Rio – but the facts and figures do not support what you say. Thats the problem. Predictions into the future about nuclear power stations have been proven to be wrong so many times. “electricity to cheap to meter”

Teh past record is not good. Inefficient, expensive, unreliable and dangerous. that is a simple fact.

You believe the future projections. I don’t

You believe the future projections. I don’t

I think you’d better get into politics then and start wining hearts and minds if you don’t want this to happen – the two page straw poll above suggests you’re in a minority, and so probably won’t get too many votes from the STW constituency.

Clear majority north of the border – both amongst the public and the politicos. I thought south of the border public opinion was against them despite the lobbying from the industry PR flaks

there will be no new nukes built north of the border. There is no need for them

TJ – “energy too cheap to meter” was a stupid statement made for publicity and to maintain research funding in the early days of nuclear power; it has no more validity than the predictions of nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners and does not support the argument that predictions about nuclear power stations have been proven wrong so many times.

That’s fine then – lets clip the grid cables just before the border and see how much acid rain and sulphur dioxide sells for on the open market vs the import cost of coal and/or carbon capture.

I have a finger on the pulse of a few colleagues and friends in the green energy sector building tidal and wind generation capacity and even they accept the need for the next round of nuclear and then see what happens.

“Inefficient, expensive, unreliable and dangerous”

These are all relative terms, not absolutes. Anything involving large amounts of energy is dangerous, especially the bloody turbines. Expensive, yes; not sure I agree inefficient, unreliable or dangerous. Surveying the UK’s nuclear energy record, please can you cite evidence to support these scary words?

Don’t think you can cite the Winscale accident as that was a post-war pile for weapons-grade plutonium production.

Even so Rio – the history of nuclear power in the UK is hardly full of shining glories is it? Unreliable, expensive, dangerous is a reasonable summary of the past performance.

Look at data on Hunterston B for example. Just reached 70% of output. thats as good as it has ever got. IIRC -most of the time it has run at 50 odd % and at times less.

Hinkley running at well below rated capacity as it is damaged internatlly

Windscale / Sellafield – a lot of the pollution comes from reprocessing and storage of waste.

http://bristol.indymedia.org/article/692045

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/media/press-releases/secret-documents-reveal-government-inspectors-fears-over-defective-nuclear-reactors

Clear majority north of the border – both amongst the public and the politicos

This intrigued me, but the mearest-waft-at-google suggests the picture is mixed depending on the phrasing of the question….

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4774536.stm

“Respondents were also asked if they would support or oppose new nuclear power stations if they helped Scotland to avoid becoming dependent on imported energy.

The study found 54% were in favour of nuclear and 34% were against.”

…..and even then there is the (perhaps, not unbiased) statement that

“The Scottish First Minister, was also warned the lights could go out north of the Border unless electricity generated from nuclear sources is imported from England. “

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/nuclearpower/5163756/Cross-border-row-rages-over-SNP-blocking-new-nuclear-power-stations.html

Completely in favour, nuclear has its downsides like everything else?

My Dad’s worked on the A station for over 30 years and for the company all his working life and I did a placement jollying around the Engineering department one summer so you could claim I am brainwashed.

If i’m answering the question; “how would you like to live next to it?” i’d say quite a lot as in reality that would mean at the closest I would live in Stogursey or Stockland but probably Nether Stowey, or Holford and riding the Q’s from there is much better than road riding to them or driving and I wouldn’t have to live in Bridgwater.

Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Windscale etc provide an unneccessary distraction and weak ammunition for the Nimbys. Although Chernobyl was pretty unpleasant there were unique factors that contributed to the aftermath for example nukes built next to / within towns as they liked to use the superheated steam to heat homes and superheated steam can only be efficiently piped two miles or something.

The lights need to stay on and while Clement Atlees prediction that nuclear would gives us power too cheap to meter now seems a bit wide of the mark its really quite good.

The whole storage issue is an odd one that along with most things is heavily effected by funding, they were going to build an intermediate level waste store at Hinkley A to store waste on site. This was the three box plan I think, leaving just the two reactor buildings and the ILW after decommissioning was complete. There was not enough money so decommissioning slowed down with areas of the site mothballed until theres more money I think. Regardless we have Sellafield now so why not continue to use it.

I’ve just realised i’m jabbering excessively, sorry!!

Some odd decisions with nuclear have been made over the years, I think in Austria there is a plant called Zwentendorf which has never been turned on because after it was built there was a referendum and the country said they would never want nuke.

Clean coal expensive is way too expensive (as in this capture the gas and pump it into old oil wells in the north sea) and living in China now I spend every day realising how terrible conventional coal and in general poor air quality is.

Making the severn estuary a pond was a pretty stupid hugely expensive idea and after years of deliberation is finally off the table.

Trying to win the moral victory is ridiculous, if a French nuke went boom we’d lose out anyway given how close they are and countries like China and India have been playing with nukes for years and if the attitudes to H&S on the street are even similar to that of those when building running their nukes they are the real ones at risk.
That said India built one at Taripur which from the breaking of soil to achieving criticality only took three year; mightily impressive. Perhaps the Indians should come and build ours, or not!!

Hinkley running at well below rated capacity as it is damaged internatlly

Hinkey B runs at 70% of rated power mostly due to the fact that its 30 plus years old and running at reduced load means that it can continue running until the C station comes on line. If there was internal damage it wouldn’t be running.

Dibbs – it is damaged internally – no dispute

This analysis from the independednt shows just how bad the sate of the reactors is and how unreliable they have been

Both reactors at nearby Hinkley Point B and at Hunterston B on the west coast of Scotland are running at 70 per cent power, at inspectors’ insistence, after developing cracks in the graphite core of their reactors. In the worst-case scenario, the cracked graphite bricks could break up and distort the nuclear core, trapping the highly radioactive fuel, which could overheat and melt.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/power-cuts-feared-in-uk-nuclear-plants-crisis-951810.html

Bristol biker – how biased a question is that? Ridiculous.

Two of the 10 have been idle for almost a year, with both reactors out of action due to corrosion. Another two have had one of their reactors closed down for months. And yet another two are having to run both their reactors at less than three-quarters of their normal power for safety reasons.

And even that is not the end of it. Of the four that are still in good working condition, one is due to shut down permanently in two years’ time, a second is partially closed for routine maintenance, and a third is facing safety questions following the discovery of flaws in similar reactors in Japan.

The Hinkley and Hunterston power reductions are due to boiler limitations not reactor core limitations, don’t believe everything you read TJ.

Dibbs your sources for that? Conmsidering that it has been widely reported that the cracks have led to the need to reduce output – not one source but many .

Bristol biker – how biased a question is that? Ridiculous

Let’s put it another way: ‘Put your sensible head on for moment and take you’re head out your arse – do you want to watch X-factor on saturday night or sit in the dark around a camp fire because there’s no leccy?’

This is actually what the average Joe cares about on the street and when you phrase the question in such terms then the moral case melts like ice cream in a freezer without power. As has been mentioned above several times any politician is committing political suicide to suggest the lights will go out and as there is no plausable alternative that offers the energy density in the short term that the private sector is prepared to invest in then this is direction we will end up goign for the medium term….. and yes, we will have to worry about waste later on.

Even if the question is phrased in less stark terms, coal is still below nuclear as the prefferred solution.

bristolbiker – but that is ridiculous. We can meet our energy needs without nukes. To ignore the waste probloem is absurd.

Private companiews will not build new nukes without massive subsifdy and without the government taking responsibiluty for waste and decommisioning

You are simply being absurd

I don’t believe we can, certainly not for the next 25 years. This is what I hear from people in the industry. We will simply have to disagree on this.

Private companiews will not build new nukes without massive subsifdy and without the government taking responsibiluty for waste and decommisioning

Yes – you are completely correct, and those are framing terms of the next generation of reactor licenses. Such is the political demand for new power.

TJ-And no station has been decommissioned yet

http://www.magnoxsouthsites.com/about-us/our-sites/berkeley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_nuclear_power_station
While Berkeley may not yet be fully decommissioned, its well on its way. Obviously full cost won’t be known till its completed.

With Berkeley and Oldbury just down the Severn from me, you could say I’ve lived in the shadow of these things all my life.
In reality are renewable electricity sources out there ready to go that can supply a country with the population and density of the UK?
Obviously, renewables are the long term target, but what about the immediate future? Power cuts are a very serious reality in this country because every time the issue raises it head, the powers that be get scared and have refused to push the button for new electricity sources, by whatever means of generation.
I could well be wrong, but I seem to remember reading somewhere that Drax (coal fired) was the largest single emitter of CO2 in western Europe? According to Wiki, it certainly is the largest in the UK, and with recent renovations its actually the most efficient!
Thinking about TJs comments about the efficiency of the nuke plants made me think. Again, only on some memory so probably wrong, I do have a recollection about most of our plants being designed built with a 25year service life, most of them now operating well beyond that due to demand. So whats the youngest nuke power station in the UK? How does it stack up to what we know now about nuclear generation?
BTW I’m for it. I don’t see we have a choice as yet.

remember the industry has a built in bias in favour of large capital intensive projects. Insulation houses does not do their profits any good

OIf course wwe can meet our energy needs without nukes – its quicker to opena caol mine and build a coal powered station than a nuke FFS. WE could have a huge pelarmis fleet in action in a few years.

energy efficiency could reduce consumption by 25% easily.

While Berkeley may not yet be fully decommissioned, its well on its way. Obviously full cost won’t be known till its completed.

My point is made.

TJ: I would not dare to contradict Dibbs in these matters.

But this remark about the design of “C” on the link you posted I find very interesting:

According to calculations by EDF and Areva, the reactor’s RIP (Instant Return to Power) control mode and the control rod cluster configuration can induce a rod ejection accident during low-power operation, and lead to the rupture of the control rod drive casing. This rupture would cause the coolant to leak outside the nuclear reactor vessel. Such a loss of coolant accident (LOCA – a very serious type of nuclear accident) would damage a large number of fuel rods by heating fuel pellets and claddings, and thus cause the release of highly radioactive steam into the containment. So there is a great risk of a criticality accident resulting in an explosion, the reactor power being increased in an extremely brutal way. Following the ejection of control rod clusters during low-power operation, the reactor emergency shutdown may fail. Whatever the configuration of the control rod clusters, a rod ejection accident induces a high rate of broken fuel rods and therefore a high risk of a criticality accident.

So the RIP (how apt) is a cr@p design feature, and inherently unsafe. Is it true or just noise? Who knows!? Normally, the engineering process would design this sort of weakness out. Perhaps it already has.

remember the industry has a built in bias in favour of large capital intensive projects. Insulation houses does not do their profits any good

Insulating houses has minimal impact – our demand, esp in industry is increasing faster than we can save from domestic reductions alone.

OIf course wwe can meet our energy needs without nukes – its quicker to opena caol mine and build a coal powered station than a nuke FFS. WE could have a huge pelarmis fleet in action in a few years.

That survey I referrenced above shows coal has a worse public relations problem than nuclear. 15% would go nuclear, 6% coal IIRC. You appear to be in a minority of wanting Drax-size sites springing up again. Putting some numbers against this, I can go out tommorow and buy the hardware for a gas fired turn-key power station for around £20m to output 60/100MW. A typical sub-sea turbine will generate 1MW (some of the time) for over £1M and the offshore instalation fees are crippling (I know, I’ve spent an evening in a pub with a guy who’s done it crying into his beer how much this costs). The current subsidy on ‘renewable’ tarrifs means they are subsidused to the tune of 50% to make it even worth the while of companies to build these machines, and there won’t be the critical mass for years in these industries for that to go away. We need high energy density installations to take us through that period – and the people would appear to want nuclear before coal.

WE could have a huge pelarmis fleet in action in a few years

I expect you mean Pelamis. It’s true that we possibly could and maybe we should if the costs of the steel and the offshore cables work out and we can solve the storage problem, but the numbers don’t stack up as a replacement for nuclear. Also remember that these sorts of technologies have a long history of failing to live up to their expectations. Anyone for a Salter’s Duck?

bristolbiker – energy efficiency is a huge range of measures – insulation is one of them and yes they would save 25% if done properly

However capitalism does not push people to consume less. NO profit in it.

I did not at any point argue for new Drax stations. I argue for a range of things from insulating houses to local CHP plants, to wave energy to local thermal stores.

When you start attacking me, inventing things I say to support your argument I know that you have lost and its time for me to leave the debate. I should have followed Zokes example ages ago.

buzz-lightyear
I merely asked Dibbs for his sources seeing as he contradicts many reports in quality newspapers I am interested to know why he is so sure they have got it wrong

As haakon_haakonsson has already pointed out, if anyone wants to form an opinion formed on ‘science’ then try reading “Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air” by David MacKay.

In summary all the options are sh1t, but nuclear is the least sh1t one for now, but long term we may be screwed. Unless Fusion is sorted out.

PS. The guy has even put it online for free… http://www.withouthotair.com/

TJ – Dibbs is probably better informed than most of us on the subject.

Rio – you really should know better. You know that salters duck was discredited on the back of some very dodgy numbers and pelamis has a functioning station off the Portuguese coast.

Hinkley B – output 860Mw, even if thats 100%, it means its putting out 602Mw at 70%.
http://www.british-energy.com/pagetemplate.php?pid=89

Pelamis Aegir project – output up to 20Mw, thats with 26 Pelamis generators.
http://www.pelamiswave.com/our-projects/aegir-shetland

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for renewable energy, its definitely the future. I just don’t think its ready yet. I don’t disagree that building nuke power plants is environmentally unfriendly, but I’m interested to know what the cost (cash and to the environment) of building enough Pelamis generators to equal the power output of one new nuke station?

Let’s just say that I’m probably the only person on this site that’s been inside the Hinkley pressure vessels with the inspection teams.

PeteG55, 860Mw is the 70% figure, we used to generate around 1200Mw.

TJ – even so, the numbers don’t add up even if you could extract 100% of the energy from the waves, never mind the environmental effects that would have.

Dibbs – fair enough but why was it so widely reported that the cracks in the bricks was the issue? are there no cracks in the bricks? is this not an issue?

Rio – Member

TJ – even so, the numbers don’t add up even if you could extract 100% of the energy from the waves, never mind the environmental effects that would have.

Pish. There is plenty of energy in the waves if we can get at it. Its low grade and hard to access but there is plenty there is we can get at it.

I have some lovely views of Hinkley stored in my head after the Steart Beach rave of 2002..

Pish

As usual I refer the hon gentleman to Prof Mackay’s figures.

The problem with diffuse power sources is that the resource cost of harnessing them can easily exceed their value so there may be a lot of it but it’s not necessarily much use, and maybe we want to use all that steel for something else. Wave power has its place, but it’s not the answer to keeping the lights on.

I lived for many years about 15 miles due east of Drax, its smoke/condensation etc use to give us ace sunsets…

Two choices really; less consumption or more creation – and based upon the number of electrical devices in my house compared to my folks when I was growing up, either way we’ll need more power.

So whatever you all decide is the answer to power creation, just hurry up and build it.

Rio – as I keep saying its not one tech thats the answer – wave is a part of it.

I get so frustrated with teh ridiculous assertions and the continual inventing of theings I say

Its not “nukes or the lights go out” – thats just a ridiculous stance.

The shortfall can easily be met by implementing a range of things from Ebnergy efficiency to renewables. Unfortunalty there is no money fgor big business in this so theya re against it and no political will to get there.

Those are the main stumbling blocks

I’m not disagreeing with TJ’s assertion that we should also look at renewables at all scales and also a major look at lower consumptions (I wish they would turn off half/all the street lamps round here)

Frankly, we should do all of it, including nuclear for base-load. It does annoy me that it’s a French company doing it tho – I’m not anti-France, I’m just pro-British!

I seem to remember a documentary a while back on the UK nuke industry. Apparently, Oldbury couldn’t be run at full power due to unexpected levels of corrosion on the bolts that hold the core together.

(Personally, I would rather go to bed by candle-light than see more fission stations built…)

“I would rather go to bed by candle-light”

🙂

Candle-power Internet anyone?