Special Report
Everywhere Except Here
A nuclear power renaissance is going on outside our borders, pioneered by companies that never were or are no longer American.
(Page 2 of 2)
The big news, however, is in China, which has bought technology from Russia, France and Japan and is planning to open 21 reactors by 2014. China’s nuclear push will mitigate its embrace of coal, which is already causing so much alarm among those concerned about global warming. Likewise, the recent signing of a technology agreement with the United States has stimulated India’s nuclear effort. The country is now planning 18 to 20 new reactors over the next 15 years, some fueled by thorium, of which India has the world’s largest supplies.
If the nuclear revival does take hold in the U.S., we are much more likely to be a buyer than a seller of the technology. Japan Steel Works is now the world’s only supplier of the steel pressure vessels at the reactor core. The company is backed up four years and just spent $500 million to expand its annual output from four to six. Westinghouse, which once competed head-to-head with General Electric, is now a Japanese company, bought by Toshiba in 2006. Babcock & Wilcox, the other major American manufacturer, has dropped out of the field entirely.
So already a good number of the 28 new American reactors now on the drawing boards will be built by foreign companies. Such is the price we pay for surrendering to our fears on nuclear technology. As Besnainou said in his keynote remarks: “If the United States had gone forward with nuclear power twenty years ago, you would be in much better shape economically than you are today.”
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Marc Jeric| 12.16.08 @ 12:02PM
When Carter nominated a Sierra Club lawyer and a Massachussetts consumer advocate to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and when he killed the Clinch River breeder reactor, he in effect killed nuclear power generation in this country. We now, after 30 years of that sabotage, do not have the engineers nor the equipment nor the welders capable of restarting nuclear power industry; we would have to order our reactors and designs from the French or Japanese.
George Bruce| 12.16.08 @ 12:07PM
"If the United States had gone forward with nuclear power twenty years ago, you would be in much better shape economically than you are today."
No kidding! I wish the lefties and the wackos solely had to pay the price of their stupidity. Unfortunately, they will be secure with their government jobs and pensions. Ordinary working Americans will pay the price, as usual.
Stan Redmond| 12.16.08 @ 12:56PM
The enviromentalists creed. Can't build windmills 'cuz it kills the birds. Can't build solar plants 'cuz the minerals required damage the rainforest (Coltan). Can't build hydroelectric 'cuz it interupts salmo runs and drowns trees. Can't build nuclear 'cuz of a stupid Jane Fonda movie. Can't burn coal 'cuz it releases evyil carbon dioxide. Can't use tidal generators 'cuz it interfers with whale migration... Is there ANYTHING acceptable to a tree hugging democrat for producing energy? Nope... How embarassing that the backward Saudi Arabia, with the largest known reserves of petroleum, is decades ahead of the USofA (where this technology was invented by the way) in nuclear power generation and desalinization.
Dustoff| 12.16.08 @ 1:25PM
The envoir fools want us in log cabins.
Opps that's wrong, we must kill trees to make cabins. Hmmm time for caves.
Ron| 12.16.08 @ 2:36PM
I'd be all for nuclear if someone could just show me what to do with the nuclear waste that must be safely stored for longer than the pyramids have been in existence. I'm not a tree hugger, this is a serious question that has not been answered in this country since the Manhattan Project.
Steve| 12.16.08 @ 3:18PM
Ron,
"is a serious question that has not been answered in this country since the Manhattan Project. "
What has the answer been in the rest of the world? Obviously, they have one.
Luonne Dumak| 12.16.08 @ 3:32PM
We can reprocess the waste just like Germany, Great Britian and other Countries do. Unfortunately Jimmy (peanut farmer) Carter stopped us from doing that. Every time I see his face, I gringe at all the damage he has done to this country and wait his peaceful demise. a bad president and an even worse Expresident .
Ken| 12.16.08 @ 4:29PM
The answer is a 4th generation nuclear reactor called an Integral Fast Reactor (IFR). This reactor is cooled by liquid sodium and fueled by a metallic alloy of uranium and plutonium. In traditional water-cooled reactors (1st & 2nd generation) the core must be maintained at a high pressure to keep the water liquid at high temperatures. In contrast, since the IFR used a liquid metal as a coolant, the core could operate at close to ambient pressure, dramatically reducing the danger of a loss of coolant accident. The entire reactor core, heat exchangers and primary cooling pumps were immersed in a pool of liquid sodium, making a loss of primary coolant extremely unlikely. The coolant loops were also designed to allow for cooling through natural convection, meaning that in the case of a power loss or unexpected reactor shutdown, the heat from the reactor core would be sufficient to keep the coolant circulating even if the primary cooling pumps were to fail. Compared to current light-water reactors with a once-through fuel cycle that induces fission (and derives energy) from less than 1% of the uranium found in nature, the IFR has a very efficient (99.5% of Uranium undergoes fission) fuel cycle. The IFR's primary fuel is depleted uranium (U-238) mixed with highly enriched uranium and plutonium (perhaps from decommissioned weapons). Because of the IFR's reprocessing capability, the depleted uranium could be replaced by spent fuel (nuclear waste) from traditional water reactors. The two forms of waste produced, a noble metal form and a ceramic form, contain no plutonium or other actinides. The radioactivity of the waste decays to levels similar to the original ore in about 200 years. The on-site reprocessing of fuel means that the quantity of nuclear waste leaving the plant is tiny relative to other nuclear facilities. This makes storage simpler and reduces the security risk associated with nuclear waste transportation. Too bad the entire technology was killed by democrats in 1994.
Ivan Ivanovich| 12.17.08 @ 4:54AM
Marc writes: "We now, after 30 years of that sabotage, do not have the engineers nor the equipment nor the welders capable of restarting nuclear power industry"
Is this what we will say about the auto business in 2038? We better turn it around before those I trained are retired and can't train the next generation. It's easy too! Just stop buying rice burners. Buy a Chevy or a Ford.
Rob| 12.17.08 @ 8:37AM
It appears (I have been reading Scientific American) that new fuel cycles and even new fuels (thorium) will allow for 'burning' the long lived nuclear waste and much more efficient use of familiar nuclear fuels.
We have had our future crippled by strange leftist green politics.
Is there no end to the damage that exPrez Carter can accomplish?
Can you say 'economic suicide'?
Can you say 'global warmist'?
Through our lack of maturity we have brought much of the energy crisis on ourselves as the leftists/greens systematically deny us alternatives to Saudi oil.
Merlin8047| 12.18.08 @ 12:40AM
Ivan wrote: "Is this what we will say about the auto business in 2038? We better turn it around before those I trained are retired and can't train the next generation. It's easy too! Just stop buying rice burners. Buy a Chevy or a Ford."
As an engineering participant in said auto industry, I can only add, AMEN.
As a refugee from the domestic machine tool industry, I've already experienced this - and I can't find but one engineer in a thousand whom I can teach anything of what I know. They don't care, because there's no future for them in that industry. Breaks my heart, sometimes.
I've read, however, that Los Alamos has some sort of reactor (maybe that sodium cooled thingy), that can be reduced to the size of a BUS, and is virtually a sealed capsule, therefor making possible to distribute them widely, rather than building large plants and more long transmission lines. So there must be a FEW American engineers still on the ball. Thanks be to God !
Paxus Calta | 12.29.08 @ 10:37PM
There is some stunning misinformation here, especially in the comments. I will take on just one. Reprocessing does not deal with rad waste, it significantly increases it volumetrically without reducing the radioactivity. Reprocessing also creates various liquid wastes that are harder to handle than the original solid forms.
We reprocess to create fresh fuel for reactors from irradiated fuel. It turns out that reprocessing is significantly more expensive than mining uranium.