Looking into the future, as we do here, is a dance with uncertainty. We mourn the earthquake and tsunami victims and many pray for those evacuated or currently working under a real nuclear threat. Seth Godin pointed out actual deaths from nuclear are rather low, per TWh (large unit of energy) produced. The Triumph of Coal Marketing
Here is a current nuclear industry association assessment of the damage in Fukushima, for all those who want to verify how safe nuclear is. http://www.jaif.or.jp/english/
WHAT WENT WRONG: Fukushima flashback a month after crisis started
One social, not technical, concern with uranium fission is the fuel and byproducts are so hazardous when released that safeguarding them basically calls for a police state. How does that sit with politicians? With marketing?
Radiation is less the hazard than particle contamination. Icky is iodine and other stuff from Uranium-fueled reactors. Iodine-131 vanishes rather quickly outdoors, say 80 days, but usually it is accompanied by Cesium-137 and other isotopes which hang around much longer, like 300 years. Enough has been found on fields to ban selling vegetables from the affected region. Traces have been found at the U.S. West Coast and all over the planet, thanks to very sensitive instrumentation.
Longing for abundant affordable energy
Besides adopting profitable Negawatts, what alternatives does our society have?
The fast breeder reactors worldwide could not be proven in decades.
If we feel nuclear is needed to power our societies, it must be technology with passive safety built in, that is not easily turned into weapons, by intention, by a chain of errors, or by a calamity exceeding design assumptions.
Such technology exists.
But it was prevented by lobbying or other priorities. Utilities are notorius for low R&D investment and killing alternatve technology startups, by regulation or otherwise. For example, the Thorium molten salt reactor. It was ready to be deployed in the '60s but the powers that be were in a cold war and chose Uranium so they could harvest weapons-grade material. The Chinese are reviewing their options right now.
Decentralize!
One problem remains, centralized energy supply lacks resilience and invites political collusion. Like centralized money supply. Thank you, Umair Haque.
One of the benign technologies capable of supplying baseload power in a safe, sustainable, and resilient way is geothermal power plants. This is is what powers and heats a big part of Iceland, cost effectively. They have a few in Japan and the technology can be ramped up in most places. Even in Germany, not really known for ground heat and volcanism, they recently commissioned a 10MWe (e for electric) power plant after only a year of construction. As a byproduct there are about 20MWt (t for thermal) available for almost free district heating. OK, the power plant itself must be amortized. But no cleanup cost.
Whatever technology we choose, prudent risk management calls for an end of subsidized power monopoly and allowing diversity and transparent markets to select viable options and build resilience. All hands on deck and full steam ahead, we need to work together, really, from now on.
Image credit http://cryptome.org/eyeball/daiichi-npp/daiichi-photos.htm
Recent Comments