[Closed] Nookular Power

energy efficiency and renewables - which included wood fired - if you plant the trees its carbon neutral.

What are you going to do with the waste?

Store it.

How do you plan on growing trees quick enough to cut them down to burn them to provide enough energy to make it worth while? And you would need thousands of power stations, wood is pretty poor for energy.

Wood is rubbish as a fuel

Nuclear all the way. Efficiency of the latest reactor designs are way beter than magnox et al. The waste is a problem - though let's face it, if I managed to safely dispose of my back copies of Razzle and Escort using my own intuition, surely a hive mind of experts will come up with a way of dealing with the nookular waste.

Nuclear is the biggest white elephant going, mostly due to the waste management costs, but collectively this country has left itself in a state where we have no real alternative to make up the shortfall.

Energy efficiency should be legislated into product manufacture. That would cut our national energy demand by about 25%.

Renewables should be developed more comprehensively across the board - That includes gasification of municipal waste, CHP, and micro-generation, as well as just PV and solar thermal.

Even then we'll have a shortfall.

Exactly, cut our energy use by 25%, and you are still never going to make up what we need with renewable energy sources.

Nuclear is the only option, and hesitating to put it into effect is just going to hinder us further down the line.

I'm very strongly pro nuclear.

It is about time society actually listened to scientific consensus.

Mind you the flip side of me likes the idea of depopulation.

The french must be laughing like hell right now - 'hey!, Roast beef! Ha ha!'

scientific consensus

On the matter of waste there is no scientific consensus. Its a nasty legacy for future generations to have to manage.

Realman - store it is not an answer.

Derek - no one has come up with one yet

Wood - coppiced woodland - 5 yrs to get some timber, ten years for full production. There was a scheme that almost got off the ground then cancelled after the coppices were planted

With real energy efficiency massive savings could be made.

Make energy much more expensive - certainly in extravagant use will give incentive. Make energy per unit 3 times what it costs now and give every person £300 pa free energy credit

Factor in the cost of storage and waste disposal and let the market decide.

So you want to take the world backwards, when everyone wants to go forwards.

The world needs a realistic decision. They don't want to be told they can't charge their iphone because a tree hasn't grown high enough yet.

Storing it is an answer, because it works. How is it different from landfills? Out of sight, out of harms way, out of mind.

That, or ejecting it into space.

Realman - live up to your name - be real. You need an answer to what you are going to do with the waste before new nukes are feasable.

Coppiced woodland is just one part of the answer - it wouldn't work for London but it would for Inverness. Energy efficiency will go a long way.

As Druidh says - cost nukes realistically and they are soooooooooooo much more expense than anything else

So are you prepared to reveal to the rest of the class the other part of the answer? Or is that just for you to know?

😀

cost nukes realistically and they are soooooooooooo much more expense than anything else

I'm assuming this is just a hopeful statement, as its completely untrue. Almost all the results I've seen put nuclear power somewhere in the middle of the sources we have available to us now, sometimes towards the cheaper end, sometimes towards the higher end.

The thing with landfills is that under EU rules, they've effectively been dry tombs for the last 10 years - they will need management and care in perpetuity to prevent moisture ingress and control gas an toxin leakage.

The same is true of nuclear waste.

Infact, the lions share of nuclear waste is actually landfilled. Its only the highly active stuff that get stuck in swimming pools and juggled about to keep it cool.

Bury/store it - the waste has to be sealed and monitored - and that's pre-supposing you can find a suitable site. Of course, it also has to be guarded for the next few thousand years to prevent some terrorist or rogue state from getting a hold of it. How about we store it next to those who are consuming the energy. Is Battersea Power Station being used for anything useful? I'm sure we could line up a few decent sized barges on the Thames.

Eject it into space - at what cost? And when one of the waste rockets fails to reach escape velocity, what then?

nuke fusion, i think there are around a dozen different types of reactors in the world at the min,

much cleaner and uses less fuel, the way forward i think

yes we have to pay a nuclear fuel levvy as is for electricity as it is not actually economically viable without this. The storage legacy is costly and as yet has no solution that will last the required thousands of years nor site/country identified. The carbon costs are debatable once extraction, storage and the amount of concrete incvolved in construction are also factored in. To claim it is carbon neutral is BS

scientific consensus

So you want to take the world backwards, when everyone wants to go forwards.

The world needs a realistic decision. They don't want to be told they can't charge their iphone because a tree hasn't grown high enough yet

This will probably happen whatever we do the resources are finite we cannot consume our way out of this issue imagine India and china at US or westenr levels of comsumption ...there is not enough resources to go round so we need to use less however we generate power

Realman - that is because the figures you see don't include the cost of decommissioning the stations or storing the waste and use over optimistic estimates for how much leccy they will produce

TandemJeremy - Member
Realman - that is because the figures you see don't include the cost of decommissioning the stations or storing the waste and use over optimistic estimates for how much leccy they will produce

Wot he said

Thirded and sadly true.

TJ, have you actually got any knowledge or experience of what you're talking about or are you just recycling stuff you've read?
Wood burnnig is not an option at the moment, the specific heat capacity of wood is not as great as that of coal. Therefore far more acrage is required than you'd think. Also, having operational and design experience of biomass boilers I know what the inherent problems are. Massively unreliable, very difficult to obtain fuel for. Most have installed them for BREEAM points and then install gas as soon as they find out what a nightmare they are.
Trying to use wind power for the shortfall is like applying savlon to a sucking chest wound, a 15m mast will not supply the electrical energy for 1 house! Also we don't have the tech to store the energy, which considering the turbines have the largest output when we need it least (at night) is pointless.
Hydro is our best option due to the fact that we are an island but even then, we'd need to spend £££££s as we'd need lots and lots.
So, we;re left with big bad nuclear which seems to be the only short term answer. Renewables will get there (I hope) but we cannot hang our hat on them yet.
I'd like to suggest that we downsize the electrical supplies to all houses. Do we need 100A? Give people less and make them choose whether they want 4 TVs and all their lights on or the washing machine. Gotta go! bonfire night! Yay more carbons!

TJ, have you actually got any knowledge or experience of what you're talking about or are you just recycling stuff you've read?

😆 😆 😆

Rumbled again TJ 😉

Backhander - its secondhand knowledge - biomass / coppiced woodland has a place but its not the sole answer for the reasons you describe

Renewables have the potential to fill the gap in teh timescale for nukes.

Energy storage is an issue but there are answers out there - have you read up on the local thermal store stuff - thats interesting. Hydrogen generation at the point of generation - I know its multiplying loses but has potential - there is a small scale plant on one of the scottish island - wind generator, hydrogen storage for excess, burn the hydrogen on windless days.

Pelarmis wave generator

There is no one answer. It needs a rabnge of options including a massive efficiency drive and the right mix will vary with area. London could not be powered by coppiced wood but Fort William could - CHP improves efficiency

150A supplies are available now and becoming more common

TJ you really should stop making up facts lol, cause they are usually wrong.

Capital costs (including waste disposal and decommissioning costs for nuclear energy)

Part of the costs factored into the final results I was talking of.

druidh, its very hard to make a decent weapon from nuclear waste. You'd get a higher death count from hijacking a plane and flying into a building, and that seems to me the easier option to breaking into a nuclear waste storage facility, locating the stuff you need, finding a way to transport it out of the building, and getting away. And then making it into a bomb, all without getting yourself killed/caught. And then of course you have to transport the bomb, and make sure it goes off.

Nuclear energy isn't perfect, but it is the only realistic option. We will switch to it eventually, that is almost guaranteed. I just believe that sooner is better then later.

Right now we have no alternative. Microgen, efficiency and renewables would have been best had we started 25 years ago.

A few thousand barrels of problem is better than a whole planet of problem.

They're trialling some fast growing coppicable biomass for biopower across the way from me. I think it is a variant of willow.

The future has to be a smorgesboard of solutions, not just for energy generation but everything that feeds into - food production, permaculture, water, waste management. Rather than trying to roll out a single national 'solution' then binning the waste in as cheap a way as possible.

Consuming less has to be a part of that.

Maybe the government should look into making renewables compulsary for new build. Eg solar thermal and solar voltaic on the roof.

RealMan - who said anything about a bomb? Just dump some intermediate level waste into a public water supply.....

You can make a dirty bomb very very easily with radioactive waste

TheFunkyMonkey - Member
You can make a dirty bomb [s]very very easily[/s] with radioactive waste

T.FIFY

Nukes are the only realistic answer for the next few decades

The population as a whole won't voluntarily reduce their use by the massive amounts needed & no government that wants re-electing will force such measures through

Face facts, more nukes are coming & the green lobby can't stop it

Just dump some intermediate level waste into a public water supply.....

I wouldn't want to be quoted on this, but I don't think that would be very effective at all.

You can make a dirty bomb very very easily with radioactive waste

You've done it have you? Although to be honest, if you've got the explosives and the know how to make a bomb, and a protective suit, or you don't care if you yourself gets radioactive poisoning, I don't think it would be that hard. But you've still got to do everything else, and that's where it gets hard. And its a lot of effort, you can be a much more effective terrorist using other methods.

uplink - Member

The population as a whole won't voluntarily reduce their use by the massive amounts needed

Which is why the cost per unit has to be increased to cover the cradle-to-grave cost of generation.

Which is why the cost per unit has to be increased to cover the cradle-to-grave cost of generation.

& the rest of my sentence was ............. [i]& no government that wants re-electing will force such measures through[/i]

That includes pricing

Bring on the nukes, I say

I remeber reading that fusion reactors will be available by 2025, so surely all we need is some stop gap answers, rather than long term solutions.

That, or ejecting it into space.

Will never happen. Care to think of the consequences if there was another Challenger with some high level nuclear waste on board? That & the weight of the vessels containing the waste would make it pretty prohibitive.

1kg of enriched uranium contains the same energy as 2.5 MILLION kg of coal. Thats alot of C02.

Nuclear fusion is available to us, but not in any useful way. We would need much larger reactors to get more energy out then we put in, and governments aren't prepared to invest, as it would be very expensive.

Although unless there's something science hasn't discovered yet out there, fusion is probably where this planet will get its power from after a few centuries.

Will never happen.

Two words.

Space. Elevator.

😀

Fusion is all well and good, however it's still firmly in the realm of science fiction. We know how fusion works, but currently do not have the technology make reactors on a useful scale. Nevermind the fact we have no way to utilise the energy created.

So you want to take the world backwards, when everyone wants to go forwards.

I don't want to get into an angry argument (maybe this is the wrong thread to post on :wink:) but...

It strikes me that this statement RealMan made is perhaps the fundamental problem we as a species are facing. The metaphor of us moving forward, further along a line of 'development' towards some vague and perpetually distant future, things constantly improving, is, I suggest, deeply flawed.

The notions of growth, progress and development will never allow us to stop destroying the planet, never allow us to maintain a population we can feed and house. I wonder if we have to take a step back and reconsider our society.

Just to balance how power generation can release radioactive elements in to the enviroment, it should be known that coal fired power stations pump out radiation into the atmosphere in the form of Uranium (incl U-235) and Thorium.

If we're not progressing, what is the point? Progression is what makes us human.

Maybe this planet is only temporary. Its going to die eventually no matter what we do. If we could move to another planet and have a better way of life, would we?

Define "progression".

Raping the planet, living way beyond the means that the planet has to support us in some forlorn pursuit of utopia?

The problem here is that there is no one solution to the impending energy crisis. Politicians in particular are far too short sighted, only interested in the next election, people in general are too selfish, only interested in being able to power their 60" plasma and the power shower, stuff the rest of the world.

Huge costly power stations generating toxic waste which will remain toxic for the next 10000 years, the energy generated then transported via a wasteful grid system is not the sole answer - it may well be PART of the answer but personally I think far more needs to be done to generate electricity locally be it solar panels, wind, hydro or whatever, get to a time when the grid tops up your own energy, not covers the whole lot. It'd certainly make people think a bit more about their waste and that will cut emissions/pollution straight away.

This was a massive bugbear for me during my time in the chemical industry when waste was rife - tens of thousands of litres of perfectly good drinking water down the drain every single day, massive power usage and not a self-generated watt in sight even though the area was perfect for at least SOME harnessing of wind/solar.

Huge costly power stations generating toxic waste which will remain toxic for the next 10000 years

does it matter that nuke waste stays toxic for that long?

I have a shotgun in the gun safe behind me, that will stay deadly for many years too, as long as no one does anything silly with it - it'll only kill what I want it to kill [clays]

I see lots of the usual myths and alarmist statements about nuclear being repeated on here. Take a look at [url= http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c24/page_161.shtml ]David Mackay's calculations[/url] if you want a reasonably even-handed summary. In particular look at his figures for deaths-per-Magawatt hour and consider how dangerous some of our existing and proposed energy sources are.

If you're worried about dirty bombs, a biological one is far more scary than a nuclear one and easier to make. If you're worried about water being poisoned by largely insoluble nuclear waste then best not to think about some of the soluble things that could be put in your water supply. If you're worried about nuclear waste best not to think about the piles of chemical waste lying around. Saying we all need to consume less is simplistic and not something I'd really be happy saying to someone in India with little food no electricity supply

Some of the fission reactor technologies being researched such as liquid flouride thorium reactors can be made in small scales and don't produce the same long-lived isotopes as existing PWRs. At the moment the big corporations that make reactors won't want to make these as they have existing investments to leverage but I expect we'll be buying these from India soon - either that or we'll have to beef up the cables to France and buy their nuclear-generated electricity.

Flux capacitor.

does it matter that nuke waste stays toxic for that long?

Saying we all need to consume less is simplistic and not something I'd really be happy saying to someone in India with little food no electricity supply

No, but most people are implying that nuclear waste is going to kill us all. Or at least suggesting that we don't know what to do with it all.

There have been nuclear plants going for years now, and we've been dealing with the waste so far.

The shotgun metaphor does make sense. If radioactive waste is stored securely, it doesn't pose a threat to anyone.

run me by the secure storage method again then
My understanding is

The major problem of nuclear waste is what to do with it. In fact, one of the biggest (and perhaps the single biggest) expenses of the nuclear power industry could eventually be the storage of nuclear waste. Currently there are several ways in which nuclear waste is stored. Most of these methods are temporary. In most cases a viable long-term solution for waste storage has yet to be found. This is because the time period for storage is so incredibly long, on the order of thousands of years.

Seripously what is the secure long term method you talk of?

Overallif nothing goes wronh ot is safe but if if does go wrong we are in for serious trouble for generations in the area affected

why not help them out and store some at yours - as it is safe should be a piece of pi55 to get permission to keep it eh

The shotgun comparison is poor we can store it easily and render it inert easily with radioactive waste we cannot do the later and we have no method for the former

Arguing against the use of nuclear power by using the risk of waste management is completely pointless. Its like arguing against the use of food because it costs money. There will come a time when there is no choice.

You getting off on daft anologies or something?
WTF are you saying
It is like saying we can generate great power with this but it leaves a dangerous waste that we have no theoretical way of storing for the thousands of years required and the potential consequences of it leaking are catastrophic.
Can you counter this with actual real soloutions fir storage rather than increasingly odd anologies?
The TINA argument is specious
There
Is
No
Altenrative

You could've fixed "alternative" when you fixed "no" 😉

We do have ways of storing it for thousands of years.

It sounds odd, but given money and time there will be ways to develop getting rid of it permanently, if doing so is thought to be worth it.

The potential of it leaking being described as catastrophic is really overcooking it, its happened before quite a few times when it wasn't stored properly, and I'm not quite sure, but I think loads of it has been dumped into the sea. But you probably have never heard of these incidents, because not enough harm was called for anyone to care that much.

And if you do have an alternative, other then TJs "lets go back to the dark ages" idea, let the world know.

We do have ways of storing it for thousands of years.

Really? Ones that are safe and secure? This is news to me, any further info?

It sounds odd, but given money and time there will be ways to develop getting rid of it permanently, if doing so is thought to be worth it.

But if it's going to cost that much and take so long it's not going to happen is it? Just be cheaper to use alternatives now surely?

The potential of it leaking being described as catastrophic is really overcooking it, its happened before quite a few times when it wasn't stored properly, and I'm not quite sure, but I think loads of it has been dumped into the sea. But you probably have never heard of these incidents, because not enough harm was called for anyone to care that much.

This is probably because the long term effects of radioactive pollution are difficult to predict. Not to mention the polictical sensitivities of nuclear waste loss. The publicity is likely to be minimal and hushed up asap. Look how long it took for Windscale, Three Mile Island and even Chernobyl to hit the press.

And if you do have an alternative, other then TJs "lets go back to the dark ages" idea, let the world know.

There isn't an alternative. But the "back to the dark ages" idea is reducto ad absurdum. Worthy of the Daily Mail-esque tabloid scaremongering only. I expected more from STW.

So, because there hasn't been a catastrophic accident so far, everything is hunky-dory?

You sound like the man who jumped off the skyscraper and could be heard saying, as he went past each floor, "So far, so good...."

But if it's going to coat that much and take so long its not going to happen is it?

Could I get next weeks lottery numbers with that as well? 😀

Really? Ones ta are safe and secure? This is news to me, any further info?

We have had ways of storing it for decades, and ways of transporting it, both of which are safe. Therefore we have ways of keeping it safe for an infinite amount of time, as long as it is maintained and properly looked after.

Conjecture, [i]noun[/i], [i]verb[/i], -tured, -turing.

This is probably because the long term effects of radioactive pollution are difficult to predict. Not to mention the polictical sensitivities of nuclear waste loss. The publicity is likely to be minimal and hushed up asap. Look how long it took for Windscale, Three Mile Island and even Chernobyl to hit the press.

😀

So, because there hasn't been a catastrophic accident so far, everything is hunky-dory?

Well with the ways the Russians have been storing it in the past, and the ways others have stored it before they knew about the possible dangers it posed, and still nothing truly apocalyptic happening, then yes, I would say that with safer methods of storing it there should be even less incidents.

To go with your falling man analogy, maybe its you who sounds like the man who puts his hand into a bowl of warm water, sees he doesn't burn himself, adds some cold water, then wonders if he's going to burn himself when he puts his hand back in.

We have had ways of storing it for decades, and ways of transporting it, both of which are safe. Therefore we have ways of keeping it safe for an infinite amount of time, as long as it is maintained and properly looked after.

Conjecture, noun, verb, -tured, -turing.

Fair enough. You've got more faith in the appropriate authorities doing their job for several thousand years than I have. I can't think of an example in history that withstands this period of time...

😀

Why does no one ever use the preview button..

Fair enough. You've got more faith in the appropriate authorities doing their job for several thousand years than I have. I can't think of an example in history that withstands this period of time...

There will be incidents, that's a statistical certainty. But they will be few and hopefully well managed.

And in a few centuries we should have cracked efficient fusion, and then we won't have to store any more waste, so we can either get rid of it into space, and never have to worry about it, or store in in mile thick concrete bunkers 10 miles underground or whatever so we don't have to worry about it.

Sorry, not as forum savvy as many!

Watched a program years ago and scientist were discussing ways on how to store nuclear waste and developing signs to warn people. They even went as far as trying to develop the signs so that aliens could understand them 😯

They even went as far as trying to develop the signs so that aliens could understand them

Well 20,000 years into the future, and we will be aliens.

Ah, the semi-environmentalist. Likes genetically modified living but not nuclear. Maybe because you work in GM? Junkyard, lets hear your ideas rather than rubbishing others.
I watched the doc and debate last night and there were some very valid points in both. Monbiot came across as a complete idiot kept banging on about corporate this and that. FOTE and GP made some very well researched and valid arguments. Look, nuclear isn't the answer to all of our problems but it is the only SHORT TERM answer we have if we want to stop burning carbons for energy, no question. I am confident that renewables will be able to eventually but not just yet.
Energy aside, I personally think the way forward for environmentalism is for it to embrace industry and for industry to embrace it. I think that the face of environmentalism suffers )or has suffered) from the previous knee-jerk and often misinformed reactions. This could be stopped by inclusion of all parties in discussions of technology and help everyone to make more informed decisions and not the kind of sh1t spouted by monbiot. Let us also not forget that environmentalism is about preserving our environment to future generations and not just about satisfying our energy requirements. Is installing giant mechanical wind turbines doing that? I don't think so and I think that our grandchildren will be ripping them all out and wondering why we wasted time and money on them.
EDIT; Teej, I just don't think that buring carbons to replace buring fossilised carbons is a [i]sustainable[/i] approach. Given time, I just think that the ingenuity of our race will come up with a better solution

It was based on that we won't be around to tell them of the dangers 🙁

There will be incidents, that's a statistical certainty. But they will be few and hopefully well managed.

And in a few centuries we should have cracked efficient fusion, and then we won't have to store any more waste, so we can either get rid of it into space, and never have to worry about it, or store in in mile thick concrete bunkers 10 miles underground or whatever so we don't have to worry about it.

I love you certainty! I really hope you're right, because I suspect the majority of people in Britain think along the same lines as you.

I suppose I'm just too cautious for this option to be considered personally satisfactory. This and the fact that I believe there is so much wastage of energy that a fullscale efficiency drive could reasonably reduce consumption to levels that would enable us to maintain a sufficient standard of living (not wearing hair shirts and living in caves I hasten to add!), while utilising the myriad of renewables available to us (particularly an excellent island location like Britain).

I just can't see nuclear energy as anything except a sop to our collective vanity and love of cheap energy. I fully accept I may be hypocritical by typing this too!

We do have ways of storing it for thousands of years.

The potential of it leaking being described as catastrophic is really overcooking it

Therefore we have ways of keeping it safe for an infinite amount of time, as long as it is maintained and properly looked after.

So you plan on changing human nature, rather then just living with a small risk of radioactive poisoning.

Its not hard to imagine energy rationing killing off science as well, which of course leads to zero progression. So we will be stuck living off tidal, solar, wave, etc. in our energy efficient houses forever.

Junkyard I have already answered those questions, you can re read what I've written, or maybe just accept that you can't understand.

it dies not follow that becausey ou can store something short term you can do it long term does it?

Yes, it does. I would say especially so in radioactive cases as the material gets less dangerous with time.

Yes good point the stuff is safe why are we worrying about it

To go from saying that "catastrophic" is overcooking it, to that, is just stupid. I hope you don't expect me to reply to that properly..?

Junky, you seem to have forgotten something about radioactive waste - essentially, we dug it up in the first place!

See, millions of years that dangerous radioactive ore sat in the earths crust without anything nasty happening!

all we need to do is drop it through the crust into the molten rock beneath, and it returns to whence it came!

job jobbed!

So you plan on changing human nature, rather then just living with a small risk of radioactive poisoning.

Its not hard to imagine energy rationing killing off science as well, which of course leads to zero progression. So we will be stuck living off tidal, solar, wave, etc. in our energy efficient houses forever.

Not sure who this was aimed at.

Why does human nature have to change?

Energy rationing doesn't have to mean that all progress is shelved. Just inefficient use of energy. Stuff like poor insulation in peoples houses, losses through an inefficient delivery network (incidentally reduced significantly by local microgeneration: You don't have to move the energy from generation point to use) these things all add up. Energy efficiency doesn't mean scientific progress stagnation, the development of the ICE (potentially ironically) is proof of this!

There's always ways around the problems the conservatives (with a little "c") put forward!

Whoa, we can't ignore the dangers associated in storing this sh1t.
Nuclear should only be used as a short term bridge, we cannot plan to try to store and secure this waste for ever and ever. With the half-life of the poison we're talking about; we'll run out of land mass in a (relatively) short time.

Why does human nature have to change?

Zulu-Eleven - Member
Junky, you seem to have forgotten something about radioactive waste - essentially, we dug it up in the first place!

See, millions of years that dangerous radioactive ore sat in the earths crust without anything nasty happening!

all we need to do is drop it through the crust into the molten rock beneath, and it returns to whence it came!

job jobbed!

Oh dear.

With the half-life of the poison we're talking about; we'll run out of land mass in a (relatively) short time.

Is this based on anything, or just guessing? I am unaware of how much we would go through to provide the energy we need, so I am seriously curious. I wouldn't have thought it would be anywhere NEAR as much as to even come close to posing a space issue.

When people are told they can only watch tv for x hours a day, how do you think they will feel when they find out how much energy places like CERN are using. Governments don't like science much as it is, turn the people against it too and you will kill it off.

Why does human nature have to change?

Because it is key. We are wasteful at best and in part I agree with some of TJs ideas we do need to reduce BUT we need to do it slowly. Some can be achieved by initiatives (insulation ets) but this will not make the changes we need. We (me included) need to think before we hit a switch or dial and be aware of the consequences.

Ah right. Sorry I thought RealMan was referring to our (humankind) urge to progress. I don't think we are wasteful at best, there are numerous examples globally of humans functioning vey well efficiently. We've just been lulled into this all encompassing consumerism in the "advanced" West.

You're right though about major behaviour change being required.

Ok, how much waste would you associate with 10 yrs of nuclear energy usage?
Quite a small amount.
100yrs?
More.
1000 yrs?
Lots and lots, considering all of the nations will be using it or need to in order to make any kind of difference. And how secure do you think places like Somalia(which is completely lawless) will store their waste? This is big picture remember and the UK accounts for .0something% of global emissions. I'm not pro or con nuclear but there are questions that need to be asked for it to make a difference.

there are numerous examples globally of humans functioning vey well efficiently.

Come on then Druidh... can you actually pick pick holes in the concept of disposal via burial in a fast flowing subduction zone! 🙄

Because theres all sorts of credible proponents of the idea!

Nope, you just decided to go for the knee jerk reaction didn't you? 🙄

I suggest you go away and google it, then come back with a more realistic argument than "oh dear"!

Junkyard I have already answered those questions, you can re read what I've written, or maybe just accept that you can't understand

Zulu-Eleven - I suggest you try to work out the volume of nuclear waste produced vs. the amount of radioactive material dug up. I think you'll find it's quite a lot more - and a lot more deadly.

Duh junky - Volcanoes are going up, subduction zones are going down! 😆

Stalactites, Stalagmites, thats how I remember it

I suggest you try to work out the volume of nuclear waste produced vs. the amount of radioactive material dug up. I think you'll find it's quite a lot more - and a lot more deadly.

Think about that for a moment druid, just think about that!

your calculation is that the volume of radioactive ore, that gets refined and processed, is [b]lower[/b] than the volume of processed, concentrated radioactive waste... let alone the fact that your claim would be against the first law of thermodynamics!

Upcoming reactor designs based on the fast breeder model are far more efficient with fuel and produce waste that doesn't contain transuranic isotopes. The waste produced has short half-lives and is only dangerous in the order of decades.

It's much easier to attack a straw man though.

Care to volunteer an example? At least one where natural resources haven't blessed an nation with endless resource? ie could be applied here or anywhere

Well, if you going to put caveats in, then of course there aren't going to be any examples! It's capitalist nature to exploit all exploitable resources, and as very few other systems have functioned for anything as long and as wide ranging then we don't really have much of precedent to choose from!

However, human nature doesn't have to be fully capitalist. No reason why a social and environmental agenda can't be included, and in some of the smaller socieites I'm sure it is.

When people are told they can only watch tv for x hours a day, how do you think they will feel when they find out how much energy places like CERN are using. Governments don't like science much as it is, turn the people against it too and you will kill it off.

Won't happen. People will be charged to watch TV and if they can't afford it, they won't. The only people who will compare the two are the tabloids, just like they already have done over the past year or so given the publicity CERN have generated (excuse the pun).