[Closed] Let's go nuclear

Yey! Nuclear rocks!

"20% of the UK's energy demand in one hit"

The Severn barrage would supply 5% at most. And it would wreck an internatinally protected, unique habitat. It's also very expensive for the quantity of electricity generated.

There are other proposals for the Severn that are lower impact and cheaper.

glenh - Member

Yey! Nuclear rocks!

Granite?

And it would wreck an internatinally protected, unique habitat

How so - this is precisely the bit that I don't follow the logic of...

errr...it'll be flooded to ****?

If you don't like it you can tell the guy direct as they have put his personal mobile and direct dial as well as email on the application form...

[url= http://www.nuclearpowersiting.decc.gov.uk/nominations/ ]http://www.nuclearpowersiting.decc.gov.uk/nominations/[/url]

dohhh

C

errr...it'll be flooded to ****?

That's precisely the point - it is already flooded, twice daily by the tide, and would continue to be so....

From the WWF:

Dams [the barrage is effectively a dam] disconnect rivers from their floodplains and wetlands. The damage to freshwater ecosystems can be devastating. They impact on the migratory patterns of fish, and flood riparian habitats, such as waterfalls, rapids, riverbanks and wetlands.

By slowing the movement of water, dams prevent the natural downstream movement of sediment to deltas, estuaries, flooded forests, wetlands, and inland seas, affecting species composition and productivity.

Dam operations also influence water quality. Water and sediment retention affect water quality and the waste processing capacity of rivers (the ability to break down organic pollutants). This could lead to production of toxic hydrogen sulphide gas that further degrades water quality.’

The Severn barrage would supply 5% at most.

I assume that is for one of the smaller schemes?? The maximum potential is nearer 20-23TWh, against a current usage of about 350 TWh - ie approx 15%

The figure for the main barrage proposal is 8GW - 5%

ransos - misquoting to mislead??

The barrage would effectively be a dam in engineering terms, and some of the issues quoted, especially sedimentation, would apply - but operationally totally different.

OP:

How's it all going guys? Have we achieved meltdown yet? 😛

ransos - misquoting to mislead??

Err, no. It's effectively a dam because it will hold the Severn back until the tide's lowest point, thereby flooding approximately 260 ha salt marshes and flats.

There are several ideas for the Severn barrage but the ones that would create the most energy would have a huuuge impact on the ecology and environment in that area. It really is not simple at all.

Really good links to all the information canbe found at http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/research/library/position/41197.aspx

The Sustainable Development Commission's report indictaes 17TWh for the Cardiff-Weston Barrage, up to 23TWh for other options, and an [b]annual[/b] CO2 saving of 7.3 million tonnes

[i]Sellafield is not run by the bunch of cowboys Greenpeace would have you believe.[/i]

My dad who worked there reckoned it was run by cowboys.

This would support that:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/646230.stm

How would it be less damaging rkk?

Interesting to see people's responses to the side-effects of our energy wants/needs/demands. As a kid I used to think that nuclear waste, smog, car crashes etc. etc. were necessary byproducts of progress. But now it all seems a bit arrogant.

ransos - Member
ransos - misquoting to mislead??

Err, no. It's effectively a dam because it will hold the Severn back until the tide's lowest point, thereby flooding approximately 260 ha salt marshes and flats.

There is, presumably, no benefit to holding back the impounded high tide level all the way to low tide - you just loose head as the incoming tide rises, and you can't run it all through the turbines in one hit anyway.

IIRC the WAG study recommended circa 1 hr impounding delay - enough to provide a generating head for the turbines, and still allowing the tide to come in and go out over the wetland areas - this is the principle that tidal barrages work on. I can't imagine that you could design a structure to retain the whole of the Severn Estuary on one side as the tide went fully out on the other!!

rkk01

Google is your friend. Every article I've seen for the main barrage proposal is quoting 5%.

Be in no doubt - there are significant impacts to ecology from the proposal, it is very expensive, and would take many years to pay off the carbon impact from its construction.

There's a lot of potential for power generation in the Severn, but I think that this is the wrong scheme.

(BTW - I've been professionally involved with it).

rkk01

Even the consultants behind the barrage proposal acknowledge the significant loss of habitat. Do you think they're wrong?

What about using marine current turbines in the Severn ransos, did the proposals look at those?

ooOOoo - Member
How would it be less damaging rkk?

Less damaging than what??

Clearly "doing nothing" will cause less / no damage, that is obvious.

The choice is doing something or handing a less civilised future to our children. Rightly or wrongly our standard of life is heavily based on availability of energy.

Our choices include (not exclusively)

Reduce energy consumption - highly desirable, but unlikely to be sufficient on its own
Continue burning fossil fuels - but they add CO2 and will be expended in foreseable future
Develop nuclear fission for now, possibly fusion for the future?
Continue developing smaller scale and micro sclae renewables
look at large scale engineered "sustainable" sources such as the Severn Barrage

Turn the lights out and see a breakdown in civilisation...

I'm not an advocate of any one single option - but as a society we do need to choose, or pressure our elected representatives to choose on our behalf.

We simply cannot continue to disregard each individual option because a significant minority don't like it - which is precisely why I rasied the Severn Barrage....

ETA - Just seen ranos' posts - No I don't disagree. There will clearly be ecological impact. That's one of the choices - presented here as an alternative to the anti-nuclear thoughts posted further up the thread...
And agreed re 5%

"What about using marine current turbines in the Severn ransos, did the proposals look at those?"

They weren't on the shortlist I saw. There was a row about the exclusion of newer technologies:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jan/05/severn-barrage-consultation

Thanks, that lagoon scheme sounds more interesting.

Rkk you make a good summary there, and I see your point about the 'less damaging' - I meant compared to a dam. All of those options will play against each other, and I seriously hope some wise decisions will be made.

My main problem is with the relentless growth in our energy use. People use up kWhs like they're going out of fashion. I don't think 20th century energy use will be a sustainable quantity for 1000s of years to come - it's quite possibly a one-off bonanza. Yet humans will adapt to anything and assume it's normal. The politicians still haven't grasped this, and continue to assume that we must have growth at all costs, and what we use today is normal.

So which would we rather have a large steel shed painted green, patrolled by armed police, a terrorist object, that contains material that will be dangerous for a very long time,is expensive to produce, and health and safety is a job creation scheme for printers, printing all the signs.

Or a nice tall windmill that makes little noise,is environmentally freindly, and cheap.

A Torness sized nuclear plan is equivalent to 625 wind turbines by the way, not one.

Has anybody pointed out that "we" sold off one of the world's leading reactor construction companies?

At a time when we're just about to start flinging the bloody things up?

Along with most of the rest of the world?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4671517.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4685432.stm

Selling off (more of) the family silver anyone? And then paying it back over the next few decades...? Fair enough, we made a fair chunk of profit on it but I'm sure the Japs have their eyes on significantly more in the coming years.

Bunch of ar$e.

Nuclear has to be the way forward unless we're happy to have a country bristling with windmills and damage the environment with various water based schemes.

As said cutting back energy usage is key and I do try to turn off pretty much everything that can be - the hard disk recorder stays on standby but that's about it. Education is obviously important but I think pricing structures should encourage low usage and help the less well off; unit cost increases with consumption in bands - this will no doubt have to be enforced with legislation as energy companies won't want to do this due to competition issues. Of course many still won't care; I am often shocked by how hot some keep their homes - uncomfortably hot for me - and no doubt they would be shocked at how cold mine is!

I just read that Spain last year produced over 20% of it's entire yearly supply with wind turbines, and yesterday produced over 50% on the day. - And they have a lot further they could go.

The Spanish President is considering phasing out their nuclear stations.

Oh and who is it in Europe who has the biggest wind potential? ..Spain.. er no, it's the UK.

Those crazy spaniards....don't they know that Nuclear is much more manly than those silly windmills? 50% of your energy coming from a non-polluting, renewable resource? Pathetic.

Anybody know what the lifecycle carbon footprint of a nuclear power station is and the lifecycle cost in monetary value. Saw some figures but they looked very optimistic in favour of Nuclear

found some but they are different:

[url= http://timeforchange.org/co2-emission-nuclear-power-stations-electricity ]Nuclear not so good[/url]

[url= http://rverzola.wordpress.com/2009/03/10/carbon-footprint-of-various-sources-of-electricity/ ]Nuclear Good.[/url]

Guess which one our government used?

Those crazy spaniards....don't they know that Nuclear is much more manly than those silly windmills?

Ahhh, but those crazy Spaniards have a cultural [i]NEED[/i] for windmills...

...something for their quixotic knights to go jousting with.

Spain population density: 231/sq mile in 195,364 sq miles
UK population density: 637/sq mile in 94,526 sq miles

Why might it be easier to set up a wind generation in Spain than it is in the UK?

You can't compare wind generation in the two countries as a result of this difference.

I've got an idea!

Why don't we have a power supply system based on a mix of wind, nuclear, CCS coal, gas, hydro, tidal etc. That should give us some energy security, reduce CO2 emissions and buy us some time to upgrade the supply grid with advanced power management and storage technologies to let intermittent power sources play a larger role. That means we can gradually move away from sources which by definition are not sustainable. I didn't know it was an either/or choice?

Just a thought!

"Why might it be easier to set up a wind generation in Spain than it is in the UK?"

It isn't.

Because we have prevailing westerlies and regular frontal systems, not influenced by a semi-permanent Azores high.
Because we have enormous Westerly facing coastline.
Because we have a vast area of shallow North Sea ideal for building turbines.
Because we have extensive highlands, under utilized and already denatured from their natural state by deforestation and hundreds of years of hill farming, which could have a multiple uses.
Because we are a small country so we don't need to transport the power as far as in spain to make it worth laying the cables.

Sounds fab! Can we abandon this thread now?

GEDA, I've got an article from the Environmentalist in front of me and rough g(CO2/kWhr) figures are:

Biomass 14 -93
Solar PV 32 - 58
Hydro 10 - 30
Nuclear 7 - 22
Wind (off) 5 - 9
Wind (on) 5 - 10

IanMmmm, sounds a great plan. I think I'll be doing that 🙂

GEDA

One thing I have learned in the energy debate is all the figures are so suspect. As for the Nukes - no one knows the decommissioning costs or the % of time they will run for - take optimistic or pessimistic estimates for these and you get massive differences.

One thing I have learned in the energy debate is all the figures are so suspect.

Here we go again with the bad science...

its not uranium - its plutonium - rather more nasty. Thousands of times as toxic

Are we talking radiotoxicity or chemical toxicity?
There's no doubt plutonium is toxic (and I wouldn't want to eat too much of it) but it's not 'thousands of times as toxic' as Uranium. Those are suspect figures.

Technology g CO2 per kWh
electricity
Solar power, water power and wind power
10 - 40
Nuclear power plants
90 - 140
Combined heat and power in private houses
220 - 250
Gas buring plants
330 - 360
New coal burning plants
1'000 - 1'100

vs

1. Coal: >1,000
2. Coal with gassifier technology: <800
3. Oil: 650
4. Gas: 500
5. Biomass: 93
6. Photovoltaic: 58
7. Photovoltaic in sunny countries of southern Europe: 35
8. Wave energy: 25-50
9. High-density biomass with gassification: 25
10. Hydro with dams: 10-30
11. Wind: 5
12. Nuclear: 5
13. Hydro, run-of-the-river (no dams): <5

Even the pro document says in it:

The most energy intensive phase of
the nuclear cycle is uranium extraction, which accounts
for 40% of the total CO2 emissions. Some commentators
have suggested that if global nuclear generation capacity
increases, higher grade uranium ore deposits would be
depleted, requiring use of lower grade ores. This has
raised concerns that the carbon footprint of nuclear
generation may increase in the future (see Issues)

Anyone considered simply reducing the amount of power we consume??

My biggest concern with nuclear power is trust.

I believe it could be safe, but there's no way we can trust modern management ethics. They'd sooner spend the money on spin rather than expensive safety measures.

Maybe one way to ensure this is to require all senior management to live on site, that way we would know when to get out of town - when we see their families all heading off 🙂