India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

[Theo_Fidel]

From A's slideshow post. I don't see how this can ever be changed. There is little people can do in the face of a radioactive cloud like Fukushima. Grin and bear it is simply not an option if you have children. People should not be put in this position.

Why risk perception is much higher than real risk?
Radiation is invisible: Smoking is avoidable because it can be seen.
Radiation is not controllable: Food poisoning by pathogenic E Coli was avoidable by heating meat.
Children’s issue: Dividing cells may be more sensitive to radiation induced toxicity, theoretically.
Long lasting: Not 1 year’s problem, but will continue decades.
Uncertainty: We have only a few evidence of low dose radio-contamination in history.

Why risk perception is much higher than real risk?
Reliability: The national government is doing little and unreliable.
Cancer: People may have devastative image to cancer.
Human made disaster: People feel sorrow lost families and friends by the earthquake and tsunami, but never complain. However, people complain invisible radiation before health hazard. Why? I believe people look that this accident is human made but not nature made.

[Amber G.]

From A's slideshow post...<snip>

Just to clarify, the slideshow is not mine, as it is clearly indicated, is from Mitsuyoshi Urashima. It is, along with host of other presentations by other speakers and scientists, quite good, IMO...

I encourage people, specially those who have interest and expertise to go through this, and look up other material. (UCSF will have links to those talks). (Also do not jump to conclusions .. please do read as much as you can)

One thing that impressed me was sheer amount of data, number of children (and adults) followed medically, for the whole year (and they will be followed for years to come), type of equipment(s) used to get detailed radiation profile etc..

And after one year of study, with thousands of children, from what I can read, there is no evidence of increase in thyroid cancer (and anything else for that matter) incidents (any more than background will indicate).

[disha]

...what we learned about radiation so that we do not get fooled by all the rubbish propagated...

The Youtube video is worth watching and keeping it for reference ..


(Sorry for images of banana in this too )

Disappointed that there were no images of nuts.

In the meantime:

Not much electricity contributed by NPCIL

Inspite of the following quotes:

Of the 19 reactors in operation, the average capacity factor (CF) for the nine reactors, fuelled with imported Uranium fuel recorded all time high at 97 per cent.

Or

Tarapur Atomic Power Station unit-3 (TAPS-3), 540 MW Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR) and forerunner of indigenous 700 MW, achieved a remarkable feat of a continuous operation for 522 days, thus joining the fleet of 10 nuclear power reactors which have operated continuously over one year.

And of course our scientists should not indulge in any bellicose talk. Sharam. Sharam.

The safety performance of Indian nuclear power reactors continued to be impeccable over 350 reactor-years of operation. The safety review post-Fukushima for the existing operating nuclear power reactors and the reactors under construction, has found them to be safe from extreme natural events like earthquake and tsunami.

[disha]

All brotestors like bakis are innocent onlee ...

Lamenting that people in India seemed to celebrate every time a project was abandoned, Srinivasan said the rational answer was that the project should be evaluated rigorously with regard to environmental impact and all due measures must be taken to avoid adverse consequences.

Added later: India should announce that they are creating only Buddha stupas with advanced technology including nukular takneek. Which generate electricity. After they are constructed and operational, declare a nuclear disaster and declare a 50km by 50 km exclusive zone. That will make the environmentalists also happy since in a decade or so lush forest will come up there and the energy problem is also solved! Just like Ajit's liquid oxygen chamber.

[disha]

Brutal government employee restrains right to request protest of boor aam admi

A police constable allegedly beat up an anti-nuclear activist at a village near Koodankulam for requesting shopkeepers to down shutters in support of their movement against Koodankulam Nuclear Power Project. Pushparayan, one of the leaders of the People's Movement against Nuclear Energy, spearheading the stir against KNPP, said the activist had severe chest and hand injuries but that his family was scared of filing a complaint, fearing harassment.

I think PMANE is losing the battle because they do not know law. One's family is not necessary to file a complain., Pushparayan can himself file a complain about police brutality and submit evidence. Further, if he has access to media, this would have been an opportunity to produce the person with severe chest and hand injuries.

BTW, what was that said person doing "requesting shopkeepers to down shutters"? If the bad police had not arrived on seen, would the protestor have proceeded to pick up a brick ala the young and freedom loving protestors from ganderbal? Isn't interfering with legitamate business itself illegal?

And lastly, the DDM publishes one version of the story blithely but ignores the other side. Yes., police/pandus have not covered themselves with glory when it comes to daily interaction with aam janta., however there is always two sides to the story and producing a view using the stereotype of other not itself wrong?

So what we have here:

1. Lack of journalistic ethics
2. Lack of logic
3. Lack of evidence
4. Sensationalism
5. Playing on the fear psychosis

In effect a classic FUD from PMANE.

[disha]

Greanpeace protests detention of peaceful protestors protesting against India getting energy independent

[Amber G.]

^^^ Even in Japan, some people are getting now publicly worried ...
Japan government fears non-nuclear summer will hamper restarts

Japan's government is rushing to try to restart two nuclear reactors, idled after the Fukushima crisis, by next month out of what experts say is a fear that surviving a total shutdown would make it hard to convince the public that atomic energy is vital.
Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and three cabinet ministers are to meet for a third time on Friday to discuss the possible restarts of the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors at Kansai Electric Power Co's Ohi plant in Fukui, western Japan - a region dubbed the "nuclear arcade" for the string of atomic plants that dot its coast.

Trade minister Yukio Edano, who holds the energy portfolio, could travel to Fukui as early as Sunday to seek local approval for the restarts, Japanese media said.
<snip>

BTW Edano who in the past, post Fukushima, publicly talked about "zero nuclear energy" now said something to the effect "The government's policy is now to reduce reliance on nuclear power as low as possible....it should in future account for less than the third of national electricity ..."

[gakakkad]

thanks for posting the ucsf symposium video and presentation..

the presentation seemed quite good ..

As carcinogenesis is a stochastic effect of radiation it would be impossible to predict the number of thyroid cancers due to Fukushima. There is no fixed dose response relationship. It would improve our understanding of the radiation induced cancers , especially that of papillary cancer thyroid..

[Theo_Fidel]

A,

Again. Please stop jumping to conclusions. I said it was your slideshow post. Not your slideshow. You remind me of a couple of Bureaucrats I know. Feels like herding cats....
----------------------------------------

Meanwhile, AREVA still pushing for full waiver.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/new ... 548778.cms

[Amber G.]

... I don't see how this can ever be changed. There is little people can do in the face of a radioactive cloud like Fukushima. Grin and bear it is simply not an option if you have children. People should not be put in this position.

Why risk perception is much higher than real risk?
Radiation is invisible: Smoking is avoidable because it can be seen.
<snip>
.

For me, it is important to understand science, and not to be panicked by everything published ... the key part, for me , in above was, for example --

Why risk perception is much higher than real risk?

There were some examples which hit home for me and for those scientists who tried to educate the public..

Risk communicated:
This level of irradiation has no hazardous effects on health for now.

People think:
That’s means some problems later, cancer, congenital anomalies, infertility?

Risk communicated:
This level of irradiation in water and food has no hazardous effects on
health if you do not take long term. However, if you can avoid taking,
please do so. But if you can’t, it’s OK. Doesn’t matter.

People think:
This must be quite danger.

...I wonder, even now, for how many it will come as a surprise that after all the talk about radiation disaster .. dead men walking ..1,400,000 causality .. the radiation death number is ZERO.

...I wonder, even now, for how many it will come as a surprise to learn that a NPP is not a nuclear bomb and is not going to start an uncontrolled fission.

... I wonder, even now, for how many it will come as a surprise to learn that present radiation dose rate, even in 20Km zone (eg Fukushima city) is less than many parts in Kerala (where people have been living for centuries with no measurable higher rates of cancer..).

...I wonder, even now, for how many it will come as a surprise to learn that average dose received by "villagers near a NPP" is of the order of eating a banana per year...

It will be interesting to have a poll..

[Amber G.]

Disha - Thanks for interesting posts.

As you may already know, scientists who mention banana (or Brazil nuts) give some perspective ... that radiation is natural and one can't escape it. Heck, we all are radioactive (unless one is dead for millions of years ) due to K40, and C14 in our body..

Gakakkad - You are welcome. UCSB symposium also had quite a few other speakers.

[JwalaMukhi]

Was just wondering if enlightened nuclear physicists do not like money. A cool $5000 for part time work in a day should have been attractive. Guess none of enlightened nuclear physicists (who were near Fukushima but did not panick) think a cool $5000 dollar was sufficient to risk their confidence in their own risk assessment factors. Why were they scouting to find some workers most likely unskilled and who most likely didn't understand nuclear physics?

Maybe nuclear physicists despise money. But hey, no one died from the nuclear accident in Fukushima.

http://af.reuters.com/article/metalsNew ... GX20110401

Workers sought to "jump" into highly radioactive areas

* Up to $5,000 per day offered to do hazardous work

* Japanese workers say risks aren't worth it

* Pressure builds to return to work

By Terril Yue Jones

TOKYO, April 1 (Reuters) - It's a job that sounds too good to be true -- thousands of dollars for up to an hour of work that often requires little training.

But it also sounds too outrageous to accept, given the full job description: working in perilously radioactive environments.

In its attempts to bring under control its radiation-gushing nuclear power plant that was severely damaged by last month's massive earthquake and tsunami, Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) is trying to get workers ever closer to the sources of stubborn radiation at the plant and end the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.

Workers are reportedly being offered hazard pay to work in the damaged reactors of up to $5,000 per day -- or more accurately, a fraction of a day, since the radiation-drenched shifts must be drastically restricted.

[chaanakya]

In the meantime:

Not much electricity contributed by NPCIL

Inspite of the following quotes:

Of the 19 reactors in operation, the average capacity factor (CF) for the nine reactors, fuelled with imported Uranium fuel recorded all time high at 97 per cent.

Or

Tarapur Atomic Power Station unit-3 (TAPS-3), 540 MW Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR) and forerunner of indigenous 700 MW, achieved a remarkable feat of a continuous operation for 522 days, thus joining the fleet of 10 nuclear power reactors which have operated continuously over one year.

Nuclear Generation has improved by 41% and it has contributed 32455 MU compared to 26473 MU previous years. This is due to improved availability of imported fuels/ The total generation of electricity from all sources was 811 BU. AT&C losses could be pegged at 15% approx. ( varies from region to region) and that means 120 BU lost. Under Energy conservation effort you could save anywhere between 10-25% electricity with proper measures. Compare all this to Nuclear power generation in total generation scenario. What % is that?

[Amber G.]

Not with the stupid misleading banana argument again. It was repeatedly eviscerated as a red herring many moons ago.

Repeatedly eviscerated as red herring? Really? How?

Of course, K40 in banana is a known fact, and use of BED (Banana equivalent dose) of radiation can be found in reputable text books, and lectures of professors in IIT, MIT type institutions..

Also, after I posted about this unit here in Brf (and some other places) so that aam admi can have some perspective, the term became very popular and was used by *virtually* all respectable newspapers and sites at one time or other, These papers include NY times. It also shows up in popular charts., (see for example this extremely popular chart which is worth having for reference: http://xkcd.com/radiation/

Here is one typical item from BBC:
What bananas tell us about radiation
It even gives all references in Bed...

Number of bananas equivalent Selected exposures to radiation
500 million =>Ten minutes next to Chernobyl reactor core after explosion and meltdown
80 million => Fatal dose even with treatment
20 million => Severe radiation poisoning, fatal in some cases
500,000 => Maximum legal yearly dose for a US radiation worker
70,000 => Chest CT scan
40,000 => Ten years of normal background dose, 85% of which is from natural sources
4000 => Mammogram
1000 => Approximate total dose received at Fukushima Town Hall in two weeks following accident
400 => Flight from London to New York
300 =>Yearly release target for a nuclear power plant
200 =>Chest X-ray
50 =Dental X-ray
1 =Eating a banana

BBC report further says:

.... I reckon the BED is useful for several reasons. First, it reminds us that radiation is commonplace. You can't get much more ordinary than a banana.

Second, we know eating one banana won't kill us. Not even nearly. Not without extreme violence. This affirms an age-old point about toxicity - that danger is in the dose. In other words most things, radiation included, are only dangerous in sufficient quantities..

..Third, think about eating 20 million bananas, equal to a dose causing severe, sometimes fatal, radiation poisoning. You'd probably die from something other than the radiation well before you were anywhere near 20 million. ...

So by putting all radiation exposure on one scale, the banana scale, we see clearly how huge a scale it is. ..

Usually, graphs with this kind of problem use a logarithmic scale, as with decibels, but logarithmic scales trouble some readers. Bananas don't have that problem. ..

By talking bananas, Go Figure doesn't mean to trivialize the health risk of radiation. Radiation - ....
But the way we measure things can change how we think about them.

Attitudes to risk are complicated, emotional and cultural, and they run deep. Fear, for instance, isn't easily quantifiable. It's not obvious how to put the psychology of risk on a graph. Numbers only take us so far, even when converted to your everyday friendly banana.

***

Of course, some
(Eg boingboing.net - no I am not making this up - there was a very interesting story in MIT forums about flame wars in wiki, and boingboing.net's reference of Geoff Meggitt -- "health physicist/ editor of the Journal of Radiological Protection/United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority etc" which turned out to be a red herring )
thought that it is a vast CT/propaganda by nuclear lobby. I mention this because, IIRC, Theoji had a whole paragraph cut-and-pasted from this long ago which caused some confusion....

[Amber G.]

^^^ Added to above, if one wants to see, how accepted the use of banana equivalent dose to understand radiation.. one can look at my previous post, almost a year ago ... just see the sources ...
http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... y#p1055525

[amit]

Nuclear Generation has improved by 41% and it has contributed 32455 MU compared to 26473 MU previous years. This is due to improved availability of imported fuels/ The total generation of electricity from all sources was 811 BU. AT&C losses could be pegged at 15% approx. ( varies from region to region) and that means 120 BU lost. Under Energy conservation effort you could save anywhere between 10-25% electricity with proper measures. Compare all this to Nuclear power generation in total generation scenario. What % is that?

Chaanakya,

The bolded portion is a very disingenuous argument which takes the discussion to a dead end. Proper energy conservation can improve total electricity available in India, that's a given, I don't think anyone is arguing otherwise. But then two questions arise:

a) Is the amount saved (assuming 100 per cent saving, that is zero loss) be sufficient to wipe out our existing energy deficit?

b) Would just energy conservation be sufficient to provide for the rapid growth in energy requirement that we will be requiring over the next 20-30 years?

It's pretty obvious the answer to both questions is a big NO (if you think otherwise I'd certainly be interested in hearing your reasons).

So we're left with the requirement for new builds. Here the majority POV - of those who advocate that India should not abandon nuclear - is that new electricity generation should come from all available sources, renewables (including hydel), coal, gas and nuclear.

Now the point here is that renewables (that is solar, wind, tide etc) have vast potential. However, that potential is yet to be reached and I think it would take at least another decade. Another point, often overlooked, is it's not just a question of setting up large solar farms and wind mills. To fully harness renewable power generation you need to develop a very complicated eco system which India does not have now.

Look at this previous post of mine on just how complicated it could be, particularly read the article linked there: Germany’s new energy policy a complex puzzle.

Even in Germany's case, they'd still be relying on coal fired plants for base load generation. Even then it's highly doubtful if Germany will be able to reach 45 per cent renewables by 2022, which they have to if they are going to permanently close down their nuclear plants and still not suffer from loadshedding. (Incidentally there's nothing like a good old fashioned loadshedding, particularly during winter, to shake some sense into Green jihadis).

So at the end of the day you're left with coal, gas or nuclear for baseload generation. And here lifecycle pollution cost for nuclear is far lower than the other two. Incidentally, in case you need some corroboration on this please check out my post here and one directly below it.

I hope now you understand why I've been saying all along, that it's a nuclear vs fossil fuel debate and not a nuclear vs renewables which the coal lobby would love. Every MW generated via nuclear is one MW less generated by dirty fossil fuel.

There's also the small matter of fuel supply. I've found it very interesting as to how there's not been a peep from coal champions** such as you and Theo on the mess that we're in particularly with regard to our UMPP strategy. I wonder what you're take is about that, particularly RBI's decision to suspend all funding for new UMPPs due to the hike in pithead prices which have made ongoing UMPPs virtually unviable. Regarding gas just where exactly will we be getting it all for the kind of builds we need? Surely fuel supply is a factor that should be considered when discussing if we can afford to either junk or downgrade nuclear generation?

Incidentally your comment: "Nuclear Generation has improved by 41% and it has contributed 32455 MU compared to 26473 MU previous years. This is due to improved availability of imported fuels/ "

... was made possible by the Civil Nuclear deal which you and some other folks here think of as a scam. It's not a coincidence that imported yellow cake is freely available and has contributed to PLFs going north of 90 per cent - for the first time in history - in our existing nuclear plants.

** Note: I confess "coal champions" is a bit of deductive reasoning on my part. You favor renewables, you're against nuclear. Yet even you folks admit that renewables cannot be 100 per cent. So that leaves fossil fuel. Of course you are a generous person at heart so you're will to have "some nuclear" in the mix. The difference is I think some of us think we should have "some fossil fuel" in the mix and "more nuclear" as the target that we should aim for.

[amit]

Amger, Disha,

Thanks for a series of very interesting posts.

[chaanakya]

Nuclear Generation has improved by 41% and it has contributed 32455 MU compared to 26473 MU previous years. This is due to improved availability of imported fuels/ The total generation of electricity from all sources was 811 BU. AT&C losses could be pegged at 15% approx. ( varies from region to region) and that means 120 BU lost. Under Energy conservation effort you could save anywhere between 10-25% electricity with proper measures. Compare all this to Nuclear power generation in total generation scenario. What % is that?

Chaanakya,

The bolded portion is a very disingenuous argument which takes the discussion to a dead end. Proper energy conservation can improve total electricity available in India, that's a given, I don't think anyone is arguing otherwise. But then two questions arise:

a) Is the amount saved (assuming 100 per cent saving, that is zero loss) be sufficient to wipe out our existing energy deficit?

b) Would just energy conservation be sufficient to provide for the rapid growth in energy requirement that we will be requiring over the next 20-30 years?

It's pretty obvious the answer to both questions is a big NO (if you think otherwise I'd certainly be interested in hearing your reasons).

So we're left with the requirement for new builds. Here the majority POV - of those who advocate that India should not abandon nuclear - is that new electricity generation should come from all available sources, renewables (including hydel), coal, gas and nuclear.

Now the point here is that renewables (that is solar, wind, tide etc) have vast potential. However, that potential is yet to be reached and I think it would take at least another decade. Another point, often overlooked, is it's not just a question of setting up large solar farms and wind mills. To fully harness renewable power generation you need to develop a very complicated eco system which India does not have now.

Look at this previous post of mine on just how complicated it could be, particularly read the article linked there: Germany’s new energy policy a complex puzzle.

Even in Germany's case, they'd still be relying on coal fired plants for base load generation. Even then it's highly doubtful if Germany will be able to reach 45 per cent renewables by 2022, which they have to if they are going to permanently close down their nuclear plants and still not suffer from loadshedding. (Incidentally there's nothing like a good old fashioned loadshedding, particularly during winter, to shake some sense into Green jihadis).

So at the end of the day you're left with coal, gas or nuclear for baseload generation. And here lifecycle pollution cost for nuclear is far lower than the other two. Incidentally, in case you need some corroboration on this please check out my post here and one directly below it.

I hope now you understand why I've been saying all along, that it's a nuclear vs fossil fuel debate and not a nuclear vs renewables which the coal lobby would love. Every MW generated via nuclear is one MW less generated by dirty fossil fuel.

There's also the small matter of fuel supply. I've found it very interesting as to how there's not been a peep from coal champions** such as you and Theo on the mess that we're in particularly with regard to our UMPP strategy. I wonder what you're take is about that, particularly RBI's decision to suspend all funding for new UMPPs due to the hike in pithead prices which have made ongoing UMPPs virtually unviable. Regarding gas just where exactly will we be getting it all for the kind of builds we need? Surely fuel supply is a factor that should be considered when discussing if we can afford to either junk or downgrade nuclear generation?

Incidentally your comment: "Nuclear Generation has improved by 41% and it has contributed 32455 MU compared to 26473 MU previous years. This is due to improved availability of imported fuels/ "

... was made possible by the Civil Nuclear deal which you and some other folks here think of as a scam. It's not a coincidence that imported yellow cake is freely available and has contributed to PLFs going north of 90 per cent - for the first time in history - in our existing nuclear plants.

** Note: I confess "coal champions" is a bit of deductive reasoning on my part. You favor renewables, you're against nuclear. Yet even you folks admit that renewables cannot be 100 per cent. So that leaves fossil fuel. Of course you are a generous person at heart so you're will to have "some nuclear" in the mix. The difference is I think some of us think we should have "some fossil fuel" in the mix and "more nuclear" as the target that we should aim for.

Well, Amit.

Improvement is due to availability of fuel due to 123. There are many questions about the deal but that is besides the point. fuel import is one thing and reactor import is another. Whether I agree with any of the above or not is immaterial. Scam on national interest is what characterizes Civil Nuclear Deal. But this debate is already going on in some thread , please follow there.

As regards your other points.

Answer to first question is yes.
How so.? AT&C losses ranges from 14-62%. Dont be surprised. There are several factors leading to this.
SOKO has 5% or less . Think how much electricity is being wasted by us.
So existing energy deficit could easily be met just by reducing AT&C losses to 5%. How much investment would be needed. Certainly less than what would be required to set up NPP for 120GW.

As regards Energy Conservation 25% is easily achievable at current consumption rate. This would again free up 200GW power at a fraction of its cost of setting up NPP for 200GW. This investment could easily be recovered within 5-7 years.

However this would only increase the energy efficiency of GDP. It would not meet the demand for more energy as GDP grows. For that we need more power. But just think how much power for NPP is planned in best case scenario. It is 20% of 920 GW required by 2032 in upper limit. that is 184GW. Even if you make it 250GW that would require huge investment and would still not cross the achievable savings of 320GW as noted above.

Neither I am coal champion nor Renewable champion or for that matter NPP champion. Such labeling is your forte, unfortunate though it may be.


Most of our coal plant operate at 29-35% efficiency and 70% PLF. Think hard, if it is improved to 45% efficiency and PLF of 90% more electricity could be generated. This would require selective improvements in existing TPPs.

In terms of Energy Mix for power, if coal remains predominant source ( with gas competing) then it would make sense to go for CCT/Super critical tech etc.

Regarding RBI decision, I am not aware of it and surely RBI has nothing to do with financing any project let alone UMPP. May be you could post a link. India is setting up or planning to set up Ultra Super Critical Power Plants which mean improved efficiency and more generation.

I don't know if there is a ban on import of coal. I think there is none. Prices may vary. But they don't come with conditionality on storage and reprocessing or waste storage management etc.
Could you support your claim how TPPs have become financially unviable or should we take your word for it. This is important since India is planning to set up 400 to 500 GW TPPs.

Also you should look at post by Theo on Nuclear fuel import and its costing and impact on viability of NPP esp if Life cycle costs are factored in.

[Gerard]

snippet from Phillip's post in the Naval thread
DCNS' Patrick Boissier: India is such an amazing experience

He adds, "In civil nuclear energy, we are developing a subsea nuclear power plant named FlexBlue.

The FlexBlue concept calls for plant housed in a cylindrical hull measuring around 100 m in length. Flex-Blue plants are designed to be moored on an extremely-stable sea floor at a depth of 60-100 ma few kilometres offshore. A FlexBlue plant should be able to meet the electricity requirements of regions with a population of 1-10 lakh, depending on the plant's power rating, living standards and the needs of local industries."

He hastens to add that the company came up with this concept even before last year's Fukushima nuclear disaster. "Fukushima was a very tragic event. Japan faced both a striking earthquake and a huge tsunami.

The power plant was hit by both and faced structural damages and cooling issues. FlexBlue is to be moored on the seabed; it wouldn't be endangered by earthquakes. As FlexBlue is to be installed at a depth of 60-100 m a few kilometres offshore, tsunamis wouldn't have any impact."

He says DCNS is investing heavily in research and development on "four key renewable marine energies". They include offshore floating windmills on which first trials at sea are expected by early 2013.

"We are also focusing on wave energy, ocean thermal energy conversion and tidal stream energy," he says.

[Theo_Fidel]

Even in Germany's case, they'd still be relying on coal fired plants for base load generation. Even then it's highly doubtful if Germany will be able to reach 45 per cent renewables by 2022, which they have to if they are going to permanently close down their nuclear plants and still not suffer from loadshedding. (Incidentally there's nothing like a good old fashioned loadshedding, particularly during winter, to shake some sense into Green jihadis).

Germany is not ideally located for Solar energy. Their solar hours are in 1400 hours/year range. By contrast India is ideally located for solar power. Large chunks of India get to 2500 annual hours. The very best areas are in the 2,500 and even approaching 2,800 annual hours range. Double Germany's potential. This is India's USP. We are really the only large rapid growth country in the tropics.

That said no one is saying the Solar/Wind can replace everything. We need intermediate type plants to provide the load balancing job of matching Solar supply to demand. Only coal/Gas can do this right now long term. It is doubtful if Nuclear plants can load follow all the way from 0% to 90% on a daily basis. The economics and logistics will not allow it. This is why it has always been doubtful if Nuclear can ever replace coal.

That said the aim is to reduce the Fossil fuel/base component to under 50% and eventually 30% of load. This is doable. If our power generation capacity in 2035-2040 is about 700,000 MW, ~ USA today, then we need ~200,000 MW of intermediate capacity. We already have this capacity as coal and gas. And in fact plan to add 50,000 MW more of coal & gas in the next 5 years.

[Amber G.]

Even in Germany's case, they'd still be relying on coal fired plants for base load generation. Even then it's highly doubtful if Germany will be able to reach 45 per cent renewables by 2022,....

Amitji - I am sure, you know that there is "virtual solar power.." coming from Greece for Germany .. or may be not...
Here are two news items ..
Greece Urged to Sell ‘Virtual’ Solar Power to Help EU Meet Goals

Greece, planning a 20 billion-euro ($26 billion) solar venture, would do well to sell the power “virtually” to help other European countries offset more- polluting generation, according to an adviser to the project.
Greece could strike energy-purchase deals whereby nations buy output from the Helios venture without actually taking delivery of the power.. <snip - read rest in the story > ,

Meanwhile:
From Reuters:
German official pours cold water on Greek solar dream

Also, if you have not, you may like to watch Bill Gates's interview in Wall Street Journal’s Eco-nomics conference..

Anyway for some reading pleasure, look at this report from
German Renewable Energies Agency.
Renewable Energies and Base Load Power Plants

From what I hear and sometimes read - Germans are realizing (when all is said and done and actual calculations are done..) that:

Phasing out nuclear will lead to a (perhaps) temporary increase in carbon pollution... The hope is that it will accelerate the transition to renewable.

One respected source said something to the effect "it will lead to an immediate and significant increase in German carbon emissions for decades at a minimum. == tens of billions of dollars worth of sunk cost in low emission power , is not going to accelerate a transition to renewables. The increase in energy costs will likely do just the opposite..(Of course, some think that it is self-serving behavior based on irrational fear. They’re doing it because a sufficient number of German citizens have been convinced by the fear tactics used that their nuclear power poses a significant safety risk (which in many peoples view, it doesn’t).

Let us wait and watch ...In any case plenty of for us to learn

[Theo_Fidel]

Let us wait and watch ...In any case plenty of for us to learn

I'm not sure this is an option for us. We need to move now. We need 50,000 MW over the next 5 years. Minimum. Other than coal/gas our only option is Solar/Wind on that scale.

[PratikDas]

Greenpeace = Disingenuous

Show me how a country can generate or import 4000 GigaWattHours of electricity from renewable resources and I'll take back my comment.

Until then, Greenpeace can shove it.

[Amber G.]

Greenpeace = Disingenuous

Show me how a country can generate or import 4000 GigaWattHours of electricity from renewable resources and I'll take back my comment.

I will not quarrel with your Greenpeace = Disingenuous equality but for the second part, it depends on how you define renewable resources ..

I don't know how many know this here, but ...

Some define nuclear as renewable...

and many have referred it as such, this includes such people as US president George Bush ( Eg, he said : "Nuclear power is safe and nuclear power is clean and nuclear power is renewable" ) and many others support the idea of including nuclear in renewable (along with solar, wind etc).

IIRC many states in US (South Carolina, Utah, Arizona etc..) have passed legislation (or in process of passing it) where nuclear is included in renewable.
(To be clear, Nuclear fission, at present is not classified as renewable by the U.S DOE )

(Google even gives this article from UK: UK To redefine NUCLEAR ENERGY as RENEWABLE?

The reason behind this is, when all said and done (and when one considers fast breeder reactors along with "renewable" U - from say ocean / earth crest) current U (even without considering Th) can last for billions of years..

... Some thing to think about when Greenpeace type people talks about all U being exhausted in decades..

[Theo_Fidel]

IIRC many states in US (South Carolina, Utah, Arizona etc..) have passed legislation (or in process of passing it) where nuclear is included in renewable.

(To be clear, Nuclear fission, at present is not classified as renewable by the U.S DOE )

To be precise this is the only cycle that is remotely financially viable right now. Meaning under 15 cents a kw. What this is probably indicating is that EROEI values get much worse for other Nuclear power cycles. Once you get into the Uranium from the ocean effort you are probably in the negative range.
--------------------------------------------

WRT Greenpeace, I'm not a great fan of their tactics but I do support their core idea. Don't leave the planet worse off for your children. That is exactly what we do by playing with technologies we have proven repeatedly inadequate to control. As an engineer when I hear calculations of one accident in 10 million years etc, all I can do is laugh. This is a political statement. There is no realistic way to push probabilities that far. We know our accident rate appears to be one catastrophic one every 10 years with 400 reactors. That should be the only data point we use. Sooner or later the present generation of Nuclear plants too will be shown to be inadequate and will suffer some manner of catastrophic accident. One of the scenarios floating around on the internet is a 737 loaded with a 100 ton propeller shaft smashing into a concrete dome at 500 kmph. There is and is never likely to be any technology that can resist that type of impact. This is reality for an engineer. There are clear limits to what we can do.

We have left large chunks of the planet irradiated for our children to deal with. We continue to accumulate spent fuel by the thousands of tons so our children can deal with them. We a have a good time while they get the cleanup.

[Amber G.]

^^^To be honest, I fully expected to see " ...type comments..

Also for,

A...
You remind me of a couple of Bureaucrats I know. Feels like herding cats....

Let me return the compliment, your posts, not all but some, too sir, remind me of Jinn Thermodynamics papers specially when even the most basic physics principles are ignored...

Anyway, for the those who understand physics, or are interested , here is an article from prestigious American Journal of Physics, Jan 1983..

Breeder reactors: A renewable energy source

Since energy sources derived from the sun are called “renewable,” that adjective apparently means that they will be available in undiminished quantity at present costs for as long as the current relationship between the sun and Earth persists , about 5 billion years. It is the purpose of this note to show that breeder reactors using nuclear fission fulfill this definition of a renewable energy source, and in fact can supply all the world’s energy needs at
present costs for that time period

Link: here
(If one likes to read the whole article)

Added later:

To be precise this is the only cycle that is remotely financially viable right now. Meaning under 15 cents a kw. What this is probably indicating is that EROEI values get much worse for other Nuclear power cycles. Once you get into the Uranium from the ocean effort you are probably in the negative range.

Read the above article, (or *any* reputable source vs Busby type 1,400,000 people getting killed type rubbish) and you may find some perspective. U from ocean is discussed, (with cost analysis etc) for example in the article I posted above..There was a nice article in Scientific American too)

[PratikDas]

Theo, you're not the only engineer around. There are PhDs aplenty here.

Greenpeace is disingenuous when it suggests that ANY green technology can provide the kind of capacity India needs in the next couple of decades. India doesn't owe it to anyone to wait for some mirage of a technology to materialise. We're talking of 4000 GWh of base load as of 2009, more today and even more tomorrow.

Go back to this link and press the play button. Focus on China's acceleration in electricity production (x-axis). Now that all the big players have capitalised on slave labour, cheap electricity or both, it is all too easy to pontificate that it is some moral duty of India's to sacrifice by limiting its potential till that mirage materialises. No, thank you.

[Theo_Fidel]

I do agree that breeder technology has the math behind it. It very definitely can power the planet long term. The question is can human technology harness it. Dozens of teams have tried. Very hard. And all have run into real physical limits. Even one must consider that present fast spectrum breeders tend to be some form of liquid metal design. These are notorious for being hard to operate safely using human technology and material science.

[chaanakya]

China has currently 2% of its electricity generated from NPP with installed capacity of about 11 GW. It intends to raise it by 6% up to 85 GW. While India has 2.5% from NPP from install base of 4.8 GW. By 2032 it targets 89GW under Nuclear forced scenario else 63 GW. Coal would still be 573GW from current 105GW, i.e. if we achieve it. So Nuclear remains only 6% even in forced scenario. Hate to disappoint Nuclear Jehadis.

Neither China nor India is planning to be 100% NPP, ohh not even 20%. Thats too much of target for both.

But if we achieve 5-10% of energy mix from NPP 4TWH is not too difficult to achieve. That means still we would have 40-60% from thermal route of Coal and gas. Unfortunately FUK-D has put paid to the hope of Nuclear Paid Jehadis and all one can show is some djinn predictive technology to guess how many would actually commence production worldwide and how many would remain shutdown .

Their only hope lies in China and India and fervent prayers to be able to sell reactors to them.

However 20% of 920-970 GW or so is a tall order by any means.Even USA has about 100GW NPP Install. GOI has no excellent record of achieving its target nor is it planning to go beyond 6%. Though I think it 6^ target NPP would be tried very hard given the amount of money which congoos can potentially skim off.

That is Notwithstanding any CO2 fanatics or greenpeace Jihadis who would like both India and China to not to go for CO2 intensive production. I agree with Pratik to some extent , it can be shoved up their royal *$$. I am no fan of CO2 argument in Indian context.

Meanwhile one can keep arguing that Nuclear is renewable or pollution free and one would wait for final verdict. I am sure SOlar is equally toxic and explosive rendering large areas uninhabitable for thousands of years. One should exercise caution and drink radiated water from FUK-D to improve understanding.

Data are approx. FWIW
Source Wiki and http://planningcommission.nic.in/report ... engpol.pdf

[Amber G.]

Meanwhile ... for greenpeace / Busby type idiots constant refrain about how dangerous radiation and NPP are causing " large chunks of the planet irradiated for our children.."

Here is some perspective. It is very important so please do read it. The chart comes from pbs.org (no nuclear lobby, to put it mildly) but can be verified by any reputable source.. The data is for US but it is quite applicable to India..

Fatality Comparison Statistics

US Coal Mining......... (1931-1995) 33,134
Oil / Gas Industry ..... (1992-1995) 719
Chemical Manufacturing.. (1992-1995) 201
US Automible ..... ( 1899-1995) 2,903,036
Smoking .... ( per year) 419,000
US Civil Aviation (1938-present) +54,000
US Nuclear Power ( Historical ) 0 (ZERO!)

Also look at: (Disasters and death tolls for perspective - per this pbs chart)

Link:http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline ... hart1.html

While there, please do take out the quiz: (How well do you do?)

Nuclear Phobia quiz

[Amber G.]

A typical news head line from "Nuclear Paid Jehadis ... and all one can show is some djinn predictive technology"(quoted from Chaankaya's) ...or thoughts from Industry experts from many countries (including India) on the sidelines of Nuclear Security Summit not too long ago in Seoul, (at which top officials from 53 nations met, including Obama, and MMS)..

Nuclear power only option despite Fukushima: industry
(Almost 200 experts and leaders from 36 states met at an industry summit in Seoul to discuss ways to ensure safety of nuclear energy one year after Fukushima's atomic disaster in Japan) .. FWIW ..From a keynote speech ..

..nuclear power was uniquely able to deliver on a global scale both energy security and environmental protection ..........
"Those with a mind for real-world solutions know that this transformation can be attained only with nuclear power in a central role...,

[disha]

I do agree that breeder technology has the math behind it. It very definitely can power the planet long term.

Thank you. You are seeing the light, but still want to act blind, since ...

The question is can human technology harness it. Dozens of teams have tried. Very hard. And all have run into real physical limits. Even one must consider that present fast spectrum breeders tend to be some form of liquid metal design. These are notorious for being hard to operate safely using human technology and material science.

Now if you are not aware, humans reaching moon multiple times within a span of 25 years circa 1945 was a laughable idea. Anybody would have been committed to an asylum for mentioning about going to moon itself. There were others who had same questions about "human technology" harnessing a way or mean to reach moon.

To turn it around, since breeder technology has the math behind it and it very definitely can power the planet long term., why not harness it? It will take time and effort - but the payoff is immense!

And guess which nation took a bold step to harness it? A poor nation just out of throes of colonial slavery with its very culture and society destroyed and wrecked with self doubt decided to go upon building up this technology - bigger than the moon shot!

Coming back to the limitations of the liquid metal design, they have been mastered already., the challenge is to scale it up in to several hundered megawatts and gigawatts range. Before I go on further, the liquid metal design were first adapted for nuclear submarines. In fact several Gen IV reactors are liquid metal (some form of it - either Na, NaK or lead-bismuth) based.

I think a lot does ride on PFBR and its success, however the fire safety issues for sodium are no worse than rocket fuel fire safety issues (imagine dropping some sweat drops on fuming nitric acid, one Dr. A. P. J Kamal has some first hand experience around this and amazingly lived to tell some tales).

Check this out : http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/techno ... 981270.ece

Added later: A totally dishonest, useless and dis-creditable performance at Kalpakkam

[disha]

WRT Greenpeace, I'm not a great fan of their tactics but I do support their core idea. Don't leave the planet worse off for your children. That is exactly what we do by playing with technologies we have proven repeatedly inadequate to control.

I was a huge fan of Greenpeace and was contributing a lot (both money and labour to it)., till I had an epiphany moment - It was actually a publicity seeking money making machine no different from the ravenous corporates like Union Carbide. Their net contribution to the green movement (other than causing some sound bites) is negative to zero and is more a vehicle for the corporates to give the "green movement" a bad press (IMHO).

The core idea of giving a better planet to your children is not of GreenPeace. Any advanced culture or society will do that and weaves it in their ethos.

We have left large chunks of the planet irradiated for our children to deal with. We continue to accumulate spent fuel by the thousands of tons so our children can deal with them. We a have a good time while they get the cleanup.

Yes, coal ash and the strontium 90 from all the above ground nuke testing does have a huge radiation pile up., still the life expectancy has increased and now more people are dying of fashionable diseases like obesity.

[JwalaMukhi]

The take home message from the above image is that - India is producing lesser electricity. But that is not news and is already known. This image is very interesting for psy-ops and shown for dazzling effect. Norway having a population of 5 million and other such assorted countries having population in smaller numbers are painted with better per capita to skew the relevance for India.

The meaningful comparison will be countries having substantial populations comparable to India. So comparisons with China, US, Brazil and USSR are relevant. The rest is time pass.
This chart doesn't reveal what should be considered good per capita consumption for India.

Most of the countries living in colder regions of the world have no alternative and have to consume a large percentage for dealing with extreme temperatures of heating and cooling. Hence mere survival in these regions require lot of electricity. Given the relatively milder temperature in India, what would be a good per capita consumption of electricity for India?

If someone is dazzled by looking at Norway and making a decision,one will be ready to import nuclear plant even from North Korea.

[Theo_Fidel]

From the NPR link a report on the true nature of our struggle with this beast. Those who think it now tame as a pussycat are wrong. Again Chernobyl was not the worst. It was far away from dense population centers. Almost a best case situation. The worst is quite inevitable somewhere on the planet eventually. My money is on the Chinese.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline ... earch.html

In the early days, safety had come from distance. Then it relied on the ability of a piece of steel to stand up to certain pressures. With the large nuclear plants being built in the mid-1960s, neither of these was possible, and the engineers had to guarantee that, no matter what else happened, the core wouldn't melt.

With probabilistic risk assessment, the engineers now said that major accidents were indeed possible. And although such an accident might be a one-in-a-million shot, much of the public didn't find this comforting. But the major weakness of probabilistic risk assessment was a practical, technical one. Calculating the probabilities for various accidents was next to impossible.

Charles Perrow, a sociologist at Yale, has taken this sort of reasoning one step further and argued that such complex, tightly interconnected technologies as nuclear power are, by their nature, unsafe. With so many components interacting, there are so many different ways an accident can happen that accidents are an inevitable feature of the technology-what Perrow calls "normal accidents." The technology cannot be made safe by adding extra safety systems, for that would only increase its complexity and create more ways that something could go wrong.. ...Both rigid central authority and local discretion are needed, and, Perrow says, it is impossible to have both. Thus a nuclear plant will always be vulnerable to one type of accident or another-either one caused by a failure to adapt quickly to an unanticipated problem, or else one created by not coordinating actions throughout the plant.

For chemical plants, the costs of accidents are relatively low and are usually bome by the chemical companies and its workers, while the cost of shutting down chemical plants would be rather high. There is nothing to replace them. But nuclear power is different, Perrow says. The costs of a major accident would be catastrophically high, while the cost of giving up nuclear power would be bearable. Other ways of generating electricity could take its place.

People have also come to appreciate how complexity changes the risk equation. It makes risk harder to calculate by making it difficult to understand all the ways that things can go awry. But equally important, complexity can amplify risk.

[Amber G.]

Disha et al - one important short comment. We have often seen claims here like "India *can* not get more than x% (x is small number) of nuclear energy" spoken as if it was was some physics law or numbers carved in stone..

As some one who spent quite some time in France (Saclay) in 1970's .. and saw their attitude .. let me just recall history...From a standing start in the 1970’s, France brought on-line, in a SINGLE decade France started up something like 40+ major NPP.. 1GW for every 1 million of its citizen .. enough to meet virtually all of its electric need...

[anishns]

I suppose this would be an ideal comparison. India still lags way behind other developing countries in power consumption pc, marginally ahead of Indonesia

SA/China/Brazil/Mexico/India/Indonesia

[gakakkad]

I suppose this would be an ideal comparison. India still lags way behind other developing countries in power consumption pc, marginally ahead of Indonesia

SA/China/Brazil/Mexico/India/Indonesia

[OT] but if you remove UP and bihar , stats improve drastically. In a decades time per capita consumption in Guj would exceed most of Europe..IMHO there should be concentrated plans of electrification in UP and Bihar. During the elections I saw a video clipping in the zee news website about villages surrounding mainos constituency. some remote villages had not seen electrification ever.. so the mantra in these 2 states seem to be "keep em poor , keep em ignorant , keep em voting for corrupt ,inefficient governments . " I am for building several 1000 MW reactors in UP/Bihar.. Crush everyone who opposes their construction. [/ot]

[PratikDas]

--snip--

The take home message from the above image is that - India is producing lesser electricity. But that is not news and is already known. This image is very interesting for psy-ops and shown for dazzling effect. Norway having a population of 5 million and other such assorted countries having population in smaller numbers are painted with better per capita to skew the relevance for India.

The meaningful comparison will be countries having substantial populations comparable to India. So comparisons with China, US, Brazil and USSR are relevant. The rest is time pass.
This chart doesn't reveal what should be considered good per capita consumption for India.

Most of the countries living in colder regions of the world have no alternative and have to consume a large percentage for dealing with extreme temperatures of heating and cooling. Hence mere survival in these regions require lot of electricity. Given the relatively milder temperature in India, what would be a good per capita consumption of electricity for India?

If someone is dazzled by looking at Norway and making a decision,one will be ready to import nuclear plant even from North Korea.

I'm impressed with how passionately you defend Norway. Here's my take on things. If Norway is cold, entitling Norwegians to heating and large amounts of electricity for it, so is India hot and there is no reason why Indians shouldn't benefit from air-conditioning. Air-conditioning in India is still in the early stages because they cost so much to run and so many homes need to be rewired to handle the current. That does NOT mean that India isn't entitled to the capacity for it.

I did NOT include Norway for psy-ops. I chose Norway because they're an energy-rich country, just like Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Russia whom I've also short-listed. Norwegians have worked to the top of that list. I didn't put them there. If I was gunning for psy-ops, I would've included Iceland. I didn't.

[Sanku]

The core idea of giving a better planet to your children is not of GreenPeace. Any advanced culture or society will do that and weaves it in their ethos.

Fully agree disha, well said. Taking off from where you left the point and further --

That is why it is important to not make debates "personal" (about a group or a person) but stick to the core of the message.

Care for environment continues to be a issue whether Greenpeace espouses it or not, it continues to be relevant irrespective of whether or how or what Greenpeace is. The discussion about making choices for future, with a balance of economy, growth and trade offs with environment and/or strategic aspects is a delicate and a careful one.

It is sad that a lot of it has been reduced to the level of ideological ranting with personal attacks and disparaging comments.