapid power increase. On the other hand, Anatoly Dyatlov, deputy chief
engineer at the nuclear station at the time of the accident, writes in
his book:

Prior to 01:23:40, systems of centralized control €¦ didn't register
any parameter changes that could justify the SCRAM. Commission €¦
gathered and analyzed large amount of materials and, as stated in its
report, failed to determine the reason why the SCRAM was ordered. There
was no need to look for the reason. The reactor was simply being shut
down upon the completion of the experiment.[6]

The slow speed of the control rod insertion mechanism (18€“20 seconds to
complete), and the flawed rod design which initially reduces the amount
of coolant present, meant that the SCRAM actually increased the reaction
rate. At this point an energy spike occurred and some of the fuel rods
began to fracture, placing fragments of the fuel rods in line with the
control rod columns. The rods became stuck after being inserted only
one-third of the way, and were therefore unable to stop the reaction. At
this point nothing could be done to stop the disaster. By 1:23:47 the
reactor jumped to around 30 GW, ten times the normal operational output.
The fuel rods began to melt and the steam pressure rapidly increased,
causing a large steam explosion. Generated steam traveled vertically
along the rod channels in the reactor, displacing and destroying the
reactor lid, rupturing the coolant tubes and then blowing a hole in the
roof.[7] After part of the roof blew off, the inrush of oxygen, combined
with the extremely high temperature of the reactor fuel and graphite
moderator, sparked a graphite fire. This fire greatly contributed to the
spread of radioactive material and the contamination of outlying areas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernob...r#The_accident

On Tue, 09 Oct 2007 22:38:15 GMT, "Vaughn Simon"
wrote:


"Brian Lawson" wrote in message
.. .
, the need for rapid and multitudinous
changes of power required over the course of any 24 hour period
(sometimes as high as 1500 change-orders per shift) and which nuclear
plants at present are not able to modulate. This last item is what
I'm writing about.

That is not true. Nuclear reactors can modulate their output perfectly
well. In fact, a pressurized water reactor (that is the most common type of
reactor) changes power nearly automatically to match demand because of its
negative temperature coefficient .

(Vaughn gets a far away look in his eyes) Back in my nuclear reactor
operator days, I could watch power vary from (say) 10% to well over 50% and not
touch a single control. Larger power changes just took a little bump of the
control rod position.

Commercial nuclear reactors are operated near their full power capacity for
economic reasons, not because they are not capable of being modulated.

Vaughn


Hey Vaughn,

Hmmmmm....so, I wonder...why we still have coal-fired plants, and why
the latest plants built are coal-fired too? Just cost? Just time (to
build)? Just disposal problems? Just politics? Or do you see an
actual purpose for the coal-fired units, at least at present?

And just a question about your statement...

...."I could watch power vary from (say) 10% to well over 50%"

Are you saying a variation of 10% to 50% of full power, or 10 to 50%
of say 80% baseline, was automatically controlled through NTC? Or
would the cooling towers see a fair load shed? And would this power
generation be at the suggested 1500 possible changes per shift? What
am I, and apparently all the people that are debating this here in
Ontario, missing?

Interesting stuff!!

Brian Lawson,
Bothwell, Ontario.

Brian Lawson wrote:


Hey Vaughn,

Hmmmmm....so, I wonder...why we still have coal-fired plants, and why
the latest plants built are coal-fired too? Just cost? Just time (to
build)? Just disposal problems? Just politics? Or do you see an
actual purpose for the coal-fired units, at least at present?

And just a question about your statement...

..."I could watch power vary from (say) 10% to well over 50%"

Are you saying a variation of 10% to 50% of full power, or 10 to 50%
of say 80% baseline, was automatically controlled through NTC? Or
would the cooling towers see a fair load shed? And would this power
generation be at the suggested 1500 possible changes per shift? What
am I, and apparently all the people that are debating this here in
Ontario, missing?

Interesting stuff!!

Brian Lawson,
Bothwell, Ontario.

Here is Texas we just narrowly averted a coal power disaster
as the politicos seem to have been (temporarily) bought by the
coal industry.

AIUI, they suddenly changes their considered opinion when the
voters themselves (pesky things that they are) voiced a loud
contrary opinion. Some foolishness about clean air, if you
can believe that...

The squeemish should not watch Law and Sausages being created.

Richard

"Brian Lawson" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 9 Oct 2007 06:17:32 -0700, "azotic" wrote:

An interesting russian concept. Solves the problem of NIMBY, out of sight
out of mind.
No CO2 emmisions to boot. I wonder if these could be built and stored
unfueled for
use in an emergency, say fuel became unavailable for conventional land
based
power
stations we could simpley fuel the reactors and start generating power
fairly quickley
until another fuel supplier could provide fuel for the conventional land
based plants.

http://www.upi.com/Energy/Briefing/2...nuclear_plant/


Best Regards
Tom.

Hey Tom,

I can't say I follow exactly your equation, but here in Ontario we
are in a race (apparently!!) to close the coal-fired power generation
plants we have.

My thoughts upon reading the article are that it might be a good idea to
have a few of these floating nuclear power plants built and ready to use
should we ever need them in an emergency.

Best Regards
Tom.

"Brian Lawson" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 9 Oct 2007 13:00:58 -0400, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:


"Brian Lawson" wrote in message
. ..
On Tue, 9 Oct 2007 06:17:32 -0700, "azotic" wrote:

An interesting russian concept. Solves the problem of NIMBY, out of
sight
out of mind.
No CO2 emmisions to boot. I wonder if these could be built and stored
unfueled for
use in an emergency, say fuel became unavailable for conventional land
based
power
stations we could simpley fuel the reactors and start generating power
fairly quickley
until another fuel supplier could provide fuel for the conventional land
based plants.

http://www.upi.com/Energy/Briefing/2...nuclear_plant/


Best Regards
Tom.

Hey Tom,

I can't say I follow exactly your equation, but here in Ontario we
are in a race (apparently!!) to close the coal-fired power generation
plants we have. This has become a hot political football, what with
the Ontario Provincial election coming tomorrow.
In any event, about your comment....Saturday I was at a fall fair a
few miles from where we live, and near the fair there is one of the
larger of the coal-fired plants that is under "attack". They had an
information booth set up at the fair, mostly handing out literature
about what a large scale employer they are, and the effect of loss of
those jobs on closure of the plant; about how they are not as bad a
polluter as they are ascribed to be, as they have some very late
technology scrubbing equipment in place already and are willing to do
more; and most important of all, the need for rapid and multitudinous
changes of power required over the course of any 24 hour period
(sometimes as high as 1500 change-orders per shift) and which nuclear
plants at present are not able to modulate. This last item is what
I'm writing about.

Nuclear power generation in land-based large plants is set to a "base
level" of possible production. Nominally, this seems to me to be
about 80%. In other words, a nuclear plant is ramped up from 0% to
80% over some period of many hours, if not of days, to this 80% level,
and then continues to produce that much power (80% of its full
capacity) regardless of the power usage requirement it is delivering
to !! The load variation of off-peak to full-peak times is presently
handled by the coal or gas fired plants. These plants are capable of
rapid changes and of short term rapid dissipation of excess (steam)
which the nuclear plants are not. Until the time when a viable method
of either controlling the nuclear output or delivering excesses of it
to either storage or conversion is standardized, the coal-fired plants
are required.

What the coal guy may not have explained is that the cost of fuel for
nukes
is around 2% of their operating cost, so it's no hardship to run them at
high capacity all the time.


Hey again Ed,

You are correct, in that "costs" never came up in my chat with the
guy. At all !! I have heard someplace that it is scary to compare
the cost of establishing a nuclear plant to the cost of establishing a
coal fired plant, even when the same manufacturing companies do both
(Babcock-Wilcox et al).

But neither is your statement inclusive of all the points here. My
point, or rather their point, (and hence my previous reply/question to
the OP) is that the fuel "burning" plants have a great and fast
flexibility, and the "nuclear" plants do not. Can one of these
Russian inventions really BE used? The nuclear plants WILL produce at
a relatively "fixed" rate, whether it is required or NOT (at least in
short time terms). Hence, SCRAMing when that output consumption can
not meet production on an instantaneous distribution or use basis.

In the pro/con debates going on here in Ontario, and I assume across
Canada, one of the research thoughts being pursued would be for any
instantaneous excess nuclear generation be used to immediately produce
hydrogen, which can be stored and used at later time, thereby
consuming the over-production and nullifying the present problem with
this inflexible production (which is PART of what the coal-fired
plants do now). Whether the hydrogen produced would be used in motor
vehicles or other transportation, or even to replace the coal in
thermal plants with a "cleaner" fire, was not discussed. But it is a
starting point.

Personally, I hope that maybe you and I, or at least our children,
will see the day when nuclear will produce electricity in quantity
without steam as intermediary.

Take care.

Brian Lawson


Agreed seems other parts of the world do not fear nuclear power, did a
little
googling for fun and was very surprised to find forgien investors are trying
to
buy several US uranium mines. From what i learned i see that other countries
plan on increasing thier nuclear power generation and others wtih no current
nuclear power plant plan on building new nuclear power plants. Looks like
investors see an increasing need for nuclear fuel in the near future. The
problem
here in the US is the negative image created by people who dont know what
thier talking about duped the public into unjustified fear of nuclear power.
Until these fears are overcome i believe the rest of the world will continue
to build nuclear power plants and we will be stuck paying high prices for
electric power generated by fossil fuels. Keep us appraised of how this
all works out in canada.

Best Regards
Tom.

On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 01:17:06 -0700, with neither quill nor qualm,
"azotic" quickly quoth:

My thoughts upon reading the article are that it might be a good idea to
have a few of these floating nuclear power plants built and ready to use
should we ever need them in an emergency.

Like for the day after the Big One hits California and everything east
of the San Andreas Fault slips into the Atlantic? Yeah, the quake
might have scrammed San Onofre...

I much prefer the small amount of nuke waste to the crap the coal
fired plants put into the atmosphere. Hell, if we switched our power
production mainly to nukes, we even could have met the Kyoto Protocol
requirements with no other changes (not that the protocol would have
done any good whatsoever.)

--
Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire
is that which he exercises over himself.
-- Elie Wiesel

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

I just hope we start building nukes in a big way. My personal feeling is
that it's inevitable anyway, and it would be a huge benefit to the
economies of many countries and to the environment.

Ed Huntress

Your are correct sir. The question is how are we going to
dispatch the nuclear boogyman thats been looming around
for the last 30 years. Public opposition is going to be the
biggest obsticle in building the next generation of nuclear power
plants.

Best Regards
Tom.

"cavelamb himself" wrote in message
...
Test plan

During the daytime of April 25 1986, reactor 4 at [show location on an
interactive map] 51°23'22.39?N, 30°05'56.93?E was scheduled to be shut
down for maintenance. A decision was made to test the ability of the
reactor's turbine generator to generate sufficient electricity to power
the reactor's safety systems (in particular, the water pumps), in the
event of a loss of external electric power. A RBMK-1000 reactor requires
water to be continuously circulated through the core, as long as the
nuclear fuel is present.

Chernobyl's reactors had a pair of backup diesel generators, but because
there was a 40-second delay before they could attain full speed, the
reactor was going to be used to spin up the reactor's turbine generator.
Once at full speed, the turbine would be disconnected from the reactor and
allowed to spin under its own rotational momentum. The aim of the test was
to determine whether the turbines in the rundown phase could power the
pumps while the generators were starting up. The test was previously
successfully carried out on another unit (with all safety provisions
active) with negative results - the turbines did not generate sufficient
power, but because additional improvements were made to reactor four's
turbines, there was a need for another test.

Conditions prior to the accident

As conditions to run this test were prepared during the daytime of April
25, and the reactor electricity output had been gradually reduced to 50%,
a regional power station unexpectedly went offline. The Kiev grid
controller requested that the further reduction of output be postponed, as
electricity was needed to satisfy the evening peak demand. The plant
director agreed and postponed the test to comply. The ill-advised safety
test was then left to be run by the night shift of the plant, a skeleton
crew who would be working Reactor 4 that night and the early part of the
next morning. This reactor crew had had little or no experience in nuclear
power plants, many had been drafted in from coal powered plants and
another had had a little experience with nuclear submarine power
plants.[4]

At 11:00 p.m., April 25, the grid controller allowed the reactor shut-down
to continue. The power output of reactor 4 was to be reduced from its
nominal 3.2 GW thermal to 0.7-1.0 GW thermal in order to conduct the test
at the prescribed lower level of power.[5] However, the new crew were
unaware of the prior postponement of the reactor slowdown, and followed
the original test protocol, which meant that the power level was decreased
too rapidly. In this situation, the reactor produced more of the nuclear
poison product xenon-135 (the xenon production rate:xenon loss rate ratio
initially goes higher during a reactor power down), which dropped the
power output to 30 MW thermal (approximately 5% of what was expected). The
operators believed that the rapid fall in output was due to a malfunction
in one of the automatic power regulators, not because of reactor
poisoning. In order to increase the reactivity of the underpowered reactor
(caused unknowingly by neutron absorption of excess xenon-135), automatic
control rods were pulled out of the reactor beyond what is allowed under
safety regulations.

Despite this breach, the reactor's power only increased to 200MW, still
less than a third of the minimum required for the experiment. Despite
this, the crew's management chose to continue the experiment. As part of
the experiment, at 1:05 a.m. on April 26 the water pumps that were to be
driven by the turbine generator were turned on; increasing the water flow
beyond what is specified by safety regulations. The water flow increased
at 1:19 a.m. - since water also absorbs neutrons, this further increase in
the water flow necessitated the removal of the manual control rods,
producing a very precarious operating situation where coolant and
xenon-135 was substituting some of the role of the control rods of the
reactor.

Fatal experiment

At 1:23:04 the experiment began. The unstable state of the reactor was not
reflected in any way on the control panel, and it did not appear that
anyone in the reactor crew was fully aware of any danger. The steam to the
turbines was shut off and, as the momentum of the turbine generator drove
the water pumps, the water flow rate decreased, decreasing the absorption
of neutrons by the coolant. The turbine was disconnected from the reactor,
increasing the level of steam in the reactor core. As the coolant heated,
pockets of steam formed voids in the coolant lines. Due to the RBMK
reactor-type's large positive void coefficient, the steam bubbles
increased the power of the reactor rapidly, and the reactor operation
became progressively less stable and more dangerous. As the reaction
continued, the excess xenon-135 was burnt up, increasing the number of
neutrons available for fission. The prior removal of manual and automatic
control rods had no substitute, leading to a runaway reaction.

At 1:23:40 the operators pressed the AZ-5 ("Rapid Emergency Defense 5")
button that ordered a "SCRAM" - a shutdown of the reactor, fully inserting
all control rods, including the manual control rods that had been
incautiously withdrawn earlier. It is unclear whether it was done as an
emergency measure, or simply as a routine method of shutting down the
reactor upon the completion of an experiment (the reactor was scheduled to
be shut down for routine maintenance). It is usually suggested that the
SCRAM was ordered as a response to the unexpected rapid power increase. On
the other hand, Anatoly Dyatlov, deputy chief engineer at the nuclear
station at the time of the accident, writes in his book:

Prior to 01:23:40, systems of centralized control . didn't register
any parameter changes that could justify the SCRAM. Commission . gathered
and analyzed large amount of materials and, as stated in its report,
failed to determine the reason why the SCRAM was ordered. There was no
need to look for the reason. The reactor was simply being shut down upon
the completion of the experiment.[6]

The slow speed of the control rod insertion mechanism (18-20 seconds to
complete), and the flawed rod design which initially reduces the amount of
coolant present, meant that the SCRAM actually increased the reaction
rate. At this point an energy spike occurred and some of the fuel rods
began to fracture, placing fragments of the fuel rods in line with the
control rod columns. The rods became stuck after being inserted only
one-third of the way, and were therefore unable to stop the reaction. At
this point nothing could be done to stop the disaster. By 1:23:47 the
reactor jumped to around 30 GW, ten times the normal operational output.
The fuel rods began to melt and the steam pressure rapidly increased,
causing a large steam explosion. Generated steam traveled vertically along
the rod channels in the reactor, displacing and destroying the reactor
lid, rupturing the coolant tubes and then blowing a hole in the roof.[7]
After part of the roof blew off, the inrush of oxygen, combined with the
extremely high temperature of the reactor fuel and graphite moderator,
sparked a graphite fire. This fire greatly contributed to the spread of
radioactive material and the contamination of outlying areas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernob...r#The_accident


History channel had a program about the accident in which some of the
workers
that survived the accident gave thier account of what happened. Thank god we
don't opperate our plants like the russians. As i recall from the program
the person
in charge had no training in the nuclear field at all and got his job thru
political
connections. Everybody interviewed claimed his lack knoweledge was the major
cause of the situation they found themselves in. Its worth watching if they
air the
program in the future. Very detailed sequence of events and why they
happened.

Best Regards
Tom.

##

##### ##### ### ## ###
## ## ## ## ## ##
#### ## ## ## ## ##
## ## ## ## #####
##### ## ## #### ##
####

On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 05:16:07 -0700, Larry Jaques wrote:

On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 01:17:06 -0700, with neither quill nor qualm, "azotic"
quickly quoth:

My thoughts upon reading the article are that it might be a good idea to
have a few of these floating nuclear power plants built and ready to use
should we ever need them in an emergency.

Like for the day after the Big One hits California and everything east of
the San Andreas Fault slips into the Atlantic? Yeah, the quake might have
scrammed San Onofre...

FWIW, it's a shear fault - the plate isn't going to sink, it's just
going to move LAX to San Francisco. ;-)

Cheers!
Rich

"azotic" wrote in message
...

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

I just hope we start building nukes in a big way. My personal feeling is
that it's inevitable anyway, and it would be a huge benefit to the
economies of many countries and to the environment.

Ed Huntress

Your are correct sir. The question is how are we going to
dispatch the nuclear boogyman thats been looming around
for the last 30 years. Public opposition is going to be the
biggest obsticle in building the next generation of nuclear power
plants.

Best Regards
Tom.

Severe financial pressure will do it. A real threat of a shutoff from the
Middle East and Argentina would surely do it.

A lot of people who have audiences are re-thinking nuclear power.

--
Ed Huntress

"cavelamb himself" wrote in message
...
After part of the roof blew off, the inrush of oxygen, combined
with the extremely high temperature of the reactor fuel and graphite
moderator, sparked a graphite fire. This fire greatly contributed to the
spread of radioactive material and the contamination of outlying areas.

Raising the specter of Chernobyl in any discussion of nuclear energy in the
western world is to raise a "straw man" argument. The design and operation of
the Chernobyl-type plants represents nothing short of a crime against humanity.
Nothing of the sort would have been allowed anywhere in the western world.
There is no point in raising the issue of Chernobyl unless your goal is to
obfuscate.

We learned about the dangers of graphite moderated shortly after WW-II when the
UK had a smaller version of the Chernobyl accident. (Google "Windscale
accident" for an education) There is a reason why you don't normally see
commercial power producing graphite moderated reactors.

Vaughn

Vaughn Simon wrote:
"cavelamb himself" wrote in message
...
After part of the roof blew off, the inrush of oxygen, combined
with the extremely high temperature of the reactor fuel and graphite
moderator, sparked a graphite fire. This fire greatly contributed to the
spread of radioactive material and the contamination of outlying areas.

Raising the specter of Chernobyl in any discussion of nuclear energy in the
western world is to raise a "straw man" argument. The design and operation of
the Chernobyl-type plants represents nothing short of a crime against humanity.
Nothing of the sort would have been allowed anywhere in the western world.
There is no point in raising the issue of Chernobyl unless your goal is to
obfuscate.

We learned about the dangers of graphite moderated shortly after WW-II when the
UK had a smaller version of the Chernobyl accident. (Google "Windscale
accident" for an education) There is a reason why you don't normally see
commercial power producing graphite moderated reactors.

It's not quite as bad as all that...

We operated 5 high power, uncontained
graphite moderated production reactors
at Hanford for years, along with N-reactor,
a combined production/power reactor of
the same type. I toured N-reactor while
it was operating in 1969. JFK thought
it was important enough to attend it's
groundbreaking.

N-reactor was shutdown in 1987 and has
since been dismantled.

My point being that these plant ran for
probably 100 plant/years without a serious
incident. Not the safest possible design,
but, with competent workers, not a "crime
against humanity" either.

"Howard Eisenhauer" wrote in message
...

Vaughn, Ontario Hydro uses the Candu reactors which are heavy water
reactors, would this make a difference in thier ability to quickly
handle grid load demands?

You would need to ask someone who knows for sure, but I doubt it. (I am an
ex-nuclear reactor operator, not a nuclear scientist)

The principle works like this: For a reactor to work, there must be some
substance to slow the neutrons down so that some of them can successfully mate
with an atom of uranium. This substance is called a moderator. Water makes a
great moderator (heavy water makes an even better moderator). When you heat up
water(even heavy water), it gets less dense and then it does not moderate as
well. When you cool down water, it gets denser, moderates better, you get more
fission reactions, which generates more power, which heats up the reactor, which
heats up the water, which reduces its density, which tends to reduce the
reactor's power.

So let's review: When you place more load on the reactor, you are drawing
heat from it, which tends to cool it down, which tends to make it produce more
power. This is the famous "negative power coeficient" that makes pressurized
water reactors tend to automatically produce exactly the proper amont of energy.

There are design factors that can give a reactor more or less temperature
coeficient, but the main reason that nuclear reactors are ran nearly "flat out"
is because of the cheap fuel, not because it is difficult to control their
output power. You would not want to live within 100 miles of a nuclear reactor
that was difficult to control.

Vaughn

On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 05:33:50 -0700, with neither quill nor qualm,
"azotic" quickly quoth:


"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

I just hope we start building nukes in a big way. My personal feeling is
that it's inevitable anyway, and it would be a huge benefit to the
economies of many countries and to the environment.

Ed Huntress

Your are correct sir. The question is how are we going to
dispatch the nuclear boogyman thats been looming around
for the last 30 years. Public opposition is going to be the
biggest obsticle in building the next generation of nuclear power
plants.

Hell, we haven't been able to get past bull**** the enviros like
Rachel Carson (_Silent Spring_ author) spewed even though she later
disovered that her research was bogus and _recanted_ much of it!
Thinner eggshells in raptor eggs had been happening or over fifty
years before DDT was invented.

The fear mongers for nuclear still play the worst case scenario
despite thousands of man years of good manners on the part of nuke
reactors.

Let's hope that the enviros find coal too polluting (it really is;
ditto charcoal) and opt for nuke power some time in the near future.

--
Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire
is that which he exercises over himself.
-- Elie Wiesel

azotic wrote:

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

I just hope we start building nukes in a big way. My personal feeling is
that it's inevitable anyway, and it would be a huge benefit to the
economies of many countries and to the environment.

Ed Huntress


Your are correct sir. The question is how are we going to
dispatch the nuclear boogyman thats been looming around
for the last 30 years. Public opposition is going to be the
biggest obsticle in building the next generation of nuclear power
plants.

Best Regards
Tom.

Yes and when you get that figured out maybe we can do the same
for steam power and/or hydrogen for use in autos. :-)
...lew...

"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 05:33:50 -0700, with neither quill nor qualm,
"azotic" quickly quoth:


"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

I just hope we start building nukes in a big way. My personal feeling is
that it's inevitable anyway, and it would be a huge benefit to the
economies of many countries and to the environment.

Ed Huntress

Your are correct sir. The question is how are we going to
dispatch the nuclear boogyman thats been looming around
for the last 30 years. Public opposition is going to be the
biggest obsticle in building the next generation of nuclear power
plants.

Hell, we haven't been able to get past bull**** the enviros like
Rachel Carson (_Silent Spring_ author) spewed even though she later
disovered that her research was bogus and _recanted_ much of it!

OK, please save me some time. Do you have a reference for this?

--
Ed Huntress

On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 19:59:57 GMT, Rich Grise wrote:

On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 05:16:07 -0700, Larry Jaques wrote:

On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 01:17:06 -0700, with neither quill nor qualm, "azotic"
quickly quoth:

My thoughts upon reading the article are that it might be a good idea to
have a few of these floating nuclear power plants built and ready to use
should we ever need them in an emergency.

Like for the day after the Big One hits California and everything east of
the San Andreas Fault slips into the Atlantic? Yeah, the quake might have
scrammed San Onofre...

FWIW, it's a shear fault - the plate isn't going to sink, it's just
going to move LAX to San Francisco. ;-)

Cheers!
Rich


West Hollywood would finally Hook Up with San Fran...and the airlines
catering to gay weekends would go broke.

Gunner

"Jim Stewart" wrote in message
.. .

My point being that these plant ran for
probably 100 plant/years without a serious
incident. Not the safest possible design,
but, with competent workers, not a "crime
against humanity" either.

If you know that much, then you also know that the Chernobyl plant was built
without a containment barrier, and it damn sure was a "crime against humanity"
that would never have been allowed in the western world. And you also know that
no commercial graphite moderated power reactor has ever been built in the United
States (for good reason). Chernobyl is only useful as an example if you
insist on scaremongering, because no truly civilized society would allow such a
dangerous thing to be built.

Vaughn

On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 23:08:24 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, "Ed
Huntress" quickly quoth:


"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
.. .
On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 05:33:50 -0700, with neither quill nor qualm,
"azotic" quickly quoth:


"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

I just hope we start building nukes in a big way. My personal feeling is
that it's inevitable anyway, and it would be a huge benefit to the
economies of many countries and to the environment.

Ed Huntress

Your are correct sir. The question is how are we going to
dispatch the nuclear boogyman thats been looming around
for the last 30 years. Public opposition is going to be the
biggest obsticle in building the next generation of nuclear power
plants.

Hell, we haven't been able to get past bull**** the enviros like
Rachel Carson (_Silent Spring_ author) spewed even though she later
disovered that her research was bogus and _recanted_ much of it!

OK, please save me some time. Do you have a reference for this?

****, you would ask that. I've read it in several places. First in
_State of Fear_ (not one you'd recognize as valid), then in, um, I
think in one of Ronald Bailey's books, probably _Earth Report 2000_.
I'll see if I can scare up an exact quote.

In the interim, check these out:

http://www.cei.org/gencon/005,01338.cfm
http://www.cgfi.org/materials/articl...2/jun_6_02.htm
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,55843,00.html

--
Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire
is that which he exercises over himself.
-- Elie Wiesel

"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
news
On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 23:08:24 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, "Ed
Huntress" quickly quoth:


"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
. ..
On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 05:33:50 -0700, with neither quill nor qualm,
"azotic" quickly quoth:


"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

I just hope we start building nukes in a big way. My personal feeling
is
that it's inevitable anyway, and it would be a huge benefit to the
economies of many countries and to the environment.

Ed Huntress

Your are correct sir. The question is how are we going to
dispatch the nuclear boogyman thats been looming around
for the last 30 years. Public opposition is going to be the
biggest obsticle in building the next generation of nuclear power
plants.

Hell, we haven't been able to get past bull**** the enviros like
Rachel Carson (_Silent Spring_ author) spewed even though she later
disovered that her research was bogus and _recanted_ much of it!

OK, please save me some time. Do you have a reference for this?

****, you would ask that.

Note that I didn't *demand* "cites," only that I asked if you wouldn't mind
saving me some time, if you knew where your information came from. d8-)

I've read it in several places. First in
_State of Fear_ (not one you'd recognize as valid), then in, um, I
think in one of Ronald Bailey's books, probably _Earth Report 2000_.
I'll see if I can scare up an exact quote.

In the interim, check these out:

http://www.cei.org/gencon/005,01338.cfm
http://www.cgfi.org/materials/articl...2/jun_6_02.htm
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,55843,00.html

I'm aware of the controversies surrounding _Silent Spring_. I was just
curious about what she is supposed to have said that would amount to
recanting "much of it."

BTW, and FWIW, the last two of those articles grossly misrepresent the
evidence on DDT and eggshell thinning. There really is no scientific
controversy about it, and there hasn't been since the early '70s. I don't
know about the scientific evidence for or against general claims concerning
toxic pesticides, but the DDT/eggshell research is one I do know about.

--
Ed Huntress

OK, please save me some time. Do you have a reference for this?


****, you would ask that. I've read it in several places. First in
_State of Fear_ (not one you'd recognize as valid), then in, um, I
think in one of Ronald Bailey's books, probably _Earth Report 2000_.
I'll see if I can scare up an exact quote.


Interesting! I just picked that one up at the library.

I (heart) librarys...


Richard

Vaughn Simon wrote:
"Jim Stewart" wrote in message
.. .
My point being that these plant ran for
probably 100 plant/years without a serious
incident. Not the safest possible design,
but, with competent workers, not a "crime
against humanity" either.

If you know that much, then you also know that the Chernobyl plant was built
without a containment barrier, and it damn sure was a "crime against humanity"
that would never have been allowed in the western world. And you also know that
no commercial graphite moderated power reactor has ever been built in the United
States (for good reason). Chernobyl is only useful as an example if you
insist on scaremongering, because no truly civilized society would allow such a
dangerous thing to be built.

I guess you missed my point.

We *did* build uncontained graphite moderated
reactors. Nine of them by my count. Many
of the Hanford production reactors ran at
thermal power levels greater than most commercial
power reactors. N-Reactor, which supplied
commercial power for many years ran at 4000MW.

So my question is, were the 9 Hanford reactors
a "crime against humanity", safetywise?

On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 22:14:55 -0700, Gunner wrote:
On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 19:59:57 GMT, Rich Grise wrote:
On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 05:16:07 -0700, Larry Jaques wrote:
On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 01:17:06 -0700, with neither quill nor qualm, "azotic"
quickly quoth:

My thoughts upon reading the article are that it might be a good idea to
have a few of these floating nuclear power plants built and ready to use
should we ever need them in an emergency.

Like for the day after the Big One hits California and everything east of
the San Andreas Fault slips into the Atlantic? Yeah, the quake might have
scrammed San Onofre...

FWIW, it's a shear fault - the plate isn't going to sink, it's just
going to move LAX to San Francisco. ;-)

West Hollywood would finally Hook Up with San Fran...and the airlines
catering to gay weekends would go broke.


Well, I don't think it will move that far in our lifetime. I guess
the next "big one", it's going to shift about 6 feet. It's way overdue,
probably because of this:
http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dynamic/San_Andreas.html

Notice the little jog, that acts like a pawl? When it goes it's going
to really be THE BIG ONE!

Cheers!
Rich

On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 19:50:48 -0700, Larry Jaques wrote:
On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 05:33:50 -0700, with neither quill nor qualm,
"azotic" quickly quoth:
"Ed Huntress" wrote in message

I just hope we start building nukes in a big way. My personal feeling is
that it's inevitable anyway, and it would be a huge benefit to the
economies of many countries and to the environment.

Your are correct sir. The question is how are we going to
dispatch the nuclear boogyman thats been looming around
for the last 30 years. Public opposition is going to be the
biggest obsticle in building the next generation of nuclear power
plants.

Hell, we haven't been able to get past bull**** the enviros like
Rachel Carson (_Silent Spring_ author) spewed even though she later
disovered that her research was bogus and _recanted_ much of it!
Thinner eggshells in raptor eggs had been happening or over fifty
years before DDT was invented.

The fear mongers for nuclear still play the worst case scenario
despite thousands of man years of good manners on the part of nuke
reactors.

Let's hope that the enviros find coal too polluting (it really is;
ditto charcoal) and opt for nuke power some time in the near future.

They've always got the "TOXIC RADIOACTIVE WASTE" boogeyman to throw
in our faces.

Why don't we ask Japan and France what they're doing with theirs?

Or better yet, find out what the US Gov't is doing with the waste
from the bomb plants?

Cheers!
Rich

"Jim Stewart" wrote in message
...
So my question is, were the 9 Hanford reactors
a "crime against humanity", safetywise?

And you missed my point twice, apparently purposely. I was specifically
talking about commercial power reactors. I make no claim to any special
knowledge about the Hanford reactors, but the honest answer to your question
might well be "yes" on many levels, not just safetywise. Both sides did some
really despicable things to gain advantage in the cold war. For example: I have
been to the medical clinic for the Rocky Flats workers that were purposely not
educated about the dangers of the materials they were working with. It is not a
pretty sight.

That said, the discussion has been about commercial uses of nuclear power,
not military weaponry.

Vaughn

"Rich Grise" wrote in message
news

Or better yet, find out what the US Gov't is doing with the waste
from the bomb plants?

And the waste from the use of hundreds of shipboard nuclear reactors over
the last 50+ years... (Yep, it really has been that long)

Vaughn