I've done a lot of reading about Fukushima, nuclear power, and other power sources lately. It seems one needs an advanced education about any/each/all of them to talk with a degree of accuracy so I hesitate to offer additional information:
As you have alluded in your post, according to the following article, the term "spent" fuel rods are not really spent:
Your article is rather dumbed-down, and it makes a very pointed implication that the nuclear industry is being dishonest to the public regarding spent fuel, when such dishonesty has never existed.
The "hot" nature of spent fuel is why there's such a large amount of effort put into things like long-term storage in the first place (if the stuff wasn't still radioactive, we wouldn't need cooling pools or projects like Yucca Mountain, now would we). "Spent" in the context of nuclear fuel simply means "no longer suitable for a controlled fission reaction."
Generally, that means that the fuel rods are too contaminated with the products of nuclear fission to maintain a stable level of output.
But the spent fuel still contains a very large amount of radioactive material - in fact, that's exactly why reprocessing is so valuable.
95% of the potential energy output of a given fuel rod is still there when it is "spent," and reprocessing allows us to recover that still very usable fuel.
But even in reprocessed fuel, the waste still contains radioactive isotopes - and radiological decay generates waste heat. Spent fuel is hot - literally. In the case of the freshly-used fuel in the cooling pools at Fukushima, it's
very hot, generating an estimated several megawatts (1-5 are the estimates I've heard) of waste heat, which is why it needed to be cooled in the first place.
I am unsure if there are similarly designed and operated nuclear plants currently operating in the USA. I am simply raising the concern (though some may accuse me of fear-mongering. BTW, perhaps it is the constant fear-mongering and vigilance that causes the nuclear power to be AS safe as it is?).
Percy writes:
The difference in opinion on power options has a strong emotional core deriving from the fact that nuclear plants pollute through accident and catastrophe while other options pollute through normal operation.
Good words, but this may not be specifically true with all types of Hydro power.
Thanks for weighing in Percy, although maybe your post (and mine) would have been better in the other "is nuclear safe" thread.
I've done a lot of reading about Fukushima, nuclear power, and other power sources lately. It seems one needs an advanced education about any/each/all of them to talk with a degree of accuracy so I hesitate to offer additional information:
As you have alluded in your post, according to the following article, the term "spent" fuel rods are not really spent:
Spent is an industry-euphemism. It implies something harmless, wasted or used up. Quite the opposite.
Spent fuel is irradiated fuel: fuel that has been irradiated inside a nuclear reactor’s core. After removal from the reactor, this fuel is massively contaminated with radioactive elements and must be stored in giant pools.
On March 15 the New York Times said these fuel pools could pose an even greater danger than the reactors melting down.
An even greater danger? Isn’t a core meltdown as bad as it gets?
Alas, a fuel pool meltdown could be worse than a reactor core meltdown. Much worse. This is because fuel pools contain far more radioactivity than that which is inside a reactor core. Unfortunately, at Fukushima we may get both types of meltdowns.
Robert Alvarez, formerly of the US Department of Energy and now at the Institute of Policy Studies, provided insight into this potential nuclear Armageddon. In a recent blog Alvarez states the fuel in each of the pools at the Fukushima complex has 5 to 10 times the radioactivity of the fuel inside one reactor core. And much of this radioactive material is the highly toxic and long-lived radionuclide, cesium-137. See.)
Another problem: Unlike the reactor cores, which have a hefty, six-inch thick steel containment vessel, the fuel pools at Fukushima are in unhardened and therefore highly vulnerable concrete structures. The roof of one of these structures has been completely demolished in at least one of the stricken reactors, Unit 4.
Why is irradiated fuel sitting in pools? (They’re sort of like swimming pools, though considerably deeper. About 40 feet long, 40 feet wide and 45 feet deep.)
After removal from the reactor core, the irradiated fuel is fiendishly hot. The fuel is so hot it will cause the water it is immersed in to boil — if the water is not cooled. What if fuel pool’s cooling systems fail? Disaster. If the water is not cooled for a certain number of days or weeks, the water will boil off. Next, the fuel can catch fire, releasing its toxic load to the environment.
Japan’s Nuclear Armageddon and the Experts « Aletho News
I am unsure if there are similarly designed and operated nuclear plants currently operating in the USA. I am simply raising the concern (though some may accuse me of fear-mongering. BTW, perhaps it is the constant fear-mongering and vigilance that causes the nuclear power to be AS safe as it is?).
A certain amount of fear
is appropriate - when dealing with commercial power generation,
every method needs to be treated with a certain degree of fear and respect.
The only nuclear regulations in the US that I particularly have a problem with are the executive orders against using nucelar fuel reprocessing, because it needlessly causes us to put out
more waste than we need to, go through fuel
far faster than we need to by wasting 95% of it, and to generate a larger proportion of high-grade waste as opposed to less-dangerous low-grade waste.
The fearmongering takes over when we have NIMBYs who decry projects like Yucca Mountain or lobby against new plant construction entirely. Fearmongering takes over when people take a nuclear crisis
drastically out of proportion and oppose nuclear power on general principle, despite direct and objective evidence showing that it is orders of magnitude safer than any other method of generation per unit of power generated. Fearmongering takes over when people forget that you get a higher dose of radiation exposure from eating a banana than living a few miles from a nuclear plant for a year. Fearmongering takes over when people look at the dangers of nuclear power without even considering the relative dangers of all the other methods of power generation.
You know what I hate? Assumptions. I hate it when people assume that "clean renewables" like solar and wind power are somehow "safe" just because they can't explode. I hate when people don;t even bother to look up the facts (the numbers I've been posting I found in less than ten minutes with Google, anyone with a brain can find the same information if they bother) and just claim that "x is safer" without actually knowing any such thing.
There are people who honestly believe that nuclear power is the most dangerous form of power generation there is. Jon, on this very forum, said that nuclear was "stupid" and that no civilized society should ever use it - which means he didn't know a goddamned thing about nuclear (or any other) power other than it scares him more than other forms.
That's fearmongering - when you don;t base your fear on the actual facts and real relative risks involved, but rather make assumptions based on ignorance and create a completely irrational risk assessment that's 100% divorced from reality.
Percy writes:
The difference in opinion on power options has a strong emotional core deriving from the fact that nuclear plants pollute through accident and catastrophe while other options pollute through normal operation.
Good words, but this may not be specifically true with all types of Hydro power.
Not just hydro. Solar and wind don't pollute so much per se, but their dangers come from accidents as well.
To paraphrase the Joker from the Dark Knight - if 50 people die in a hydroelectric plant, nobody gets scared, because it's all part of the plan. If a natural gas line explodes, people say "wow, that's awful," but don;t protest natural gas heating or electricity because it's all part of the plan. Acid rain from coal plants, global warming, radioactive fly ash released directly into the air,
nobody panics - because it's all part of the plan. It's not surprising, it's not shocking, it's just not
scaryyou.
But if just a little teency bit of harmless levels of radiation leaks from a nuclear plant, even if nobody dies, everybody just loses their minds! No more nuclear! RADIATION IS BAD! OMG, radiation was found on spinach a few kilometers from Fukushima! Even though you'd need to ingest that level of radiation for a decade to see any harm, PANIC! PROTEST! LOUD NOISES!
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