NUCLEAR POWER

1
NUCLEAR POWER

• The Fading Dream?
• Or
• Our Hope for the Future?

2
Key Questions
Human Error Sank It.
Unsinkable?

• Are scientists responsible?
• How do we perceive risk?
• Are we well-informed and do we understand what we
  hear?
• What about mixed Messages, like Global Warming?
• When should we act, when should we do more
  research and when should we panic?
• Remember the Titanic!

3
The Key Elements of the Equation

• Science
• Risk and
• Policy

4
Perception of Risk is Reality
January 30, 2007 NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY
BOARD OFFICE OF RESEARCH AND ENGINEERING SAFETY
STUDIES DIVISION, RE-10 PRELIMINARY MONTHLY
SUMMARY U. S. CIVIL AVIATION ACCIDENTS MONTH OF
DECEMBER YEAR THROUGH THE END OF DECEMBER
-----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------- 2006
2005 2006 2005 -------------------
------------------- -------------------
------------------- Accidents Accidents Accidents
Accidents ------------ ------------ ------------
------------ Fatal- Fatal- Fatal- Fatal- Total
Fatal ities Total Fatal ities Total Fatal ities
Total Fatal ities ----- ----- ----- ----- -----
----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- US CIVI
AVIATION 94 35 76 110 25 67 1571 314 764 1780
334 601
Total Air Fatalities USA 2006 746 Total Road
Fatalities USA 2006 43,200

• The Human Perception of RISK 
• There is a considerable difference between the
  real risk posed by something and the way that
  risk is perceived by the subject. You will
  tolerate a much higher risk from your own actions
  than you will tolerate from the actions of others.

5
Perception Problem

• Say Nuclear to almost anyone, and this is the
  image that comes to their mind

Even though it is totally impossible for a
nuclear power plant to explode like this.
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Policy problems of Nuclear Power

•   The capital cost of the individual power plant
  is extremely high. Marble Hill was
  4,000,000,000, and never even opened.
• The technology is seen as potentially
  catastrophic causing eternal damage and so,
  making large parts of the world unusable
• This is the same technology used for making
  bombs
• Mining uranium produces radioactive wastes
• We will never be able safely to store the waste
  products of the nuclear power industry

7
The Dream

• How the Sun shines
• Nuclear fusion is the energy source of stars
  just like our own Sun.
• It has a nuclear fusion reactor at its core.
• The immense pressure and a temperature of 16
  million degrees C force atomic nuclei to fuse and
  liberate energy.
• About four million tonnes of matter is converted
  into sunlight every second.

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• The problem is we have nuclear fission reactors
  we have not evolved fusion reactors yet because
  of temp. problem.
• It is the case with every nuclear reactor that
  there is, as a by-product, the production of
  radioactive waste with a deadly half life of

25,000 years
How on earth do you manage something like that?
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The Nuclear Industry Argument

• Quotes form the Nuclear Industry
•  
• In 1988 US crude oil production fell to its
  lowest level in 12 years. At the same time, US
  oil consumption reached its highest level since
  1979. To meet this new demand, and make up for
  lost domestic production, oil imports have soared
  to 50 of the oil we use
•  
• The shift to nuclear electricity has saved the
  American consumers over 50 billion since 1973.
  Nuclear electricity and coal help assure energy
  independence.
•  
• The 1973 oil crisis proved we cannot afford to
  rely so much on a politically unstable region of
  the world as the Middle East for our energy.

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Europes Commitment to Nuclear
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National Dependence on Nuclear
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The Plus Factor

• Nuclear Energy Pluses
• It produces, per unit of raw material. One ton
  of Uranium is equal to 24,000 railcars of coal!
  Hence, it is very efficient
• It is clean in the sense it produces little
  pollution into the air or waterespecially CO2,
  and is the only energy source about which you can
  say that.
• The raw material is relatively abundant

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The Minus Arguments

• The waste (spent rods, irradiated water)
  remains dangerous for around 25,000 years and we
  have no experience of handling anything like that
• The potential for accidents, such as Chernobyl,
  Three-Mile Island, and 1999 in Japan, is alarming
  because the consequences can be so enormous. Whom
  can we trust? Once more Remember the Titanic

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We associate nuclear energy with iconic
catastrophes
Both the United States and the Soviet Union
knowingly carried out tests on the results of
exposure to nuclear radiation. Principally it
causes cancer and genetic disorders.
Chernobyl
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The Ultimate Image
16
The Dream Fusion
With fusion, there is no long-lasting radioactive
waste to create a burden on future generations.
The basic fuels - deuterium and lithium, and the
reaction product - helium - are not radioactive.
The intermediate fuel, tritium, is radioactive
but decays quickly.

• How the Sun shines
• Nuclear fusion is the energy source of stars
  just like our own Sun.
• It has a nuclear fusion reactor at its core.
• The immense pressure and a temperature of 16
  million degrees C force atomic nuclei to fuse and
  liberate energy.
• Can this be replicated on Earth?

Tuesday, 28 June, 2005, 0757 GMT 0857 UK
France gets nuclear fusion plant  
To produce fusion energy, temperatures above 100
million degrees Celsius must be generated and
controlled. This is achieved by creating a
magnetic cage with strong magnetic fields, which
prevent the particles from escaping.
17
Please note the temperature at the core. Yes,
that is 100,000,000º C, Basically the temperature
of the surface of the sun.
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The Thing to Avoid

• We should not drift into an energy crisis as a
  result of using up other fossil fuels without an
  alternative prepared well in advance.
• That should be paid for now, perhaps by a
  specific tax on fossil energy?
• Otherwise, we have crisis management and make
  hasty, ill-informed decisions.