The Externalities of Nuclear Power: First, Assume We Have a Can Opener . . .

[bananas]

http://www.boalt.org/elq/C35.01_04_Coplan_2008.04.10.php

The Externalities of Nuclear Power:
First, Assume We Have a Can Opener . . .

Karl S. Coplan*

Introduction

The nuclear power industry has latched on to global warming as an argument for its renaissance. Although even industry proponents acknowledge that the problem of disposing of spent nuclear fuel remains unsolved, the industry routinely assumes this problem will be solved in the future. Unfortunately, this is the same assumption made by nuclear energy proponents at the beginning of the nuclear industry fifty years ago. We haven’t solved the nuclear waste problem in the past half century, and there is no reason to think we will be more likely to do so in the next one. Like the shipwrecked economist in the old joke, the nuclear industry continues to postulate that we should “assume we have a can opener” for the nuclear waste problem.<1>

While the impacts of global warming are described as “intergenerational,” the impacts of the nuclear waste cycle are better described as inter-civilizational.<2> Nuclear fuel wastes remain hazardous for hundreds of thousands to as much as a million years.<3> By contrast, recorded human history goes back only about 5,000 years, and human civilization is only about 10,000 years old. Globally, none of the generators of nuclear fuel waste have successfully implemented any permanent disposal option for nuclear waste, leaving this externality of nuclear energy production as a problem for future generations, or, more likely, for future civilizations. Put simply, the nuclear industry, with government complicity, has transferred and deferred the most expensive part of the cost of the nuclear fuel cycle to future generations and civilizations unknown.

Nor are the environmental and public health costs of nuclear waste the only ones that nuclear energy generation has externalized. Nuclear generation also poses a risk externality — the economic and social harms that the public has assumed in the event of a radiation release, for which the generating industry has limited liability. This risk externality arises not only from the risk of accidental reactor meltdown and release of radioactivity, but also from the proliferation and terrorism risks that are inseparable from any scheme of nuclear energy production and waste disposal.

These twin externalities, waste and risk, make any nuclear renaissance an unsatisfactory substitute for fossil fuel power generation. As horrendous as the impacts of global warming will be — millions of people displaced and dead — the likely long-term impacts of increased nuclear energy production are comparable, and longer lasting.

<snip>

[tvoss]

1. What I don't understand...

All that nuclear material originally came from the earth. What I don't understand is why the waste is so much more hazardous than what gets mined. Does anyone have a good link where I can read about this? Thanks

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. You don't really need a link

To start with, all of that nuclear material needed to be highly refined (or concentrated if you like) in order to be useful.

http://www.cameco.com/uranium_101/uranium_science/uranium/

...

Uranium's radioactive properties were not noticed until 1896. French scientist Henri Becquerel did not realize the full significance of his discovery, but one of his students, Marie Curie, correctly interpreted his results and chose the name radioactivity for the new phenomenon. Working with her husband Pierre, Marie Curie went on to discover another new element, radium, in 1898. The Curies had to use tonnes of uranium ore to obtain even a fraction of a gram of this new element. Radium was felt to be a miracle cure for cancer and commanded prices as high as $75,000 per ounce until the bottom fell out of the market in the late 1930s.

...

http://www.anawa.org.au/chain/index.html

[NMDemDist2]

4. centrifuge baby

spin it till it's a thousand times more concentrated

[MH1]

3. What happens to the waste generated by all those reactors the French use?

I'm sure this thread will soon turn into a flamefest rather than a reasoned discussion, but in the meantime I am just curious about that. (I am in the "I don't know enough to say for sure, but generally distrust it" camp about nuclear energy, if it matters.)

Anyway I've heard that the French use a lot of nuclear power. What happens to the waste generated from those reactors? Is what I believe true, that there is less net waste (although still some) because they use a reactor technology that hasn't been allowed for use in the US because it is supposedly more vulnerable to diversion of weapon-capable material?

[NMDemDist2]

5. here's an article on it

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/readings/french.html

[MH1]

8. Thanks, excellent article.

The final paragraph is telling:

Nuclear waste is an enormously difficult political problem which to date no country has solved. It is, in a sense, the Achilles heel of the nuclear industry. Could this issue strike down France's uniquely successful nuclear program? France's politicians and technocrats are in no doubt. If France is unable to solve this issue, says Mandil, then "I do not see how we can continue our nuclear program."

So, even the French, who are touted for their use of nuclear energy, are concerned that failing to resolve the waste issue will put an end to it.

[NMDemDist2]

10. we have one of the few long term waste facilities here in my area

and they are trying to figure out how to mark the area for future generations

several thousand future generations.

how do you plan warning signs for 100,000 years from now?

and this facility is probably one of the better ideas, but still not a total solution.

[malakai2]

11. Why not bury it in the leading edge of a subducting plate?

Use a little natural dilution on a geologic timescale, and the need for signs would seem to disappear. By the time it resurfaces, if it ever resurfaces, it will have decayed significantly, no?

[kristopher]

12. You are 100% correct

But how are you going to get the waste to the subduction zones?



Depth of Seismic Coupling Along Subduction Zones

Bart W. Tichelaar, Department of Geological Sciences, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Larry J. Ruff, Department of Geological Sciences, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/1993/92JB02045.shtml

Abstract

Underthrusting at subduction zones can cause large earthquakes at shallow depths but it is always accommodated by aseismic deformation below a certain depth. The maximum depth of the seismically coupled zone (or seismogenic zone) is a transition from unstable to stable sliding along the plate interface. We have determined the depth of this stability transition for the circurn-Pacific subduction zones of: Honshu, Kuriles, Kamchatka, Aleutians, Alaska, Mexico, and Chile. These subduction zones have experienced great interplate earthquakes and the aftershock regions are well-located. Depth estimates of interplate events that are located at the downdip edge of the aftershock regions are used to determine the maximum depth of seismic coupling. For an average P wave velocity of 6.7 km s−1 above the plate interface, we find that for most subduction zones the stability transition occurs at 40 ± 5 km depth. There are, however, several exceptions. At the Hokkaido trench junction, where the Japan trench and the Kurile trench intersect, seismic coupling is deep and extends down to 52–55 km. Deep coupling was also found in the Coquimbo region in central Chile. The Mexico subduction zone has shallow coupling: the transition occurs at 20–30 km depth. Previous studies of micro-earthquakes in Honshu, Hokkaido, the Aleutians, and Alaska show that earthquakes within the upper plate extend no deeper than the downdip edge of the coupled zone that we find. Given our measurements of seismic coupling depth, we then explore the mechanism that may determine coupling depth. The concept of critical temperature has been used to explain the depth of seismic coupling in other tectonic environments, thus we first test whether a critical temperature can explain our results. Temperatures at the plate interface are dependent on many variables; but two that are poorly determined are shear stress and radiogenic heat generation. Shear stress has been constrained by inversion of heat flow data. Assuming a crustal radiogenic heat production rate of 3.1 exp−z/8.5 μWm−3 and a constant coefficient of friction, we find two critical temperatures of about 400 ° C and 550 ° C. The lower critical temperature may be characteristic of regions with a relatively thick continental crust and the higher temperature of regions with a relatively thin continental crust. On the other hand, one single critical temperature of about 250 ° C can explain the coupling depths if shear stresses are constant with depth.

[OKIsItJustMe]

13. Not a new idea

http://www.newscientist.com/backpage.ns?id=mg18625012.700

Dump it in the mantle

28 May 2005
From New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.

Would encasing nuclear waste in concrete and then burying it in a tectonic subduction zone for Earth's mantle to consume be an effective way of disposing of it? If not, why not?

Subduction zone insertion was - one idea proposed for the disposal of radioactive waste during the early history of atomic energy. Other ideas included a serious proposal to dump canisters of waste on the Antarctic snow and leave them to melt their way to the bottom of the ice sheet.

In fact, subduction zone insertion is perfectly sound in theory, but there are significant practical problems. The zones are inherently unstable and unpredictable, and the sediment on top of the subducting ocean crust plate tends to get scraped off rather than being carried into the mantle, to form what is known as an accretionary prism. This could lead to the waste being squeezed back to the seabed in the future. Drilling it deep into the basalt of the crust may solve this, but at the depths typically encountered in subduction zones, drilling is all but impossible.

Some have proposed a more elegant seabed solution, which is to insert the waste into the deep clays that cover most of the shallower, geologically stable abyssal plains. This could be achieved either by drilling holes and slotting waste canisters into them, or by dropping waste through the ocean in rocket-shaped "penetrometers", which would use the kinetic energy of their descent to burrow many tens of metres into the soft clay. Though not without their problems, these methods have the advantage of inserting the waste into a stable, impermeable environment where any nasty leaks from the canister would be effectively absorbed by clay particles in the surrounding ooze.

However, none of the above are likely to be employed in the near future, because the disposal of radioactive waste at sea was banned under the London Dumping Convention of 1983, updated to include low-level waste in 1993.

Sam Little, Hale, Cheshire, UK

[jpak]

6. They cool spent fuel, reprocess it, then "plan" to dispose of the HLW "somewhere"

in a nutshell...

http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/factsheets/doeymp0411.shtml

<snip>

Spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste

Spent nuclear fuel is kept for one year on site in specially constructed storage pools. Following storage, spent nuclear fuel is transported to the La Hague and Marcoule reprocessing plants and stored in pools for two to three years.


Reprocessing spent nuclear fuel

France reprocesses its own spent nuclear fuel. Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Japan also send, or have sent in the past, spent nuclear fuel to France for reprocessing. High-level reprocessed waste is vitrified (solidified) and stored at La Hague for several decades, where it awaits final geologic disposal.


Transporting radioactive waste

France has more than 30 years of experience transporting radioactive waste. Spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste are shipped by rail within France; trucks carry the materials over short distances. Five ships transport the material intercoastally. Spent nuclear fuel arrives at La Hague by train in specially designed rail cars, which are admitted without restriction into normal railway traffic.


Deep geologic disposal plans

A research program to study high-level radioactive waste disposal began with legislation enacted in 1991. The French Waste Management Research Act of December 1991 authorized 15-year studies of three management options for high-level or long half-life radioactive waste. They included separation and/or transmutation, long-term storage, and geologic disposal. One site under consideration for deep geologic disposal in clay is currently being studied. The French are also searching for a granite site to research.

<more>

Cheney Wrong About French Nuclear Repository Program

http://www.ieer.org/comments/waste/chen-prl.html

Washington, D.C.: Vice-President Cheney's claim that France has a safe and environmentally sound repository for burying radioactive waste generated by nuclear power plants is wrong, according to the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER), an independent non-profit group that has published numerous technical reports, books, and papers on nuclear waste management and related issues.

In a May 8 interview with CNN on the Bush administration's proposed energy policy, the Vice-President said: "Right now we've got waste piling up at reactors all over the country. Eventually, there ought to be a permanent repository. The French do this very successfully and very safely in an environmentally sound, sane manner. We need to be able to do the same thing."

"The facts regarding the French repository program contradict Vice-President Cheney," said Dr. Arjun Makhijani, president of IEER, who has written widely on nuclear waste issues. "France has no repository, and their siting program faces huge domestic opposition. The controversy that surrounds waste management is a thorn in the side of the French nuclear industry."

The French government's schedule for a repository, like the U.S. schedule, is far too rapid for a careful scientific investigation required for estimating repository performance over hundreds of thousands of years, according to IEER. Later this year, the U.S. government hopes to declare the proposed Yucca Mountain repository site in Nevada suitable for disposing of radioactive waste, despite serious unresolved questions. The earliest U.S. government projection for opening the proposed repository is 2010. The earliest government-projected French repository opening date is 2015. Both programs have faced intense opposition.

<more>

France's Nuclear Waste Heads to Russia

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=31466

PARIS, Dec 17 (Tierramérica) - France sends thousands of tonnes of nuclear waste to Russia each year, but the details are shielded by a decree of "national security" in order to block debate on the issue, says the environmental watchdog group Greenpeace.

"This kind of traffic of nuclear waste between Western Europe and Russia has gone on for more than three decades already, and allows the big nuclear energy companies, like Electricité de France, to store their radioactive waste at extremely contaminated sites in Siberia," Greenpeace-France spokesman Grégory Gendre told Tierramérica.

On Dec. 1, some 20 activists from the environmental group tried unsuccessfully to block a 450-tonne shipment of depleted uranium from the port of Le Havre, 360 km northwest of Paris, on the Atlantic coast, to a radioactive material enrichment plant in Russia.

According to the study "La France nucléaire", published in 2002 by the World Information Service on Energy (WISE), each year the French nuclear station Eurodif, situated on the banks of the Rhone River, 700 km south of the French capital, produces 15,000 tonnes of depleted uranium.

<more>

French nuclear waste being stored in the U.S.?

http://media.cleantech.com/2162/french-nuclear-waste-being-stored-in-the-u-s

A prominent researcher shared a nuclear secret today that he said not even everyone in the U.S. Department of Energy knows.
Is the U.S., in fact, storing a large amount of nuclear waste produced by France's nuclear reactors?

That was the suggestion in a keynote today at the ThinkEquity ThinkGreen conference in San Francisco by Dr. Yogi Goswami, former President of the International Solar Energy Society, and prolific author and University of Florida professor.

"One small bit of information that most people don’t know, even in our Department of Energy: a large majority of the nuclear waste from France is actually shipped to the U.S.," Goswami said.

<more>

Vive la Nucleair Waste: France Deals with Legacies of its Nuclear Programs

http://energypriorities.com/entries/2005/03/france_nuke_was.php

France gets the majority of its power from nuclear reactors. In the mid 1950s, over feeble public dissent, the country's leadership made that commitment.

Today, France is dealing with the legacy of its nuclear programs. Waste is stored in large facilities, while scientists search for ways to make it less deadly.

Parliament issued a report in March, 2005, on the issue of France's nuclear waste. Its recommendations confirm the status quo: waste storage and decontamination research.

The cost of waste disposal -- hundreds of billions of euros -- is being passed along to ratepayers. High rates aren't the only legacy of 50 years of nuclear power. Citizens and scientists alike are concerned about security, groundwater contamination, and storage.

<more>

Bottom line: they have no solution to the problems associated with spent reactor fuel...

[madokie]

7. I'm sure a lot of time and money has been spent this last half century

toward finding a solution. Its either there is no answers or they really haven't been looking too hard in the first place. Now why would I think they would lie to me about that?
If radiation wasn't so deadly serious the thought of using it to produce our electricity would be laughable.

[MH1]

9. Thanks

I appreciate the information.

It does seem like a difficult problem, that the nuclear industry profiteers would rather we not think about.