Talk:Nuclear power plant

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long-term much of the material from nuclear reactor really belongs here, but I'm not in a great hurry to move it. I'd like this to stay readable.

I hope it's reasonably NPOV. It's certainly a controversial topic! Some would say there are no advantages, but people are still building them. This list attempts to list their reasons. Others are not building them despite looming energy shortages, and the list of disadvantages attempts in turn to summarise their reasons.

I didn't put the question of waste management onto either list, although some would put it at the top of one list, and others at the top of the other! So it gets a paragraph of its own.

Interested to see how it develops. Andrewa 20:02, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Advantages / Disadvantages List

I edited the advantages/disadvantages list because it seemed to me to be far too pro-nuclear. No new nuclear plant has been started in the US since the Carter presidency. There is a serious political debate. There is a basic breakdown in trust here and I don't think that the traditional nuclear industry can rebuild it. The problem that is getting overlooked here is that the existing nuclear plants are getting old and if we are not carefull we will end up either running them well past their safe design life or worse build new ones to the old obsolete designs.

Should probably add a section on pebble bed reactors here. The new wave nuclear reactors are dramatically safer than the old and have much better answers to the problems of nuclear waste etc.

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Three new nuclear plants are on the verge of being ordered in the U.S., probably depending on how the current Energy Bill does in Congress. At least one will be an ABWR, of which three are already operating in Japan. ABWRs are about 100 times safer than the previous generation of BWRs largely because they have the recirculation pumps inside the reactor vessel and hence have no external recirculation piping. The passively-safe ESBWR and the AP1000 are even safer.
There are several locales (not among the above three) desiring new nuclear units - Oswego, NY and Port Gibson, MS for two.
I disagree with editing advantage/disadvantage lists just because they seem to be "too pro-nuclear" - each advantage/disadvantage should stand on its own merit, not someone's politics. Simesa 18:38, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
"Nuclear Power will Destroy the world someday" sounds pretty opinionated. I don't think it's very necessary to the article, nor do I think it's appropriate.
I would argue there are no advantages to using nuclear fission to boil water. Specifically, the advantages section ignores the true cost of the total fuel cycle from mining to waste "disposal". There has been no decision on the waste problem. The industry is heavily subsidized by the public. Catastrophic loss would be suffered by the public and then paid for by the public. There is no insurance company willing or able to cover such a loss. The pollution from the fuel cycle include tailings from mining and milling the ore, chemicals from processing, radioactive gases from accidents and normal venting, and all the energy and fuels to produce the energy to bring the fissionable material and power plant to the point of producing electricity. {Sametime 04:02, 17 November 2006 (UTC)}
This issue is probably better discussed in Nuclear power. The cost of disposal in the United States is already paid by the utilities by a surcharge on power generated, and a repository in a truly bleak area is under construction. Catastrophic loss is insured under the Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act and will be evaluated under the now-underway successor study to NUREG-1150. The energy needed to prodce nuclear fuel is largely nuclear-generated, by the Tennessee Valley Authority's own nuclear power plants. Venting and tailings are covered under national law - Canada's and Australia's, as there are no longer any operating mines in the US. And one certain advantage is that nuclear power, including construction, fuel production, operation and decommissioning produces immensely fewer Greenhouse Gases than coal-fired production does - not the least because there is far more coal mining going on. There are two sides to this discussion, and both should be presented. Simesa 22:55, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

The "Advantages/Disadvantages" list seemed to downplay some of the negative aspects of nuclear power generation. Edited (mainly reworded) for clarity, tone, and balance. Ailahusky 04:50, 7 March 2007 (UTC)AilaHusky

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On the contrary. The "Advantages/Disadvantages" list seems to overplay the negative aspects of nuclear power generation. Particularly surprising to me is the assertion that nuclear plants have "energy inputs during construction equivalent to ~7 years power output". Is someone really suggesting that the construction of a nuclear reactor requires 61,362,000 MWeH = 220 PJ (petajoules) (for 1 1000MW reactor)? I'd like to see a source. There are some sources to the contrary, however:

My simple calculation: 1000MWH * 1e6 (WH) * 3600 (MJ / s) * 24 (J / Day) * 365.24 (J / Year) * 7 years (J) = 220PJ. For the 40 year conventional lifetime of nuclear reactors, the total energy output would be 1,262 PJ.

  • http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf11.html is cited by the excellent nuclear power article. This paper, from the World Nuclear Association, gives the energy cost of construction as 4PJ. But why stop there? It quantifies the total energy inputs for nuclear generation in terms of fuel mining, conversion, enrichment, and fabrication, plant construction, operation, and decommissioning, and waste management. The key table is entitled "On basis of PJ (thermal) per 1000 MWe the input figures are". For a 40 year plant lifetime, the energy input terms sum to 43.4 PJ. My math suggests this is 3.4% of the nominal (1000MW) energy output, but the WNA, using actual numbers from the Forsmark station in Sweden, says this is 1.35% of the energy output for nuclear power, which is less than carbon fuel or renewable alternatives.
  • http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2323 appears to be written by a nuclear power advocate, since it completely ignores the energy cost of Uranium enrichment. Nonetheless, it basically confirms the WNA paper's numbers (1 PJ for mining/acquisition, 4 for construction/decommissioning, 4 for waste disposal).
  • http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/presentations/sww_energy_ctr.pdf, slide 8 gives an "energy payback ratio" of 16 for nuclear fission, suggesting that 1/16 = 6.25% of energy output is required as an energy input. For a 40 year lifetime, this means "2.5 years" of energy are required for generation. While vastly higher than the WPA estimate, it's still 1/3 of the "7 years" number, and includes all lifecycle costs. No background to back up this number, though.

Unless someone finds a credible contradictory source, I'll remove this item from the Advantages/disadvantages list. Actually, high lifecycle energy efficiency could be added to the 'advantages' list, though I welcome feedback. Asmendel 05:50, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

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This article is a bit misleading in the Advantages/Disadvantages section. It says that nuclear power emits no greenhouse gases, which is incorrect. They actually release water vapour, one of the more potent greenhouse gases. Perhaps this article should be modified to say that nuclear power plants produce no carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas usually emitted from burning fossil fuels. Or something like that. brabblebrex 03:03, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] April 2007 edits

I removed all the unsourced items in this section since it has been tagged since 2006 and many of the items were pretty suspect especially with out citations. In addition, most of this material related to nuclear power itself and not the power plants and is covered in the main article. I left only what was sourced and seemed to relate to the power plants themselves. Feel free to add more items about power plant construction/design issues with citations. --Chuck Sirloin 16:16, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Disadvantages

Another disadvantage is thermal pollution. I work at a nuclear plant on the east coast and the water used for cooling the condensers is pumped out into the ocean. It does, however, travel about 10 miles before it is released.

[edit] Number of reactors

Regarding this edit [1] I am not sure if the new number 443 is actually correct. According to this link [2] which says it was updated on the 4th of Jan of this year there are only 441 with several offline, 24 under construction, 41 planned, 113 proposed. I think the diffrence is that the 441 number is the number that are currently online and 443 is the number which are fully licened and could come back online, can someon verify this? Dalf | Talk 01:15, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I have done a bit of research: one of the two "extra" reactors is in the US, the other is in Japan. The one in the United States (Browns Ferry 1) is not operational: it has been shut in 1985 but it is still fully licensed [3]. The one in Japan is Monju, which operated from 1994 to 1995, then was shut down due to a sodium leak in 1996 and is currently "awaiting restart" [4]. Both reactors are scheduled to resume operation sometime in 2007/8. Your assumption is correct: they are in the official IAEA list because they are licensed, so they could be legally turned on, while all other shut down reactors are unlicensed. So the numbers are both correct. I have updated the article to reflect this. Mushroom 02:45, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Cool thanks, I thought that was the case I had read about Browns Ferry in a footnote in that second link I posted, but was not sure about the other one. Dalf | Talk 03:50, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Regulatory Delays

What killed the U.S. nuclear industry was a horrendous surge in regulations, each of which had to be applied to plants already under construction. At one point the NRC was issuing a regulation a day. This started before Three Mile Island, but apparently accelerated after it. Constructions times stretched to 13 years and beyond, at a time of high interest rates. No wonder in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 there's a $2 billion provision to reimburse utilities for future regulatory delays. Simesa 16:01, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Modern plant construction time

There seems some disagreement on what a reasonable estimate for plant construction time (from start of site work to commercial operation). I think we are all agreed this has a large effect on economics, as financing costs are highly significant. If someone knows of a balanced report on this, it would be good to reference it. For now, here are a few data points:

  • Finnish EPR under construction: 5 years (4 year build + 1 year commisioning) [5]
  • Proposed U.S. Evolutionary Power Reactor (EPR): 6 years (21 months site work, 6 months fuel load and commisioning, rest construction) [6]
  • General Electric ABWR built in Japan: "just over 3 years to construct" [7], but 4 to 4.5 years to commercial operation [8]. [9] (I think BWR may be quicker to build than PWR).
  • 2004 University of Chicago report (funded by US DOE) assumes between 5 and 7 years [10]

Rwendland 17:14, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree - but none of these are long construction times compared to lengths as high as 19 years [11]. One source I saw said that a three-year delay added $1 billion to the cost of the Seabrook plant, and I was at Nine Mile Point 2 when after many years of delays it came in at $6.4 billion. I suggest we compromise by spelling out the number of years it takes to build a modern plant. Simesa 00:49, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
"Roughly five-year completion period" seems a fair current estimate, a good compromise. I'm surprised it is so hard to find a decent report on this as a source, it must be of great policy interest. From what I've seen the records/estimates are a bit inconsistant on recording preliminary site work, so a proper study would be useful. Weren't quite a lot of the historical delays in the U.S. often due to regulatory tightening-up, and objections, relating to design issues recognised post-Three Mile Island? Rwendland 13:02, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
Found a great source. See Economics of new nuclear power plants/ Simesa 10:42, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nuclear waste produced is dangerous for thousands of years

I'm no expert but I'm not sure that nuclear waste remains dangerous for 1000s of years. Maybe slightly radioactive but dangerourous? It's just my BS radar is sounding when I read that. Apartmento 11:25, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Thousands of years is actually correct for this type of waste. See Yucca Mountain. Give Peace A Chance 17:25, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Spent nuclear fuel that has not been reprocessed to reuse the remaining uranium and plutonium is significantly radioactive for thousands of years. Waste from fuel that has been reprocessed cools much faster. Simesa 02:37, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
I think it may be better to say that nuclear waste can remain radioactive for thousands of years. Whether something is dangerous depends on how it is contained as well as a number of other issues. You can say that radioactive waste can be dangerous for thousands of years if not properly stored..., but I think that that would be quickly rectified once the dangerous issue is identified. Or perhaps radioactive waste can present a hazard for thousands of years.Lcolson 18:42, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Plutonium-239 (a product of uranium-235) has a half-life of approximately 24,000 years. so yes, its radioactive for a very long time. Ledgero2 16:46, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Springfield Nuclear Power Plant

As much as Homer's antics make me cringe, a mention of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant does seem appropriate for this article. Simesa 02:37, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Not it's not, triva sections are - in general - pointless, see WP:NOT - an indiscriminate collection of information. While it may make sense to link this article from Homer Sumposn, his inclusion here is entirely unnecessary.--Peta 04:41, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
Pop culture references do not always equal trivia, particularly when refering to one of the longest running and most popular TV shows in history. Like it or not, Homer has affected a generations perception of this topic. I do not advocate listing every movie, tv show, or song that mentions nuclear power...but I believe a powerful argument can be made for including select references. Give Peace A Chance 05:25, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

There is an actual plant called Springfield Power Plant run by BNFL in Preston, Great Britain. King Konger, 19:45, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Accident indemnification

Currently the article reads... "However states with a majority of the world's nuclear power plants, including the U.S., Russia, China and Japan, are not party to international nuclear liability conventions."

This is very misleading. China should not be included in the list. China is is not among the countries with a majority of the world's nuclear power plants. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tekkyy (talk • contribs) 12:09, 5 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Diagrams Needed

This article needs a cross section of a power plant such as http://www.euronuclear.org/info/encyclopedia/images/pressurized.gif

[edit] Length of Time SNF Is Dangerously Radioactive

The chart in indefinitely showing long half-lives is a little disingenuous; a long half-life generally implies that an isotope is more stable. Iodine-129, which emits a beta [12], in particular is not much of a problem unless ingested (the real fear is Iodine-131, with a half-life of 8 days).

I suggest a better, and unbiased, summary is in Congressional Research Service Report: "Spent nuclear fuel. Fuel rods that have been permanently withdrawn from a nuclear reactor because they can no longer efficiently sustain a nuclear chain reaction (although they contain uranium and plutonium that could be extracted through reprocessing to make new fuel). By far the most radioactive type of civilian nuclear waste, spent fuel contains extremely hot but relatively short-lived fission products (fragments of uranium and other fissile elements) as well as long-lived radionuclides such as plutonium, which remains dangerously radioactive for tens of thousands of years."

I will place the "tens of thousands of years" in the article. Simesa 19:08, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Russian Floating Nuclear Power Plant

I have some very nasty words to say about the Russians right now, but I won't here. Does anyone know what kind of containment structure these scows will have? What is the missile shield like? I will write to the IAEA for comment. Meanwhile, we need an article on this turkey. Simesa 10:41, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge

As previously discussed in Nuclear power, this subject is confusingly similar to Nuclear power and Nuclear reactor. As such, I propose that the little info in the article be merged with the other two.Ultramarine 15:10, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I am down with that. This one is just a collection of see alsos and some useless pop culture trivia. --Chuck Sirloin 15:11, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
I think the contents of this article should largely go into nuclear reactor, but this title link to nuclear power. Simesa 00:33, 25 April 2007 (UTC)