Reducing consumption is a massive part of it. ‘Fabric first’ is a mantra that really works – 57% of the UK household energy is for space heating. Reduce that and you are on the way.

Burn every scrap of food/animal waste in the world and it won’t be anything significant AFAIK.

Yeah, but we’re not talking about supply 100% of the world’s energy needs from burning 100% of this waste! It’s simply another option in delivering electricity and heat to communities that could benefit from it i.e. a rural Scottish lowlands community would be better suited to this (using excess manure) than central London. Energy provision in the future is about finding the best available solution to fit the needs of individual houses, communities and cities. It will have to be different in each case.

Reducing consumption is a massive part of it.

Absolutely. The amount we waste is staggering.
Retail is one culprit, showy sales lighting (often left on overnight), AC blowing with doors wide open.
Do we need 100A supplies into our houses?

We just need to find a way of harnessing our body’s natural… ahem…. energy generation

then simply eat more beans. Sorted!

Yeah, but we’re not talking about supply 100% of the world’s energy needs from burning 100% of this waste!

No I know, but it’s about costs too. Collecting manure from every cow farm would be really expensive for not much power and end up using more energy anyway.

This kind of thing is best for local generation imo.

Energy provision in the future is about finding the best available solution to fit the needs of individual houses, communities and cities

Typed the first part of my reply before reading the last part of yours – agreed.

We just need to find a way of harnessing our body’s natural… ahem…. energy generation

Where do you live Binners? West Manchester? Davyhulme waste water treatment works (the one under Barton Bridge by the Trafford centre) CHP generates almost 10MW per hour. That’s one of over 20 across the North West alone.

You should be proud of yourself.

I can’t see what the problem is, there’s plenty of oil and coal to last my lifetime.
If other people want to create an energy shortage by having babies, let them sort it out.

If other people want to create an energy shortage by having babies

or ride trailquests and ensure that never happens? 😀

genuine question :

as oil rigs run out of oil and become useless in their current location, would there be an opportunity to stick a load of wave/wind/nuclear generation on them? there’s a lot of energy out at sea, and if a power plant went pop in the middle of the north sea there’s less impact than if it happens on land?

No, they’re mobile platforms that move off elsewhere.

in the UK you cant build on in the middle of nowhere without someone crying “won’t someone think of the view/aura/children/migrating lesser spotted wendyball bird” let along within sight.

Onshore is not as good as offshore so I’m not so keen on planting a giant whirlygig in beautiful places, but I know of a couple of schemes where local villages have “adopted” one of the turbines in a farm for their own generation as part of the proviso for planning permission.

Ultimately we waste too much and there are too many of us for current technology and energy reserves.

Other than nuclear, which should IMHO be a part of the answer

More nuclear.

And… spend some real cash and use moon based solar with microwave transmition.

I want more nuclear power stations, after all, they seem to be working well in Japan at the moment.

They are the answer, make no mistake.

GlitterGary – Member
I want more nuclear power stations, after all, they seem to be working well in Japan at the moment.

They are the answer, make no mistake.

Japan is a fine example of how even in a dangerous part of the world when a natural disaster far beyond what was thought probable when several fails safes stop working, some material has to be vented, that the risk has been very small and well managed. The UK is a piece of cake in comparison.

Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors

None of the dangers of reacting solid fuels. The fuel is very abundant. The energy density, although lower than Uranium, is very good. The waste product is much less radioactive. I’m not fully convinced but it is very interesting.

linky

The brick – what utter utter tosh!

Probable is not good enough, it was a easily predictable event in that it would happen at some point, none of the failsafes have worked properly, its still not under control.

“the risk has been very small and well managed.”

😆

The amount of thorium present in surface mining coal waste is enormous and would provide all the power human society needs for thousands of years, without resorting to any special mining for thorium, or the use of any other form or energy recovery.

A summary of how this technology works:
1) You start with a fluoride salt. In this reactor it will be heated so much that it melts.
2) You dissolve thorium fluoride in the liquid salt.
3) Thorium-232 absobs neutrons and turns info Uranium-233.
4) The Uranium-233 fissions and produces heat plus more neutrons.
The fission products are relatively benign and short-lived compared to those of a traditional reactor.
Advantages include:
1) There is no pressure – unlike traditional nuclear reactors which contain high pressue steam. So the reactor cannot explode.
2) The fuel does not need to be shaped into pellets
3) The reactor can add fuel and remove waste at any time
4) There are no weapon-grade materials involved
5) Thorium is abundant and most of it is used up in the reaction

The UK is a piece of cake in comparison

If you forget about the terrorists and human error…

The brick – what utter utter tosh!

Probable is not good enough, it was a easily predictable event in that it would happen at some point, none of the failsafes have worked properly, its still not under control.

and even after all that has gone wrong there is very little risk.
Could you be specific about what “is tosh”? The Japanese disaster has proved how safe nuclear can be even in the toughest situations. Everything is built to standards and to a point of failure. Occasionally these standards are found not to be high enough and the next generation is safer.

Plenty of other industrial plants provide risks.

The brick – what utter utter tosh!

Probable is not good enough, it was a easily predictable event in that it would happen at some point, none of the failsafes have worked properly, its still not under control.

The info I’ve read says it is as under control as an ongoing heating thing can be – i.e. it’s still hot but being cooled. The failsafe failure has not been explained by anyone but since there were either triple or quadruple redundant diesel generators and apparently the plant was not damaged by the quake, that leaves the possibility of what – maintenance?

I’m kind of on the fence about nuclear, I can see it has potential to cause big problems but it also has potential to prevent even bigger ones. Accidents will always happen and newer reactor designs are effectively self-limiting and self containing.

If you forget about the terrorists and human error

human error dose not stop petrol chemical plants being built, terrorist do not stop nuclear facilities from existing in this country already. There are good reason for and against nuclear power but the ones I’m hearing are more hysteria based.

Hysteria based! It gets better!

The level of catastrophe in the event of something going wrong at a nuclear plant vs everything else is far greater, not the mention the waste legacy.

The most obvious solution is to have less people.

Every woman should get one ‘breeding voucher’. If they use it they lose their ovaries. Population halves every generation.

It would solve world hunger and poverty too. Just allow the trade in vouchers. Women in crappy parts of the world can sell their voucher to rich people in nice parts of the world. The population of crappy places drops to sustainable levels rapidly and wealth flows in making them less crappy.

And we can burn all the oil we like…

There are some interesting thoughts on this thread, but sadly I dont see any political will / commercial longsightedness / population reduction / consumption reduction – happening at all, never mind soon enough.

I think and sadly expect, we are buggered.

The level of catastrophe in the event of something going wrong at a nuclear plant vs everything else is far greater, not the mention the waste legacy

More people get killed mining coal or producing oil per kw/h than get killed by nuclear. More radiation is released by coal stations than nuclear too. And… if you’re a believer in global warming the long term human impact of fossil fuels is massively worse than nuclear could ever be.

The level of catastrophe in the event of something going wrong at a nuclear plant vs everything else is far greater

Only if you consider climate change as not being a catastrophe.

TandemJeremy – Member
The brick – what utter utter tosh!

TJ – reverting to Wiki-knowledge and knee-jerk reactionary responses since the internet began.

More radiation is released by coal stations than nuclear too.

I’ve heard this mentioned before – can someone point me in the direction of the evidence and effects of this please?

And… if you’re a believer in global warming the long term human impact of fossil fuels is massively worse than nuclear could ever be

Only if you consider climate change as not being a catastrophe

The thing with climate change is that to a certain extent it is predictable (if you believe in it) and so we can adapt to the effects of it, plan for change of land use, moving populations, increased intense weather and so on, over years or decades. You cannot adapt to nuclear fallout, which is unpredictable (as in you don’t know if or when it will happen).

Secondly, while it may be safer now relative to other traditional power sources, will this be necessarily true in the future, or do we build nuclear plants which in decades time are actually less safe than the alternatives?

Besides, the safety of an industry has a lot to do with safety standards, regulations, corruption and so on – the mention of coal as being less safe than nuclear is to do with the extraction of the fuel, not the inherent safety of the technology. Improvements in working conditions etc could (although probably never will) negate this argument. Many industries are terrifyingly unsafe, but we still support them for one reason or another, because it doesn’t represent a personal danger to ourselves (e.g. diamond mining, deep sea fishing etc), whereas those living in the vicinity of a nuclear plant live with that ever-present danger day to day.

Could we generate power using anti nuclear histeria?

Could we generate power using pro nuclear hysteria?

whereas those living in the vicinity of a nuclear plant live with that ever-present danger day to day

I’ve lived in the general vicinity of a nuclear plant most of my life. It’s never crossed my mind.

The fact that I rarely wear a helmet on a mountainbike is undoubtedly more dangerous. It’s a wonder I’m not dead*

*If you believed the hysteria from some.

I’ve lived in the general vicinity of a nuclear plant most of my life. It’s never crossed my mind

Likewise! 🙂

5thElefant – Member

More radiation is released by coal stations than nuclear too.

This is bullcrap of the highest order.

No radioactivity is released from the stations while they are running – or almost none. However there is all the waste created and all the “accidental” releases of radioactivity which add up to a huge pollution load over the lifetime of the plant.

Tootall – it is utter tosh and the nuclear aoplogists who have any intelligence know it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8574330.stm

I think this was really nice success story.

Tidal power is the most consistently reliable UK renewable I guess, its a shame wind power has taken so much investment away from tidal and wave.

Failing that harness the energy of people what like in the matrix – London would be a good start! runs away….

“No radioactivity is released from the stations while they are running – or almost none”

…the waste produced by coal plants is actually more radioactive than that generated by their nuclear counterparts. In fact, the fly ash emitted by a power plant—a by-product from burning coal for electricity—carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy

I assume they mean a uranium reactor plant that isn’t leaking radiation.

Kit – Member

More radiation is released by coal stations than nuclear too.

I’ve heard this mentioned before – can someone point me in the direction of the evidence and effects of this please?

I believe it comes from this article: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/202/4372/1045.short

which shows that, per megawatt produced, coal produces more airborne radiological dose than nuclear generation. However, as with all good research, it has limits and “does not assess the impact of non-radiological pollutants or the total radiological impacts of a coal versus a nuclear economy.“

Populist write-up of it here in Scientific American: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste.

For what it’s worth (and I don’t think I’m going to change any minds here) I am pro-nuclear, mainly because I like electricity and it is the least worst alternative. All power generation damages human health. People die in coal mines, helicopters crash in the North Sea etc etc. If anything the way these ancient Japanese reactors have coped reassures me about the safety systems built into these things.

In other words the claim

More radiation is released by coal stations than nuclear too.

is tosh as it ignores waste and “accidental” discharges.

In other words the claim

More radiation is released by coal stations than nuclear too.
is tosh as it ignores waste and “accidental” discharges.

Or more correctly, the claim is not supported by that piece of research. The claim may or may not be true but that paper does not set out to examine it.

It’s also worth noting that the paper was published over thirty years ago. Both coal and nuclear technologies have moved on substantially in that time – I’d be surprised if coal stations release anything like the amount of fly ash these days.

Also the vast majority of ‘discharges’ are not accidental – they are allowable low-level releases.

Thanks for the links.

However, as with all good research, it has limits and “does not assess the impact of non-radiological pollutants or the total radiological impacts of a coal versus a nuclear economy.”

Correct, and the study also assumes 1% particulate release in 1977. 34 years later I’d hope that particulate removal efficiency was a bit better than that! The study also admits that coal source/type has an influence on concentrations of radioactive material. In most cases too, the increase in dose was not significant.

In the UK, as in the US, fly ash is routinely used in the building trade. SEPA/EA/Defra don’t seem to view it as radioactive waste, and I believe they take these things very seriously indeed. And as TJ says, the study counts day-to-day emissions, and not spent fuel rods, cooling water, accidents etc from nuclear.

I’m a fence-sitter with regard to nuclear. I have no problem with existing plants, but I believe there are better solutions for any new builds.

edit: higgo kinda covered some of this in his response while I was typing 🙂