Spent Nuclear Fuel

Like it or not, in Canada we use nuclear power (mostly in Ontario). This source of electrical power has a nasty side-effect: waste from the reactor is possibly the most toxic substance known to man.

The cost of stewardship of this waste grows proportionally with the amount of waste produced. The more nuclear power we consume, the more waste we have to take care of for the coming centuries.

It would be nice if we could just turn the 'nukes' off and cut our losses. But our need for electricity isn't dropping. When talk about electric cars, we need to be honest and realize we're talking about moving our demand for gasoline to a demand for electricity. We will need 3,000 giant wind turbines or PV solar fields for every 1 nuclear reactor - and they will not produce reliable sustained power needed for our businesses and society.

As of this post, the price of Uranium is $65 USD/lb, about the same price as silver. This represents about 10% of the life-time cost of a reactor. This doesn't include the centuries of waste fuel management.

What if we could re-use waste fuel? What if we could re-use it 3, 5, or even 10 times? The CANDU reactor design allows us to do precisely this. We can turn the waste fuel cost centre into an asset and reduce our need for fresh uranium. This processes is similar to enrichment - remove the less than 10% of mass that inhibit fission, and re-use.

Waste fuel from American, Russian, British, and Japanese reactors only need to be cut into shape for a CANDU - even easier.



Now that there is enough waste fuel in Canada (and the world) to justify construction, isn't it time to consider a waste-fuel processing plant to reduce our mining of uranium? With technology like that, Canada can become a nuclear powerhouse helping countries reduce production nuclear waste. This will create high paying Canadian jobs in a growing sector of the world economy.

Car, Hydro, NatGas charts updated

Check out the links on the left "Graphs 2009-05-08" for new charts showing fuel consuption of our car as well as electrical consuption for the winter with our new Ground Source Heat Pump furnace.

Natural gas consumption has been zero for a while, the gas company come over a put a lock bolt on our meter. No gas bills.

Ontario's Darlington generation station offline

Looking at my Ontario Generation Charts, you can see that as of April 19-20 2008 the amount of nuclear power produced in Ontario has reduced, likely seasonally based on 2008 behaviour.

However, as of that date - the entire Darlington generation site is generating zero MW or power on all 4 of it's 1GW generators. This did not happen in 2008.

Very surprising. I can find not mention on www.ieso.ca or on the net for why this happened. Anyone know?

Quirks and Quarks: Talks reality

The CBC's excellent radio show Quirks and Quarks had a guest who wrote a book "Physics for Presidents" and it got people in a bit of a tizzy. Listen to it in MP3 or OGG.

So much was the reaction, the host Bob MacDonald wrote about it in his blog.

Read it, then check the responses from people. My favourite:

Dave from Ottawa
"A kilogram of coal, on the other hand, contains about 1,000 times more energy than an equivalent volume of air blowing past a windmill."
Now subtract the energy it took to extract and transport that coal to the power plant.
My point is that energy density is a misleading measure. Update the article to compare net energy output of the sources.

My comment to Dave from Ottawa:
Now substract the energy it took to mine the iron, refine it into steel, bend and melt it into a turbine and alternator and transport it from Europe to Ontario. My point is that energy density is not the only measure but the single more leading indicator of a fuel's viability.

I repeat my theorem:
For an energy source to be viable, it must be produced from raw materials using only that fuel source.

Example:
If wind power is so great, produce more wind farms from raw materials using only wind power.

This test passes for coal, natural gas, petroleum, and nuclear power. It does not (yet?) pass for wind, solar, hydrogen, or ethanol. Biodiesel is on the fence.

Earth Hour - Consuption vs. Generation

Purpose

Like this blog, I am here to present facts and explain them. In short - the public data shows no less Coal or Natural Gas was burned during Earth Hour. And yes, the Nuclear plants were still going full-tilt (in fact the Bruce-B Generator-5 increased production prior to the event).

Introduction

It's great to "do our part" and not consume electricity. But we need to realize that less consumption does not always result in less pollution.

Sounds like anti-Earth propaganda doesn't it? Let me explain by using Earth Hour as an example.

The notion is if we turn off our lights and use less electricity, we make less pollution. Forget for a second that florescent lights in office buildings are much more efficient than the soft glow of incandescent lights typically in homes. And forget that lighting is a very small portion of the total electrical demand.

The Data

Think of how the electricity is generated. In Ontario there are 5 major fuel types being used for generation:

• Nuclear (61%),
  
• Coal (2%),
  
• Oil/Natural Gas (9%),
  
• Hydro (26%)
  
• Wind (2%), and
  
• Pulp & Paper Waste (1%).

The Independent Electrical System Operator announced that during Earth Hour Ontario electrical demand dropped by 6% from the calculated expected demand.

And Here's The Catch...

Put yourself in IESO's shoes - you control the leavers that can crank up the generators.

• Your Nuclear generators can be shut down in about 60sec, but take 3 days to get back up to speed - can't touch them since they're your work-horse generators.
  
• Your Pulp&Paper and Wind generators produce a fraction of your capacity - don't bother turning them off.
  
• Your Natural Gas and Goal generators boil large vats of water into steam to spin turbines. These monsters can turn on faster than Nuclear, but they still take almost an hour to reach full power. (NatGas is a more complicated than this, but you get the idea)
  
• All you have left that you can control for this is to throttle down your Hydro generators which are very responsive to turn-off and turn-on commands (60sec!).

Conclusion

The irony is the fuel source perceived to be the cleanest - Hydro - is what gets turned off during Earth Hour because it's the only thing that can be turned on again as demand returns at the end of Earth Hour.

The graphs of the data provided by the IESO generators support this conclusion.

What would make IESO turn down the real polluters of its generation system? If Earth Hour was an all-day event.

More on Algae Fuel

As I've said before in my blog, algae as biofuel is attractive.

Here's a proof of concept (shown on History Channel) that is using transparent tubes as bio-reactors collecting waste gas from a 1GW power station. It claims that 100% capture from the power station will need 2,000 acres of land or 8 square kilometers (2km x 4km).



The University of Kentucky is making making headlines on this. It's not new, but this is the direction we need to go in considering the 100-fold increase in photosynthetic performance.

Updated Diesel/Hydro/NatGas Graphs

With winter coming, and our heat pump installed. I'll be doing my best to keep the graphs section (to the top and left) up-to-date.

Essay: Pick Your Poison

Pardon for the diversion from my usual subject matter.

Someone I know by the name of John Ogilvie asked me to put into a letter what I've come to learn about nuclear power so he could have something to share with other Green Party members. Apparently the Green Party is flatly against nuclear power generation inspite of its benefits (not that it's without drawbacks).

I kept my policy of "back it up with facts". Here's what I shared with him.

---

Pick Your Poison

Facts to be used when discussing nuclear power

Our society is in the midst of a search for sources of power that are both safe and bountiful but none exist that can displace our current technologies - so we are left with a choice between the available evils. Is nuclear power one of these evils? Strong emotions are evoked when the words "nuclear power" (pronounced 'noo-clee-ar pow-er') are spoken. Prime among them is fear. Most people's nuclear knowledge extends only as far as WW2 mushroom clouds, Chernobyl, and waste disposal problems. It is only possible to have an educated discussion on the potential for nuclear power to fill our energy needs when the facts are examined as objectively and quantitatively as possible. After all, nuclear power is not as common as the combustion energy sources we're used to.

Let's consider the implications of shutting down all of the coal-, oil- and natural gas-fired generating stations in Ontario. This would remove 3.3 Gigawatts (17.7%) from Ontario's electrical generation capacity. How would this be replaced, assuming no change to consumption? There are no viable large hydroelectric sites, photovoltaic (PV) solar panels consume immense power for production, and wind turbines are almost as costly as PV cells. And as we know in government - management of hundreds of small projects would be cumbersome compared to management of several large projects, so it's "go big or go home" when we're taking about the electrical grid.

Let's look at the fuel used for nuclear power: uranium. Several forms of uranium exist. Uranium-238, unsuitable for use as fuel, accounts for over 99% of all natural uranium and has a half-life of 4,470 million years (higher the half-life, the less radioactive the material). Uranium-235, suitable for fuel and weapons, accounts for less than 1% and has a half-life of 704 million years. In other words, natural uranium is weakly radioactive. By comparison carbon-14 - a natural source of radioactivity found in all living things - has a half-life of 5,730 years (0.005 million years). C-14 is radiologically toxic in comparison to U-238 and U-235. The dreaded plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,100 years and is chemically unstable in an oxygen atmosphere.

Let's also examine the nuclear reactor used in Canada - the legendary CANDU. I will not use the term "legendary" without qualification. The CANadian Deuterium Uranium rectors were conceived, designed, developed, and constructed in Canada by the predecessor of Atomic Energy Canada Limited (AECL) in the 1950s. But since Canada was (is?) a peaceful nation, the lack of Canadian uranium enrichment facilities led to a reactor design that used unenriched Uranium. Enrichment is the process which increases the concentration of U-235 from <1% to about 9% to reach criticality easier. In a nutshell, the geometry of the reactor core allows CANDU reactors to run on unenriched fuel, and is the reason that it takes days to start-up a CANDU. Remember how after the blackout of 2003 it took days to get electricity back in the province? A safety side-effect of the CANDU design is if the reactor starts to overheat, the core will soften and deform, breaking the geometry of the reactor core and thereby breaking criticality - the nuclear chain reaction will slow down and not run-away to a meltdown. Put simply, Three Mile Island and Chernobyl wouldn't have happened if they used CANDU reactors.

How much do we rely on nuclear power? There are 3 nuclear generating stations in Ontario: Darlington, Pickering and the privately operated Bruce. These 3 sites produce over 50% of the peak electrical demand for the most populated province in the country. That is without doubt an awesome amount of power generation for such a small number of stations of relatively small size.

Ok then, so how much material is used in generating electricity using CANDU reactors? One litre of diesel fuel - like that used in oil fired generating stations - has an energy density of 45.47 Megajoules per kilogram (or about 0.0126 Megawatt-hours per kilogram). According to the IAEA and the World Nuclear Fuel Market, more than 55.5 Megawatt-hours of electricity is generated in a CANDU for every kilogram of uranium. The energy density of nuclear fuel is therefore 4,400 times higher than oil and one kilogram of uranium would be enough to power a home for over 4.5 years. The main downside of nuclear power is the waste is just about the nastiest stuff imaginable. But the waste from a CANDU reactor can be refined and reacted a second and even a third time in a CANDU reactor. Once it's totally spent, the waste is stowed away and unusable as weapons matirial. By contrast, the waste products of combustion generation (i.e., coal, oil or natural gas) are emissions into the atmosphere and you know the CO2 story there. The key is safe long-term storage of nuclear waste.

Now what about the safety of combustion energy? Let's look at the tar sands as an example of safety. Here is a link to a satellite view of a settling pond where processing waste is left to separate. Notice how only 400 meters separates the pond from the Athabasca River (a 1,200 km river, 9th longest in Canada). If we talk about nuclear waste accidents and meltdowns, let's talk about the cost of a spill from one of these ponds into the Athabasca River. The cost would be incalculable. The Exxon Valdez spilled 41.6 million liters of oil across 760 kilometers of shoreline. A break in the levee of a single major settling pond in Fort McMurray would be on the same scale to downstream wildlife and human uses.

Uranium mining is nothing like working on a reactor in a power plant. Because of the relatively low concentrations of uranium in ore, most mines are open-pit and resemble a quarry. The workers don't wear protective equipment against the radiation because of the low radioactivity (high half-life). In fact, it's adequate that they're inside the cabin of a dump truck. The principal risk from uranium mining isn't the uranium itself (since it has such a low half-life); it is from one by-product of uranium decay - the noble gas radon. Though it is found in extremely low concentrations, radon is airborne and highly radioactive, with a half life measured in hours. Uranium is not airborne (being 70% denser than lead) and not a risk to any surrounding population - at least no more dangerous than mining for any other mineral.

So there you have it - a few details. Now that it's served on a silver platter you can call shenanigans on someone who spews nonsense. Our societal necessity - or at least dependence - on reliable electricity requires that we discuss the facts of generation and not the hyperbole and hearsay. We owe it to ourselves and the future of our society to make the most informed choices to prevent environmental consequences. Nuclear power isn't chocolate boxes and roses, but neither is any other source of energy. But with the proper facts in hand, we can discuss the options rationally. I hope this letter has served that purpose with respect to nuclear power.

References

1. Uranium:
   • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium
   
   
2. Uranium mining:
   • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining
   
   
3. Carbon-14:
   • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon-14
   
   
4. Plutonium:
   • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium
   
   
5. The CANDU Nuclear Reactor:
   • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU
   
   
6. World uranium consumption and electrical generation:
   • http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/reactors.htm
   
   
7. Electrical generation in Ontario:
   • http://www.ieso.ca/
   
   
8. The 2003 Ontario and North Eastern US blackout:
   • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_North_America_blackout
   
   
9. Diesel oil energy:
   • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel#Petroleum_diesel
   
   
10. Map of the Exxon Valdez disaster:
    • http://www.evostc.state.ak.us/History/PWSmap.cfm
    
    
11. Darlington Nuclear Generating Station:
    • http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=43.871044,-78.721762&spn=0.014417,0.029697&z=15
      
    
    
12. Single settling pond in Fort McMurray tar sands
    • http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=fort+mcmurray&ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=56.98788,-111.459475&spn=0.021791,0.059395&z=14&iwloc=addr
    
    
13. Rabbit Lake Saskachewan Uranium Mine
    • http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=&ie=UTF8&t=k&om=1&ll=58.25394,-103.637338&spn=0.010522,0.029697&z=15

Cost of electricity less than zero?!

Fun story on the CBC today:
http://www.cbc.ca/cp/Oddities/080507/K050704AU.html

In short - it was cheaper to pay people to take power than it was to shut down generators.

This is what happens when daytime power consumption is 20-30% higher than in the middle of the night.

If only we could consume power more evenly...?

Most people immediately think - "why don't we store the power in batteries!". I suggest - do the math. The energy to be store is gargantuan!!! Basically there are only two way to store that much energy:

1. Thermal potential
2. Gravitational potential

Thermal potential is easy enough to visualize - heat something up to several times the boiling point of water and insulate it until it is need 8 hours from now in the day. Thermal solar power is one example of this. This is why thermal solar power is more attractive for base electrical demand - it can still generate power when the clouds come in.

Gravitational potential does not involve a black hole or a TARDIS - but water. Using power from base load generators at night to run pumps to lift water a few 100ft up a hill or precipice into a large (kilometers wide) reservoir. The gravitational potential of 1 million tonnes of water is far greater than $100 million in batteries. And at a fraction the cost.

How to hookup a generator to a home

I got lots of traffic on my YouTube videos on Earth Day - lots of comments and emails too.

The most popular question was "How do you hook that up to a home?" Well, here's a diagram showing how.



Notice that I didn't mention anything about feeding back to the grid. Doing that is can make you some small money, but it's expensive to setup. In place of the DPDT (double pole double throw) switch you have a synchronizer to maintain freqency and phase alignment between your generator and the grid. Usually involves converting from AC to DC then back to AC at a loss of power and money from your pocket.

Tracking Power Generation in Ontario

An excellent site showing the electrical generation in Ontario is www.ieso.ca

They provide a metric dung load of information on:

1. %-age generation by type (hydro, nuclear, gas, coal, etc)


2. Maps showing where all the generating plants are (pdf, page 14)


3. %-age consuption by consumer group (home, business, industrial)


4. Seasonal peak consuptions and average demand by city


5. Historical top-20 peak daysGenerator availability plant-by-plant, day-by-day (2008-04-01)

And the awesomest demonstration of why the internet was invented: Live graphs of today's projected and actual electrical consuption!!!

Interesting things one can gleam from the website:

1. Ontario burns a lot of coal - 20.6% of total installed capacity - but plans exist to decommishon all coal by 2009
2. Ontario has been exporting more power than it brings in over the past two years - but there is still tight dependance on US for even distribution
3. There is a lot of nuclear that never turns off
4. Winter peak electrical demand is 90% of summer peak demand

All in all, very educational