http://mobile.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2013/10/21/nucleaire-edf-et-londres-confirment-un-accord-pour-construire-deux-epr_3499867_3244.html
England's "choice"
October 21, 2013
England has just made its choice, by opting for the construction, on its soil, of two EPR reactors.
I added the quotation marks on October 25. Indeed an article, posted online on Agoravox, sheds a different light on this English "choice" to "decide" to build two EPRs on its soil. I therefore refer the reader to that paper.
**http://www.agoravox.fr/actualites/societe/article/accord-nucleaire-londres-edf-les-142527 **
There one finds details worth knowing. I quote;
In reality, since nobody wants EPRs, EDF outright bought at a high price (15 billion) British energy, renamed EDF energy, so that the latter would order EPRs. So it is ultimately the French selling EPRs to the French, thanks to EDF's money. The trick is crude. and ruinous.
I return to what I had written before these details were provided to me:
Yet if there was a country that could turn toward other options, it is indeed that one. I distract myself for a brief moment from the arduous writing of cosmology work to discuss this question..
The renewable energy resources are indicated on the figure below:
One sees that in the south there are abundant solar resources and, on the Moroccan coast, wind resources, where the winds blow with great regularity. Hence the DESERTEC project. On paper it is magnificent, but politically, good luck, when one knows the fickleness of political powers in the Arab countries. The Germans perhaps imagine that after large sums have been spent to equip these regions, the countries concerned will export this precious electricity at low cost to the big European brothers. If so, they are in for a rude awakening. After the oil shock, the "electric shock".
**October 22, 2013:**Read this very recent information. The Arab countries are considering taking back the DESERTEC project for their own benefit (rightly so, it is their home). Estimated cost of such a project: 400 billion euros.
It would suffice for the rich Arab countries to put their hands in their wallets. They largely have the means to finance such an undertaking, instead of devoting billions to buying real estate in London or Paris, or to building air-conditioned ski slopes, as in Dubai. Look at all the yellow dots on this map. There could lie the future energy eldorado. But this windfall would be primarily devoted to the development of the countries concerned. The electricity can be allocated to the desalination of seawater, and thus to the development of the deserts of the hinterland. By growing tomatoes in the shelter of solar panels equipped with Fresnel lenses, the Emirates could become major exporters of fresh vegetables.
You should know that all the fresh water used in the United Arab Emirates is produced in a coastal desalination plant powered by oil, including the irrigation water for the lawns bordering the highways, by subsurface diffusion.
But his dream was to see the grass grow...
These countries urgently need to develop, bearing the weight of a strong demographic surge. Westerners, with their cozy comforts, would then see this electricity granted to them drop by drop, in exchange for broad political concessions (concerning immigration, the extension of their Koranic hegemony). A case to follow.
Will these Arab countries manage to agree, for once? That is the whole question. Lawrence of Arabia, in his time, had borne the cost of their tribal dissensions. These countries have many times found an agreement against Israel, the only thing capable of federating their energies. Enthusiastic agreements, but which each time ended in resounding routs.
Here, the stake, is of another scale.
That being so, these resources are unlimited. By equipping the entire coast of Morocco with onshore wind alone there would be enough to supply a good part of Europe with electricity; with the remarkable constancy of the sea wind. With our EPRs we really are the fools of the story. But national independence comes before everything, even if these are veritable suicides instructions for use. You know the English proverb:
Right or wrong, my country
( " Whether it is right or wrong, above all, it is my country " )
One could paraphrase by proposing:
Stupid or not, my country
( " Whether its choices are intelligent or stupid, above all, it is my country " )
Parenthesis; one will note in passing that the USA enjoys a rather exceptional situation. They have, on their territory, vast expanses, ( the Rockies and their desert regions ) lending themselves to a massive development of solar, and wind. But, for the USA, oil represents the cheapest energy, and a major geopolitical tool.
The English, on the other hand, are in an a priori privileged situation. First of all they have wind and tidal resources (in this latter field, the potential resources represent 13 to 23 Terawatts x hour. (see on this subject this interesting document, showing the variety of possible formulas), but which would by no means be able to cover their needs. On the other hand they are 1300 km from Iceland, which could become, subject to ad hoc investments, the Saudi Arabia of wind and geothermal power.
The exploitation of geothermal energy is not without risk. The extraction of such energy from the subsoil (and it is present in many regions) is accompanied by micro-earthquakes of ill omen. This phenomenon thus led to the halt of such an operation near Basel, which had been the victim of a strong earthquake in 1356.
The Basel earthquake, 1356
Referring to this event, the Swiss told themselves that the exploitation of geothermal energy was not without risks and stopped their work. On the other hand it would be less significant in Iceland, which is a very sparsely populated island. The bulk of the population is concentrated in Reykjavik, in the west. The island is crossed, from southwest to north, by a fault, which is the emerged extension of the mid-ocean ridge.
The situation in Iceland seems very different.
The emergences of tholeiitic basalt, in brown, are the trace of the mid-ocean ridge. Reykjavik, at the bottom of a small bay, is to the west of this fracture line. The two halves of the island moreover continue to move away from each other, and tourists are shown these places where this separation is measurable. It seems to me that large-scale geothermal energy operations, to the east of this fault, would not represent risks for the populations, which are very concentrated in the capital.
This map reminds me of the memory of a visit led by the Krafts, who died in the flow of a pyroclastic surge in Japan in 1991. In Iceland some geysers no longer work, simply because the temperature at the bottom is not sufficient to trigger boiling. They had shown me how to revive the geysers, with dishwashing liquid. It is enough to empty a bottle of it through the upper orifice. When the product reaches depth it lowers the boiling temperature of the water and the geyser revives, a single time. It then projects into the air hundreds of thousands of ... soap bubbles.
To the south of the island of Heimaey, dominated by the Heldfell volcano. Until January 1973 the latter was considered the prototype of the extinct volcano, as the holder of the Icelandic volcanology chair (authentic) recalled the day before, during the lecture. But on January 22 it wakes up, and buries half of the town.
The island of Heimaey, partially covered by volcanic ash.
Shortly afterwards I had the opportunity to visit this region. To the southwest is the island of Surtsey, which resulted from the emergence of an underwater volcano, from 1963 to 1967. It was the geologists who gave it the name of a giant from Norse mythology.
A few years later a new underwater volcano manifested itself and a smoking island appeared at the surface. This time the Icelandic government decided that it was not up to volcanologists to give names to islands. This decision was to be accompanied by some political gesture. The visit of the Queen of Denmark was then organized, accompanied by one of her descendants. The Icelandic government planned to give this idea the name of this offspring. The preparations were going full steam ahead and the speeches were already prepared when one night, without warning, the island ... disappeared.
Message from a reader:
Good evening,
Regarding the article on energies, here is some feedback that operators of these power plants in the Philippines, with whom I discussed it, told me about. Personally, I worked with them on less revolutionary fields.
(facilities on the island of LEYTE). *The island has two million inhabitants. *
At the start, it is quite exciting, because pressurized water is injected into the volcano, and steam is recovered.
The more is injected the more is recovered... up to a flow threshold (variable) where a lot of steam is recovered for the turbine, and then, suddenly, nothing is under control anymore. The earth starts to shake dangerously!!!
There are many uncontrolled parameters in geology that make this technique very delicate.
Cordially,
Luc BARANGER
Returning to the geothermal and wind possibilities of Iceland, let us recall that the transmission of electrical power in high-voltage direct current is essential as soon as the distances (including overland) exceed 1000 km. This direct current is then carried by a single conductor under very high voltage (up to 800,000 volts). Currently, in the world there are 142 installations of this kind, carrying 100,000 megawatts. It is in this way that the French send, and sell 5000 MW to the English, via a 70 km long line crossing the Channel.
The Canadians also use this mode of transport to carry to their cities current produced by Hydro-Québec, in the north (hydroelectric facilities, low head, but immense flow). The current is created by alternators, the voltage is raised by transformers, then rectified. On arrival, the reverse process with inverters and cascades of transformers.
Canadian rectifier unit
But the English preferred to start re-equipping themselves with EPR reactors, operating 100% on MOX, that is to say on plutonium, which means that an accident on such reactors will have consequences .. unthinkable. The reason for such a decision is twofold. First of all there is the pressure from the nuclear lobbies, both French and English. Let us add that the third partner is China, which gives cause for concern. Indeed according to my wife, who is Chinese, not a day goes by in China where a badly built bridge does not collapse. And if, on top of that, it is for abroad ..
The other reason is this obsession with independence:
Same concern in France, under the leadership of our two nuclear MPs, the MP for the Nord Christian Bataille and the senator for Haute Marne Bruno Sido. It is in his department that the CIGEO deep disposal project, of ANDRA, is located, at Bures. Bataille and Sido are concocting for us an energy independence plan for the next 5000 years, with the deployment of sodium-cooled fast-neutron breeder reactors, of which ASTRID (600 MW) is the precursor. Read this article, written for l'Appel de Genêve II , you will not believe your eyes.
Old men sketch out the future of French nuclear power for the next 100 ( and even 150 ) years.
**ASTRID, the breeder reactor that rises from its ashes **
The curve representing a "reasoned trajectory, up to ... 2100, which appears at the end of this article, does not come from the dream of a madman (or two), but is taken from this report, written by this commission of the National Assembly on the Future of French Nuclear Power.
In this ship of fools that French nuclear power is, let us not forget the project to reuse the nuclear reactor technology of submarines, developed at Cadarache, the Flexblue project:
An artist's impression showing a submersible Flexblue reactor, being transported to a coastal area.
The same, submerged:
The mesh is there to prevent the passage of algae and jellyfish, likely to obstruct the pumping openings, for the cooling of the reactor
There is no (yet) project to install such facilities around the French coasts, but I know from a reliable source that the CEA (which does not boast about it) has negotiated with a foreign country the installation of this superb product for export.
In Fukushima the Japanese are still pumping, like nuclear shaddocks:
TEPCO employees
A typhoon caused the tanks in which the contaminated water is stored to overflow, which ran across the site and flowed into the Pacific. The countdown has begun, with regard to the operation to recover the 1300 spent fuel rods that are in the pool of reactor number four.
**25 October:**An earthquake of magnitude 7.3 occurred yesterday, with practically the same epicenter as that of 2011.
The Fukushima nuclear site was evacuated.
The 2011 earthquake had a magnitude of 9, but yesterday's event is there to remind us of the chronic seismicity of the region. If the epicenter of such an earthquake were located, not 200 km out at sea, but in the very site of Fukushima, it could lead to the collapse of the pool of reactor no. 4 which, as we know, has been considerably weakened, and whose sudden draining could cause a disaster of international scope. This reminds me of the theme of the lecture given by a representative of Cadarache last June, at the Ecole des Arts et Métiers in Aix en Provence, whose theme was "After the situation has been normalized at Fukushima, an update on the resumption of Franco-Japanese cooperation in nuclear matters ".
Back in France. Consult the two Internet pages on the Tricastin site:
**AREVA : The Tricastin site: a unique industrial site in Europe (archive of 07/01/2015) **
WIKIPEDIA:**The Tricastin site **
In the second you will find, in the vast chapter entitled Pollution and incidents (most recent: 2013, explosion of an insulator )
Assemblies stuck in September 2008
On 8 September 2008, 2 assemblies remained caught on the upper internal structures during a nuclear fuel renewal operation. As soon as the anomaly was noted, the operation was immediately stopped. The 2 assemblies remained suspended under water in the vessel, while the operator had the reactor building evacuated and isolated.
The assemblies remained stuck for more than a month.
EDF proposed technical solutions on 14 October to recover the two assemblies. The Nuclear Safety Authority evaluated them on the "mock-up" of the center for experimentation and validation of intervention techniques on pressurized water nuclear boilers (CETIC) in Chalon-sur-Saône. On 22 October, the ASN gave its approval to the operation.
There was no risk due to criticality, nor to the failure to cool the assemblies, during this incident.
A similar incident has already occurred in France on an assembly in 1999, at the Nogent nuclear power plant (Aube), which was also resolved without any particular problem. However, the situation at Tricastin was different, with 2 contiguous suspended assemblies, instead of just one in 1999.
But, during the night of 24 to 25 October 2013 (yesterday, as I write these lines), one of the Tricastin reactors, insufficiently cooled due to the state of the fluid reaching the pumps (a viscous silt, a mixture of water and sediment), automatically went into emergency shutdown. That is to say, the control rods dropped automatically, while a release of steam from the secondary circuit, itself also insufficiently cooled, was automatically triggered. See the article and the photo below:
*To be compared with the resolutely optimistic presentation of the site made by AREVA, already cited: *
**The Tricastin site: a unique industrial site in Europe (archive of 07/01/2015) **
Night of 24 to 25 October 2013: catastrophic, automatic release of steam from the secondary circuit, whose cooling is no longer ensured
*All is for the best in the best of all possible nuclear worlds. *
*At Fukushima there are 1300 elements to extract, at 30 metres' height. *
To review the history of Fukushima as I had followed it for you in 2011