U.S. researcher warns MOX fuel plan is too costly - JP

[dArKeR]

By ERIKO ARITA
Staff writer

Japan should rethink its plans to reprocess spent nuclear fuel and consider the much cheaper alternative of disposal, according to a nuclear power expert from the United States.

Resource-poor Japan plans to turn the plutonium and uranium gained through reprocessing into mixed oxide uranium-plutonium fuel, known as MOX, for use in conventional nuclear reactors, but this process is more expensive than disposing of the fuel, says Steve Fetter, a professor at the School of Public Affairs at the University of Maryland.

But Fetter says his studies show the price of electricity generated from burning MOX fuel at a conventional nuclear reactor is about 10 percent higher than electricity derived from uranium.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20040609f3.htm

Is this American, Fetter, nuts? It sure seems like JP is on the right track! Fetter is associated with Harvard too. Does anyone know if AEI, Hoover, Heritage, Falwell, Robertson, Bush Crime Family, Fetter... and all linked in this corruption?

[phantom power]

1. yes, he's nuts

Pretty much captures everything that's wrong with America's energy and environmental policy. Do whatever is absolutely cheapest at the moment, and damn any consequences.

LOL! "Hey! you guys could save 10% by wasting more resources! What's the matter with you!"

[struggle4progress]

2. There are some legitimate concerns about reprocessing:

it's dirty and a proliferation threat.

[GAspnes]

4. given the world today

I'd rather be guarding 5 miles of fence around a nuke plant, and 10 pounds of reprocessed MOX, than 1,200 miles of pipeline and a million gallons of crude.

[struggle4progress]

5. Well, that completely ignores the reprocessing facility, ...

all the reprocessing wastes, the transport involved, and all of the energy behind all these related activities. It also ignores the fact that an active reprocessing industry will reproduce itself at sites around the world, making it easier to produce bomb grade material.

[wuushew]

10. The nuclear genie is out of the bottle

The proliferation argument no longer has any merit in my opinion. How has U.S. policy stopped Pakistan from getting the "Islamic Bomb" or curtailed Iran,India or North Korea's programs? Do we have the right to intervene militarily in these countries to prevent them from getting the bomb? If stopping proliferation was Ford's goal back in the 1970's all I can say is that it was a spectacular failure which has essentially doubled the amount of radioactive waste we possess. You cite the costs involved in building and carrying out reprocessing, but what about the costs of extra security,facilities and building effort expended to handled the needless waste we have produced?

[struggle4progress]

13. The costs of "building and carrying out reprocessing" ...

in no sense offset "the costs of extra security,facilities and building effort expended to handled the needless waste we have produced"; the breeding/reprocessing simply produce additional waste and additional need for security and facilities.

So your argument seems intellectually dishonest to me.

[NNadir]

3. Plutonium is more expensive than Uranium only as long as Uranium fuel

is too cheap to meter which, BTW, on a pure fuel basis (ignoring the capital investment in the plant itself) it actually is.

In short, Fetter's thinking is very, very short term, and very much in the moment.

Right now, fuel reprocessing schemes are rather expensive, and rely on remote processing systems. They rely on Purex technology that is rather old and outdated. (It was developed decades ago).

Pyroprocessing and other molten salt technologies, such as electrolytic refining should, long term, reduce reprocessing costs significantly. The impetus for commercializing these new schemes, is of course, dependent on demand. It does happen that since the development of the ultracentrifuge, it is relatively cheap to enrich Uranium. It is also true that technology is available, the CANDU reactor, which can use unenriched Uranium.

Here's a clue for the world: The demand for nuclear energy is either going to surge dramatically, or else we're all in very, very deep shit. The world supply of U-235 is about 60 years. The world supply of nuclear energy with breeding technology (and, before anyone gets excited, I'm not necessarily talking about liquid metal fast breeders) is about three millenia, assuming that 100% of the world's energy is produced by nuclear means.

Japan is wise to commit to reprocessing. Somehow I think they're considerably smarter than we are.

[struggle4progress]

6. Please tell me where in the world electricity produced ...

by nuclear plants is "too cheap to meter." I remember the nuclear industry pushed this idea in the 1960s, but I don't know of any utility that provides electricity to customers unmetered.

[NNadir]

7. I didn't say that the electricity itself qualifies...

I said the fuel qualifies. One kg of unenriched Uranium has the equivalent energy of 13 tons of oil. If one uses the Uranium in a breeder, the uranium is equal to 1960 tons of oil. Uranium is about $13.00/kg, meaning a ton of of oil is way less than a cent for energy equivalence.

[struggle4progress]

8. Then what in the world did you mean "too cheap to meter"?

Utility customers don't have "uranium meters" on their houses: they have electricity meters.

Whatever you stick in a breeder reactor, it doesn't immediately become available as fuel: reprocessing is eventually required. Moreover, some enriched uranium is still required, so it's misleading to simply cite the cost of unenriched metal. Hence I distrust your rosy economics.

[Maurkov]

9. Price of fuel vs price of energy

To use an automobile analogy, I believe he's saying that if a car ran on uranium, "gas" would be free. You're saying sure, but the car costs a billion dollars.

What we need to look at is why do nuclear reactors cost billions to build and billions to decommission, and figure out how we can trim those costs down to something reasonable without making them unsafe.

[struggle4progress]

11. It still seems wrong: the cost estimates ...

don't take into account the need to reprocess material from the breeder reactor to make the fuel.

To pursue your unconvincing automotive analogy, who, in an attempt to discuss the economics of the auto, would argue that oil doesn't cost us anything while it's in the ground, ignoring completely the refining and transport costs for gasoline?

Reactors cost a wad to build because they're complicated and potentially dangerous pieces of machinery, but that's not the whole cost. There is effectively a HUGE government subsidy to the nuclear industry: federal liability limits in the case of major nuclear accidents; if nuclear facilities are as safe as proponents claim, I don't understand why these liability limits would be needed. Another big cost that's invisible here is waste disposal.

"Too cheap to meter"? Yeah, sure ...

[NNadir]

12. Oh, sorry, I was just using the "solar energy is free" energy and applying

it to nuclear energy.

I think I understand reactor engineering. I don't think you do. Would you care to explain, for instance, doppler broadening, and it's implication in reactor physics, since you are lecturing from expert status.

Can you tell me exactly what insurance company would ever had to have made a payment anywhere in the United States. This liability issue is one of the most absurd objections to nuclear energy there is, and one that is made out of desparation. I cannot help it if insurance companies are too dumb to insure equipment that is low risk. I suspect that the reason is that insurance companies have to play in capital markets, not scientific or technical markets. If I die of lung cancer because of a nearby coal plant, can you state exactly what insurance company is going to pay my claim? In fact, if you want to talk about subsidies, bud, I think you ought to look into that matter.

I really shouldn't dignify this knee jerk crap with an answer. The problem is people actually believe this nonsense (though of course the number of people who buy it are getting smaller and smaller due to a factor called, by those in the know, "reality."

[struggle4progress]

14. 1. Where in the world did "solar energy is free" come from?

I seek it but do not find it in any earlier part of the thread. So I can't figure out what you're saying there.

2. I never anywhere claimed expertise in reactor engineering. If you have some, that's nice, but it doesn't substitute for rational discussion about the economic issues.

2a. It's been years since I've thought about spectroscopy, but I'd guess your reactor "doppler broadening" is closely related to the thermal oscillation induced spectroscopic effect of the same name (with perhaps some influence on capture cross sections?); it sounds interesting, and I'd certainly be happy to hear about it -- most especially if it's related to the topic at hand, which (however) I expect is not the case. It looks to me like you're simply changing the subject, while indulging in some not so subtle name calling.

3. I cannot parse much of your paragraph on insurance liability. In particular, you ask "If I die of lung cancer because of a nearby coal plant, can you state exactly what insurance company is going to pay my claim?" Certainly radiation (including radiation from both ordinary power plants and nuclear plants) causes cancer, and the resulting medical costs are externalized by the power industry in either case. But if you are arguing with my objection to accident liability caps, your argument is rather far off point, since the medical effects of residual radiation were not under discussion.

[Name removed]

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