Steps Forward and Back for the World’s Nukes

My household has no less than three nightlights that give good service to me and mine. Perhaps you have a nightlight or two yourself. And beyond those useful little devices, of course, there are the regular lights that a person may switch on in the middle of a windless night.

Those basic facts highlight the idea that we all have need for electrical power in the grid at times that solar and wind can’t help us. The kind of electricity we need at all times is what utilities call “baseload power.”

We get baseload power from burning coal and natural gas, from running generators at hydroelectric dams – and from nuclear power plants. About one fifth of the total electricity we use in this country comes from nuclear plants.

Recently our Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave the nod to plans to build new nuclear plants. What’s at issue is building two reactors at a site that already has nukes, the Vogtle power plant inGeorgia.

The move got some headlines because it’s the first time in years such a step has been taken here in theU.S.That long drought for the nuclear industry in this country can best be explained in terms of unfortunate turning points in the history of nuclear power both here and abroad.

Our nuclear history got a jolt back in 1979 due to an accident that occurred at the Three Mile Island plant inPennsylvania. Although no one was injured atThree Mile Island, the politics of where and how we generate electricity changed markedly after the incident. The much more seriousChernobyldisaster in the oldSoviet Unionstirred up even greater public fears of all things nuclear.

But the facts of the matter are that we are going to keep our power grid up and running, including on calm, dark nights. We can’t get much more energy out of dams in the West, so we either are going to burn more fossil fuels to meet our electricity needs or we will make room for at least some new nuclear plants.

I recently saw a news piece about a nuclear plant in thePhilippinesthat was built but never used. The Bataan Nuclear Power Plant was finished in 1984. It was planned to be the first operating nuclear facility inSoutheast Asia. Electricity in thePhilippinesis quite high priced, and it was hoped that nuclear power could help make more abundant and cheaper electricity available for a growing Philippine economy.

Uranium to power the plant in thePhilippineswas flown in from our shores. Workers at the plant made progress toward making the facility fully operational. Things looked good to go.

But theChernobyldisaster in 1986 led the authorities in thePhilippinesto freeze progress at the plant. Still, the pro-nuke faction within thePhilippinesremained active, and over time made headway. But about the time that it might have won the day, the mega-earthquake and tsunami hitJapan, leading to the disastrous meltdown at theFukushimapower station. Once again, the cards were played out in a way that led the authorities in thePhilippinesto hold off from making the plant operational.

Although the whole nuclear story in thePhilippinestook place over decades, it now appears to be over. The owners of the plant have turned it into a tourist attraction. The utility in charge says that tours are booked months in advance.  

In the long story of nuclear power around the globe, it seems thePhilippinesare taking a step away from nukes while we are taking a step toward them. Obviously, there’s a lot of politics involved in all such decisions. But when we decide against a power source – whether its nuclear reactors or coal-fired generators – we of necessity are deciding to pursue other options. Because we all want our nightlights to work.

Dr. E. Kirsten Peters, a native of the rural Northwest, was trained as a geologist at Princetonand Harvard. Follow her on the web at rockdoc.wsu.edu and on Twitter @RockDocWSU. This column is a service of theCollege ofAgricultural, Human and Natural Resource Sciences atWashingtonStateUniversity.

Powerful Pressures and Special Waters

By Dr. E. Kirsten Peters

It does seem like there’s something magical about artesian wells. Digging down to a level in the Earth from which water then spurts unaided is like a dream come true for some. And, after all, why pay the electric company for power to run a pump if Mother Nature will do all the work herself?

From times immemorial people have thought that water gushing from artesian wells must have different medicinal or even spiritual properties from plain ol’ water in a creek or a typical well. And since artesian water can be “mineral water” with a distinctive taste, that early point of view was easy to hold – the water tasted different, might even be fizzy with bubbles, and rose out of the solid Earth of its own accord. Artesian water must be special stuff, right?

Don’t get me wrong. I like to drink artesian mineral water, but not because it’s artesian. I simply like the unusual taste of various mineral waters – and many commercial mineral waters come from artesian sources.  Still, with a glass of good artesian mineral water in hand, it’s easy for me to reflect on the pressures within the Earth that can make water flow upwards.

One clue about the pressure that normally holds artesian water down is the bubbles found in some artesian wells. The bubbles are in the water in your glass because you have depressurized – lowered the pressure – of the water by opening the bottle. That’s the same thing you do when you pour cola out of a closed container. Bubbles immediately form in the soda-pop because the gasses that were dissolved in the sweetened water at higher pressures come out of solution and make the tiny bubbles – which then float upward to join the atmosphere.

We know of the pressures within the Earth from a couple of different angles beyond artesian waters. One is from the evidence of certain rocks. There are three great classes of rocks, one of which is metamorphic rock like marble and high-grade coal called anthracite or “hard coal.”

Metamorphic rocks are created with other pre-existing materials are exposed to high pressures through long periods of time. For example, limestone that’s shaped by high pressures becomes marble. Normal or “soft coal” that’s exposed to high pressures become anthracite – and that material, if exposed to more heat and pressure can even become graphite (the material in the center of pencils).

Pressure in the Earth surely isn’t anything to sneeze at. That’s perhaps one of the lessons of the oil spill  caused by the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico a while back. Unlike the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska, where oil poured out from a ship, in the Gulf of Mexico the spill came from where we were drilling for oil deep under the seas where it is held at high pressure.

Normally, if all had gone according to plan, the drilling rig searching for oil would have intercepted petroleum and natural gas at high pressure – and been able to control that pressure in several ways. First, Deepwater Horizon was pumping mud at high pressure down the drill hole as it went. That high-pressure mud, in itself, is normally able to hold down the oil and gas the drill bit cuts through. Beyond that, the Blow Out Preventer (or BOP) is meant to cut off flow from the well, either automatically or manually, if that’s needed.

A surge in natural gas concentrations likely contributed to the failure of all the mechanisms meant to hold the gas and petroleum mixture in the Earth. The light-weight natural gas rocketed up the drill hole, hit the drilling rig itself, and created the explosion and fire that took the lives of the 11 workers on the Deepwater Horizon.

The Earth’s pressurized zones gives us both blessings and curses – from artesian waters and minerals like graphite to the greatest oil spill in U.S. history. All of those factors come to my mind when, on occasion, I raise a glass of bubbling mineral water with my evening meal.

 

Dr. E. Kirsten Peters, a native of the rural Northwest, was trained as a geologist at Princeton and Harvard. This column is a service of the College of Agricultural, Human and Natural Resource Sciences at Washington State University. Peters can be reached at epeters@wsu.edu.

Ceaseless Change Dominates our Dynamic Planet

By Dr. E. Kirsten Peters

Nothing about Earth history is static or unchanging. That’s particularly true of climate, and thereon hangs more than one interesting tale including recent news of a scientific advance in understanding how past climate has changed.

It wasn’t too long ago by my standards about the 1830s that naturalists started to seriously think the globe has undergone revolutions in climate. The evidence for that came from Europe, where glacially polished and transported rocks dot the landscape. By going high up into the Alps, men like Louis Agassiz studied glaciers, how they slowly flow downhill, and how they shape the land around them. Then, looking at the rocks and landscapes of Germany, Scotland, and other such places, many naturalists started to become convinced climate had once been radically colder and glaciers had covered essentially all of northern Europe. That was disquieting news for people who had always assumed that climate was an unchanging part of the world.

As the 1800s unfolded further, American geologists got into the act. They mapped out glacial debris in New England, the upper Midwest, and then parts of the mountainous West. One geologist had the wit to reason that when thick glaciers covered much of the land, they must have �locked up� a great deal of water, so sea level must have been lower. Later investigations showed that to be true. The oceans control many aspects of climate but when conditions are cold enough to produce worldwide glaciation, sea level is strongly affected by climate.

It was during the 1800s that scientists clearly recognized how different animal species had been during the last Ice Age. Famous and exotic animals like the wooly mammoth and the saber-tooth tiger roamed the land. There were also many other lesser-known mammals of the time, like a beaver as large as a black bear. There were a few animals we still know today, like the musk ox, but the different climate appears to have been linked to the flourishing of a number of species we simply don’t have around us today.

Early geologists couldn’t see clear reasons for climate to change  becoming bitter during the Ice Age and then warmer during our own epoch. We didn’t doubt the radical evolution of climate change, but at first it just wasn’t clear what could be driving the alterations that clearly had important effects for Earth history. In a step-by-step process science came to recognize two factors that probably control most climate change. One is minor but important variations in Earth’s orbit around the sun. The other is the composition of the atmosphere.

Around 1990 there was a dramatic step forward in climate studies. Using ice cores drilled first in Greenland and then in Antarctica, scientists were able to study snow deposited in annual layers on the ice sheets, going back in time one-by-one like rings of a tree. And thenews from those studies was shocking: the evidence was clear that climate can lurch from warmer to colder times in just one human generation.

Some new research takes up the tale of climate change with reference to what likely caused the extensive ice sheet in Antarctica to form. That enormous repository of ice came into being about 34 million years ago and has been influencing climate ever since.

New evidence from researchers at Yale and Purdue published in Science magazine suggests that a 40 percent drop in carbon dioxide concentrations in the ancient atmosphere was the driving force that led to the formation of the Antarctic ice sheet. In a span of 100,000 years the whole region around the South Pole was transformed.

At this point, science can’t tell us what made the carbon dioxide levels drop. That’s the next question that needs to be investigated. But it’s crystal clear that climate is a dicey business, one from which we should expect change in both specific regions and all over the globe.

We may not like how fragile Earth’s climate looks. But the more we know about even natural climate evolutions, the more it seems clear change is in the cards.

Dr. E. Kirsten Peters, a native of the rural Northwest, was trained as a geologist at Princeton and Harvard. Follow her on the web at rockdoc.wsu.eduand on Twitter @RockDocWSU. This column is a service of the College of Agricultural, Human and Natural Resource Sciences at Washington State University.