Given that the most wasteful part of electricity generation and distribution is transit from point of generation to point of use, and given that the generating platform itself is safe, why is it necessary to build it so far away from where the power is needed?”

Because you build power plants where the land is cheap and people need the jobs

I used to live 6 miles as the crow flies from a nuclear power station.

It didn’t bother me in the slightest.

t’s like TJ never left

Why thank you, I am honoured

However, the point was actually. People aren’t scared of the words Nuclear etc etc.

They are scared of what would happen if a reactor goes KABOOOOOM

Additionally, if you dig through my posts on this thread you will see a reference to coal dust being really rather unpleasant.

Best to not to jump to conclusions

Because you build power plants where the land is cheap and people need the jobs

Oh I see, so how come they’re not building them all in sub-Saharan Africa then?

Simple – mitigating risk. No matter how small the risk of anything is happening, the risk of that affecting a lot of people becomes much smaller if you build it away from population centres

Absolutely right. the reason is two fold, one the obivous as stated and the other the also obvious, which is there are less people to vote against you when you impose it upon them.

Sadly, the truth is that the majority of people don’t want a nuclear facility of any description in their back yard. Therefore as a democracy we should not be building them. The other unfortunate reality is that politicians don’t have the balls to actually confront the issue, which is a set of very straightforward choices. So instead they pretend its all cushty, and just go ahead and impose it whereever they can get away with it.

By any sensible definition nuclear power is “safe”

Lets build some power stations and waste storage facilities in the home counties then.

Berm Bandit – Member

Sadly, the truth is that the majority of people don’t want a nuclear facility of any description in their back yard. Therefore as a democracy we should not be building them.

ok, fine.

what do we do with the waste we’ve already got? – and it’s not even really ‘our’ waste, it’s our grandparents waste.

Sadly, the truth is that the majority of people don’t want a nuclear facility wind farm of any description in their back yard. Therefore as a democracy we should not be building them.

FTFY

Also feel free to replace the words ‘nuclear facility’ with prison, motorway, railway line, pig farm, bus depot, tesco, mobile phone mast, mountain bike trail, paedophile etc.

Sadly, the truth is that the majority of people don’t want a nuclear facility power station of any description in their back yard. Therefore as a democracy we should not be building them.

The majority of people do, however, wish to continue using electricity.

The majority of people are unable to reconcile these two points

They are scared of what would happen if a reactor goes KABOOOOOM

What would happen in this scenario?

What would happen in this scenario?

Well, by current records (Windscale, TMI, Chernobyl, Fukushima), far fewer people would be killed than in one year of just the Chinese mining coal.

Fukushima was a ringing endorsement of nuclear power. A very old station built in the wrong place got hit by an earthquake of a magnitude it wasn’t designed to withstand, and a wave of a size it wasn’t designed to withstand, and … Nothing happened! No godzilla rising from the waves dripping green goo, absolutely no health issues attributable to radiation. (Though I recall there were health issues related to being crushed to death by a falling crane.)

Nevertheless, the media eagerly leapt on every rumour that a gieger counter somewhere might have clicked, and some mouth breathers thought the cladding blown off by a hydrogen explosion was “a nuclear explosion”.

I was hoping to imply that with my question. 😀

I wonder if piemonster might be able to tell us what would happen if a petrochemical, a petrol processing plant or some methane in a coal mine went

KABOOOOOM

? I’m not quite sure myself

Good choice – I can see why you prefer it stored on the surface in ageing facilities where it is much less safe.

Perhaps we’d prefer not to have an expansion of the current facilities on our doorsteps. Basic risk management and due diligence really.

The majority of people are unable to reconcile these two points

I’m not sure how this is at odds with this

The other unfortunate reality is that politicians don’t have the balls to actually confront the issue, which is a set of very straightforward choices. So instead they pretend its all cushty, and just go ahead and impose it whereever they can get away with it.

or anything else I’ve said in this thread. i.e. lets not piss about here, we’re going to build it where its needed, or we’re going to use less power. you can’t have it both ways, as the reality is if it goes tits up you can run but you cannot hide.

Perhaps we’d prefer not to have an expansion of the current facilities on our doorsteps. Basic risk management and due diligence really.

Due diligence failure. Do something to mitigate risk (bury it in a deep controlled environment, whilst minimising the need to move it very far), or leave it where it is, where its far more likely to cause a problem.

As has been said, the vast majority of all there ever will be is already there. It exists, and something does need doing about it in the long term. Much of the worst of the waste is from the very early days anyway. Where was it produced? yep: cumbria. Why should anywhere else take your waste?

as an aside, Any future stations will be far more efficient, producing much less waste

Do something to mitigate risk (bury it in a deep controlled environment, whilst minimising the need to move it very far),

If you live locally it is safer for it to be somewhere else

PS sellafield stores 20,000 cubic meteres of waste currently [2010 figures]

its is estimated there will be over 4 million cubic metres of waste which will last for 4 million years all at the new site

As for controlled environment you mean we have never done this before but we think it will be ok for the next 4 million years to just put it in a big hoile in the ground. I mean if we cannot predict the next 4 million years and what will happen then Pfftt…wish us luck as we are doing it in your back yard now stop objecting ITS SAFE

It is pointless to debate I can see why some think it is safe and some think it is unsafe

Where was it produced? yep: cumbria. Why should anywhere else take your waste?

That’s really a very, very poor argument, for obvious reasons.

Nothing happened!

Shunichi Yamashita one of the leading experts on the effects of radiation in Japan said when asked by Der Spigel; People want clear answers. Where is it safe? And where is it not?

Yamashita: We don’t have those answers. When people ask me: “Are doses below 100 millisievert 100 percent safe?” Then I have to answer as a scientist: “I don’t know.”

The fact is that the “nothing happened” statement is fatuous, it clearly did and to what extent it happened will potentially continue to unfold for generations.

The problem with this nuclear argument is that you cannot possibly make statements such as x or y is safe, or measurement a or b is a safe limit, much less that nothing happened. Professor Yamashita, when asked made a completely sound scientific answer, which is that we don’t know. The truth is much of the learning about human interaction with this recent technology is being done at the expense of the current generations. The big problem is that the risk attached to that are exponetionally greater than the risks associated with precisely the same process with earlier technologies.

So rather than pointing at nasty coal power stations and comparing nuclear risks with that, wouldn’t it be more sensible to acknowledge that it took many generations for the combined wit and wisdom of mankind to appreciate the risks inherant in coal, and that quite possibly it will be the same before we fully understand what we are playing with in nuclear technology???

So rather than pointing at nasty coal power stations and comparing nuclear risks with that, wouldn’t it be more sensible to acknowledge that it took many generations for the combined wit and wisdom of mankind to appreciate the risks inherant in coal, and that quite possibly it will be the same before we fully understand what we are playing with in nuclear technology???

So we should stop using nuclear because we don’t understand all the risks, but yet we must make electricity from something. Or use a lot, and I mean a lot, less

So if we stop using nuclear, what will happen? Well, firstly, all the waste produced to date will still need dealing with

Secondly, we’ll still need to make electricity from something else. Right now, the only two options on a similar scale to nuclear are coal and gas. And we’re fast running out if gas.

So then we’re back to coal again. An energy source that we do understand the risks of. Far more deaths per kwh than any form of generation by a country mile. And then some. And that’s before we even start to think about the environmental damage and potential for not millions, but billions of deaths attributed to failed harvests, famine, disease, flooding and extreme weather as a result of global warming. And we do know what causes that (unless you’re sponsored by shell). Burning fossil fuels.

In an ideal world there would be neither fossil nor nuclear generation. But the world is not ideal. And unless we all want the lights to go out we do need to replace some power stations rather soon. There is no rational argument weighing up the environmental and human costs of coal and nuclear that puts coal in a favourable light.

Given that it’s nasty stuff, some of it, and that the whole “geology has to be suitable” argument implies that the containment is not envisaged to be adequate long term, the last place I’d want to put this stuff is underground. Out of sight, G4S screwup, would be the natural conclusion.

Find a spot that doesn’t flood, lay lots of concrete, put some racking and fences up and store it where it can be watched. Put public webcams on it 24/7 so there is accountability on the watchers too. Given that there is no harm unless it leaks or I walk up very close to it, I don’t care that much where it is. Most towns and cities have industrial or former industrial sites of hundreds of acres, loads of disused WW2 and cold war airfields too, pick one and get on with it.

So we should stop using nuclear because we don’t understand all the risks, but yet we must make electricity from something. Or use a lot, and I mean a lot, less

Well yes actually, thats precisely what I mean. We are completely profligate with energy use currently. Why? Because we/our politicians are pawning the future of the planet so that we have access to cheap subsidised energy, (subsidised by ignoring future cost). i.e. we are not coming even close to paying the real price for it, and that is precisely the debate we should be having BEFORE we jump irrevocably into a cess pool of our own making. There are a good deal of unpalateable things that need addressing while we’re at it, unrestricted population being pretty near the top of the list.

Given that the most wasteful part of electricity generation and distribution is transit from point of generation to point of use,

Total transmission losses in the UK grid are estimate at around 7.7% making it 92.3% efficient. I challenge you to find a form of electrical generation that is that efficient.

Put public webcams on it 24/7 so there is accountability on the watchers too

So if something happens it’s the people that should have been watching the webcams on their laptops in their homes fault?

There is definitely an irrational fear that many people have with regard to “radiation” and “nuclear/atomic”, partially caused by the media and reckless rhetoric by politicians and partially by humans fearing things that they don’t understand.
Chernobyl and Fukishima are as bad as civil nuclear accidents can get, but relatively few people died (compared with coal mining/oil drilling/gas production etc.). Both of these accidents were chemical explosions causing a release of radioactive material – not nuclear explosions. It is also important to point out that Nuclear power stations cannot possibly explode in a “nuclear explosion” (e.g. Hiroshima) as it’s actually very difficult to make a nuclear device happen.
In my opinion we should be working hard to develop and improve nuclear power stations and fuel/waste processing within our country and in collaboration with other countries. Instead we keep “doing the hokey-cokey” (in-out-in-out) which really is dangerous as we don’t keep people with expertise in the in nuclear industry. Civil Nuclear Power is a fairly young technology and we should be able to continually improve safety and eliminate accidents like Fukishima.

Had many of the posters been around at the time of the Aberfan disaster, would you have been calling for a complete ban on coal mining?

The decision on where to store nuclear waste should be taken on purely technical grounds by Central Government. It will be much safer in a secure underground site than above ground anywhere.

All IMHU 😉

I wonder if piemonster

Yes, things like this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster

And http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_industrial_disasters#Energy_industry

As for controlled environment you mean we have never done this before but we think it will be ok for the next 4 million years to just put it in a big hoile in the ground. I mean if we cannot predict the next 4 million years and what will happen then Pfftt…wish us luck as we are doing it in your back yard now stop objecting ITS SAFE

To be fair Junky, the chances of it being a human concern are minimal. Gotta feel for whichever species has to deal with our mess though.

Total transmission losses in the UK grid are estimate at around 7.7% making it 92.3% efficient. I challenge you to find a form of electrical generation that is that efficient

WTF?

What I said was is that distribution is wasteful and thanks for confirming it, but no need as I already knew it…..that why I said it. The point being why build them so far way from the point of demand in that case? Trust me, any business, and I mean absolutely anyone who could improve their profitability by 7.7% by simple relocating to a point nearer the demand would do it without a second thought unless of course there was a bloody good reason not to.

Oh yeah, we’ve already covered that

wherever the powerstations are, there’ll still be loads of people who don’t live near the station, there will always be transmission losses…

I thought this was about long term waste storage rather than production. Plenty of power plants closer to population centers than Sellafield.

Chernobyl and Fukishima are as bad as civil nuclear accidents can get,

They are the worst e have had not the worst we could have

but relatively few people died

Really depends what you measure and whose fugure you believe. iirc the chernobyl estimate range from less than 50 to over 400,000.

It is also important to point out that Nuclear power stations cannot possibly explode in a “nuclear explosion”

WTF are they not in london and remind me when exactly chernobyl will be safe to move back to

I get your point but the possible consequences of nukes going bad are far in excess of what would happen if anything else went wrong.
The issue is whether you want to live with this risk not how likely it is [ very unlikely] to occur.
Like a plane unlikely to go wrong if it does very likely to be very bad.

Berm Bandit – Member

Total transmission losses in the UK grid are estimate at around 7.7% making it 92.3% efficient. I challenge you to find a form of electrical generation that is that efficient

the debate we should be having BEFORE we jump irrevocably into a cess pool of our own making.

We are in a cess pool of our own making. 1) All that waste at Sellafield is already there. 2) I would suggest global warming knocks storage of HLW into a crocked hat in terms of problems to fix.

Really depends what you measure and whose fugure you believe. iirc the chernobyl estimate range from less than 50 to over 400,000.

The official figure is about 3000 directly attributed to Chernobyl, IIRC.

They are the worst e have had not the worst we could have

Well, one was the direct result of someone breaking soviet safety rules (such as they were) 😯 😯 😯

The other was an old station that resisted both an earthquake it was never designed for, and a tsunami much larger than one it was designed to withstand. Add to that, how many were killed by said tsunami? Makes the nuclear disaster pale into insignificance.

Just how much worse a cause could you envisage?

The official figure is about 3000 directly attributed to Chernobyl, IIRC.

IIRC, thats a projection that approximately 3000 of the liquidators will die earlier than they otherwise would – mainly from late life cancers, out of a background mortality of 100k cancer deaths from the 500k liquidators, so about a 0.5% increase in cancer mortality,

The actual number of people that have actually died from sources attributable to radiation exposure from chernobyl is around 70 – 50 odd workers/liquidators and about fifteen children with thyroid cancer.

So geologists amongst us…

What would be the likely result of dropping it into a tectonic plate subduction zone for it to be consumed in molten magma and a firey hell… ?

Seriously ?

What I said was is that distribution is wasteful and thanks for confirming it, but no need as I already knew it…..that why I said it. The point being why build them so far way from the point of demand in that case? Trust me, any business, and I mean absolutely anyone who could improve their profitability by 7.7% by simple relocating to a point nearer the demand would do it without a second thought unless of course there was a bloody good reason not to.

There is, the bulk of those losses are at the low voltage, local level. Oh and if you think you can have a system that is 100% efficient you really are clueless when it comes to science and technology. 92.8% is a staggeringly high efficiency, for reference a power generation plant will be about 60% ish and a petrol car engine about 25%.

Then there’s the fact that Coal Fired power stations release more radiation into the atmosphere every year than any other type of power station nuclear included.

rickmeister – Member

So geologists amongst us…

What would be the likely result of dropping it into a tectonic plate subduction zone for it to be consumed in molten magma and a firey hell… ?

Seriously ?

Bed time reading 😉
http://www.ndaThe-scientific-foundations-of-deep-geological-disposal-Nirex-Report

182 Stewart, I.S. and Hancock, P.L., Neotectonics, in Hancock, P.L. (Ed.), Continental
Deformation, Pergamon, 1994.

Hancock, PL. & North, CP. (1989). ‘Geology of Reskajeage Farm quarry (NIREX research site on Cornish slate)’. vol. NSS/R184, NIREX Safety Studies Report, Harwell, UK.

BTW P.L Hancock was my father & did a fair bit of research for Nirex but was slightly uncomfortable about it, more from a political point rather than a safety standpoint

Then there’s the fact that Coal Fired power stations release more radiation into the atmosphere every year than any other type of power station nuclear included.

But that’s not the bad radiation, mmmkay

discussing on question time now

dellingpole (spit) managed to drag wind turbines into it, natch

Then there’s the fact that Coal Fired power stations release more radiation into the atmosphere every year than any other type of power station nuclear included.

GENUINE QUESTION ALERT
Is that true even if we look at the half life etc of the waste product or just if we look at yearly outputs?
I assume it has some spin is this correct?

zokes – Member

The other was an old station that resisted both an earthquake it was never designed for, and a tsunami much larger than one it was designed to withstand.

But built in an area where both earthquakes and tsunami were a risk. And that’s the problem in a nutshell. Nuclear power is potentially fine, but humans are kind of dicks.