Category Archives: nuclear power

Why I don’t like the Iran deal

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Treaties, I suspect, do not exist to create love between nations, but rather to preserve, in mummified form, the love that once existed between leaders. They are useful for display, and as a guide to the future, their main purpose is to allow a politician to help his friends while casting blame on someone else when problems show up. In the case of the US Iran-deal that seems certain to pass in a day or two with only Democratic-party support, and little popular support, I see no love between the nations. On a depressingly regular basis, Iranian leaders promise Death to America, and Death to America’s sometime-ally Israel. Iran has acted on these statements too, funding Hezbollah missiles and suicide bombers, and hanging its dissidents: practices that lead it to become something of a pariah among its neighbors. They also display the sort of nuclear factories and ICBMs (long-range rockets) that could make them much bigger threats if they choose to become bigger threats. The deal just signed by US Secretary of State and his counterpart in Iran (read in full here) seems to preserve this state. It releases to Iran $100,000,000,000 to $150,000,000,000 that it claims it will use against Israel, and Iran claims to have no interest in developing multi-point compression atom bombs. This is a tiny concession given that our atom bomb at Hiroshima was single-point compression, first generation, and killed 90,000 people.

Iranian intercontinental ballistic missile, several stories high, brought out during negotiations. Should easily deliver nuclear weapons far beyond Israel, and even to the USA.

Iranian intercontinental ballistic missile, new for 2015. Should easily deliver warheads far beyond Israel -even to the US.

The deal itself is about 170 pages long and semi-legalistic, but I found it easy to read. The print is large, Iran has few obligations, and the last 100 pages or so are a list companies that will no longer be sanctioned. The treaty asserts that we will defend Iran against attacks including military and cyber attacks, and sabotage –presumably from Israel, but gives no specifics. Also we are to help them with oil, naval, and fusion technology, while leaving them with 1500 kg of 20% enriched U235. That’s enough for quick conversion to 8 to 10 Hiroshima-size A-bombs (atom bombs) containing 25-30 kg each of 90% U235. The argument in favor of the bill seems to be that, by giving Iran the money and technology, and agreeing with their plans, Iran will come to like us. My sense is that this is wishful-thinking, and unlikely (as Jimmy Carter discovered). The unwritten contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.

As currently written, Iran does not recognize Israel’s right to exist. To the contrary, John Kerry has stated that a likely consequence is further attacks on Israel. Given Hezbollah’s current military budget is only about $150,000,000 and Hamas’s only about $15,000,000 (virtually all from Iran), we can expect a very significant increase in attacks once the money is released — unless Iran’s leaders prove to be cheapskates or traitors to their own revolution (unlikely). Given our president’s and Ms Clinton’s comments against Zionist racism, I assume that they hope to cow Israel into being less militant and less racist, i.e. less Jewish. I doubt it, but you never know. I also expect an arms race in the middle east to result. As for Iran’s statements that they seek to kill every Jew and wipe out the great satan, the USA: our leaders may come to regret hat they ignore such statements. I guess they hope that none of their friends or relatives will be among those killed.

Kerry on why we give Iran the ability to self-inspect.

Kerry on why we give Iran the ability to self-inspect.

I’d now like to turn to fusion technology, an area I know better than most. Nowhere does the treaty say what Iran will do with nuclear fusion technology, but it specifies we are to provide it, and there seem to be only two possibilities of what they might do with it: (1) Build a controlled fusion reactor like the TFTR at Princeton — a very complex, expensive option, or (2) develop a hydrogen fusion bomb of the sort that vaporized the island of Bimini: an H-bomb. I suspect Iran means to do the latter, while I imagine that, John Kerry is thinking the former. Controlled fusion is very difficult; uncontrolled fusion is a lot easier. With a little thought, you’ll see how to build a decent H-bomb.

My speculation of why Iran would want to make an H-bomb is this: they may not trust their A-bombs to win a war with Israel. As things stand, their A-bomb scientists are unlikely to coax more than 25 to 100 kilotons of explosive power out of each bomb, perhaps double that of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But our WWII bombs “only” killed 70,000 to 90,000 people each, even with the radiation deaths. Used against Israel, such bombs could level the core of Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. But most Israelis would survive, and they would strike back, hard.

To beat the Israelis, you’d need a Megaton-size, hydrogen bomb. Just one Megaton bomb would vaporize Jerusalem and it’s suburbs, kill a million inhabitants at a shot, level the hills, vaporize the artifacts in the jewish museum, and destroy anything we now associate with Israel. If Iran did that, while retaining a second bomb for Tel-Aviv, it is quite possible Israel would surrender. As for our aim, perhaps we hope Iran will attack Israel and leave us alone. Very bright people pushed for WWI on hopes like this.

Robert E. Buxbaum. September 9, 2015. Here’s a thought about why peace in the middle east is so hard to achieve,

The future of steamships: steam

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Most large ships and virtually all locomotives currently run on diesel power. But the diesel  engine does not drive the wheels or propeller directly; the transmission would be too big and complex. Instead, the diesel engine is used to generate electric power, and the electric power drives the ship or train via an electric motor, generally with a battery bank to provide a buffer. Current diesel generators operate at 75-300 rpm and about 40-50% efficiency (not bad), but diesel fuel is expensive. It strikes me, therefore that the next step is to switch to a cheaper fuel like coal or compressed natural gas, and convert these fuels to electricity by a partial or full steam cycle as used in land-based electric power plants. 

Ship-board diesel engine, 100 MW for a large container ship

Diesel engine, 100 MW for a large container ship

Steam powers all nuclear ships, and conventionally boiled steam provided the power for thousands of Liberty ships and hundreds of aircraft carriers during World War 2. Advanced steam turbine cycles are somewhat more efficient, pushing 60% efficiency for high pressure, condensed-turbine cycles that consume vaporized fuel in a gas turbine and recover the waste heat with a steam boiler exhausting to vacuum. The higher efficiency of these gas/steam turbine engines means that, even for ships that burn ship-diesel fuel (so-called bunker oil) or natural gas, there can be a cost advantage to having a degree of steam power. There are a dozen or so steam-powered ships operating on the great lakes currently. These are mostly 700-800 feet long, and operate with 1950s era steam turbines, burning bunker oil or asphalt. US Steel runs the “Arthur M Anderson”, Carson J Callaway” , “John G Munson” and “Philip R Clarke”, all built-in 1951/2. The “Upper Lakes Group” runs the “Canadian Leader”, “Canadian Provider”, “Quebecois”, and “Montrealais.” And then there is the coal-fired “Badger”. Built in 1952, the Badger is powered by two, “Skinner UniFlow” double-acting, piston engines operating at 450 psi. The Badger is cost-effective, with the low-cost of the fuel making up for the low efficiency of the 50’s technology. With larger ships, more modern boilers and turbines, and with higher pressure boilers and turbines, the economics of steam power would be far better, even for ships with modern pollution abatement.

Nuclear steam boilers can be very compact

Nuclear steam boilers can be very compact

Steam powered ships can burn fuels that diesel engines can’t: coal, asphalts, or even dry wood because fuel combustion can be external to the high pressure region. Steam engines can cost more than diesel engines do, but lower fuel cost can make up for that, and the cost differences get smaller as the outputs get larger. Currently, coal costs 1/10 as much as bunker oil on a per-energy basis, and natural gas costs about 1/5 as much as bunker oil. One can burn coal cleanly and safely if the coal is dried before being loaded on the ship. Before burning, the coal would be powdered and gassified to town-gas (CO + H2O) before being burnt. The drying process removes much of the toxic impact of the coal by removing much of the mercury and toxic oxides. Gasification before combustion further reduces these problems, and reduces the tendency to form adhesions on boiler pipes — a bane of old-fashioned steam power. Natural gas requires no pretreatment, but costs twice as much as coal and requires a gas-turbine, boiler system for efficient energy use.

Todays ships and locomotives are far bigger than in the 1950s. The current standard is an engine output about 50 MW, or 170 MM Btu/hr of motive energy. Assuming a 50% efficient engine, the fuel use for a 50 MW ship or locomotive is 340 MM Btu/hr; locomotives only use this much when going up hill with a heavy load. Illinois coal costs, currently, about $60/ton, or $2.31/MM Btu. A 50 MW engine would consume about 13 tons of dry coal per hour costing $785/hr. By comparison, bunker oil costs about $3 /gallon, or $21/MM Btu. This is nearly ten times more than coal, or $ 7,140/hr for the same 50 MW output. Over 30 years of operation, the difference in fuel cost adds up to 1.5 billion dollars — about the cost of a modern container ship.

Robert E. Buxbaum, May 16, 2014. I possess a long-term interest in economics, thermodynamics, history, and the technology of the 1800s. See my steam-pump, and this page dedicated to Peter Cooper: Engineer, citizen of New York. Wood power isn’t all that bad, by the way, but as with coal, you must dry the wood, or (ideally) convert it to charcoal. You can improve the power and efficiency of diesel and automobile engines and reduce the pollution by adding hydrogen. Normal cars do not use steam because there is more start-stop, and because it takes too long to fire up the engine before one can drive. For cars, and drone airplanes, I suggest hydrogen/ fuel cells.

Nuclear fusion

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I got my PhD at Princeton University 33 years ago (1981) working on the engineering of nuclear fusion reactors, and I thought I’d use this blog to rethink through the issues. I find I’m still of the opinion that developing fusion is important as the it seems the best, long-range power option. Civilization will still need significant electric power 300 to 3000 years from now, it seems, when most other fuel sources are gone. Fusion is also one of the few options for long-range space exploration; needed if we ever decide to send colonies to Alpha Centauri or Saturn. I thought fusion would be ready by now, but it is not, and commercial use seems unlikely for the next ten years at least — an indication of the difficulties involved, and a certain lack of urgency.

Oil, gas, and uranium didn’t run out like we’d predicted in the mid 70s. Instead, population growth slowed, new supplies were found, and better methods were developed to recover and use them. Shale oil and fracking unlocked hydrocarbons we thought were unusable, and nuclear fission reactors got better –safer and more efficient. At the same time, the more we studied, the clearer it came that fusion’s technical problems are much harder to tame than uranium fission’s.

Uranium fission was/is frighteningly simple — far simpler than even the most basic fusion reactor. The first nuclear fission reactor (1940) involved nothing more than uranium pellets in a pile of carbon bricks stacked in a converted squash court at the University of Chicago. No outside effort was needed to get the large, unstable uranium atoms split to smaller, more stable ones. Water circulating through the pile removed the heat released, and control was maintained by people lifting and lowering cadmium control rods while standing on the pile.

A fusion reactor requires high temperature or energy to make anything happen. Fusion energy is produced by combining small, unstable heavy hydrogen atoms into helium, a bigger more stable one, see figure. To do this reaction you need to operate at the equivalent of about 500,000,000 degrees C, and containing it requires (typically) a magnetic bottle — something far more complex than a pile of graphic bricks. The reward was smaller too: “only” about 1/13th as much energy per event as fission. We knew the magnetic bottles were going to be tricky, e.g. there was no obvious heat transfer and control method, but fusion seemed important enough, and the problems seemed manageable enough that fusion power seemed worth pursuing — with just enough difficulties to make it a challenge.

Basic fusion reaction: deuterium + tritium react to give helium, a neutron and energy.

Basic fusion reaction: deuterium + tritium react to give helium, a neutron and energy.

The plan at Princeton, and most everywhere, was to use a TOKAMAK, a doughnut-shaped reactor like the one shown below, but roughly twice as big; TOKAMAK was a Russian acronym. The doughnut served as one side of an enormous transformer. Hydrogen fuel was ionized into a plasma (a neutral soup of protons and electrons) and heated to 300,000,000°C by a current in the TOKOMAK generated by varying the current in the other side of the transformer. Plasma containment was provided by enormous magnets on the top and bottom, and by ring-shaped magnets arranged around the torus.

As development went on, we found we kept needing bigger and bigger doughnuts and stronger and stronger magnets in an effort to balance heat loss with fusion heating. The number density of hydrogen atoms per volume, n, is proportional to the magnetic strength. This is important because the fusion heat rate per volume is proportional to n-squared, n2, while heat loss is proportional to n divided by the residence time, something we called tau, τ. The main heat loss was from the hot plasma going to the reactor surface. Because of the above, a heat balance ratio was seen to be important, heat in divided by heat out, and that was seen to be more-or-less proportional to nτ. As the target temperatures increased, we found we needed larger and larger nτ reactors to make a positive heat balance. And this translated to ever larger reactors and ever stronger magnetic fields, but even here there was a limit, 1 billion Kelvin, a thermodynamic temperature where the fusion reaction went backward and no energy was produced. The Princeton design was huge, with super strong, super magnets, and was operated at 300 million°C, near the top of the reaction curve. If the temperature went above or below this temperature, the fire would go out. There was no room for error, but relatively little energy output per volume — compared to fission.

Fusion reaction options and reaction rates.

Fusion reaction options and reaction rates.

The most likely reaction involved deuterium and tritium, referred to as D and T. This was the reaction of the two heavy isotopes of hydrogen shown in the figure above — the same reaction used in hydrogen bombs, a point we rarely made to the public. For each reaction D + T –> He + n, you get 17.6 million electron volts (17.6 MeV). This is 17.6 million times the energy you get for an electron moving over one Volt, but only 1/13 the energy of a fission reaction. By comparison, the energy of water-forming, H2 + 1/2 O2 –> H2O, is the equivalent of two electrons moving over 1.2 Volts, or 2.4 electron volts (eV), some 8 million times less than fusion.

The Princeton design involved reacting 40 gm/hr of heavy hydrogen to produce 8 mol/hr of helium and 4000 MW of heat. The heat was converted to electricity at 38% efficiency using a topping cycle, a modern (relatively untried) design. Of the 1500 MWh/hr of electricity that was supposed to be produced, all but about 400 MW was to be delivered to the power grid — if everything worked right. Sorry to say, the value of the electricity did not rise anywhere as fast as the cost of the reactor and turbines. Another problem: 1100 MW was more than could be easily absorbed by any electrical grid. The output was high and steady, and could not be easily adjusted to match fluctuating customer demand. By contrast a coal plant’s or fuel cell’s output could be easily adjusted (and a nuclear plant with a little more difficulty).

Because of the need for heat balance, it turned out that at least 9% of the hydrogen had to be burnt per pass through the reactor. The heat lost per mol by conduction to the wall was, to good approximation, the heat capacity of each mol of hydrogen ions, 82 J/°C mol, times the temperature of the ions, 300 million °C divided by the containment time, τ. The Princeton design was supposed to have a containment of about 4 seconds. As a result, the heat loss by conduction was 6.2 GW per mol. This must be matched by the molar heat of reaction that stayed in the plasma. This was 17.6 MeV times Faraday’s constant, 96,800 divided by 4 seconds (= 430 GW/mol reacted) divided by 5. Of the 430 GW/mol produced in fusion reactions only 1/5 remains in the plasma (= 86 GW/mol) the other 4/5 of the energy of reaction leaves with the neutron. To get the heat balance right, at least 9% of the hydrogen must react per pass through the reactor; there were also some heat losses from radiation, so the number is higher. Burn more or less percent of the hydrogen and you had problems. The only other solution was to increase τ > 4 seconds, but this meant ever bigger reactors.

There was also a material handling issue: to get enough fuel hydrogen into the center of the reactor, quite a lot of radioactive gas had to be handled — extracted from the plasma chamber. These were to be frozen into tiny spheres of near-solid hydrogen and injected into the reactor at ultra-sonic velocity. Any slower and the spheres would evaporate before reaching the center. As 40 grams per hour was 9% of the feed, it became clear that we had to be ready to produce and inject 1 pound/hour of tiny spheres. These “snowballs-in-hell” had to be small so they didn’t dampen the fire. The vacuum system had to be able to be big enough to handle the lb/hr or so of unburned hydrogen and ash, keeping the pressure near total vacuum. You then had to purify the hydrogen from the ash-helium and remake the little spheres that would be fed back to the reactor. There were no easy engineering problems here, but I found it enjoyable enough. With a colleague, I came up with a cute, efficient high vacuum pump and recycling system, and published it here.

Yet another engineering challenge concerned the difficulty of finding a material for the first-wall — the inner wall of the doughnut facing the plasma. Of the 4000 MW of heat energy produced, all the conduction and radiation heat, about 1000 MW is deposited in the first wall and has to be conducted away. Conducting this heat means that the wall must have an enormous coolant flow and must withstand an enormous amount of thermal stress. One possible approach was to use a liquid wall, but I’ve recently come up with a rather nicer solid wall solution (I think) and have filed a patent; more on that later, perhaps after/if the patent is accepted. Another engineering challenge was making T, tritium, for the D-T reaction. Tritium is not found in nature, but has to be made from the neutron created in the reaction and from lithium in a breeder blanket, Li + n –> He + T. I examined all possible options for extracting this tritium from the lithium at low concentrations as part of my PhD thesis, and eventually found a nice solution. The education I got in the process is used in my, REB Research hydrogen engineering business.

Man inside the fusion reactor doughnut at ITER. He'd better leave before the 8,000,000°C plasma turns on.

Man inside the fusion reactor doughnut at ITER. He’d better leave before the 8,000,000°C plasma turns on.

Because of its complexity, and all these engineering challenges, fusion power never reached the maturity of fission power; and then Three-mile Island happened and ruined the enthusiasm for all things nuclear. There were some claims that fusion would be safer than fission, but because of the complexity and improvements in fission, I am not convinced that fusion would ever be even as safe. And the long-term need keeps moving out: we keep finding more uranium, and we’ve developed breeder reactors and a thorium cycle: technologies that make it very unlikely we will run out of fission material any time soon.

The main, near term advantage I see for fusion over fission is that there are fewer radioactive products, see comparison.  A secondary advantage is neutrons. Fusion reactors make excess neutrons that can be used to make tritium, or other unusual elements. A need for one of these could favor the development of fusion power. And finally, there’s the long-term need: space exploration, or basic power when we run out of coal, uranium, and thorium. Fine advantages but unlikely to be important for a hundred years.

Robert E. Buxbaum, March 1, 2014. Here’s a post on land use, on the aesthetics of engineering design, and on the health risks of nuclear power. The sun’s nuclear fusion reactor is unstable too — one possible source of the chaotic behavior of the climate. Here’s a control joke.

Land use nuclear vs wind and solar

An advantage of nuclear power over solar and wind is that it uses a lot less land, see graphic below. While I am doubtful that industrial gas causes global warming, I am not a fan of pollution, and that’s why I like nuclear power. Nuclear power adds no water or air pollution when it runs right, and removes a lot less land than wind and solar. Consider the newly approved Hinkley Point C (England), see graphic below. The site covers 430 acres, 1.74 km2, and is currently the home of Hinkley Point B, a nuclear plant slated for retirement. When Hinkley Point C is built on the same site, it will add 26 trillion Watt-hr/ year (3200 MW, 93% up time), about 7% of the total UK demand. Yet more power would be provided from these 430 acres if Hinkley B is not shut down.

Nuclear land use vs solar and wind; British Gov't. regarding their latest plant

Nuclear land use vs solar and wind; British Gov’t. regarding their latest plant

A solar farm to produce 26 trillion W-hr/year would require 130,000 acres, 526 km2. This area would suggest they get the equivalent of 1.36 hours per day of full sun on every m2, not unreasonable given the space for roads and energy storage, and how cloudy England is. Solar power requires a lot energy-storage since you only get full power in the daytime, when there are no clouds.

A wind farm requires even more land than solar, 250,000 acres, or somewhat more than 1000 km2. Wind farms require less storage but that the turbines be spaced at a distance. Storage options could include hydrogen, batteries, and pumped hydro.; I make the case that hydrogen is better. While wind-farm space can be dual use — allowing farming for example, 1000 square km, is still a lot of space to carve up with roads and turbines. It’s nearly the size of greater London; the tourist area, London city is only 2.9 km2.

All these power sources produce pollution during construction and decommissioning. But nuclear produces somewhat less as the plants are less massive in total, and work for more years without the need for major rebuilds. Hinkley C will generate about 30,000 kg/year of waste assuming 35 MW-days/kg, but the cost to bury it in salt domes should not be excessive. Salt domes are needed because Hinkley waste will generate 100 kW of after-heat, even 16 years out. Nuclear fusion, when it comes, should produce 1/10,000 as much after-heat, 100W, 1 year out, but fusion isn’t here yet.

There is also the problem of accidents. In the worst nuclear disaster, Chernobyl, only 31 people died as a direct result, and now (strange to say) the people downwind are healthier than the average up wind; it seems that small amounts of radiation may be good for you. By comparison, in Iowa alone there were 317 driving fatalities in 2013. And even wind and solar have accidents, e.g. people falling from wind-turbines.

Robert Buxbaum, January 22, 2014. I’m president of REB Research, a manufacturer of hydrogen generators and purifiers — mostly membrane reactor based. I also do contract research, mostly on hydrogen, and I write this blog. My PhD research was on nuclear fusion power. I’ve also written about conservation, e.g. curtains; insulation; paint your roof white.

Fractal power laws and radioactive waste decay

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Here’s a fairly simple model for nuclear reactor decay heat versus time. It’s based on a fractal model I came up with for dealing with the statistics of crime, fires, etc. The start was to notice that radioactive waste is typically a mixture of isotopes with different decay times and different decay heats. I then came to suspect that there would be a general fractal relation, and that the fractal relation would hold through as the elements of the mixed waste decayed to more stable, less radioactive products. After looking a bit, if seems that the fractal time characteristic is time to the 1/4 power, that is

heat output = H° exp (-at1/4).

Here H° is the heat output rate at some time =0 and “a” is a characteristic of the waste. Different waste mixes will have different values of this decay characteristic.

If nuclear waste consisted of one isotope and one decay path, the number of atoms decaying per day would decrease exponentially with time to the power of 1. If there were only one daughter product produced, and it were non-radioactive, the heat output of a sample would also decay with time to the power of 1. Thus, Heat output would equal  H° exp (-at) and a plot of the log of the decay heat would be linear against linear time — you could plot it all conveniently on semi-log paper.

But nuclear waste generally consists of many radioactive components with different half lives, and these commpnents decay into other radioactive isotopes, all of whom have half-lives that vary by quite a lot. The result is that a semi-log plot is rarely helpful.  Some people therefore plot radioactivity on a log-log plot, typically including a curve for each major isotope and decay mode. I find these plots hardly useful. They are certainly impossible to extrapolate. What I’d like to propose instead is a fractal variation of the original semi-log plot: a  plot of the log of the heat rate against a fractal time. As shown below the use of time to the 1/4 power seems to be helpful. The plot is similar to a fractal decay model that I’d developed for crimes and fires a few weeks ago. 

Afterheat of fuel rods used to generate 20 kW/kg U; Top graph 35 MW-days/kg U; bottom graph 20 Mw-day /kg U. Data from US NRC Regulatory Guide 3.54 - Spent Fuel Heat Generation in an Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation, rev 1, 1999. http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/reg-guides/fuels-materials/rg/03-054/

After-heat of nuclear fuel rods used at 20 kW/kg U; Top graph 35 MW-days/kg U; bottom graph 20 Mw-day /kg U. Data from US NRC Regulatory Guide 3.54. A typical reactor has 200,000 kg of uranium.

A plausible justification for this fractal semi-log plot is to observe that the half-life of daughter isotopes relates to the parent isotopes. Unless I find that someone else has come up with this sort of plot or analysis before, I’ll call it after myself: a Buxbaum Mandelbrot plot –Why not?

Nuclear power is attractive because it is a lot more energy dense than any normal fuel. Still the graph at right illustrates the problem of radioactive waste. With nuclear, you generate about 35 MW-days of power per kg of uranium. This is enough to power an average US home for 8 years, but it produces 1 kg of radioactive waste. Even after 81 years the waste is generating about 1/2 W of decay heat. It should be easier to handle and store the 1 kg of spent uranium than to deal with the many tons of coal-smoke produced when 35 MW-days of electricity is made from coal, still, there is reason to worry about the decay heat.

I’ve made a similar plot of decay heat of a fusion reactor, see below. Fusion looks better in this regard. A fission-based nuclear reactor to power 1/2 of Detroit, would hold some 200,000 kg of uranium that would be replaced every 5 years. Even 81 years after removal, the after-heat would be about 100 kW, and that’s a lot.

Afterheat of a 4000 MWth Fusion Reactor, from UMAC III Report. Nb-1%Zr is a fairly common high-temerature engineering material of construction.

After-heat of a 4000 MWth Fusion Reactor built from niobium-1%zirconium; from UWMAC III Report. The after heat is far less than with normal uranium fission.

The plot of the after-heat of a similar power fusion reactor (right) shows a far greater slope, but the same time to the1/4 power dependence. The heat output drops from 1 MW at 3 weeks to only 100 W after 1 year and far less than 1 W after 81 years. Nuclear fusion is still a few years off, but the plot at left shows the advantages fairly clearly, I. think.

This plot was really designed to look at the statistics of crime, fires, and the need for servers / checkout people.

Dr. R.E. Buxbaum, January 2, 2014, edited Aug 30, 2022. *A final, final thought about theory from Yogi Berra: “In theory, it matches reality.”

Masculinist history of the modern world, pt. 2: WWII mustaches

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Continuing my, somewhat tongue in cheek, Masculinist history, part 1: beards, I thought I’d move on to mustache history, centering on WWII. I see the conflict as big mustaches vs little mustaches leading to a peace of no face hair at all. First consider that, at the start of the war, virtually all the leaders had mustaches, with similar mustached men allied. Consider that Hitler was weird and hi’s mustache was weird, and that, within a few years of peace, virtually no major leader had a hairy lip. Why?

Let me begin by speculating that the mustache is worn by the man who wishes to be seen as manly, but who also wants to appear civilized. The message of the mustache, then: I’m a leader of great vision within a civilized society. Thus visionaries like Albert Einstein, Duke Ellington, S. Dali, and T. Roosevelt, all decided to grow mustaches. The mustache may not make men into champions of a new vision, but a man with the will to champion something new will tend to wear a mustache. It is thus no surprise that a world war would begin when all the world leaders had mustaches, or why a crazy person like Hitler would wear a crazy mustache, but why is it that so few world leaders have been mustached since. Where have all the mustaches gone? Read onward.

Emperor Akihito, center, had to open Japan; Emperor Meiji, upper right, a wild beard and terror who defeated China and Russia; Emperor Hirohito, bottom left, crafty mustache. Caveat Emperor. Tojo, bottom right, the man to lead the fight and pay the price.

Emperor Akihito, upper left was induced to open Japan; Emperor Meiji, upper right, defeated China and Russia; WWII Emperor Hirohito, bottom left; General Tojo, bottom right, the man to take the fall. Caveat Emperor.

As WWII begins with the Japanese, lets look at the face hair on several Japanese  emperors’ faces. At the upper left, Mikado (Emperor) Akihito. He had no vision, drive or mustache, and was induced to open Japan to the west in 1854 in response to his advisors and Admiral Perry who sailed 4 black warships into Tokyo harbor. His successor, Emperor Meiji (upper right, bearded) won wars against China and Russia in the late 1800s (see the significance of warlike beards). Emperor Hirohito, bottom left, wore the mustache and authorized the beginning of WWII including the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the rape of Nanking. His associate, General Tojo, bottom right, also mustached lead the actual deeds and took the blame. Akihito looks feminine and unhappy, as one might understand. Meiji looks like a holy terror; and both Hirohito and his general wear mustaches trimmed in the British style. My interpretation: their goal was to build a sea-land empire based on the British model.

After Emperor Meiji defeated China and Russia, his obvious next step should have been to attack the USA, but Meiji did not. Large-mustachioed, US President, Th. Roosevelt noticed the danger and used his “talk softly and carry a big stick” deterrent. He was a man of civilization and sent a “peace delegation” of white-pained warships to Tokyo Harbor. They were painted white for peace, and to differentiate the modern, civilized Roosevelt from President Tyler of the Black warships. The message seems to have gotten through to Meiji, and we had no more trouble from him, nor from his son (no face hair). But Meiji’s grandson, Hirohito joined with Tojo, and realized that all Americans were not like Th. Roosevelt. He ceased the opportunity of American isolationism and tried to get the job done as his grandfather would have wanted. They figured, correctly, that we didn’t want war, and incorrectly, that we would give up in the face of a single military victory. Hirohito had studied in England and admired the British empire. Seeing the power of bearded George V, he came to believe that a small, but unified island nation could take and hold a mighty empire so long as the nation was strong enough and understood modern organizational management. Surely it was time Japan made its empire by taking Hong Kong from England, Vietnam from France, The Philippines from the US, and (most importantly) Malaysia from the Dutch (Malaysia had oil). What’s the worst that could happen?

Hirohito built a world-power army and navy, and invaded China successfully. He fought Chiang Kai Shek (trimmed, British mustache; he was a modernizer himself). Meanwhile, for 15 years the Japanese military developed for empire. The military college planned an attack on Pearl Harbor based on careful organization and management. When carried out Dec. 7, 1941, the attack was brilliantly successful. The next day, Dec 8-9, the same “zero” planes that had hit Hawaii, helped destroy both the British navy near Hong Kong and the US airbase in the Philippines. We never even thought to prepare as we didn’t think the Japanese were organized or advance enough. The Mitsubishi “zero” was an advanced version of a Fiat design (see my piece on Fiat’s latest). As with other Fiat products, it was small, fast, maneuverable, efficient, and unreliable.

Now look at the European leaders, axis and allies, below. In the late 1930s, all sport mustaches except for Mussolini. This might suggest a world ripe for war that would benefit Mussolini: everyone’s vision can’t come to be, and most everyone might want to ally with a feminine peace-nick. At first, that’s what happened: modern military mustached Franco took over Spain from the old-fashioned, up-mustached king of Spain and his incompetent government. Mussolini was a passive ally. Big mustached Stalin took over the Baltic countries; Mussolini was his national-socialist friend. Half-mustache Hitler then allied with Mussolini and armed the Rhineland. This scares old-fashioned mustached Giraud (France) and British Chamberlain into giving him eastern Czechoslovakia. Mussolini looks on. Chamberlain comes to believe that he has achieved peace in our time, but he has not. Now, the big mustached king of Italy, Victor Emanuel chooses no-mustache Mussolini to restore Italian unity. Mussolini goes to war and takes Libya on his second try. He almost takes Greece too. Useless, clean-shaven, general Badoglio resigns. These conquests do not lead to world war or condemnation of Italy (or Germany, or Russia) The mustachioed socialists of France, Poland, England and the US have quite a lot in common with the national socialists of Germany and Italy. We hold, like they do, that the state must make the jobs if it is to pull out of the depression, and that the state must be strong, pure, and united — something best achieved by socialism and keeping immigrants out. The theme of the New York Word’s Fair in 1939 is Peace through Progress, a theme of unrealistic optimism. For now, though, the US is neutral, and all the nations have exhibitions in NY.

War of the mustache men. Top row: axis leaders at the beginning of WWII; l-r: Hitler, Franco (Spain), King Victor Emanuel and Mussolini (Italy), and Stalin (Russia, an early ally of Hitler). Bottom row: allied leaders, l-r; King Alfonso (Spain); Chang Kai Shek (China), François Lebrun (France), Ignazy Moscicki (Poland); N. Chamberlain (UK). All are mustached except Mussolini.

Top row: axis leaders at the beginning of WWII; l-r: Hitler, Franco (Spain), King Victor Emanuel and Mussolini (Italy), and Stalin Bottom row: allied leaders, l-r; King Alfonso (Spain); Chiang Kai Shek (China), François Lebrun (France), Ignazy Moscicki (Poland); N. Chamberlain (UK). All are mustached except Mussolini.

But peace isn’t in the cards as one could tell by the mustaches. Big mustache Stalin hatches a secret pact with small-mustache Hitler. They invade Poland together in September 1939. The mustache of the masses and the mustache of the pure race join to destroy Poland in a week. Because of treaties, England and France are now at war too, but they do nothing till May 1940. Not understanding that mustaches must war, they assume no war exists. This changes when Hitler sweeps his armies through Belgium and into Paris. England rejects the mustached enemies, and elects clean-shaved Winston Churchill, a Labor liberal turned Conservative. He sports a big-stick policy and wears a big-stick cigar. His cigar is like a flaming mustache, but far more mobile.

Churchill’s policies are just as mobile as his mustache. He confidently tells the masses, “We will fight them on the beaches.” And confidently tells the elites: “Remember gentlemen, it’s not just France we’re fighting for, it’s Champaign.” A cigar, unlike a mustache, can be warlike of peaceful: in your face or out depending on the group. A Republican with at cigar is a diplomat, not a dogmatist.

Churchill finds an ally in clean-shaven, cigarette holder, segregationist FDR. “Meeting FDR is like opening your first bottle of Champaign,” says Churchill, “Getting to know him is like drinking it.” The two english-speaking countries share a special relationship and similar smoking preferences. FDR, still vowing neutrality, lends England ships tanks, and money, but sends no troupes except volunteers (the Lafayette squadron). With this diplomatic, middle road in place, FDR handily defeats the shaven, cigarette smoking, war-monger, Wendell Wilkie in the 1940 election (Wilkie used to be a Democrat). The Free French take to small mustache, Charles De Gaulle, in preference to the larger mustache, Philippe Petain, or the similarly mustached Edourd Deladier and Maurice Gamelin.

De Gaulle and Churchill do not get along. De Gaulle (small mustache) wants action. He becomes the liberation of French Africa. Meanwhile, Churchill talks war, but only to defend “this rock, this England.” De Gaulle describes the differences this way:  “I get angry when I’m right, and Churchill gets angry when he’s wrong; therefore we are angry at each other quite a lot.” Churchill claims that “going to war without the French is like going hunting without your bagpipe.”

Roosevelt has much in common with Churchill as might be guessed from the lack of face hair and the similar smoking choices. The two major clean-shaven leaders meet and pray together abroad the HMS Prince of Wales in August 1941. Roosevelt meets too and gets along with Mrs. Chiang Kai Shek (no face hair, needless to say). He sends Madame Chiang a less-than-well funded, volunteer force, The American Volunteer Group, otherwise known as The Flying Tigers. This group is given 99 obsolete planes that the French had ordered, and is put under the command of Claire Chennault, a mustached WWI flier, and self-appointed colonel. Chennault recruits the drunken dregs of the US army air corps with the promise of $500 per Japanese plane. In the few months before WWII, The Flying Tigers destroy nearly 200 Japanese planes while heavily outnumbered and out gunned. Most of the flyers are mustached. Ad-hoc Volunteer forces seem to work for the USA: T. Roosevelt had success as a self-appointed Lt. Colonel 40 years earlier. Eventually, The flying Tigers are re-absorbed into the Army Air Corps; Chennault and his Tigers take a shave and join the regulars.

Meanwhile, mustached, long haired, Albert Einstein (a visionary if ever there was one) comes to understand the potential of the atom bomb. While most of the world still believes that matter and energy and independent entities, Einstein realizes that even a small amount of mass converted to energy can destroy a city. Speaking of science and art, he says, “Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by individuals who labor in freedom.” Within 5 years, his visionary ideas will help end the war, and few scientists will sport face hair or labor in freedom. Einstein encourages FDR to build the A-bomb. FDR spends $3 billion ($70B in 2013 dollars) under the management of visionary, mustachioed General Leslie Groves. The best physicists and engineers of the US and Europe join together to build the device Einstein described; it’s the A Bomb built by the A Team.

Meanwhile back in Europe, weird mustached, Hitler attacks his ally Stalin and despite massive deaths seems to be winning (c.f. Napoleon, 140 years earlier). Stalin joins the shaven allies (for now) against Germany, and immediately sets to steal the secret of the A Bomb. Churchill doesn’t trust him, a good call since Stalin is still allied with the mustached Mikado of Japan in the East against Britain. And then the Pearl Harbor attack, December 7, 1941, and everything changes. On December 8 Congress declares war on Japan, and Hitler declares war on us (perhaps the stupidest move of the 20th century). Churchill says he had the first good night’s sleep in years, but does nothing to protect the English navy or air force from Japan’s zero fighters. The HMS Prince of Wales is sunk December 10. The Canadian cost and California oil tanks are attacked by Japanese submarine-fired cannon. And what about Stalin? Through all of this, he remains allied with Japan and with us (what a man). It’s something you might have expected from his mustache.

Allied leaders toward the end of WWII. De Gaulle, Stalin, Churchill, FDR, Chiang Kai Shek, Mao Tze Tung. Only de Gaulle and Stalin have mustaches; Stalin is still an ally of Japan; Mao and Chiang at war. The US and UK share a special relationship.

Decline of the mustache. Allied leaders early 1945. l-r: De Gaulle, Stalin, Churchill, FDR, Chiang Kai Shek, Mao Tze Tung. Only de Gaulle and Stalin have mustaches; Stalin is still an ally of Japan; Mao and Chiang at war over China. The US and UK share a special relationship.

US dollars and Russian manpower turn the tide in Europe. Hitler kills himself and is replaced by clean-shaven Keitel who sues for peace (too little, too late). Mussolini flees Italy for Switzerland, and gets help killing himself. Fascist-free Italy turns to a mustache-free leader: General Badoglio of the failed Greek invasion. Stalin takes over Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Hungary, and East Germany. Churchill objects and is tossed out of office while negotiating at Yalta. He’s replaced by small mustached Clement Attlee who sees no problem with Stalin’s expansion. His is a  grand (socialist) vision for England.

Civil-rightist Republican from NY, Tom Dewey is the major presidential candidate to host a mustache.

Civil-rightist NY Republican, Tom Dewey, the last mustached presidential hopeful, loses.

Fresh-faced, smoker, FDR dies in a liaison with a woman not his wife, and is followed by feisty, fresh-faced, non-smokier, Harry S. Truman, who continues FDR’s vision and drops two A-Bombs on Japan as twice pay-back for Pearl harbor. Stalin switches sides, sort of, for now: Japan is now his enemy, but Mao, not Chiang is a friend. Hirohito sees the new (atomic) light and the Russian army; he surrenders to the Americans. His mustache is much reduced at surrender (see below). Hirohito, still the visionary, admits he’s not a god, nor is he the gate to God (Mikado means heavenly gate; the title stops being used except for light opera). Tojo takes the blame for the war, and is executed. Mao Tze Tung conquers China after Chang Kai Shek flees to Taiwan. Stalin turns on his hairless, hapless, ex-allies. He keeps eastern Europe in contravention of the Yalta agreements, and kills a few million of his troupes: a peacetime army is dangerous. Franco keeps power in Spain.

Small-mustache Attlee builds a British A-Bomb, and takes over most of British business including The Bank of England, civil aviation, the coal mines, the steel industry, the railways, most road haulage, canals, cable and wireless, electricity and gas, and The Thomas Cooke travel agency. His grand vision provides England full employment, better work conditions, and health care, but also rationing, starvation and a lack of fuel. Attlee tries to stop Jewish migration to Israel and the formation of the state. He remains in power till 1950, becoming the last, and perhaps greatest, of several great, mustached, British prime ministers. Churchill’s shaven face returns to oversee England’s stagnation. Click for Churchill-Attlee jokes, jibes and insights.

In the US, clean-shaven Truman wins re-election against the last mustachioed presidential candidate, New York, civil-rightist, Republican, Thomas Dewey. De Gaulle is tossed out of office, but returns to build France’s A- bomb and reject NATO. De Gaulle’s little mustache is the last face hair seen on the leader of a nuclear nation.

The war ends here. Hirohito, McArthur, and Mr A-Bomb. Hirohito now has a smaller stature and mustache. Tojo gets executed.

The war ends here. Hirohito, McArthur, and Mr. A-Bomb. Hirohito now has a smaller stature and a much smaller mustache (looks like Tom Dewey, or every racist Japanese depiction). Tojo gets executed for Hirohito’s crimes. And the world moves to cautious shaven leaders and the ever-present nuclear threat.

And now the key question: why do mustaches lose favor so fast? My thought is that the Bomb is to blame. That, and the relative failures of mustached leaders in Europe. It’s a new dangerous world, with no place for men with big plans who might use the A-bomb to get-the-job-done. This is a weapon that kills more than soldiers and civilians; it could kill elites too, and no elitist wants a leader who might kill one of the elite. The A-Bomb is never again used in war, but it is always in the war room. Nuclear leaders must stay calm, and give the image of one who will use the bomb only as a last resort, to protect the home-land, or never. China, Pakistan, India, North Korea (and Israel) get “defensive” A-bombs but make no move to use them in anger. Goldwater claims he might, and is handily defeated in 1964. After WWII, all nuclear power leaders are more-or-less feminine looking, if not more feminist. Is this the future? Check out pt 1: Beards, Republicans, and Communists.

Dr. Robert E. Buxbaum, Nov. 28, 2013. I’m not sure if these post is ridiculous, or if it’s brilliant. At the least, it’s an observation of a pattern, and any observed pattern may lead to truth. I’ve written on modern architecture, art,  how to climb a ladder without falling off, plus on guns, curtains, crime, healthcare, heat bills, nuclear power, and the minimum wage.

Hormesis, Sunshine and Radioactivity

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It is often the case that something is good for you in small amounts, but bad in large amounts. As expressed by Paracelsus, an early 16th century doctor, “There is no difference between a poison and a cure: everything depends on dose.”

Aereolis Bombastus von Hoenheim (Paracelcus)

Phillipus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hoenheim (Dr. Paracelsus).

Some obvious examples involve foods: an apple a day may keep the doctor away. Fifteen will cause deep physical problems. Alcohol, something bad in high doses, and once banned in the US, tends to promote longevity and health when consumed in moderation, 1/2-2 glasses per day. This is called “hormesis”, where the dose vs benefit curve looks like an upside down U. While it may not apply to all foods, poisons, and insults, a view called “mitridatism,” it has been shown to apply to exercise, chocolate, coffee and (most recently) sunlight.

Up until recently, the advice was to avoid direct sun because of the risk of cancer. More recent studies show that the benefits of small amounts of sunlight outweigh the risks. Health is improved by lowering blood pressure and exciting the immune system, perhaps through release of nitric oxide. At low doses, these benefits far outweigh the small chance of skin cancer. Here’s a New York Times article reviewing the health benefits of 2-6 cups of coffee per day.

A hotly debated issue is whether radiation too has a hormetic dose range. In a previous post, I noted that thyroid cancer rates down-wind of the Chernobyl disaster are lower than in the US as a whole. I thought this was a curious statistical fluke, but apparently it is not. According to a review by The Harvard Medical School, apparent health improvements have been seen among the cleanup workers at Chernobyl, and among those exposed to low levels of radiation from the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The health   improvements relative to the general population could be a fluke, but after a while several flukes become a pattern.

Among the comments on my post, came this link to this scholarly summary article of several studies showing that long-term exposure to nuclear radiation below 1 Sv appears to be beneficial. One study involved an incident where a highly radioactive, Co-60 source was accidentally melted into a batch of steel that was subsequently used in the construction of apartments in Taiwan. The mistake was not discovered for over a decade, and by then the tenants had received between 0.4 and 6 Sv (far more than US law would allow). On average, they were healthier than the norm and had significantly lower cancer death rates. Supporting this is the finding, in the US, that lung cancer death rates are 35% lower in the states with the highest average radon radiation levels (Colorado, North Dakota, and Iowa) than in those with the lowest levels (Delaware, Louisiana, and California). Note: SHORT-TERM exposure to 1 Sv is NOT good for you; it will give radiation sickness, and short-term exposure to 4.5 Sv is the 50% death level

Most people in the irradiated Taiwan apartments got .2 Sv/year or less, but the same health benefit has also been shown for people living on radioactive sites in China and India where the levels were as high as .6 Sv/year (normal US background radiation is .0024 Sv/year). Similarly, virtually all animal and plant studies show that radiation appears to improve life expectancy and fecundity (fruit production, number of offspring) at dose rates as high as 1 Sv/month.

I’m not recommending 1 Sv/month for healthy people, it’s a cancer treatment dose, and will make healthy people feel sick. A possible reason it works for plants and some animals is that the radiation may kill proto- cancer, harmful bacteria, and viruses — organisms that lack the repair mechanisms of larger, more sophisticated organisms. Alternately, it could kill non-productive, benign growths allowing the more-healthy growths to do their thing. This explanation is similar to that for the benefits farmers produce by pinching off unwanted leaves and pruning unwanted branches.

It is not conclusive radiation improved human health in any of these studies. It is possible that exposed people happened to choose healthier life-styles than non-exposed people, choosing to smoke less, do more exercise, or eat fewer cheeseburgers (that, more-or-less, was my original explanation). Or it may be purely psychological: people who think they have only a few years to live, live healthier. Then again, it’s possible that radiation is healthy in small doses and maybe cheeseburgers and cigarettes are too?! Here’s a scene from “Sleeper” a 1973, science fiction, comedy movie where Woody Allan, asleep for 200 years, finds that deep fat, chocolate, and cigarettes are the best things for your health. You may not want a cigarette or a radium necklace quite yet, but based on these studies, I’m inclined to reconsider the risk/ benefit balance in favor of nuclear power.

Note: my company, REB Research makes (among other things), hydrogen getters (used to reduce the risks of radioactive waste transportation) and hydrogen separation filters (useful for cleanup of tritium from radioactive water, for fusion reactors, and to reduce the likelihood of explosions in nuclear facilities.

by Dr. Robert E. Buxbaum June 9, 2013

Chernobyl radiation appears to cure cancer

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In a recent post about nuclear power, I mentioned that the health risks of nuclear power are low compared to the main alternatives: coal and natural gas. Even with scrubbing, the fumes from coal burning power plants are deadly once the cumulative effect on health over 1000 square miles is considered. And natural gas plants and pipes have fairly common explosions.

With this post I’d like to discuss a statistical fluke (or observation), that even with the worst type of nuclear accident, the broad area increased cancer incidence is generally too small to measure. The worst nuclear disaster we are ever likely to encounter was the explosion at Chernobyl. It occurred 27 years ago during a test of the safety shutdown system and sent a massive plume of radioactive core into the atmosphere. If any accident should increase the cancer rate of those around it, this should. Still, by fluke or not, the rate of thyroid cancer is higher in the US than in Belarus, close to the Chernobyl plant in the prime path of the wind. Thyroid cancer is likely the most excited cancer, enhanced by radio-iodine, and Chernobyl had the largest radio-iodine release to date. Thus, it’s easy to wonder why the rates of Thyroid cancer seem to suggest that the radiation cures cancer rather than causes it.

Thyroid Cancer Rates for Belarus and US; the effect of Chernobyl is less-than clear.

Thyroid Cancer Rates for Belarus and US; the effect of Chernobyl is less-than clear.

The chart above raises more questions than it answers. Note that the rate of thyroid cancer has doubled over the past few years, both in the US and in Belarus. Also note that the rate of cancer is 2 1/2 times as high in Pennsylvania as in Arkansas. One thought is test bias: perhaps we are  better at spotting cancer in the US than in Belarus, and perhaps better at spotting it in Pennsylvania than elsewhere. Perhaps. Another thought is coal. Areas that use a lot of coal tend to become sicker; Europe keeps getting sicker from its non-nuclear energy sources, Perhaps Pennsylvania (a coal state) uses more coal that Belarus (maybe).

Fukushima was a much less damaging accident, and much more recent. So far there has been no observed difference in cancer rate. As the reference below says: “there is no statistical evidence of a difference in thyroid cancer caused by the disaster.” This is not to say that explosions are OK. My company, REB Research, makes are high pressure, low temperature hydrogen-extracting membranes used to reduce the likelihood of hydrogen explosions in nuclear reactors; so far all the explosions have been hydrogen explosions.

Sources: for Belarus: Cancer consequences of the Chernobyl accident: 20 years on. For the US: GEOGRAPHIC VARIATION IN U.S. THYROID CANCER INCIDENCE, AND A CLUSTER NEAR NUCLEAR REACTORS IN NEW JERSEY, NEW YORK, AND PENNSYLVANIA.

R. E. Buxbaum, April 19, 2013; Here are some further, updated thoughts: radiation hormesis (and other hormesis)

Nuclear Power: the elephant of clean energy

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As someone who heads a hydrogen energy company, REB Research, I regularly have to tip toe about nuclear power, a rather large elephant among the clean energy options. While hydrogen energy looks better than battery energy in terms of cost and energy density, neither are really energy sources; they are ways to transport energy or store it. Among non-fossil sources (sources where you don’t pollute the air massively) there is solar and wind: basically non-reliable, low density, high cost and quite polluting when you include the damage done making the devices.

Compared to these, I’m happy to report that the methanol used to make hydrogen in our membrane reactors can come from trees (anti-polluting), even tree farming isn’t all that energy dense. And then there’s uranium: plentiful, cheap and incredibly energy dense. I try to ignore how energy dense uranium is, but the cartoon below shows how hard that is to do sometimes. Nuclear power is reliable too, and energy dense; a small plant will produce between 500 and 1000 MW of power; your home uses perhaps 2 kW. You need logarithmic graph paper just to compare nuclear power to most anything else (including hydrogen):

log_scale

A tiny amount of uranium-oxide, the size of a pencil will provide as much power as hundreds of train cars full of coal. After transportation, the coal sells for about $80/ton; the sells for about $25/lb: far cheaper than the train loads of coal (there are 100-110 tons of coal to a train-car load). What’s more, while essentially all of the coal in a train car ends up in the air after it’s burnt, the waste uranium generally does not go into the air we breathe. The coal fumes are toxic, containing carcinogens, carbon monoxide, mercury, vanadium and arsenic; they are often radioactive too. All this is avoided with nuclear power unless there is a bad accident, and bad accidents are far rarer with nuclear power than, for example, with natural gas. Since Germany started shutting nuclear plants and replacing them with coal, it appears they are making all of Europe sicker).

It is true that the cost to build a nuclear plant is higher than to build a coal or gas plant, but it does not have to be: it wasn’t that way in the early days of nuclear power, nor is this true of military reactors that power our (USA) submarines and major warships. Commercial nuclear reactors cost a lot largely because of the time-cost for neighborhood approval (and they don’t always get approval). Batteries used for battery power get no safety review generally though there were two battery explosions on the Dreamliner alone, and natural gas has been known to level towns. Nuclear reactors can blow up too, as Chernobyl showed (and to a lesser extent Fukushima), but almost any design is better than Chernobyl.

The biggest worry people have with nuclear, and the biggest objection it seems to me, is escaped radiation. In a future post, I plan to go into the reality of the risk in more detail, but the worry is far worse than the reality, or far worse than the reality of other dangers (we all die of something eventually). The predicted death rate from the three-mile island accident is basically nil; Fukushima has provided little health damage (not that it’s a big comfort). Further, bizarre as this seems the thyroid cancer rate in Belarus in the wind-path of the Chernobyl plant is actually slightly lower than in the US (7 per 100,000 in Belarus compared to over 9 per 100,000 in the USA). This is clearly a statistical fluke; it’s caused, I believe, by the tendency for Russians to die of other things before they can get thyroid cancer, but it suggests that the health risks of even the worst nuclear accidents are not as bad as you might think. (BTW, Our company makes hydrogen extractors that make accidents less likely)

The biggest real radiation worry (in my opinion) is where to put the waste. Ever since President Carter closed off the option of reprocessing used fuel for re-use there has been no way to permanently get rid of waste. Further, ever since President Obama closed the Yucca Mountain burial repository there have been no satisfactory place to put the radioactive waste. Having waste sitting around above ground all over the US is a really bad option because the stuff is quite toxic. Just as the energy content of nuclear fuel is higher than most fuels, the energy content of the waste is higher. Burying it deep below a mountain in an area were no-one is likely to live seems like a good solution: sort of like putting the uranium back where it came from. And reprocessing for re-use seems like an even better solution since this gets rid of the waste permanently.

I should mention that nuclear power-derived electricity is a wonderful way to generate electricity or hydrogen for clean transportation. Further, the heat of hot springs comes from nuclear power. The healing waters that people flock to for their health is laced with isotopes (and it’s still healthy). For now, though I’ll stay in the hydrogen generator business and will ignore the clean elephant in the room. Fortunately there’s hardly any elephant poop, only lots and lots of coal and solar poop.