A solution to several energy problems

[Lee DeRaud]

The "standardized design concept" has merit, but realize that those countries mentioned have goverment subsidized, and goverment run reactors. Any flaw in a single standardized design would effect all plants simultaneuosly. potentially crippling all of the energy output with a single fault.
US plants are built to a much more rigid design model, based on redundancy of systems, and components
We need more than one standardized design, by more than one vendor to remove a common mode failure from affecting all of the plants simultaneuosly.

I find these statements...curious. Could you give an example of how a flaw in a single standardized design would cause all the plants using that design to fail simultaneously?

[Mike Cutler]

Lee. You are not looking at a failure per se, in the classical sense. Any design deficienies or improper use/selection of materials could cause problems. These problems could be manifest in a manner that would put the plants outside of their design basis criteria, and regulatory enforcment would have to shut them down to comply with federal regulations.

Currently all PWR style reactors are undergoing bare metal inspections of every single reactor head, every refueling due to the incidence of erosion at the Davis Besse plant that resulted in a failure of the internal metal surface.
The inconnel J welds used in primary system piping nozzles and penetrations are also subject to acccelerated degradation and have to be repaired. These nozzle were the "standard" 20 years ago. The repairs are now beginning to fail, and there is no repair for the repair other than to remove the entire nozzle. There are hundreds upon hundreds of nozzles in an primary coolant system.

As theoretical models are analyzed, the findings may require additional equipment and or system to mitigate or prevent a theoretical accident. This has happend, and all plants had to be modified to conform to these new models before they could continue operation. This will happen in the future with certainty as we develop more models. to increase the reliability and safety of the plants.

Changes to nuclear power plants are not easy to implement. The regulatory scrutiny is tremendous, as it should be. to ensure that changes made conform to the operational liscense of the plant and conform to federal regulations without compromising safe operation or safe shutdown margins.

The single standardized design concept does also not allow for the introduction of newer technologies, as they occur. The current designs for nuclear power plants, on the drawing boards are way ahead of anything currently built, anywhere. The plants do not have fuel assemblies. A fluid bed concept is utilized that facilitates the refueling of the core on a continuous duty basis, without having to shutdown. Other designs utilize the physical principals of natural circulation to eliminate the need for reactor coolant pumps.
More than one vendor has designs for "Modular Facilities" that can be "hooked together" and upgraded as grid requirements dictate.
The ability to adopt new technologies and designs mitigates the designed obsolecense that currently exists. The French, and the EU will need to have a huge nuclear program rebuilding as the parts and materials, for their current generation of plants, become financially not viable for their current lower tiered supply vendors tp produce, or their goverments will have to subsidize these vendors to maintain these obsolete inventories.

In the instrumentation field this is readily apparent, as parts and components are no longer produced and supported by the original vendor. If you are only 2% of a companies total sales. It is not cost effective for that vendor to continue to stock parts, and repalcement components. This results in increased engineering costs to redesign these systems and components to use a newer, currently supported component. Nature of the business though.


I would not want to have just one model to choose from. My opinion only.

[Curt Harms]

"It is unfortunately a huge political issue. People are afraid of what they don't know about, and can't see. The biggest challenge to restoring Nuclear Power as a viable energy alternative is educating the people, so that they are capable of making a rational, fact based decision about Nuclear Power. The erosion of math and science skills in the US is apalling. It is very difficult to make an argument for nuclear power, becuase so much of it is scientific in nature when presented, and requires a good math background to more fully grasps the concepts"

Amen to that. I suspect the primary source of opinion-forming information for a lot of people is the movie "the china syndrome"

[Lee DeRaud]

Mike, I understand these issues. What I don't understand is how making each reactor a one-off custom design (which is pretty much the situation now) helps the situation any.

Changes to nuclear power plants are not easy to implement. The regulatory scrutiny is tremendous, as it should be. to ensure that changes made conform to the operational liscense of the plant and conform to federal regulations without compromising safe operation or safe shutdown margins.

As it stands currently, you have to go through that process and pay that cost once per reactor design rather than spreading it across an "inventory" of existing plants.

The single standardized design concept does also not allow for the introduction of newer technologies, as they occur. The current designs for nuclear power plants, on the drawing boards are way ahead of anything currently built, anywhere. The plants do not have fuel assemblies. A fluid bed concept is utilized that facilitates the refueling of the core on a continuous duty basis, without having to shutdown. Other designs utilize the physical principals of natural circulation to eliminate the need for reactor coolant pumps.
More than one vendor has designs for "Modular Facilities" that can be "hooked together" and upgraded as grid requirements dictate.
The ability to adopt new technologies and designs mitigates the designed obsolecense that currently exists. The French, and the EU will need to have a huge nuclear program rebuilding as the parts and materials, for their current generation of plants, become financially not viable for their current lower tiered supply vendors tp produce, or their goverments will have to subsidize these vendors to maintain these obsolete inventories.

You're acting as if the standard itself is cast in stone and not allowed to evolve: it's as if Boeing and Airbus were forced to completely redesign their airframes from scratch every time GE or Pratt & Whitney changed an engine design. And certainly new designs and technologies will be developed and added to the standard, but the whole point of having a standard (or set of them) is that the second, third, fourth, etc instance of that design is much cheaper to build because it isn't starting from scratch with regard to the regulatory process.

[Mike Cutler]

Lee. Yes and No to some of your points.
I agree that the "One Off " design has demonstrated it self to be a nightmare of regulatory compliance and development.
What I would advocate would be Standardized designs based on Venor and location.
You cannot build a nuclear power plant in the middle of Kansas the same way that one can be built off the coast of California or Wisconson. The entire plant heating and cooling designs would be vastly different based on the availability of water, and the type of water available. So differences would have to exist.

If Boeing and Airbus had to present their proposed design changes to an outside agency prior to building anything, and then have a public forum to discuss these issues and design changes, and then prove and validate that the proposed design would still meet the curent industry accepted designs for safety, based on a possibly outdated model, for which their design may not conform before they ever manufactured a new plane. We might all still be travelling in 707's and DC-10's. We'll stay away from the runway requirements that were necessary for the evolution of airplane development. but it was all profit driven.

As for being "Cast in Stone". It seems that way at times, and believe me it is very frustrating. Nuclear power is slow to embrace new technologies. If something works and the design is within limits, and parts are available. Why change it? Especially if the newer design/technologies presents a new set of failure strategies, both known and unknown.
If Boeing discovers an engineering design in a plane it does not have to ground it's entire fleet, only those planes affected by that design. You wouldn't ground all of the 747's if a 757 had a design problem that didin't affect the 747's. If all Nuke plants were identical and a design flaw was discovered 10 years later in one of them. All of that type of plant would have to be shut down to correct a fleetwide issue.
Sometimes redundancy, and design efficiency can work against you. What utility would want to take the chance that a flaw discovered by one utility could possibly cause them to have to shut down their plants or commit to extended shutdowns. Would we have a national electric rate, with built in costs for replacement power in place so that all plants regardless of geogrphical location incurr the same costs for these changes?
There is no easy answer, that's for sure. If we had the answers. We certainley wouldn't be working for a living We'd be Big Buck consultants, with lots of free time for woodworking , and we'd have all the best tools, and machines.

[Lee DeRaud]

Mike, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. I suspect my concept of "standard-design" is a lot closer to what you advocate than you think. I just think the problems you ascribe to the standard-design method are a lot easier to handle than the ones inherent in the custom-design method. As it stands now, it's like forcing every home builder to submit plans to a city's permit department, but with no building codes in place to evaluate them against...we'd still be living in caves, using water-powered tablesaws.

[Mike Cutler]

Lee you are correct. I also think that we are closer in agreement than is indicated. I am just caught uo in the strict mechanics of implementation.

Your analogy on building codes is a good one. To carry it one step further, it would be like forcing Mark Singer to build and design to the same requirements as are necessary to build a house on the steep hillsides of Laguna, and apply those same requirements, without deviation on a house built on a flat section of Ball Rd. or Katella.

Thank you for being civil about the matter, in your posts. Nuclear Power can really polarize people.

[Lee DeRaud]

Your analogy on building codes is a good one. To carry it one step further, it would be like forcing Mark Singer to build and design to the same requirements as are necessary to build a house on the steep hillsides of Laguna, and apply those same requirements, without deviation on a house built on a flat section of Ball Rd. or Katella.

One of Mark's houses on Ball Road would be waaaay overpriced, for one thing. I take it you've been out here?

Thank you for being civil about the matter, in your posts. Nuclear Power can really polarize people.

Or at least make them glow in the dark...
(Sorry, couldn't resist. )

[Mike Cutler]

Lee.

Yes, I've been out there.
I grew up in Highland Park, right off of Fiqueroa Blvd, about 2 miles from the intersection of Fig, and Colorado Blvd. I've lived in Pomona, Diamond Bar and Rowland Heights.
I graduated from Ganesha High School in Pomona.
Used to spend the summers in Newport Beach with my Dad. Used to live between PCH and the beach on 39th street. To give you an idea of how long ago this was, I remember when they were putting the jetty's in at Newport Beach, and they weren't filled with concrete the whole time I lived in So. Cal. We used to get lots of crabs and starfish out of those rocks.
I used to play beach Volleyball for $dough$ at the courts where 133 meets PCH in Laguna. They were gone last I was there.
Funniest part is that by 10 years old I could tell you how to get to Disneyland from any freeway in So. Cal. At 45 I got lost when I got off the 57 freeway. I could see the Matterhorn, I just couldn't get there. pretty funny My wife was teasing me about how only I could get lost going to Disneyland.
A lot has changed since I grew up there.

[Michael Perata]

The progressive side of my soul says do no unnecessary harm to your environment.

The realist side of soul my says there are 440+ reactors operating worldwide since the 1950's and the have been two significant accidents: Chernoble being the most violent and life-threatening. Three Mile Island was handled well and was mostly a news item and storyline for a movie.

More people die from lung cancer caused by Radon gas in one year than if 10 Chernobles had failed.

We are a silly society. We test toasters at home for RF radiation by plugging a RF radiation detector into a 120VAC circuit. We worry about brain cancer from our cell phones while driving down the freeway at 80 mph listening to some inane joke on the same phone that is distracting you from your driving.

The time to promote nuclear is now when people have to feed the gas pump $3.00 for each gallon.

I would write my Senators for their support, but one is from San Francisco and the other from Marin County. I love them both, but....

The time is now for nuclear power construction to be restarted and for a natural gas distribution system to be built so we can get to the point where the only oil you need is for an oil change.

[Lee DeRaud]

The time is now for nuclear power construction to be restarted and for a natural gas distribution system to be built so we can get to the point where the only oil you need is for an oil change.

I know what you meant (at least I hope I know what you meant), but my first reaction to that sentence was,
"Ok, which is scarier? A nuclear-powered car, or one powered by natural gas?"

[Mike Cutler]

Ahh... Lee. you're killin' me back here
Nuclear powered cars. Too frightening, even for me.
We already have propane powered light utility vehicles in service. not many though, 'cause propane is pretty expensive.
Having a propane/natural gas vehicle could put a whole new twist on tailgate parties before football games though.

[Lee DeRaud]

We already have propane powered light utility vehicles in service.

UPS does that, IIRC. And I think the local bus line has some LNG-powered units. But those are "fleet" operations. I guess it's not the vehicle itself that bothers me, it's standing next to some bozo at the filling station who's talking on the phone and smoking and lord knows what, instead of paying attention to getting the connection tight between his car and the fueling rig. (Could be worse, I guess: LH2 anyone?)

[Michael Perata]

'cause propane is pretty expensive.

It is expensive because of distribution costs. It would be very economical if the distribution system was equal to the gasoline distribution system.

[Vaughn McMillan]

Having a propane/natural gas vehicle could put a whole new twist on tailgate parties before football games though.

I used to be a crew member on a hot-air ballon for which the F250 chase truck was propane powered. Made it handy when filling the ballon propane to be able to top off the truck while we were there. We also had keys to the propane distributor's yard, so we could fill up on weekends and early in the morning when he was closed. We'd simply leave a note saying how much gas we took, and the balloon owner would pay the bill later. Lee's right, though, about requiring a whole 'nother level of precaution when doing fill-ups. I've done balloon tank fillups at big rallies where 40 to 50 people are simultaneously filling tanks at the "propane farm". One wrong move and it's a BIG boom.

- Vaughn