TBH I'm don't know enough ins & outs to make a proper decision, who is in favour or against & why?
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'cause I don't trust humans
.......and the consequences of a f*ckup can be rather serious.
If anyone had a proper means of disposing of the waste...
It's the only logical choice.
Renewables are great, but largely unstable.
Nuclear is stable, worked great so far and pretty efficient too. Also has am exceptionally low carbon output.
1. People are fallible and make mistakes.
2. There is no such thing as foolproof.
3. They are run by profit making organisations, with shareholders.
4. And Governments, with slim majorities.
5. We still can't (or won't spend the necessary cash to) turn off the old ones, no matter what anyone will tell you.
6. We still don't know what to do with the waste.
7. We have no idea of the long term consequences of the accidents that have already occurred.
8. Or the ones that inevitably must occur in the future.
So that's a "no" then.
And before anyone asks, I don't have a simple answer to the world energy crisis, but the OP didn't ask that, OK?
Yay. Look at France - loads of reactors and not a problem.
Chernobyl and 3 mile island were consequences of crap reactor design.
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I love the idea of a huge fusion reactor telling us that Nuclear power is bad.
all for it, splitting an atom to release energy gives out a few million times more energy than burning the same amount.
Nuclear & renewables arn't good bedfellows without a bit of gas or coal to provide the peak requirements.
Wave power is where it's at, but no serious money is going into development at the moment...
Modern day nuclear power stations are very good from what I've read although I don't know know that much about them. Alternative methods need to be investigated as tidal and wind are crap in comparison and fossil fuelled stations have pretty much had their day given that the fuels are running out. I think safer disposal of waste material needs to be investifated and implemented. That said I wouldn't want one next dor to me but then I wouldn't want any power station near me
I love the idea of a huge fusion reactor telling us that Nuclear power is bad.
Exactly. The only huge fusion reactor which should be supplying us with energy, should be kept 90 million miles away.
Not next to a city.
If they are now so safe, why not build them right next to, and within the major population centres where the electricity demand is, thus saving on transmission losses too?.
Or is the reason that they are typically built in out-of-the-way locations in the North a selfless decision to provide the locals with much needed jobs?
I want one of these for Christmas:
http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news-toshiba-micro-nuclear-12.17b.html
Alternative methods need to be investigated as tidal and wind are crap in comparison
If we'd spent anywhere near as much money developing them as we have on nuclear energy over the years, who knows how good they could be by now.
Nay. There is sufficient evidence that it causes cancers in areas surrounding the reactors and no TV could ever be wide enough to justify powering it with dirty energy like that.
im studying powergeneration at uni lol...its a choice between nuclear and coal...nuclear is much cleaner and safer....mean u can biuld a nuclear power station in the middle of london and the biggest risk would be sumthing to do with the protesters out side...over the history of the world...nuclear is the safest source of energy...(overall combining safety, risk of fuel shortages etc)...its not gonna sort us out in the longrun but itll have to do for now...china has biult a reactor that cant melt down (we wont have them) and maybe in 50 or so years time when these new stations are being decommisioned we will prehaps have nuclear fusion to sort us out for the next 100 years...
John, if you're dyslexic, then I apologise wholeheartedly.
If not, then I rest my case.
No.
There's a very limited supply of useable Uranium.
Extracting/transporting uranium uses lots of oil.
Climate change and peak oil are liable to lead to some extremely unstable political situations in the foreseeable future and I don't trust most politicians.
Running nuclear power stations is a very complex business. Regardless of efficiency the downside in terms of lack of resilience is too great.
We have no solution for secure waste storage.
It distracts from more viable solutions.
Nuclear Power is no way low carbon - it is pretty serious if you look at dust to dust emissions.
You are once more chaining yourself to a finite resource
There are other emissions beyond CO2 linked with the nuclear industry such as CFCs, which is a big problem
The sheer cost of nuclear energy is quite scary, you have to factor in the clean up costs to the kWh prices
Its too dirty, too expensive, too dangerous (subject to terrorist attacks etc) and doesn't solve our energy security issues.
So no, I don't want to see more of the stuff ta.
Page 15 of this book shows a quite interesting graph:
quite an interesting subject too although can seem a bit morbid at points.
I'm all for it by the way. Waste disposal, well it comes from the ground (granted in a less enriched state) why can't it go back in there!
We've been through this all before several times haven't we?
Still,
There's a very limited supply of useable Uranium.
500 years or so at current usage levels...
Extracting/transporting uranium uses lots of oil.
Please think before typing. It clearly uses way less oil to transport uranium than it does to transport, for example, oil.
Atomkraft, ja bitte.
supply of fuel not unlimited.
Not cheap
Takes decades from decidign to buil one to actually coming on stream
No storage method for the waste materials that will be harmful for about a gazillion years [slight exageration of time].
terrorist threat - imagine flying a plane into one of them
Other stuff are theoretically unlimited - tidal , solar for example and cleaner.
Humans make mistakes and no system is perfect. Errors will occur again.
Nay for me - suspect we will end up with them though
500 years includes the amounts known 5.5 metric tonnes and an assupption that 10.5 will be found that have not yet [250 years] and then better extraction techniques and some more will be found - source nulear Energy Agency
I'm obviously against, and luckily so is my government,
...however if a wee nuclear power station could be sited at STW towers to give the hamsters a break, I could be persuaded 🙂
If it was safe as they say and able to recycle the waste safely.
Strangely nobody seems to say that Nuclear power needs, electrical power to power the pumps and all the lights etc,this comes from, coal, gas and oil fired stations possibly or even hydro that can be switched on a press of button .
John please dont go into nuclear power station working with spelling like that.
If they are now so safe, why not build them right next to, and within the major population centres where the electricity demand is, thus saving on transmission losses too?.
Or is the reason that they are typically built in out-of-the-way locations in the North a selfless decision to provide the locals with much needed jobs?
What, like Hinkley Point, in the Bristol Channel, close to Bristol, a not so insignificant city? Try checking your facts.
ENERGY EFFICENCY,switch off all building floodlighting, shop window displays and signs, and half the motorway lights.
Strangely nobody seems to say that Nuclear power needs, electrical power to power the pumps and all the lights etc,this comes from, coal, gas and oil fired station
What?
Countzero,maybe the government of the day just didn't like Bristol?
Some thoughts.
What's the half life of CO2? Longer than Nuclear waste I'd guess.
Apparently more people have been killed by coal fired power than nuclear (though even if that FACT is true then is probably isn't on a fair basis)
There are other ways of doing peaking requirements.
Strangely nobody seems to say that Nuclear power needs, electrical power to power the pumps and all the lights etc,this comes from, coal, gas and oil fired stations possibly or even hydro that can be switched on a press of button .for start up and shutdown you need an alternate source and this is how often? They don't flick them on and off each day, I imagine they run constantly for years as any chemical plant would (aside undesired LTI's).
The remainder of the time power can be used from the generation ongoing at the plant
Yay!
No
no one knows how to dispose of the waste. They produce a lot of CO2 in building and decommissioning the plants, ( ten times the concrete of a conventional plant) fuel supply is very finite and unreliable. No one knows how to decommission a plant as well and the electricity is expensive.
Accidents may be rare but they happen -along with chernobyl and 3 miles island is windscale and dounray accidents as well. Parts of teh UK are still radioactive from thesee accidents to say nothing of the radiactive soup that is in the Irish sea now.
Renewables and hydrogen generation/ storage along with conservation measures.
If everyone turned their TV off rather than laving it on standby it would save the output of one power station
Mat - look at the history of nukes - the two Scottish ones have run at about 40% of capacity IIIRC because of faults and maintenance. I have no faith the next generation of plants will be better. I remember the promise " electricity to cheap to be worth metering"
500 years or so at current usage levels...
How much of the world's energy needs is currently been provided by nuclear energy ? 15% ? So if everyone switches to nuclear power, how long will it last ?
TBH, I had no idea it was such a limited resource.
Apparently more people have been killed by coal fired power than nuclear (though even if that FACT is true then is probably isn't on a fair basis)
That's not really a very solid way to go about an argument is it, the graph I linked earlier shows that statistically dams bursting happens more frequently and kills more people than nuclear catastrophes
to say nothing of the radiactive soup that is in the Irish sea now.
Now, on reflection, isn't that just an itsy teensy bit of an exaggeration?
What's the half life of CO2? Longer than Nuclear waste I'd guess.
Only nuclear material has a half life C02 is stable and does not decay -
i've been reading up on geological co2 storage options the past few days and looks like a possibilities, it has been suggested that nuclear waste could be stored in a a similar way. obvious a reservoir leak ain't too bad with co2 but pretty disasterous with nuclear.
It's the only short to medium term answer.
Renewables (I hope) are the long term answer, however are dreadful performers at present (I don't think wind will ever be an answer).
We have security issues with our fuel at present because we buy some gas from the russians who spit their dummy out quite a lot. We need our own source and the north sea peaked ages ago.
porterclough said
500 years or so at [b]current[/b] usage levels.
I kind of took it that this thread was about [b]increasing[/b] usage?
To clarify that is 500 years at current use according to the Nuclear Authorities who admit that 75% of this is not actually found at present let alone extracted.
porterclugh - IIRC we have debated this before 🙂 The irish sea is a radioactive soup IMO. many many kilos of plutonium, local beaches have been closed 'cos of the radioactivity. Its a mess.
I thought the supply of uranium was decades left not centuries.
A nuke has to have a small conventional power station on site I thought
In the end it comes down to a faith argument. You either believe that the next generation of nuclear stations will be safe and reliable or you don't. I look to the history of nuclear power and I see accidents, pollution and expensive unreliable power generation. Others look to recent reactors in france and other countries and see cheap reliable and safe.
Ernie said:
How much of the world's energy needs is currently been provided by nuclear energy ? 15% ?
I think you will find that is 15% of the world's [b]electricity[/b] NOT 15% of the world's [b]energy[/b]
Can't remember the figures but nuclear contribution to world [b]energy[/b] is much lower than 15%
Yes. Anyone in the no camp should turn their computers off now to save a bit of energy. 8)
Mat - I agree it's not a reasoned argument - but it's Sunday night and if this thread isn't regarded as a troll, then it should be. I'm merely making more fuel available.
Junkyard - Half-life is a term that is normally associated with radioactive decay, but you can use it for anything that will diminish (assuming you don't create more) over time. I agree CO2 has no half-life in the sense of radioactive decay. However overtime it will be absorbed by plants and removed from the atmosphere. Therefore you can ascribe a length of time before half of it has been removed from the atmosphere (a half-life). Unfortunately (or fortunately to some extent - life without CO2 at all would not last long) at the same time we are pumping it out - probably (OK definitely) faster than it is absorbed so the levels rise. Apologies if that's a little patronising - it did seem that way when I read it back - but you get the idea that you can ascribe something equivalent to a half-life to CO2.
IIRC the amount of extractable uranium left in the ground wouldn't meet our current energy needs, let alone the projected growth.
I'm all for nuclear power but it's best viewed as an interim solution until fusion becomes viable.
Nuclear power in partnership with solar/wind/tidal and renewable biofuels seems to be the only option for us in the medium term. The opportunity to take the long term view on this is fast passing us by, given that the price of oil is realistically only ever going to increase and some creditable sources suggest OPECs declared oil reserves are wildly overstated.
I think you will find that is 15% of the world's electricity NOT 15% of the world's energy
Indeed. IIRC the ratio in the UK is 2:1. Hence why to reduce our carbon based energy use by 20% we have to reduce our carbon based electricity use by 40% (assuming no reduction in carbon in general energy use eg transportation).
It's also why interest in electric vehicles is so high.
Someone mentioned using hydrogen for energy storage - I wish you luck. That stuff is ridiculously difficult to contain. Doing it on a mass scale, even more so.
I'm all for nuclear power but it's best viewed as an interim solution until fusion becomes viable.
Fusion is also nuclear. I think you mean you're all for fission until fusion is available.
....but nuclear contribution to world energy is much lower than 15%
Yes I suspect it is. Which makes the claim that there is only "500 years or so at current usage levels" even more worrying.
If we are going to do nuclear, then we should do it properly and really get rid of all of the gas powered stations and just keep a few (converted to clean) coal stations and renewables. No point in doing half a job...
I'd like one of those power packs they had in Ghostbusters.
"Don't cross the streams!"
In this example C02 will be altered but we will still have the same amount of Carbon and oxygen as before just in different places. Carbon or oxygen cycle for example. With a half-life we genuinely have less of it half in fact it has changed at a molecular/atomic level via the release of atoms and some other complicated stuff I dont fully comprehend. I have never heard it meant in the sense you have used it. C02 sat on the side in a jar will do nothing will it. It has no half life.However overtime it will be absorbed by plants and removed from the atmosphere
I see what you are getting at but it is not accurate to describe that process as a half life - it more like how fast the carbon cycle works which is not the same thing.
Someone mentioned using hydrogen for energy storage - I wish you luck. That stuff is ridiculously difficult to contain. Doing it on a mass scale, even more so.
Me - absolutely. However I believe its a good thing to look at and possible to find technological solutions.
One of the Scottish islands has a small wind generator / hydrogen extractor / generator set up. So the wind turbine generates electricty which is used on the idland. Any surplus is used to electrolyse water to get hydrogen. When there is no wind hydrogen is burnt to generate electricity.
I don't know how successful it has been and its very small scale but its one way round the problem of intermittent generation that bedevils wind power normally.
Hydrogen for cars and so on is a whole 'nother level of complexity with storage and delivery but not insoluble I bet.
Totally. Beats wasting money on windmills & other eco nonsense.
Latest idea is to reuse the Thorium reactor idea from the 60's, waste products very much cleaner than Uranium, no plutonium. The technology was dropped because no weapons grade fissile material was produced. Unfortunately India has most of the supply but it is much more abundant than Uranium
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Don't see any other viable option at the moment. As usual David Mackay has some sensible stuff to say on the issue backed up by some numbers and facts that are a lot more plausible than some of the ones being quoted on here - [url= http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c24/page_161.shtml ]link[/url]. Those who think it's too dangerous may want to look at the death per GWy figures (we're very poor at assessing the risks of something we don't know much about).
Unless you don't mind all the lights, computers, heating, medical equipment going off, then yes.
Never understood why not Thorium as its 4x as common as Uranium. Anyone know?
Oooh have you seen the design of the pebble bed reactor - it's a load of balls.
Oh its to do will making weapon grade intermediates..
Actually I thought that fast breeder reactors would allow us to extract vastly more energy from the original fuel.
"terrorist threat - imagine flying a plane into one of them"
Oh they do, and missiles and all sort of stuff. That big concrete block on the outside does the job.
There's been some good results recently with fusion reactors. I'd like to see those succeed.
To me it seems like the obvious answer, in the short-medium term. Renewables aren't ready, biofuels are fundamentally flawed... I'm not saying it's a good option but it seems to be the best of the ones we have.
Good link Rio
Yay for me
Rusty Spanner - MemberJohn, if you're dyslexic, then I apologise wholeheartedly.
If not, then I rest my case.
yes im i am dyslexic
CO2 doesnt matter btw....what we make doesnt really make much difference...so if we buy uranium...it doesnt cost us much CO2...it costs other countries CO2 and that doesnt really matter because compared to china india and america we dont make any CO2...
and think of the costs of digging up coal and transporting that if u think uranium is the only expensive thing to mine...
In that case I reiterate my apology.
It was a crass and stupid way to attempt to illustrate a point regarding human fallibility.
Partner's daughter is dyslexic - she's explained to me recently that pedantic idiots discourage her from posting on forums.
My new years resolution was to stop being such a pedant.
I've failed, but on the bright side this resolution lasted longer than any others I've made over the years.
making weapon grade intermediates..
You say that like it's a bad thing!
The nuclear deterrent - the longest period of peace in European history
Aye right, If it wasn't for Britains nukes, you would all be speakin' Russian now, just like the Norwegians, Andorrans and Portugese.
the longest period of peace in European history
So when was the former Yugoslavia moved out of Europe then ?
Never mind about Turkey and Greece being at war over Cyprus, despite both being members of nuclear armed NATO.
Norwegians, and Portugese
NATO members, reliant on the NATO deterrent! Andorra has its own defence pledge agreements with France and Spain
- Civil disturbance, within national borders.Yugoslavia
- nope, legally mandated intervention in a civil disturbance under the 1960 treaty of guarantee!being at war over Cyprus
Falklands? Invasion of Kuwait?
Oh, they're in Europe now are they?
None of the limited conflicts within Europe since 1945 have threatened to spread to other countries or descend into widespread regional war - compare and contrast that with the first half of the century, or the century before, or the one before that, oh, or the one before that, and the one before that repeatedly...
Without doubt, this has been the least bloody, least tumultuous and most peaceful period in the history of Europe - entirely down to the nuclear deterrent!
Civil disturbance
LOL ! The wars in former Yugoslavia such as Bosnian War, weren't wars ..... but "civil disturbances" !
And the attack and invasion of Cyprus by 30,000 Turkish troops was also just a "civil disturbance" ! 😀
.
most peaceful period in the history of Europe - entirely down to the nuclear deterrent!
So presumably you would support Iran if it wished to acquire nuclear weapons ? In fact, you would want to encourage all Middle Eastern countries to have nuclear weapons - and finally bring peace to that troubled region.
Actually the "most peaceful period in the history of Europe" is down two things. Firstly the horrors of global war is still on living people's memories, and secondly, that institution which your guru Dan Hannan despises so much - the EEC/EU.
France and Germany knew that they must never go to war again, and they realised that the best way to ensure this was through an interdependency, this was the thinking when they agreed to the Coal and Steel Community,.
Back on track Yes for Nuclear Power.
We need to remember to separate several things here
Claims of pollution in the Irish Sea are aimed at Sellafield - A Nuclear Fuel RECYCLING Plant with historic NON Power generating assets. Yes there were 5 civil power generating reactors on site but these could not have contributed to this. I have read the reports and looked at the numbers and still quite happily swam in the Irish sea.
We do have a long term waste storage strategy
Civil Nuclear power has operated safely without indecent in the UK for over 50 years.
Bring it on
Z11 said:
Without doubt, this has been the least bloody, least tumultuous and most peaceful period in the history of Europe - entirely down to the nuclear deterrent!
I notice you demand a different level of proof in some arguments than in others.
Yugoslavia- Civil disturbance, within national borders.
Ah, yes. So that'll be why that nice Mr Blair and that equally nice Mr Clinton resorted to carpet bombing the 'civil disturbance'. Zulu Eleven? Zulu second eleven more like.
We do have a long term waste storage strategy
Do you know what that actually entails though?
I have also spoken to someone who works at Sellafield and some of the stories of safety blunders are scary.
Tbh, I'd follow the Germans - who tend to be better at building things than us (yeah, gross generalisation, i know) - are phasing out their reactors due to the incidence of cancer clusters round power stations. (some details here: http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/society/health/nuclear+cancer+risk+doubled/1300847 )
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Without doubt, this has been the least bloody, least tumultuous and most peaceful period in the history of Europe - entirely down to the nuclear deterrent!
Or possibly European countries having a particular common interest which is not being invaded by the Russians and as a result formed the EEC and now the EU? You know invasion does have a galvanising effect on Countries.
Tbh, I'd follow the Germans - who tend to be better at building things than us (yeah, gross generalisation, i know) - are phasing out their reactors due to the incidence of cancer clusters round power stations.
But they are increasingly dependant on Russia for energy. Not very bright when it comes to energy security.