Nuclear power , not that cheap or safe it appears

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Nuclear power , not that cheap or safe it appears

341 posts & 62 voices | Started 6 months ago by project | Latest reply from zokes

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project - Member

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-15825467

So its going to cost 2.6 BILLION to knock the power station down, and another 60 million to reprosses about 48 tones of spent fuel thats if they dont loose any.

We could have major engery conservation schemes, wind turbines, along with more renewables for that sort of cash, creating a lot of skilled jobs in construction, instead of a few jobs for blokes in white suits, holding a box that goes bleep every few seconds.

Oh and just how do you consult with everyone along the route the train is going past, and are going to suffer if it goes bumpty bump off the track spilling its contents.

Posted 6 months ago #
TandemJeremy - Member

You will be told this is not representative and modern stations will be much easier to decommission.

Posted 6 months ago #
totalshell - Member

only benifit with nukes is they make LOTS of electricity all day long but it costs a zillion quid and 1000's of people work there every day.. whereas that awful nasty windfarm above rochdale has no body working there... areas like scout moor were made for windfarming .. windswept desolate not even the locals will go up there..

Posted 6 months ago #
project - Member

Nukes are also quite good at giving peeps serious health conditions and leaving a lasting legacy of polution, as in Chernobyl, windscale, etc etc.

Posted 6 months ago #
cynic-al - Member

*sighs*

project - Member
We could have major engery conservation schemes, wind turbines, along with more renewables for that sort of cash, creating a lot of skilled jobs in construction, instead of a few jobs for blokes in white suits, holding a box that goes bleep every few seconds.

Really? Enough to produce a comparable amount of energy?

*awaits project's evidence*

Posted 6 months ago #
project - Member

TandemJeremy - Member
You will be told this is not representative and modern stations will be much easier to decommission.

Posted 3 minutes ago # Report-Post

Yep we could just blow them up, and sell the scrap to china or india, who now buy our old factories.

Posted 6 months ago #
ScottChegg - Member

whereas that awful nasty windfarm above rochdale has no body working there

Cobblers. 2 turbines have had to be rebuilt due to fires. There are engineers up there everyday.

It's machinery, you can't just leave it.

Posted 6 months ago #
project - Member

If you reduce energy needs you dont need so much production of electricity, the condems seem to be allowing major indiustries to close every day, so we must be using less power.

The largest user of power closed last year on Anglesey, and another smelter before that in Dolgarrog, and now another at the north east.

Posted 6 months ago #
ernie_lynch - Member

I've never heard anyone argue that nuclear energy was cheap.

It's because it's so expensive that nowhere in the world has it ever been practical without government support.

Posted 6 months ago #
gearfreak - Member

It's a damn sight cheaper than having to go to war every few years to protect the supply of gas and oil which is the (real) alternative. And envornmentally cheaper than coal (if you believe the climate change malarky). It's gonna cost quite a few billions to put a dyke round bangladesh!(Or do we not worry that all the bangladeshi's have drowned, as long as they don't drive a train past the end of our gardens)

Posted 6 months ago #
project - Member

A war every few years kills considerably less people than a nuclear explosion does.........

oil is mostly used for industry and vehicles, not for heating water to make steam ,then ultimately electricity.

Also Bangladesh has signed an agreement with Russia for them to build 2 nuclear power stations in Bangladesh, so much for the dyke.

Posted 6 months ago #
ernie_lynch - Member

A war every few years kills considerably less people than a nuclear explosion does.........

I must be reading the wrong newspapers.

Posted 6 months ago #
project - Member

Hiroshima, nagasaki, chernobyl, all nuclear explosions.

Posted 6 months ago #
mrblobby - Member

Hmm believe the Chernobyl death toll as of 2008 was 95. Coalition casulaties alone so far in Afghanistan stands at around 2700.

Posted 6 months ago #
bullheart - Member

Posted 6 months ago #
ernie_lynch - Member

Hiroshima, nagasaki, chernobyl, all nuclear explosions.

It's true, I hadn't thought of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

That's probably because there weren't any nuclear generators in Hiroshima and Nagasaki though.

Posted 6 months ago #
coffeeking - Member

Hiroshima, nagasaki, chernobyl, all nuclear explosions.

But only one of them being related to power generation and even so the latter has seriously questionable data attached to it wrt the number of dead/ill from it - just depends who's numbers you believe. As the japanese have recently proved, even a fairly hefty problem isn't exactly the end of the world, or overly lethal, and at least is done in persuit of good intentions, unlike war.

Posted 6 months ago #
mrblobby - Member

Also Fukushima casualty numbers currently stand at 5 (all plant workes and mostly down to earthquake and tsunami). Where as about 15,000 died as a result of the Bhopal pesticide plant accident.

Posted 6 months ago #
anto164 - Member

Nuclear power is very expensive.. Only as it is one of the only businesses that is actually un-insurable. It is impossible to get insurance on a neuclear power plant.

But when comparing the output of a full life power plant, its output is humongous and is relatively clean.

Posted 6 months ago #
mrblobby - Member

This horizon documentary is well worth watching If you have concerns about nuclear power.

Posted 6 months ago #
project - Member

the output is possibly clean, but he plant and fuel it uses isnt, and we have a very low knowledge of what to do with the waste, or what to do if it goes bang.

saw the horizon docusoap, very propogandist.

Posted 6 months ago #
TandemJeremy - Member

mr blobbby - far more people killed by chernobyl - tens if not hundreds of thousands - and its still killing people as fukoshima will kill people for decades

Posted 6 months ago #
legend - Member

very propogandist

says the guy who started the thread about how nuclear power is bad, very very bad

Posted 6 months ago #
Zulu-Eleven - Member

Doesn't it only cost so much money to decommission because rabid anti nuke nutters like TJ make decommissioning so difficult?

If we were willing to countenance a couple of minor exposures to non lethal doses in the process, then it could be done in half the time for a quarter of the price - its because it is SO incredibly safety conscious that it costs so much. We're stuck in a cycle of thinking that "any-level-of-radiation-is-not-safe" despite the fact that we're exposed to it all the time, and that many people get a higher dose from natural background radiation from where they live than most nuclear power station workers in their entire career.

If we applied the same level of safety to Coal, it would cost five grand a ton - but we're willing to accept a few thousand deaths every year from coal mining, the odd environmental disaster from oil extraction, but, lets face it... not a single radiation death from Fukushima.

in the words of the former clinical head of Royal College of Radiologists “The situation in Japan looks set to follow the pattern of Chernobyl, where fear of radiation did far more damage than the radiation itself,”

Posted 6 months ago #
TooTall - Member

project - renewables cannot yet provide the necessary base load required on the grid - only oil, coal, gas and nuclear can realistically provide that. Given the limitations of the carbon-based sources mentioned, there is currently no other viable solution other than nuclear to provide the electricity and reduce carbon released into the atmosphere. It is the best of a bad bunch. TJ speaks like a true Luddite and would have smashed many a machine if he were born earlier. Like saying that Mr Mercedes and Mr Benz built dangerous cars so I'll never buy one, despite them getting safer every generation.

Posted 6 months ago #
TooTall - Member

ar more people killed by chernobyl - tens if not hundreds of thousands - and its still killing people

peer reviewed reference for that please.

Posted 6 months ago #
legend - Member

mr blobbby - far more people killed by chernobyl - tens if not hundreds of thousands

TJ, this is where the numbers arguement gets silly. From wikipedia/UNSCEAR:

"The number of excess deaths among 5 million people living in the less contaminated areas is estimated at 3,000–5,000"

Personally I'd go for the lower (but still sensible) figures over the sensationalist ones

Posted 6 months ago #
Zulu-Eleven - Member

tens if not hundreds of thousands

FTFY TJ

Tens, literally tens of people killed in the worst nuclear accident that happened, how terrible

Posted 6 months ago #
ernie_lynch - Member

Doesn't it only cost so much money to decommission because rabid anti nuke nutters like TJ make decommissioning so difficult?

No. But nice try at pinning the blame for the cost of nuke decommissioning onto TJ.

Posted 6 months ago #
TandemJeremy - Member

Guys - we have done it all before and yo just don't want to believe.

This is a very tightly drawn report that ignores many many deaths because of its tight remit - note the people that are signatories to it 11000 deaths. certainly an underestimate because it has such a tight remit.

The Chernobyl Forum report and criticisms

In September 2005, a comprehensive report was published by the Chernobyl Forum, comprising a number of agencies including the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations bodies and the Governments of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine. This report titled: "Chernobyl's legacy: Health, Environmental and Socio-Economic Impacts", authored by about 100 recognized experts from many countries, put the total predicted number of deaths due to the disaster around 4,000 (of which 2,200 deaths are expected to be in the ranks of 200,000 liquidators). This predicted death toll includes the 47 workers who died of acute radiation syndrome as a direct result of radiation from the disaster, nine children who died from thyroid cancer and an estimated 4000 people who could die from cancer as a result of exposure to radiation. This number was subsequently updated to 9000 excess cancer deaths.[31]

Other reputable reports give much higher figures as they do not have such a tightly drawn remit

Posted 6 months ago #
johnners - Member

mr blobbby - far more people killed by chernobyl - tens if not hundreds of thousands - and its still killing people as fukoshima will kill people for decades

Crikey. That's evidence-lite even for STW.
tens if not hundreds of thousands
- really? You seem unsure. Could it as easily be
tens if not hundreds
?

Posted 6 months ago #
johnners - Member

total predicted number of deaths due to the disaster around 4,000

Ah.

Posted 6 months ago #
dan1980 - Member

From the Fukushima plant damage, from published figures the "projected increase in cancer mortality would be ~0.001% above the natural rate"

http://www.ans.org/misc/FukushimaSpecialSession-Caracappa.pdf

Posted 6 months ago #
TandemJeremy - Member

johnners - 9000 plus and that is an underestimate as it ignores the effects of contamination beyond the immediate area and ignores many types of deaths -

Posted 6 months ago #
TooTall - Member

and there are at least several thousand deaths per year mining for coal in China alone:

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2010/02/14/china-coal-deaths-idUKTOE61D00V20100214

So quoting the statistics of those who have died in nuclear accidents is almost meaningless when producing the biggest alternative fuel kills so many in normal daily business.

Posted 6 months ago #