Beginners guide to nuclear power stations ?

What have I not answered?

How do you get round the fact that there is not enough nuclear fuel?
Of course there is plenty of renewable energy. Harvesting it is the issue but the energy is there

5th – tidal does not have to mean barrages

Sound of Islay Tidal Array

5th – there is a non barrage tidal generation scheme being installed of the scottish coast. Actually non barrage schemes are viable

The bit you conveniently forget is this: The 30 year hiatus in nuclear investment following TMI and Chernobyl is what has set back technologies such as fusion and Th by about 30 years.

The trouble is that Fukushima is just the ammunition the short-sighted anti-nuclear lobby needs to cut back agin, just as progress was being made. Had such a cut back not been made 30 years ago, the ’50 years until fusion’ might now only be 20 years away – less than half the lifespan of a U-fission plant. As it is, we’d still require at least two generations of any conventional plant.

That’s not the severn.

I bet the local do-gooders think it’ll upset dolphins or something.

With nuclear and other options it would make a whole lot more sense to pass some laws so the government can act strategically with no hassle from nimbys.

How do you get round the fact that there is not enough nuclear fuel

Ever heard of ‘re-processing’? Whodathunkit – recycling in the nuclear sector 🙄

That is a ridiculous assumption without any basis at all.

If all the money wasted on the dead end of nukes had been spent on efficiency and renewable how much better would both be?

Zokes – reprocessing – is that not the uranium cycle againa nd does it not create massive amounts of waste that we have no way of dealing with?

Or is Fukushima not actually the proof that nukes are unreliable and dangerous?

That is a ridiculous assumption without any basis at all.

Really? No basis whatsoever?

Are you seriously suggesting that the primary funders of nuclear energy research – governments and nuclear companies – seeing no immediate future for nuclear power due to public perception as a result of two disasters just carried on research as fast as they could?!? Nope, the governments stopped funding like a stone wall, and companies scaled back R&D significantly. This is why the ITER still isn’t finished.

I would have thought such logic would be quite simple for you to grasp…

If all the money wasted on the dead end of nukes had been spent on efficiency and renewable how much better would both be?

I don’t know.
Do you?

The argument that nuclear is both expensive/inefficient and also the choice of capitalism is confusing to me.

Or is Fukushima not actually the proof that nukes are unreliable and dangerous?

Given what happened to the plant (worst quake on record and a massive tsunami), I (and many others) would conclude that it is infact a damned sight safer than most had imagined. Would you like me to go back through the three concurrently running threads and re-highlight to you numbers of deaths from other energy generation methods? Or are you at least capable of that yourself?

Zokes – reprocessing – is that not the uranium cycle againa nd does it not create massive amounts of waste that we have no way of dealing with?

It is the uranium cycle. Despite your apparent wilful pig-headedness, even you must be able to get the link between ‘huge cutbacks in R&D’ and ‘old technology in use’.

We have plenty ways of dealing with it. Mainly, bury it well out of the way of anywhere where it can ahve an environmental or human effect. Compare and contrast this with our current disposal methods for CO2 etc…

Or is Fukushima not actually the proof that nukes are unreliable and dangerous?

Text book example of how reliable and safe they actually are.

Hit by an earthquake and great big tsunami and nothing much happens.

I’m more than happy to have one down the road from me (which I have). Better than windmills.

Higgo – correct – no one knows.

Nukes is the choice of capitalism because its expensive 🙄 Lots of lovely profits – subsidised profits at that

Fukushima showing how safe it is? Its still not under control and indeed the news continues to get worse. We hgave core meltdown, containment breach, massive radioactive release that continues to get worse and you claim it shows how safe it is? Are you blind? Teh Japanese government are now saying the evacuation zone might have to be permanent the pollution is that bad

the pollution is that bad

Take a look at any of the evidence for its immediate alternatives (coal, gas), and tell me with a straight face their emissions have caused less damage on a global scale. Your arguments are beginning to suffer greatly from your lack of objectiveness.

How about on a local scale? Or even global? Look at the state of the irish sea? Look at the area around chernobly.

No conventional power station accident needs people evacuated from miles around it for decades.

You are so wedded to your high tech belief in nukes that your mind is completely closed to its disadvantages and the alternatives.

No conventional power station accident needs people evacuated from miles around it for decades.

Nope, they just do it through ‘normal operation’. Have you forgotten aboiut the small issue of climate change; rising sea levels and changed weather patterns?

Why are you being so obtuse?

“If the amount of money spent on Nukes had been spent on renewables over the last 30 years then how much better would they be?”

You are right, with a caveat. Look back at my posts…

We are where we are with Uranium reactors because of the cold war need for Plutonium. There is no argument about this. The technology and infrastructure existed so it’s not surprising that this happened.

It’s clear we are overdue moving on to better technology like wind, tidal, wave, Thorium, carbon capture, solar panels, low-cost insulation etc. These things are happening but for various reasons* will take decades to bear fruit and meanwhile there is an “Energy Gap”. Uranium PWRs will partially fill that gap, not much else can.

*concerns about environment, wildlife, visual impact, cost of technology research, public opinion, predicted demand, cost per unit etc, all have to be worked through with the public before politicians can make it happen. This takes decades.

Lots of lovely profits

Oh pleeease…

We are not living in a communist state here – get used to it. If you want to see how responsible communist states have been with this topic AHEM: CHERNOBYL!!!

zokes – Member

Why are you being so obtuse?

I am not. I have a different point of view from you . IMO you are being really obtuse refusing to see the obvious disadvantages of Nukes and refusing to see just how dangerous they are – even with the evidence before your eyes

As TJ is so anti-nuclear I just hope he refuses to use the 30% of the electricity coming into his home generated by nuclear power.

Dibbs -I use significantly less energy than the average uk resident.

Its all about total energy usage and total environmental penalty

hmm whats the installed cost per kw of PV, tidal, wind V new nuclear

T1000 – no one really knows. We don’t really know how much electricity Tidal will produce and no one knows the costs of decommissioning nuclear power stations as it has never been done.

The only numbers you will see are guestimates and for nukes check – normally the numbers you see do not include decommissioning costs

no one knows the costs of decommissioning nuclear power stations as it has never been done

When you throw sweeping and unsubstantiated remarks like this, it completely undermines your objectivity and credibility amongst readers

There is a big list of decommissioned reactors on Wikipedia, with costs.

.

Oops 😳

However if you actually look at the list – I have only had a brief glance – very few decommissioning completed at huge costs. None in the UK

Oops

However if you actually look at the list … None in the UK
Apart from Berkeley Magnox and Windscale AGR.

so mo one knows how much the ‘green alternative’ is going to cost…..

not selling it to me then….

Green alternative? Which one>?

Higgo – If I read that right neither is completed yet or even anywhere near completeed yet so it is correct to say none in the UK

completed decommissioining is wehen you have a greenfield site with no monitoring needed.

From that wiki link

Decommissionning is very expensive. The current estimate by the United Kingdom’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority is that it will cost at least £70 billion to decommission the 19 existing United Kingdom nuclear sites; this takes no account of what will happen in the future. Also, due to the radioactivity in the reactor structure, decommissioning is a slow process which takes place in stages. The plans of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority for decommissioning reactors have an average 50 year time frame. The long time frame makes reliable cost estimates extremely difficult. Excessive cost overruns are not uncommon even for projects done in a much shorter time frame

We have one chance to get this right for future generations. IMO going for nuclear is putting all our eggs in one basket – and the timescales are not helpfull as it will trake decades to get any electricity out of them. We could be producing massive amounts of electricity from wave and tidal within a few years with the investment.
Nukes are also horrendously expensive with total costs unkown and all the unreliablity and danger of the nukes.

Instead we could spread our risk wider with a mixed bag of renewables and major energy conservation measures that eaily could reduce our total greenhouse gas production. If you think nuclear has been starved of funding hen renewables have been even more. One of the best – pelarmis had to get the first installation in Portugal as the UK governemnt would not fund it.

I say again if all the money wsted on nukes had been spent on energy conservation and renewables how good would they be now?

its a simple choice – the high tech high risk nukes or the low tech low risk mixed bag of efficiency measure and renewables.

Myself I like to spread the risk

IMO going for nuclear is putting all our eggs in one basket

Well only if you do actually put all your eggs in one basket and only go for nuclear rather with nothing else. Duh! Except that’s not what anybody is proposing – I call strawman.

Instead we could spread our risk wider with a mixed bag of renewables

or maybe a mixed bag of renewables (the ones which are practical reliable long term solutions – let’s stop wasting money on windmills) and nuclear.

its a simple choice – the high tech high risk nukes or the low tech low risk mixed bag of efficiency measure and renewables

Only an either-or choice if your name is Jeremy and so blinkered that you can’t consider nuclear as part of a complete system. Not that I think you can describe renewables which are still relatively unproven, certainly on the scale required, as “low risk”. In any objective sense, nuclear is extremely low risk, but of course some people refuse to look at this issue objectively.

Aracer – thats just such bullshine

You accuse me of being blinkered 🙄

Renewables are low risk whats the damage if / when they fail? Not billions of pounds and exclusion zones of hundreds of square miles

Nukes are high risk. it will take decades to get any new generation, fuel supplies are uncertain, it is highly polluting, it is dangerous, it is extremely expensive, there is no answer to the issues of waste an d decommissioning.

It is either / or. If we spend the huge sums needed to create new nukes we don’t have any money for renewables – this is why renewables have been starved of cash for decades in the UK and only since devolution has there been significant investment in Scotland

Or are you proposing spending twice as much just so you can get the dangerous, unreliable, expensive nukes that you want – and still have no answer to waste and decommissioning

Really – you guys are so blinkered on this

energy efficiency and renewables mean there is no need for nukes and can be done cheaper and more quickly without leaving a toxic legacy for generations to come

“renewables … unproven”. Dear me, how much more proof do you want, Aracer? Windmills have been serving man for thousands of years, hydro for as long, PV 40 years, solar heating thousands of years too. The newcomer is this unmanageable nuclear stuff which results in a couple of thousand incidents a year in a country honest enough to pulish them, perhaps because it has the best safety record.

I say again if all the money wsted on nukes had been spent on energy conservation and renewables how good would they be now?

I don’t know.
Do you?

Renewables are low risk whats the damage if / when they fail?

You do realise that many more people died in Japan in the aftermath of the quake due to lack of power than will ever die due to the nuclear reactor going wrong? When will you ever look at the bigger picture including the dangers of the sources of energy you like?

If we spend the huge sums needed to create new nukes we don’t have any money for renewables

Why won’t private money be used for renewables in exactly the same way it will be used for the new nuke programme? If people aren’t prepared to invest their own money (but are in nukes), then surely that tells you something?

how much more proof do you want, Aracer? Windmills have been serving man for thousands of years, hydro for as long, PV 40 years

Some proof of them generating enough electricity on a consistent basis to supply our energy needs might be good – using windmills and water mills to grind corn doesn’t really do it for me. However good PV might be for you down there in Northern Europe, surely we’ve agreed it won’t work year round here – I mean even down your way if you have a windless December you’d be struggling with a mix of those, no way will they provide energy security up here.

I’m looking for proven renewable technology capable of supplying our base load year round in the way nuclear can. We don’t have enough sun for 3+ months of the year, the wind doesn’t always blow (and sometimes blows too much), and we simply don’t have enough hydro resource to cover our needs. The only viable renewable on the horizon capable of supplying the baseload to replace nuclear/carbon is tidal, and that is still very unproven on the scales required.

The newcomer is this unmanageable nuclear stuff which results in a couple of thousand incidents a year in a country honest enough to pulish them

Doom, doom, doom. Exactly what do these “incidents” you mention amount to? If they happened in any other industry (eg wind power) would they even bother mentioning a circuit failing and the system automatically going to the backup?

aracer – Member

You do realise that many more people died in Japan in the aftermath of the quake due to lack of power than will ever die due to the nuclear reactor going wrong? When will you ever look at the bigger picture including the dangers of the sources of energy you like?

How many people was that then? tidal and wave is fairly earthquake / tsunami proof as well

We cannot yet even estimate the number of extra cancers from the radioactive release – because its not stopped yet. It could easily be thousands of deaths over a generation. It might only be hundreds

The only viable renewable on the horizon capable of supplying the baseload to replace nuclear/carbon is tidal

I dunno – how do you handle two flat spots a day? (honest question)

Molgrips – a tidal installation has around 18 – 20 hrs. a day of generation, around the coast the tide is at very different times – so with a few different locations……

the other answer is to use surplus electricity to split water for hydrogen and then use that at times of peak load to generate electricity. added inefficiencies tho

I’d rather live next door to a nuclear power station than hydrogen storage.

At 43° N I’m further south than parts of Spain. I really don’t believe any rational person would claim I live in northern Europe.

We’re now into a “dialogue de sourds”, Aracer. Why not just call those that have demonstrated that renewables are viable for large scale production liars and be done with it. Spain, France and Germany are all over 16% renewable production whilst exploiting a tiny proportion of their solar, tidal and wind potential. We know the way, we lack the will.

400!