[Closed] proposed Nucular powerstations

Best way forward IMO

oh - & there'll be [is] one 25 miles away from me

Non in Scotland so that suits me as I am against nukes totally. Hunterston and torness will be shut soon so roll on nuke free Scotland

keeps me in work so its all good

So basically, no new sites, just replacement reactors on existing sites, to replace the old ones being decommissioned.

TJ - planning in Scotland is a devolved matter so there will be a Scottish decision at some later point. BBC report suggests Scottish govt. opposed, will be interesting to see how much they are leant on by London.

Anyone know where can I get a sticker saying "Atomkraft, ja bitte"?

roll on nuke free Scotland

If it all goes wrong - given the prevailing winds - those 3 sites on the Cumbrian coast should give you a bit of fall out 😀

Non in Scotland so that suits me as I am against nukes totally. Hunterston and torness will be shut soon so roll on nuke free Scotland

Fine by me. When the fossil fuel runs out we can sell volts to the Jocks and make a killing.
😉

that's ok, the scots will all have been killed in the great wind turbine disaster of 2020, they will be as dense as the forests by then and you've seen what happens when one tree blows down in a forest.....

Considering how many 1960's and 70's landfills there are which no-one knows what the **** went in to them 30-40 years later how on earth they think they can keep radioactive material safe for thousands of years is a joke.

And before anyone jumps down my throat and says the hippy is just spouting rhetoric, i do know what im talking about to a certain extent, i have a masters in Geology and currently work in the geotechnical industry and the issues with the whole scheme is not the safety of the power stations but the storage and saftey of the used fuel.

keep radioactive material safe for thousands of years

Any material with such a long half-life isn't very radioactive, by definition.

...and the longevity of supply of fissile material is?

Something like 25-40 years perhaps?

Is that Scandinavian reactor anywhere near being finished within 5 years of its programmed completion date?

There don't seem that many for the amount of enegy the govt say we need though.

PeterPoddy - Member

Fine by me. When the fossil fuel runs out we can sell volts to the Jocks and make a killing.

Don't hold your breath. As I recall, there are coal reserves in Scotland which would last around 80 years (at [i]current[/i] useage rates).

I'm not wildy keen but do see it as the best available option in the relatively short term. Sure they'll take years to come online but if we want to wean ourselves from fossil fuels there doesn't seem to be a practical alternative at the moment. Yes, the waste is a problem but has to be looked at in the context of other problems it might offset.

' As I recall, there are coal reserves in Scotland which would last around 80 years (at current useage rates). '

ah yes, because the Scottish govt sustainable development agendas include coal fired power stations...

hungry monkey - Member

ah yes, because the Scottish govt sustainable development agendas include coal fired power stations...

Yep

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article5949920.ece

Lets have loads of em, can't wait. There'll be that much power well all be able to waste it everyday, oops we do that now. Supose that we would not need so much power if we all stopped using so much electricity, including p1ssing in the wind on here. The G20 thread must have kept sellafield busy today.

I live 3 miles from Torness. It hasn't caused me any problems yet.

I expect it to be decommissioned in about 20 years and I expect a Torness B to be up and running by then.

yep just across the river from bradwell glad it going to be fired up again then maybe i can get a job there

donald - Member

I live 3 miles from Torness. It hasn't caused me any problems yet.

That's like the story of the guy jumping off the Empire State building. As he passed each floor, he could be heard saying "so far - so good, so far - so good....".

My brother in law is one of the main engineers that [s]runs[/s] sorry, keeps and eye on Sizewell A....guess he has a job for life...

druidh - Member

hungry monkey - Member

ah yes, because the Scottish govt sustainable development agendas include coal fired power stations...

Yep

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article5949920.ece

hmm... well that article mentions scottish power, and the london government (the ones who also want nuclear). the article doesn't mention the scottish [i]government[/i]

now, the scot sustainable development commission has told the scottish [b]government[/b] that

carbon capture is not proven to work effectively or efficiently

Was at a conference recently where a leading researcher put the remaining coal reserves in teh world at 5000 years at current usage. That's a lot of coal.

Really we should be spending more on fusion - last year the world spent more on ringtones than on nuclear fusion research.

Poterclough - that decison has already been taken
There will be no new nukes in Scotland. there is a clear majority in the country and the parliament against it. London Labour gave up leaning on the scots government over this hence this proposal for new nukes does not include any in Scotland.

Don't forget that at the moment Scotland exports elec to England and could be nuke free already bar this exported elec ( which BTW is never shown in any calculations about scotland and money)

Scotland is well placed to use renewables instead. Salmond has said the scottish government wil go ahead in this area to become a world leader - I suspect it is a load of hot air but the technology and willingness to do so is there,

Tidal barrage / more hydro / wave power ( one major project is going ahead)

Strangely non in london town, or Hull, or even cornwall, all places with high unemployment either soon or now, all with rivers or water for cooling, and plenty of disposable members of society if something goes wrong , just give them a mop or a shovel, and send them in.

TJ - not strictly true- scotland currently uses 42 TWh of nuke energy but only exports 8TWh.

Scotland is well placed to use renewables but IMO the current trend toward wind farms (particularly on land) is a mistake, the cash would be better spend in offshore and tidal. But that's just MO.

Coffeking - thats if the nukes are working flat out. According to the government the amount of power actually generated by the two over the last few years is less than the exports.

I donno about your figures anyway ( altho IIRC from previous debates you sound like you know your stuff on this)
I thought 25% of the elec generated in Scotland went to England

You are right about the offshore and tidal - and don't forget wave. There is a wave installation supposed to be going in the minch

I'd have to check my figures on that TBH, you may have a fair point there.

Wave is an interesting one, a field I'd like to get into when I can think of something worthy of some research and get some industrial collaborators!

"Considering how many 1960's and 70's landfills there are which no-one knows what the **** went in to them 30-40 years later how on earth they think they can keep radioactive material safe for thousands of years is a joke."

Yep all the landfill is just depelted uranium.............................

Whats a little more likely is the hand towels form the toilets got sent to the wrong waste dump (nothing from nuclear powe plants is supposed to go into muicipal waste just in case). Whilst not strictly correct, a load of paper towels isn't going to give you cancer.

So yes, you are a hippy spouting rhetoric.

coffeeking - you're not supposed to actually know (or care about) any actual figures in this sort of debate, the rule is you start from, say, an irrational hatred of wind/nuclear (delete as applicable) and then state blithely that there is "plenty" of whatever you are in favour of, and "not enough" of whatever you are against.

😉

FYI, anyone who is actually interested in any of this stuff should read this book, available free:

www.withouthotair.com

Coffeking - you know about pelarmis?

Pro nuke types - what is the answer to the waste then?

[url= http://www.nationalgrid.com/uk/Electricity/Data/Realtime/Demand/Demand60.htm ]live elec consumption in uk[/url]

as of 17.31pm england was exporting 142MW elec, net, to scotland.

😛

Pelamis is cool 🙂
20,000 homes = 1km sq wave 'farm', not too bad. developed and built in scotland 🙂

TJ- The Pelamis pilot, off Portugal, is curently offline & u/s with engineering problems.

Generally, the world has 2 choices. Rely on fossil fuels for the next few years and destroy the ecosphere as a place habitable for humans within 50 years, or go nuclear and find a way of coping with the waste. I prefer the second option.

I was down the road from bradwell when it cought fire (presume it was bradwell, any other decomissione nuke plants in that area?)

Odd it never made it onto the news, a bit of mass hysteria could have been interesting.

Moses - there are plenty of other options as well. For example energy efficiency. I have seen it quoted that if the cost of one Nuclear power station was put into domestic insulation then it would save more energy that the power station would create.

Nukes are not carbon neurtal anyway - over the lifetime of the station including all carbon dioxide produced they are not much better than a coal station. All that concrete and so on.

How about local heat and power from coppiced woodland.

Disappointing news about the pelarmis project in Portugal.

Yup, I know of pelamis - serious feat of engineering (that seems to fairly frequently upset the engineers by breaking!).

Unfortunately the view that Moses holds here is about the top-bottom and sides of it if you assume people wont change their ways, if you follow the figures as suggested by the climate scientists, if we continue as we are or only slow a little we're basically stuffed. We need a no-carbon alternative as we have missed the boat with renewables to stop the current problem. Hence nukes are the only real intermediate solution, but they have their own inherent problems. There's no way we can up renewables use enough to make a dent, whether independant of England or not - the problem is global and most of the globe is further behind renewables than we are. Without some MAJOR renewable leaps AND open season on planning applications for those projects we're fighting a losing battle. We must invest heavily in renewables ASAP and invest heavily in the safe disposal of nuke waste - nukes not my field so I cant really comment on it very well.

If we could make everything far more efficient, as you say TJ, we'd have a lot fewer problems, but the climate issue would still be there as places like china and india will not tow the line. Unfortunately to make use of woodland and burn biomass you'd be burning about an acre of mature woodland a second for a normal gas powerplant output - not sustainable. Theres one planned in scotland somewhere where they plan to ship wood in from the US?!

porterclough - sorry! I do have an irrational hatred of on-shore windfarms despite thinking that individual wind turbines are beautiful feats of engineering, does that count?

But nukes are not carbon free by any means - not even remotely efficient in those terms. consuming less is the only option. Nukes are no answer in any way.

The production of a nuke plant and mining its fuel uses more carbon than a gas/coal plant does over it's life including its manufacture? I'm not so sure. 11TWh/y goes on running oil rigs alone from scotland, I cant see the uranium mining and enrichment being vastly larger.

Working from memory - a nuke power station uses 4 x the amount of concrete than a conventional one. Mining and refining the fuel is a greater carbon amount as well. Decommissioning costs (in carbon)are Large unknown but again larger than a conventional power station. Per kilowatt of elec produced it is less carbon from a nuke - but not zero by a long way. Do nukes not have to have a small conventional power station as well to run pumps and so on?

Nuclear is a great idea.

However to keep transmission costs down, they should be sited in the centres of electrical consumption. That is in the centres of cities, and the used fuel should be stored there too.

That way we may have some chance of proper safety measures not getting the NHS cost cutting measures in years to come.

With regards to the radioactive waste why not stick it in a big rocket and fire it at the sun? That should do it 😉

At the end of the day I believe this is effectively a faith based debate. I have no faith in nukes - "electricity to cheap to meter" - remember that?

To me they are unreliable, expensive, there is no way of disposing of the waste which is very dangerous, they are not carbon neutral, etc etc.

No one actually knows - its down to faith

No one actually knows - its down to faith

You are quite right, and I have more faith in a new nuclear generation that our ability to either:

a) Generate equivalent amounts of reliable (yes, nukes are usually reliable) baseload electricity

b) reduce the need so much that we don't need to replace existing stations

It's either nukes or coal, really - there's your choice.

And before yet more rhetoric gets spouted about energy saving - just how necessary is it for any of us to be wasting electricity browsing this site, or for the site to exist and use energy at all? Apply that to all your small vices, and it would be a very different world....

Zokes - the history of nukes shows massive unreliability