Nuclear Power

SeanW

ApeXaviour wrote:

Edit: actually.. to grow these at appreciable levels would be at the expense of other crops and at the expense of forests etc. Hmm.. I'd like to do a bit more research on this actually before I decide my opinion.

That is very true of some smaller developing countries where biofuel development is very much at the expense of forests (which get burned :eek: to clear land for palm planting, especially in island parts of Southern Asia. You should look up the writings of anti-Biodiesel activist George Monbiot for such arguments.

However, for the developed world where farming is in decline, and other countries that already have a very strong farming sector, like Brazil, this is a non issue, like Ireland where agriculture is in a staged collapse.

That would really depend. I mean I think most people would look at the economics/time of it waaay before the negligible safety issue. And if you were to take safety into account then you'd whether or not you are in the UK would play a major factor in that question.

Hypothetically if the train was a nice, cheap comfy HSR while the ship had maritime safety conditions similar to Titanic, you'd take the train.

When dealing with nuclear power, there is no room for cockyness or complacency. If you look at the design, construction, operation and eventual failure of both Titanic and Chernobyl AES, there are many frightening paralells.

But surely it can be projected that renewables won't be sufficient by themselves?

That is very possible.

And IMO nuclear >> coal/oil.

Until something goes wrong.

So why the hesitation?

We haven't even begun to explore the possibilites for renewables in this country.

Nuclear is good for the silver-bullet of producing heaps of energy with minimial CO2 emissions, which is why I don't oppose it 100%. But let's not fool ourselves into thinking it's something it isn't.

jd

SeanW wrote:

That isn't realistic. Yes, burning biofuels emits carbon dioxide.

But the next generation of biofuel crops takes the carbon back by photosynthesis. It can best be described as carbon-recycling, rather than mineral oil which takes carbon out of the ground, puts in the air and leaves it there.

But there would be crops growing there anyway..whethrt those particular crops are used for fuel is immaterial.

zepp

jd wrote:

But there would be crops growing there anyway..whethrt those particular crops are used for fuel is immaterial.

Not if we bury them first depends on the crop as well. surly trees take in more carbon then grass

Gurgle

zepp wrote:

surly trees take in more carbon then grass

Apparently its related to the total leaf-surface area.
Algae converts more CO2 to O2 than any other type of plant.

New_Departure06

Nuclear is an option and I don't think we should rule it out completely. Saying "let's not go nuclear because of Chernobyl" is a bit like saying "we should ban ships because of the Titanic."

Titanic didn't give cancer to thousands of people.

Also, remember that 80% of the world's nuclear waste-reprocessing happens at Sellafield. The consequences of an accident or terrorist attack would be vastly worse than Chernobyl.

Airmail

Between Solar, Wind, Tidal, Hydro, Wave, Geothermal and Biomass surely we can do without nuclear. Although I do accept some of these probably are not power station material in Ireland (Geothermal).

Sponge Bob

I would say that we should look at small boiler units as long as the Brits supply the fuel and agree to take the whole lot back when we are finished with them including the reactor.

Its in our own interest ( for about 25000 years) to have a viable reprocessing and decommissioning industry in the UK, imagine a bankrupt Sellafield, ouch

sameoldname

I believe that the biggest obstacle to all of the proposed power generation methods is that of the NIMBY factor.
Where would we build a nuclear reactor? We can't even seem to be able to build an incinerator in this country without mass objection!
The same goes for wind power, the best locations are generally those of scenic beauty.
Solar power requires a large amount of land for anything worth while, same goes for hydro and tidal is claimed to mess up eco-systems.
I dunno about the other options but I think we may end up just importing electricity in the near future.

bonkey

ApeXaviour wrote:

Except for the fact that bio-fuels such as switch-grass will tend not run out,
they are no better than fossil fuels. They cause just as much carbon emission.

You forget to factor in that year-on-year, they also extract carbon dioxide from the air.

Fossil fuels do not do this - the lifeforms that they were formed from have ceased to play an active role in the carbon-cycle, so all we're doing is releasing previously-fixed carbon. With crops, you enter the cycle once more.

Nuclear is the only practical and environmentally friendly way to tide us over until fusion becomes realisable.

It will almost certainly be part of the solution. However, when proposing it as the first, last and always replacement for hydrocarbons, then it is not necessarily accurate to say it is the only choice.

Whereas to fulfill our needs in the near future, it will require us to import energy from abroad. So in essence we will be using nuclear energy anyway. Why not save money and increase employment by building our own?

Ireland's current shortage of energy is an artifically created situation which was designed to create a market for energy suppliers. The interim solution is to buy from abroad. The long-term solution is to have the interconnect for selling our own eventual surplus and/or making up for unexpected shortfalls.

None of this suggests that the only option for indigenous production is or should be nuclear.

I think the author's figures on our national grid to be extremely dubious at best.
The furthest a power line will have to stretch in ireland will be 200km. This 5000km business is a bit silly really. Think of it like a spiderweb; to go from one end to the other does not require one to traverse the entirety of the web.

Thats not how the national grid works. You don't turn on traffic lights and "pipe" the electricity from point-to-point.

Nuclear may not be ideal but for at least the next half centuary it is the best we've got.

Tell me...were you also saying this before the Arklow bank was proposed? Do you think we'd have been better off with a nuke station instead of it? If another 500MW or 1GW of clean energy were to be readily found for Ireland, would you argue that 500MW or 1GW of nuclear generation would still be preferable?

Or is it that nuclear is the best option after we've exhausted all the better ones?

jc

civdef

Also, remember that 80% of the world's nuclear waste-reprocessing happens at Sellafield.The consequences of an accident or terrorist attack would be vastly worse than Chernobyl.

Can you back that assertion (the second one) up?

piraka

sameoldname wrote:

I believe that the biggest obstacle to all of the proposed power generation methods is that of the NIMBY factor..

Surely that would change if the cost of energy increases, who wants to give up their TV's, dvd's, gameboys etc...

The same goes for wind power, the best locations are generally those of scenic beauty.

and scientific interest, which should be protected.

Solar power requires a large amount of land for anything worth while, same goes for hydro and tidal is claimed to mess up eco-systems.
I dunno about the other options but I think we may end up just importing electricity in the near future.

Why can't we go for domestic wind and solar units.

MeatProduct

Nuclear is the only way Ireland can come out of this in a manner that will allow for the continued current energy usage. However I think renewables are the best option. They'll never be able to compete with nuclear and oil and as a result we must get used to the idea that we'll never be able to be so wasteful with energy anymore.

Let the dark ages return

Nick

EDIT: TV's and DVDs and the like just waste time anyway. We'd all be much better off spending that time on self-development. Of course who wants to do that in this day and age when we all seek the next thing that can distract us from ourselves.

Akrasia

Here are a few points that are lacking in the national debate.

1. Nuclear power is extremely long term. We will be dealing with the plant and waste for hundreds or thousands of years after we stop benefiting from the power
2. It would take at least 20 years for a nuclear power station to be built and operational, that is from the moment we start planning.
3. Bertie has come out against nuclear power before the election, so no planning will take place for at least another year, and if the greens or sinn fein are part of the next coalition, the chances of Nuclear power being on the agenda over the next 5 years is very slim. This pushes nuclear power at least a quarter of a century away.

4. Experts are starting to agree that peak oil has arrived now. and to avoid the catestrophic consequences of unaffordable or unavailable energy, we need a plan that will be up and running in around 10 years.

5. none of this precludes planning for a contingency that might include nuclear power in 20 or 30 years if we still need it, But we should absolutely not use a nuclear debate as an excuse to delay ir ignore alternative energy production

6. There are technologies available today, which, with the stroke of a pen by our government officials, could cut our national energy needs by a huge proportion in the short term (change planning laws to require maximum utilisation of renewable energy sources built into all new homes, and to give big grants to existing property owners to implement renewable energy solutions)

7. Biofuels should be a central part of our transport energy plan. it should be a requirement that all new cars sold in ireland be capable of running pure plant oil in the case of Diesel cars, and bioethanol in the case of Petrol cars. And farmers should be encouraged to convert land to growing suitable biomass crops

Akrasia

civdef wrote:

Can you back that assertion (the second one) up?

well, we shouldn't be planning policy on the assumption that a nuclear accident at sellafield would be less devastating than the accident at Chernobyl.

Ciaran500

Akrasia wrote:

well, we shouldn't be planning policy on the assumption that a nuclear accident at sellafield would be less devastating than the accident at Chernobyl.

We shouldn't be assuming anything. Any policies should be planned on actual facts.

SeanW

Given the huge amount of nuclear material stored at Sellafield (similar to Chernobyl), it's a good guess that any nuclear meltdown at Sellafield would have similar consequnces.

Really it comes down to practices, I see so many similarities between RMS Titanic and the Chernobyl NPP: Chernobyl was the showcase of the Soviet nuclear "fleet." Titanic was the showcase of the super-wonderful White Star Line. Both designers were totally cocky and over-confident - Chernobyl's designer I read somewhere that he had said "this reactor design is so safe you could put one on Red Square." Titanic: "God Himself could not sink this ship."

Both designers may have been correct in that their creations may have been safe in everyday operation, but flawed at critical times. Chernobyl's reactors could become unstable at low power output (which came into play in the doomed safety test of Reactor 4), and Titanic was a compartmentalised design that could stay afloat with 4 compartments breached. The iceberg breached 5.

The captain of Titanic was on the last run of his career, and wanted to retire with a bang - making a speed record from Ireland to New York with this wonderful ship. The managers of Chernobyl were in a hurry to commission Reactor 4 to impress their Soviet party bosses.

The crew of both Titanic and Chernobyl were hopelessly incompetent and badly managed. Chernobyl's doomed safety test was carried out by a skeleton nightshift crew of newly appointed managers et. al, who didn't stop their doomed test when they had the chance, and their instruction manual was not clear. Titanic's crew didn't even bother taking their binoculars with them. Chernobyl had vast quantities of nuclear material, probably tens of tons more than they needed, Titanic had far more passengers than she could evacuate with 6 lifeboats.

The point I'm trying to make is this: Chernoybl, like Titanic was caused by a deadly sequence of human frailties, bad practices, shotcuts and error.

However, both accidents have caused reform in their sectors.

Ships don't blindly speed into ice-packs anymore on the assumption that "God himself can't stop me" and nuclear technology and design has improved since Chernobyl. Indeed, the Soviet empire collapsed less than 5 years later and largely their legacy of corruption, mismanagement and incompetence has been forgotten.

There is no reason to assume that another Chernobyl is likely here in Western Europe just because the Soviets F@#Ked up big time in their nuclear programmes.

piraka

Would a reactor of design like Chernobyl prior to the accident allowed to have been built in the West at that time.

piraka

How many nuclear accidents have occurred in France since they went nuclear in the mid seventies? I don't know off any that was made public.

bonkey

piraka wrote:

Surely that would change if the cost of energy increases, who wants to give up their TV's, dvd's, gameboys etc...

But thats the whole point of NIMBYism - recognising and accepting the need, but insisting that somewhere else be chosen as the location to meet that need.

jc

bonkey

SeanW wrote:

Given the huge amount of nuclear material stored at Sellafield (similar to Chernobyl), it's a good guess that any nuclear meltdown at Sellafield would have similar consequnces.

What, as a matter of interest, would cause this meltdown in your good guess? I

I'm just asking seeing as there are no active reactors there since the Magnox reactor in Calder Hall closed down in 2003.

jc

piraka

bonkey wrote:

But thats the whole point of NIMBYism - recognising and accepting the need, but insisting that somewhere else be chosen as the location to meet that need.

jc

But that attitude would change when faced with a dramatic fall in living standards and quality of life. ( I always say; If you want to effect change, hit them in the pocket.)

piraka

I have just decided that we should go nuclear as soon as possible. The reason is that risks cannot be any greater than that which is posed by the chemical industry.

Remember Bhopal 1984, which is largely forgotten by the masses, but where over 2000 persons died immediately with up to 600,000 people injured with 15,000 dying later.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_Disaster

The chemical industry have already built and are still building chemical plants and toxic waste incinerators in Ireland

New_Departure06

civdef wrote:

Can you back that assertion (the second one) up?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,578949,00.html

civdef

So..if all the radioactive material at Sellafield magicked itself into the air and over Ireland it could do more harm than Chernobyl....

At Chernobyl an active reactor of dodgy design was operated far outside it's safe working parameters, and it exploded, thereby spreading the radioactive material.

How would that happen at Sellafield?

Akrasia

civdef wrote:

So..if all the radioactive material at Sellafield magicked itself into the air and over Ireland it could do more harm than Chernobyl....

At Chernobyl an active reactor of dodgy design was operated far outside it's safe working parameters, and it exploded, thereby spreading the radioactive material.

How would that happen at Sellafield?

well, a simple fire would be enough to 'magic' the radiation into the air.

And Sellafield has a long history of breaching safety regulations and operating beyond authorised parameters, falsifying documents and illegal pollution so it's not as if it's being run by perfect robots who never make mistakes.

civdef

Oh dear, surely hopefully will be able to tell BNFL that they might want to consider implementing some fire precautions at Sellafield then, like not keeping flammable materials near the radioactive storage. They might even consider using fire resisting containers for the radioactive material, but only if they are really clever.

piraka

Nuclear Power station for Ireland???

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/4925290.stm

lostexpectation

Dik Roche

http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/0428/nuclear.html


Forfás slammed over nuclear debate

28 April 2006 15:38

The Minister for the Environment has criticised the State agency, Forfás, for what he said was the resurrection of a distracting public debate on nuclear energy.

Dick Roche was speaking at a conference on sustainable energy in Co Longford this morning.

Mr Roche said nuclear energy was the least sustainable of all sources and there was something perverse about the argument being put forward that nuclear energy was in some way a solution to the world's global warming.

He said it was already proven that nuclear energy would simply pass on huge problems to generations to come.

The minister described the nuclear industry as ruthless and said the Government would continue to vigorously pursue the closure of Sellafield in Cumbria, England.

Pa ElGrande

The Peak Oil concept does not suggest that "the world is about to run out of oil" Peak Oil merely takes the observation that once oil reservoirs are depleted past the half way mark they flow more slowly and extrapolates this simple fact across the world.
What is running out is our ability to produce oil at today's production levels and at today's low prices. Oil will continue to be produced for a long time, but not at current high volumes and not at current low prices.
In other words the price of oil will go up. Not in a smooth and orderly fashion, but in a very uneven and spiky kind of way. The long term trend however is upwards.

The current rises are already having a dramatic effect in some countries.

Bangladesh: Country in grip of severe fuel shortage
http://nation.ittefaq.com/artman/publish/article_27490.shtml

Iran may ration gasoline as prices deplete budget
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/3822654.html

Eritrea blames power cuts on supplier’s shortage of oil
http://www.sudantribune.com/article.php3?id_article=14816

Philipines: Govt sounds alarm on rising gas prices
http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/?page=news01_april19_2006

Pa ElGrande

Speaking at a conference in the University of Limerick on April 20, 2006, Matthew Simmons, an investment banker and expert on global oil reserves, warned that production from giant oil fields in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states may already have peaked, meaning imminent oil shortages.

Here is an interview he gave on his return to the United States, that is well worth listening to, whether you subscribe to his views or not.
The interview is approximately 45 minutes long.

http://www.netcastdaily.com/broadcast/fsn2006-0429-2b.mp3

There are alternative media formats available here.

His book is "Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy"
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/047173876X/qid=1146489932/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_2_1/203-4555340-1360748