Secret Squirrel examines,now, the costs of fuels comparing nuclear fuels used in nuclear reactors and those used by thermal plants,all resulting in the same end, heating,boiling water, to generate steam to turn steam turbines, to generate electricity.
First we'll look at nuclear fuels and the processing it actually requires.
Steps to create the fuel,(all involve transportation)
1-Mining,and milling
2-Conversion
3-Enrichment
4-Fuel Bundle fabrication
5-Used in Nuclear reactor to boil water,generate steam to turn a turbine.
6-Must be stored beneath water else catches fire and releases radiations(gases ,particles),goes to 7 (or sometimes then straight to 9,burial)
7-Reprocessing (seperating the to be waste products)
8-Vitrification (waste preprocessing)
9-Final disposal for burial
So nuclear fuel and it's manufacture and use is cheaper thermal plant fuels?Hardly likely.In no way shape nor form is it so,not at all, not in the long term,nor in the short term.And, compared with the thermal fuels, the whole business,and process all along the way,all along the line, is extremely,highly,dangerous,hazardous,life threatening,an accident of nuclear proportions waiting to happen anywhere along its line,from manufacture on up to, and including burial disposal, and even there, in burial remains dangerous for decades.
Now that's certainly a lot of processes.France and the UK do all,but NOT mined.Japan does not mine nor vitrify,The USA and Russia does all including mine, but does not vitrify.Other nations do some work with the uranium.But it requires, all along the way, highly expensive to build, plants, plants to handle increasingly radioactive materials to assemble a fule bundle necessary for a reactor to use, and just note how very few such plants exist to do exactly that. Uranium mining nations are Australia,USA,Canada,Namibia,Niger,Argentina,Russia,Germany, Ukraine,Roumania,Spain,Khazakstan, mainly because they have it elementally. All nations have coal,and natural gas,and there are many yet more oil producing nations as compared with the highly restricted short list of nations which have uranium mines.
Russia and Lithuania use over 70% nuclear,Japan,Germany,Sweden,Switzerland,Hungary, Slovenia,Slovakia,Ukraine,Bulgaria over 30%.Russia,Finland,Spain,England,Czechs are over 15%, rest region 15%,and some very fortunate nations, not at all, like Australia,Italy,Turkey, Norway,Ireland,Greece, and some others, the smarter than average ones.Indeed they have other sources to generate electricity,efficiently,economcially, safely, and far less expensively.
Now let's consider the thermal plants, in particular,coal fired ones.
To get coal to the same useable state to be used to generate the steam required to turn electrical turbines, its mined, and transported to the thermal plant, there it's pulverized,mixed with hot air and injected in to the furnace,to boil water,generate steam to turn the turbine,which gives the electricity.That's all there really is to it.Oil and natural gas similarly.Some coal
fired plants are built right near to the mines themselves, so near the coal is delivered by simple conveyer.Simple and cheap,isn't it.Coal can also be effectively delivered by train right to the plant.Natural gas plants are simply built adjacent to the natural gas pipelines.Smart move that is.Fuel for bunker oil fired plants can be delivered by pipeline,tanker,rail tank cars,safely ,cheaply.They too can be built right near to the supply pipeline.
Now for coal, or rather from coal, there is a residue left,a waste product,that of coal ash. Now coal ash is nowhere's near as dangerous as nuclear waste.As a matter of fact,it has a great many applicable uses, and can be thence sold in to the economy.What uses you ask? Well there are a great many.
It’s used for making cement and concrete products
It’s used in structural fills and embankments
It’s used as mineral filler in asphalt pavement
It’s used to stabilize waste materials
It’s used to level out uneven terrain on sites including housing developments, malls and runways.
To be used in this way, coal ash must meet certain requirements.
For example, in Portland Cement Concrete, fly ash must meet the standards of ASTM C618. The ASTM is the American Society for Testing and Materials.The ash used to produce Portland cement actually allows some cutbacks in using oil. It would have taken 55 gallons to produce one ton of cement.
Coal ash has also been found useful in the making of:
Paints and plastics
Kitchen countertops
Soil for growing plants. It increases crop yields.
Bowling balls
Vinyl flow covering
Shower stalls
Gee just try and do that with still heavily radioactive waste, as in fuels etc etc etc.
(http://www.coalashfacts.org/)
In epistle,
"In 2007, the United States produced 131 million tons of coal combustion products. While 43 percent were used beneficially, nearly 75 million tons were disposed of. By using coal ash instead of disposing of it in landfills we are avoiding the environmental degradation and energy costs associated with mining virgin materials. We are building stronger, longer-lasting
structures that save taxpayer dollars and minimize environmental impacts. For every ton of fly ash used in place of portland cement about a ton of carbon dioxide is prevented from entering the Earth’s atmosphere. Also, it takes the equivalent of 55 gallons of oil to produce a single ton of cement.
Another significant benefit of using fly ash is that it requires less water than portland cement, conserving a limited resource, while also reducing a project’s water and equipment costs. Boiler slag, which replaces sand in blasting grit, has the benefit of being free of silica, which eliminates the potential health risk of silicosis. Flue gas desulfurization materials are used in 30
percent of U.S. wallboard products, avoiding the need to mine gypsum. Environmentally and economically it makes more sense to use existing materials than to mine new ones.And it also makes much more sense,environmentally and financially,economically to use thermal in place of nuclear".Her ends the epistle.
Talk is cheap, nuclear isn't.Thermal talks the talk, walks the walk,safely,efficiently, inexpensively,cheaply.Nuclear is a much more costly,unjustifiable loss leader in the field of electrical energy generation.Nuclear energy is a looser,a financial looser,which takes you with it.
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