Should we go Nuclear?

Sponge Bob

More detail on that scientists viewpoint here. This may be a serious pitch for research wonga for a form or forms of Thorium Reactor as much as anything else because there is a lot of Thorium about , do read . Dittmar is particularly enthusiastic about a concept called an LFTR which is being pushed as a'green' reactor ( I sh1t nobody) see here .

Another version is viewed as a Plutonium eater , Thorium/Plutonium goes in and something that will not go bang comes out .

These Thorium fuel cycles have never gotten much traction when Uranium was cheap ( and there is feck all weapons grade plutonium as a 'side effect' not that it is squeaky clean or anything) .......but were Uranium not cheap they might be worth exploring not least like mooted shortages of Liquid Oil arouse massive interest in Canadian Oil Shale .

The Oil Drum covered the matter in some detail last week , as always I commend the Oil Drum as essential reading on all matters energy

http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/5929

Azelfafage

Of course we should go nuclear.

Future generations will dig up our waste and say:

"Thank you".

Lots of energy in nuclear waste.

Still hot after 100 Thousand years.


What can be be better?

.

Hotblack Desiato

Sponge Bob wrote: »

'Moores Law' will make solar better. Correct but useful AFTER the fact not now . Come back in 10 years and a few Moore cycles for a chat taconnel

Moore's Law is about making transistors smaller. It's completely, utterly and totally irrelevant to photovoltaic power. There are severe theoretical limits on the efficiency of PV cells due to how semiconductors work at a physical level.

rubensni

Azelfafage wrote: »

Of course we should go nuclear. Future generations will dig up our waste and say: "Thank you".

That's the very issue we're in at the moment with CO2 being spewed into the environment since the days of James Watt. We don't spend our times cursing them for giving us the industrial revolution, instead we deal with it.

im not a fan of nuclear for the following reasons
1. I think there is cleaner, safer, less expensive methods which could generate as much power that the country requires. i.e wind, solar, as well as your bio-diesels
2. the threat of terrorist attacks
3. After Chernobyl id be very wary of it.

masteroftherealm

Deleted User wrote: »

im not a fan of nuclear for the following reasons
1. I think there is cleaner, safer, less expensive methods which could generate as much power that the country requires. i.e wind, solar, as well as your bio-diesels
2. the threat of terrorist attacks
3. After Chernobyl id be very wary of it.

This opinion is why Ireland will ever go nuclear. All three of these points have been refuted/are not relevant at all.

I have lived within 20km a a French Reactor (St Laurent) and had no saftey fears. So yes they could build it in my backyard and I wouldn't object. Nuclear is the most suitable tech we have available at the moment.
We need a nuclear baseload and renewable topping that up to the peak load.

One reason we don't have a thriving datacenter industry in Ireland is due to a lack of power here, we are missing out on so many opportunities in this country due to lack of infrastructure.

placard

Yes, we should go nuclear. We should promote the use of renewable energy supported by the use of a reliable and safe - they are very safe these days - nuclear power station.

First of all we should and are making some progress in insulating and heating our homes and other buildings efficiently which will save allot of energy costs.

I wouldn't agree with Bio Diesel as a renewable source of energy, it takes more to produce then what is harvested, not to mention the other factors like world food shortage, the clearing of land to produce it etc...

We should support Solar, Wind and Geo thermal. We should also invest in research in renewable energies.

Finally I would agree with nuclear as a power source as it is reliable and safe. Yes we would have nuclear waste to deal with but with the advances in the sciences I'll bet we'll find some solution to this problem either by neutralizing or eradicating the waste problem.
The not in my back garden excuse has for a long time slowed the progress of Ireland's infrastructural development, with regard to nuclear I think it is irrelevant as it is already in our back garden in Britain and they plan to build allot more over the next 15/20 years. We should do the same on a smaller scale.

GeneHunt

Days numbered for Lithuanian nuclear plant

Lithuania is making final preparations to close down one of the world’s largest nuclear reactors, but debate rages about whether it is necessary.

Shutting down the Ignalina plant by January 2010 was a condition for Lithuania’s entry into the European Union in 2004 over safety concerns.

But the move has been fiercely opposed by some Lithuanians who claim the risk has been exaggerated and their power prices will now rise.

The Soviet-era nuclear plant uses the same reactors as those installed in the Chernboyl plant in Ukraine, the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident.

Lithuania failed to convince Brussels to extend Ignalina’s lifespan, despite a referendum last year in which the majority of voters said yes to running the plant until 2012. The result was not considered binding, however, as the turnout was less than 50 percent.

The plant’s General Director, Viktor Shevaldin, has argued against the closure. He says international experts have estimated the probability of such a major accident at Ignalina to be very slight.

Lithuania has begun a search for an investor for the construction of a new power plant, saying it hopes to build it by 2018. But that does not answer the immediate concerns of those worried about the effects of the closure.

Before the first reactor was closed down in 2004, officials say almost 90 percent of power needs were met by Ignalina. The second reactor was opened in 1987. Decommissioning over 25 years will cost an estimated one billion euros, some one thousand jobs will be lost and some experts predict electricity prices will jump by some 30 percent.

The European Union is reported to have agreed to pay money towards decommissioning and compensation until 2013. In the meantime, Lithuania plans to import electricity, mainly from Estonia, Russia and Ukraine.

I saw this on Euronews today, I didn't realise there would be opposition to close a Chernboyl type plant, I can understand why - nobody wants higher prices - but safety first, you would think! I would pity any NIMBY groups that would try to stop the new plant there!

dowlingm

Nuclear is fantastically expensive on a capital basis. We are on the brink of a major reactor replacement here in Ontario but the cost has the govt scared sh!tless.

The only way nuclear becomes easy is when you build a lot of similar reactors like the French, the first one or two are hugely costly but by the time you reach 10-12 the unit cost has come way down because of the planning authorities and engineering firms having got their sh!t together. I like the offshoring idea - buy out part of a UK site and contract for the output.

But realistically if Ireland was to go nuclear natively it should be to replace all baseload power and with the intent to electrify most of the rail network, increase petrol taxes to subsidise plug-in hybrids and aggressively use time of use metering to force the population to use as much power as possible when the nukes are humming at 2 in the morning and not when the gas plants kick in at 8am. However, it would be difficult to avoid a large concentration in the grid, making it vulnerable to disruption.

One other nuclear option would be to go in with Japan on compact reactors in the 10MW class, especially for grid strengthening in remote areas and/or to backstop renewable plants.

Sponge Bob

Good points dowlingm

The 'aggressive' plan to force smart metering and intelligent time of use conditions makes absolute sense but requires smart meters and smart distribution boards instead of dumb trip assemblies and also requires high quality always on broadband to send management directive which service is not available in half of Ireland and more so where the grid is weaker.

The micronuke for spot generation would be worth exploring if it came on a barge , Ireland like Japan has a long coastline with many weak spots on the grid close to the coast. Canada does too now that I think of it.

The ESB has leased portable generator sets in the past, certainly early this decade we had four of them in winter 2004 and five of them in 2000 ( two in Mayo and three in Cork)

I dunno what the story is now.

BluntGuy

Deleted User wrote: »

im not a fan of nuclear for the following reasons
1. I think there is cleaner, safer, less expensive methods which could generate as much power that the country requires. i.e wind, solar, as well as your bio-diesels
2. the threat of terrorist attacks
3. After Chernobyl id be very wary of it.

I'm not a ready advocate of nuclear, I oppose it on many grounds (which as far as I remember I've given on this thread).

However, you're really going to have to expand on this.

Chernobyl, as it happened, can't happen again because modern reactors would prevent it. Not saying a Chernobyl-style incident with similar effects couldn't occur again, but you have to expand on it.

As for terrorist attacks, the unforunate reality is you could use that as a reason to oppose any infrastructure or construction. Even though a terrorist attack on a power station could be devestating, the chances are so remote, and it's such a general threat I doubt many people would take it as a serious opposition.

As for your first point:
Cleaner, yes.
Safer, yes.
Less expensive... now that's the problem area (along with reliability). Wind power/solar power is sadly much more expensive than nuclear power to get to generate the same amount of reliable energy. Now this is where we as a race have to ask ourselves some questions... economy or safety? You'll find economy wins every time.

Sponge_Bob made a suggestion I agreed with earlier in the thread, using a so-called "clean coal" solution to provide energy along with pumping up renewable production.

Nuclear fusion is the "holy grail" of nuclear power generation, and I do believe it will happen, but sadly no earlier than 50-100 years from now. But I would rather in that interim, we use any technology that is available and try and keep the fission power plants to an absolute bare minimum, because as much as we may think we have it under control (I won't deny that massive improvements in nuclear safety have been made) - things can go wrong... sometimes catastrophically.

Amtmann

There's a fascinating thread going at the moment in the Weather forum on solar activity. One post in particular stood out for me. To save people the hassle of having to jump forums, I'll quote it here:

redsunset wrote: »

And now to really throw a spanner in the works,here's an article from the mail online,gas how it then concludes that its due but may not happen.im now hoping too that this quiet period we're experiencing isn't the calm before the storm.

Meltdown! A solar superstorm could send us back into the dark ages - and one is due in just THREE years


By Michael Hanlon


Last updated at 11:24 PM on 19th April 2009
The catastrophe, when it comes, will be beautiful at first. It is a balmy evening in late September 2012. Ever since the sun set, the dimming skies over London have been alive with fire.

Pillars of incandescent green writhe like gigantic serpents across the skies. Sheets of orange race across the horizon during the most spectacular display of the aurora borealis seen in southern England for 153 years.

Trouble ahead: How the sun storm might look in London

And then, 90 seconds later, the lights start to go out. Not the lights in the sky - they will dazzle until dawn - but the lights on the ground. Within an hour, large parts of Britain are without power. By midnight, every mobile network is down and the internet is dying. Television - terrestrial and satellite - blinks off the air. Radio is reduced to a burst of static. By noon the following day, it is clear something terrible has happened and the civilised world has plunged into chaos.

A year later, Britain, most of Europe plus North America is in the grip of the deepest economic catastrophe in history. By the end of 2013, 100,000 Europeans have died of starvation. The dead go unburied, the sick untreated. It will take two decades or more for the first green shoots of recovery to appear - recovery from the first solar superstorm in modern history.

This catastrophe is not some academic one-in-a-million chance scenario. It is a very real threat which, according to a report in the latest issue of New Scientist, remains one of the most potent, yet least recognised, threats to the future of human civilisation. Moreover, it is something that has happened before - not that long ago - and indeed has the potential to arrive every 11 years.

So what actually is it?

Solar storms do not normally cause much concern. Swarms of electrically charged subatomic particles from the Sun periodically buffet the Earth and its surroundings, causing health worries for astronauts and the owners of satellites, whose delicate electronics can be fried.

But down on the surface, cocooned under an ocean of air, we rarely notice more than the pretty lights in the sky, created as the electrically charged particles from the Sun sweep into the Earth's own magnetic field to generate the Northern and Southern Lights.

But every now and then, the Sun is convulsed by a gigantic tempest: 50,000-mile-wide eddies of boiling hydrogen plasma on its surface ejecting a billion-tonne, malevolent blob of crackling-charged gas into space at a million miles an hour.

And, very occasionally, one of these mighty coronal mass ejections, as they are called, smacks into the Earth head-on. This last happened on the morning of September 1, 1859. That day, one of Britain's top astronomers, Richard Carrington, was observing the Sun. Using a filter, he was able to study the solar surface through his telescope, and he saw something unusual. A bright flash of light erupted from the Sun's surface and detached itself from it.

Unbeknown to Carrington, that bright spot was a cloud of charged plasma on its way to Earth. Just 48 hours later it struck, and the effects were extraordinary. Brilliant aurorae lit the Earth's night skies right down to the Tropics - their light being so brilliant it was possible to read a newspaper at midnight. In California, a group of gold miners were roused from their bed hours early, thinking the dawn and a new day's prospecting had come. It was 2am. Telegraph operators received severe electric shocks as solar-induced currents surged through the networks. It was as though the Earth had been immersed in a bath of electricity.

Such damage as there was, was easy to repair. In 1859, the world ran mostly on steam and muscle. Human civilisation did not depend on a gargantuan super-network of electric power and communications. But it does now. Electric power is modern society's 'cornerstone technology', the technology on which virtually all other infrastructures and services depend.

Daniel Baker, a space weather expert at the University of Colorado, prepared a report for the U.S. National Academy of Sciences last month, and the conclusions make grim reading. 'Every year, our human technology becomes more vulnerable,' he says. A repeat of the 1859 Carrington event today would have far graver consequences than the frying of some telegraph wires. The problem comes with our dependence on electricity and the way this electricity is generated and transmitted.

A huge solar storm would cause massive power surges, amounting to billions of unwanted watts surging through the grids. Most critically, the transformers which convert the multi-thousand-volt current carried by the pylons into 240v domestic current would melt - thousands of them, in every country. This would bring the world to its knees. With no electricity, we would not just be in the dark. We are dependent, to a degree few of us perhaps appreciate, on a functioning grid for our survival. All our water and sewage plants run on electricity. A couple of days after a solar superstorm, the taps would run dry.

Within a week, we would lose all heat and light as reserves ran out, the supermarket shelves would run empty and the complex supply and distribution networks upon which our society depends would have started to break down. No telephones, no medicines, no manufacturing, no farming - and no food.

Global communications and travel would also collapse - a solar superstorm would probably destroy the network of GPS satellites upon which every airline depends. Of course, the power grid can be rebuilt, new transformers and cables made, new satellites launched - but organising this in a world teetering on the brink of collapse would not be easy. Humanity would recover, but it would take decades. A seemingly innocuous event, one which apparently poses no direct threat to human health at all, would have an effect on our world comparable to that of a small nuclear war.

So could this really happen? And why is 2012 a year to worry about? Well, we know that solar superstorm did happen, back in 1859. And we know that 20 years ago a much smaller storm knocked out the power grid across much of eastern Canada, leaving nine million people without electricity. We also know that the Sun's activity waxes and wanes in 11-year cycles. Currently, the Sun is very quiet. But a solar maximum - a peak of activity - is predicted for 2012, and this is when a superstorm could strike, probably around either the spring or autumn equinox, when the orientation of the Earth's magnetic field to the Sun makes us very vulnerable.

The main point is that every solar maximum puts us more in danger as our growing population becomes ever more dependent on electricity. Ironically, the least-affected parts of the world would probably be the poorest areas. Those Third World nations that usually suffer most from natural disasters, on account of their poor infrastructure, would adjust most quickly to life without electricity, while richer nations would be paralysed. So can anything be done to prevent an epic disaster?

A more robust electricity grid would be a start. And we need new satellites to give warning of what is happening on the Sun. Of course, it may not happen in 2012 - it may not happen in 2023, the year of the next solar maximum. But sooner or later, a re-run of the Carrington event is inevitable.

To which one poster responded:

M.T. Cranium wrote: »

I do subscribe to the view that sooner or later (whether in 2012 or later) the odds favour another giant solar storm that will certainly throw the earth's electrical grids into chaos. The largest event of recent years, in March 1989, had that effect on the Quebec (eastern Canada) grid, and I remember the bright auroral display at that time, living fairly close by in Ontario. However, our power didn't go out for more than a few minutes. In Quebec it was more like one or two days.

You would think that the world would have 24-48 hours warning of such an event as the 1859 flares, and it might be possible to stage a planned outage of most electricity before the magnetic storm hit the earth, then bring back the power in a controlled manner after the storm faded out. This would require more international co-operation than we presently might expect, but it could be done region by region, the world's electrical grids are basically continental in scale, or regions within continents. If North America managed its grid successfully and Asia did not, the aftermath would be different in each case, although there would be some effects either way.

My question is this: In the event of a 'solar storm', would it be possible to shut down nuclear power plants safely before the storm shuts them down for us?

Measure Twice

Furet wrote: »

My question is this: In the event of a 'solar storm', would it be possible to shut down nuclear power plants safely before the storm shuts them down for us?

Yes, Furet, the plants would shut down safely, as they would in any load rejection scenario. The primary cooling circuit would become less dense, the neutrons no longer travel at "thermal" velocity, and the reaction shuts itself down.

Some earlier posts referred to smaller nuclear reactors as being ideal for Ireland, and they are right. But there is no need, imho, to go to the extremely small units of 10 MW or so. They are more suited to extremely electrically isolated environments.

Ireland could use the Westinghouse IRIS reactor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Reactor_Innovative_and_Secure that is 335 MW (a similar size to many units currently employed in Ireland). This is due to be licensed in 2012 and be ready for deployment in 2015. A number of countries (including Estonia [http://en.rian.ru/world/20090218/120198063.html], Mexico, Brazil) are already planning on installing these IRIS machines, and we could do worse than to prepare ourselves to go down this route if we considered it to be appropriate.

We could eventually have a fleet of these (suggested as being an advantage by dowlingm) and they are much cheaper and safer than the current crop of Candu and EPR reactors, having learnt from the experiences over the past 50 years.

Sponge Bob

Furet wrote: »

My question is this: In the event of a 'solar storm', would it be possible to shut down nuclear power plants safely before the storm shuts them down for us?

Ah yes , I referred to an "overdue Carrington Event in this thread early on this year in the Weather forum , you may follow the link to see what I mean.

Ireland is overdue three cataclysmic events in the same sense that San Francisco is overdue another earthquake. They could roll along next year or not in our lifetimes. They have profound implications for infrastructure all the same.

These are

1. Freak Waves ( essentially a freak localised Tsunami) read that link above.
2. An earthquake offshore/east atlantic causing an actual Tsunami, the last was during the Great Lisbon Earthquake 250 years ago.
3. A massive solar storm like the Carrington Event.

Either of these three events would have grave implications for infrastructure , particularly the latter two.

We should be able to shut a fission reactor down to a safe level nevertheless. We have advanced solar warning systems in place at the Lagrange Points nowadays such as the SOHO sat and others.

Our electricity grids will be toast as will many communications systems in the case of a Carrington Event. If you want some survivability then installing large scale fibre is absolutely essential as is a buffer stock of grid/generation components and a blackout protocol.

I have been warning about this for over four years on Boards but I may as well be talking to the ****ing wall as trying to get anybody to realise the implications of a large solar storm .....never mind that we are overdue one in my opinion

ei.sdraob

great article

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/ff_new_nukes/

thorium solves alot of issues of uranium plants

Carawaystick

Deleted User wrote: »

im not a fan of nuclear for the following reasons
1. I think there is cleaner, safer, less expensive methods which could generate as much power that the country requires. i.e wind, solar, as well as your bio-diesels
2. the threat of terrorist attacks
3. After Chernobyl id be very wary of it.

1.
Check the system demand on eirgrid's site for the 21st December. http://www.eirgrid.com/operations/systemperformancedata/systemdemand/

Check the wind generation the same day. http://www.eirgrid.com/operations/systemperformancedata/windgeneration/

We have about 1.2GW or 1200MW of wind generation capacity installed.
Before the recession, the peak electricity demand happened during the week leading up to Christmas before business shut down for the break.

We needed 5GW of electricity. The 1.2GW of wind power could only generate 80MW or 0.08GW of the electricity needed, or 1.6% of the country's electricity as there was no wind.

Every year during the winter we have cold calm weather. The cold increases the demand for electricity as there are electric heaters and storage heaters being used. the calm reduces the electricity being generated by wind power as there is no wind.

2.
What conventional power stations suffered terrorist attacks, in Ireland or Britain, during the troubles?
France had terrorists blowing up underground trains stations in the 90's. They generate most of their electricity from nukes. but no attacks.

3.
Chernobyl was the result of a poor design, operated by a poor system of governance, and a ludicrous test, with no containment unit to completely feic the thing up. the Un reckons that less than a hundred people died directly from the Chernobyl accident. More coal miners in China die mining coal for electricity power each year than died in Chernobyl. More radioactivity is released from Coal power plants each year than Chernobyl.

4. radioactivity' not all bad. Your smoke alarm uses a bit of radioactive americium in it. It won't kill you but smoke and fume sure as hell would if you were unfortunate enough to be involved in a fire.

fraz1971

It would actually be cheaper to invest in wind and wave technology. I find it hard to believe that we find it preferable to have nuclear waste on our doorstep than the eyesore that is a wind farm.

fraz1971

Chernobyl was the result of a poor design, operated by a poor system of governance

Well that's that argument beaten down if we try to do this in Ireland.

If we couldn't not build the Bertie Bowl without going over budget then I would be at great pains to trust the government on this. If Ireland does build a nuclear power station then I hope they build it in Kerry, about as far away from me as possible.

Measure Twice

fraz1971 wrote: »

It would actually be cheaper to invest in wind and wave technology.

How much cheaper than nuclear is wind and wave technology?

fraz1971 wrote: »

I find it hard to believe that we find it preferable to have nuclear waste on our doorstep than the eyesore that is a wind farm.

It is not a question of preference for nuclear waste over an eyesore. It is a question of security of a reliable, low-carbon supply of electricity at competitive prices. Nuclear power can supply this, and that is why countries such as France, Sweden, Switzerland and Belgium all use nuclear to supply over 50% of their electricty.

Measure Twice

fraz1971 wrote: »

If Ireland does build a nuclear power station then I hope they build it in Kerry, about as far away from me as possible.

Fraz,

It is not the government that will build our nuclear stations, it will be a reactor manufacturing company such as Westinghouse who will build them for a utility with experience in these matters. Good utilitities who already operate in Ireland include ESB, Endesa, Viridian and Airtrticty.

Note that there are over 440 nuclear electricity plants in operation worldwide without a single death in any OECD country. Our nearest one is in Wales, less than 80 miles from the GPO. Not a bother!

Dinarius

I'm guessing we'll have the usual 'Irish solution to an Irish problem' and export it (export the problem, that is).

i.e. We'll end up importing electricity from a nuclear plant (e.g. in Wales) and that will be that.

But, look at France with its 40 (I believe) nuclear power stations. Anyone getting their knickers in a twist over them? Not that I'm aware of.

D.

rubensni

fraz1971 wrote: »

If we couldn't not build the Bertie Bowl without going over budget then I would be at great pains to trust the government on this.

What are you on about? The "Bertie Bowl" was the planned national stadium in Abbotstown which was abandoned by the government after the PDs refused to give approval for it in cabinet due to the lack of need of two 80,000 seater stadiums (the other being Croke Park). The government decided to rebuild Lansdowne Rd instead.

So not only did we not run over budget on the Bertie Bowl, we didn't even build it.

fraz1971 wrote: »

If Ireland does build a nuclear power station then I hope they build it in Kerry, about as far away from me as possible.

N.I.M.B.Y.

Zubeneschamali

rubensni wrote: »

N.I.M.B.Y.

BANANA!

Amtmann

Lots of discussion about energy generation on the forum lately. Just thought I'd bump this and maybe get the debate here going again.

Odaise Gaelach

GeneHunt wrote: »

I saw this on Euronews today, I didn't realise there would be opposition to close a Chernboyl type plant, I can understand why - nobody wants higher prices - but safety first, you would think! I would pity any NIMBY groups that would try to stop the new plant there!

The BBC had a few articles on when the last electricity-producing reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant was shut down on December 15th 2000.

Chernobyl shut down for good
In pictures: Chernobyl's final moments
Mixed feelings as Chernobyl closes

One thing that they don't mention is that the plant's workers put a wreath of flowers on the lid of the shut-down reactor.

dubhthach

Personally I think we need Nuclear power. However I don't think there is a chance in hell that our "trumped up County Councillors" (TD's) will ever grasp that nettle. Of course ironic thing is we will be importing electricity from Britain over the Internconnector that was generated in Nuclear plants. :rolleyes:

ei.sdraob

Odaise Gaelach wrote: »

The BBC had a few articles on when the last electricity-producing reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant was shut down on December 15th 2000.

Chernobyl shut down for good
In pictures: Chernobyl's final moments
Mixed feelings as Chernobyl closes

One thing that they don't mention is that the plant's workers put a wreath of flowers on the lid of the shut-down reactor.

The main function of Chernobyl was to produce weapons grade materials for the USSR in their arms race, its design is flawed and none of the western reactors use anything remotely close to it

Odaise Gaelach

ei.sdraob wrote: »

The main function of Chernobyl was to produce weapons grade materials for the USSR in their arms race, its design is flawed and none of the western reactors use anything remotely close to it

The main purpose of the Chernobyl NPP was to produce electricity.

professore

BluntGuy wrote: »

As someone with a background in physics who actually understands how nuclear power works: NO.

I also have a background in physics and understand how it works and I say YES.

BluntGuy wrote: »

Nuclear power, as much as people like to present it as "safe", is as unsafe a power source you can get. Yes, we're getting desperate and scrambling for energy resources, but until someone builds a working fusion reactor, this option should be off the cards.

The other alternatives are not safe either ... coal oil and natural gas all produce pollution and mining them has caused thousands of deaths worldwide (think Chilean miners) and major ecological damage (BP oil spill). There have been only a few deaths from nuclear power. Not to mention climate change.

BluntGuy wrote: »

(Fission) Nuclear waste has an enormous half-life. It can take up to 10,000 years (or much longer) for it to reduce its radioactivity by a factor of 2. Waste that was dumped into the sea (in a "secure" container) less than 50 years ago has already leaked. Somebody tell me how we plan to keep this waste from leaking for 10000-20000 years?

Store it somewhere safe. Blast it into space.

BluntGuy wrote: »

Nuclear energy is something that has potential, but not in its present form. We should boost research on trying to find a viable fusion reactor and go with whatever forms of green energy we can in the meantime. Now I'm not going to sit here and lie to you and say fusion is perfect. We don't know yet how much radioactivity would be released on a small-scale in a hypothetical workplace. But we do know that with fusion is zero chance of a runaway reaction, or large-scale release of radioactivity into the environment. The reason? Well, that's a little complicated, but it's to do with the specific level of pressure, the magnetic field and of course temperature required to actual generate the energy.

Ireland is not going to develop a fusion reactor any time soon. We don't have the money for a start for a project like ITER. We need a base energy supply.

BluntGuy wrote: »

But yes, I don't believe fission is safe. It only takes a mass of a several kg of radioactive material to start a chain reaction, and once that starts, it's over. We shouldn't consider it. It isn't safe, we don't have the nuclear expertise, and we have an array of the other options we can consider first.

Wind, tidal, offshore... they're all there waiting to be exploited and researached.

All fission is a chain reaction. I don't see your point. Nuclear reactors are as safe as anything else.

ei.sdraob

Odaise Gaelach wrote: »

The main purpose of the Chernobyl NPP was to produce electricity.

It wasn't, the RMBK1000 reactors where build at height of cold war with the main aim of producing weapons grade materials for the nuclear arms race, the design of the plant was optimised for this process and on the night of the disaster large amounts of plutonium where in the plant. The Soviets preferred grand projects for generation of energy such as large dams, and Ukraine has plenty of coal as well.

These obsolete Soviet plants (some of these type reactors are still running) have several flaws not present in western designs, such as not having a containment dome (would have stopped the spread of the material) and allowing the engineers to switch off the safeties as they did on the night of the disaster (modern designs have passive safety features) and finally the design suffers from a 'positive void coefficient', where an increase in steam bubbles ('voids') is accompanied by an increase in core reactivity.

Anyways I hope you sleep well tonight considering majority of population of Ireland lives close to several UK plants and at the time of this post we are importing some of this.

finnegan2010

YES YES YES
Next oil crisis watch us squirm on our little island
Sooner the better. Maybe an inter-connector to sellafield so if it blows we
wont be TOO affected te he he

Odaise Gaelach

ei.sdraob wrote: »

It wasn't, the RMBK1000 reactors where build at height of cold war with the main aim of producing weapons grade materials for the nuclear arms race, the design of the plant was optimised for this process and on the night of the disaster large amounts of plutonium where in the plant. The Soviets preferred grand projects for generation of energy such as large dams, and Ukraine has plenty of coal as well.

I've never come across plans about the plant being used to generate weapons-grade material. Do you have a source on them? I'd love to read them.

ei.sdraob

Odaise Gaelach wrote: »

I've never come across plans about the plant being used to generate weapons-grade material. Do you have a source on them? I'd love to read them.

Its the design of RBMK reactors allows for on fly refuelling, and all Soviet RMBK reactors where dual purpose, see here

The RBMK was the culmination of the Soviet program to produce a water-cooled power reactor based on their graphite-moderated plutonium production military reactors

....

The refueling machine is mounted on a gantry crane and remotely controlled. The fuel assemblies can be replaced without shutting down the reactor, a factor significant for production of weapon-grade plutonium and, in a civilian context, for better reactor uptime. When a fuel assembly has to be replaced, the machine is positioned above the fuel channel, mates to it, equalizes pressure within, pulls the rod, and inserts a fresh one. The spent rod is then placed in a cooling pond. The capacity of the refueling machine with the reactor at nominal power level is two fuel assemblies per day, with peak capacity of five per day.

or see DOE document from 1988

Chernobyl did not have a containment building which completely enclosed the reactor and
coolant pressure boundary as do all U.S. commercial light water reactors. Containment walk
were provided around and underneath the lower half of the reactur, but the top half is
essentially uncontained (except for the core pressure boundary) and surrounded by an ordinary industrial building.
Fig. 3 shows the RBMK reactor and contrasts it to typical U.S.
reactor containment buildings which are constructed of thick steel-lined concrete structures.
The layout of the Unit 4 reactor and adjacent turbine hall is shown in Fig. 4. A cross-sectional
view is shown in Fig. 5. The RBMK design evolved from the military plutonium production
reactors and were first constructed when soviet technology did not permit construction of large
steel reactor pressure vessels and concrete containment structures. Currently there are about
15 RBMK type reactors in this size range operating in the Soviet Union.

mgmt

Would building a nuclear plant balloon the Irish Defence Forces? Obviously a plant would need high levels of security.

TBH nuclear has not delivered on its promise of 'too cheap to meter electricity'. I am leaning towards its a risk too great for Ireland.

Sponge Bob

I would not build it in Ireland at all, build it near Holyhead instead and let the highly competent UK Nuclear Inspectorate regulate its construction licencing and operation .

LeinsterDub

professore wrote: »

Store it somewhere safe. Blast it into space.

Getting it into Space and keeping it there would be a near guarantee of spreading radioactive material across the surface of the Earth. Space flight has a massive catastrophic failure rate when compared to an other means of transport

Measure Twice

There is no need to send the spent nuclear fuel into space.

The original radioactive ore from which the fuel was made came from the ground. All that needs to be done is to return the spent fuel into a stable rock formation where it would stay safe for as long as necessary. Preferably in a manner that would allow future generations to recover the fuel for further use in advanced reactors that could extract much more energy from it than was extracted the first time around.

SeanW

First of all, I used to be in the anti-nuclear camp, a long time ago now, so with the benefit of hindsight and a clear understanding of how the environmental extreme left has hijacked the debate about nuclear energy (but with only speculation as to why), I do not disrespect anyone who genuinely feels that nuclear power is not a good idea, be it specifically for Ireland or anywhere else. Between the natural tendency to fear the unknown, and the ruthless exploitation of same by environmental far left, it's easy to see how someone can get the wrong idea about one of humanity's most undervalued assets.

And as a nuclear energy proponent, I wholeheartedly agree with the move to decommission the 3 remaining RBMK reactors at the Chernobyl site and wherever else such reactor designs were/are still in service.

When you look at the Chernobyl accident coldly, logically, and in the context of the manner in which the Soviets ran their nuclear programme, in addition to the many flaws in the RBMK reactor type alluded to by ei.sdraob, you begin to see the issue nuclear safety, specifically the threat of a nuclear accident in the 1st world, in a more realistic light. For reference, a BBC documentary detailing the events leading up to the catastrophe can be found online here: http://pripyat.com/en/media/

With regard to the alternatives, the picture is regretfully rather grim. Despite all the talk of renewable energy it is largely hot air as hydroelectricity and to a lesser extent geothermal are the only types of renewable power that can actually be depended on, the rest are either intermittent and unpredictable (solar and wind) or are still experimental (tidal power) and in any case the problem of how to displace all that fossil fuel is so immense as to require large scale solutions.

In the absence of nuclear electricity and the inadequacy of renewable electricity, the main source of the worlds electricity supply comes from fossil fuels. They currently supply about a very large majority of the worlds electricity demand, with the bulk of that, 38% of total, coming from coal.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/education/ueg.htm

Pollution caused by coal use is responsible for at least 25,000 premature deaths each year in the United States alone: http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/plan_b_updates/2004/update42
and the mass contamination of the environment with mercury threatens countless unborn babies with brain damage.

In fact, the list of noxious nasties emitted by coal combustion reads like the recipe of a witches brew from a horror movie - the toxins mercury and arsenic, the acid rain forming compounds of Sulphur Dioxide and Nitrous Oxides (none of which come from nuclear plants), in addition to radiological emissions greatly exceeding that of a comparable nuclear installations.
http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html

There is one thing that anti-nuclear proponents, especially the environmental extreme left will never acknowledge, and that is that humanity has a choice, broadly speaking, between using coal to generate electricity, and using nuclear reactors to generate electricity, and the madness I've described above will never be ameliorated while we reject the nuclear option - save for the prospect of a major technological breakthrough in renewable power or energy storage or a new power source altogether. All of which we have been banking on since the environmental far left derailed the plan to build power plants at Carnsore Point and have been hoping for - in vain - ever since.

Nuclear power checks all the boxes. It is safe, clean, large scale, easy to control, and is cost effective. It could provide user nations with energy security, highly paid jobs, save natural resources and divert a large amount of pollutants in addition to an extraordinary amount of CO2 from the environment at large.

Measure Twice

I fully agree with SeanW.

I would add that nuclear power actually offers Ireland a great opportunity, rather than the threat that some people consider it to be. The opportunity is in the area of small and medium sized reactors that are about to launch on the market in the next 5 to 8 years. As Ireland is a nation with a well-respected technical ability internationally, we could play a leading role in helping other small nations develop their own nuclear power using these smaller reactors. Most western nations are sitting on their current nuclear stock and our opportunity is to be one of the first to make a move into the modern era of nuclear power, and to use that position to gain contracts for training, operation and maintenance, regulation, finance and other consultancies abroad and at home.

One of the most promising is the IRIS 335 MW machine from Westinghouse http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/advanced/iris.html which would suit our Grid perfectly. This requires a steel containment that could be fabricated in the shipyards in Cork. An estimated 60% of the equipment could be sourced here, and then manufactured here for foreign markets. We could install the first IRIS simulator using our IT skills and bring in foreign trainees. We could develop a nuclear engineering college to train nuclear engineers and technicians.

These facilities are becoming seriously lacking in western nations while the current lull in nuclear development continues. But this lull will inevitably end, and we could position ourselves to take maximum advantage of this and truly be part of a smart (or knowledge) economy.

ei.sdraob

SeanW wrote: »

And as a nuclear energy proponent, I wholeheartedly agree with the move to decommission the 3 remaining RBMK reactors at the Chernobyl site and wherever else such reactor designs were/are still in service.

Apparently the remaining Chernobyl reactors are closed '91, '96 and '00 but cleanup work will continue for a long time with many people still working on site
Yes these designs are highly unsafe, and remaining ~11 reactors need to go. Also more importantly the EU and international community better cough up the money they promised for a new sarcophagus.


The fact that people still bring up Chernobyl everytime there is a discussion on nuclear shows how little people know or understand.
And its a pitty since nuclear is one of few technologies we have today that can help the world meet the carbon targets and address growing energy need, until fusion comes along.

godwin

Would one nuclear power plant supply enough power for the whole of Ireland?

Sponge Bob

godwin wrote: »

Would one nuclear power plant supply enough power for the whole of Ireland?

No, however a plant is a set of reactors. If we took 1000Mw units as the standard and built 2 plants with 2 1000Mw reactors each we would crudely max out the demand that could be filled by nuclear baseload capacity on the grid.

One plant of 1000Mw x 2 near Dublin would likely do, hence my Wylfa argument. Finland has all its nukes at two sites producing around 30% of its electricity. They are up 90% of the time on average. ( see ) France can produce 80% of electricity peak demand from nukes but finds itself dumping surplus at night.

Nukes must run all the time ( baseload) and cannot be spun up to meet spikes. Moneypoint is the single primary baseload provider in Ireland today.

One plant would be in or near Dublin, arguably the other should be in Cork not Clare like Moneypoint. Maybe we would put 3 reactors in the Dublin plant and one in the Cork plant. Spreading 4 reactors across 4 plants is not very economic.

That is because modern nukes would run all winter and one would be out for servicing every summer giving us 4000mw base load in winter and 3000mw in summer.

Measure Twice

godwin wrote: »

Would one nuclear power plant supply enough power for the whole of Ireland?

No. But then again it is not a good idea to depend on any single source for your entire electricity supply.


What would be ideal, imho, would be to have around 2400 MW of nuclear power (sourced from say seven 335 MW IRIS reactors in 2,3 or 4 stations) in conjunction with

• an increased pumped storage capacity of around 1500 MW (perhaps Spirit of Ireland type if it ever comes about)
• up to 2000 MW of renewable energy (wind, tidal, wave as it becomes available)
• 250 MW of hydro as exists now
• 1000 MW of interconnection as already built or under construction
• Some peaking open cycle gas turbines
• perhaps a coal-fired carbon capture and storage (CCS) plant if it becomes economic and
• Remainder as combined cycle gas turbines (to be determined by system modelling).

This would give a diverse fuel supply, lower electricity costs and an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions over the current system.

The new small reactors are built with load following in mind, so we could fit these units on during the summer load valley of 1800 MWs as well as meet the peaks of over 5000 MW. The interconnection with pumped storage would give a certain dispatchable export potential would could be a good earner, and may allow for even more renewables in time.

I think Moneypoint would actually be a good location for a CCS or nuclear station as the electrical and other infrastructure is already there. Another location would be Carnsore Point where the original plant was to be located. The wind farm there now will reach its end of technical life in about 15 years.

The IRIS machines have a dramatically increased safety by design and so are suitable for location close to cities, but the precautionary principle would dictate that they would most likely be in slightly remote locations.

Pete_Cavan

I also think incinerators have a role to play in energy production in this country. Landfill is a disgusting practice and we spend a fortune every year maintaining landfills in an attempt to prevent an ecological disaster. Producing energy from the waste is more environmentally friendly than throwing it in a hole in the ground, but of course for John Gormley environmentalism takes a back to NIMBYism. The first thing into the Poolbeg incinerator should be John Gormley for his attempt to introduce levies that would promote landfill. Waste is also a renewable resource in the sense that we will always produce a certain amount of it and incinerators are a way of recycling it in the sense that you are taking something that would otherwise be useless and producing something useful from it, ie. electricity.

As Sponge Bob said, nuclear could be used to generate baseload capacity on the grid. Incinerators, which can produce energy on demand, should maintain a constant level of output and spun up to meet spikes. Incinerators can also reduce output during periods when wind is generating a lot of electricity in order to prevent waste. Wind farms can contribute whatever they can whenever they can but we should not be encouraging them through price guarantees. Wind will only ever be a supplementary energy source to the national grid and we should be looking to develop long term baseload and on-demand sources first before developing these supplementary sources.

Measure Twice

I agree, Pete. We should include about 250 MW of incineration in the energy mix. Excess energy could be diverted to the pumped storage overnight rather than shutting down the plant. The range is modified now to include waste and biomass as follows:

• 2400 MW of nuclear power (sourced from say seven 335 MW IRIS reactors in 2,3 or 4 stations)
• an increased pumped storage capacity of around 1500 MW (perhaps Spirit of Ireland type if it ever comes about)
• up to 2000 MW of renewable energy (wind, tidal, wave as it becomes available)
• 250 MW waste to energy
• 250 MW of biomass
• 250 MW of hydro as exists now
• 1000 MW of interconnection as already built or under construction
• Some peaking open cycle gas turbines
• Perhaps a coal-fired carbon capture and storage (CCS) plant if it becomes economic (to replace equivalent nuclear generation) and
• Remainder as combined cycle gas turbines (to be determined by system modelling).

Carawaystick

SeanW wrote: »

Pollution caused by coal use is responsible for at least 25,000 premature deaths each year in the United States alone: http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/plan_b_updates/2004/update42
and the mass contamination of the environment with mercury threatens countless unborn babies with brain damage.

In fact, the list of noxious nasties emitted by coal combustion reads like the recipe of a witches brew from a horror movie - the toxins mercury and arsenic, the acid rain forming compounds of Sulphur Dioxide and Nitrous Oxides (none of which come from nuclear plants), in addition to radiological emissions greatly exceeding that of a comparable nuclear installations.
http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html

There is one thing that anti-nuclear proponents, especially the environmental extreme left will never acknowledge, and that is that humanity has a choice, broadly speaking, between using coal to generate electricity, and using nuclear reactors to generate electricity,

There's also the amount of people killed mining coal per annum being more than have died from nuclear power,
And that Coal burning emits Thorium into the atmosphere which is radioactive in itself

ei.sdraob

Measure Twice wrote: »

I agree, Pete. We should include about 250 MW of incineration in the energy mix.

Yes burn it instead of burring it or worse shipping to China for (ahem) "recycling".
interesting how the countries held up by the same Greens as example such as Germany have no issues with incineration and go as far as importing waste to burn from countries such as Italy.

More interestingly with regards to incineration is the plasma incineration technology (trying to find the articles) which is so hot the end result is a block of glass which can be used in road construction.

Carawaystick wrote: »

There's also the amount of people killed mining coal per annum being more than have died from nuclear power,
And that Coal burning emits Thorium into the atmosphere which is radioactive in itself

Plenty of mercury too, lets just say I would rather live next to a nuclear plant than the likes of Moneypoint even after the expensive retrofit project.

mgmt

ei.sdraob wrote: »

More interestingly with regards to incineration is the plasma incineration technology (trying to find the articles) which is so hot the end result is a block of glass which can be used in road construction.

They currently recycle incinerator ash by using it as mixture in concrete.

Pete_Cavan

mgmt wrote: »

They currently recycle incinerator ash by using it as mixture in concrete.

You are thinking of Pulverised Fly Ash, a by product of burning coal. The ash left from an incinerator is contaminated and would have to be disposed of in Holland.

ei.sdraob

From today's debate on the climate change bill which will tie us to a 30% target

Mark Dearey (Green Party) wrote:

“Some would argue that we should not be setting targets here that exceed our obligations, but this is being done in part in anticipation of the 30% EU target coming into effect in time.
…
The Confederation of British Industry chairman, Sir Richard Lambert, has stated that the CBI will not allow uncertainty of global targets to stop British industry from moving ahead. We cannot be left trailing behind Great Britain and Northern Ireland in our readiness for the low carbon future with which this Bill provides us.”

Paudie Coffey (Fine Gael) wrote:

“They have nuclear energy.”

We should embrace nuclear, just as UK are doing since its the cheapest and fastest way to reduce carbon emissions. UK are already well on their way to meeting their 30% target thanks in part to nuclear with more plants being planned.