Map of the World's Nuclear Power Plants
carbonbrief.org
carbonbrief.org
Drawbacks: not all reactors are known and not all the data is currently here.
Advantages: took me 2 minutes to write, and the underlying data can be edited by anyone to keep it up to date.
I want to do this too, and have lots of questions. How do you look up relationship terms like "wdt:P31/wdt:P279* wd:Q134447"? Is there a graph or entity viewer somewhere that allows discovery based on browsing a particular entity's tuples?
Edit: In addition to Squad_Tamer's tip below, the things I've found:
1) removing the #defaultView:map comment results in a table
2) adding the `?x` back to the select will result in links to the full entity page, including all statements associated with the entity nicely organized.
3) The SERVICE statement was entirely new to me, but points to how difficult it is to do knowledge summary (I.e. wtf should I call this entity? let's write a service for that.)
1) Indeed, there are many other kinds of visualizations available as well (have a look at the examples)
3) the SERVICE is just an easy way to retrieve the name, which is stored in Wikidata, in a reasonable language. You can also access the name directly in SPARQL
We are running a huge risk not replacing them as they age. If one of the plants have a meltdown it's going to ruin any support to have them replaced. The U.S. keeps these plants so they can make nuclear weapons very quickly, but also the power is relatively clean / contained.
We're mostly decommissioning them as they age, usually before the end of their design life. And there are legal requirements to do so at the end of their permitted period if they aren't refreshed. So, what's the risk?
> If one of the plants have a meltdown it's going to ruin any support to have them replaced.
Sure, but such support — particularly from industry in the absence of even greater subsidies for which there is no public support — does not exist anyway, nor is a meltdown even remotely likely.
> The U.S. keeps these plants so they can make nuclear weapons very quickly
The U.S. keeps shutting them down, and isn't replacing them, so I don't think that's accurate.
Globally, we've had 2 major meltdowns in the last 25 years. There have been many near misses. Three mile island was only a 'partial' meltdown, but it happened right here in the US, in 1979.
I don't know why you think a meltdown is "not even remotely likely".
I suppose a significant commercial base makes refined uranium more available.
Plus, many of the plants that are currently operating in the states are losing money because their electricity is too costly. We have had a series of nuclear plant bailouts in the past few years. If you can't make money after the construction costs have already be amortized, how can you make money on a new plant?
It's just a very poor financial investment to build a large reactor in the states (unless something changes).
Of the ones that are being built have caused an epic cascade of business failures from construction companies to Westinghouse (who was the leading reactor core design company in the US, not even a construction company).
As I understand it the USA has had a glut of skilled construction labor, all the expert laborers from the 70's never really had a chance to pass down their trade during the nuclear glut of the 80's - 00's
http://www.carbonbrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/annual...
If it's regulatory, I'm surprised that more climate focused candidates don't campaign on streamlining regulations to make it possible for more plants to get built. It's essentially zero cost in comparison to other climate efforts that will cost billions / trillions in re-investment.
I don't know a lot about renewables or energy production, but my understanding is that solar and wind are not good for base load unless there's a big improvement in storage technology (either batteries or some physical setup like the pair of lakes in West Virginia where they pump water around). So, nuclear is something we can do now that we know works. And since all these plants are at the end of their life, we can get a much more realistic picture of the total cost of ownership, instead of projections about what the produced power would cost.
The map shows three currently under construction in the United States, which is more than any other country with under a billion people.
Whatever did go wrong at Fukushima wasn't deregulation. That sort of mistake can creep through in even an extremely well regulated environment.
Also, the cost of the cleanup from the Tohoku earthquake that was linked to the tsunami was something like 300 billon; so maybe the fact that they had a design flaw in their nuclear plant maybe doubled the cleanup depending on what the figures on Wikipedia already factor the Fukushima clean up costs in.
Doubling the cost of something is significant, but for an event of that rarity not really a deregulation concern. If you told me that there was a risk of a city being leveled by a tsunami and there was a chance my taxes rising by, say, an unnecessary 10% for 12 months I might (depending on which city) squint at you in confusion about why the 10% was a problem. I've payed 1% disaster levies in my lifetime.
A slight chance of a moderate-in-context one off cost due to a series of unlikely coincidences just doesn't really rate as a major regulatory risk to me. I'd trust the regulators to deal with it for next time as part of their normal process. We have literally had to scour the globe for a decade to find an example where it matters.
Other plots that I have seen show new additions slowing long before TMI.
Each pre-TMI project was managed with a different level of skill, or with better rolls of the dice on timing, and those that completed quickly were profitable, and the those that had long delays had huge cost overruns due to massive capital outlays and interest payments without any revenue to back it.
And another reason that I don't think we can blame regulation: look at Vogtle and Summer. You have to dig really really really far into backwaters of blogs before you can even find somebody saying "this regulatory process caused us to be delayed," and even those complaints are vague.
It's not regulation, it's the industry.
We can look elsewhere in different regulatory environments too: UK, France, Poland, all have the same huge difficulties we do when constructing nuclear. The places that seem to have fewer difficulties still have difficulties. China has long delays, that would still cause investors to lose money in the US. South Korea had been on a tear of seemingly good construction, but it turns out that the contracting process was rife with corruption and now there are worries that unqualified parts are stuck deep in reactors that are supposed to run for 60 years.
If there is a regulatory delay on these projects, I'm not sure that there's any sort of appropriate regulatory structure that would make them work. And you can tell because the industry insiders that complain about regulation don't have any fixes in mind.
One thing no one ever talks about is environmental lead exposure. Just like it appears to have caused a huge crime spike, by impairing executive function, I think it may have impaired society's ability to manage complex projects.
See “Public Reaction” in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Castle_Project
Without subsidies it’s a money losing proposition even if you can sell all power produced at a good rate. However, with renewables regularly pushing down the value of electricity for much of the day things have gotten even worse.
Nuclear is an order or two more efficient (you need a fraction of the mines, and a fraction of the work to keep the whole technology stack running). In practice this seems to mean that nuclear power doesn't have much of a lobby in favor of it even if it is established as an industry.
In Australia the coal lobby is a pretty noticeable force in two states and arguably influenced the last election. If we were 100% nuclear instead there wouldn't be enough people in the industry to make a political difference.
It's incredibly expensive and takes a decade to start collecting revenue. In that time, renewables could emerge as a winner.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612940/the-new-safer-nucl...
The problem is we can’t build them cost effectively. Toshiba had to sell it’s 18 billion memory chip business to cover the losses of its nuclear division.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-toshiba-accounting-westin... https://www.reuters.com/article/us-toshiba-accounting-westin...
[0]: https://www.dw.com/en/slovakia-delays-nuclear-plant-expansio...
[1]: Sorry the video is in German, but it does contain some illustrations and photos if you fast forward: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAhPZ_MDZE4
I'd also suggest that the track record China has for corrupt/unsafe construction (e.g. https://chinaeconomicreview.com/china-housing-shoddy-buildin...) makes them the elephant-in-the-room as far as safety concerns go - especially considering how quickly they're springing up.
Reading the Wikipedia pages for these plants, many are slated to be decommissioned and some have uncertain futures due to economics; natural gas appears to be outcompeting nuclear in Illinois. Which goes towards explaining why there aren't new plants being built: they're hugely expensive and are not reliably profitable.
They might be serious about shutting down their coal burners. That is a real commitment to clean air and energy security - they are doing something different. Minor compared to the current business-as-usual perhaps, but they make iterative change work.
It's a shame we decided nuclear was too dangerous and decided to pump our atmosphere full of carbon instead. I'm glad to see that China is making the right choice, I just wish we could have as well.
The map shows three facilities under construction. I'm not sure that counts as "stopped."
Prior to Watts Bar unit #2 coming online in 2016, the previous reactor was Watts Bar unit #1 in 1996. So that's one reactor in the past 20 years, and 23 years since we last opened a new plant.
20 years between plants isn't that big a deal. They're not building houses. Nuclear reactors take decades to built. It's one of the reasons they're so expensive.
Either way, new reactor construction is not currently a significant source of new generation capacity in the US, and so I think it counts as "basically stopped".
Share of electricity produced from oil, gas and coal in 2015.
Indonesia: 89%
Australia: 86%
Netherlands: 82%
India: 81%
Nigeria: 81%
Japan: 80%
Saudi: 76%
China: 73%
Turkey: 67%
US: 67%
Russia: 65%
Italy: 59%
Germany: 55%
UK: 53%
Spain: 43%
Brazil: 23%
France: 6%
(World Bank)
An awesome map of antineutrino emissions from the earth, which doubles as a map of operating nuclear plants.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_energy_in_South_Africa
https://www.space.com/neutron-star-crash-made-gold-uranium.h...
https://physicsworld.com/a/radioactive-decay-accounts-for-ha...
And I wonder how much it has misinformed the general public
"Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect."
This is 10x more true with nuclear power. And you can add malfeasance, graft, corruption, ignorance of basic science, and generally every other flaw inherent in humanity to the list.
* Official figures show that there have been well over 1000 deaths from maintaining the evacuation, in contrast to little risk from radiation if early return had been allowed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_disaster_cleanup#Cos...
* Cleanup cost is estimated at $187 billion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_effects_from_the_Fuk...
* Almost 50k local residents still remain evacuees 8 years later
It's plainly obvious why a populace would no longer trust nuclear as a generation technology based on how it was managed, regardless of your air pollution arguments (which I agree with; Japan should move to wind, solar, and batteries rapidly instead of coal).
There is no such technology Japan can move to at this stage, to cover the needs of major cities. DOn't forget that land is extremely expensive in japan (as it's rare to get stable and flat surfaces) and there is no place in which you can build large areas of solar farms just next to cities that need it. For high energy density production there's only fossil fuels (which is awful on so many levels) and nuclear (which is very safe even when accounting for Fukushima and Chernobyl and Three Miles Island). Pretending that there is right now more to renewables than just maybe up to 10% of energy needs is lying to the public.
Of course, we should continue to invest in renewables to make their costs drop as much as possible, but at the same time we all need to keep investing in nuclear too (and build new generations of reactors that reduce further the risk of meltdown).
Its easy for the public to be panicked by old unsafe plants causing pollution. They should have voted for new plants to replace the old ones. It was a choice, probably emotional. As is the reluctance to move forward with renewable nuclear plants as our energy future.
Also, the deaths are workers. People who understand and have consented to the risk. And who can take some responsibility for their own safety. The death of a random member of the public is morally different.
Maybe they should have moved the people to fantasy land
I think the public are intelligent enough to know that a meltdown must never happen. In the same way that they know that an airline must never run out of fuel. Of course that is going to damage trust.
Instead of a rational discussion politicians have abused the public trust by spreading more misinformation and making publicity stuns to keep plants closed even after significant security review and alternatives that are far more damaging.
You like to talk about rationality. But is it really? Do you have a thorough understanding of the model of reactor in question? Or various complex failure modes? Or the dozens of degree level specialisms involved in safety critical aspects? If you don't then you have to rely on a little blind faith. Even an aerospace engineer has to trust when they step on a plane. Breaking that trust is going to damage your industry.
Nuclear in the 'western' exemplary history of safety in the last 40 years and most of these plants have operated without fail for a long time.
The failure mode is not actually a mystery in this case and stopping plants where the same failure mode is impossible makes little sense for plants that have proven to run perfectly for 30+ years.
Any research reactor contains a critical mass of fuel, and therefore is fully capable of meltdown.
https://ne.oregonstate.edu/11-mw-triga-mark-ii-pulsing-resea...
As far as meltdown: if you drain all of the water, they do not generate enough decay heat to melt down due to their size.
They were invented by Freeman Dyson as a "reactor safe enough for high school students to operate".
Typically there is a person whose name is on the license, who is responsible for the proper use of the reactor. At an organization this could be the boss, owner, or RSO. In theory, as a private citizen you could get a license, as long as you can prove to the regulator that you have the experience and training to operate the reactor properly.
Of course, you would have to comply with all the rules and regulations. This could be quite burdensome for a private citizen, especially with the additional security rules added post 9/11 (assuming you are not a billionaire).
Edit: removed link to quantities of concern, sorry, rules are different for reactors.
Edit again: better link for security regs: https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/non-power.html
In Moscow (Russia) alone, there are nearly a dozen of research reactors, of various designs.
There are 200+ decommissioned experimental reactors, 240 operational, 200 shut down, and a few others in change. The more interesting thing is the variety, 70+ types, 20+ types of moderators, 80+ types of control rods, 20-ish types of coolants, 50+ types of reflector materials.
Edit: here's a full list of types and their counts.
+----------+---------------------------+
| count(*) | technical_21_reactor_type |
+----------+---------------------------+
| 4 | NULL |
| 3 | AIR COOLED |
| 1 | AQUEOUS BREEDER |
| 28 | ARGONAUT |
| 1 | BWR |
| 1 | BWR POWER |
| 2 | BWR-PROTOTYPE |
| 97 | CRIT ASSEMBLY |
| 9 | CRIT FAST |
| 1 | CRIT GRAPHITE |
| 3 | EXPERIMENTAL |
| 3 | FAST |
| 8 | FAST BREEDER |
| 9 | FAST BURST |
| 1 | FAST SOURCE |
| 2 | FAST, HG COOLED |
| 2 | FAST, NA COOLED |
| 1 | FAST, POWER |
| 1 | FAST, PULSED |
| 1 | GAS |
| 12 | GRAPHITE |
| 2 | GRAPHITE AGR |
| 2 | GRAPHITE CO2 |
| 4 | GRAPHITE PILE |
| 1 | GRAPHITE, AIR |
| 1 | GRAPHITE, PULSE |
| 1 | HE COOLED |
| 2 | HEATING PROT |
| 35 | HEAVY WATER |
| 1 | HEAVY WATER PWR |
| 2 | HIGH TEMP GAS |
| 3 | HOMOG |
| 28 | HOMOG (L) |
| 41 | HOMOG (S) |
| 2 | HOMOG PUL |
| 1 | LOOP TYPE |
| 9 | MNSR |
| 1 | MOBILE EDU. |
| 1 | N2 COOLED |
| 1 | ORGANIC MODER |
| 134 | POOL |
| 1 | POOL-2 CORES |
| 1 | POOL-VAR |
| 10 | POOL, IRT |
| 3 | POOL, MTR |
| 2 | POOL, PULSTAR |
| 1 | POOL, UZRH |
| 1 | POOL/CHANNELS |
| 1 | PRESS. VESSEL |
| 1 | PRESSURIZED |
| 9 | PROMPT BURST |
| 4 | PULSING |
| 3 | PWR |
| 1 | PWR POWER |
| 1 | PWR PROPULSION |
| 3 | SLOWPOKE |
| 7 | SLOWPOKE-2 |
| 1 | SPACE TEST |
| 12 | SUBCRIT |
| 56 | TANK |
| 10 | TANK IN POOL |
| 11 | TANK WWR |
| 2 | TRIGA |
| 2 | TRIGA ACPR |
| 8 | TRIGA CONV |
| 2 | TRIGA DUAL CORE |
| 1 | TRIGA MARK CONV |
| 3 | TRIGA MARK F |
| 20 | TRIGA MARK I |
| 24 | TRIGA MARK II |
| 6 | TRIGA MARK III |
| 1 | TRIGA MODIFIED |
| 1 | U-233 FUELLED |
| 1 | ZERO POWER D2O |
| 1 | ZERO POWER HTD |
| 1 | ZRH, AIR COOLED |
| 1 | ZRH, BE REFLECT |
| 1 | ZRH, H2O COOLED |
+----------+---------------------------+