Nuclear Power

1ZRed

Sir Pompous Righteousness wrote: »

Yes. Launch it from a secure isolated region and dump it into outer space.

Yeah fire it off and not deal with it until it eventually bites you in the ass sometime later. That's the whole reason why we are in so much difficulty with pollution and waste management. It was all put off with a "Ah, sure fuck it! We won't have to deal with it for years"
It's not a responsible mindset to have and we can't just go flinging everything into space like pigs. Space junk is already a big problem in our atmosphere without us polluting more of space.

cartell_best

Lads, I am not being smart but in fairness..If a single power plant generating enough energy to power a small country, can you imagine what destruction a single power plant can inflict on to its locality (50-250 kms)..in meltdown ...multiply that by 10, what happens? multiply that by 100....what happens...multiply that by 1,000.

Now imagine the worst? multiply that 1,000 by ten, then and only then, have you reached a simple comprehension on an extinction level...

If the Americans and Russians (alone) were to stop all and any nuclear activity but just commence War, it would take just 1% of American force and 1.5 of a russian retaliation just to annihilate the entire planet. Nuclear energy at its most and current level, hold enough to begin a structure that would ultimately end in a complete wipe out of 90% of t he planet.

the keen edge

It should also be noted that Nuclear power itself is derived from fossil fuels; indeed an even more rare fossil fuel that the hydrocarbons currently used.

Good analogy:
We have ran out of a gold, silver and diamond supply to feed our electric power generators; So now instead we'll feed them Platinum.

andrew

No

Chuck Stone wrote: »

Non sequitur.

The stated premises that there will be an exponential increase in demand for energy (source?) does not mean that nuclear is the inevitable solution/conclusion.

Nobody said that nuclear is the inevitable solution; what people are arguing is that it's the best solution, given increasing energy demand. And I don't know if it's exponential, but the demand is definitely increasing somewhat inexorably.

Palytoxin

Wind power for the win.

shedweller

Depleted Uranium (U-238) is a by product from making fuel for nuclear power plants. It makes up 99.28% of the natural Uranium. It has a half life of 4.468 BILLION years! About 95% of the worlds DU is stored as Uranium Hexaflouride and when it leaks it reacts with air to produce uranyl fluoride and hydrogen flouride.
The rest of the DU is given to weapon manufacturers to dispose of it in other countries in the form of bullets, tank shells and bunker busters.

Then there is the CO2 emitted during the mining of the uranium, enrichment, shipping and storage of the waste. Are there any figures for this?
I did some digging:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/05/nuclear-greenpolitics

To produce the 25 tonnes or so of uranium fuel needed to keep your average reactor going for a year entails the extraction of half a million tonnes of waste rock and over 100,000 tonnes of mill tailings. These are toxic for hundreds of thousands of years. The conversion plant will generate another 144 tonnes of solid waste and 1343 cubic metres of liquid waste.

Contamination of local water supplies around uranium mines and processing plants has been documented in Brazil, Colorado, Texas, Australia, Namibia and many other sites. To supply even a fraction of the power stations the industry expects to be online worldwide in 2020 would mean generating 50 million tonnes of toxic radioactive residues every single year.

These tailings contain uranium, thorium, radium, polonium, and emit radon-222. In the US, the Environmental Protection Agency sets limits of emissions from the dumps and monitors them. This does not happen in many less developed areas.

The long-term management cost of these dumps is left out of the current market prices for nuclear fuel and may be as high as the uranium cost itself. The situation for the depleted uranium waste arising during enrichment even may be worse, says the World Information Service on Energy.

Some more:
http://serc.carleton.edu/research_education/nativelands/navajo/environmental.html

In terms of both short and long term environmental impact, uranium mining is by far the most environmentally problematic of any mining activity because radioactivity of the ore presents an intangible that cannot be chemically mitigated. Even after the mining activities ceased on the Navajo Nation, the legacy of environmental harm continued from events such as what happened in 1979 at Church Rock. The Church Rock disaster is the largest accidental release of radioactive material in U.S. history. A tailing dam burst, sending eleven hundred tons of radioactive mill wastes and ninety million gallons of contaminated liquid pouring toward Arizona into the Rio Puerco River. The Navajo still cannot use this water ([Ali, 2003] ).

Yet more:
http://www.energyscience.org.au/FS06%20Uranium%20Mining.pdf

What are the environmental impacts of uranium mining?
The environmental impacts of uranium mining include the traditional impacts associated with gold or copper mining,
as well as additional radiological impacts. Depending on the type of deposit and method of mining, the environmental
impacts are associated with solid waste management, water management, and chemicals and emissions from
milling.
In open cut mining large quantities of waste rock are excavated to access the ore, with much of this waste rock also
containing low grade, uneconomic quantities of uranium. Additionally, this waste rock may also contain sulphide
minerals such as pyrite. When undisturbed in situ this rock is stable. However, the process of mining increases the
cracks present and allows water and oxygen to diffuse into the waste. The oxygen and water reacts with the sulphide
to produce sulphuric acid. This in turn dissolves much of the heavy metals and radionuclides present in the waste,
allowing it to leach out of the rock into the surrounding environment. This leachate, known as acid mine drainage
(AMD), is extremely toxic to aquatic ecosystems and will cause major, long-lasting environmental impacts. AMD is
a major problem in the mining of many metals, but presents an additional problem when combined with uranium
mining. Infamous sites where environmental impacts from AMD have been extensive include Rum Jungle, near
Darwin in Australia, as well as the Elliot Lake district in northern Ontario, Canada.Until the 1970’s uranium mill tailings were commonly poorly managed. At Rum Jungle, tailings (and liquid wastes
from the mill) were dumped onto the adjacent floodplain for several years – eroding through every wet season into
the local Finniss River. A brief period of disposing of tailings into former open cuts was then trialled. Combined with
toxic AMD leachates, the poor tailings and water management at Rum Jungle led to severe environmental impacts
covering 100 km2 of the Finniss River ecosystem. At Grand Junction in Colorado the tailings were at one time even
actively sourced for use in building construction materials. The very low-grade tailings from the Radium Hill mine in
South Australia were used as ballast for railway line and even road construction.

Ok, so they copped on and cut down this craziness but this stuff doesn't just go away does it? No! It stays around for a very long time!

And this argument that new power plants have it sorted is bonkers! What will we say in 50 years time? "Ah, the new power plants are much better than they were 50 years ago! (when we thought we had it sorted)"

PyeContinental

cartell_best wrote: »

I do believe sir, we have been importing nuclear power for some time now. It has only been, through recent developments and publicity that the €600,000,000 of undersea cables that we as a public, are more recently informed. Before that, the import and export of utility power has been ongoing.

Yes, you're right. I worked for the ESB about ten years ago and I remember hearing then that the ESB traded electricity with Northern Ireland, and since the interconnector between NI and Scotland went into operation in 2002, has therefore indirectly been trading electricity with the rest of the UK.
http://www.mutual-energy.com/The_Moyle_Interconnector/Index.php

shedweller wrote: »

And this argument that new power plants have it sorted is bonkers! What will we say in 50 years time? "Ah, the new power plants are much better than they were 50 years ago! (when we thought we had it sorted)"

Exactly. It's such arrogant foolishness to make the assumption that one's own generation's technology is the pinnacle of anything.

Chuck Stone

andrew wrote: »

what people are arguing is that it's the best solution

It's a costly 'solution' that leaves a legacy of waste for generations. No private company would build a nuke-plant.

The economics of nuclear power have always been questionable. The
fact that consumers or governments have traditionally borne the risk of investment in nuclear power plants meant that utilities were insulated from these risks and were able to borrow money at rates reflecting the reduced risk to investors and lenders.

Source

parrai

Sir Pompous Righteousness wrote: »

parrai wrote: »

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

Pollute space? Seriously? There an infinite amount of free space, surely we could pollute some of it and it wouldn't make a bloody difference.

Don't think it's a good idea to go messin' about with it though!

Why do we have to be so destructive when we have wind/solar technology at our fingertips?

Doesn't make any sense dumping crap in space.

twinytwo

lets see.....government cant look after simply things like roads/schools.... you want to give them a nuclear power plant??????????????????????

D-Generate

No

Nuclear power is the most logical solution to power requirements in North Western Europe. The region is both geographically and politically stable enough to take an already well advanced technology and implement it with little potential for destruction on the scale of Fukushima or Chernobyl.

That being said, although I have no issue with nuclear power it is not cost-effective for Ireland and has previously been looked into by the ESB Group. In order to efficiently distribute power throughout Ireland's national grid we would need a number of small sized power plants but the cost to build this system would not make sense. On the other hand, a single large power plant would have economies of scale but distributing this efficiently to serve the whole nation would be difficult. For that reason we will continue with fossil fuels or bring it in as necessary from the UK.

Source: I am an electrical engineer living with an electrical engineer that works in the ESBI.

dbyrne

Let them be built in the uk and we can import it, that is what we are currently doing. Let us produce hydro, and some wind but mainly hydro and sell use that and if we have anything over sell the energy back to the UK.

Pottler

Qualitymark wrote: »

The world is in an utter state of emergency because of overuse of fossil fuels. I've always been adamantly against nuclear power, but at this stage I think it's the only choice, until we build up wave and wind power to a level where it can take the strain.

If we have time. Since it seems likely that the Greenland melt may stop the Atlantic Ocean conveyor belt, and tip the world into nuclear winter, we may be too late already.

See, I told you anything nuclear was bad. It's no problem though as I have a stock of light jumpers and jeans.

the keen edge

D-Generate wrote: »

Nuclear power is the most logical solution to power requirements in North Western Europe. The region is both geographically and politically stable enough to take an already well advanced technology and implement it with little potential for destruction on the scale of Fukushima or Chernobyl.

And has being historically stable for how long?

The nuclear waste must be reposed for ~100,000 years. There is no escaping this fact.
It is almost inconceivable to humans, (with a life expectancy of ~80 years), that the nuclear waste will have to be administered for such a mind baffling length of time.

Capt'n Midnight

Benny_Cake wrote: »

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.

Breeders eh ?

They've had plutonium producing reactors on the go since 1944. Since then there has been one semi-successful commercial breeder reactor, and it had an up time of 8%.


Yes it would be nice to see a liquid salt thorium breeder reactor. But that's what they said back in the 1950's when they started building experimental reactors to test those technologies.

Pebble bed reactors were a little later on.

The nuclear industry has been promising new technology and delivering nada for ages.

cartell_best wrote: »

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!

US is cancelling nukes since they have lots of cheap gas from fracking.

Sir Pompous Righteousness wrote: »

Wind, wave and photovoltaic energy sources will never meet exponentially increasing energy demands by themselves.

over the last 30 years the price of solar is falling 7% year on year due to economies of scale

only a few % of the worlds deserts would provide all our power needs, even if you assume the worlds population will stablilse at 11 billion

state of the art panels are several times as efficient as commercially available ones so lots of room for improvement


one of the Holy Grails for solar would be a cheap method of photolysis to produce Hydrogen. Or cheap batteries. Or superconductor interconnectors.


Nuclear provides 7% of the worlds electricity , there are 70 years of proven uranium reserves left. A nuclear power station costs so much that it can take 30-40 years or longer to pay back it's costs. It's like suggesting we convert all our existing power stations to use turf. There simply isn't enough turf to pay for the costs of converting them.

Reamer Fanny

Wheres me iodine tablets?

Capt'n Midnight

the keen edge wrote: »

The nuclear waste must be reposed for ~100,000 years. There is no escaping this fact.

Actually...

this figure keeps getting revised upwards as laws are changed

costs of decomissioning and waste storage keep increasing. there is a levy on electricity in the UK to pay for this

jumpguy

My name is URL wrote: »

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.

That's a ridiculous amount of defeatism. People who don't want to try to advance or change things in this country because of their fears of corruption will land us nowhere. Corruption will always be a problem, but we can't let it hold us back forever.

Like all supply-and-demand problems, getting sufficient energy requires a trade-off. Fossil fuelled energy is no longer feasible, and people must stop burying their heads in the sand with the damage it's doing to our world. Air pollution cannot go on on the scale it is going on. Solar energy isn't efficient enough to warrant spending billions on massive solar power plants, and wind power isn't reliable enough.

The biggest drawback of nuclear power is risk of accident. First, let's distinguish the differences, which really can't be ignored, of a nuclear power plant in Ireland and with nuclear plants where major accidents have occurred.

Fukushima: Poor design. Quite simply, putting the back-up power generators on the ground floor. If the generators had simply been placed in a less idiotic place, everything would've been fine. It's also worth noting that to date, nobody has died from this accident.

Chernobyl: Poor design again. Without getting into detail, the reactor design itself made it prone to such a disaster. The risks of such a reactor were always known, and commissioning one in the West would've been unthinkable. Reactors of the same design as the Chernobyl one still operate in Russia. Poor management also contributed to the disaster, such as having a shift-change on in the middle of a sensitive reactor stress test.

Now, note that all these reactors were built in the 1960's. What if we blazed a trail in Ireland and built a new, inherently safe, excellently designed reactor? Never minding the advantages of having clean, efficient power generation, but think of all the great minds we can employ in our country getting them to work on such a good cause. The people that will be employed running and building the reactor. It's the sort of high-tech, high-return investment we need here in Ireland.

People need to stop ignoring the facts about nuclear power. The risks are tiny. Technology will not develop, or may never develop, to fully take advantage of naturally-produced energy in a reliable, dependent manner. We have run out of time - the "wait and hope" option is gone. It's time to go nuclear.

the keen edge

justryan wrote: »

Wheres me iodine tablets?

I gave them to me dog.

Have you any more of them, the quare one's whinging now looking for a few, warbling on how about I care more for the dog than I do for her, you know the craic.

portumnadaz

Thorium Thorium Thorium

Capt'n Midnight

MadYaker wrote: »

Anyone got reliable figures on how much longer fossil fuels are likely to last??

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-29/kohler-oil-reserves-shift-global-markets/3859118

The US has an estimated 2 trillion barrels of shale oil reserves - about 70 per cent of the world's total and eight times the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. The gas reserves, in the US, Australia and elsewhere, are vast.

The cost of extracting shale oil ranges from $US95 per barrel down to $US12, although the process of fracking, where water is pumped in to break up the shale and release the oil, is very controversial
...
China has more shale energy reserves than the US but it's deeper and the geology is more difficult. There are big reserves in Poland and France, as well as Russia and the Congo in Africa.

You also have to consider stuff like Canadian Tar Sands

At present only about 1/3rd of the oil in a well is recovered, so there is a lot of oil down there.

The oil age isn't over. The age of cheap oil is.

the keen edge

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Actually...

this figure keeps getting revised upwards as laws are changed

costs of decomissioning and waste storage keep increasing. there is a levy on electricity in the UK to pay for this

100,000 years; 200,000 years, does it matter?

It's absurd. As you said out there are 70 years of proven uranium reserves left.

Nuclear power is the ultimate in the kick the can down the road political policies, actually I'm more surprised that we haven't one in this State.

Ziphius

No

cartell_best wrote: »

Lads, I am not being smart but in fairness..If a single power plant generating enough energy to power a small country, can you imagine what destruction a single power plant can inflict on to its locality (50-250 kms)..in meltdown ...multiply that by 10, what happens? multiply that by 100....what happens...multiply that by 1,000.

Now imagine the worst? multiply that 1,000 by ten, then and only then, have you reached a simple comprehension on an extinction level...

If the Americans and Russians (alone) were to stop all and any nuclear activity but just commence War, it would take just 1% of American force and 1.5 of a russian retaliation just to annihilate the entire planet. Nuclear energy at its most and current level, hold enough to begin a structure that would ultimately end in a complete wipe out of 90% of t he planet.

Well, there is a difference between nuclear power generation and nuclear weaponry. Nuclear power stations aren't just big bombs ready to explode.

I mean, we already have the capacity to generate energy for a small country but people aren't alarmed about our gas burning stations detonating and destroying the neighboring countryside.

There will be trade offs with ever method of energy generation and I think nuclear power is, particularly in this country, unfairly stigmatized. People often cite Chernobyl and Fukashima as examples of its inherent danger. According to the WHO fewer than 50 people died directly due to Chernobyl radiation (source). Although they do product as many as 4,000 will die in the future. However, contrast this with accidents at renewable power generating stations. In 1975 the Banqiao dam in China failed killing over 170,000 people and made another 11 million homeless (source).

musings

jumpguy wrote: »

Fukushima: Poor design. Quite simply, putting the back-up power generators on the ground floor. If the generators had simply been placed in a less idiotic place, everything would've been fine. It's also worth noting that to date, nobody has died from this accident.

You are factually wrong. It was not the failure of the generators that was the problem but rather the failure of the pumps. There was no other place to put the pumps other than at the water intake at ground level. So it was not poor design...it was the only practical design possible.

The Fukushima accident showed up how vulnerable these plants can be if for example a terrorist wants to cause a problem.

cartell_best

Ziphius wrote: »

Well, there is a difference between nuclear power generation and nuclear weaponry. Nuclear power stations aren't just big bombs ready to explode.

I mean, we already have the capacity to generate energy for a small country but people aren't alarmed about our gas burning stations detonating and destroying the neighboring countryside.

There will be trade offs with ever method of energy generation and I think nuclear power is, particularly in this country, unfairly stigmatized. People often cite Chernobyl and Fukashima as examples of its inherent danger. According to the WHO fewer than 50 people died directly due to Chernobyl radiation (source). Although they do product as many as 4,000 will die in the future. However, contrast this with accidents at renewable power generating stations. In 1975 the Banqiao dam in China failed killing over 170,000 people and made another 11 million homeless (source).

Theres always one...sorry to everyone else

Capt'n Midnight

Sir Pompous Righteousness wrote: »

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.

Some of the incidents this year.


http://stfrancisconnect.co.za/nuclear-events/

We had 10 different nuclear events reported in just 10 days.
...

BELGIUM
(1) August 8, 2012 – Doel 3 nuclear reactor, Doel Nuclear Power Station – Shutdown

USA
(2) August 12, 2012 – Maryland, Calvert Cliffs – Shutdown

(3) August 12, 2012 – Connecticut, Millstone Power Station – Shutdown

(4) August 12, 2012 – Michigan, Palisades – Shutdown

(5) August 14, 2012 – Minnesota, Prairie Island – Shutdown

(6) August 14, 2012 – Minnesota, Monticello – Shutdown

(7) August 16, 2012 – Michigan, Fermi – Loss of data

BELGIUM

(8) August 16, 2012 – Tihange 2 nuclear reactor, Tihange Nuclear Power Station – Shutdown

JAPAN

(9) August 16, 2012 – No. 4 reactor turbine building, Fukushima No. 1 – Radioactive water leakage

UK

(10) August 18, 2012 – East Lothian – Torness nuclear power station – Fire

Leibstadt nuclear reactor down for repair

more current US nuclear repairs -

http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/sdcounty/san-onofre-regulators-had-questions-about-dome-repairs-at-nuke/article_09d8cc31-4206-53e6-ab65-5478a1a66a46.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-10/nuclear-repairs-no-easy-sale-as-cheap-gas-hits-utilities.html

http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/repair-costs-rise-at-crystal-river-nuclear-plant/1243770



Limerick nuclear plant shuts reactor for repair :pac:

Capt'n Midnight

Joey the lips wrote: »

With power being so cheap and unregulated in the uk would it not be cheaper to build 16 inconnectors and let the uk worry about the waste...

except the UK is a nett importer of power, from Scotland , France, Belgium , ourselves and soon Norway and they have their eyes on Iceland too

Ziphius

No

cartell_best wrote: »

Theres always one...sorry to everyone else

You were being sarcastic?

andrew

No

Chuck Stone wrote: »

It's a costly 'solution' that leaves a legacy of waste for generations. No private company would build a nuke-plant.

It's not exactly surprising that Greenpeace would release a report that says Nuclear power is uneconomical; I can't really imagine them reaching any other conclusion.

Anyway, the energy market is in general rife with government intervention. Many energy sources are subsidized in some form, and the nature of energy provision is such that it tends toward being a natural (and therefore government controlled in some aspect) monopoly. So I don't think the argument that 'a private company wouldn't build it' is particularly applicable in this case. And there's a case to be made for public provision when the market implied price of a good/service is too 'high' because externalities (such as reduced greenhouse emissions) aren't priced in adequately.

As far as waste goes, it's pretty simple; bury it. It really is that easy. There are already geological sites which could accommodate such waste, they just need to be built. I don't really get why people think that burying something for ages is something that humanity can't do. It's a lot easier to deal with than, say, the carbon which results from coal energy and can't really be captured in quantities sufficient enough.

Capt'n Midnight

jumpguy wrote: »

Now, note that all these reactors were built in the 1960's. What if we blazed a trail in Ireland and built a new, inherently safe, excellently designed reactor? Never minding the advantages of having clean, efficient power generation, but think of all the great minds we can employ in our country getting them to work on such a good cause. The people that will be employed running and building the reactor. It's the sort of high-tech, high-return investment we need here in Ireland.

Perhaps we should go for a generation III reactor ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_III_reactor

or perhaps we should wait until someone actually gets one working on time , on budget and debugged ( Finns, Japanese and Russians are having problems with new reactors at present )


high-return investment ??? - please explain this