From: jgd@dixie.com (John De Armond)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.energy,sci.physics
Subject: Re: Is nuclear energy "polluting"? (was Re: Is car pooling for real?
Date: 29 Jul 92 17:32:06 GMT
Organization: Dixie Communications Public Access.  The Mouth of the South.

yergeau@cornu.phy.ulaval.ca (Francois Yergeau) writes:

>>It will be much
>>more cost-effective to refurbish the facility and run it for 
>>another 40 or 50 years.

>Hopefully, that could be, but when?  Currently, old plants are
>decommissioned, 

But only because they are small and uneconomical to rebuild.  I suspect
that refurbishing costs will be somewhat independent of the size of the
unit.  What does not make sense for an 80 MWe unit makes emminent sense
for a 1200 MWe one.

>and more modern ones, when they reach the end of their
>life, will be considered old and outdated.  For instance, current
>design efforts in the U.S. tend to favor so-called "inherently safe"
>designs.  

but this is mostly groping around in the dark looking for the courage
to actually build another plant.  While LWR technology is not the optimum
design, neither necessarily are any of the inherently safe proposals
I've seen to date.  Particularly if pipe-dreams are excluded.

>If these ever become mainstream, the older BWR designs might
>be seen as relatively unsafe and it might not prove cost-effective to
>_transform_  them (as opposed to simply refurbish) into the newer
>designs. Anyway, I'm all for recycling.

The key is "might be seen".  The free world's nuclear power program
has a safety record second to none when evaluated against any other
industrial process, power generation or otherwise.  

Little has changed regarding the major structures since the beginning of
nuclear  power.  Concrete is still concrete and piping is still piping.
Major rotating parts such as turbines and large pumps can be updated 
in place with new internals, trim, etc.

I very seriously doubt that it will actually come to the point where a
utility says "The plant is obsolete.  Time to shut down and do a refurb."
Upgrades are now being done piece at a time during outages.  Fer'instance
the Sequoyah plant in Chattanooga last year replaces about 10,000 sq ft
of analog reactor protection, reactor control, turbine control and
solid state protection system (solid state == relays here :-) with
about half a dozen racks full of Westinghouse's latest integrated
digital control system.  (Makes me feel old.  That stuff was state of the
art when I started in the biz.) Turbine upgrades are frequent.  A tenth of 
a percent heatrate here and a tenth there and pretty soon things look really
good.  Only if some major problem, such as neutron embrittlement or if
some major development, such as superconducting generators, happens
will such a major refurb be done all at once.  Even for something 
as serious as neutron embrittlement, in situ solutions are already
being (or are) developed.  Things like in-situ reactor pot anealing.

>Ok then, just refurbish it and go for another 50 years, as proposed
>above for nuclear plants.  Actually, it even makes more sense than for
>nukes because, while one nuclear plant can often be replaced by another
>one built 100 meters away, no such option exists for hydro dams.  And
>if you don't refurbish, at least open the vanes, and turn your dam into
>a mere mound of dirt and concrete, no more dangerous than a cliff in
>the mountains.

Mine was a worst case analysis assuming the eco-terrorism against
hydro continues to accelerate.  I agree with your practical assessemnt of
hydro facilities.

>Why then is it so damn expensive to do it right now?  In current or
>constant dollars, the cost is pretty high, and the problem of disposing
>permanently of the high-level waste is not even solved for good.  The
>latter is, IMHO, the sore point of the whole nuclear industry.

Expense has been addressed in this forum ad infinum.  Consider this.
Browns Ferry Nuclear plant was built at an average cost of $300 million
per unit.  This is a good example because BFNP was one of the last of 
GE's turnkey (similar to the current proposal for type-accepted designs)
units, was one of the last before the anti-nuclear hysteria started and
is a large plant by modern standards at about 900 MWe per unit.
Assuming a very pessimistic 8% per year inflation for the last 20 years,
and plugging'n'achugging this through my HP95, that works out to about 
$1.4 billion in today's dollars.  This is pretty consistent with the 
cost of a gigawatt of new coal generation capacity, I think.  then
factor in the cost savings from modern control technology and construction
techniques, and factor in the trivial fuel cost, and a Nuke looks real
good.  yeah I know Plant Votgle cost 9 billion.  After having subcontracted
to that site, I can say with confidence that the fact that no Ga Power
officials are in jail is an existance proof that the justice system is
sick.  My point is to illustrate that a nuke can be built cost competitive
with other proven forms of generation.

John
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