Nuclear Power

[interstitial]

In a risk assessment where Risk =  Probability x Consequence, storing nuclear waste has two problems:

The Consequence of a leak will always be very high

The timescale is so long – decades or centuries - so the Probability is difficult to ascertain, it’s beyond the foreseeable future.

Hanford radioactive waste is in tanks the plan is vitrification (mixing with glass) and bury it in stable region with no water incursions or geology for a 100000 + years. The glass is a solid so it cant spill break it and you expose a new face along the fracture but no spill. This could have been done a decade or more ago. It is still radioactive but it would not be mobile. It stays were you put it even for 100000+ years. The anti nuclear lobby has fought mixing it with glass at every step. Yuca mountain was studied as a burial site. It was excavated. Yuca mountain is the most studied mountain in the world. It was determined that for something like 99% of the time they were confident that it would be geologically stable and no aquifer would come close to the site. For the very last bit the probability of something happening resulting in water permeating the tunnel barely exceeded the desired probability. At the tale end of the storage period the consequence of exposure is much lower because most of the radioactivity will have decayed by then.

The sight had all of its space allocated. The US has more waste than that. The Yuca mountain site was removed from the list of potential storage fights for political reasons. At the current pace of vitrification it will be 100 + years to clean up Hanford. All the while contamination in the region is increasing.

I get why the anti nuclear people are doing what they are doing I just don't agree with their tactics.

[sidd]

Re:  The anti nuclear lobby has fought mixing it with glass at every step

Cite ? I am familiar with the blockage of Yucca mountain, but i was unaware that anyone is opposing vitrification.

sidd

[Iain]

The measures outlined in #1500 sound sound pretty thorough.

But we can’t rule out a political/religious/plain insane group or regime in 10, 100, 1000+ years hence deciding they are right to use “dirty” bombs – conventional explosive jacketed with the waste.

There are many recent examples of despots arising with ideology the RoW considered to be crackpot,

There have been civil wars in the UK, USA and many other countries.

That’s the thing about RAs – the one you never thought of comes back to bite you.

[interstitial]

They are not specifically opposed to vitrification they just keep pushing for increased requirements. I don't think it has had much coverage. I heard it  from people who work their or have worked their. Some have speculated that the company doing the clean up Bechtell is encouraging this because they are on a cost plus contract. I do not have any idea if this is true.


US Plans to shut down 5.13 GW of nuclear plant capacity this year or about 8.4% of capacity. Exelon Nuclear is shutting down 4.1 GW of that  in Illinois.

[Iain]

Can the shut down plant itself be used for storage of the vitrified blocks - stack them inside the containment dome until full and pour concrete in from the top to encase them.

[Tor Bejnar]

I recall from 30 years ago one problem with vitrification is that it expands the waste volume considerably, and as glass has a limited effective life span, what do you do then?

I just did an internet search and found:

New evaluations described in the preliminary report on supplemental treatment options show that high performance grout and steam reforming might keep radionuclides from escaping better than glass.

And from here:

Vitrification allows the immobilization of the waste for thousands of years.

When they truthfully write "... genuine immobilization of the waste for over one hundred thousand years," I'll be comforted. 

[Sciguy]

Vitrification shares a similar characteristic with many nuclear technologies such as fusion, molten salt reactors, small modular reactors and thorium reactors.  All seem like magical solutions that will solve all of our problems.  None of them have been built and in practice are so expensive that they'll likely never be built.  (Although fusion is only two decades away )

[sidd]

Some vitrification is ongoing Some examples:

https://www.nwtrb.gov/docs/default-source/facts-sheets/vitrified_hlw.pdf?sfvrsn=16

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/284156723_French_Industrial_Vitrification_Plant_30_Years_old_Robust_and_still_Innovating

sidd

[Sciguy]

Only a small portion of France's nuclear waste can be vitrified.  The nastiest stuff has to be stored in stainless steel containers and locked away for thousands of years.

https://www.edf.fr/en/the-edf-group/producing-climate-friendly-energy/nuclear-energy/our-expertise/radioactive-waste

The 90% of least radioactive waste is sealed in drums, metal boxes or concrete containers. Final storage is handled at three Andra centres located in the Manche and Aube departments.

The 10% of most radioactive waste is currently conditioned in stainless steel containers and placed in intermediate storage at AREVA’s La Hague plant. Given its half life of up to several tens of thousands of years, the law provides for the containers’ transfer to a deep geological disposal facility (Cigéo). Being built at the boundary of the Meuse and Haute Marne departments, Cigéo is expected to open in 2025. Waste will be stored in cells excavated at a depth of 500 metres in a stable geological environment surrounded by impermeable argillaceous rock. Another repository is currently being designed to store power plant decommissioning waste.

EDF does vitrify nuclear waste produced by its British plants.  The vitrified waste must still be locked away for eons in geologically isolated storage facilities.

In the UK, where legislation is different, EDF Energy works with the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), which is responsible for waste storage. Low and intermediate level waste is retained in dedicated facilities within the power plants and ultimately compacted, incinerated or recycled.

High-level waste is currently vitrified and placed in intermediate storage at the Sellafield reprocessing plant. The British government took a decision in 2006 to ultimately store it in deep geological repositories.

[interstitial]

France reprocesses their spent fuel substantially reducing the volume of waste and reducing the time that waste is dangerous by an order of magnitude. This also reduces the need for new fuel.


New baseload power needs should be met with new deep well geothermal techniques not nuclear.

[BeeKnees]

6 months delay and an extra £500m. 

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-nuclearpower-edf/edf-announces-delay-price-rise-for-uk-nuclear-plant-idUSKBN29W0NV

[vox_mundi]

On this day in 1955, the U.S. military wanted to know how soldiers would react “under the anticipated conditions of nuclear warfare” so it sent several thousand to the Nevada Test Site for a series of 14 detonations that ran through the middle of May. The first of those, designated nuclear shot “Wasp,” happened on this day 66 years ago. NBC News has more about the veterans who survived those tests

https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/hidden-history-americas-atomic-veterans/2230879/

... “They wanted to see how live soldiers would stand up to being exposed to radiation,” Bolden recalls. “Prior to using live soldiers they were using mannequins. But you don’t get real results from using mannequins as you would live bodies.”

... “They don’t tell you what you’re gonna be facing,” he said. “No one there knew what they were gonna be facing.”

... All races of military personnel participated in Operation Teapot. But upon arrival in Nevada, Bolden was stunned to realize all the other soldiers in his new unit specially selected for a mystery assignment were also black.

“There was this myth about black people being able to withstand, tolerate certain things more than any other race,” he says. “So it was a test on that also.”

On a February morning, Bolden’s unit was ordered into a trench in the desert. Unbeknownst to them, it was dug in the predicted path of the fallout, just 2.8 miles away from what would become ground zero for an atomic bomb drop.

... “They tell you to cover your eyes,” he says.

“With the radiation, when you put your arms across your eyes or your hands, you actually see the bones, you see the bones in your body from the exposure. You can see your skeleton.”

After the fallout came the warning.

“You are sworn an oath not to talk about it,” Bolden said. Soldiers were threatened with imprisonment and fines for violating the oath. [... unlike presidents, senators and congressmen]

[vox_mundi]

Water Leaks Indicate New Damage at Fukushima Nuclear Plant
https://techxplore.com/news/2021-02-leaks-fukushima-nuclear.html

Cooling water levels have fallen in two reactors at the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant since a powerful earthquake hit the area last weekend, indicating possible additional damage, its operator said Friday.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. spokesman Keisuke Matsuo said the drop in water levels in the Unit 1 and 3 reactors indicates that the existing damage to their primary containment chambers was worsened by Saturday's magnitude 7.3 quake, allowing more water to leak.

Matsuo said the cooling water level fell as much as 70 centimeters (27 inches) in the primary containment chamber of the Unit 1 reactor and about 30 centimeters (11 inches) in Unit 3. TEPCO wasn't able to determine any decline in Unit 2 because indicators have been taken out to prepare for the removal of melted debris, it said.

Increased leakage could require more cooling water to be pumped into the reactors, which would result in more contaminated water that is treated and stored in huge tanks at the plant. TEPCO says its storage capacity of 1.37 million tons will be full next summer.

[longwalks1]

My friend and fellow jail inmate (ex jail) posted his take on the 10th anniversary of Fukushima at Counterpunch.   John LaForge.  Nuckewatch

Here is a different take on it from Bellona

https://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2021-03-10-years-after-fukushima-the-nuclear-industry-still-lacks-the-publics-trust

Where does Japan’s nuclear go from here?

Despite the public opposition to nuclear power, Japan’s current leadership has not given up on it. Shinzo Abe, prime minister from 2012 to 2020, was a supporter, but during his tenure, most reactors remained mothballed while undergoing stricter safety inspections.

Twenty-one reactors of the country’s 54 were decommissioned after the disaster, and of the 33 that deemed operable by the Nuclear Regulatory Authority, the agency has only approved nine for restarts. Of those, only four have become operational again after going through an additional post-Fukushima rigor that requires local governments to sign off on all restarts.

And they post a link to a Nature comment piece

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00580-4

Nuclear energy, ten years after Fukushima
Amid the urgent need to decarbonize, the industry that delivers one-tenth of global electricity must consult the public on reactor research, design, regulation, location and waste.
Aditi Verma, Ali Ahmad & Francesca Giovannini

Both articles both fairly nuanced.   
As always, I do like to check in on the Barnents Observer and also Bellona.   

[gerontocrat]

A cynic might infer that here is a reason why the UK remains committed to nuclear power.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/15/cap-on-trident-nuclear-warhead-stockpile-to-rise-by-more-than-40
Cap on Trident nuclear warhead stockpile to rise by more than 40%

Exclusive: Boris Johnson announcement on Tuesday will end 30 years of gradual disarmament[/size]

Britain is lifting the cap on the number of Trident nuclear warheads it can stockpile by more than 40%, Boris Johnson will announce on Tuesday, ending 30 years of gradual disarmament since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The increased limit, from 180 to 260 warheads, is contained in a leaked copy of the integrated review of defence and foreign policy, seen by the Guardian. It paves the way for a controversial £10bn rearmament in response to perceived threats from Russia and China.

[BeeKnees]

This is pretty damning.  The section on why operators keep loss making reactors running rather than have to put the clean up costs on the books and the failure to plan for this is important information.

https://www.dw.com/en/nuclear-climate-mycle-schneider-renewables/a-56712368

.Today we need to put the question of urgency first. It's about how much we can reduce greenhouse gases and how quickly for every euro ($1.21) spent. So, it's a combination between cost and feasibility, while doing it in the fastest possible way.

And if we're talking about the construction of new power plants, then nuclear power is simply excluded. Not just because it is the most expensive form of electricity generation today, but, above all, because it takes a long time to build reactors. In other words, every euro invested in new nuclear power plants makes the climate crisis worse because now this money cannot be used to invest in efficient climate protection options.

What about existing nuclear power plants?

The power plants exist, they provide electricity. However, many of the measures needed for energy efficiency are now cheaper than the basic operating costs of nuclear power plants. That is the first point, and unfortunately it is always forgotten.

The second point is that renewables today have become so cheap that in many cases they are below the basic operating costs of nuclear power plants.

[sidd]

Nice article:

Money quotes:

"The main reason is that an operating nuclear power plant generates income. As soon as a nuclear power plant is decommissioned, liabilities appear in the balance sheet and additional expenses appear."

"an example of this in Japan. If often took years to officially close nuclear power plants because companies could not afford to remove these plants from their assets. Some of these operators would have gone bankrupt overnight."

"How much does demolition cost?

In the order of €1 billion per reactor. In France, only a third of [the required funds] have been put aside. This means the problem starts once the reactors go offline."

"What about the costs of the storage of high-level radioactive waste?"

"No one knows how much this really costs, because there is no functioning permanent storage facility"

sidd

[vox_mundi]

Whether Cold Fusion or Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions, U.S. Navy Researchers Reopen Case
https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/energy/nuclear/cold-fusion-or-low-energy-nuclear-reactions-us-navy-researchers-reopen-case

After more than three decades of simmering debate in specialized physics groups and fringe research circles, the controversy over cold fusion (sometimes called low-energy nuclear reactions or LENRs) refuses to go away. On one hand, ardent supporters have lacked the consistent, reproducible results and the theoretical underpinning needed to court mainstream acceptance. On the other, vehement detractors cannot fully ignore the anomalous results that have continued to crop up, like the evidence for so-called “lattice-confinement fusion” adduced last year by a group at NASA’s Glenn Research Center.

https://www1.grc.nasa.gov/space/science/lattice-confinement-fusion/
https://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/nuclear/nuclear-fusiontokamak-not-included

Scientists at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Indian Head Division have pulled together a group of Navy, Army, and National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) labs to try and settle the debate. Together, the labs will conduct experiments in an effort to establish if there’s really something to the cold fusion idea, if it’s just odd chemical interactions, or if some other phenomenon entirely is taking place in these controversial experiments.

Aside from the recent promising findings from NASA, Google published a paper in Nature in 2019 revealing that the company had spent US $10 million to research cold fusion since 2015. The company teamed up with researchers at institutions including MIT, the University of British Columbia, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The research group found no evidence of classic Pons-Fleischmann-style cold fusion, but it did find evidence of the larger umbrella category of LENRs—suggesting (as the NASA group also reported) that nuclear fusion may be possible in locally-hot sites in otherwise room temperature metals.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1256-6

“Quite frankly, [to] other folks who have tried this over the years, it was considered a career ender,” says Gotzmer. But the Indian Head team decided that, as a government lab, they had a little more freedom to pursue a controversial topic, so long as it also offered up the prospect of rewarding scientific results.

... Barham describes Indian Head’s role in the new project as that of an “honest broker.” “Our main task is to try and collect the data that’s going to come in from, for example, the US Naval Academy, the Army Research Laboratory, and [NIST],” Barham says. He explains that different laboratories—all together, five are participating in the investigation—can provide different detectors and other equipment suited to exploring particular research questions. Indian Head can then coordinate materials and research between labs. And when the data starts to come in, the researchers at Indian Head can not only assess the data’s quality themselves, but ensure the other labs have that data available to review as well.

The researchers say they hope to publish their initial results by the end of the year. “I think the most important thing is to reveal a mechanism by which the phenomenon works,” says Gotzmer. “Because if you understand the mechanism, then you can extrapolate into better experiments and make it more reproducible. There’s many mechanisms which have been proposed, but no one’s really nailed down completely what the nitty-gritty science is.”

[interstitial]

I figure there is some upper dimensional stuff going on with cold fusion. Either way cold fusion does not produce the heat needed to create steam so it is not useful for electricity.

[kassy]

And of course it won´t be there on time which is a general theme:

Small nuclear power plants no use in climate crisis

Governments are investing in a new range of small nuclear power plants, with little chance they’ll ease the climate crisis.

LONDON, 24 March, 2021 − Claims that a new generation of so-called advanced, safe and easier-to-build nuclear reactors − small nuclear power plants − will be vital to combat climate change are an illusion, and the idea should be abandoned, says a group of scientists.

Their report, “Advanced” is not always better, published by the US Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), examines all the proposed new types of reactor under development in the US and fails to find any that could be developed in time to help deal with the urgent need to cut carbon emissions. The US government is spending $600 million on supporting these prototypes.

While the report goes into details only about the many designs of small and medium-sized reactors being developed by US companies, it is a serious blow to the worldwide nuclear industry because the technologies are all similar to those also being underwritten by taxpayers in Canada, the UK, Russia and China. This is a market the World Economic Forum claimed in January could be worth $300 billion by 2040.

Edwin Lyman, who wrote the report, and is the director of nuclear power safety in the UCS Climate and Energy Program, thinks the WEF estimate is extremely unlikely. He comments on nuclear power in general: “The technology has fundamental safety and security disadvantages compared with other low-carbon sources.

“Nuclear reactors and their associated facilities for fuel production and waste handling are vulnerable to catastrophic accidents and sabotage, and they can be misused to produce materials for nuclear weapons. The nuclear industry, policymakers, and regulators must address these shortcomings fully if the global use of nuclear power is to increase without posing unacceptable risks to public health, the environment and international peace and security.”

Cheaper options

Lyman says none of the new reactors appears to solve any of these problems. Also, he says, the industry’s claims that their designs could cost less, be built quickly, reduce the production of nuclear waste, use uranium more efficiently and reduce the risk of nuclear proliferation have yet to be proved. The developers have also yet to demonstrate that the new generation of reactors has improved safety features enabling them to shut down quickly in the event of attack or accident.

Lyman examines the idea that reactors can be placed near cities or industry so that the waste heat from their electricity generation can be used in district heating or for industrial processes.

He says there is no evidence that the public would be keen on the idea of having nuclear power stations planted in their neighbourhoods.

Another of the industry’s ideas for using the power of the new nuclear stations to produce “green hydrogen” for use in transport or back-up energy production is technically feasible, but it seems likely that renewable energies like wind and solar could produce the hydrogen far more cheaply, the report says.

....

Governments are investing in a new range of small nuclear power plants, with little chance they’ll ease the climate crisis.

LONDON, 24 March, 2021 − Claims that a new generation of so-called advanced, safe and easier-to-build nuclear reactors − small nuclear power plants − will be vital to combat climate change are an illusion, and the idea should be abandoned, says a group of scientists.

Their report, “Advanced” is not always better, published by the US Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), examines all the proposed new types of reactor under development in the US and fails to find any that could be developed in time to help deal with the urgent need to cut carbon emissions. The US government is spending $600 million on supporting these prototypes.

While the report goes into details only about the many designs of small and medium-sized reactors being developed by US companies, it is a serious blow to the worldwide nuclear industry because the technologies are all similar to those also being underwritten by taxpayers in Canada, the UK, Russia and China. This is a market the World Economic Forum claimed in January could be worth $300 billion by 2040.

Edwin Lyman, who wrote the report, and is the director of nuclear power safety in the UCS Climate and Energy Program, thinks the WEF estimate is extremely unlikely. He comments on nuclear power in general: “The technology has fundamental safety and security disadvantages compared with other low-carbon sources.

“Nuclear reactors and their associated facilities for fuel production and waste handling are vulnerable to catastrophic accidents and sabotage, and they can be misused to produce materials for nuclear weapons. The nuclear industry, policymakers, and regulators must address these shortcomings fully if the global use of nuclear power is to increase without posing unacceptable risks to public health, the environment and international peace and security.”

Cheaper options

Lyman says none of the new reactors appears to solve any of these problems. Also, he says, the industry’s claims that their designs could cost less, be built quickly, reduce the production of nuclear waste, use uranium more efficiently and reduce the risk of nuclear proliferation have yet to be proved. The developers have also yet to demonstrate that the new generation of reactors has improved safety features enabling them to shut down quickly in the event of attack or accident.

Lyman examines the idea that reactors can be placed near cities or industry so that the waste heat from their electricity generation can be used in district heating or for industrial processes.

He says there is no evidence that the public would be keen on the idea of having nuclear power stations planted in their neighbourhoods.

Another of the industry’s ideas for using the power of the new nuclear stations to produce “green hydrogen” for use in transport or back-up energy production is technically feasible, but it seems likely that renewable energies like wind and solar could produce the hydrogen far more cheaply, the report says.

The report notes that it is not just the US that is having trouble with nuclear technology: Europe is also suffering severe delays and cost overruns with new plants at Olkiluoto in Finland, Flamanville in France and Hinkley Point C in the UK.

Lyman’s comments might be of interest to the British government, which has just published its integrated review of defence and foreign policy.

Military link declared

In it the government linked the future of the civil and defence nuclear capabilities of the country, showing that a healthy civil sector was important for propping up the military. This is controversial because of the government’s decision announced in the same review to increase the number of nuclear warheads from 180 to 260, threatening an escalation of the international arms race.

Although Lyman does not mention it, there is a clear crossover between civil and nuclear industries in the US, the UK, China, Russia and France. This is made more obvious because of the few countries that have renounced nuclear weapons − for example only Germany, Italy and Spain have shown no interest in building any kind of nuclear station. This is simply because renewables are cheaper and produce low carbon power far more quickly.

But the link between civil and defence nuclear industries does explain why in the UK the government is spending £215m ($298m) on research and development into the civil use of the small medium reactors championed by a consortium headed by Rolls-Royce, which is also one of the country’s major defence contractors. Rolls-Royce wants to build 16 of these reactors in a factory and assemble them in various parts of the country. It is also looking to sell them into Europe to gain economies of scale.

Judging by the UCS analysis, this deployment of as yet unproven new nuclear technologies is unlikely to be in time to help the climate crisis – one of the claims that both the US and UK governments and Rolls-Royce itself are making. − Climate News Network

https://climatenewsnetwork.net/small-nuclear-power-plants-no-use-in-climate-crisis/

[vox_mundi]

Portable Nuclear Reactor Project Moves Forward at Pentagon
https://www.defensenews.com/smr/energy-and-environment/2021/03/23/portable-nuclear-reactor-project-moves-forward-at-pentagon/



WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has selected two companies to move forward with developing small, portable nuclear reactors for military use in the field.

https://www.cto.mil/pele_eis/

BWXT Advanced Technologies and X-energy were chosen by the department’s Strategic Capabilities Office to continue on with Project Pele, which seeks to develop a reactor of 1- to 5-megawatt output that can last at least three years at full power. In addition, the reactors must be designed to operate within three days of delivery and be safely removed in as few as seven days if needed.

Overview: https://gain.inl.gov/GAINEPRINEI_MicroreactorProgramVirtualWorkshopPres/Day-2%2520Presentations/Day-2-am.02-Nichols_PeleProgOverviewPublicMarch2020,19Aug2020.pdf

... The Pentagon has long eyed nuclear power as a potential way to reduce both its energy cost and its vulnerability in its dependence on local energy grids. According to a news release, the Defense Department uses “approximately 30 Terawatt-hours of electricity per year and more than 10 million gallons of fuel per day.”

According to an October 2018 technical report by the Nuclear Energy Institute, 90 percent of military installations have “an average annual energy use that can be met by an installed capacity of nuclear power” of 40 MWe (megawatt electrical) or less.

Report: https://www.nei.org/CorporateSite/media/filefolder/resources/reports-and-briefs/Road-map-micro-reactors-department-defense-201810.pdf

The Biden administration is expected to pursue alternative energy options across the Pentagon, with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin pledging to lower the department’s carbon footprint and to consider climate impact in strategic decisions. Whether nuclear energy will prove a way forward or not may depend on whether the taboo around nuclear power can be assuaged for local defense communities and members of Congress.

Project Pele is not the only attempt at introducing small nuclear reactors to the Pentagon’s inventory; a second effort is being run through the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment. That effort, ordered in the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, involves a pilot program aimed at demonstrating the efficacy of a small nuclear reactor in the 2- to 10-MWe range, with initial testing at a Department of Energy site around 2023.

While Project Pele is focused on the potential for deployable nuclear reactors, the acquisition and sustainment effort is focused on domestic military installations, with the goal of being operational by 2027.


American companies Westinghouse (0.2-5 MWe), NuScale (1-10 MWe), and UltraSafe Nuclear (5 MWe) are all developing reactors with less than 10 MWe output, while Sweden’s LeadCold (3-10 MW3) and a U.K. consortium led by Urenco (4 MWe) are also working on developing similar systems

However, Edwin Lyman, director of the Nuclear Safety Project at the Union of Concerned Scientists, has concerns about the availability of fuel to power a proliferation of small nuclear reactors. He noted, "there are no clear plans for manufacturing the quantity of high-assay low enriched uranium, much less the production of high-quality TRISO [TRi-structural ISOtropic particle] fuel, that would be able to meet timelines this decade.”

Lyman believes that the department’s past efforts have “consistently underestimated”the “spectrum of mission risks posed by these microreactors," mostly around the technical challenges of keeping the radioactive fuel safe and operational in battlefield conditions.

“Fielding these reactors without commanders fully understanding the radiological consequences and developing robust response plans to cope with the aftermath could prove to be a disastrous miscalculation,” warned Lyman.

https://www.defensenews.com/smr/nuclear-arsenal/2020/03/09/pentagon-to-award-mobile-nuclear-reactor-contracts-this-week/

https://mobile.twitter.com/LosAlamosNatLab/status/1096547273704538112


... the keys are in the truck, and the engines running. What could go wrong?

[vox_mundi]

U.S.Navy Labs To Reopen The Once Taboo Case On Nuclear Cold Fusion
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/40105/navy-labs-to-reopen-the-case-on-once-taboo-cold-fusion

Researchers at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Indian Head Division have reopened the case on low-energy nuclear reactions, or LENRs, largely unexplained phenomena that are at the core of theories about "cold fusion." Five different government-funded laboratories under the control of the U.S. Navy, U.S. Army, and National Institutes of Standards and Technology will conduct experiments in an attempt to once and for all settle the debate over this little-understood and highly controversial topic. Despite the controversy and stigma associated with LENR, many experts across the U.S. military believe that the science behind them is sound, and if working technologies can someday be developed, it could transform military operations to an extent not seen in over a century.

... Enough researchers believe there is at least something to LENRs and that the topic is worth a serious second look. The 2016 Scientific American guest blog “It's Not Cold Fusion... But It's Something” claims that “Hidden in the confusion are many scientific reports, some of them published in respectable peer-reviewed journals, showing a wide variety of experimental evidence” for LENRs, “including transmutations of elements.”

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/its-not-cold-fusion-but-its-something/

The same article states that studies have also shown that LENRs “can produce local surface temperatures of 4,000-5,000 K and boil metals (palladium, nickel and tungsten) in small numbers of scattered microscopic sites on the surfaces of laboratory devices.” A more recent theory suggests that LENR reactions have nothing to do with fusion at all, and instead are produced by weak interaction and are perfectly consistent with known physics.

The Naval Surface Warfare Center, Indian Head Division seeks to get to the bottom of the LENR phenomenon with an honest look at the available data and by conducting new experiments. NSWC Indian Head specializes in energetics, a branch of research involving the development and testing of explosives, propellants, pyrotechnics, fuels, and other reactive materials as they pertain to propulsion and weaponry.  ... the lab will serve as an “honest broker” that will reexamine decades’ worth of data collected by the U.S. Naval Academy, the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL), and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

The Department of Defense (DOD), as a whole, has been interested in LENR research for some time. Previously, the Navy’s LENR research was conducted at Naval Air Weapons Station (NAWS) China Lake and Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) Systems Center - Pacific. According to LENR subject matter expert and author Steven Krivit, SPAWAR “produced some of the most interesting experiments and observations in the field and published more LENR papers in mainstream journals than any U.S. LENR group.” SPAWAR’s LENR research was terminated in 2011.



Just two years prior, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) published a report on LENR research which stated that based on the available scientific data from around the world, "nuclear reactions may be occurring under conditions not previously believed possible." The report states that Italy and Japan lead international research on the topic, and that the stigma associated with the topic in the United States means that most of the information surrounding LENR is presented at international conferences, with U.S. data in the hands of foreign scientists.

... DIA ultimately concluded in 2009 that "if nuclear reactions in LENR experiments are real and controllable, whoever produces the first commercialized LENR power source could revolutionize energy production and storage for the future" and that "the potential applications of this phenomenon, if commercialized, are unlimited." The report goes on to state that LENR could lead to batteries that last for decades, revolutionizing power for sensors and military operations in remote areas and/or space, and that "the military potential of such high-energy-density power sources is enormous," potentially leading to "the greatest transformation of the battlefield for U.S. forces since the transition from horsepower to gasoline power." ...

... NSWC Indian Head plans to publish their initial results on their LENR experiments and reviews of data by the end of the year.

---------------------------------------------



---------------------------------------------

Whether Cold Fusion or Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions, U.S. Navy Researchers Reopen Case
https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/energy/nuclear/cold-fusion-or-low-energy-nuclear-reactions-us-navy-researchers-reopen-case

... Aside from the recent promising findings from NASA, Google published a paper in Nature in 2019 revealing that the company had spent US $10 million to research cold fusion since 2015. The company teamed up with researchers at institutions including MIT, the University of British Columbia, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The research group found no evidence of classic Pons-Fleischmann-style cold fusion, but it did find evidence of the larger umbrella category of LENRs—suggesting (as the NASA group also reported) that nuclear fusion may be possible in locally-hot sites in otherwise room temperature metals.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1256-6

[vox_mundi]

Nuclear Reactions Are Smoldering Again at Chernobyl, 'It’s Like the Embers In a Barbecue Pit.’
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/05/nuclear-reactions-reawaken-chernobyl-reactor



Thirty-five years after the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine exploded in the world’s worst nuclear accident, fission reactions are smoldering again in uranium fuel masses buried deep inside a mangled reactor hall. “It’s like the embers in a barbecue pit,” says Neil Hyatt, a nuclear materials chemist at the University of Sheffield. Now, Ukrainian scientists are scrambling to determine whether the reactions will wink out on their own—or require extraordinary interventions to avert another accident.

Sensors are tracking a rising number of neutrons, a signal of fission, streaming from one inaccessible room, Anatolii Doroshenko of the Institute for Safety Problems of Nuclear Power Plants (ISPNPP) in Kyiv, Ukraine, reported last week during discussions about dismantling the reactor. “There are many uncertainties,” says ISPNPP’s Maxim Saveliev. “But we can’t rule out the possibility of [an] accident.” The neutron counts are rising slowly, Saveliev says, suggesting managers still have a few years to figure out how to stifle the threat. Any remedy he and his colleagues come up with will be of keen interest to Japan, which is coping with the aftermath of its own nuclear disaster 10 years ago at Fukushima, Hyatt notes. “It’s a similar magnitude of hazard.”

The specter of self-sustaining fission, or criticality, in the nuclear ruins has long haunted Chernobyl. When part of the Unit Four reactor’s core melted down on 26 April 1986, uranium fuel rods, their zirconium cladding, graphite control rods, and sand dumped on the core to try to extinguish the fire melted together into a lava. It flowed into the reactor hall’s basement rooms and hardened into formations called fuel-containing materials (FCMs), which are laden with about 170 tons of irradiated uranium—95% of the original fuel.



... Because water slows, or moderates, neutrons and thus enhances their odds of striking and splitting uranium nuclei, heavy rains would sometimes send neutron counts soaring.  After a downpour in June 1990, a “stalker”—a scientist at Chernobyl who risks radiation exposure to venture into the damaged reactor hall—dashed in and sprayed gadolinium nitrate solution, which absorbs neutrons, on an FCM that he and his colleagues feared might go critical. Several years later, the plant installed gadolinium nitrate sprinklers in the Shelter’s roof. But the spray can’t effectively penetrate some basement rooms.

Chernobyl officials presumed any criticality risk would fade when the massive New Safe Confinement (NSC) was slid over the Shelter in November 2016. 

But they began to edge up in a few spots, nearly doubling over 4 years in room 305/2, which contains tons of FCMs buried under debris. ISPNPP modeling suggests the drying of the fuel is somehow making neutrons ricocheting through it more, rather than less, effective at splitting uranium nuclei. “It’s believable and plausible data,” Hyatt says. “It’s just not clear what the mechanism might be.”

[NeilT]

I was engaged by Serco to work at ESA when Serco were in progress of building the new containment area, so I heard quite a lot about it.  Also, when I left the Army and went back to college, I did one of my projects on the origins and drivers of nuclear power in the UK.

One of the things I did was to write to the IAEA and ask for available information on the Chernobyl disaster.  What I got back was more than 100 pages of dense report on the entire incident, how it happened, what caused it and other data.

In short, if you want to remove almost every safety control on a nuclear reactor and then "play" with it to see how it responds, then you can pretty much expect a disaster.  Especially when you have political officers in the mix.

This is hardly the norm for modern Nuclear power.  Fukushima was an outlier in that the disaster which struck it was simply not envisioned when it was built.

Hinckley point C is built to withstand a larger impact than Fukushima and carries enough on site auxiliary generating power to run the pumps until outside power lines can be laid in from the general grid.

You can be absolutely certain that nobody will be able to do to Hinckley point C what they did to Chernobyl.

We have learned the reality of "there is no off switch" when the brown sticky stuff hits the whirly thing during Nuclear reactor operation.  So safety and security systems are built in and hardened to ensure these things do not happen again.

The mistakes will take generations to clean up.  It does not mean we will repeat.

[Tom_Mazanec]

The Great Turning Point for Humankind: What if Nuclear Energy had not been Abandoned in the 1970s?
https://thesenecaeffect.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-great-turning-point-for-humankind.html

But we would have faced a completely different range of problems. Had the nuclearization plan been carried out, the amounts of fissile material available in the world would have been multiplied by one or two orders of magnitude and it is almost unthinkable that it would stay out of the hands of the many petty tyrants, fanatical religious leaders, and assorted psychopaths who tend to crave for that kind of things. Consider also that nuclear plants (especially breeders) offer a delicious target for military and terrorist attacks, and you may imagine what kind of strategic problems we could have today. The "nuclear winter" scenario proposed in the 1990s, was demonized, but never really debunked. And that without mentioning the possibility of the mismanagement of the nuclear wastes and the fact that plutonium is the most poisonous substance known to humans.

[vox_mundi]

The Military’s Mobile Nuclear Reactor Prototype Is Set To Begin Taking Shape
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/40914/the-militarys-mobile-nuclear-reactor-prototype-is-set-to-begin-taking-shape

The Office of The Secretary of Defense (OSD) has requested $60 million dollars for Project Pele, which is aimed at developing a new, transportable nuclear microreactor to provide high-output, resilient power for a wide variety of Department of Defense (DOD) missions. The DOD hopes to beginning working on a prototype reactor design, which will hopefully be able to eventually produce one to five megawatts of electricity and operate at peak power for at least three years, in the next fiscal year.

The request for funding for Project Pele is found in the Pentagon's proposed budget for the 2022 Fiscal Year, which was released on May 28, 2021.

The budget documents say that the goals for Project Pele in the 2022 Fiscal Year are to "complete the design phase and prepare for construction of a 1-5 Megawatt electric transportable nuclear microreactor." In addition, it notes that "due to the nature of this project, specific applications and detailed plans are available at a higher classification level."

According to DOD requirements, the prototype should be able to be up and running within three days of delivery and be able to be safely powered down and removed in only a week.

... U.S. Army leadership has previously stated that it wants its brigades to be self-sufficient for a week without the need for resupply, and there have been previous calls for microreactors that could fit inside existing platforms such as the C-17 Globemaster. Meanwhile, Lockheed Martin and other laboratories continue work on the lofty goal of developing miniaturized fusion reactors.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/20289/china-touts-fusion-progress-as-new-details-on-lockheed-martins-reactor-emerge

[BeeKnees]

UK Nuclear power stations are dying faster than expected.

Five of the UKs eight power stations will be gone within the next three years, max capacity will be around 3GW. 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/dungeness-b-nuclear-power-station-beyond-repair-7kpfwxqd2

[NevB]

The Military’s Mobile Nuclear Reactor Prototype Is Set To Begin Taking Shape
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/40914/the-militarys-mobile-nuclear-reactor-prototype-is-set-to-begin-taking-shape

The Office of The Secretary of Defense (OSD) has requested $60 million dollars for Project Pele, which is aimed at developing a new, transportable nuclear microreactor to provide high-output, resilient power for a wide variety of Department of Defense (DOD) missions. The DOD hopes to beginning working on a prototype reactor design, which will hopefully be able to eventually produce one to five megawatts of electricity and operate at peak power for at least three years, in the next fiscal year.

The request for funding for Project Pele is found in the Pentagon's proposed budget for the 2022 Fiscal Year, which was released on May 28, 2021.

The budget documents say that the goals for Project Pele in the 2022 Fiscal Year are to "complete the design phase and prepare for construction of a 1-5 Megawatt electric transportable nuclear microreactor." In addition, it notes that "due to the nature of this project, specific applications and detailed plans are available at a higher classification level."

According to DOD requirements, the prototype should be able to be up and running within three days of delivery and be able to be safely powered down and removed in only a week.

... U.S. Army leadership has previously stated that it wants its brigades to be self-sufficient for a week without the need for resupply, and there have been previous calls for microreactors that could fit inside existing platforms such as the C-17 Globemaster. Meanwhile, Lockheed Martin and other laboratories continue work on the lofty goal of developing miniaturized fusion reactors.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/20289/china-touts-fusion-progress-as-new-details-on-lockheed-martins-reactor-emerge

Nuclear reactor in a combat zone what could go wrong.

[interstitial]

They want to decarbonize the military. If you make military vehicles run on electricity you need a portable generator. Having said that a reactor in a combat zone is risky.

[Rodius]

They want to decarbonize the military. If you make military vehicles run on electricity you need a portable generator. Having said that a reactor in a combat zone is risky.

Are we going to have green wars now? 

[interstitial]

They want to decarbonize the military. If you make military vehicles run on electricity you need a portable generator. Having said that a reactor in a combat zone is risky.

Are we going to have green wars now? 

No but despite partisan politics the US military has repeatedly cited climate change as a global destabilizing influence and they have been looking for ways to reduce their impact. they were less vocal about it during the trump administration.

[vox_mundi]

US Assessing Reported Leak at Chinese Nuclear Power Facility
https://techxplore.com/news/2021-06-french-nuclear-firm-issue-china.html

The US government is assessing a report of a leak at the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant after the French company, Framatome, warned of an "imminent radiological threat" at the plant it part-owns in China's southern Guangdong province

Framatome—a subsidiary of French energy giant EDF—said in a statement to AFP that it is "supporting resolution of a performance issue" at the plant.

EDF later said that there was an "increase in the concentration of certain noble gases (argon, helium and neon) in the primary circuit of reactor no. 1" at Taishan, referring to a part of the reactor's cooling system.

The firm added that it had requested an extraordinary meeting of the power plant's board "for management to present all the data and the necessary decisions".

... Framatome reached out to the US government for assistance, the document indicates, because a Chinese government agency was continuing to increase its limits on the amount of gas that could safely be released from the facility without shutting it down, according to the documents.

"To ensure off-site dose limits are maintained within acceptable bounds to not cause undue harm to the surrounding population, TNPJVC (operator of Taishan-1) is required to comply with an regulatory limit and otherwise shut the reactor down if such a limit is exceeded," the June 8 memo reads.

It notes that this limit was established at a level consistent with what is dictated by the French safety authority, but "due to the increasing number of failures," China's safety authority, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has since revised the limit to more than double the initial release, "which in turn increases off-site risk to the public and on-site workers."

As of May 30, the Taishan reactor had reached 90% of the allegedly revised limit, the memo adds, noting concerns the plant operator may be "petitioning the NNSA to further increase the shutdown limit on an exigent basis in an effort to keep running which in turn would continue to increase the risk to the off-site population and the workers at the plant site."

The NNSA is a semi-autonomous agency in China responsible for enhancing national security through the military application of nuclear and radiation science.

Concern was significant enough that the US National Security Council held multiple meetings this week as they monitored the situation, including two at the deputy level and another gathering at the assistant secretary level on Friday.

... Powered up in 2018, the Taishan plant was the first worldwide to operate a next-generation EPR nuclear reactor, a pressurised water design that has been subject to years of delays in similar European projects in Britain, France and Finland.

China has expanded its use of nuclear energy in recent years, and it represents about 5% of all power generated in the country. According to China Nuclear Energy Association, there were 16 operational nuclear plants with 49 nuclear reactors in China as of March 2021, with the total generation capacity of 51,000 megawatts.



The city of Taishan has a population of 950,000 and is situated in the southeast of the country in Guangdong province, which is home to 126 million residents and has a GDP of $1.6 trillion, comparable to that of Russia and South Korea.

[vox_mundi]

China Blames Minor Fuel Rod Damage for Nuclear Plant Issues
https://techxplore.com/news/2021-06-china-blames-minor-fuel-rod.html

A handful of damaged fuel rods is behind a build-up of radioactive gases at a nuclear power station in southern China, authorities said Wednesday, describing the problem as "common" with no need for concern. (... happens all the time? )

... There has been an increase in radioactivity in one of the plant's two nuclear power units due to five damaged fuel rods, said a joint statement by China's environment ministry and the National Nuclear Safety Administration.

"Due to the influence of uncontrollable factors in fuel manufacturing, transportation, loading and other links, a small amount of fuel rod damage is inevitable," said the statement, calling it a "common phenomenon".

... The ministry said that the increase in radioactivity is "within the permitted range of stable operation" for nuclear power plants, and "there is no issue of radioactive leakage to the environment".

-----------------------------------------

... “What does the dosimeter say?”

“3.6 roentgen, but that’s as high as the meter… “

“3.6 not great, not terrible. We did everything right.”

- Chernobyl - (2019)

[vox_mundi]

Iran’s Sole Nuclear Power Plant Undergoes Emergency Shutdown
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1880081/middle-east

TEHRAN: Iran’s sole nuclear power plant has undergone an unexplained temporary emergency shutdown, state TV reported on Sunday.

An official from the state electric energy company, Gholamali Rakhshanimehr, said on a talk show that the Bushehr plant shutdown began on Saturday and would last “for three to four days.”

He said that power outages could result. He did not elaborate but this is the first time Iran has reported an emergency shutdown of the plant, located in the southern port city of Bushehr. It went online in 2011 with help from Russia. Iran is required to send spent fuel rods from the reactor back to Russia as a nuclear nonproliferation measure.

In March, nuclear official Mahmoud Jafari said the plant could stop working since Iran cannot procure parts and equipment for it from Russia due to banking sanctions imposed by the US in 2018.

Bushehr is fueled by uranium produced in Russia, not Iran, and is monitored by the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency. The IAEA did not immediately respond to request for comment on the reported shutdown.

The plant, which sits near active fault lines and was built to withstand powerful quakes, has been periodically shaken by temblors. There have been no significant earthquakes reported in the area in recent days.

[morganism]

Transmutex transforms nuclear waste into clean energy

Geneva-based start-up Transmutex is developing technologies combining a proton accelerator and a subcritical thorium reactor (an alternative fuel to uranium) to transmute the most dangerous nuclear waste into stable elements for producing electricity and hydrogen.

https://www.s-ge.com/en/article/news/20203-cleantech-transmutex
Using technologies tested at CERN and at the Paul Scherrer Institute, the start-up offers a more secure design of reactor than those in operation today as well as the ability to reduce the dangerousness of the most radioactive waste by a factor of 1,000. The process of "transmutation" involves bombarding the atoms of long-lived waste with fast neutrons to transform them into stable elements while producing energy."

[morganism]

Portable Nuclear Reactor Program Sparks Controversy

The reactor is being designed to deliver 1 to 5 megawatts of electrical power for at least three years of operation, according to the SCO.

The concept for the reactors began with the requirement that they would run off of tristructural isotropic particle fuel, or TRISO, Waksman said.

Each TRISO particle is made up of a uranium, carbon and oxygen fuel kernel which is encapsulated by three layers of carbon- and ceramic-based materials that prevent the release of radioactive products, according to the Department of Energy.

“TRISO fuel was originally developed by the Department of Energy to be a meltdown-proof fuel,” Waksman noted. “They wanted a fuel that could withstand very high temperatures without melting, and it has been tested to 1,800 Celsius, which is hotter than the melting point of steel.”

The fuel has two secondary benefits for the Pentagon, the first being its resiliency to proliferation which can help deter the reactors from being targets for bombings or attacks. “We believe that the encapsulation of the fuel makes it very unattractive for those purposes,” Waksman said.The other benefit stems from its encapsulated deficient product gases, he said."

https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2021/6/28/portable-nuclear-reactor-program-sparks-controversy

[vox_mundi]

^ already posted 3 weeks ago

https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,776.msg311459.html#msg311459

[sidd]

Re: Transmutex

This is the old (1993) Rubbia proposal refurbished, but none have yet been built

https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,776.msg208520.html#msg208520

I kinda like it, one way to burn nuke waste.

sidd

[Général de GuerreLasse]

Nuclear: Beijing promises to market a thorium reactor from 2030
Also called molten salt reactor, the thorium reactor is supposed to be more economical and less polluting. It can be installed in desert areas because it is not greedy in water. And works with an ore that is much more present in China than uranium.
Through
Claude Fouquet
Posted Jul 19, 2021, 1:42 PMUpdated Jul 19, 2021, 2:58 PM
In its race to develop alternative energy sources to coal, Beijing claims to have now taken a new step. A team from the Shanghai Institute of Applied Sciences has just unveiled, in a Chinese specialist magazine, the project for a new type of nuclear power plant. According to Chinese researchers, in fact, from 2030 a first reactor running on thorium, also called a molten salt reactor, could be fully operational and marketable. And offered in particular to countries that are part of the New Silk Roads project.

https://www.lesechos.fr/industrie-services/energie-environnement/nucleaire-pekin-promet-de-commercialiser-des-2030-un-reacteur-au-thorium-1333123

[NeilT]

I've been hearing about Thorium for a decade or more.  A quick look turns up an article written in 2013.  It seems that China are going far faster than expected at that time.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257126696_Abundant_thorium_as_an_alternative_nuclear_fuel_Important_waste_disposal_and_weapon_proliferation_advantages

Very interesting reading.

[vox_mundi]

Nuclear Power’s Reliability is Dropping as Extreme Weather Increases
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/07/climate-events-are-the-leading-cause-of-nuclear-power-outages/

With extreme weather causing power failures in California and Texas, it's increasingly clear that the existing power infrastructure isn't designed for these new conditions. Past research has shown that nuclear power plants are no exception, with rising temperatures creating cooling problems for them. Now, a comprehensive analysis looking at a broader range of climate events shows that it's not just hot weather that puts these plants at risk—it's the full range of climate disturbances.

Heat has been one of the most direct threats, as higher temperatures mean that the natural cooling sources (rivers, oceans, lakes) are becoming less efficient heat sinks. However, this new analysis shows that hurricanes and typhoons have become the leading causes of nuclear outages, at least in North America and South and East Asia. Precautionary shutdowns for storms are routine, and so this finding is perhaps not so surprising. But other factors—like the clogging of cooling intake pipes by unusually abundant jellyfish populations—are a bit less obvious.

Overall, this latest analysis calculates that the frequency of climate-related nuclear plant outages is almost eight times higher than it was in the 1990s. The analysis also estimates that the global nuclear fleet will lose up to 1.4 percent—about 36 TWh—of its energy production in the next 40 years and up to 2.4 percent, or 61 TWh, by 2081-2100.

... While the paper doesn't directly link the reported events to climate change, the findings do show an overall increase in the number of outages due to a range of climate events.

The author calculated that the average frequency of climate-linked outages went from 0.2 outages per year in the 1990s to 1.5 outages in the timeframe of 2010 to 2019. A retrospective analysis further showed that, for every 1° C rise in temperature (above the average temperature between 1951 and 1980), the energy output of the global fleet fell about 0.5 percent.

This analysis also shows that climate-associated outages have become the leading cause of disruptions to nuclear power production—other causes of outages have only increased 50 percent in the same timeframe. Projecting into the future, the author calculates that, if no mitigation measures are put into place, the disruptions will continue to increase through the rest of this century.

Increase in frequency of nuclear power outages due to changing climate, Nature Energy, (2021)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-021-00849-y

[vox_mundi]

Georgia Nuclear Plant Cost Tops $27B as More Delays Unveiled
https://apnews.com/article/business-environment-and-nature-georgia-90bbe5cc8e3a1a6077b9e4318e2bbf7e

ATLANTA (AP) — Two new reactors at Georgia's Plant Vogtle will cost another billion dollars, with shareholders of the parent company of Georgia Power Co. taking a $460 million loss and other owners absorbing the rest.

The news came Thursday as Atlanta-based Southern Co. again admitted what outside experts have been telling regulators for months — its $27 billion-plus project at the complex outside Augusta will take longer and cost more than previously estimated.

Managers project construction will take another three to four months. That pushes the projected start date of Unit 3 into the second quarter of 2022, while Unit 4 is now projected to start in 2023. But independent monitors testified in June that they don't think Unit 3 will start operation until at least June 2022 and projected total additional spending of up to $2 billion.

Southern Co. recorded the entire additional cost as a loss to shareholders on its quarterly earnings report, citing “the significant level of uncertainty that exists regarding the future recoverability of these costs” because the Georgia Public Service Commission must approve spending. The company said it could ask ratepayers to pay for the overrun, though.

Customers are already paying for the plant. Rates have gone up 3.4% to pay for earlier costs and Georgia Power projects rates will rise another 6.6 percentage points for a total increase of 10%. Commissioners are scheduled to vote on another rate increase in November.

[interstitial]

This Vogtle plant has done more to dissuade new nuclear in the US than any protest could.

[vox_mundi]

China Nuclear Reactor Shut Down for Maintenance Because of Fuel Rod Damage
https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/31/asia/taishan-nuclear-plant-intl-hnk/index.html

A reactor at Taishan Nuclear Power Plant in southern China's Guangdong province has been shut down because of fuel rod damages, the company that runs the plant said in a statement on Friday.

State-owned China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN) said in the statement that "a small amount of fuel damage" had occurred during operation, but it's still "within the limits allowed by the technical specifications."

It added that "after thorough discussions between French and Chinese technicians, Taishan Nuclear Power Plant decided to shut down Unit 1 reactor for maintenance, and to examine the reasons of fuel damage and replace the damaged fuel."
 
It was reported in June that the French company Framatome -- which supports operations at Taishan -- had warned of an "imminent radiological threat" at the plant.

See also:

https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,776.msg312292.html#msg312292

https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,776.msg312497.html#msg312497

[sidd]

Detail on Vogtle: more money, more time

https://www.utilitydive.com/news/georgia-power-announces-another-delay-to-vogtle-nuclear-project/604188/

sidd

[sidd]

nuke payouts: no one goes to jail

"FirstEnergy Corporation announced on Thursday a settlement agreement to pay a $230 million penalty for bribing Ohio officials to  ensure the passage of a ratepayer-funded bailout for older generation assets, including two nuclear plants"

"The charge will be dismissed ... The settlement announced on Thursday did not charge any individuals ..."

The payout was for this:

"House Bill (HB) 6, signed into law in July 2019, created a bailout for the Perry and Davis-Besse nuclear power plants along Lake Erie for more than $1 billion."

So after the scandal:

"HB 128, signed into law at the end of March, would rescind that provision and would repeal a measure that allows FirstEnergy to collect money from customers even when energy demand is down, by basing its collection on energy demand in 2019, an "unusually lucrative" year, according to local reports."

But alas:

"The legislature has left the HB 6 coal subsidies in place."

https://www.utilitydive.com/news/firstenergy-agrees-to-pay-230m-fine-for-bribing-ohio-officials-to-bail-out/603836/

This could probably go in the "Electricity Generation and Infrastructure" or a bunch of other threads. I post here since Davis-Besse was one of the bailed out nukes, and one with a very chequered history indeed.

And the power companies that misbuilt it and failed to maintain it. For the origins of Davis-Besse, Kucinich's recent book "The Division of Power and Light" has useful background. I wouldn't be surprised if we have a radioactive hole in Lake Erie shortly.

sidd
 

[Général de GuerreLasse]

Global climate objectives fall short without nuclear power in the mix: UNECE

Sorry the article is in French, but I think you will have no difficulty finding it in English.

https://news.un.org/fr/story/2021/08/1101562

And now the english version!

https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/08/1097572

[kassy]

At the rate with which the projects get build the world also cannot wait for nuclear power.

[Sciguy]

This is one of the rare times I agree with Kassy.  In the USA, if you start the planning and permitting a new nuclear reactor now, it might come online by 2040.  In contrast, you could invest the time and money in solar and it would start coming online by 2023.  And you could build far more solar electric capacity with the $20 billion a single nuclear reactor would cost.

[Général de GuerreLasse]

In France we don't even know how to make atomic power plants anymore. In the 90's the government closed down our breeder reactors to please the ecologists and our engineers went elsewhere (South Korea for some I think) and into retirement for others. We made a new attempt with the Astrid reactor and now Macron has closed it down! We have no more engineers to take over, the know-how is dead.