Nuclear Power

Neewbie_noob

I know this has been done to death already, but it's time the good people of Ireland copped on and realised the benefits of nuclear power. Irish people, and people in other countries seem to have an unfounded fear of our friend nuclear power. It is by far the most efficient form of energy production, produced minimal waste and absolutely no greenhouse gasses whatsoever.

Nuclear power works by bombarding uranium atoms and making them into unstable isotopes. These generate an enormous amount of heat which boils water and creates steam, turning a turbine and hence generating electricity.

• The average nuclear power plant in one year will produce enough waste to fit in a brief case, if this is sealed into a drum one metre thick, the decaying nuclear mater wi not leach out
• The average person who uses fossil fuel based electricity is responsible for 5 freight trains fu of burnt ash etc, whereas a person using nucear their whole life is responsible for about a coke can ful
• The only thing coming out of the cooling towers is steam. Harmless, steam.
• People may say that NPP are an eye-sore, but wind farms are too and require much more natura resources to be mined for a much less efficient form of electricity production compared to Nuclear

Discuss.

I am in favour

coffee_cake

Neewbie_noob wrote: »

Discuss.

I am in favour

That's good discussing

Pottler

Fcukyoushima. You might have cher-noble reasons for advocating Nuclear, but It'd be a Long-Island time before I'd be tempted to listen to them Sell-a-field to me.

frozenfrozen

No

"Nuclear", ... it's pronounced "Nuclear" ... uughh

andrew

No

If the thread about Fukushima is anything to go by, people have a massive crazy fear of radiation in any quantity if the source of that radiation is related to nuclear power. I'd be massively in favour, and I'd love to see a nuke plant in Ireland, but I don't think it'll ever happen.

Neewbie_noob

No

Pottler wrote: »

Fcukyoushima.

People may make reference to Japan:
When is the last time we had a tsunami or earthquake?

Chernobly:
Poor security, wouldn't happen in Ireland.

Sellafield:
NOT a NPP. It's a nuclear processing plant, poor disposal practises.

Terrorism:
When did we ever have a threat of external terrorism?

GarIT

I'm not in favour of it, even if the risk is minimal its too high. I much rather move to more expensive sources such as wind or solar rather than risk human life.

Neewbie_noob

No

frozenfrozen wrote: »

"Nuclear", ... it's pronounced "Nuclear" ... uughh

Thanks for stealing my signature there good sir

charlemont

No

I'v no problem with nuclear power but I think a lot of people here in Ireland are mentally still in the pre-nuclear age. It would end up as a fiasco if they tried to introduce nuclear plants here.

frozenfrozen

No

Neewbie_noob wrote: »

Thanks for stealing my signature there good sir

but it's my signature

Benny_Cake

From what little I know on the subject, there have been significant advances in nuclear technology, including fast breeder reactors which can actually use the waste from conventional nuclear plants as fuel. While it's far from perfect, it would be a lot cleaner than a CO2-belching monstrosity such as Moneypoint. Nuclear is a dirty word in this country though so I don't expect to see it happening any time soon.

Pottler

Neewbie_noob wrote: »

People may make reference to Japan:
When is the last time we had a tsunami or earthquake?

Chernobly:
Poor security, wouldn't happen in Ireland.

Sellafield:
NOT a NPP. It's a nuclear processing plant, poor disposal practises.

Terrorism:
When did we ever have a threat of external terrorism?

I know. All bollox as well. "As long as we control nature, eliminate terrorism, eliminate human error and accidents, It's all good". Hmm. Ok.:)

My name is URL

We'll be importing nuclear generated electricity from Britain soon enough so everyone wins. The cost of building a power plant at this time would be unfeasible, and to be perfectly honest I don't fancy the idea of a Nuclear Authority being set up here and subject to the usual gombeenism and snake politics. It'd be a disaster before it even got off the ground.

AeoNGriM

With the gobsh!tes we have ruling the country I wouldn't trust them with a feckin book of matches, let alone a nuclear power plant

1ZRed

And how do you explain this?

Zab

Pottler wrote: »

Fcukyoushima. You might have cher-noble reasons for advocating Nuclear, but It'd be a Long-Island time before I 'd be tempted to listen to them Sell-a-field to me.

I think you mean it'd be a Three Mile Island time before ...

Zab

Waste-wise you should check out Into Eternity. It was a little dramatic for my taste but it has some food for thought.

Pottler

Zab wrote: »

I think you mean it'd be a Three Mile Island time before ...

Why, did they feck up somthing nuclear there as well?

My name is URL

It would be quite Irish to start building Power Plants at a time when wiser and more sophisticated nations are phasing out the use of nuclear power

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_phase-out

andrew

No

My name is URL wrote: »

It would be quite Irish to start building Power Plants at a time when wiser and more sophisticated nations are phasing out the use of nuclear power

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_phase-out

...and replacing their nuke plants with polluting coal plants. It's far from clear that this phase out is a good idea.

crazy cabbage

No

I am for but there is still some negatives. People say that there is only a briefcase of wast per year per plant but what people fail to factor in is that this wast will have to be stored for potentially millions of years in a very secure manor. How do we propose to deal with this?

Elessar

crazy cabbage wrote: »

I am for but there is still some negatives. People say that there is only a briefcase of wast per year per plant but what people fail to factor in is that this wast will have to be stored for potentially millions of years in a very secure manor. How do we propose to deal with this?

This.

The documentary linked above is well worth a watch. It's about a gigantic underground tomb being built in Finland to store it's own nuclear waste products which will be dangerous for millennia. It has to last millions of years and have understandable instructions for future generations to never enter. Very sombering and thought provoking.

I think we should be refocussing efforts, EU wide, on fusion power instead. Get the ITER reactor built and running and creating safe, limitless, sustainable energy for the entire world.

Unfortunately that's at least 40 years away, and maybe 100 years or more until commercial availability.

Sir Pompous Righteousness

No

Most nuclear reactors that have had problems, Fukushima, Sellafield (Windscale), Harrisburg, Chernobyl, etc., were all build before 1980. Most modern reactors are fine. All this fear mongering over nuclear reactors is just hyperbole. You cannot continue to use fossil fuels forever and most renewable energy will not meet the ever increasing energy demands on its own. Nuclear is the only opinion for the future.

Sir Pompous Righteousness

No

crazy cabbage wrote: »

I am for but there is still some negatives. People say that there is only a briefcase of wast per year per plant but what people fail to factor in is that this wast will have to be stored for potentially millions of years in a very secure manor. How do we propose to deal with this?

Rockets into space. Dump it on the moon.

cartell_best

What is the nation to vote in favour in developing nuclear power as a resource that is seen as an infinite amount of energy? Please note that the USA occupies 5% of the population of the planet, but yet use's 28% of our planets fossil fuel resources!

PyeContinental

Neewbie_noob wrote: »

It is by far the most efficient form of energy production, produced minimal waste and absolutely no greenhouse gasses whatsoever.

I always roll my eyes when I hear nuclear power being referred to as green energy. It's only green if you decide that co2 emissions are the only criterion that you use to judge environmental impact by. It would only takes one accident to make the whole country uninhabitable for millennia, and yet you could still technically say the radioactivity was "green" as it contained no carbon dioxide.

[*]The average nuclear power plant in one year will produce enough waste to fit in a brief case, if this is sealed into a drum one metre thick, the decaying nuclear mater wi not leach out

That sounds like a pretty thick barrel. How many generations would need to maintain that barrel's integrity?

[*]The average person who uses fossil fuel based electricity is responsible for 5 freight trains fu of burnt ash etc, whereas a person using nucear their whole life is responsible for about a coke can ful

Couldn't that ash be spread over soil as a fertiliser or dispersed in a harmless way into the environment? Not so with a coke can full of radioactive waste of course.

[*]The only thing coming out of the cooling towers is steam. Harmless, steam.

Until the day something goes wrong, and given enough time, that day becomes an eventuality rather than a possibility.

[*]People may say that NPP are an eye-sore, but wind farms are too and require much more natura resources to be mined for a much less efficient form of electricity production compared to Nuclear

How do wind farms require more natural resources to be mined (in and of themselves?

I'm surprised to see the poll is 85% in favour so far. Perhaps many of the voters are too young to remember Chernobyl which contaminated an area of land greater than that of the island of Ireland, and don't remember all the horrifying stories of radiation leaks at Sellafield, which was renamed from Windscale as a PR exercise I believe, to give it a shiny new image after the fire there in 1957.
Maybe the disaster at Fukashima being on the other side of the world from us doesn't seem to be as real or as immediate a threat to many people here.

I think the answer to our energy needs for this and the next generation is to use what we have more efficiently, and to decide what things are really important to us that require energy, but more on that another time.

Domestic solar and wind power generation could have a role to play too.

My name is URL

andrew wrote: »

...and replacing their nuke plants with polluting coal plants. It's far from clear that this phase out is a good idea.

Most of the plants will still be operating by 2030, and huge inroads and advances in fusion reactors are likely to be made by then.

If Ireland was to plan for and build a fission reactor now there's a good chance that by the time it was completed the technology would be almost obsolete.

As I mentioned earlier, we'll be importing nuclear energy from Britain soon, and they have no plans as of yet for a phase out.

parrai

Sir Pompous Righteousness wrote: »

crazy cabbage wrote: »

I am for but there is still some negatives. People say that there is only a briefcase of wast per year per plant but what people fail to factor in is that this wast will have to be stored for potentially millions of years in a very secure manor. How do we propose to deal with this?

Rockets into space. Dump it on the moon.

Not content with polluting the earth, lets destroy space too... Lovely.

My name is URL

parrai wrote: »

Not content with polluting the earth, lets destroy space too... Lovely.

That'd be the least of my concerns about his idea!

Imagine the rocket failed or exploded after lift-off.. it wouldn't seem like such a great idea then.

MadYaker

No

Sir Pompous Righteousness wrote: »

Rockets into space. Dump it on the moon.

Not even close to a viable solution at the moment I'm afraid, and it won't be until space travel gets a lot cheaper. Also it would be easier to just blast it out into space rather than trying to aim for the moon. I'm on the fence. Fossil fuels will do us for a while yet but we need alternatives since the burning of fossil fuels is destroying our planet. Most modern nuclear power plants are perfectly safe, its only the old ones that have had difficulties. There is no way our government can afford to build a nuclear plant at the moment and if the japanese with all their engineering brilliance and diligence can't run one safely I'm not sure how much faith I have in our abilities....

pablomakaveli

No

parrai wrote: »

Not content with polluting the earth, lets destroy space too... Lovely.

Any living thing thats drifting through the vacuum of space has bigger problems than our nuclear waste drifting by them.