Why Not Nuclear Power?

Kama

Hoho you truly are a glibertarian!

Glibertarian Schmoozialists of the world, unite?

Sherifu

nesf wrote: »

Where the Corrib Pipeline was originally routed would a good choice I think.

/glib

That's gas.

nesf

Dear God, what did I unleash..

Sherifu

nesf wrote: »

Dear God, what did I unleash..

The hounds...?

bonkey

Kama wrote: »

Is there a country comparable to Ireland whose nuclear program you would regard as best practice?

Swiss isn't bad....and we're talking a nation of comparable size. Having said that, their stations are old (design-wise). I'd prefer something more modern, but amn't enough of a nuclear expert to be able to pick one modern design over another, to be honest.

What would you envision as the waste transport and storage system?
(deep sequestration, shallow, re-use, what?)

I'd see buying into reprocessing as a major part of it.

After that, I don't think Ireland should get into storing its own waste. For many nations (particularly the smaller ones) its just not viable.

Storage is a tough nut to crack, and I tend not to side with any of the "its already been solved" advocates of mostly-theoretical solutions.

What location would you regard as most suitable?
(efficiency, nimbyism, likelihood to annoy the UK etc)

Either side of the Shannon estuary, somewhere close to the coast. Picking townlands off the top of my head, Moneypoint and Tarbert would seem like good choices.

nesf

bonkey wrote: »

Either side of the Shannon estuary, somewhere close to the coast. Picking townlands off the top of my head, Moneypoint and Tarbert would seem like good choices.

Both would be good choices, the already present power stations mean that the grid and distribution technology is already there. Replacing Moneypoint with a nuclear station would probably do a fair bit for the local environment too.

turgon

Well the locals will be in uproar wherever it put. How about Ringaskiddy, Co. Cork?? Right on the docks and theres already a load of pharmaceutical plants there.

ChocolateSauce

I'm totally in favour of nuclear power. The only truly legitimate concern is about nuclear waste, and as the Americans proved with their Nevada disposal plant, it can actually be hidden away safely for eons.

There is broad concensus withing the scientific community that nuclear power, when undertaken in a modern and professional manner, is safe beyond reasonable doubt.

For all the leaks of Sellafield (which seems to be a very badly run reactor), how many people have actually died because of it? Not enough to have the place closed.

More people die in coal mines in China every year than have died in nuclear accidents, ever.

heyjude

The main argument against nuclear power here in Ireland is that public opinion is so hostile to it, that no government is seriously going to pursue it, at least for the next 15-20 years, which could prove critical.

Leaving aside the safety concerns about nuclear power generation, which seem to focus on Chernobyl and Sellafield and yet ignore the health problems caused by burning coal, oil and gas, the real issue is whether we can afford not to go nuclear.

Oil and gas are already getting close to being too expensive to burn for electricity generation and with oil prices of $200 a barrel being forecast, how much longer can we actually afford these fuels ? Coal prices have also surged and while coal is plentiful worldwide, its cost will rise sharply as oil and gas reserves are depleted.

The other alternatives that are often cited such as solar, wind, wave, and tidal, seem more suited for support roles rather than carrying the peak load on the grid. To replace oil and gas we'd need tens of thousands of windmills and we know how hard it has been to get agreement on the few that exist at present. Tidal and wave power are probably years away from being viable options on the scale needed and then there will be the protests from those that feel that they are spoiling the view etc.

As for importing electricity from abroad, well what about security of supply ? How would you feel knowing that 80% of our electricity comes from France, Britain or wherever, putting us at the mercy of strikes or political decisions taken in other countries. There is also the issue of cost, as if we are wholly dependent on a single supplier from overseas, then they can set the price and what can we do except pay it ?

Irrespective of which way you feel about the issue, whether we go nuclear or to more enviromental alternatives, we need to make up our minds quickly as building a nuclear power plant or installing tens of thousands of windmills, tidal and wave generating plants will take years and we need to get started now. If we wait till the oil hits $200, $220 or whatever to start looking at the options, then the future looks bleak.

Unfortunately the current government have shown little desire to grasp the nettle of future power needs except in vague, aspirational terms and its hard to have much confidence in them to reach a definitive decision any time soon. We need action ASAP not expert groups, consultants reports, but the action we need might not be very palatable to the public.

Kama

heyjude wrote: »

Irrespective of which way you feel about the issue, whether we go nuclear or to more enviromental alternatives, we need to make up our minds quickly as building a nuclear power plant or installing tens of thousands of windmills, tidal and wave generating plants will take years and we need to get started now. If we wait till the oil hits $200, $220 or whatever to start looking at the options, then the future looks bleak.

Quoted For Truth!

Neither policy nor the market, due to their different myopias, seem to be making the vast allocation of resources that appear to be required. Barring the discovery of some happy-clappy zero-point power source, we are in for an energy crunch with no real historical point of comparison. The OPEC crunch pales in comparison. A lower total energy usage is a plausible scenario. We could well be 'dancing at the crossroads' and not by choice.

Rising real energy costs will no doubt compound the pain of any changeover attempt, punishing us more the later we take action. Worsening balance of trade given import dependence should have pushed us already, but much like our carbon print, its seemed cheaper to buy our way out.

How the public awareness can reach the required level for change is anyones guess. One cold winter with some blackouts could make the difference between something to complain about, and a public perception of crisis; one cold night and the 'view' changes. But nuclear will be a hard sell regardless. Attempting to scale up any and all alternates has the definite advantage of a less-rabid nimbyism, much as microgeneration approaches have an advantage in that action can be taken sooner, without the mammoth political and implementation problems attendent on a nuclear development.

nesf

Kama wrote: »

Neither policy nor the market, due to their different myopias, seem to be making the vast allocation of resources that appear to be required.

I'd beg to differ, there's a lot of private sector investment going into renewables, especially in China where there is a rapidly growing market for energy without "legacy" infrastructure that'll try and block competition to some extent. The problem is it's very hard to pick winners in these things and there will be far more dead ends and failed technologies than there will be economically viable ones. If anything, developing new technologies like renewables is very much something that the market needs to do, it's too risky for a Government to commit to one alternative or another, invest a large amount of public money and inevitably carrying on with investment long after the project should have been scrapped (because of some failing or another) because of special interest groups lobbying for money for the "new industry". Look at ethanol in the States for example. Going after ethanol as a temporary relief from fossil fuel usage in cars? Not the worst idea in the world. Blocking imports from countries that can make ethanol more cheaply and more efficiently because they use sugar cane instead of corn to make it? Stupid protectionist crap as per usual.

Kama

Apoliges is I get heatedly rhetorical at times, I'm more than a little 'Chicken Little' on energy.

>.<

Agree totally on the sugarcane vs corn ethanol example. The energy return on corn ethanol, depending on boundary issues in analysis, can be less than 1. It should have been a non-starter. Absurd levels of output subsidy, and entrenched interests, ensured it continued.
However I'm not convinced a laissez-faire will provide an adequate outcome either; without going into any classic debate on whether subsidies are always bad for development, and the market always superior. I'm firmly in favour of a mixed economy myself, but we're into ideology then...

Subsidy per se is less of an issue to me than how a subsidy is implemented, and what it supports; subsidising a inefficient and unsustainable fuel source with industrial scale EU/US pork a la corn ethanol as a give-away to agro-chem giants to me seems significantly different to subsidizing the expansion of an indigenous renewable industry in the context of an energy crunch and a credit crunch.

One seems like corporate capture of subsidy for a failed technology, the other a prudent piece of counter-cyclical planning. But then, like I said, thats just my opinion and I swing a bit Keynesian...

nesf

Kama wrote: »

However I'm not convinced a laissez-faire will provide an adequate outcome either; without going into any classic debate on whether subsidies are always bad for development, and the market always superior. I'm firmly in favour of a mixed economy myself, but we're into ideology then...

That's where the question gets muddled I think. Even the most laissez-faire economy today is still a mixed economy to some extent. The question should be how can we use the advantages of both policy and market to tackle this and other problems rather than getting bogged down in an idealogical debate that, in my opinion, misses the point in many ways.

Kama wrote: »

One seems like corporate capture of subsidy for a failed technology, the other a prudent piece of counter-cyclical planning. But then, like I said, thats just my opinion and I swing a bit Keynesian...

I agree with you wholeheartedly on this one. Subsidies can affect useful change and they can also redistribute wealth to special interest groups, most are somewhere in between I feel.

Kama

There's a lot of old jokes on these lines, like:

Q: what's a subsidy?
A: when the government gives someone else money.

Subsidies I approve of are a 'pro-active policy for a healthy business environment'.
Those I don't are 'distortions of competition'. And so forth.
Think my favourite is about the economist, mathematician, and philosopher on a desert island with a can of beans. The economist says:

'Let us assume a tin-opener'. :rolleyes:

nesf

Kama wrote: »

Subsidies I approve of are a 'pro-active policy for a healthy business environment'.
Those I don't are 'distortions of competition'. And so forth.

It's very hard to have the first without some of the second though. Which complicates things greatly.

SeanW

theozster wrote: »

More people die in coal mines in China every year than have died in nuclear accidents, ever.

QFT!

Ok, first of all, I may owe an apology to Kama. As many anti-nukes (like Greenpeace) consider "please think of little, broken Annya" or "ooh, radiation, scary" to be a viable argument, I view most anti-nukes in that harsh light.

However Kama, in fairness does display a preference for dealing in fact, and my initial appraisal did not gauge that appropriately. Hence, I may have used a sharper tone intially than was appropriate.

Kama wrote:

Scenario - Nuclear Ireland.

Assumptions are:

Oil and FF's continue to deplete, energy supply is constricting.
Nuclear becomes more palatable, with cross-party political support in face of energy crisis.
Protests and planning delays are unlikely.
Government takes partial liability for possible damages and EU funds are available for a percentage of the capital costs.

Ok, speaking as one of boards.ie's biggest pro-nukes, I'll take the bait.

In the "perfect storm conditions" my first move would be remove the provisions in Irish law that prohibit nuclear power production and to create a strong, independent nuclear regulator in charge of overseeing nuclear plant licensing and safety, the same to be modelled on the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). This is a fundamental part of any good nuclear programme.

Aiming for nuclear capability in the region of 2-3 GigaWatts, I would pick one of, or a combination of 2 strategies for generation.

1. A multi-reactor facility in central East Meath, comprising of at least 2 CANDU reactors. These uber-flexible reactors have the advantage of allowing the operator to use a very wide variety of fuels, including thorium, unenriched Uranium, Thorium, recycled fuels and weapons grade material etc.
2. A large number of Pebble Bed Modular Reactors, scattered nationwide. This would have the advantage of having smaller plants closer to where the demand is, so you have less transmission loss.

Whilst these plants were under licenseing, construction and commissioning, I would also construct international interconnectors to France, and Iceland to have more energy options - France has a massive supply of non-fossil electricity and it sells some of this to most of its neighbors, but Iceland has massive untapped potential for stable renewable energy production (hydroelectric and geothermal), which to date they simply have had little incentive to develop - simply because these sources already supply them with all the electricity they require right now. A mid-sized interconnector, say, 1GW to start, would give them some incentive to develop more renewable capcity for export to their Southern neighbors, although Scotland would probabaly make more sense as a destination for Icelandic electricity. I would also continue with an Irish renewables programme, building windfarms and researching wave power. (I do not view nuclear as being a solution in isolation, I favour a multi-pronged approach)

All fuel used in Irish reactors would be reprocessed into new fuels, most likely at Sellafield but, if technology or costs dictated, Le Harve in France, or Tomsk in Russia. I would favour deep geological burial of residual wastes in a site far away from groundwaters etc. If that is not possible, the AFAIK Russians take nuclear waste - for a fee.

All said and done I would aim to have cut Irelands use of traditional thermal-fired energy to less than 500MW. If we start to embrace hydrogen or electric battery cars, and/or electric trains on a considerable scale, I would scale-up our use of both local CANDU/PBMR reactors, our renewables programme and our international interconnector links to supply this.

Ah ... but ... we can dream

turgon

Im getting scared - SeanW has this all thought out (even the locations!). But a very good post, and for the first time someone had presented their practical views of a potential setup.

First of all - the Iceland thing. Could it definitely work? A very good idea.

Secondly you state that the East Meath plant would produce 2-3 GigaWatts of power. What percentage of the overall electricity use in Ireland is this?

nesf

turgon wrote: »

First of all - the Iceland thing. Could it definitely work? A very good idea.

Potentially very expensive given the distance and the transmission loss.

turgon wrote: »

Secondly you state that the East Meath plant would produce 2-3 GigaWatts of power. What percentage of the overall electricity use in Ireland is this?

Most of it. It would be equivalent to taking the big 4 Irish power plants, Poolbeg, Moneypoint, Tarbert and Aghdha and replacing them with one big one. You're left with about ten smaller plants most of them with less than 150MW generating power. Arguably considering most of the draw on the grid is in and around Dublin and two of those plants supplying it are on the opposite side of the country (Moneypoint & Tarbert), the transmission savings would make the real power output higher (i.e. less MW needed to be produced at source for a given amount of MW at the demand point) if you put the plant in Meath. Essentially we want the plant as close as is feasible to the Eastern Seaboard for a multitude of reasons. You have to balance putting it somewhere relatively uninhabited with having to have it near the areas of densest settlement which is tricky.

FrostyJack

Naaaaa, I would never ever want to discourage anyone from the latest Three Mile Island fashion statement! Glow in the dark kids! Stay ahead of your neighbors who only have a couple petrol-guzzling Humvees! Pfffffft! I can beat that! I'll have Three Mile Island kids that glow in the dark (in case they run off and I lose site of them... I can just whip out my Gigercounter, and buzz, buzzz, they must be over there!), thanks to proven, safe, efficient USA nuclear energy technology, staffed with the best scientists and technicians (unlike those sloppy has-been Soviets!).

I can't believe noone reponded to this rubbish. How many people were killed/injured by this? Your right none. How old was the plant? Yeah again your right 35 years old in September. My goodness we shouldn't drive cars because the model-T Ford had a poor safety record. Don't get me started on Chernoboyl. The only valid argument against nuclear power is the initial cost. But in the long run it makes sense (Our kids future) the "f u Jack I'm alright" argument should be left for Meath Street crew and not the Dail.

nesf

FrostyJack wrote: »

I can't believe noone reponded to this rubbish. How many people were killed/injured by this? Your right none. How old was the plant? Yeah again your right 35 years old in September. My goodness we shouldn't drive cars because the model-T Ford had a poor safety record. Don't get me started on Chernoboyl. The only valid argument against nuclear power is the initial cost. But in the long run it makes sense (Our kids future) the "f u Jack I'm alright" argument should be left for Meath Street crew and not the Dail.

People didn't respond to it probably because it didn't really merit a serious response.

SeanW

nesf wrote: »

Potentially very expensive given the distance and the transmission loss.

Actually, you're right, I just did a bit of Googling and Wiki searching and saw that the distance involved is in the region of 1,000 km. Too far for, but perhaps for Scotland it might be a runner. Maybe.

Most of it. It would be equivalent to taking the big 4 Irish power plants, Poolbeg, Moneypoint, Tarbert and Aghdha and replacing them with one big one. You're left with about ten smaller plants most of them with less than 150MW generating power. Arguably considering most of the draw on the grid is in and around Dublin and two of those plants supplying it are on the opposite side of the country (Moneypoint & Tarbert), the transmission savings would make the real power output higher (i.e. less MW needed to be produced at source for a given amount of MW at the demand point) if you put the plant in Meath. Essentially we want the plant as close as is feasible to the Eastern Seaboard for a multitude of reasons. You have to balance putting it somewhere relatively uninhabited with having to have it near the areas of densest settlement which is tricky.

Pretty close. CANDU reactors usually come in less than 1GW capacity per reactor, so my ideal East Meath power station would be a multi-reactor facility. And yes, that would be the ideal place for it - given the massive population and industry both in Dublin and certain parts of Leinster.

Irish power demand in the main flucuates from 2.5Gw to 4.5GW, in extreme cases going as low as 2GW and as high as 5GW.

nesf

SeanW wrote: »

Actually, you're right, I just did a bit of Googling and Wiki searching and saw that the distance involved is in the region of 1,000 km. Too far for, but perhaps for Scotland it might be a runner. Maybe.

Companies in the US are doing some very interesting work on transmission technology, generally involving cooling the conductor to a very low temperature so it is "almost" a superconductor (Scientific American ran a very good series of articles on it last year). It's expensive but they're making good headway, though it's for overhead stuff rather than underwater cabling, since that's where it'd have a big market in the US, but along with alternative power generation I think we'll see a lot of investment and research into more efficient power transmission systems over the medium term. It's becoming cost effective for companies to pour money into it finally. I wouldn't put any money on it becoming mainstream in the next few years or anything though.

turgon

SeanW wrote: »

Pretty close. CANDU reactors usually come in less than 1GW capacity per reactor, so my ideal East Meath power station would be a multi-reactor facility. And yes, that would be the ideal place for it - given the massive population and industry both in Dublin and certain parts of Leinster.

Well the only thing now is to convince everyone. But oh I forgot, if we do this there will be another Chernobyl. Silly me.

Do you think any of the mainstream parties would be for this?

How about a non-binding referendum to get a mandate?

SeanW

turgon wrote: »

Well the only thing now is to convince everyone. But oh I forgot, if we do this there will be another Chernobyl. Silly me.

Do you think any of the mainstream parties would be for this?

How about a non-binding referendum to get a mandate?

No. I wrote that in response to a hypothetical situation/question posed by Kama. Post here.

This will never happen. Why? Because Irish people are waaaaaaaaaaaay too scared of nuclear energy, having been led to that illogical position by a combination of factors. I used to be like a lot of these people before I did some research, so I know first-hand what we're up against. Trust me, it's insurmountable.

In practice, the best that I can hope for is that the ESB or a privateer, constructs an electrical interconnector to France so that we may import some of their non-fossil (90% of the French electric supply is non-fossil with ~75% nuclear and ~15% renewable, primarily hydroelectric) power. This may be more politically feasable.

radioactiveman

I remember seeing a documentary on RTE (on EcoEye I think) about Scotland where farmers were using wind turbines hooked up to their houses. One of the estimates was that 70% of the energy requirements of all of Scotland could be satisfied if each farmer erected one and attached it to the grid.

Realistically we need to build a nuclear plant as soon as possible supplemented by hydro/wind power - there just isn't time (environmentally) to continue burning oil etc. until we eventually transition to eco friendly options. There may be more support than we think for nuclear power if the facts are presented to people in an unbiased way.
The idea of buying energy off another state (i.e. Britain) is also a very dangerous route to go down. What rate are they going to sell us energy at if we come to be dependent on them? It's also just shirking the repsonsibility and buying nuclear power indirectly (reminiscent of the way we dealt with abortion).

turgon

The usual Irish response: wait til its fecks up and then fix it.

Everyone complains about high electricity prices, and there only going to go higher. But the politicians are going to probably wait til Russia shuts off the oil before doing anything.

Kama

Thanks SeanW! No apologies are necessary, and a response to my optimist scenario is worth more than one ever would be anyway ^_^
Really glad someone responded in a detailed manner to my hypothetical greenlighting, you have my thanks...

As I've probably admitted, I have an initial bias (was weaned on the anti-nuclear movement and all that) but hopefully am not too irrational or rabid about it, on 'oh noes nukular' lines. I like to think my beliefs are closer to thermoplastic than thermosetting, or in the words of Keynes, that when the facts change i change my mind. Thats the dream anyway

I'd have to read up more on the Adv/Enh/CANDU reactors to provide any kind of informed opinion or criticism on the technnology itself, and we have excluded (bizarrely given the board, but its fun to play with scenarios) the political factors, so forgive me if I don't make any kneejerk rabid rebuttals; want to look at best-case scenario for the time being. While fear is a terrible motivator, and panic a bad midwife to policy, its plausible we could get more scared of something else, with nuclear being lesser of two bogeymen. I gave winter blackout spikes as a conceivable; thinly held principles go out the window if you are cold, imho. Anyway, if anything went wrong we could 'Blame Canada!'.

I'm curious if anyone can point toward any economic info, capital costs etc. CANDU seem to have higher capital costs even for a reactor, with the cost levelling out over its lifetime? Bracketing off cost over-runs etc, any idea on the cost and time to bring one on-stream?


And yeh, I hear in Iceland geo's so cheap they have underfloor heating on city streets in winter. Damn our lazy workshy volcanos...


And because I can't resist...
Bets that the first protest sign =

CANDU?
CAN DON'T!

(sorry sorry sorry....someone had to....)

nesf

Kama wrote: »

I'm curious if anyone can point toward any economic info, capital costs etc. CANDU seem to have higher capital costs even for a reactor, with the cost levelling out over its lifetime? Bracketing off cost over-runs etc, any idea on the cost and time to bring one on-stream?

I can't produce any figures, I've none to hand, but much of the debate on nuclear cost issue was framed by energy prices a decade ago. Nuclear was expensive to run over it's life back then versus gas/oil/coal but I think some serious costing work needs to be done when the rapidly changing energy prices are taken into consideration. Nuclear's cost might look a lot more tempting now than in the 80's when in fairness from purely a monetary cost point of view, Moneypoint made sense.

SeanW

turgon wrote: »

The usual Irish response: wait til its fecks up and then fix it.

Everyone complains about high electricity prices, and there only going to go higher. But the politicians are going to probably wait til Russia shuts off the oil before doing anything.

The situation is actually much more grave than that.

Most of our new electricity generating capacity in recent years have been gas fired. Our gas reserves, and the ones in British waters, will eventually be depleted and we well be dependent on a very long pipeline from Russia, Turkmenistan. Russia has been working to create an image of being a "stable energy partner" but we would be fools to forget the Russia-Ukraine standoff of early 2006.

The reason this should be considered is that natural gas is much harder to store than oil. So building a strategic reserve would be very costly if even practical at all. With oil, you can and the Americans have one, and with Uranium, it's solid and delivers a lot of energy per tonne, even normal nuclear operations require a certain inventory of usable fuel. (many fuel rods stay in the reactor for about a year depending on the technology)

Kama wrote:

I'm curious if anyone can point toward any economic info, capital costs etc. CANDU seem to have higher capital costs even for a reactor, with the cost levelling out over its lifetime? Bracketing off cost over-runs etc, any idea on the cost and time to bring one on-stream?

It is true that CANDU reactors have a higher capital cost than more usual reactor types such as Light Water Reactor, Pressurised Water Reactors etc - this is due primarily due to the reactors size and the need for heavy water moderator - but that cost could in theory be offset by the greater fuel flexibilty that reactor type offers.

But if a detailed analysis were carried out it might emerge that another reactor type would be better. It's just in that scenario the CANDU would be my first - albeit only partially informed - choice.

Kama wrote:

CANDU?
CAN DON'T!

LMAO

Kama

Yep, I'm operating on the assumption (be very glad if anyone can dispel it) that cheap energy is gone, and prices will ramp up and not smoothly. One of the better things seen in Green's lately was Transition Towns, who used oil-price vulnerability analysis to make a very rational economic case to small business for their localist/permaculture agenda.

Tried to get ballpark figures off CANDU, but their site is unable to tell things due to some kind of current regulatory issue.