In the shadow of the building site of Finland’s fifth nuclear power plant, the small town of Rauma on the island of Olkiluoto is enjoying the economic benefits that such a monumental construction project brings. This is the third nuclear reactor on the quiet island of Olkiluoto, and local residents live happily beside the reactors, for the most part.
Local Paivi Alanko-Rehelma is one such resident who only sees the benefits of nuclear power. She works in a modest café nestled between smoked fish stands and other businesses that are making a tidy profit from the workers at the construction site. Like many of the locals, she has no issues with a nuclear reactor in her backyard. “It’s now safe, it saves nature, it’s cheaper,” she told the New York Times.
Finland’s latest nuclear reactor has been plagued by delays in construction, so no one is certain exactly when the power plant will be operational. But when it does go online, it will be one of the world’s newest models of nuclear reactor, a European Pressurised Reactor.
The high-tech reactor is touted as the safest and most powerful reactor ever designed, and it will both reduce Finland’s dependence on Russia for energy as well as diversify the nation’s sources of power. Best of all, for the time being, the project is generating a lot of income for the island – although some argue that more is not needed, given the already thriving economy. Greenpeace Finland argues that the issue of toxic nuclear waste disposal has not yet been solved to an extent that further reactors should be built, and that the nuclear industry siphons vital funding away from renewable energy projects, such as solar, wind and hydro.
“A lot of economic benefits, totally safe …”
Indeed. Lowest deaths/TWh of any energy source including solar power(a very small number divided by a very small number is not insignificant) and wind power.
“well of course except in case of a deliberate crashing of a civil airplane …”
Which does exactly nothing to a containment dome and may perhaps create a bit of a mess in the switch-yard. There’s a reason 9/11 hijackers chose the WTC and not a nuclear reactor.
“in case of an important rise of sea level…”
Wrong time-scale and nuclear energy is the most cost-effective and fastest way to prevent global warming by directly replacing the chief culprit, coal power.
“in case of an unpredictable natural catastroph…”
In which case a nuclear reactor is the safest place to be.
“Hasnt experience proven nuclear energy to be totally safe (if we forget about Chernobyl…)?”
Indeed it has, especially if you remember Chernobyl. A poorly designed reactor with no containment dome and politcal hacks as operators managed to kill only 56 people with a potential for killing up to 4000 if you wait a few millenia and the LNT hypothesis is true.
Coal power on the other hand kills ~30 000 people per year in the US(some 500 chernobyls per year), ~400 000 people in China(some 7 000 Chernobyls per year), ~60 000 in Germany(thanks to their high population density. Some ~1000 Chernobyls per year).
This is in addition to contributing ~50% of all CO2, nearly all mercury(stays toxic forever, unlike spent fuel) and cadmium pollution and realeasing some ~100 times more radioactive material straight into the atmosphere than civilian nuclear plants which keeps the bulk of their material contained in easy to store ceramic pellets in highly corrosion proof zirconium cladding.
That blood is on your hands.
Like a dutiful “environmentalist”(aka coal supporter) you remember Chernobyl(or at least the Greenpeace version of events), but I doubt you’ve ever even heard of Banqiao Dam, despite the later killing 160 000 people.
“Who cares if we have not idea what to do with the waste for the next hundreds of thousands of years?”
That’s a blatant lie and you know it.
Even if you dump unshielded fuel elements straight in the ocean, assume the insoluble ceramic fuel pellets instantly dissolve(instead of just sinking to the bottom and staying there) and mix evenly into the ocean, assume that the LNTH is true despite strong evidence to the contrary there is no possible scenario under which remotely as many people will die as from coal power.
Disposing of the spent fuel in subduction zones, salt domes or deep geological repository is well understood and as well proven as it can be without actually waiting tens of thousands of years.
But we shouldn’t even be satisfied with that; the so called long-lived “waste” isn’t waste at all, it’s fuel(actinides). The fission products, which are the highly radioactive component, are ~1-3% of the spent fuel and will return to the level of activity the fuel was mined from in only 300 years, that doesn’t need to go in a geological repository. I can find no good reason to dispose of platinum group metals, technetium-99m(excellent catalyst with unique properties, long enough half-life to be easily handled), Cs-137(industrial gamma source; can be used to x-ray buildings and structures, irradiate cancer or sterilize food by gamma-irradiation for people with sensitive immune systems), strontium-90(pure beta source; used in superficial irradiation therapy, industrial thickness gauges, radioactive tracer in research, can be used for radio-isotope thermoelectric generators or beta voltaics for space probes and anywhere a small powersource lasting decades is required).
Nature managed to store it’s spent fuel(from the Oklo natural fission reactors) for two billion years in what would be seen as completely unsuitable conditions by todays standard and the actinides didn’t budge more than a few centimeters from the main ore body.
“And it has to be asked if building more smaller reactors, instead of less bigger ones is the right strategy.”
LWRs were adopted because of political expediency as they had already been developed for the navy; not because of any particular merits they may have had for electrical power production(much to the dismay of many of the researchers as ORNL and Los Alamos by the way).
LWRs need to be big because of the economy of scale of the containment structure, the steam turbine and the personell(a small LWR doesn’t need significantly fewer operators).
Small reactors(~100 MW) of the Pebble Bed and Molten Salt Reactors(such as the LTFR developed and successfully operated in the 60’s at ORNL) can achieve very strong passive safety. They do not need to operate under pressure, they’re small enough and have low power-density enough to passively cool away their decay heat, they can achieve stronger negative temperature coefficients of reactivity than LWRs(pebble beds withstand much higher temperature, you can completely eject the control rods and rely on doppler broadening to kill the reaction before reaching an unsafe temperature; in a MSR the fuel expands and pushes out of the core and reduces reactivity in addition to doppler broadening, a frozen salt plug is used for additional passive safety which will melt and pour the fuel into a non-critical configuration where it is able to be passively cooled under all accident scenarios).
Liquid fluorine salt reactors can do online reprocessing. Continuously separating fuel(“long lived waste”) and putting it back into the reactor, extracting and separating valuable fission products from useless ones(the real waste as opposed to the imagined) and stable isotopes(some of which are valuable platinum group metals). The fuel is brought back into the reactor(or in the case of operation on thorium the protactinum is brought out of the core and let decay into U-233 which is fissile and then brought into the fuel mix).
Come on, Trev, Seb may be a bit too much agitated about this for your liking, but he has some good points. Indeed, even after generations of scientists working on improving nuclear energy neither the inherent danger of the current reactor technology (only kept in reign by complex security systems) nor the long term problem of nuclear waste (posing a danger for several hundred years) has been satisfyingly solved. The world is still waiting for safe fusion reactor technology.
And it has to be asked if building more smaller reactors, instead of less bigger ones is the right strategy. Imho safeguarding bigger reactors is easier and more cost efficient, and this makes me wonder about what advantages the Fins see in preferring to go the other way. But, well, maybe I don’t have any idea what I’m talking about, either?
What idiotic comment! (from Seb)
People like you really have no idea what you’re talking about. What benefits we get now from nuclear energy are created by people of generations ago. Today’s cientists and responsible researchers are continuingly looking for better ways to improve it. What is your contribution to society other than spending time bitching about progress?
Wouah, so nice! What a well balance report!
A lot of economic benefits, totally safe (well of course except in case of a deliberate crashing of a civil airplane, in case of an important rise of sea level, in case of an unpredictable natural catastroph, in case of…). Who cares for the risks anyway? Hasnt experience proven nuclear energy to be totally safe (if we forget about Chernobyl…)? And nuclear energy is so clean! Who cares if we have not idea what to do with the waste for the next hundreds of thousands of years?
Why should we not enjoy the benefits now and let future generations deal with the mess?
Me too, I want nuclear energy in my backyard!