Nuclear Power, yay or nay

TBH I'm don't know enough ins & outs to make a proper decision, who is in favour or against & why?

'cause I don't trust humans

…….and the consequences of a f*ckup can be rather serious.

http://morrillmajority.org/tmicancer.jpg

If anyone had a proper means of disposing of the waste…

It's the only logical choice.
Renewables are great, but largely unstable.
Nuclear is stable, worked great so far and pretty efficient too. Also has am exceptionally low carbon output.

1. People are fallible and make mistakes.

2. There is no such thing as foolproof.

3. They are run by profit making organisations, with shareholders.

4. And Governments, with slim majorities.

5. We still can't (or won't spend the necessary cash to) turn off the old ones, no matter what anyone will tell you.

6. We still don't know what to do with the waste.

7. We have no idea of the long term consequences of the accidents that have already occurred.

8. Or the ones that inevitably must occur in the future.

So that's a "no" then.

And before anyone asks, I don't have a simple answer to the world energy crisis, but the OP didn't ask that, OK?

Yay. Look at France – loads of reactors and not a problem.

Chernobyl and 3 mile island were consequences of crap reactor design.

I love the idea of a huge fusion reactor telling us that Nuclear power is bad.

all for it, splitting an atom to release energy gives out a few million times more energy than burning the same amount.

Nuclear & renewables arn't good bedfellows without a bit of gas or coal to provide the peak requirements.

Wave power is where it's at, but no serious money is going into development at the moment…

Modern day nuclear power stations are very good from what I've read although I don't know know that much about them. Alternative methods need to be investigated as tidal and wind are crap in comparison and fossil fuelled stations have pretty much had their day given that the fuels are running out. I think safer disposal of waste material needs to be investifated and implemented. That said I wouldn't want one next dor to me but then I wouldn't want any power station near me

I love the idea of a huge fusion reactor telling us that Nuclear power is bad.

Exactly. The only huge fusion reactor which should be supplying us with energy, should be kept 90 million miles away.

Not next to a city.

If they are now so safe, why not build them right next to, and within the major population centres where the electricity demand is, thus saving on transmission losses too?.
Or is the reason that they are typically built in out-of-the-way locations in the North a selfless decision to provide the locals with much needed jobs?

I want one of these for Christmas:

http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news-toshiba-micro-nuclear-12.17b.html

Alternative methods need to be investigated as tidal and wind are crap in comparison

If we'd spent anywhere near as much money developing them as we have on nuclear energy over the years, who knows how good they could be by now.

Nay. There is sufficient evidence that it causes cancers in areas surrounding the reactors and no TV could ever be wide enough to justify powering it with dirty energy like that.

im studying powergeneration at uni lol…its a choice between nuclear and coal…nuclear is much cleaner and safer….mean u can biuld a nuclear power station in the middle of london and the biggest risk would be sumthing to do with the protesters out side…over the history of the world…nuclear is the safest source of energy…(overall combining safety, risk of fuel shortages etc)…its not gonna sort us out in the longrun but itll have to do for now…china has biult a reactor that cant melt down (we wont have them) and maybe in 50 or so years time when these new stations are being decommisioned we will prehaps have nuclear fusion to sort us out for the next 100 years…

John, if you're dyslexic, then I apologise wholeheartedly.

If not, then I rest my case.

No.

There's a very limited supply of useable Uranium.

Extracting/transporting uranium uses lots of oil.

Climate change and peak oil are liable to lead to some extremely unstable political situations in the foreseeable future and I don't trust most politicians.

Running nuclear power stations is a very complex business. Regardless of efficiency the downside in terms of lack of resilience is too great.

We have no solution for secure waste storage.

It distracts from more viable solutions.

Nuclear Power is no way low carbon – it is pretty serious if you look at dust to dust emissions.

You are once more chaining yourself to a finite resource

There are other emissions beyond CO2 linked with the nuclear industry such as CFCs, which is a big problem

The sheer cost of nuclear energy is quite scary, you have to factor in the clean up costs to the kWh prices

Its too dirty, too expensive, too dangerous (subject to terrorist attacks etc) and doesn't solve our energy security issues.

So no, I don't want to see more of the stuff ta.

Page 15 of this book shows a quite interesting graph:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=49Yb4EfZYwkC&lpg=PP3&ots=TQyoRoCJ_U&dq=process%20safety%20analysis&pg=PA15#v=onepage&q=&f=false

quite an interesting subject too although can seem a bit morbid at points.

I'm all for it by the way. Waste disposal, well it comes from the ground (granted in a less enriched state) why can't it go back in there!

We've been through this all before several times haven't we?

Still,

There's a very limited supply of useable Uranium.

500 years or so at current usage levels…

Extracting/transporting uranium uses lots of oil.

Please think before typing. It clearly uses way less oil to transport uranium than it does to transport, for example, oil.

Atomkraft, ja bitte.

supply of fuel not unlimited.
Not cheap
Takes decades from decidign to buil one to actually coming on stream
No storage method for the waste materials that will be harmful for about a gazillion years [slight exageration of time].
terrorist threat – imagine flying a plane into one of them
Other stuff are theoretically unlimited – tidal , solar for example and cleaner.
Humans make mistakes and no system is perfect. Errors will occur again.
Nay for me – suspect we will end up with them though

500 years includes the amounts known 5.5 metric tonnes and an assupption that 10.5 will be found that have not yet [250 years] and then better extraction techniques and some more will be found – source nulear Energy Agency

I'm obviously against, and luckily so is my government,
…however if a wee nuclear power station could be sited at STW towers to give the hamsters a break, I could be persuaded 🙂

If it was safe as they say and able to recycle the waste safely.

Strangely nobody seems to say that Nuclear power needs, electrical power to power the pumps and all the lights etc,this comes from, coal, gas and oil fired stations possibly or even hydro that can be switched on a press of button .
John please dont go into nuclear power station working with spelling like that.

If they are now so safe, why not build them right next to, and within the major population centres where the electricity demand is, thus saving on transmission losses too?.
Or is the reason that they are typically built in out-of-the-way locations in the North a selfless decision to provide the locals with much needed jobs?

What, like Hinkley Point, in the Bristol Channel, close to Bristol, a not so insignificant city? Try checking your facts.

ENERGY EFFICENCY,switch off all building floodlighting, shop window displays and signs, and half the motorway lights.

Strangely nobody seems to say that Nuclear power needs, electrical power to power the pumps and all the lights etc,this comes from, coal, gas and oil fired station

What?

Countzero,maybe the government of the day just didn't like Bristol?

Some thoughts.

What's the half life of CO2? Longer than Nuclear waste I'd guess.
Apparently more people have been killed by coal fired power than nuclear (though even if that FACT is true then is probably isn't on a fair basis)
There are other ways of doing peaking requirements.

Strangely nobody seems to say that Nuclear power needs, electrical power to power the pumps and all the lights etc,this comes from, coal, gas and oil fired stations possibly or even hydro that can be switched on a press of button .

for start up and shutdown you need an alternate source and this is how often? They don't flick them on and off each day, I imagine they run constantly for years as any chemical plant would (aside undesired LTI's).

The remainder of the time power can be used from the generation ongoing at the plant

Yay!

No

no one knows how to dispose of the waste. They produce a lot of CO2 in building and decommissioning the plants, ( ten times the concrete of a conventional plant) fuel supply is very finite and unreliable. No one knows how to decommission a plant as well and the electricity is expensive.

Accidents may be rare but they happen -along with chernobyl and 3 miles island is windscale and dounray accidents as well. Parts of teh UK are still radioactive from thesee accidents to say nothing of the radiactive soup that is in the Irish sea now.

Renewables and hydrogen generation/ storage along with conservation measures.

If everyone turned their TV off rather than laving it on standby it would save the output of one power station

Mat – look at the history of nukes – the two Scottish ones have run at about 40% of capacity IIIRC because of faults and maintenance. I have no faith the next generation of plants will be better. I remember the promise " electricity to cheap to be worth metering"

500 years or so at current usage levels…

How much of the world's energy needs is currently been provided by nuclear energy ? 15% ? So if everyone switches to nuclear power, how long will it last ?

TBH, I had no idea it was such a limited resource.

Apparently more people have been killed by coal fired power than nuclear (though even if that FACT is true then is probably isn't on a fair basis)

That's not really a very solid way to go about an argument is it, the graph I linked earlier shows that statistically dams bursting happens more frequently and kills more people than nuclear catastrophes

to say nothing of the radiactive soup that is in the Irish sea now.

Now, on reflection, isn't that just an itsy teensy bit of an exaggeration?

What's the half life of CO2? Longer than Nuclear waste I'd guess.

Only nuclear material has a half life C02 is stable and does not decay –

i've been reading up on geological co2 storage options the past few days and looks like a possibilities, it has been suggested that nuclear waste could be stored in a a similar way. obvious a reservoir leak ain't too bad with co2 but pretty disasterous with nuclear.

It's the only short to medium term answer.
Renewables (I hope) are the long term answer, however are dreadful performers at present (I don't think wind will ever be an answer).
We have security issues with our fuel at present because we buy some gas from the russians who spit their dummy out quite a lot. We need our own source and the north sea peaked ages ago.