George Monbiot on nuclear

Evidence for what you nutter? I have not read a single word of this, I just know that nukes + TJ = 500 posts of hectoring bullish behaviour in which a million statistics are retrofitted to the requirements of the combatants. I thought I would help by breaking up the text with silly pictures of smileys.

It is worth noting though that it seems to be TJ vs the world on this one and we have some pretty serious physicists amongst us. You and I are not amongst them however.

X

Dear Teh Modz,

Wasn’t me what tagged that up there. I assume the culprit has receieved a warning, however.

Yours, etc

CFH

🙂

Massive building programme for up-to-date Nuclear power stations, please. Quick as possible

I’m all for it. For maximum efficiency they should be sited as close as possible to where most electricity is used, so preferably right in the heart of major cities. We can start with a new nuclear power station in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow and Cardiff and go on from there.

Wired
chops – I am quite happy for it to be considered a worthwhile experiment as I have said several times.

I personally don’t believe it will ever produce worthwhile amounts of electricity and the claims about waste are mendacious,. Decades of research into this has produced very little electricity at enormous cost produced huge amounts of waste

Torminalis – it would be nice if the pro nukes could actually produce something to back up their claims.

But so far I hear nothing from the Anti nukes that is of any consequence. My fridge runs on nuclear power and no one has died? Quelle problem?

TJ, but given the worthiness of the outcome, it’s worth pushing more money into it. I don’t know the details of the research, the budgets and the programs which have overseen these research projects. If you do and you have close links with the teams working on it then I’ll stand aside, but your manner really does provoke endless streams of needless argument on here. I for one am really interested by this technology and would be interested to hear other people’s (laypersons) opinions. Your combative approach stifles discussion. Let it go.

CaptainFlashheart – Member

Dear Teh Modz,

Wasn’t me what tagged that up there. I assume the culprit has receieved a warning, however.

Yours, etc

CFH
‘Tis not the tag that offends, but the tagger.

What’s the score?

Well, as another of the “usual combatants” on such threads, I can’t really help myself. I’m not a nuclear scientist, but I would suggest that as an environmental scientist, I do have some background in reasoned scientific questioning and judgement, rather than belief.

So TJ, I’ll ask you this:

If no nuclear, what else is there to fill the gap that’s been invented in the past couple of months since we last had this tedious argument? Coal seems a good bet, but what do we do about the waste (oh, that’s right, let it go up the chimney and forget about it, which obviously isn’t an issue at all 🙄 ). Then there’s gas, which not unlike the above, has some serious waste issues of its own, and will also run out soon.

Anything else proven on an industrial scale?

Hydro maybe? Trouble is we’ve run out of places for dams.

Anything else???

Perhaps we could all use less? Perhaps, but I refer you to the rather apparent public discontent at a few hundred pounds disappearing from some peoples’ pensions. Just imagine what would happen if people were told they could only watch TV on wednesdays….

Zokes, I often puzzle over the same thing. As our technology improves and energy efficiency gets better, it just means we can cancel out the energy saving by using said technology more.
Half fat cake?! I’ll have twice as much! Modern society isn’t geared up for a (seemingly) regressive step with regards to energy use.

thisisnotaspoon -how much elcricity has been generated by this IFR tech? nore or less than by wave and tidal.

Well according to your wiki article 2 billion french fracs worth by that one plant which never got upto full power. Probably not a profit, but still a considerable ammount.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-600_reactor

This one’s been running at 560MW (compared to your wave generators 0.17MW) since 1980.

TandemJeremy – Member
I personally don’t believe it will ever produce worthwhile amounts of electricity and the claims about waste are mendacious,. Decades of research into this has produced very little electricity at enormous cost produced huge amounts of waste

Believe away, you may as well declare the world flat while your at it.

Its the same answers as before.

Look at the whole of the UKs carbon production and go for a radical energy conservation measures. CO2 output could be reduced dramatically.

Clean conventional and Reneawables to ocover the reduced demand.

Spend the cost of one nuclear power station on insulation you reduce energy consumption by as much as that generator produces.

Conventional nuclear can never be a significant part of teh solution – there is not enough fuel and no one will share the tech with large parts of theworld

Conventional nuclear can never be a significant part of teh solution – there is not enough fuel and no one will share the tech with large parts of theworld

so whats wrong with a modern fast breed reactor, built in a GE-H factory, and producing no wepons useable waste?

Look at the whole of the UKs carbon production and go for a radical energy conservation measures. CO2 output could be reduced dramatically.

“radical measures” – example?

oh, and no-one cares about CO2 anymore, didn’t you get the memo?

Conventional nuclear can never be a significant part of teh solution – there is not enough fuel and no one will share the tech with large parts of theworld

“not enough fuel” – for what time scale? – long enough get the hang of breeder reators? (and then use the ‘conventional’ waste to get us through another couple of hundred/thousand years)

Clean conventional and Reneawables to ocover the reduced demand.

How can we reduce demand when people insist on living in badly insulated homes?
Smacks of selfishness to me.

Spend the cost of one nuclear power station on insulation you reduce energy consumption by as much as that generator produces.

But what if half those people keep leaving the back door open, and their TV’s on stand-by. You know what they’re like?

Spend the cost of one nuclear power station on insulation you reduce energy consumption by as much as that generator produces.

Great, except nuclar plants produce elctricity, not gas which is what most people heat their homes with. And what about the rest of the energy, we’ll be a lot more than 1 station short over the coming years.

Its the same answers as before.

No TJ, you didn’t read. (Not unusual mind you). I think you’ll find that my post was a question.

Care to answer it with a truly viable alternative? One that would be workable in a democracy where governments making unpopular decisions tend to get voted out after a while…

We need to insulate, reduce usage, become more efficent AND run some nukes, I reckon.

I struggle to see your reasoning re new nuclear tech. You are saying that because some experiments got cancelled and a full scale reactor hasn’t been built, that means the entire concept is a write-off and should be discounted from the solution?

We need to work on bringing these new nuclear ideas online. That clearly doesn’t mean ignoring reduction and renewables.

I don’t know why you are so dismissive.

tinas

LOOK AT THE TOTAL CO2 PRODUCTION OF THE COUNTRY AND REDUCE THAT! It matters not where it comes from – what matters is that we reduce the total amount.

energy conservation is about a lot more than reducing gas used in domestic heating

TJ,
Completely agree, we have to reduce our energy demands. Needless energy usage does my head in. It’s a long road though, but it’s absolutely essential. That doesn’t necessarily rule out nuclear though does it. Especially one as tantalisingly awesome sounding as fast breed. At least the leaflet popped through my letterbox from AWE says it’s ace.

Look, like TJ I dont really know a whole lot about this stuff, but arent we signed up to reduce our carbon emmissions by some huge number? Like 80% by 2050?

Zokes – I answered it. Its perfectly viable to reduce CO2 output without causing energy shortage. Its low tech and does not produce vast profits for the energy companies which is why its ignored. consuming less does not go down well in capitalist sytem

Molgrips – you cannot base the nations future energy supplies around an experiential and unproven tech. Treat it as an interesting experiment.

Unfortunately we do have a finite amount of money to spend – wasting it on nukes means less for other areas. Renewable research has far less money spent on it than nuclear – a tiny %.

wiredchops – it means the nuclear is not needed.

and instead rely on coal and gas?

(the only proven technology capable of meeting our demands – other than nuclear – of any kind)

LOOK AT THE TOTAL CO2 PRODUCTION OF THE COUNTRY AND REDUCE THAT! It matters not where it comes from – what matters is that we reduce the total amount.

energy conservation is about a lot more than reducing gas used in domestic heating

No need to shout.

If I turned off the heating to my house that’d be about half my annual energy usage, so lets say insulating it beyond all practial limits halved that. You’re not going to convince people never to turn on the TV, lights, and to cook only microwave meals for 1 as they’re more energy efficient than cooking at home are you?

If you could produce all the countrys energy needs and more, with no drawbacks other than the costs, what’s the problem? Why build 3300 of your sea snake wave generators which only work some of the time, when 1 “experimental” and ignored by you 30 year old Russian reactor can do the job? Or even better, one with 30 years more tech and producing even less waste?

Zokes – I answered it.

Really?

consuming less does not go downwell in acpitalist sytem

Ah. That’s your problem then.

We can all reduce our consumption, not many will. Couple this to an increasing global population, a move to electricity to replace oil for transport and gas for space and water heating and what happens? That’s right, we need more electrical energy.

The only possible tool that would make this not the case would be increasing the price of energy to the point of making it bite in the biggest users’ pockets. That’s not going to be popular, seeing as you’ll have plunged a heck of a lot of people into energy poverty first. Don’t forget, just about everything you eat or use required energy to make or get it to you, so it will all be much more expensive.

Targeted subsidies may solve energy costs for the poor in such a scenario, but I’m not sure how they’d make just about everything else which relies on energy (i.e. pretty much everything) affordable.

There are plenty of other measures as well to drive down energy usage. yes a fiscal incentive is one way and many mechanisms are possible to do this. there are other mechanisms other than fiscal as well. Subsidised insulation for all old homes for example. Outlawing commercial organisation from leaving lights on all night. reducing streetlighting.

a move to electricity to replace oil for transport

this is never going to happen on any significant scale without a major breakthrough in tech.

it requires a government committed to reducing energy consumption tho. reduced energy consumption = reduced CO2 output. Nuclear only provides a very small % of out countries energy consumption and efficiency measure can easily reduce the countries energy consumption by a greater amount – thus meaning the nukes are redundant and CO2 production is down.

but arent we signed up to reduce our carbon emmissions by some huge number? Like 80% by 2050

Did you not notice everyone sniggering behind their hands as they signed the Kyoto agreement. The Americans didn’t even sign it. They actually drew a schoolboy doodle of a spunking cock and big hairy pair of balls

Your position is just as flaky as Monbiot’s, TJ. No matter how many times you repeat it as some kind of hardcore fact.

We need energy reduction AND nuclear, in my view. Simple.

Nuclear needs research – let’s do the research, spend the money, and build the reactors.

it requires a government committed to reducing energy consumption tho. reduced energy consumption = reduced CO2 output. Nuclear only provides a very small % of out countries energy consumption and efficiency measure can easily reduce the countries energy consumption by a greater amount – thus meaning the nukes are redundant and CO2 production is down.

No, by your argument it’s one or the other.

Keep the current power generation infrastructure, turn off the nukes and insulate everything and put your finger in your ears whenever anyone mentions increacing energy demands.

Or, make everything as energy efficient as practicaly possible, build some nuclear power stations as part of a mizuture of low carbon emission energy generation sources and slowly but surely switch everything over to electric power, producing minimal CO2.

We can’t keep driving arround in fossil fuel powered cars, it’s not sustainable, so the only alternative is electric, whther thats by storeing electricity in a battery, or storing it as hydrogen for a fuel cell makes no odds tot he fact you’ll need a lot of wind farms to keep the M1 moving!

No its not TINAS

Nuclear produces a very small amount of the countries energy . reduce the total amount of energy used by more than that small % which is easily achievable then you can have no nukes and a reduced CO2 output.

I don’t really like these aggressive arguments but I thought I’d chip in a point, gently.

I saw a documentary with Patagonia founder Yyvon Chouniard and he said at one point something along the lines of: “if you’re going forward towards a cliff what do you do? Do you keep going forwards off the cliff, or do you turn 180degrees and keep going forward?”

I think we need to reimagine our society with less energy and see it not as going backwards but as going forwards in a different direction. I don’t know enough about energy sources to say about nuclear, but I just hope I can make a difference in my personal life, and that there are scientists working objectively on what will be good for our survival and our planet. Peace, all.

Why don’t we make everything wind-up like those torches? And the radio’s they listen to in Africa. Then we could also reduce obesity as everyone takes it in turns running around in the house of an evening, winding everything up

And it’d solve the problem of leaving stuff on stand-by. A move which, according to environmentalists will, in itself, save every Polar Bear and about 30% of the penguins on the planet. And some Puffins. Probably

There are plenty of other measures as well to drive down energy usage. yes a fiscal incentive is one way and many mechanisms are possible to do this. there are other mechanisms other than fiscal as well. Subsidised insulation for all old homes for example. Outlawing commercial organisation from leaving lights on all night. reducing streetlighting.

Re-read what I wrote in full, then comment, eh? (Seeing as you’re having trouble, here’s the bit I’m referring to: “Targeted subsidies may solve energy costs for the poor in such a scenario, but I’m not sure how they’d make just about everything else which relies on energy (i.e. pretty much everything) affordable.“)

[a move to electricity to replace oil for transport] is never going to happen on any significant scale without a major breakthrough in tech.

Well, oil will run out, and ‘breakthoughs’ in tech are coming along quite well. Hardly difficult to concieve that given the small but growing current crop of ever-improving hybrids, battery and hydrogen power, things in this field will improve greatly. But with the exception of the hybrid, they all still need electricity for power, something which petrol / diesel (i.e. fuels that will run out) powered cars do not. What about heating (which your selective quoting clearly missed out, despite it being in teh same sentence)

it requires a government committed to reducing energy consumption tho.

I refer you to the problem you’ve already identified:

consuming less does not go downwell in acpitalist sytem

And finally:

Nuclear only provides a very small % of out countries energy consumption and efficiency measure can easily reduce the countries energy consumption by a greater amount – thus meaning the nukes are redundant and CO2 production is down.

Great, what does the rest? Coal, or gas? You see, this argument is cyclical when you refuse to take your stubborn mind forward and realise how these forms of generation dispose of their waste.

[quote}

We need energy reduction AND nuclear, in my view. Simple.[/quote]

why?

Its a small % of the countries energy usage and an even smalle % of the worlds energy usagge. at current rates of usage of the fuel we only have few decades left thus we do not have the fuel for the massive worlwide expansion of nuclear that would be needed to reduce CO2 output to say nothing of the fact people don’t want to share nuclear with other countries.

far better to put the effort and money into renewable an energy conservation

the whole case for nuclear is as full of holes as a sieve

Nuclear produces a very small amount of the countries energy

20% is small is it?

And what happens to our elecrickery usage when everyone’s got nippy little plug in cars that charge up overnight? Are we all going to have pointless token gestures small wind turbines in our gardens?

Zokes – and you will not read or listen to the answers that I have given you many times.

the whole case for nuclear is as full of holes as a sieve

You’ve still not addressed how as a modern, democratic, energy intensive, growing, capitalist society we’re going to use less electricity. Especially given the logical supposition that transport and heating will increasingly rely on electricity for their energy demands.

far better to put the effort and money into renewable an energy conservation

So lets do this to get rid of the worst polluters such as coal.

Zokes – and you will not read or listen to the answers that I have given you many times.

I think in my last couple of posts I quoted and responded to just about every point you made. Talking to you about nuclear power and expecting a sensible, reasoned response is like talking to Osama Bin Laden about the fact that Allah might not exist.

binner – ENERGY CONSUMPTION not electricity.