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The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) relied on faulty analysis to justify its refusal to adopt a critical measure for protecting Americans from the occurrence of a catastrophic nuclear-waste fire at any one of dozens of reactor sites around the country, according to an article in the May 26 issue of Science magazine. Catastrophic consequences, which could be triggered by a large earthquake or a terrorist attack, could be largely avoided by regulatory measures that the NRC refuses to implement. Using a biased regulatory analysis, the agency excluded the possibility of an act of terrorism as well as the potential for damage from a fire beyond 50 miles of a plant.
[...] "The NRC has been pressured by the nuclear industry, directly and through Congress, to low-ball the potential consequences of a fire because of concerns that increased costs could result in shutting down more nuclear power plants," said paper co-author Frank von Hippel, a senior research physicist at Princeton's Program on Science and Global Security (SGS), based at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. "Unfortunately, if there is no public outcry about this dangerous situation, the NRC will continue to bend to the industry's wishes."
[...] The NRC analysis found that a fire in a spent-fuel pool at an average nuclear reactor site would cause $125 billion in damages. After correcting for errors and omissions, the researchers found that millions of residents in surrounding communities would have to relocate for years, resulting in total damages of $2 trillion—nearly 20 times the NRC's result. Considering the nuclear industry is only legally liable for $13.6 billion, thanks to the Price Anderson Act of 1957, U.S. taxpayers would have to cover the remaining costs.
[...] "In far too many instances, the NRC has used flawed analysis to justify inaction, leaving millions of Americans at risk of a radiological release that could contaminate their homes and destroy their livelihoods," said Lyman. "It is time for the NRC to employ sound science and common-sense policy judgments in its decision-making process."
Source: Phys.org
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday May 28 2017, @04:24AM (12 children)
if you figure in the cost of the disposal of waste.
I will assume for the sake of argument that a way to dispose of it can be found. How much will it cost? The half-life of plutonium is over twenty thousand years.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 5, Informative) by ese002 on Sunday May 28 2017, @04:48AM
Plutonium isn't waste. It's fuel. If your concern is how to bury plutonium for 20,000 years, you're doing it wrong.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 28 2017, @04:50AM (3 children)
It's not just that. Uranium is a nonrenewable resource and its quantities are limited. Right now there are relatively few nuclear plants. But just to provide the power for the US you'd need in the ballpark of 400-500 nuclear plants. And that's at today's energy expenditures. Imagine what we could do if we bumped our energy production up a magnitude or two. That's completely reasonable as technology (and particularly electric tech) continues to improve. But to provide the energy there you'd be looking at hundreds to thousands of nuclear plants per state. Give me a break. But anyhow, the point is that as you increase the scale of nuclear uranium starts to become an issue. It's nonrenewable and heavily centralized. Should the handful of large holders of uranium decide to utilize their new found position of power and start to form an OPEC you'd see the cost of energy go even higher. Of course at scale waste disposal also becomes an even bigger issue and nuclear disasters would start to become an increasingly common occurrence - even at their nominal rates. And of course the nominal rates are meaningless. Because the problem of safety with nuclear isn't so much the technology itself, but the profit seeking people involved in it. Fukushima could have been prevented if safety had been prioritized. [nytimes.com]
This is all just so silly. When looking at the energy of the future, why in the holy hells would you tie yourself to a nonrenewable finite resource? That's at best kicking the can. Granted that can would go a very long ways, but when there are viable present tech alternatives it makes zero sense.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Sunday May 28 2017, @05:09AM (1 child)
Well, AC, which is it going to be, 500 plants total or hundreds to thousands PER STATE?
Waste is a political problem, not a technical one. We could very easily join the rest of the nuclear world by constructing and using a fuel reprocessing facility that would have the two-fold benefit of getting more energy out of first-run fuel material and also drastically reducing the volume of dangerous waste by separating out the waste streams. Instead we be seal boots and rubber gloves in barrels and store it for 100 years in poorly managed facilities.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 28 2017, @10:40AM
Quoting exactly what I said:
400-500 nuclear plants to match energy production for the US at current energy levels. Bumped up 2 magnitudes of production that'd be 40,000-50,000 or hundreds to thousands per state. The reason this is relevant is that energy production, to date, has always been mostly supply constrained. That constraint is increasingly becoming a thing of the past and bumping our energy production up dramatically would allow an incredible modernization of society particularly as we push further towards an era of automation and electric energy. For a trivial example of this modernization - there are electric vehicles. The ~4TWh of energy we use per year is based upon nearly all vehicles still being powered by fuels as opposed to electric straight from the grid.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday May 28 2017, @06:22AM
Oh, come on. You only need to push a star down the stairs into a supernova state...
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Sunday May 28 2017, @04:52AM
> The half-life of plutonium is over twenty thousand years.
The plutonium-239 you're talking about can be recovered and used as fuel. Shorter-lived isotopes such as caesium-137 and strontium-90 are enough of a problem: a rule of thumb is that they ought to be stored for 10 half-lives so that their radioactivity is ~0.1% or its initial intensity; for those isotopes that's hundreds of years.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Sunday May 28 2017, @04:53AM (3 children)
We've never "disposed" of the waste. We've only stored it. And we've stored it in pools right next to the reactor sites. Dispersed in poorly guarded facilities around the country. Or mountains of low-level waste placed in barrels and shipped quietly to other facilities.
The actual weight of plutonium needing disposal could probably have been launched into the sun for the far less money than we've spent on the Space Shuttle and ISS over the years.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 28 2017, @05:03AM
Here, let me show you why we don't do this fancy idea of yours: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNsJUmFrUCA [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 28 2017, @02:48PM
This person definitely seems to know what they're talking about.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday May 29 2017, @08:53AM
Personally, I don't see why a reactor producing 3m^2 of pyrex-encased HLW a year is a big thing. In particular given that we're digging holes hundreds of thousands of times bigger in order to get radioactive sources out in the first place.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday May 28 2017, @05:03AM
The nuclear waste will probably not be waste in the future because there's not enough raw material to go around. Circa 2035 the peak of uranium supplies vs consumption will occur. And then that waste will have to be used in accelerator power stations to get enough power. Thorium, liquid cores, generation-3, gas-cooled fast reactor, energy multiplier module (EMM) etc.. are other alternatives (though liquid core still needs uranium/plutonium.. etc).
But the waste should still be stored underground. All these temporary storage pools all over the country on the surface is really pure lunacy. All kinds of accidents can happen to them. In addition to that some areas are prone to earthquakes.
Nuclear technology is a mess but it can be handled provided the decision making and priorities are set by engineers and scientists. Not bean counters or hucksters. Their mind is weak and they are unsuitable for the task. And they have to much sway. Every decision maker that do these shortsighted priorities should be forced to settle in Fukushima or Chernobyl so they can get the right feedback on their decision making. Without imported food or water.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday May 28 2017, @07:05AM
it's got $25 billion.
However the courts have held that the fund [wikipedia.org] must stop collecting payments until a way is found to collect the waste.
Hanford is building a facility to convert military waste into glass, which is the safest way found so far to keep it from leaking all over the place. We need a facility just like that for civilian waste.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]