DRAFT

CONCENTRATED RADIATION: By burning coal into ash, power plants concentrate the trace amounts of radioactive elements within the black rock.
©ISTOCKPHOTO.COM

The popular conception of nuclear power is straight out of The Simpsons: Springfield abounds with signs of radioactivity, from the strange glow surrounding Mr. Burn's nuclear power plant workers to Homer's low sperm count. Then there's the local superhero, Radioactive Man, who fires beams of "nuclear heat" from his eyes. Nuclear power, many people think, is inseparable from a volatile, invariably lime-green, mutant-making radioactivity.

Coal, meanwhile, is believed responsible for a host of more quotidian problems, such as mining accidents, acid rain and greenhouse gas emissions. But it isn't supposed to spawn three-eyed fish like Blinky.

Over the past few decades, however, a series of studies has called these stereotypes into question. Among the surprising conclusions: the waste produced by coal plants is actually more radioactive than that generated by their nuclear counterparts. In fact, the fly ash emitted by a power plant—a by-product from burning coal for electricity—carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy.

At issue is coal's content of uranium and thorium, both radioactive elements. They occur in such trace amounts in natural, or "whole," coal that they aren't a problem. But when coal is burned into fly ash, uranium and thorium are concentrated at up to 10 times their original levels.

Fly ash uranium sometimes leaches into the soil and water surrounding a coal plant, affecting cropland and, in turn, food. People living within a "stack shadow"—the area within a half- to one-mile (0.8- to 1.6-kilometer) radius of a coal plant's smokestacks—might then ingest small amounts of radiation. Fly ash is also disposed of in landfills and abandoned mines and quarries, posing a potential risk to people living around those areas.

In a 1978 paper for Science, J. P. McBride at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and his colleagues looked at the uranium and thorium content of fly ash from coal-fired power plants in Tennessee and Alabama. To answer the question of just how harmful leaching could be, the scientists estimated radiation exposure around the coal plants and compared it with exposure levels around boiling-water reactor and pressurized-water nuclear power plants.

The result: estimated radiation doses ingested by people living near the coal plants were equal to or higher than doses for people living around the nuclear facilities. At one extreme, the scientists estimated fly ash radiation in individuals' bones at around 18 millirems (thousandths of a rem, a unit for measuring doses of ionizing radiation) a year. Doses for the two nuclear plants, by contrast, ranged from between three and six millirems for the same period. And when all food was grown in the area, radiation doses were 50 to 200 percent higher around the coal plants.

McBride and his co-authors estimated that individuals living near coal-fired installations are exposed to a maximum of 1.9 millirems of fly ash radiation yearly. To put these numbers in perspective, the average person encounters 360 millirems of annual "background radiation" from natural and man-made sources, including substances in Earth's crust, cosmic rays, residue from nuclear tests and smoke detectors.

Dana Christensen, associate lab director for energy and engineering at ORNL, says that health risks from radiation in coal by-products are low. "Other risks like being hit by lightning," he adds, "are three or four times greater than radiation-induced health effects from coal plants." And McBride and his co-authors emphasize that other products of coal power, like emissions of acid rain–producing sulfur dioxide and smog-forming nitrous oxide, pose greater health risks than radiation.

I have worked at both a nuclear plant and a coal burning plant and I can tell ya that the coal burning plant is more nasty then the nuclear plant. I pick up less radiation at the nuclear plant then I had at the coal burning plant. All the ash and stuff at the coal burning place was nasty and I was sick and had a really bad case of congestion because of it. I say we need more nuclear plants and less coal-burning plants.

I can't believe that Scientific American published this. The title is totally misleading. It should be Radiation Exposure is Higher near Coal Fired Power Plants. If nuclear waste is so benign, why is it stored in casks or under water to prevent radiation exposure by nearby people? When I lived in upstate NY in the late 1970's, coal ash was used in place of sand as a traction aid on slippery roads. This was a poor practice, but how much worse would it have been if the State of NY used spent nuclear fuel?

Actually. Your statement about coal ash on the roads is what is misleading. The reason nuclear waste has to be buried is uneducated people who believe they are going to die from radiation poisoning. Its more politics than anything else.

I am confused. So is an equivalent amount of coal ash vs spent fuel rods, say a cubic cm, or gram more/equal radioactive or is living near a coal plant more radioactive due to the larger amount of less (?) radioactive fly ash?

1 - The article's title was misleading. Gram for gram, nuclear waste is much more radioactive than fly ash.

2 - The 'scientific study' compared a measured exposure with an estimated exposure. Hmmm. Not what I'd consider good science.

3 - The issue of exposure is, further, a false one. Hardly anyone (at least who knows what they're talking about) is afraid of being near a properly functioning nuclear reactor. They're clean places, carefully monitored, in the main, and so on. And coal-fired power plants are, in fact, nasty places, and dirty.

The problem with the comparison is that if the coal-fired plant is struck by lightning, or a bomb, or a plane, or catches on fire, or breaks in half in an earthquake, your exposure will be mostly to particulate pollution, and for a few hours, during which you may leave the area.

Conversely, if anything happens to a nuclear power plant to cause an accident, the risk of immediate exposure to a dangerous or lethal dose of radiation is fairly high.

Even operator error can be critical with a nuclear plant -- think of Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, that reprocessing accident in Japan a few years back. Human error becomes disproportionately risky with nuclear installations.

4 - The article doesn't address a REAL question that I've asked some high-level, knowledgeable nuclear proponents and opponents -- What is the radiation release in fly ash

compared with the radiation in nuclear waste, expressed on a kilowatt to kilowatt basis?

I concur with some of your points nurtzz (and I'd definitely love to see that gram per gram comparison. We searched and searched and did not find.) However, I'd argue we covered the real issue which is steady, building pollution and health impacts versus small risk, unimaginable consequences. Neither is particularly palatable perhaps.

The study referenced is 1978 in vintage and does not include the radioactive constiuents of all coals including anthracite. The cogeneration process (fluidized bed technology)in Pa burns coal waste (Culm) with low grade limestone and dolomite. The coal waste is primarily cabonaceous shale which has a much higher radioactive content than pure coal and would produce a flyash with a much higher concentration of radioactive constituents. Therefore, the pollution potenial is great because the PADEP is espousing the arbitrary disposal of this waste in abandoned strip mines without any long term monitoring or adequate testing. They are tzking the position that the flyash is inert and does not need to be monitored> What a Joke!!!

The article makes a factually correct point that exposure to radiation from coal plants is higher than nuclear plants (even though spent nuclear fuel is stored at the nuclear plants).

Because spent nuclear fuel is shielded, exposure of plant workers and the public to radiation from this spent fuel is very low.

If fly ash were produced at nuclear plants, the more stringent regulations faced at nuclear plants would require this fly ash to be collected and stored in a manner that reduced exposure to people.

Coal plants do not have such requirements and therefore cause more exposure to the public because of the natural uranium and thorium in the fly ash.

By burning away all the pesky carbon and other impurities, coal power plants produce heaps of radiation

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) maintains an online database of fly ash–based uranium content for sites across the U.S. In most areas, the ash contains less uranium than some common rocks. In Tennessee's Chattanooga shale, for example, there is more uranium in phosphate rock.

Robert Finkelman, a former USGS coordinator of coal quality who oversaw research on uranium in fly ash in the 1990s, says that for the average person the by-product accounts for a miniscule amount of background radiation, probably less than 0.1 percent of total background radiation exposure. According to USGS calculations, buying a house in a stack shadow—in this case within 0.6 mile [one kilometer] of a coal plant—increases the annual amount of radiation you're exposed to by a maximum of 5 percent. But that's still less than the radiation encountered in normal yearly exposure to X-rays.

So why does coal waste appear so radioactive? It's a matter of comparison: The chances of experiencing adverse health effects from radiation are slim for both nuclear and coal-fired power plants—they're just somewhat higher for the coal ones. "You're talking about one chance in a billion for nuclear power plants," Christensen says. "And it's one in 10 million to one in a hundred million for coal plants."

Radiation from uranium and other elements in coal might only form a genuine health risk to miners, Finkelman explains. "It's more of an occupational hazard than a general environmental hazard," he says. "The miners are surrounded by rocks and sloshing through ground water that is exuding radon."

Developing countries like India and China continue to unveil new coal-fired plants—at the rate of one every seven to 10 days in the latter nation. And the U.S. still draws around half of its electricity from coal. But coal plants have an additional strike against them: they emit harmful greenhouse gases.

The question boils down to the accumulating impacts of daily incremental pollution from burning coal or the small risk but catastrophic consequences of even one nuclear meltdown. "I suspect we'll hear more about this rivalry," Finkelman says. "More coal will be mined in the future. And those ignorant of the issues, or those who have a vested interest in other forms of energy, may be tempted to raise these issues again."

The industry may well be 'back with a vengeance', but taxpayers could be unwittingly subsidising its growth

Today, several hundred nuclear industry executives will gather in London for the British-based World Nuclear Association's annual symposium.

A major session – The nuclear renaissance: redefining the global framework – chaired by Keith Parker, chief executive of the UK Nuclear Industry Association (NIA), will be devoted to the new opportunities expected as new nuclear build is back on the energy agenda, "with a vengeance", in the words of former prime minister Tony Blair.

The session will explore how changes in the law affecting nuclear development has made it much more attractive for private financiers to commit their investment capital.

Parker's NIA colleague, Tristram Denton (in a letter to the Guardian on August 19), was right in stating that "government has made it clear that the private sector will have to pay the full costs of any new nuclear power generation in the UK," but the government is not telling the full story. In two key nuclear expenditure areas, official, if obscure, statements have indicated that subsidies will continue.

On the final day of the parliamentary session before recess this year, energy minister Malcolm Wicks told Labour backbencher Paul Flynn MP in a written answer that:

Whilst the impact of any call on the proposed nuclear indemnity could be very high, there is only an extremely small possibility of the indemnity ever being used, and it is therefore not possible to put a meaningful financial value to the indemnity. The impossibility of quantifying the monetary value of the indemnity is the main reason that there is no commercially available insurance, and the reason an indemnity is needed.

Flynn had asked what was the financial value of the insurance indemnity against claims deemed to be "uninsurable" to be granted to the successful bidder to manage Sellafield. In an earlier answer, Flynn was told that ministers had:

Been informed by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) that it expects to have to grant an indemnity against uninsurable claims arising from a nuclear incident that fall outside the protections offered by the Nuclear Installations Act and the Paris/Brussels convention.

The issue is complex, but the only conclusion that can be drawn is that a significant taxpayer-funded insurance subsidy is being offered to the nuclear industry.

Moreover, in the latest annual report (pdf) of the Office for Civil Nuclear Security (OCNS), quietly released on August 15, it records:

The OCNS budget for this reporting period was £2,481k. This total, and a charge for overhead and corporate costs of £665k, was recovered from the civil nuclear industry and from the DBERR as a charge for OCNS regulatory services.

DBERR is the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. This means an unquantified taxpayer subsidy, through DBERR, also went to pay for part of the necessary security arrangements applied to commercial nuclear power.

What about elsewhere? Much has been made by the nuclear industry of the new reactor, Olkiluoto 3, being built by French construction giant, Bouygues Travaux Publics, some 155 miles north west of Helsinki in Finland (next to two other reactors built in 1978 and 1980) as a model for the nuclear energy renaissance they would like to see develop globally. But the reactor has had serious problems in construction, with concrete and welding problems, as well as a serious fire, with the result that it is already two years behind schedule. This is bad news for the showcase 1,600 MW EPR (European pressurised prototype reactor), which is based on a design concept developed by nuclear giant Areva, a Franco-German consortium formed by Framatome ANP and Siemens. Olkiuoto 3's original budget of £2.5bn has already overrun by an extra £1bn.

But who is paying this ever-growing bill? Details released so far suggest that the reactor is being supported by a unique financing package. In January 2006, energy investment analyst Hugo Peek (head of power and utilities at ABN Amro) described its components thus:

Syndicated loan of €1.95bn signed December 2003:
• Bayerische Landesbank (BLB), BNP Paribas, Handelsbanken, JP Morgan and Nordea
• Euribor + 52.5-57.5bps
• Banks received 30bps for €150m
• In addition to the syndicated loan, bilateral loans worth €550m were negotiated, €1.6bn of the original facility refinanced in June 2005
• The deal was said to be oversubscribed, with an increase from the original target amount of €1.5bn
• MLAs were BayernLB, BTM, BNP Paribas (books), Nordea (books, docs) and SEB (books, facility agent)
Tenor is seven years, with pricing currently undisclosed.

The BLB is a majority Bavarian state-owned bank, owned by the so-called free state (Freistaat Bayern). This is publicly backed investment, albeit from abroad.

But just as in the UK, the Finish government insists the new reactor will be privately financed. "The government neither builds nor funds the construction of nuclear power. The projects are implemented solely on a commercial basis," says Riku Huttunen, deputy director general at Finland's ministry of employment and the economy.

And at a global financing summit for new nuclear plants, in Paris in June 2006, Paavo Lipponen, former speaker of the Finnish parliament, who, as prime minister, laid the foundation stone for Olkiluoto 3, said:

To finance for the new unit being built in Olkiluoto the owners pay 20% equity capital and grant a loan on equity terms covering another 5%. The remaining 75% has been obtained from international finance markets through a tendering process. TVO received several offers from financial institutions and, thanks to stiff competition, the loan terms are favourable. The Olkiluoto 3 project has not received public aid from the Finnish state, either in the form of guarantees or grants.

But what some digging around establishes is that the French export credit agency Coface, has provided loans of €610m in "export" credit guarantees for Olkiluoto 3 to TVO, loans which also assist Areva. Additionally, Svensk Exportkredit, the Swedish export credit organisation, has provided 110m Swedish crowns (€1m). So two foreign states are providing effective publicly financed support. Lauri Myllyvirta of Greenpeace Finland has confirmed this week that both Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energies Federation are appealing to the European court of justice on the European commission ruling that these export credits do not count as state aids.

Other investors include power company TVO, whose investors include Fortum and Pohjolan Voima Oy (PVO), Finland's second-biggest energy company, plus forestry and paper giants UPM Kymmene, and Stora Enso. In addition, a host of publicly owned municipal energy companies have invested.

The French finance magazine Capital claimed in May that Areva could be obliged to pay €2.2bn in penalties to Olkiluoto 3's owners, Finnish power generator Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO) for delays in the construction of the plant, an assertion swiftly denied by Areva.

Back in Britain, in the September edition of Prospect, Tom Burke, formerly executive director at Friends of the Earth, pens a excoriating critique of the optimism of the nuclear sector that an atomic renaissance is within their grasp. He wrote:

The government has pledged that there will be no subsidies for new nuclear construction. But this was never credible, and it is already possible to detect signs of retreat. In 2006 the government bravely promised to 'make sure that the full costs of new nuclear waste are paid by the market'. By 2008 this had mutated into the more nuanced: 'The government will [set] a fixed unit price [for] waste disposal at the time when approvals for the station are given.' This effectively caps the costs of nuclear waste disposal to the operator and transfers the risk of cost overruns on to the taxpayer.

It is hard to disagree. So nuclear critics, such as CND's Kate Hudson, are correct to assert that nuclear subsidies do indeed exist.

D.A.Elliott@open.ac.uk

Prof Dave Elliott

Co-Director Energy and Environment Research Unit

The Open University

Problems with 'slow running'

Nuclear vs. wind

http://delliott6.blogspot.com/
Sunday, March 8, 2009

How to make nuclear power even more risky- and kill off wind power

Nuclear plants can’t easily vary their output and are usually run flat out 24/7, which, given that they are very capital intensive, also helps their economics. However this means they can’t be used to back-up variable renewables like wind. Moreover, if we have a lot of nuclear capacity, as is now planned, there would be less room for electricity generated from wind farms , at least during low energy demand periods. For example the UK’s baseload, the low level of energy generation capacity required at night and at other low demand periods, is 20GW, and there is talk of nuclear being expanded to provide much if not all of this. At present it’s only at about10GW. And yet there are also proposals for 25GW of wind power. In the absence of significant storage capacity or export potential, much of this would therefore be in excess of requirements. We only have about 2GW of pumped storage capacity and a 2 GW in cross channel grid links.

In its 2008 consultation document on its renewable energy strategy, the UK government admitted that the UK nuclear fleet was ‘designed to run continuously and is not well suited to short-term response to shifts in the supply-demand balance, for safety as well as economic reasons’. So it says ‘when wind speeds are high and demand is low, for example during the summer or overnight... the system may not be able to absorb all of the output of both wind and nuclear generating plants’

However, they say that ‘nuclear plants can be designed to run flexibly and this has been shown to operate effectively in practice by the experience of the Flamanville 3 plant in France. We therefore believe that the expectation of a greater penetration of intermittent generation is not in itself a barrier to the deployment of new nuclear capacity’.

Unfortunately, they seem to have it wrong. Flamanville 3 hasn’t actually been built yet. Indeed construction work on it was recently stopped when the nuclear inspectorate found faults in the concrete mix being used. Leaving this hiccup aside, it is true that some of France’s existing plants can and do load follow- the Pressurised Water reactors they use are more capable of that than the UK’s gas cooled reactors. We could presumably build similarly variable plants in the UK.

Sinclair Knight Merz (SKM) consultants, in a report to BERR, agreed. Although they admit that ‘increased amounts of nuclear plant in a system with high penetration of wind would invariably result in higher curtailment,’ they suggest that wind curtailment can be limited by using variable nuclear plants. They report claims that the Flamanville plant should be able to run down to 25% of output. However they add that, while the potential for flexible operation ‘are considerable, it does not necessarily mean that it will be regularly operated in such mode, as other considerations such as life reduction and safety may discourage full use of this capability’

Basically reactors don’t like being cycled through large temperature ranges regularly and running up and down to full power also creates short-lived radioactive by-products which can disrupt efficient operation. These operational problems may well be worsened by the fact that the new reactor designs now being developed seek to increase the fuel burn up ratios- in order to improve the economics of the plants.

However, in addition to the fact that the spent fuel will be much more radioactive since more fission products will be produced, this approach may also involve safety problems related to plant operation - existing fuel cladding materials may not maintain their integrity over the longer period, especially in emergency shut down situations.

New reactor technology is clearly being developed which may make it possible to run nuclear plants in ways which make them more compatible with variable renewables like wind. But this introduces new risks. The issue that arises then is whether we should be relying on potentially risky adjustments nuclear technology to avoid wasting wind energy? As wind expands and other variable renewables are added to the mix, including wave and tidal power, the need to curtail nuclear, so as to make way, will grow. Unless that is, we decide to keep nuclear running at full power and dump increasing amounts of renewable power at low demand times. Or invest in energy storage which is an expensive option.

This crazy competition between sensible sustainable energy options and the dead end option of nuclear power is what we’ve come to expect from the capitalist system, which is obsessed with shoring up the large companies that it has created. Most of the running in the UK will be made by the French company EDF, which now owns British Energy and will presumably build French EPR reactors here. But not take the waste they produce! Just the profits. While seeing off wind power…. and introducing extra risks. Business as usual it seems.

Posted by Dave Elliott at 9:46 PM 0 comments