Beginners guide to nuclear power stations ?

I ask again. How much electricity has hunters ton produced recently?

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!!!!!

I ask again. What relevance has the performance of a nuclear power station who’s construction was started only 12 years into the commercial nuclear power age to new ones designed with the benefit of over 40 years more knowledge?

Aracer seems to think tho that you need a destructive barrage and that its an insignificant amount of energy still.

As I said earlier – people ( including myself) are not listening after a few posts
Well at least you’re a little bit self-aware. Strange that you’ve not noticed one of the supporters of nuclear power is also one of those who likes the idea of undersea tidal and has been supporting you with information on that.

the experts on here – all of who totally dismiss renewable despite good data and links

Well clearly I’m not an expert, as I’m not dismissing (practical) renewables – I’m really struggling to think who is, you’re going to have to name names.

By the very nature of supporting nukes you reject the proposition that renewables and efficiency can ensure the lights don’t go out.

Its a huge capital investment and research programme to do this. We cannot afford to waste the money on the nukes we don’t need. Its an either / or proposition to some extent.

What as surprise – I wake up and the flouncer is still at it. Give it a rest TJ, unless you have something new and factual to add.

NOONE HERE IS SAYING RENEWABLES SHOULD BE REPLACED BY NUCLEAR, OR THAT NUCLEAR SHOULD BE BUILT IN LIU OF RENEWABLES

Got that? Need it repeating? A few exclamation marks to get it into your clearly obtuse brain?

all of who totally dismiss renewable despite good data and links

I have posted three links to Science and Nature on this thread. If you care so much to keep arguing black is white, I’d suggest you get yourself down to your local library to read them. I think you’ll find the top two peer-reviewed scientific journals in the world are probably the most reliable sources that anyone can cite.

By the very nature of supporting nukes you reject the proposition that renewables and efficiency can ensure the lights don’t go out

No – I reject the idea that renewables and efficiency can stop the lights going out because they can’t – nothing to do with the fact I’m not hysterically scared of nukes. Your own links provide the proof – Professor MacKay reckons only 12.5GW from tide and wave for Scotland when current consumption is 26GW – and that’s including very unproven wave. Bearing in mind Scotland has far better tidal resources than the rest of the UK and far lower consumption the gap only gets bigger if you look outside Scotland. I have to admit I actually thought tidal would do a bit better than that eventually! Meanwhile KTN reckons on a maximum of 2.5GW installed marine capacity for the whole of Europe by 2020, at which point new nuclear could well be coming online to plug that 23.5GW (minus efficiency savings) gap for Scotland if all of that capacity is there!

We cannot afford to waste the money on the nukes we don’t need windmills which don’t do any practical good

FTFY

Its an either / or proposition

Given the current renewable installation/research isn’t about to stop if we get new nuclear (which will be privately funded), no it’s not! Why do you continue to lie like this?

Renewables have been starved of investment over decades and will continue to be so if we go ahead with nukes.. Its a tiny fraction of the money spent on R&D into nukes. The Scottish company that makes the best wave generator had to build the prototype in Portugal FFS

We need massively increased investment in renewables.

aracer – Member
Meanwhile KTN reckons on a maximum of 2.5GW installed marine capacity for the whole of Europe by 2020

The Scottish Govt report linked to above suggests over 3GW of marine capacity for Scotland alone by 2015, with an early Pentland Firth Tidal scheme generating 1.6GW soon after 2015. These are still small number compared to what is required overall, but it does call into question some of the figures being bandied about.

the uk demands around 60GW of power, the largest realistic severn barrage plan would produce around 10GW of power (and destroy it as an important area for wildlife)

but we’ve only got 1 severn estuary, any more will probably have to come from individual turbines.

the big ones would give us around 5MW each: so we’d need 2000 of them to match the 10GW from a severn barrage.

if the 10Gw severn scheme is a massive engineering project, then 2000 individual turbines is a step into the realm of fantasy – these things aren’t as easy to install as wind turbines.

so, even ignoring the slack times of the tide, tidal power is unlikely to ever provide more than a third of our power.

a welcome contribution, and it can be done, it probably will be done, but the cost of getting there will be very high.

so where do we get the other 2 thirds from? (40GW) – wind and wave don’t count cos we’ll need back up for when it’s not windy/wavey.

40GW? anyone? remembering of course that we’re not allowed coal, gas, oil, any form of nuclear, hydro, waste incineration, bio-mass, or to buy it from a euro-super-grid*.

(*some of the juice might come from the naughty-list, and buying it is just as bad as producing it)

i’d be just as happy as TJ to abandon ‘nukes’ if you can tell me a way to produce 40GW…

as ever, i’m an idiot, and mainly just thinking out loud – please feel welcome to point out my mistakes, and gaps in my ponderings, it’s all good interesting stuff.

good night all.

X

the uk demands around 60GW of power

The idea that renewables can power the UK mandates that IN ADDITION to the power generation we slash our consumption.

Some folk are saying that we can slash by 75%, which would make your above idea feasible (kind of, since it’s simplified as you pointed out).

I suspect that whilst we may be able to slash domestic energy consumption by a large figure, much of that is gas or oil rather than electricity.

But still – 40GW, that’s what, 2kW per household? So if we put solar panels on every house.. we probably wouldn’t match that but we could maybe make half of it, and bear in mind that there are plenty of factories, sheds, barns etc we could use too. Of course that wouldn’t work at night so you’d need storage…

So we need:

Massive roll-out of renewable generation
A means of storing vast amounts of energy and I mean VAST
Significant infrastructure investment

All of which need to happen without any direct economic imperative since there’s plenty of coal still available overseas, so it’d have to be done via public funds.

Not asking much, is it? A lot more difficult than building a few nukes imo.

Are you all now arguing for zero emmisions ? All conventional generation to go? there are only 10 new nukes planned IIRC. I thought the aim was a reduction in CO2 output and replacement of agiing generators of all sorts.

so now you want what 40 or 50 new nukes?

so now you want what 40 or 50 new nukes?

Eh what? I just showed some sums.

The Scottish Govt report linked to above suggests over 3GW of marine capacity for Scotland alone by 2015, with an early Pentland Firth Tidal scheme generating 1.6GW soon after 2015.

Except if you check Figure 12.10 (just above those figures) it seems they’re including offshore wind in marine capacity, meanwhile further up it says “six wave and four tidal projects with a potential capacity to generate 1.2 GW of marine energy in the Pentland Firth” – so that’s 1.2GW potential peak in the middle of a spring tide with just the perfect amount of waves.

I don’t see renewables getting anywhere near even covering the 10 proposed new nukes by 2020 – proposed new capacity is 16GW BTW. The thing is, I think you’ll find that a large chunk of renewables has been factored into the budgets anyway, so you’d need to find 16GW beyond what is currently planned!

Don’t forget spreading demand, Molgrips. If the financial incentive is great enough then people will not consume when asked not to. French and Italian experience proves this. France with its punitive tarifs for a few days/weeks of the year if you sign up to very cheap electricity the rest of the year, and limited capacity meters. Italy with intelligent meters that vary tarifs through the day. Combine the two and you knock the peaks off demand both daily and in winter.

Demand is quite predictable, so much so that I knew when to turn up at a hydro scheme to get my samples. I took the before samples, wandered up to the control room, played the amused spectator as they went from zero to lots of watts in a few seconds (more intersting was watching the sagging frequency meter rise as a consequence), then wandered out to take the generating samples.

Give a financial incentive to fit a meter that trips off at 20A and people will adapt. For most of my adult life I’ve lived with meters limited to 3, 6 or 9 kW and it just hasn’t been an issue. You simply don’t put everything on at the same time. Industry is happy to play this game too, electricity intensive industries such as aluminium shutting down during peak demand periods.

Edit: I’ve curently got a 9kW meter and checked to see what the highest load we’ve ever drawn was – 29A or 6.7kW. Probably my wife turning on three rings and the oven. I knew I should have bought the model that only had two rings but it was more expensive 😉

aracer – Member
Except if you check Figure 12.10 (just above those figures) it seems they’re including offshore wind in marine capacity,

Ah – bluddy semantics again! If folk could all stick to the same definition of “marine capacity”, these discussions would be so much easier 🙂

meanwhile further up it says “six wave and four tidal projects with a potential capacity to generate 1.2 GW of marine energy in the Pentland Firth” – so that’s 1.2GW potential peak in the middle of a spring tide with just the perfect amount of waves.

My understanding is that tidal is pretty much a guaranteed baseload for 23 hours per day? Seems that’s a better bet than wave power then.

I don’t see renewables getting anywhere near even covering the 10 proposed new nukes by 2020 – proposed new capacity is 16GW BTW. The thing is, I think you’ll find that a large chunk of renewables has been factored into the budgets anyway, so you’d need to find 16GW beyond what is currently planned!

And that’s surely TJs argument. The more we spend on nuclear, the less we have available to spend on alternatives – i.e. it is an either/or situation due to cash constraints?

POSTED 6 HOU

By the very nature of supporting nukes you reject the proposition that renewables and efficiency can ensure the lights don’t go out.

Well that’s just a false dichotomy. You really don’t do yourself or your argument any favours with comments like that.

TandemJeremy – Member

Are you all now arguing for zero emmisions ? All conventional generation to go?

basically yes.

you’ve convinced me that nuclear power is too dangerous.

that means fossil fuels, and hydro-power/storage are off the list too – for being even more dangerous; climate change, deaths during mining, deaths on oil-rigs, air-quality, dam-collapse, etc.

well done, you’ve convinced me! – i’m onboard!

but we still need to find 40GW…

(i’m assuming we’re not going to reduce our consumption – there’s no harm preparing for the inevitable)

that means fossil fuels, and hydro-power/storage are off the list too – for being even more dangerous

Don’t forget that when you calculate deaths in proportion to the amount of electricity generated, wind is also more dangerous than nuclear.

In fact I think the only things we’re left with are those which haven’t actually been tried yet.

Could we capture hot air from internet forums?

Are you all now arguing for zero emmisions ? All conventional generation to go?

basically yes.

Agreed – isn’t that the aim?

I’d also close coal and gas before existing nuclear. And if we’re left with a gap (as I believe we will be), I’d build new nuclear to fill the gap.

I’d like to think that this is the last generation of uranium nuclear that we’ll have to build.

Could we capture hot air from internet forums?

and methane.

wind is also more dangerous than nuclear

Ah, someone else who’s been to the Khana Peena curry house on Croham Road.

Combine the two and you knock the peaks off demand both daily and in winter

You can’t iron the peaks out completely. We all want the lights on when the sun goes down, and we all want a cuppa at half time in the FA cup final. Plus factories will want to be running in the daytime.

ahwiles – Member
(i’m assuming we’re not going to reduce our consumption – there’s no harm preparing for the inevitable)

Does anybody really think the consumption will go down significantly?

Gas is presumably going to go up in price making it less attractive for heating/cooking, and a lot of new builds don’t seem to have it included any more.

Secondly due to rising petrol prices & tax breaks on electric cars I personally think we are going to see electric cars taking off over the next 15-20 years in a big way.

Does anybody really think the consumption will go down significantly?

Not voluntarily.

For every 1 TJ (or Edukator) there are 2 of ‘me’ (understand the problem, doing what we can to reduce where it’s easy) and 10 who couldn’t give a flying fig. (completely made-up numbers)

Consumption will go down if/when either costs go up or we legislate for it. We’re already doing that (e.g. insulation, double glazing, the death of the 100w light bulb) but would have to do more, probably stepping into politically unpalatable areas.

Electric cars will take off of their own accord (no, not a Toyota recall issue) once they become affordable and practical. Even the shorter ranges models today would be popular if they were the same price as a petrol car.

I mean the Leaf is what, 25 grand? If you can afford a 25k car then you’re going to have to be pretty environmentally committed to spend it on a car that would be half the price in petrol form…

probably stepping into politically unpalatable areas

And this is the biiig problem. As long as people want stuff they’ll vote for the party that offers it. Major flaw in democracy there.

We all want lights on, I agree. Have you adopted the latest 3W LED bulbs yet? More light than an 11W “economy bulb” instantly. My town is replacing all the traffic lights with LEDs. The potential for saving in lighting is enormous.

You can have a cuppa at half time but only if you aren’t running the dish washer, washing machine, immersion heater, dryer and an electric heater at the same time. You can’t/won’t run all those at teh same time if you’ve opted for a power-limited meter that significantly cuts the tarif you pay.

molgrips – Member

Electric cars will take off of their own … once they become affordable and practical…

agreed, then we’ll need 65GW…

Congratulations Edu – you’ve got me looking a bit more into energy efficiency. Only another 59,999,999 people to go.

I agree. Have you adopted the latest 3W LED bulbs yet?

Yes, in the fittings that will take them. It cost a fortune but we replaced 20 GU10s with LEDs. As a side benefit, they don’t scorch the top of my head either like the ones on the (low) landing.

My town is replacing all the traffic lights with LEDs. The potential for saving in lighting is enormous.

I hope they’re turning off the streetlighting in the dead of night too. I’m a big fan of that one, starting with the one outside my bedroom window.

You can have a cuppa at half time but only if you aren’t running the dish washer, washing machine, immersion heater, dryer and an electric heater at the same time.

And therein lies the problem. We have a god-given right to run all our conveniences exactly when we want them, don’t we? We don’t have an immersion heater or any electric heating but I don’t intend to wait for the washing machine to finish before I brew up.

Have you adopted the latest 3W LED bulbs yet?

Been wanting them for ages but they were £30 each last time I looked 🙁

You can have a cuppa at half time but only if you aren’t running the dish washer, washing machine, immersion heater, dryer and an electric heater at the same time.

Whilst that causes peaks in your own consumption, surely over the whole country it’ll smooth out and simply be the usual (and hard to avoid) peaks in the evening and morning?

Ok so you can set your diswasher and washing machine to run in the middle of the night, but with lighting and cooking it’s less easy.

Can someone suggest how much energy would be saved if our fridges and/or freezers had a cold-air intake from outside to save energy in winter?

Have you adopted the latest 3W LED bulbs yet?

Been wanting them for ages but they were £30 each last time I looked

They were more like £20 when I did it (to get decent ones with the right colour balance) and I know academically that I’ll get all that (and more) back over the lifetime. But it’s still a wallop in the wallet when you do it. Maybe I am £20 a month better off this month and every month but I don’t feel it. I certainly felt it when I had £400 less to spend on shiny bike bits.

First thing is to change the ones in the kitchen cos we have early GU10 CFLs which are awful. That’s £80 right there.

They were more like £20 when I did it (to get decent ones with the right colour balance) and I know academically that I’ll get all that (and more) back over the lifetime.

The question is, are you saving money with them faster than they’re getting cheaper? Can’t believe they’re going to stay that expensive for all that long.

The question is, are you saving money with them faster than they’re getting cheaper? Can’t believe they’re going to stay that expensive for all that long

Dunno – had to dive in at some point.

Can you get leccy meters that tell you where your power is going in general terms? Ie lighting, cooking etc?

I think the TV and the fridge are the only big consumers in our house. I’m sorely tempted to add my own cold-air induction system to it…

I think the TV and the fridge are the only big consumers in our house.

I think the wife and kids are the big consumers in our house.

So….. Edukator, how would you edukate someone that light switches can go ‘off’ as well as ‘on’?
(as my Saturday morning family meetings are not working)

if no-one else noticed, oil just went through $120/barrel…

(well, a coupla days ago)

crumbs. 😐

Higgo – fit automatic light on and off sensors.

I understand that replacing every bulb with a 3W LED right now might be a little costly but doing the lights you use most is a start. The bulb in the cupboard you open once a year can wait. They’re down to 7e now for basic ones and 15e for “quality” brands.

Perhaps it’s something to add to the conspicuous greed thread.

Is there a green thread? I’ve got more questions about domestic savings…

Just came across some figures in the BMAs ‘Guide to Living with Risk’ (from 1990 i think). I assume that’s regarded as an OK source?

A selection of risks of an individual dying in any one year from various causes:-
Smoking 10 cigarettes a day – 1 in 200
All natural causes , age 40 – 1 in 850
Road accident – 1 in 8,000
Accident at work – 1 in 43,500
Hit by lightning – 1 in 10,000,000
Release of radiation from a nearby power station – 1 in 10,000,000

And on radiation in particularit gave some annual doses (in microsieverts):-
Eating 135g of brazil nuts – 10
Dental X-Ray – 20
A glass of mineral water each day for a year – 65
Return flight to LA – 140
Minner annual dose – 1,200
Brain scan – 5,000

It equated an annual dose of 1000MicroSv = 1 in 25,000 risk of death (the same as playing football).