Minireactor in works at Westinghouse

Source: Pittsburgh Post Gazette

Minireactor in works at Westinghouse
Lawmakers push bill backing project
Saturday, May 21, 2011
By Erich Schwartzel, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Pam Panchak/Post-Gazette
A prototype of a smaller nuclear reactor was presented with new energy legislation at a news conference with Reps. Jason Altmire and Tim Murphy at Westinghouse's Corporate Headquarters in Cranberry.

Minisize nuclear reactors that power individual neighborhoods -- and can be situated near them -- could be designed by Westinghouse and licensed within 10 years if legislation introduced by two Pennsylvania congressmen Friday becomes part of an upcoming national energy bill.

Reps. Jason Altmire, D-McCandless, and Tim Murphy, R-Upper St. Clair, joined Westinghouse executives in the company's Cranberry headquarters for the announcement. It's part of the politicians' first move in making Western Pennsylvania a major player in whatever energy legislation moves through Congress later this year.

The lawmakers see an opportunity for companies in Pittsburgh -- the "energy capital of the world," according to Mr. Murphy.

The Nuclear Power 2021 Act calls for the construction of two small nuclear reactors by 2021, both of which will be funded partially by the Department of Energy. While the legislation presents itself as a possible solution to record-high gasoline prices, the proposal will inevitably be met by anxious constituents still reeling from the recent nuclear meltdown in Japan.


Read more: www.post-gazette.com/pg/11141/1148192-115.stm

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Sponsored by a GOP Representative and my very own, corporate friendly, Blue Dog Congressman, Jason Altmire.Ya know what, Jason. NIMBY! Or should I say, Not In My Congressional District! You and Senator Timmy want to test out these two prototypes? Put one in the U.S. Senate and the other in the U.S. Congress. Somehow I think your buddies on the Hill will balk at being the test subjects.

So how much of a campaign check did Westinghouse promise you?

And how the hell does this legislation "present itself as a possible solution to record-high gasoline prices"? Plan to put them under the hoods of cars? Again, you first, Jason & Timmy!

No act of earth will destroy us, only our own stupidity.

"However, just hours after Friday's news conference, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a statement calling on Westinghouse to answer to technical issues the agency has found in the design of the company's flagship AP1000 reactor.

"The commission takes issue with the reactor's shield building design and some pressure expected within the containment. The NRC will withhold final approval of the design until Westinghouse addresses the concerns.

"Mr. Altmire introduced the same bill last year to no avail. The renewed focus on record-high gasoline prices has created a more palatable climate for energy legislation, and a complete energy package should start coming together before the end of the year, he said.

"You can't pretend Japan didn't happen," he said, but the safety mechanism developed for Westinghouse's AP1000 reactor will be used in the Small Modular Reactor. Mr. Altmire cited the reactors' "passive cooling system," which can douse overheated reactors with water stored inside the chamber.
___________________________________________________________________________________

Isn't that just peachy? Altmire tells us not to worry because his proposed reactors will incorporate a super duper safety mechanism used in the AP1000 reactor, and minutes later the NRC announces problems with the AP1000's safety shield building design and pressure containment.

Ya see folks, the only energy legislation Altmire's interested in sponsoring is the kind which comes with big fat corporate donations - and you won't find those with wind farms or solar energy!

1) The reason the nuclear industry has focused on large-scale projects is because they produce electricity for less money than small reactors once all the costs are factored in.

2) As we look to the future, large-scale nuclear reactors are the most expensive way to produce electricity among all the alternatives (including renewables) once all the subsidies are taken into account.

3) Insuring reactors of any size is going to price them out of the market. Their only alternative is to shift that burden to the public. The estimated total costs of Fukushima are now expected to be more than a trillion.

4) In 2002 the fission industry convinced the DOE to launch a huge initiative to get some new nuclear plants built by 2010. They were given EVERYTHNG they asked for AND MORE, and they haven't even come close to getting one online yet. Estimated costs to build at the time was claimed to be $2500 per kilowatt - reasonably inexpensive. They said that would drop to $1500/kw by the time they built a couple.
What actually happened was that the price rose to upwards of $8000/kw and, post Fukushima, that can be expected to rise further.

5) What the DOE program actually accomplished was the diversion of much needed funds from the deployment of proven renewable technologies; slowing the response to climate change. All it effectively did was preserve the system built around coal generation for another decade.

6) This is just another way to pick the pocket of the taxpayer.

Your reactionary bullshit notwithstanding.

I even wonder about just how safe the relatively low amounts used in x-rays in hospitals, radiology clinics and dentists' offices really are.

It is a great pun given the reactionary topic in question though.

When even the NRC says it's not safe, and they certainly are no friend of the environment, why in the world would you want this tested in your own neighborhood? I don't get it?

I would vastly prefer to live with a chance of something happening because of an accident to get power than getting it in the way that most people do now, where what's considered "normal practice" is more destructive than nuclear meltdown.

be 100% sometime in the next few months.

Atomic power is the dirtiest, most costly, most dangerous, most expensive way to boil water ever invented.

And since I have the "privilege" of having the nation's newest nuclear dump sitting on top of my water supply, I do believe I am entitled to send out a hearty "FUCK YOU" to the entire nuclear industry!

:hi:

:toast:

THe only difference between him and Atkinson was that Atkinson was dumb enough to jump to the GOP. But, I guess he doesn't care since it looks like he's getting gerrymandered...

if he is gerrymandered out of the House. But he should have a ton of campaign funding because he's voted various Big Corporate Interests since the day he was elected. So I expect he'll fight to keep a seat.

the large reactors like the ones that TEPCO has been dealing with in Japan.


Apples and oranges.


These things will be the wave of the future.... and reactionary posts like this OP that frankly don't have a clue about what they're talking about do not help.


Become informed before you post nonsense that you don't understand.

And it was the Nuclear Regulatory Commission who raised the safety issues. I think the Nuclear Regulatory Agency knows better than to compare apples and oranges. You, on the other hand, have a financial interest via your wife. And does she or do you have a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering? If so, you all be sure and let the Nuclear Regulatory Agency know that their statement is nonsense. And as long as your wife is so personally knowlegeable on this matter, ask her why the NRC Chairman has asked Westinghouse to explain why it "submitted flawed information in the first place."

"However, just hours after Friday's news conference, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a statement calling on Westinghouse to answer to technical issues the agency has found in the design of the company's flagship AP1000 reactor.

The commission takes issue with the reactor's shield building design and some pressure expected within the containment. The NRC will withhold final approval of the design until Westinghouse addresses the concerns.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11141/1148192-115-2.stm#ixzz1N38iVu4D

And then you can insult the New York Times for daring to report on Westinghouse's safety problems with the AP1000 Reactor. I think you and your wife should give them a sharp talking to.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/21/business/energy-environment/21nuke.html
Regulators Find Design Flaws in New Reactors
(photo captions)
The Sanmen Nuclear Power Plant in China, being built in 2009, will hold two of the questioned Westinghouse AP1000 reactors.
By MATTHEW L. WALD
Published: May 20, 2011



WASHINGTON — In a setback for the only model of nuclear reactor for which ground has been broken in the United States, government regulators have found additional problems with the design of its shield building, a crucial component, the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said on Friday.

The chairman, Gregory B. Jaczko, said that computations submitted by Westinghouse, the manufacturer of the new AP1000 reactor, about the building’s design appeared to be wrong and “had led to more questions.” He said the company had not used a range of possible temperatures for calculating potential seismic stresses on the shield building in the event of an earthquake, for example.

Mr. Jaczko said the commission was asking Westinghouse not only to fix its calculations but also to explain why it submitted flawed information in the first place. Earlier this year the commission staff said it needed additional calculations from Westinghouse to confirm the strength of the AP1000’s shield building. The building has not been built; the analysis of its strength and safety is all computer based.

The announcement comes as the commission and the American nuclear industry are facing increased scrutiny as a result of the calamity that began after an earthquake and tsunami damaged the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan in March, leading to releases of radioactive material. Various critics have asked the commission to suspend licensing of new plants, the relicensing of old ones and various other activities until the implications of the Fukushima accident are clearer.

...wrong with the design, but that it is so far only exists on the drawing board.

Essentially: Sorry you can't build one, because you don't have a working model with which to demonstrate the correctness of your calculations. And no you can't build a pilot plant to obtain the data we're demanding, because we already said you can't, because you don't have a working model. And round and round and round it goes. Shades of Bowie in Labrynth anyone?

And this isn't the only reactor design that remains untried, because prototypes are refused approval on the grounds that a prototype doesn't exist.


All that said. A horror scenario for a reactor containing several tons of fuel, being run at close to the ragged edge of materials science, is just a bit of a mess in a much cooler reactor containing only a few tens of killograms of fuel. And in fact the primary horror scenario is impossible, simply because the amount of fuel present, physically can not generate enough heat to disrupt even very moderate containment vessels.

I think it can be taken as a given, that first generation consumer mini-reactors will be over-engineered to glory. And even later generations are unlikely to be pared back a great deal, simply because as a proportion of the overall costs of an installation, the cost savings simply wouldn't be worth the negative publicity.

Mini and micro-reactors entirely address the single biggest concern we have with existing reactors. The potential for globlal scale impact in the event of a major disaster.

Enough concrete and polymer membranes underneath, and a whacking great lid (more to keep out the riff-raff) on top will prevent any possible local impact.

Which can't be addressed due to physics being what they are and those damned isotopes taking their sweet time to decay.

So we will just not talk about it, so it doesn't exist, problem solved!

1) Use it to soak up stray neutrons in variants of the fast breeder reactor which AREN'T tuned to churn out bomb grade plutonium. Detuned (or retuned) they become even better at producing non-weaponisable trans-uranics for fuel, and/or transmuting long lived fission products into either stable isotopes or highly unstable ones which rapidly decay into stability.

2) Shoot it with neutrons from a neutron gun. Same deal as above. With the downside that it potentially makes weapon's grade plutonium a shitload cheaper. But genie and bottle. The tech WILL be used for ill if we refuse to use it to our own (non militant) ends for that reason. Coopting it for ourselves, we might be able to claim sufficient ownership to tell the warmongers to keep doing it the fucking hard way.

and option 3) Separate and sequester is only the problem its painted to be, if we so fuck up our tenancy on the planet, that the issue ceases to be an issue for us. The Egyptian's example tells us we can do at least 5000 years standing on our heads. If we can't find a PERMANENT, PERMANENT "SOLUTION" inside of that time frame, I ABSOLUTELY GUARANTEE you that by the time it becomes an issue it won't be one for us selfish homo saps because we won't be around to enjoy it. And Gaiistic custodial arguments are bullshit. If we won't preserve it for ourselves, there is not a fucking hope in hell that some "idealistic treehugger" will convince us to go "quietly into the night" and leave a clean slate for the cockroaches and rats.

We grow up or we're gone. There is NO middle ground. No sticking to technologies that can't be perverted. If we can't learn to be trusted with "the matches of the gods", we can't be trusted full stop. Not with the brains we possess.

Nuclear power might not be an IDEAL solution to our current woes. However, it is a viable and workable solution.

Fission is a bad choice. When costs, safety, waste and proliferation concerns are all considered (and that included the Westinghouse IRIS and Eskom's PBMR) the most promising option was found in designs like the AP1000.

Now you are touting WORSE technologies by using arguments that are so selective and incomplete that it would make a used car salesman blush.

When the goal is a mixture of trans-urannics suitable for slow fissioning in ordinary reactors, breeders have been demonstrated to perform quite well. And have been used to successfully "incinerate" longer lived fission byproducts.

Admittedly, so far only relatively small quantities of material have been processed, however since the method is pretty much "bung it in there and wait", there are no obvious reasons why it shouldn't be fully scalable.

The beauty of this method is that because there is no "goal isotope" as such, the material processing becomes enormously simpler. Heavy stuff simply goes to be burnt as nuclear fuel, and the chemical or electrochemical separation of the fission byproducts into radioactive and non-radioactive is not particularly dificult. Rinse repeat with the leftovers.

A further benefit of allowing the production of higher proportions of transuranics other than plutonium, is that while the material remains "burnable" in a nuclear reactor, it contains too many different nuclear specices to ever explode. There is the added benefit that the mixture is something of an unholy mess, which is extremely difficult to separate out the weaponisable portion.


Now all that said, there is no actual need to use a reactor core tuned for a high neutron flux, (a breeder) to be used to produce fuel, that entire flux could be devoted to the "incineration" of waste. The main reason to produce some fuel is to at least cover the cost of running the "incinerator".


You also (again) overlooked the posibility of using a source of neutrons other than a reactor to accomplish the same ends with absolutely none of the risks associated with operating a nuclear reactor.


The means to fully dispose of nuclear waste exist. What is lacking is the will to implement those methods.

NT!

to do with nuclear reactor design, much less nuclear physics in general.

Out of curiosity, were we supposed to be impressed with such appeal to authority on an anonymous forum as to what your wife said, just because she is apparently employed by the same corporation... and obviously has a vested economic interest in this? LOL.

Less than 5,000 employees, and almost all of them (including my wife) work in the Nuclear Reactor business.

In 2001, they sold off all their other business units. They're exclusively a Nuclear Energy company now.

We don't care where she works.
We don't care what they say to us this time.
We don't care how "error proof" they will be.
We don't buy this bullshit anymore.

What sort of "completely different" nuclear waste
disposal plans are in place for these reactors?
Or will they "dry cask" their wastes in the
neighborhoods just like the big nukes do?

Tesha

Your wife works there, so of course it'd be normal for you to be biased their way. However, is she on the design team, has she tested these against the "worst circumstances"? If not, how does she know it's safe other than company memos supporting it?

Like nuclear powered pacemakers and nuclear lighthouses.

They were built in the most remote and uninhabited area - the Arctic Circle - not in a suburban setting - and merited signage stating: Radioactive Danger.

http://englishrussia.com/index.php/2009/01/06/abandoned-russian-polar-nuclear-lighthouses/

"So, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union decided to build a chain of lighthouses to guide ships finding their way in the dark polar night across uninhabited shores of the Soviet Russian Empire. So it has been done and a series of such lighthouses has been erected. They had to be fully autonomous, because they were situated hundreds and hundreds miles aways from any populated areas. After reviewing different ideas on how to make them work for a years without service and any external power supply, Soviet engineers decided to implement atomic energy to power up those structures. So, special lightweight small atomic reactors were produced in limited series to be delivered to the Polar Circle lands and to be installed on the lighthouses. Those small reactors could work in the independent mode for years and didn’t require any human interference, so it was very handy in the situation like this. It was a kind of robot-lighthouse which counted itself the time of the year and the length of the daylight, turned on its lights when it was needed and sent radio signals to near by ships to warn them on their journey. It all looks like ran out the sci-fi book pages, but so they were.

"Then, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the unattended automatic lighthouses did it job for some time, but after some time they collapsed too. Mostly as a result of the hunt for the metals like copper and other stuff which were performed by the looters. They didn’t care or maybe even didn’t know the meaning of the “Radioactive Danger” sign and ignored them, breaking in and destroying the equipment. It sounds creepy but they broke into the reactors too causing all the structures to become radioactively polluted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator
Radioisotope thermoelectric generator
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Diagram of an RTG used on the Cassini probe

A radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG, RITEG) is a nuclear reactor technology electrical generator that obtains its power from radioactive decay. In such a device, the heat released by the decay of a suitable radioactive material is converted into electricity by the Seebeck effect using an array of thermocouples.

RTGs can be considered as a type of battery and have been used as power sources in satellites, space probes and unmanned remote facilities, such as a series of lighthouses built by the former Soviet Union inside the Arctic Circle. RTGs are usually the most desirable power source for robotic or unmaintained situations needing a few hundred watts or less of power for durations too long for fuel cells, batteries, or generators to provide economically, and in places where solar cells are not viable. Safe use of RTGs requires containment of the radioisotopes long after the productive life of the unit.

"we have a crash on 237 westbound measuring over 3 terrabecquerels"

mini meltdown in place of a major meltdown.

Now THAT'S progress!


Believe I'll just keep using the electricity generated by windmills about 10 miles from my house.

sewer treatment plants, power grid, broken refineries or crumbling schools.

Does this thing heal itself 30 years down the road?

....we can do better and cut out the middle-men: how about RTGs?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator

....for decades, the US and the Soviets have powered remote applications, including satellites, with RTGs. Imagine, every home on your block powered for ten years by an affordable, clean, nuclear-electric generator. The basic technology is there if can be developed, made secure, safe and tamper-proof.

....of course, without wall-street middle-men placing their greedy hand in your pocket every month, we'll never see this technology come to fruition in the US....unless China develops our new future home RTG?