Nuclear Energy Debate at Daily Kos

News from Australia of a potential breakthrough in uranium enrichment, has set off an interesting discussion on the merits of nuclear energy over at the Daily Kos. Take a look when you get a chance, as nuclear energy gets more support than you might think.

Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Power, Electricity, Environment, Energy, Politics, Technology, Economics, Australia

Comments

Anonymous said…

A few years ago I came across an article written in the 1970s on what was then going on in laser isotope enrichment. The author made the good point that making deuterium enrichment cheaper would be more beneficial than making uranium enrichment cheaper.

Cheaper U enrichment makes bombs easier to make. Cheaper heavy water makes CANDU variants cheaper, including variants than can breed U233 from thorium.

I hope this advance is applicable to other isotope separation problems.

May 31, 2006 at 10:56 AM

Anonymous said…

It is possible to use it for other isotope separation problems, but I don't believe it's better than the current methods for making heavy water.

If you go to Silex's website, they propose to use it to do isotopic separation for silicon and carbon, for use in semiconductors.

Heavy water behaves differently enough in chemical reactions (the reaction rates are quite different in some cases, apparently) that you don't need the mass-related tricks used for uranium.

As to the proliferation risks, it doesn't appear to be easy technology to master; centrifuges are hard enough, this seems on first glance to be even tougher.

One possibility for weapons development that laser enrichment may offer advanced weapons states, however, is making almost perfectly pure Pu-239. Amongst other things, this would allow the development of a "gun bomb" (like the Hiroshima bomb) made from plutonium, but more importantly to a country like the US would apparently allow them to build physically smaller nuclear weapons (which makes sense; if predetonation isn't a problem your implosion mechanism could probably be a lot smaller and simpler).

June 1, 2006 at 10:19 AM

Activists' Claims Distort Facts about Advanced Reactor Design

Below is from our rapid response team . Yesterday, regional anti-nuclear organizations asked federal nuclear energy regulators to launch an investigation into what it claims are “newly identified flaws” in Westinghouse’s advanced reactor design, the AP1000. During a teleconference releasing a report on the subject, participants urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to suspend license reviews of proposed AP1000 reactors. In its news release, even the groups making these allegations provide conflicting information on its findings. In one instance, the groups cite “dozens of corrosion holes” at reactor vessels and in another says that eight holes have been documented. In all cases, there is another containment mechanism that would provide a barrier to radiation release. Below, we examine why these claims are unwarranted and why the AP1000 design certification process should continue as designated by the NRC. Myth: In the AP1000 reactor design, the gap between the shield bu...

What Happens During a Refueling Outage?

You may have noticed over the past few weeks that a number of nuclear plants are shut down for refueling outages or are resuming operations after just returning from one. This type of routine outage usually occurs in the spring or fall when electricity demand is low so that nuclear reactors can replace about one-third of the spent fuel rods with new fuel and conduct other routine maintenance and repairs at the plant. To get a better sense of how refueling works at a nuclear energy facility, I spoke with Marcus Nichol, NEI’s senior project manager for used fuel storage and transportation, and asked him to explain the basics. Why does a nuclear plant need to replace one-third of its fuel? Nichol: The main purpose of a refueling outage is to replace older fuel that is depleted—meaning it can no longer efficiently produce energy from nuclear fission reactions—with new fuel. This “used fuel” has typically been used in the reactor for four-and-a-half to six years before it is pe...

How Much Land Does Nuclear, Wind and Solar Really Need?

Not too long ago, we reviewed a report that looked at nuclear energy (and other energy sources) as biodiversity agents. This had to do, in part, with the amount of land a facility needs to function. Nuclear energy and fossil fuel plants use relatively little, wind farms and solar arrays quite a lot of land . Based on an objective and transparent analysis of our sustainable energy choices, we have come to the evidence-based conclusion that nuclear energy is a good option for biodiversity conservation (and society in general) and that other alternatives to fossil fuels should be subjected to the same cost–benefit analyses (in terms of biodiversity and climate outcomes, as well as sociopolitical imperatives) before accepting or dismissing them. Writer Barry Brook, who collected 75 scientists to endorse his paper, is interested in land use as it impacts flora and fauna. Biodiversity concerns do not get as much play as they might – and, when they do, it annoys many when land is withdraw...

NEI Nuclear Notes

Search This Blog