Beginners guide to nuclear power stations ?

[Quote]It proves it is possible for one person to do so. Not that it is possible for everybody to do so.[/quote]
Well dancing som more on the pin whilst we split the hair it does prove we all could reduce our energy use vastlty like wot he has done –

One obvious fundamental flaw being that he relies on his electricity company pumping water to provide him with power at night – not enough pumped storage (nowhere near) for everybody to do that

Would we have to build stuff instead of building other nuclear stuff to do this.

Well dancing som more on the pin whilst we split the hair it does prove we all could reduce our energy use vastlty like wot he has done –

Lol – a few thousand commited people vs millions of everyday folk is NOT splitting hairs! It’s the fundamental issue!

Oh btw – can you make your own local pumped water system? Strengthened loft joists and large tank?

EDIT: just done the calcs, answer is no. 2000 gallons up in the loft would store 0.15kWh.

Neatly glossing over the enormous CO2 production burden in building the nuclear plants and the implausibility in bringing new nukes on line in the 10 year timescale.

From Sustainable Energy- Without the hot Air

To create 48 kWh per day of offshore wind per person in the UK would require 60 million tons of concrete and steel – one ton per person. Annual world steel production is about 1200million tons, which is 0.2 tons per person in the world. During the second world war, American shipyards built 2751 Liberty ships, each containing 7000 tons of steel – that’s a total of 19 million tons of steel, or 0.1 tons per American. So the building of 60 million tons of wind turbines is not off the scale of achievability; but don’t kid yourself into thinking that it’s easy. Making this many windmills is as
big a feat as building the Liberty ships.

For comparison, to make 48 kWh per day of nuclear power per person
in the UK would require 8 million tons of steel and 0.14 million tons of
concrete.

The problem is TJ if you are thinking re-newables you have to think country size scales to replace something like coal, gas and nuclear. Even more implausible than bringing new nuclear on line and with an even more enormous CO2 burden.

The CO2 comes in large part from the production of the concrete used. Ten times as much concrete per KW in nukes as in conventional. Offshore is a high load in the materials used tho for sure

On this thread was posted some interesting figures about embedded energy in different power generation methods that showed nuclear to not be that good.

again you have not included the decommission and disposal of the waste nor the mining of the fuel

You need to look at total environmental penalty over the whole lifespan.

Up on the downs – there is a serious strand of critique of Sustainable Energy- Without the hot Air

for example
http://www.claverton-energy.com/has-professor-mackay-frs-underestimated-britains-potential.html

It’s not only ‘nukes’ which can catastrophically fail causing death and destruction….

From Wikipedia

The Banqiao Reservoir Dam in Zhumadian Prefecture, Henan province, China infamously failed in 1975.

According to the Hydrology Department of Henan Province approximately 26,000 people died from flooding and another 145,000 died during subsequent epidemics and famine. In addition, about 5,960,000 buildings collapsed, and 11 million residents were affected. Unofficial estimates of the number of people killed by the disaster have run as high as 230,000 people

🙁

Lol – a few thousand commited people vs millions of everyday folk is NOT splitting hairs! It’s the fundamental issue!

the suggestion was that it was NOT possible. Is it theorectically possible to reduce power usage? I am not suggesting there are no consequences[we could legitimately debate the consequences] from doing this just that it is actually possible

Interesting (but controversial and hotly contested) article in this week’s New Scientist about renewable energy.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028063.300-wind-and-wave-energies-are-not-renewable-after-all.html

– there’s not as much wind/tidal energy around as you might think. Take too much out and you start to do bad things to the environment, things that are just as bad (if not worse) as global warming. And we’re surprisingly close to that limit.

– solar is better (one less conversion step) but you still have problems to solve like scattering – put a solar cell in the sun and it warms up and radiates heat, resulting in a warming effect. And solar cells are made from things that are quite hard to find.

there is a serious strand of critique of Sustainable Energy- Without the hot Air

Ok TJ lets for the sake of argument accept the scenario in the website you quoted. They claim that we could derive 50GW from onshore wind.

Whitelee wind farm near Glasgow has 140 turbines with a peak capacity of 322MW and covers 55 sq km. Assume a load factor of 33% and it will produce 107 MW. Therefore we would need 467 Whitelees covering 25700 sq km or 10% of the area of the UK. Now I’m not saying that its impossible to build and install and get planning approval for 65,000 wind turbines but I think most environmentalists really fail to grasp the scale of what is required. Add at least a similar scale of construction, for offshore wind and tidal and pumped storage and do you really think that’s a practical proposition? Like I said we’re talking country scale amounts of hardware.

You exaggerate the contribution from mining uranium fuel. To get the same energy as 16kg of coal would take 2g of uranium reacted in a conventional fission reactor. The resulting waste weighs 0.25g. To furnish 2g of uranium would take about 200g of ore. Thorium fission is even better as the thorium would not require enrichement and the waste has a shorter half life.

Lets get the scale of the nuclear waste issue into perspective. High level waste from Britains existing reactors and from 10 new reactors over their lifetimes would be equivalent to 10 swimming pools. Again not a trival problem to solve but not insurmountable.

I’m giving up with you now as your mind is closed. At least I’m prepared to admit that re-newables have a place but unless we commit to historically unprecedented amounts of construction totally changing the face of our country there needs to be another power source in the mix which at the moment is best provided by nuclear.

Interesting breakdown on energy usage from the US:

48kWh per person per day. In our household we draw less than that per person from the grid in the whole of December.

up on the downs

And as usual in this debate you are giving a position to me that is not what I actually have.

Where have I argued for 50GW of onshore wind?

clearly not all energy can come from onshore wind. Offshore wind tidal and wave along with solar all have a part to play as do some fossil fuels

To get 50 GW from nukes would mean 40+ new reactors – an unprecedented building project as well and one we do not have fuel for and a huge amount of CO2 production during construction – that would be a massive increase in the UKs CO2 production during the construction phase ( with payback later)

You also talk bobbins on mining of uranium and of waste. Yes the mining is a small amount of energy embedded but it is still there and missing from your calculations. Does it not have to be enriched as well – so actually much large amounts of ore than you claim? Forget thorium. in the time scales talked about thorium cannot be on line.

Waste – again you totally gloss over the difficulties in dealing with it – like all pro nukes and the large amount of CO2 production in attempting to get the waste into a storable form and the high CO2 release form all the associated plant and storage facilities.

I am not the one here with the closed mind. The pro nukes on this forum continually move the goalposts and use totally ridiculous comparisons to rubbish any non nuclear solution and refuse to acept known robust and effective technology because of their blinkered love for nukes.

Oh

and there still is the whole series of questions about nuclear that the pro nukes refuse to answer

48kWh per person per day. In our household we draw less than that per person from the grid in the whole of December.

Wah?

Surely you realise that that is the figure for total national production, not the figure for individual consumption – so, someone grows your food, refrigerates it, puts it in a shop, lights the shops, streets, hospitals, schools, pubs, factories, libraries, offices, etc. – let alone production and transmission losses!

All this comes out of your 48kWh per person, per day – unless you live off grid and grow your own food, then your personal electricity usage extends far, far beyond your own electricity meter!

(Though sorry, I haven’t got a wikipedia reference for you to show figures! :roll:)

Wave power – going nowhere fast. Everything that gets installed so far gets destroyed pretty quick. lots of companies folding because they can’t finance the next stage of research.
Tidal power – I know guys involved in the surveys on sites, they can’t get there survey equipment to stay on site with tons of concrete, how they are going to build there no-one knows.

Jambo – pelarmis has been running fine of the coast of portugal, tidal turbine in a Strangford Lough and in Norway working fine. Both been thru a couple of winter already

No it hasn’t. Pelarmis been plagued with reliability issues. Don’t believe everything you read in regurgitated press releases.

The blades fell off the turbine in strandford loch.

About a third of consumption is reckoned to be household Z-11 (feel free to insert your own researched figure) so assuming that the 48 kWh really does include everything (it’s not clear from upon the downs quote) then the household part of the 48 would be 16 kWh per person per day for domestic use. That’s still over ten times what we actually consume domestically. See the scope for savings.

They are shockingly wasteful in the US, for sure. Without really realising it. There’s a place where a bit of education would go a long way.

See the scope for savings

See the alternative source for savings – have a look at that chart of US domestic energy producton – the majority of all energy used is electricity production is wasted at the generation end of the cycle – stop pissing money up the wall on end user savings, and invest in researching and developing more efficient methods of production using our current mix of fuels, and the prospect for savings is immense!

and there still is the whole series of questions about nuclear that the pro nukes refuse to answer

I’ll have a go if you promise not to tell me I haven’t answered the questions.

Check back through the thread and one of the first things I demonstrated was that there is enough hydro to support my level of consumption for everyone in Europe

I have – there’s 140GW of hydro in the EU, hence 280W per person. Given your december consumption of 250kWh makes an average of 350W (175W per person) 24/31, I’m kind of dubious that your (night time) peak isn’t higher than 280W each, and of course there isn’t even any allowance there for powering stuff other than domestic.

Where have I argued for 50GW of onshore wind?

No idea if you have or not but that website you quoted criticising David Mackays book did. I stupidly thought you might have given that some credence since it appears to gainsay MacKay’s analysis and therefore support your position.

clearly not all energy can come from onshore wind. Offshore wind tidal and wave along with solar all have a part to play as do some fossil fuels

I agree but you refuse to comment on the scale of construction of offshore wind, tidal, solar and pumped storage and its practicality.

Forget thorium. in the time scales talked about thorium cannot be on line.

Complete rubbish. In the time scales talked about construction of renewables on the required scale and implimentation of thorium fusion are on the same timescale.

continually move the goalposts and use totally ridiculous comparisons to rubbish any non nuclear solution and refuse to acept known robust and effective technology because of their blinkered love for nukes.

LOL Where have I rubbished a non-nuclear solution? I’ve merely pointed out the scale of the construction projects required to provide a totally re-newable solution so stop getting all emotional about this. I don’t have a love of nuclear power, blinkered or not I’m just a pragmatist and think that nuclear has to have a place in a practical decarbonised future.

That link wsasmerely to point out that that book has critisims of it aneeds to be taken with a pinch of salt – notice its endorsents come from the big energy companies that are hardly disitereted bysatnders in this

I have commented numerous times on the scale of construction needed to get significant amounts of renewables – its a huge construction project there is no doubt. This is one of the reasons we cannot afford to waste more money on nukes so we can afford to build the renewables.

so in ten years you will have thorium electricity generation on line? Its a promising line for further research. Its not an available tech now

continually moving goalposts – all the time – you do it here talking about all elecrticiy generation from renewables and a decarbonised future.

As I have said right from the beginning all I want is to meet Kyoto standards without nukes which is feasible and plausible – but now thats not good enough to satisfy the pro nuke lobby.

As I have said right from the beginning all I want is to meet Kyoto standards without nukes which is feasible and plausible – but now thats not good enough to satisfy the pro nuke lobby.

Is that all?

Under the Protocol, 37 countries (“Annex I countries”) commit themselves to a reduction of four greenhouse gases (GHG) (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulphur hexafluoride) and two groups of gases (hydrofluorocarbons and perfluorocarbons) produced by them, and all member countries give general commitments. Annex I countries agreed to reduce their collective greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2% from the 1990 level.

Well we could probably manage that without nuclear power (nukes are parlance for nuclear weapons BTW not nuclear power) but you’re rowing back a bit from a decarbonised future. Bit lacking in ambition when we’re at or near peak oil. Even a non-tree hugger like myself realises we’ve got to be a bit more ambitious than the Kyoto protocol in order to keep the lights on and avoid being held to ransom by unsavoury regimes sitting on top of the remaining oil and gas.

Jeeze. No way could my ADHD keep up with all this. 😯

Anyone care to summarise? 😀

they still dont agree

About what?

Is it time for some more pics?

Unsavoury regimes sitting atop the remaining oil and gas

– Hollyrood and the Norwegians? (sounds like a bad 80s pop band)

you see I am interested in what is feasible, sustainable and realistic and in providing a lead to the world. It would be nice to place the UK in a position where we could sell expertise and machinery to the trest of the world.

You can go on with pie in the sky thorium and so on. I want to see real tangible and credible steps taken not some flights of techno fancy that are taking us up a blind alley and are no solution to a global issue

Anyone care to summarise?

Nuclear power stations are unreliable and every single one of them kills lots of people every year. The technology hasn’t advanced at all since the 1950s, so Calder Hall is a good model to use for predicting performance of future builds. There’s almost certainly another Chernobyl (or something far worse) lurking round the corner because the people in charge there were actually the best trained and most cautious in the world, and Chernobyl had lots of failsafes other reactors don’t have.

Meanwhile renewables are perfectly safe, run at full power all the time, will be able to provide enough electricity for the whole of the UK in a few years time (provided we all install low power bulbs) and actually absorb CO2.

Well aracer that totally sums up the attitude of the pro nukes. Rubbish all alternatives, rubbish anyone who opposes you, make up a load of nonsense.

Shows how thin and flimsy your case is

make up a load of nonsense

Oh, so none of that is true then? 😯

There are three of us, Aracer. You’ve also forgotten that we produce 120kWh in December so net consumption is only 120kWh. I’m intelligent enough to run the washing machine and immersion heater when the panels are producing.

There’s the averaging effect as well, not everybody turns on the kettle at the same time. They used to when almost everybody watched Eastenders but people are living less synchronised these days.

Plenty enough hydro for my level of consumption. On your figures and adjusting for the fact there are three of us and consume half what you assumed net then there’s plenty left over for industry and infrastructure assuming they make the same efforts.

The Germans voted for an energy saving, renewable, less nuclear future last night (Europe 1).

Europe 1 has announced that Fukoshima is now considered a level 7 incident and the Japanese fear the amount of radioactive material released into the enviroment will be higher than Tchernobyl. That tallies with the radiation levels measured by the France 3 journalists when far enough away from the plant to need a telephoto lense to film it.

and the Japanese fear the amount of radioactive material released into the enviroment will be higher than Tchernobyl.

No they don’t. It’s more than Three Mile island but it is still estimated at 10% of Chernobyl. This was also a reclassification exercise there hasn’t been any additional release of radiation.

and instead of an explosive release, the ‘released’ material is still mostly inside the reactor buildings.

Thorium reactors are no more ‘pie in the sky’ than the idea of getting 10GW* from scottish tidal power…

both could be done, both should be done (imho), but neither are happening any time soon.

(*just a number i plucked out of thin air to match the 10GW we could get from a Severn Barrage)

I don’t know what you lot are rabbiting on about, but the situation in Japan concerning those nuclear reactors which they still cannot control, is looking really grim – according to the Japanese anyway 😐

Japan raises nuclear crisis to highest level – the same as Chernobyl

“The radiation leak has not stopped completely and our concern is that it could eventually exceed Chernobyl,” an official from the company told reporters in Tokyo.

Using a controlled nuclear explosion as a source of energy is turning out to be a really crap idea. Let’s hope lessons are learnt from this incident and we don’t go down that road anymore.

it’s not been raised to a 7 because it’s got worse, it’s been raised to a 7 after ‘reassessment’.

but as discussed above, the 2 incidents are hardly comparable (sofarfingerscrossed).

Yup, it’s been reassessed……..it is far worse than they had first thought…….grim eh ? 😐

Using a controlled nuclear explosion as a source of energy is turning out to be a really crap idea.

It’s a reaction not an explosion, in the same way that normal combustion is burning rather than an explosion.

And remember it is still not under control and is still leaking radioactivity including core material into the ecosphere.

So all those folk on here who said it was nothing to worry about at the beggining ……………………….

…..grim eh ?

Yes very. Does that mean they knew all along that it was that bad but were withholding information, or does it mean that everything is out of control, or did they really not comprehend the gravity of the situation in the first place?

One thing that struck me when reading some of the papers on Chernobyl was that they had 200,000 – 300,000 “liquidators” that went in to clean up the site. These poor chaps got some huge doses and significant increased cancer deaths. If Chernobyl happened any where other than the Soviet Union where would the liquidators come from ?

Maybe all pro-nuke advocates should be registered so they can be press ganged into service in the unlikely event we need some liquidators.