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Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2008 16:55:54 GMTServer: NCSA/1.4.2Content-type: text/htmlLast-modified: Sat, 13 Sep 2008 03:02:08 GMTContent-length: 40144Nuclear Energy is the most certain future source.FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT NUCLEAR ENERGY by John McCarthy This page discusses nuclear energy as a part of a more general discussionof why human material progress is sustainableand should be sustained. Energy is just one of the questions considered.Up to: Main page on why progress is sustainable Incidentally, I'm Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University,emeritus (means retired) as of 2001 January 1.Here's my main page. I write aboutsustainability as a volunteer public service. I am not professionallyinvolved with nuclear energy. Here's a new page on Nuclear Energy Now. It is motivatedby the Bush Administration in the U.S. having tentatively re-openedthe question of building new nuclear plants in the U.S. I hope theypersist and are successful. One of the major requirements for sustaining human progress is anadequate source of energy. The current largest sources of energy are thecombustion of coal, oil and natural gas. These are discussed in the main page on energy. They will last quitea while but will probably run out or become harmful in tens to hundredsof years. Solar energy will also work but is not much developed yetexcept for special applications because of its high cost. This highcost as a main source, e.g. for central station electricity, is likelyto continue, and nuclear energy is likely to remain cheaper. A majoradvantage of nuclear energy (and also of solar energy) is that itdoesn't put carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere. How much ofan advantage depends on how bad the CO2 problem turns out to be. Q. What are the details on nuclear energy? A. It is somewhat complicated and depends on facts about nuclear physics and nuclear engineering. Nuclear power can come from the fission of uranium,plutonium or thorium or the fusion of hydrogen into helium. Today itis almost all uranium. The basic energy fact is that the fission ofan atom of uranium produces 10 milliontimes the energy produced by the combustion of an atom of carbon fromcoal. Natural uranium is almost entirely a mixture of two isotopes,U-235 and U-238. U-235 can fission in a reactor, and U-238 can't to asignificant extent. Natural uranium is 99.3 percent U-238 and 0.7percent U-235. Most nuclear power plants today use enriched uranium in which theconcentration of U-235 is increased from 0.7 percent U-235 to(nowadays) about 4 to 5 percent U-235. This is done in an expensiveseparation plant of which there are several kinds. The U-238 "tails"are left over for eventual use in "breeder reactors". The CanadianCANDU reactors don't require enriched fuel, but since they useexpensive heavy water instead of ordinary water, their energy costis about the same. In 1993 there were 109 licensed power reactors in the U.S. andabout 400 in the world. They generated about 20 percent of theU.S. electricity. (There are also a large number of naval powerreactors.) The expansion of nuclear power depends substantiallyon politics, and this politicshas come out differently in different countries. Very likely, aftersome time, the countries whose policies turn out badly will copy thecountries whose policies turn out well. There are only 104operating reactors in 2007 and the percent of electricity that was nuclear was about 17. In 2007 five applications were made to the Nuclear RegulatoryCommission to construct and operate new nuclear power plants. For how long will nuclear power be available? Present reactorsthat use only the U-235 in natural uranium are very likely good forsome hundreds of years. Bernard Cohen hasshown that with breeder reactors, we can have plenty of energy forsome billions of year.Cohen's argument is based on using uranium from sea water. Other peoplehave pointed out that there is more energy in the uranium impurity incoal than could come from burning the coal. There is also plenty ofuranium in granite. None of these sources is likely to be used inthe next thousand years, because there is plenty of much more cheaplyextracted uranium in conventional uranium ores. A power reactor contains a core with a large number of fuel rods.Each rod is full of pellets of uranium oxide. An atom of U-235fissions when it absorbs a neutron. The fission produces two fissionfragments and other particles that fly off at high velocity. Whenthey stop the kinetic energy is converted to heat - 10 million timesas much heat as is produced by burning an atom of the carbon in coal.See the supplement for someinteresting nuclear details. Besides the fission fragments several neutrons are produced.Most of these neutrons are absorbed by something other than U-235, butin the steady-state operation of the reactor exactly one is absorbedby another U-235 atom causing another fission. The steam withdrawnand run through the turbines controls the power level of thereactor. Control rods that absorb neutrons can also be moved in andout to control the nuclear reaction. The power level that canbe used is limited to avoid letting the fuel rods get too hot. The heat from the fuel rods is absorbed by water which isused to generate steam to drive the turbines that generate theelectricity. A large plant generates about a million kilowatts ofelectricity - some more, some less. After about two years, enough of the U-235 has beenconverted to fission products and the fission products have built upenough so that the fuel rods must be removed and replaced by new ones. What to do with the spent fuel rods is what causes most ofthe fuss concerning nuclear power. Q. What about the plutonium? A. Besides fission products, spent fuel rods contain some plutoniumproduced by the U-238 in the reactor absorbing a neutron. Thisplutonium and leftover uranium can be separated in a reprocessingplant and used as reactor fuel. The Japanese had their spent fuelrods reprocessed in Europe and shipped the plutonium back home for usein reactors. This is what Greenpeace was fussing about. Q. How much plutonium is produced? A. In terms of nuclear fuel, about 1/4 as much as the U-235 that wasin the fuel rods in the first place. Thus running a reactor for fouryears produces enough plutonium to run it for one more year providedthe plutonium is extracted and put into new fuel rods. Newer designswith higher "burnup ratios" get more of their energy fromplutonium.Q. What about nuclear waste? A. After the fuelhas been in the reactor for about 18 months, much of the uranium hasalready fissioned and a considerable quantity of fission products havebuilt up in the fuel. The reactor is then refueled by replacing about1/3 of the fuel rods. This generally takes one or two months. {2002note: Entergy Nuclear, an enthusiastic buyer and operator of Americannuclear power plants has been reducing this time for their plants.They refueled their River Bend plant in Louisiana in 17 days andexpect to reduce their average refueling outage time to two-threeweeks.] Canadian CANDU reactors replace fuel continuously. When fuel rods are removed from the reactor they contain largequantities of highly radioactive fission products and are generatingheat at a high rate. They are then put in a large tank of water aboutthe size of a swimming pool. There they become less radioactive asthe more highly radioactive isotopes decay and also generate less andless heat. The longer the spent fuel is stored, the easier it will beto handle, but many reactors have been holding spent fuel so long thattheir tanks are getting full. They must either send the rods off orbuild more tanks.The fuel rods should then be chemically reprocessed. Reprocessingremoves any leftover uranium and the plutonium that has been formed.The U.S. shut down its reprocessing plant during the 1970s and hasn'treplaced it. European reprocessing plants (Belgium, France, Russia,UK) continue to operate, and the Japanese are building their own - inthe meantime sending their spent fuel to Europe for reprocessing. TheFrench plant they use sends their plutonium back to Japan, where theJapanese plan to use it as reactor fuel. The fission products are then put in a form for long term storage. Alarge reactor produces about 1.5 tonnes of fission products per year.The fission products are originally in a mixture with othersubstances, so reprocessing is required to get it down to a 1.5tonnes. [If the waste is incorporated into a glass, the total weightis 15 tonne. If the density is 3.0 times water, that means the volumeof the waste is 0.5 cubic meters, and the volume of the waste glass isabout 5 cubic meters. [from Prof. Bernard Cohen] Manyschemes for long term storage have been devised, but lawsuits andpolitics have prevented any of them from being implemented in theUnited States. Unfortunately, the U.S. is not reprocessing so thevolume to be stored is about 10 times larger - still entirely feasible. The French have decided on a scheme, but I don't know if they have putit into operation. Because the fission products become lessradioactive with time, the longer you wait, the easier the taskbecomes. The Canadians are reviewing a plan for storing wastedeep underground in the Pre-Cambrian "Canadian Shield". The U.S. plan is to store the waste in Nevada in the same area as hasbeen used for underground nuclear tests. This plan is still tied upin long term indecision. A big step forward was taken in 2002 whenthe President signed a bill to over-rule the objections of the Stateof Nevada. Q. Why isn't the U.S. reprocessing? A. The Carter Administration decided not to reprocess nominally on thegrounds that if other countries could be persuaded not to reprocess,the likelihood of nuclearproliferation would be reduced. So far as I know, not one othercountry has been persuaded, because the economic advantages ofreprocessing are so great. The Reagan and Bush Administrations wantedto reprocess, but it would have been politically expensive so theytemporized. Q. What if you don't reprocess? A. You lose the economic benefit of the plutonium, the spent fuelremains radioactive longer and has to be better guarded, because itcontains plutonium. However, there is plenty of uranium for now,so it may not be economic to reprocess at present provided thespent fuel remains available for later reprocessing. Q. What about breeder reactors? A. If the reactor design is much more economical of neutrons, enoughU-238 can be converted to plutonium so that after a fuel cycle thereis more fissionable material than there was in the original fuel rodsin the reactor. Such a design is called a breeder reactor. Breederreactors essentially use U-238 as fuel, and there is 140 times as muchof it as there is U-235. The billion year estimates for fuelresources depend on breeder reactors. The French built two of them,the U.S. has a small one, the British built one, the Russians builtone and the Japanese are building one. Breeder reactors seem to be a resource rather than a reserve. Theyare more expensive than present reactors and maybe will wait forlarge scale deployment until uranium gets more expensive. This isunlikely to be soon, because large uranium reserves have beendiscovered in recent years. Q. What about the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR)? This was a breeder reactor with reprocessing on site, so no plutoniumever became externally available. It was hoped that it would addressthe proliferation concerns of the anti-nukes, i.e. it was hoped thatthey would be appeased. However, as soon as the ClintonAdministration came to power, its anti-nukes got the IFR cancelled.Appeasement didn't work this time either. The IFR stillhas its enthusiasts, and maybe it will be revived.Here's another page on the integral fast reactor..Q. Can a nuclear plant blow up like a bomb? A. No. A bomb converts a large part of its U-235 or plutonium intofission fragments in about 10^-8 seconds and then flies apart. Thisdepends on the fact that a bomb is a very compact object, so theneutrons don't have far to go to hit another fissionable atom.A power plant is much too big to convert an important part of itsfissionable material before it has generated enough heat to fly apart.This fact is based on the fundamental physics of how fast fissionneutrons travel. Therefore, it doesn't depend on the particular designof the plant. Q. Can a nuclear plant blow up to a lesser extent? A. Yes, if it is sufficiently badly designed and operated. TheChernobyl plant reached 150 times its normalpower level before its water turned to high pressuresteam and blew the plant apart, thus extinguishing the nuclearreaction. This only took a few seconds. Q. How much of a disaster was that? A. In terms of immediate deaths it was a rather small disaster. 31people died. Cave-ins in coal mines often kill hundreds. However, about 20 square miles of land became uninhabitable for a longtime. This isn't a lot. Fall-out from the Chernobyl explosion will contribute anincrease to the incidence of cancer all over Europe. How much of anincrease is disputed. Since the increase will be very small inproportion to the amount of cancer, we probably won't know fromexperience. The largest estimates are in the low thousands which would makeChernobyl a disaster comparable to the Bhopal chemical plant or theTexas City explosion of a shipload of ammonium nitrate or the Halifaxdisaster during World War I. On the other hand these large estimatesare small compared to the number who have died in each of severalrecent large earthquakes in countries using stone or adobe or sodhouses. It is comparable to the number killed in coal mining accidents in theSoviet Union over the years Chernobyl was operating. The large estimates depend on the linearhypothesis which is almost certainly wrong but which is usedfor regulatory purposes because it is so conservative. The estimatesare probably too high by a substantial factor, maybe 10, maybe100. However, a recent survey indicates a greatly increased rate of thyroidcancer in children (including three deaths)j in Belarus since theaccident. I don't know the total number of cases which would permitcomparing Chernobyl with other accidents. Here is more on the Chernobyl accident including links toBritish, Ukrainian and Russian accounts of the accident and itseffects.Q. What about Western nuclear power plants? A. The Chernobyl accident depended on the specific characteristics ofthe RBMK reactors, of which the Soviets built 16 before switching todesigns more like those used in the rest of the world. (It may be that theNorth Korean reactors are similar). The relevant features ofRBMK reactors include "positive void co-efficient of reactivity". This means thatif the reactor gets too hot and some of the water turns to steam, therate of the nuclear reaction increases. In most other power reactors,the void coefficient is negative. If some water boilsthe reactor tends to stop. RBMK reactors don't have containment shells designed toprevent radioactive materials from getting out. Q. Yes, but perhaps Western reactors have other faults that might makean accident serious. A. There are three answers. The Three Mile Island accident destroyed the reactor, butthe core itself remained confined. Radioactive gases were vented,but there is no accepted evidence that this harmed the public. Fault trees for possible failures have been generated andstudied. However, there could be something not taken into account. At the end of 1998 there were 9012 civilian power reactor yearsof experience throughout the world, and Chernobyl is the only nuclearpower plant accident harming the public. The U.S. Navy has beenpowering ships with nuclear reactors for 50 years and has hadno nuclear accidents. In 1999 Japanese technicians mixing up fuel for an experimentalreactor violated the safety procedures and created a critical mass ofuranium which caused an increasing nuclear reaction until the containerwith the mixture boiled over and stopped the reaction. Three peoplewere hospitalized, two of whom died. The press, especially AFP whichis anti-nuclear billed this asthe worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986. Losing twopeople in 13 years isn't much. That's good for an energy source. Q. Are nuclear power plants perfectly safe? A. No. Nothing is perfectly safe, but they are safe enough to be relied uponas a source of energy. Q. What about nuclear waste? A. The waste consists of the fission products. They are highlyradioactive at first, but the most radioactive isotopes decay thefastest. (That's what being most radioactive amounts to). About onecubic meter of waste per year is generated by a power plant. It needsto be kept away from people. After 10 years, the fission products are1,000 times less radioactive, and after 500 years, the fissionproducts will be less radioactive than the uranium ore they areoriginally derived from. The cubic meter estimate assumes reprocessing,unfortunately not being done in the U.S. Q. What about diversion of material from power plants to countrieswanting to make bombs? A. Every country wanting to make bombs has succeeded as far as isknown. None have used material produced in power reactors.(Plutonium produced in RBMK reactors may have been used in Sovietweapons. The RBMK was designed as a dual-purpose reactor suitableboth for power production and bomb production. For this it wasnecessary to be able to replace fuel rods while the reactor wasoperating, and this made the reactor too big for a containmentstructure, and this is what allowed the radioactivity to spread.) If the fuel rods are kept in the reactor for the two years or sorequired for economical power generation, much of the Pu-239 atomsproduced absorb another neutron and become Pu-240. It is moreexpensive to separate the Pu-240 from the Pu-239 than to get Pu-239from a special purpose reactor in which the fuel rods are removedafter a short time. The Pu-240 makes the bomb fizzle if there is verymuch of it. For more details see the article by Myers.It seems that some of the Russian PU-239 of which samples were sold inGermany was pure enough so that some isotope separation process wasprobably used after the plutonium was extracted from the fuelrods. Q. Are the reserves of uranium adequate for the long term? A. At present, the reserves of uranium that can be profitably sold atat $50 per pound are enough for at least a hundred years. Since thecost of uranium ore is only 0.04 cents per kilowatt-hour,at the 2001 price of $9 per pound,even large increases in ore cost are affordablewithout increasing the cost of nuclear generated electricitysignificantly. At somewhat larger prices than uranium now costs itcan be extracted from the sea. Thorium, which is three times asabundant as uranium can also be used in reactors. Here's a note about nuclear power costs fromProfessor Bernard Cohen of the University of Pittsburgh.In the very long term, breeder reactors will be used. These get about100 times as much energy from a kilogram of uranium as do presentreactors. This makes the present stock of uranium go much farther.Indeed all the enriched uranium used in nuclear reactors and all theU-235 used in nuclear weapons has been separated from U-238, and theleftover U-238 is still available. If this U-238 were used togenerate energy in breeder reactors and the electricity were sold atpresent prices, the present American stock of depleted uranium wouldgenerate $20 trillion worth of electricity. [Doubtless this numberhas changed one way or the other since the above was firstwritten. I haven't time to keep updating it.] Q. What about power from nuclear fusion. A. Since the 1930s it has been understood that the sun gets its energyby combining hydrogen atoms to get helium. It was immediatelyapparent that if we could use these nuclear reactions we would haveenergy for billions of years. At first the problems of getting thisenergy on earth seemed insuperable, because of the millions of degreesof temperature required to get hydrogen atoms to combine. In the 1950s it was discovered how to do this in hydrogen bombs byusing ordinary nuclear fission bombs to set off the fusion of thehydrogen isotopes of deuterium and tritium. Projects were promptlystarted for doing this under less violent conditions. After 50 years,fusion reactors may be close to getting more fusion energy out of thereaction that has to be put in. Present proposals use deuterium andlithium-6, as do present hydrogen bombs. The PrincetonPlasma Physics Laboratory has an FAQ about magneticand inertial fusion. The US Department of Energy has a Fusion energy research site,and there is also a UK fusion energy site. None of the projects is close to designing a plant. Fusion power has the following possible advantages if it can be made towork. The fuel supply is potentially larger. However, the uranium supply seemsto be large enough. Fission products are not produced, although there will be inducedradioactivity in the structures of the plants. No material useful for bombs is produced. Q. Are we ever likely to have nuclear powered cars? Alas, no, if present nuclear physics is all there is to say aboutthe possibility. A nuclear reactor engine that would provide theright amount of energy for a car could be built and would run fine andwould require refuelling only every 5 or 10 years. The only problemis that it would kill the driver, the passengers, and perhapsbystanders. Nuclear reactors, as described above, produce neutrons,which are very penetrating particles and give people radiationsickness if the exposure is substantial. (All our bodies arepenetrated all the time by small numbers of neutrons.) Power reactorshave several feet of concrete shielding between the active part of thereactor and the operators. A big enough vehicle like an aircraftcarrier or a big submarine can afford the shielding. In the 1950ssome thought that nuclear aircraft were feasible. Maybe they were,but the projects were abandoned. Q. What are the arguments against nuclear energy? A. There are many arguments, some related specifically to nuclearenergy and others stemming from more general ideas about society. Ihave labelled the unrelated arguments and made a few comments to be answered more fully later. The problem of disposal of nuclear wastes hasn't been solved.There are several good technical solutions, but the politicalproblem hasn't been solved in the U.S. [2003: Now the politicalproblem has been solved, but lawsuits will be filed and may holdup the solution for a while. 2010 is now predicted as the timewhen waste will start being stored in Nevada.] Nuclear energy is uneconomical compared to other sources ofenergy. It is doing ok. The energy required to build nuclear plants, operate them, and mineand process the uranium may be so large as to cause a net energydeficit. Here's a thorough Energy Analysis of Power Systems including nuclearenergy and its competitors. The basic fact about nuclear energyis that the input energy is 4.8 percent of output energy ifgaseous diffusion is used to enrich uranium and 1.7 percent ifthe newer centrifuge technology is used. Another way of looking at the samefacts is that if gaseous diffusion is used for enrichment, the energyinvested in building the plant is paid back in 5 months, whereas if centrifuges are used the payback time is 4 months. It is bad for humanity to have plenty of energy. - unrelated . Nuclear reactors produce plutonium, and plutonium is terriblebecause it can be used to make bombs. Safeguards are indeedneeded. Plutonium is the most poisonous substance known.No it isn't. Plutonium symbolizes nuclear war. - unrelated . Nuclear reactors are likely to have accidents with severeconsequences for humanity. See above. Radiation from operating nuclearreactors and other activities involved in nuclear energy isdangerous. Energy should be generated locally, even by individualhouseholds, rather than by centralized power stations. - unrelated The risk to an individual of harm from a nuclear accident is aninvoluntary risk, as compared to the much larger risk from driving acar, which is voluntary. This comparison ignores much larger involuntary risks, e.g. therisk of emphysema from coal burning, the risk of an airplane hittingyour house, and the risk of a flood when a dam breaks. Each of theserisks is larger and comes from a human activity. There are otherlarge risks, such as that of a flu epidemic, which are only partlycaused by human activities - such as allowing international travel orhaving pre-schools where children transmit infections to each other. The decision to incur such involuntary risks is a collective decision, madein accordance with laws. Here are some answers to all thearguments listed (even the ones I have labelled unrelated )and any more that people suggest. Some will be answered by referenceto the literature. Q. What is likely to happen with nuclear energy? A. The countries that need it the most will continue to use it.France gets 77 percent of its electricity from nuclear reactors, therest being hydroelectric. Japan is close to 30 percent and increasingsteadily. Japan has little domestic coal and no oil. We have plentyof coal and natural gas, can afford to import more than half of ouroil. Therefore, we can afford delays caused by controversy unless weare zapped by the greenhouse effect. However, the counterculturegeneration is passing through the peak of its political power, and thenext generations seem to be more rational about nuclear energy andmany other issues. Therefore, the U.S. is likely to resume building reactors before beingdriven to it by other countries getting economic advantages. Here are the referencesrelated to nuclear energy. Q. Is the use of nuclear absolutely essential to the sustainabilityof progress?A. Probably not. Solar energy would also work,but at considerably greater cost if relied upon for most of the world'senergy.Q. Then what about giving up on nuclear energy because of the dangerof nuclear war?A. Giving up on nuclear energy is unlikely to reduce the danger ofnuclear wars. In fact it is likely to increase the danger, because ofthe advantage it would give to whoever would first reintroduce nuclearweapons. Also the poorer world that would result from the abandonmentof nuclear energy would be more likely to have wars.Q. What if all energy generated were nuclear?A. A preliminary page discusses this eventuality.When I get a chance to look up more relevant facts, it will beimproved.Q. What is the current state of nuclear energy in the U.S.?A. Operating nuclear plants generate 20 percent of U.S. electricity,but no new plants have been ordered in a long time. The Electric Power Research Institute(EPRI) asked utility executives what would make them startordering nuclear plants again. The 1994 December article Reopening the Nuclear Option by John Douglas in theEPRI Journal gives their answers. It looks difficult but notimpossible. "The plants must be simpler and have higher design marginsand enhanced safety features; they must be economically competitivewith other forms of generation; they must be standardized; and theymust be prelicensed by the NRC."All this presumes that fossil fuels will continue to be available andnot restricted too much by worries about global warming. If thischanges, the requirements for new nuclear power plants in theU.S. will be greater. Remember that the U.S. is a special casepolitically and in the availability of natural gas and that othercountries are still building nuclear plants.Let me again remind the reader that all I really need to accomplishwith this page is to show that lack of energy will not stop materialprogress. I do not need to show that nuclear energy is the best shortterm option, although it probably is.Q. All this is well and good, but isn't the opposition to nuclear powerstrong enough to prevent its use?A. Not when and if refusing to build nuclear plants results in a substantialloss of a country's standard of living. Politicians seem to believe thatmentioning nuclear energy is political poison at present. They may be rightor it may be just one more superstition prevalent among politicians and theirconsultants. Recently a taboo against mentioning nuclear energy has developed among scientists - especially those specializing in energy. None of thearticles in the recent special issue of Science devoted to energymentioned nuclear energy - pro or con - even though nuclear energy provides17 percent of American electricity. Perhaps energy scientists feel thatmentioning nuclear energy will have an adverse effect on their grants.Perhaps there is some other reason. To some extent "hydrogen" in the energyliterature is a code word for nuclear energy, since many articles promotinghydrogen don't say how else it can be generated economically in the quantitiesrequired to run an economy. Recent waves of ideology are strongly involved.ReferencesThere will be references to the pro-nuclear popular literature, theanti-nuclear popular literature and the technical literature. The Health Hazards of not Going Nuclear by Petr Beckmann,Golem Press. Before it is Too Late by Bernard Cohen, 1984. Pro-nuclear. Poisoned Power by John W. Gofman and Arthur R. Tamplin,Rodale Press, Emmaus, Pa., 1971 "The Anti-Nuclear Game," by Gordon Sims, University of Ottawa Press, Ottawa,Ont., 1990. "Energy Risk Assessment," by Herbert Inhaber, Gordon and Breach, 1982. If you want to know a lot more about nuclear energy, read a textbook about it. Some links:There are now many excellent sources of information about nuclearenergy in the form of Web pages. Some of them are official and otherswere created by interested individuals and organizations.Nucnet is a Nuclear News Agencyoperated by the European Nuclear Society.Nuclear plants in the U.S. are regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.It is a good place to find out about regulations and the NRC'sproposals for regulations. 2003 July: The Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japanhas just put up a web site.The University of Texas student chapter of the American Nuclear Societyhas a particularly good Web page.The International Atomic EnergyAgency is the U.N. agency concerned with nuclear matters includingtechnology, safety and nonproliferation. It was they who inspectedIraq's reactors with not entirely satisfactory results. The World Nuclear Association inLondon is an international industrial association for energy fromnuclear fuel.Nuke Home Page has many references including the pages of individualpower plants and also relevant engineering societies. By now there are too many good Web references on nuclear energy for meto keep track of. Two good ones are Joe Gonyeau's VirtualNuclear Tourist and Jeremy Whitlock'sCanadian Nuclear FAQ.The Uranium Information Center - Australia specializes inAustralian production and marketing of uranium. However, it hassome of the best expositions of some topics related to nuclearenergy. These includemilitary warheads as a source of nuclear fuel,occupational safety in uranium mines,the international status of nuclear power,the economics of nuclear power,world energy needs and nuclear power,plutonium (toxicity questions),plans for new reactors worldwide,Japanese waste shipment from Europe andglobal warming. Joe Gonyeau's nuclear tourist site surveys nuclear powerplants around the world.Rod Adams publishes an on-line magazine Atomic Energy Insights . It has many references to advancedapplications of nuclear energy that were studied years ago anddropped as everything nuclear became politically difficult. Theseinclude the NERVA nuclear rocket project and the light waterbreeder reactor. This was Admiral Rickover's last project. The ideawas that very careful design could make a light water reactor breeder.It seems to have been successful, but the project was abandoned. The World Council of Nuclear Workers has an excellent web page inFrench.Nuclear explosions also have peaceful uses. We propose aninternational institute to study them. The International Atomic EnergyAgency is U.N. agency concerned with nuclear energy.I'm encouraged to see so many people looking at this page. If thereare questions or other topics you think should be covered, you arewelcome to send me email at the address below. I plan to improve thepage. If you think the page is all wrong or propaganda and that nuclearenergy is bad, I would still be interested in your specific opinionsand when and how you came to have them. What did you read or hearthat gave you those opinions? When? The reference count, which passed a million hits in 2006 May, tells methat many people get to this page other than via my Main page on why progress is sustainable. Takea look at the sustainability page.By the way, I am a computer scientist working primarily in artificialintelligence research. I started the above page on the sustainabilityof progress, because I disagree with the doomsters. This page onnuclear energy is a satellite of that. My main page has mainlyresearch articles on artificial intelligence, mathematical theoryof computation and other branches of computer science.If you have questions about nuclear energy or about this page, I cantry answer them. If I can't answer them, I pass the buck to the American Nuclear Society, whichis the main professional organization dedicated to nuclearengineering. You can also inquire by email atoutreach@ans.org.Q. Is nuclear energy sustainable? A. Yes. In the short term, probably the next hundred years, thereis so much uranium that no-one can profitably prospect for more. Inthe medium term breeder reactors will extend the energy obtained perkilogram of uranium by a factor of about 100. In the very long term, Bernard Cohen has shown that plentyof uranium can be extracted from seawater for a few billion years. Isuppose extraction of uranium from low grade ores is likely to bebetter than extracting it from seawater, but Cohen's seawater argumentprovides a strong proof that uranium will remain available in the verylong term. Here's Cohen's own webpage. - John McCarthyThe Bush Administration, has put resumingbuilding nuclear plants on the American political agenda, and severalcompanies are getting ready to apply for construction and operatinglicences. [2008 note: Now they've done it.] Here's a discussionof nuclear energy in the near future.Send comments to mccarthy at stanford dot edu. I sometimes make changessuggested in them. - John McCarthyThe number of hits on this page since 1995 October 17th. |
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