Our plants are NOT designed to withstand a 9.0 richter

[nadinbrzezinski]

I love how our guv types mislead.

Low likelihood of a 9.0 but we have had three in the ring in the last five years. They are rare but something is happening with the plates.

Nothing to see here *SAN ONOFRE, EL DIABLO* move along.

This is why people get very damn cynical

Oh and for the record this cluster of killer quakes might have come to an end, we really don't know.

[meow mix]

1. they'll keep quakes from happening with thier gigantic brains

just thier wild claims alone will hold them at bay.

[JVS]

2. The strange thing is that quakes didn't do this to the plants. Their automatic shutdown...

procedures while lacking a power grid to keep their cooling systems functioning caused these crises. Maybe they should have just left them running.

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. SCRAM is standard

And something tells me the problem is the angles they took and water lines.

Suffice it to say they were not designed for that force

[JVS]

7. Yeah, SCRAM is standard and it seems to have worked poorly.

"And something tells me the problem is the angles they took and water lines."
I'd love to know what.

Everything I've seen indicates that lack of electricity (from the reactor, power grid, or backup generators) is what caused the cooling problems to arise. Not that the cooling systems were breached before they had ceased functioning effectively.

[Warpy]

16. The problem seems to have been the tsunami, rather than the quake

The generators were at ground level. It turns out that wasn't the best place for them. Had they been on the roof of the plant, the system would likely have worked.

However, people never know to plan for these things until they happen.

[Statistical]

23. Keeping the plant running would have been far worse.

SCRAM reduced heat output 93% almost instantly as hot as the core is a full operation reactor would be putting out almost 15x the heat.

With powergrid down there would be no load on the turbine. The turbine would have to go offline otherwise without load it would spin way beyond its rated capacity and literally rip itself apart.

The electrical load on the turbine (480MW worth in normal operation) is the work done by the turbine. That is the amount of heat energy that the steam "loses" when passing through turbine. Remember back to physics class energy can neither be created nor destroyed only trnasfered. So as steam moves through turbine the turbine converts 480MW of heat into kinetic energy.

No turbine, no reduction in heat output. The cooling system can't handle that kind of heat output without the turbine helping. I now it sounds weird but the turbine not only produced energy it also cools the steam and thus the reactor.

The heat output of the reactor is now less than 1% of full power. The entire emergency is about cooling about 5MW of heat. If the plant was running at full power the heat produced by active fission would be nearly 1500MW (nuclear reactors are usually about 33% efficient).

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. Yeah, that earthquake in Japan could be defined as rare.

Statistically minuscule.

[kirby]

17. Are you being sarcastic?

There were MAJOR earthquakes in 1995 (Kobe) and in 1923 and in 1933 and in 1946, 1948, etc

Several in a century is not statistically minuscule.

[The Backlash Cometh]

18. Very sarcastic.

[Auggie]

5. California unlikely to see a quake like Japan's

San Francisco Chronicle / 3-12-11

Earthquakes the size of the one that struck Japan on Friday are highly unlikely ever to hit the California coast, but smaller quakes along the San Andreas or Hayward faults could prove just as devastating, experts say.

No temblor greater than a magnitude 8 is ever likely in California, say scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park.

SNIP

The San Andreas, which runs for some 810 miles from Cape Mendocino to the Salton Sea, is the state's most dangerous fault because the magnitude of any earthquake is primarily dependent on the length of a fault's rupture zone, explained Ross Stein, a geophysicist at the USGS.

But the north and south segments of the fault are separated by a central stretch of about 100 miles between Hollister and Parkfield in Monterey County, and it is that section that should prevent any earthquake as powerful as the one that struck Japan on Friday. In the Hollister-Parkfield segment, the brittle rock of the Earth's upper crust "is lubricated like talcum powder," Stein said. The result, he said, is a steady creeping motion that acts to relieve the constant buildup of stress within the fault that otherwise could trigger a major temblor along the entire length of the fault.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/03/11/BA961I9FJ8.DTL#ixzz1Gb0OKLZY

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. San ONOFRE is rated for 7.1

[Auggie]

11. There's a disaster waiting to happen

[Statistical]

24. Delete

[Cleita]

8. Here's an organization that is working on retiring

El Diablo. "Alliance For Nuclear Responsibility" You guys near San Onofre might want to organize too.

http://a4nr.org/

Scroll down to their plan to change the nuke plant to a green one. Also the Sierra Club has been fighting an uphill battle on El Diablo for years. I think now it's time to strike when the iron is hot. I'm getting on it myself after I recuperate from some elective surgery I'm having this week.

[TheWebHead]

9. you're not only talking about low risk of a major earthquake

but in most of the country and most of the plants, a low risk of a tsunami afterward. No single form of energy can scale to meet global requirements and all have drawbacks. Coal - coal ash, dangerous to mine and high carbon emissions. Nat gas - fears about water supply contamination and explosion risks. Oil - carbon emissions and oil spills. Alternatives - cost/BTU, inability to remotely scale, solar land requirements in densely populated areas

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. And building a plant on a mapped branch of the san andreas

Is such a bright idea...filling a cove with sand and gravel is just peachy

[kristopher]

21. Renewable Energy Works NOW.

Thought you might need to read this.

The nuclear industry would have you believe that we NEED nuclear power as a response to climate change. That is false. We have less expensive alternatives that can be built faster for FAR less money. This is a good overview of their claims:
http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library/E08-01_NuclearIllusion

In a comparative analysis by another well respected researcher nuclear, coal with carbon capture and ethanol are not recommended as solutions to climate change. The researcher has looked at the qualities of the various options in great detail and the results disprove virtually all claims that the nuclear industry promote in order to gain public support for nuclear industry.

Nuclear supporters invariably claim that research like this is produced because the researchers are "biased against nuclear power". That is false. They have a preference,however that preference is not irrational; indeed it is a product of careful analysis of the needs of society and the costs of the various technologies for meeting those needs. In other words the researchers are "biased" against nuclear power because reality is biased against nuclear power. We hear this same kind of claim to being a victim of "liberal bias" from conservatives everyday and it is no different when the nuclear proponents employ it - it is designed to let them avoid cognitive dissonance associated with holding positions that are proven to be false.

The nuclear power supporters will tell you this study has been "debunked any number of times" but they will not be able to produce a detailed rebuttal that withstands even casual scrutiny for that claim too is false. The study is peer reviewed and well respected in the scientific community; it breaks no new ground and the references underpinning the work are not subject to any criticism that has material effect on the outcome of the comparison.

They will tell you that the sun doesn't always shine and that the wind doesn't always blow. Actually they do. The sun is always shining somewhere and the wind is always blowing somewhere. However researcher have shown that a complete grid based on renewable energy sources is UNQUESTIONABLY SOMETHING WE CAN DO. Here is what happens when you start linking various sites together:

Original paper here at National Academy of Sciences website: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/03/29/0909075107.abstract

When the local conditions warrant the other parts of a renewable grid kick in - geothermal power, biomass, biofuels, and wave/current/tidal sources are all resources that fill in the gaps - just like now when 5 large scale power plants go down unexpectedly. We do not need nuclear not least because spending money on nuclear is counterproductive to the goal of getting off of fossil fuels as we get less electricity for each dollar spend on infrastructure and it takes a lot longer to bring nuclear online.

In the study below Mark Jacobson of Stanford has used the quantity of energy that it would take to power an electric vehicle fleet as a benchmark by which to judge the technologies.

As originally published:
Abstract

This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition. Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85. Twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. Upon ranking and weighting each combination with respect to each of 11 impact categories, four clear divisions of ranking, or tiers, emerge. Tier 1 (highest-ranked) includes wind-BEVs and wind-HFCVs. Tier 2 includes CSP-BEVs, geothermal-BEVs, PV-BEVs, tidal-BEVs, and wave-BEVs. Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs. Tier 4 includes corn- and cellulosic-E85. Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are much less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs are still very clean and were ranked second among all combinations. Tier 2 options provide significant benefits and are recommended. Tier 3 options are less desirable. However, hydroelectricity, which was ranked ahead of coal-CCS and nuclear with respect to climate and health, is an excellent load balancer, thus recommended. The Tier 4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85. Whereas cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality, nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Wind-BEVs and CSP-BEVs cause the least mortality. The footprint area of wind-BEVs is 2–6 orders of magnitude less than that of any other option. Because of their low footprint and pollution, wind-BEVs cause the least wildlife loss. The largest consumer of water is corn-E85. The smallest are wind-, tidal-, and wave-BEVs. The US could theoretically replace all 2007 onroad vehicles with BEVs powered by 73 000–144 000 5 MW wind turbines, less than the 300 000 airplanes the US produced during World War II, reducing US CO2 by 32.5–32.7% and nearly eliminating 15 000/yr vehicle-related air pollution deaths in 2020. In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts.
http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2009/EE/b809990c

Broken apart for ease of reading:

Abstract here: http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/EE/article.asp?doi=b809990c

Full article for download here: http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/revsolglobwarmairpol.htm

http://pubs.rsc.org/services/images/RSCpubs.ePlatform.Service.FreeContent.ImageService.svc/ImageService/image/GA?id=B809990C


Energy Environ. Sci., 2009, 2, 148 - 173, DOI: 10.1039/b809990c

Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security

Mark Z. Jacobson

Abstract
This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition.

Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85.

Twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. Upon ranking and weighting each combination with respect to each of 11 impact categories, four clear divisions of ranking, or tiers, emerge.

Tier 1 (highest-ranked) includes wind-BEVs and wind-HFCVs.
Tier 2 includes CSP-BEVs, geothermal-BEVs, PV-BEVs, tidal-BEVs, and wave-BEVs.
Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs.
Tier 4 includes corn- and cellulosic-E85.

Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are much less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs are still very clean and were ranked second among all combinations.

Tier 2 options provide significant benefits and are recommended.

Tier 3 options are less desirable. However, hydroelectricity, which was ranked ahead of coal-CCS and nuclear with respect to climate and health, is an excellent load balancer, thus recommended.

The Tier 4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85.

Whereas cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality, nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Wind-BEVs and CSP-BEVs cause the least mortality.

The footprint area of wind-BEVs is 2–6 orders of magnitude less than that of any other option. Because of their low footprint and pollution, wind-BEVs cause the least wildlife loss.

The largest consumer of water is corn-E85. The smallest are wind-, tidal-, and wave-BEVs.

The US could theoretically replace all 2007 onroad vehicles with BEVs powered by 73000–144000 5 MW wind turbines, less than the 300000 airplanes the US produced during World War II, reducing US CO2 by 32.5–32.7% and nearly eliminating 15000/yr vehicle-related air pollution deaths in 2020.

In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts.

Then we have the economic analysis from Cooper: The Economics of Nuclear Reactors: Renaissance or Relapse
This graph summarizes his findings where "Consumer" concerns direct financial costs and "Societal" refers to external costs not captured in financial analysis.
Cooper A Multi-dimensional View of Alternatives

Full report can be read here: http://www.olino.org/us/articles/2009/11/26/the-economics-of-nuclear-reactors-renaissance-or-relapse


Another independent econnomic analysis is the Severance study:
http://climateprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/nuclear-costs-2009.pdf




The price of nuclear subsidies is also worth looking at. Nuclear proponents will tell you the subsidies per unit of electricity for nuclear are no worse than for renewables. That statement omits the fact than nuclear power has received the lions share of non fossil energy subsidies for more than 50 years with no apparent payoff; for all the money we've spent we see a steadily escalating cost curve for nuclear. When we compare that to renewables we find that a small fraction of the total amount spent on nuclear has resulted in rapidly declining costs that for wind are already competitive with coal and rapidly declining costs for solar that are competitive with natural gas and will soon be less expensive than coal.
In other words subsidies work to help the renewable technologies stand on their own but with nuclear they do nothing but prop up an industry that cannot be economically viable.
http://www.1366tech.com/cost-curve/

http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nuclear_power/nuclear_subsidies_report.pdf




What plans are out there?

Here is one where achieving 100% renewable energy is described:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-path-to-sustainable-energy-by-2030


Here is a PDF link for another such plan by:
The Civil Society "Beyond Business as Usual"
http://www.civilsocietyinstitute.org/media/pdfs/Beyond%20BAU%205-11-10.pdf

Their website has lots of information:
http://www.civilsocietyinstitute.org/


Also see these other papers by Amory Lovins
http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library/E09-01_NuclearPowerClimateFixOrFolly


http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library/E77-01_EnergyStrategyRoadNotTaken



Originally posted:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x626150

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. You know why renewables are said not to work?

Partly because distributed systems are not something the industry can control

The investment would be huge, but imagine solar panels on EVERY ROOF in oh San Diego... they would produce ENOUGH for each house... and batteries are to the point where yes, you can store energy for night use... and during the day give back energy to a grid.

How much do you think SDGE can charge for that? Would it be enough to also run industry? Probably not... but a few farms of centralized power should... added to all that distributed power. And that is just ONE model... as I said the investment would be very large... but doable...

Cui bono?

Oh and there is still a place for nuclear by the way... that would be your nuclear Navy. You also should know the engineering parameters to those reactors are MUCH HIGHER than those of any civilian reactor. You want to have nuclear meet at the very list Rickover's standards and then PERHAPS we can talk. You know why that has not happened? MONEY... COST... operating costs for Naval Reactors are that much higher. Design costs for them are also that much higher.

Oh and I forgot they still have issues with the produced crap that will take 10K years to be safe, no way around THAT

[Boswell]

10. what is?

[gratuitous]

12. Magnitude 9 earthquakes are indeed rare

Which is part of the reason they're so catastrophic. A magnitude 9 quake unleashes nearly unimaginable energy pent up in the tectonic plates at their edges with other plates. The little slips and grinds (magnitude 5 and lower) act as a pressure release valve, but sooner or later, the plates "catch" and don't have their little releases. Then we get the bigger quakes, magnitude 7 and above. Engineers and construction folks can do only so much, though. There's no telling exactly when and what direction and what other factors will occur when one of the big slips or grinds happens. I work on the 34th floor, and if the big fault line under my office building gives way in the next 20 years, there's every possibility that I will be pancaked with thousands of others.

All that being said, has it really been such a good idea to build nuclear power plants on or near fault lines, particularly as active as the one underneath California has been over the past couple of hundred years? My guess, based on nothing but the past performance of large corporate interests in the United States over the past 50 years, is that the most extensive (and expensive) precautions have not been taken because of the small probability of a magnitude 7 or greater earthquake shaking things up. The probability for any particular time period is small, but it will inevitably happen. And when we reduce a formerly beautiful area of the world to a radioactive wasteland, I don't think it will be very comforting to consider just how much money the operators made while the plant was in production.

[petronius]

14. Something to keep in mind about these ratings, is that magnitudes are measured

at the epicenter, and an 8 or 9 quake somewhere in CA would not be the same as having the same quake directly at SO or DC. The plants are actually designed for a specific amount of ground shaking directly at the site, and for convenience of interpretation that's been converted to a Richter magnitude at the nearest known fault. SONGS, for example, is designed to withstand a ~7 at the closest fault - a number chosen to be larger than what that fault is deemed capable of. That translates to a far larger Richter number at a more distant fault, as far as the plant site is concerned...

[Warpy]

15. I don't think we're capable of engineering anything

that will withstand a 9.0 quake. We're certainly not capable of engineering anything that will withstand a 10 meter tsunami.

We just go about our daily routines, thinking that since it didn't happen yesterday, it can't possibly happen today.

Then it happens.

The ones on the East Coast are vulnerable, too, if the side of the Cumbre Vieja volcano slides the rest of the way into the Atlantic as it's predicted to.

TPTB have decided it's an acceptable risk.

[Chris_Texas]

19. These plants sustained a direct hit in an event so powerful that it...

Obliterated perhaps the most technologically advanced (and prepared) nation on earth. Tens of thousands may well be dead. Millions are without water or food or shelter. They have lost everything.

And the plants handled it pretty damn well.

Some people, maybe even hundreds, might die from radiation -- but probably not. Probably not.

The plants will be rebuilt using the lessons from this as an example.

Of all the nightmares Japan currently faces, these plants are the LEAST of their problems. So let's keep things in perspective and not use this disaster to try to advance ignorance and political points. Thanks in advance.

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. as long as they keep primary containment

you keep telling yourself that

[Chris_Texas]

25. And if they don't? The worst nuclear accident in history...

The worst nuclear accident in history killed fewer than one-half of one percent of the people likely dead from the Tsunami -- and this current accident is nowhere near as bad as Chernobyl.

In fact, despite the terror nuclear power in general, and Chernobyl in particular, hold for many anti-technology teabaggers, the reality is that Chernobyl resulted in shockingly few deaths. According the the World Health Organization, as of 2005 the death toll remained fewer than fifty, and these were primarily emergency personel.

Many have used Chernobyl to validate their demands that we scrap nuclear power, many used the BP disaster in the gulf (an accident that might well result in MORE long-term fatalities than all the nuclear accidents in history combined), regarless of the accident or problem there is always an army of baggers waiting in the wings demanding that we suspend all that "thinking" shit and run on pure fear.

And while that's totally your right, and as a fellow DU member I wish you all the best, forgive me if I elect to remain grounded in reality. America did not just blow up two bombs on Japan. They also detonated HUNDREDS, above ground, right in the heart of the American west. Not fifty-five hundred miles away in Japan. Here. Right where about half of the DU population live. And we are not talking some little leak from a nuke plant, we are talking some of the biggest meanest dirtiest bombs ever detonated on earth.

The situation in japan sucks. I am not going to make light of or diminish the REAL tragedy by focussing on the nuclear boogeyman, and I hope you do the same.