[Closed] Nuclear Power, yay or nay

TJ - most people don't have faith that renewables can live up to expectations. Do you see the parallels?

As discussed, neither is the total answer, however I never understand why people who clearly have read up on this stuff form an either/or approach. You explicitly stated that nuclear has no part to play in future energy generation. You have yet to provide us with a more proven alternative...

Until we crack fusion, or destroy ourselves in a final war over dwindling oil, energy generation will be a whole raft of compromises, not absolutes.

Aracer - remember they told us it would be "electricity too cheap to meter" and that it would be reliable. It turned out to be the most expensive electricity and unreliable

You missed off the crucial part of that quote - its about faith - you have faith that the next generation will be better - I don't based on past experience

Zokes - we ain't going to agree. I believe it can be done with renewables and efficiency and carbon capture. remember nukes are not carbon neutral - they produce one heck of a lot of CO2 in building them, extracting the fuel and decommissioning them.

I simply do not believe they are part of the answer. Too much polution including CO2, too unreliable - I believe they are a dangerous and useless dead end. My understanding from the facts. similarly I cannot believe how anyone who knows a bit about this as you do can be so dismissive of efficiency measures and can believe that nukes are any part of the solution.

It would be a dull place if we all agreed.

[url= http://www.iaea.org/cgi-bin/db.page.pl/pris.ophis.htm?country=GB&site=SIZEWELL%20B&refno=24&opyear=2020 ]Sizewell B reliability[/url]

Exactly how unreliable is Sizewell B?

Not very reliable. It went down in may 08 unplanned and has had planned downtimes on other occasions as well. What % of its capacity has it run at over its life?

I never said they were carbon-neutral. However, I did state that many other 'low-carbon' technologies are no worse.

I understand your standpoint to an extent, however we will always need baseload generation. This is exactly what nuclear power stations do, reliably (just how reliable surprised me when I pulled up the link above for aracer). This need will only increase as we go from running transport on oil to charging it one way or the other (H2, batteries, or whatever)

Tidal power has a lot going for it in baseload terms, but it can't replace nuclear, coal and gas all by itself.

The main reason I dismiss almost out of hand efficiency savings is that we're talking about saving electrical energy by making appliances more efficient. Yet as gas for heating and cooking runs out, and more cars move to electricity for energy, our demand overall for electricity will increase. This is irrespective of political will or electoral stubbornness to reduce current electrical usage. Currently, political will (the obsession with electric cars / H2 generation) looks like we'll need a lot more electricity generation, not less...

crossed post zokes. am I reading those figures right? 80-90 % load for 80 - 90% of the time? so its actully run at around 70% of capacity?

Not very good.

tides are at different states around the country, so even looking at tidal power alone you could have continuity of supply.

So, to guarantee 10GW of electricity production at 3pm on a given sunday, you need a huge overproduction capacity - you can only guarantee that one of your tidal power facilities will be running at max capacity - one may well be at zero capacity (slack tide), and another at sub optimal capacity,

and thats before the overproduction capacity that you need to make up for grid losses - if you're relying on a tidal power station in Scotland to relieve the slack tide in the south west, then your grid losses are going to be huge.

You've got no guaranteed alternative wind supply, no guaranteed solar supply - you might as well forget about them as a reliable power source.

Hydrogen production, great, but you need to be able to store and transport it from point of production to point of power generation.

A Severn tidal barrage would take about 12 years to build and cost estimates are £20billion (triple that figure to £60billion based on other large engineering feats). What would the payback be on that both economically and environmentally? I suspect it would need to be as funded as Nuclear Energy is.

What % of its capacity has it run at over its life?

[url= http://www.iaea.org/cgi-bin/db.page.pl/pris.ophis.htm?country=GB&site=SIZEWELL%20B&refno=24&opyear=2020 ]Cumulatively, 89.23%, ranging from 100% last year to 79.6% in it's second full year of running[/url]

What % of its capacity has it run at over its life?

am I reading those figures right? 80-90 % load for 80 - 90% of the time? so its actully run at around 70% of capacity?

Cheers for the link Hainey. Interesting I would have thought it was more than that though.

crossed post zokes. am I reading those figures right? 80-90 % load for 80 - 90% of the time? so its actully run at around 70% of capacity?

Not very good.

Sort of.

The load factor is the demand put on it from the grid, not its limit, so it was asked to run at 80-90% most of the time. I'll admit I'm not so sure on how to interpret the rest of the figures, but distant memory tells me that my interpretation of load factor is correct.

Incidentally, there are 8760 hours in one year, and last year sizewell B was online for all 8760 of them. That's pretty damned impressive. As has been pointed out, this is now a power station at least two generations behind current design.

I very much doubt you'd find a modern gas station that can beat that, never mind renewables...

remember nukes are not carbon neutral - they produce one heck of a lot of CO2 in building them

Not really.

http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c24/page_169.shtml

Mythconceptions

"Building a nuclear power station requires huge amounts of concrete and steel, materials whose creation involves huge CO2 pollution."

The steel and concrete in a 1 GW nuclear power station have a carbon footprint of roughly 300 000 t CO2.
Spreading this “huge” number over a 25-year reactor life we can express this contribution to the carbon intensity in the standard units (g CO2 per kWh(e)),

carbon intensity associated with construction = 300× 109 g / 106 kW(e) × 220 000 h

= 1.4 g/kWh(e),

which is much smaller than the fossil-fuel benchmark of 400 g CO2/kWh(e).

The IPCC estimates that the total carbon intensity of nuclear power (including construction, fuel processing, and decommissioning) is less than 40 g CO2/kWh(e) (Sims et al., 2007). Please don’t get me wrong: I’m not trying to be pro-nuclear. I’m just pro-arithmetic.

I wonder what our great-great-great-grandparents would have thought of today's energy 'needs'

So, after all that, it appears that nuclear power is incredibly reliable, and has a comparatively minute CO2 footprint! Makes you wonder what all that fuss up there was about...

So 1/10th the CO2 per kilowatt - I'm surprised at that and I do doubt the figures( given the fudging that has come from the nuke lobby and no one really knows how much decommissioning will take.} however even if it is fudged it will not be by an order of magnitude so will only be marginal ( I hope)

Its not the carbon neutral that many claim tho.

Lies damn lies and statistics.

So 1/10th the CO2 per kilowatt - I'm surprised at that and I do doubt the figures( given the fudging that has come from the nuke lobby and no one really knows how much decommissioning will take.} however even if it is fudged it will not be by an order of magnitude so will only be marginal ( I hope)

Its not the carbon neutral that many claim tho.

Lies damn lies and statistics.

Give it a rest TJ.

David MacKay is very well respected, and also FRS - hardly likely to be fudging results. It looks like you're trying to justify your standpoint with little regard for the facts - something you have accused anyone who dares support nuclear of for some time.

The point is that saying "building a nuclear plant uses HUGE amounts of concrete and steel etc." is no more meaningful than saying "building a tidal barrier / wind farm / solar array / magic bean farm uses HUGE amounts of concrete and steel". You need to quantify what you mean by 'HUGE'.

MacKay's book isn't pro-nuclear, as he says in the last sentence of the bit I quoted. He is trying to get some actual FACTS into the debate though, as they are strangely lacking. Again, I thoroughly recommend reading it.

OK zokes - but surely you accept that their has been much fudging of figures from the nuclear lobby in the past? I did accept that it wouldn't change the comparison tho and the order of magnitude will be right.

I have seen people from the nuclear industry and lobbyists claiming nuclear is carbon neutral which clearly is nonsense.

Decommissioning costs will always have to be an estimate as no one has done one yet.

I have seen people from the nuclear industry and lobbyists claiming nuclear is carbon neutral which clearly is nonsense.

On the basis of including construction and removal, wind farms or tidal barriers aren't carbon neutral either.

Just to come back to where I joined in, TJ's original claim was:

the two nukes in Scotland are running at around 40% of capacity and this fluctuates greatly.

So, to guarantee 10GW of electricity production at 3pm on a given sunday, you need a huge overproduction capacity - you can only guarantee that one of your tidal power facilities will be running at max capacity - one may well be at zero capacity (slack tide), and another at sub optimal capacity,

The fact that tidal power varies with the tides probably won't come as a surprise to many people Z11.

But guess what, the people who build them do take that into account when they work out the cost/benefit of a particular installation. They don't sell them on the basis that they will produce a constant output then act all surprised at low tide. However, they will produce a fairly predictable output, which is a good thing if you're involved in balancing the overall electricity supply.

Basicaly what I've learn't from this thread is that we're all going to die no matter what, so lets just wreck the place up before we go.

I know this is a pretty deplorable thing to say but if the world goes to war in 50 years over oil and the all the reactors blow up followed by prolonged nuclear holocaust and then the climate change comes into play then we're all doomed any way, I won't see my 80th birthday and if not I want to say at least I did get involved in some apocolyptic antics before I died.

The world is already over populated and energy demands are going to go up so theres not much we can do to stop it.

Nuke the French first, followed by the Yanks.

OK zokes - but surely you accept that their has been much fudging of figures from the nuclear lobby in the past?

Yes, I certainly accept it. In particular it makes discussions like this somewhat difficult at times, as has been shown today.

I have seen people from the nuclear industry and lobbyists claiming nuclear is carbon neutral which clearly is nonsense.

I agree - absolutely nonsense. But no worse than oil lobbyists, or biofuel lobbyists - or most other 'ists', for that matter. The key is to remain open-minded

Decommissioning costs will always have to be an estimate as no one has done one yet.

[url= http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf19.html ]
Granted this is clearly a pro-nuclear source[/url], but they refer to IAEA stats. It appears that some have...

zokes - Member

"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.

[b]Epic FAIL.

Even wikipedia can reliably tell you the difference between fission and fusion, ernie...[/b]

"Epic" ? Hehe ..... well if I'm gonna fail, then I like to do it to nothing less than "[i]epic[/i]" proportions 😀

But yeah......if you want to split atoms over this, fair enough.......change the the u for and i, and add an s 8)

.

But they are increasingly dependant on Russia for energy. Not very bright when it comes to energy security.

Fear of dependency on Russian gas has come up a few times, it's a fear which imo, is completely unfounded. It mostly stems from a dispute which Russia had with Ukraine. A dispute in which imo, Russia acted completely reasonable and Ukraine did not. Back in the old days of the Soviet Union, Russia almost gave away their gas to Ukraine. In fact the stuff was so plentiful, and because central heating tended to be 'district based', often the most common way of regulating the temperature in your home in winter was to open or close your windows.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the setting up of the Commonwealth of Independent States, Russia continued to supply Ukraine with gas at knock down prices well below the global price - in fact at a fraction of what it was getting for it from western countries. This arrangement worked OK, only obviously, it was if great benefit to Ukraine but of little benefit to Russia.

Things however changed when the Ukrainians voted out a pro-Russian government, and elected an anti-Russian government - in fact the party of the rather gorgeous Yulia Tymoshenko, stood on a specific "anti-Russian" platform. They then proceeded to tell the Russians to piss off because their new friends were the Americans and they wanted to have nothing more to do with Russia. The Russians understandably said OK, but now you are going to have to pay much closer to the global price for your gas. The Ukrainians refused point blank - despite the fact that the price hike still meant that they would be paying below global prices. So as a consequence, Russia started to turn off the taps. Normal practice I believe - when customers refuse to pay their bills.

Of course the whole episode was exploited by the West, specially by the US, which still desperately wants Russia to be seen as the bogey man in a dangerous world. However imo, the West has nothing to fear from dependency on Russia, anymore than it has to fear dependency on any other country. Russia needs to sell it's gas, in the same way as other countries need to sell their oil, natural resources, etc.

Aracer - nope - you don't have last years figures there which are worse from my memory - less than 25% last year.

The exact figures don't matter - its merely illustrative of the fact that the nukes we have now are less reliable than we were told they would be more expensive electricity with more pollution than we were promised.

Its a simple point. I was told in the 70s how wonderful the nukes would be and they turned out not to be as reliable or as cheap as promised. This leads me to be sceptical of promises of what they will do in the future.

If someone lies to you several times will you believe themn in future?

The exact figures don't matter - its merely illustrative of the fact that the nukes we have now are less reliable than we were told they would be more expensive electricity with more pollution than we were promised.

Its a simple point. I was told in the 70s how wonderful the nukes would be and they turned out not to be as reliable or as cheap as promised. This leads me to be sceptical of promises of what they will do in the future.

If someone lies to you several times will you believe themn in future?

But we're talking fractions here. Those figures from sizewell demonstrated that a plant several generations old has cumulatively operated above 80% to date. Yet it has had to be shut down once or twice, both for routine maintenance and faults - most of the latter being at the non-nuclear generator side. These are the same faults that befall conventional power stations, except without the 'nuclear' word, they don't attract the same hysteria.

Compared to the theoretical maximum installed capacity (the figures you're using to do-down nuclear power), load factors of any renewable resource will be minuscule. Say we have an installed capacity of 30GW tidal power, no matter how clever you were at siting the lagoons and barrages throughout the country, their output as a percentage of theoretical maximum would be about 10GW. It has to be. Run at full power and you get the 30 GW, but all the water's gone and you have to wait for the next tide, generating 0GW. Run slowly to steadily release the water, you're still not getting 30GW, but 10GW all the time, instead of 30W for 1/3, and 0GW for 2/3, same results in the stats.

As for lies - lets see how well scotland does after you get independence eh? That could just be the biggest lie you've believed. It also might not be, but time will tell. Given how many lies all politicians are guilty of, I'd be very sceptical of believing that one...

Given how many lies all politicians are guilty of, I'd be very sceptical of believing that one...

That I can agree with without qualms

They don't sell them on the basis that they will produce a constant output then act all surprised at low tide. However, they will produce a fairly predictable output, which is a good thing if you're involved in balancing the overall electricity supply.

Yep, but that "balancing" needs a reliable and effective backup - which simply cannot be produced from "alternative" sources.

Zokes - if anything the figures would be lower than that - as you need to also factor in reserves, so if your generators at Bristol Channel go offline for some unknown unexpected just when they're needed reason, you have to be able to rank up generation at other sites to make up for the loss at very short notice.

At the moment, thats fairly easy as they push some more out of the nuclear reactors, which can respond quickly and keep some generation in reserve for just that reason, or use diesel generators which can kick in in minutes, giving time to warm up the backup coal fired stations.

Get rid of the nuke and fossil backups, and if the severn barrage goes down, we'll all be stood on the top of a nearby hill huffing and puffing to start the turbines going round again

Generating supply without an reliable backup is worthless.

At the moment, thats fairly easy as they push some more out of the nuclear reactors, which can respond quickly and keep some generation in reserve for just that reason, or use diesel generators which can kick in in minutes, giving time to warm up the backup coal fired stations.

Get rid of the nuke and fossil backups, and if the severn barrage goes down, we'll all be stood on the top of a nearby hill huffing and puffing to start the turbines going round again

Generating supply without an reliable backup is worthless.

Whilst I see you're backing me up, Nukes are the hardest to ramp up and down. That'll be the gas we're running out of that we need to do that. (Or maybe the pumped-storage plants like that in Llanberis)

so if your [b]nucleur power plant[/b] goes offline for some unknown unexpected just when they're needed reason, you have to be able to rank up generation at other sites to make up for the loss at very short notice.

HI,
I work at Torness power station. Im no Nuclear physicist or anything just a general bod but working in the nuclear industry has given me a bit of a different insight ( i guess you may think a one sided view) of the dangers and how safe these things are. So I have a few views id like to add

Safety. Due to the unpredictability of humans nuclear safety fail safes render the chances of a nuclear disaster nil. If the control rods failed to drop fully into the reactor during a trip (virtually impossible and has never happened to the last few generations of reators) nitrogen is automatically injected into the reactor, this would absorb the neutrons and stop the chain reaction. If this fails and the reaction had not been controlled (time frame measured in minutes) boron beads are injected into the reactor which will absorb all the neutrons and stop the chain reaction. If this ever happened it would be final and the reactor would never be able to start again.
Nuclear power stations have an extremely good environmental safety record especially when compared with other heavy industries. I always faied to understand the protesters at Hartlepool Power Station who would drive past the oil refineries and heavy industries of Middlesbrough, which over the years has polluted the ground with heavy metals and the air with various toxins in the pursuit of producing the plastics for toys, plastic bags etc.

Waste. Again im no expert on the issue, which has to be dealt with, but why is it supposed to be such a big insurmountable issue?

Waste is split into 3 levels low, intermediate and high. High level waste amounts to a fraction of the overall amount of waste and is the dangerous stuff (spent fuel etc). Intermediate waste. Well if you ever come across some take a few steps back or you may receive a dose of a few micro sieverts ( your only allowed 20,000 over a year to stay inside recommended safe levels) Low level waste,the vast majority, is fractionally above background levels.
In the posts above the question of the fact that waste is dangerous for thousands of years keeps croping up, dangerous for who? Someone who wants to dig hundreds of meters underground to eat it? Waste is Soild state, liquid waste is mixed with concrete or molten glass to achieve this. Contain this in metal and store it underground. In my opinion this should be able to be accessed by humans so it can be monitored but this can easily be achieved.
Who should pay for the waste? The people who make it. After the intial cost of building them the profits able to be reaped are massive (which is why the french are able to have cheap electricity). They (the french) are going to make alot of money out of us for building new stations so the costs of decommisioning, waste can be paid by them.

Nuclear is cast as some terrible bogey monster by the media but I think this has become a bit of a smoke screen for the renewable sector. The beutiful isle of Lewis came close to being completely covered in wind turbines only for the great distance the electricity had to be cabled to populations meant that 70 percent of the energy would have been lost. Massive power lines right through the centre of Scotland anyone? Bringing wave energy (Unproven) from northern Scotland to the central belt. Sounds inefficient to me.
In an ideal world nuclear would not be needed but as a stop gap I believe it to be the best of current technology. Renewables still need a lot of development, 20-30 years with the best intentions and the costs of carbon capture makes it unlikely to ever be used mass market. Just because the government says that wave technology and carbon capture are the future doesnt make it a reality now. Someone actually has to invent it. Building coal power stations and saying they have to be retro fitted to capture 2% of the CO2 doesnt sound that great considering how much we need to cut our carbon by.

Just my tuppence worth anyway.

Zokes, the [i]latest[/i] French plants are reckoning ramp up from 25% to 100% in 30 minutes - thats pretty darned quick compared with coal etc - though of course you're right to mention gas fired and hydro which I'd omitted.

So, following on from probably the most informed person on this subject yet to post, and IAEA stats, can we finally say that nukes are OK?

(And if not OK, at least necessary for the immediate future?)

From the data that's been shown it appears that nuclear power is actually remarkably reliable, even older plants. They have multiple safety devices to ensure Chernobyl can never be repeated, and even if the impossible were to happen, the loss of life would be minuscule in comparison to that if we carry on doing nothing to avert global warming. In addition, it appears they are a lot more low-carbon than most of us imagined...

Tomorrow's task then is to solve world peace!

Zokes - nope. Not convinced for necessity at all. Nor by the safety thing. Nowt is safe from human error - even a nuke plant ( altho odds may be very low)
[img] [/img]

( altho odds may be very low)

I'll let you explain why the lights have gone out then shall I? Or perhaps you should apologise to the Bangladeshis for us and explain why we had to burn coal and flood their country rather than use uranium?

I know we don't *need* to do any of this, but one thing that's even more unlikely than a nuclear meltdown is us using less electricity, especially if we all start powering our cars by it one way or the other...

We don't "need" to use less energy - actually we do and its the cheapest easiest solution ( If I were in the dictator you would all be using less energy tomorrow)

We are just going to have to disagree on this one.

Sorry, wasn't quite clear - we do indeed need to use less energy - not disagreeing there.

However just how much less, especially if all transport is to be powered by electrically derived H2 or batteries? As has been noted already, we're currently both wasting it having this discussion. For that matter, STW is as I'm sure we don't *need* this website - it simply amuses us and feeds a few people. Where do you draw the line? I could argue that as I'm also working right now that perhaps I do need the PC, but not the speakers currently playing music?

For people to start making sacrifices much bigger than that (which is what's needed), there's more chance of a cold day in hell, or a very warm day in the vicinity of a nuclear reactor near you...

I think stating that the risk of nuclear disasters as low is grossly overestimating the dangers. I find it strange that people are so blind to other industrial dangers which are so much greater but are so passionate about the dangers of nuclear because they have seen the simpsons. Can I ask do you have the same level of concern about the hundreds of tonnes of asbestos that are buried in landfill every year? what happens to that in 100 years? Would you rather live next to a nuclear power station or Bunsefield oil refinery?

Not convinced for necessity at all

Yawn, how many times is this going to be recycled?

Energy demands go up. Load across the grid goes up more power stations have to be built. Can we supply enough energy by one method alone? Surely you have to live in cloud cookoo land to think that 60 million people can get all of their energy demands from the severn estury and 5 or 6 off shore wind farms at S****horpe.

I don't see what the issue with the dangers of nuclear power is. Its not like our oil or coal is ethically sourced. No ones yet pointed out the horible ends politicians will go to, to get these resources.

There are types of reators that actually generate fuel. Fast breeder reactors; also perhaps the risk of terrorist attacks would be greatly reduced if we stopped invading muslim countries rich in this sort of mineral wealth.

I think alot of this thread is absolute waffle, there are alot of people on a high horse who aren't looking at the bigger picture.

Is it ideal? What are we (the government) going to do about it? There has to be some middle ground and whilst nuclear isn't the only or the best answer at least it is an answer. If people keep going round in circles we will come to a point where we can't make or do anything we will be f-u-c-k-e-d. So decisive action must be taken even if it isn't the best action. A move in any direction is better than none surely.

No I'm not trolling and yes my grammer/spelling is shocking but. No I don't have the facts bt I think this has been done to death several times already.

It does amuse me the slating I am getting for my position. Its my opinion based on a significant amount of reading and thought and it is not a stupid position. I simply believe that alternatives to the nukes are plausible - a series of measures from increased efficiency to decreased consumption to increased renewables. its not pie in the sky of dreamworld.

Increased use of energy is not inevitable.

I simply believe that alternatives to the nukes are plausible - a series of measures from increased efficiency to decreased consumption to increased renewables. its not pie in the sky of dreamworld.

Increased use of energy is not inevitable.

Correct - increased use of energy is not inevitable. However, as the various blind governments of the world kid us that electric and H2 cars are the way forwards, you can be certain [u]electricity[/u] use will increase. We can't even deal with replacing existing demand on electricity with renewables, let alone increased demand. Your great idea demands reductions in electricity to work.

You forget that electricity accounts for less than half the UK energy at present, with heat and transport being the main users. So even if we stopped using everything electrical from tomorrow, we still wouldn't cut our energy demands by 50%. As oil and gas decrease, more and more that was fuelled by those fuels will require electricity to power them instead. So just how can we use less electricity?

Moreover, if all transport and heating switched to electricity overnight, and we stopped using all existing electrical appliances, we wouldn't have enough electricity to power it at present, never mind with your proposed cuts in generation capacity...

I simply believe that alternatives to the nukes are plausible

A large proportion of the world's population believe in various, auto-exclusive monotheistic religions. It's quite easy to see how daft that is...

Alex -

5 or 6 off shore wind farms at S****horpe

Sorry to do this - S****horpe is not on the coast, nor in the sea. Please do not do the navigating on any group rides.

By the way has anyone noticed that large amounts of energy, from any source, are by their very nature dangerous. That doesn't mean unsafe - safety and danger are two very different concepts - but if something were to go wrong a couple of GigaWatts up your padded lycra would (briefly) focus your mind.

Of course the most amusing thing I found out today is the length of time it takes to build offshore windfarms. It looks like one turbine a week per transportation / installation boat would be good going in good weather, which at a guess looks like half the year. A 4GW farm will need in the region of 1000 turbines, so let's say 10 boats, makes about 4 years. And that's not one of the bigger windfarms. It's going to take a while to build these.

Or Nucs to be fair.

Or much else.

Switch a few lights off would you.