Nuclear Power

Grudaire

Heroditas wrote: »

A lot of it is CCGT so it can be brought up relatively quickly.
Even if something like Moneypoint is replaced with a nuke and used as base load, there is STILL excess generation capacity on the island.
Also, there is the likes of Turlough Hill and peaking plants to meet any immediate deficit while the CCGT plants ramp up in the event of an unexpected failure..... as is the case currently.

But if we need the backup generation capabilities now, then how will adding a nuclear station not increase the potential variation? Moneypoint at the moment is unlikely to have any long term failures!

Thus we'd need more power capabilities?

Grudaire

IvySlayer wrote: »

The safety record of nuclear power, in terms of lives lost per unit of electricity delivered, is better than every other major source of power in the world.

It's an ironic fact alright!

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/

Heroditas

Cliste wrote: »

But if we need the backup generation capabilities now, then how will adding a nuclear station not increase the potential variation? Moneypoint at the moment is unlikely to have any long term failures!

Thus we'd need more power capabilities?

We have nearly double the required generation capacity.
If a power plant is offline for a whole year, there is plenty of reserve plants to take up the slack.
What is so difficult about that to understand?

Grudaire

Heroditas wrote: »

We have nearly double the required generation capacity.
If a power plant is offline for a whole year, there is plenty of reserve plants to take up the slack.
What is so difficult about that to understand?

Nothing hard to understand, what's the breakdown of that capacity?

I assume you'll grant there is a reason that our installed capacity vastly exceeds our needs?

Gbear

No

Cliste wrote: »

I'm not going to defend something I didn't say!

You said:

Cliste wrote: »

The actual amount of uptime is the equivalent of your wind figures.

My wind figures were 25-40%.

What did you actually mean?

Cliste wrote: »

Not sure where the 8GW figure comes from - had a quick google and I came across this: http://greennav.wordpress.com/2008/02/08/understanding-electricity-demand-in-ireland/

In summary I'll work off a peak demand of ~4GW on an average day.

I pulled a ballpark figure out of my arse for illustrative purposes.

Cliste wrote: »

Now if we look at the size of plants being currently built we are talking about around 1GW capacity: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf17.html

So one power plant will be 25% of our energy needs - my point is that we can't rely on all of them working all the time. If two happen to be out (eg one on regular servicing and one unexpected) then we'd need an extra 50% capacity over what we use.

Cliste wrote: »

this is an average - over several hundred plants.

The problem is that once every three years the plant must be shut for over a month. In addition plants will shut unexpectedly (otherwise they wouldn't be safe)


I'm not saying that nuclear is bad economically but it won't work in Ireland because we have such low energy needs relatively.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf33.html
There's a list of smaller nuclear reactors.

They vary in size from 25MW to 335MW.

Today, due partly to the high capital cost of large power reactors generating electricity via the steam cycle and partly to the need to service small electricity grids under about 4 GWe,b there is a move to develop smaller units. These may be built independently or as modules in a larger complex, with capacity added incrementally as required (see section below on Modular construction using small reactor units). Economies of scale are provided by the numbers produced. There are also moves to develop small units for remote sites. Small units are seen as a much more manageable investment than big ones whose cost rivals the capitalization of the utilities concerned.

I'm fairly sure there's small self-contained modular reactors which are completely replaced when their fuel runs out. It's kinda like the difference between an engine that requires fuel to generate electricity and a battery which is simply replaced when it runs out of charge. Perhaps something along those lines would make sense. It would presumably limit the amount of tech we'd need to invest in on site.


We could have 20 100MW reactors at 4 different sites and reduce the risk you're describing.

My general point is that we don't need a big 4GW behemoth power plant that would make sense in bigger countries. We don't automatically have to follow the same model.


Now, again, they may not be economically viable, but I much prefer debating on those lines rather than tired horse**** about safety that's been debunked a million times.

It's like the GM debate where you'r trying to debate about the merits of having corporations control crops and then you get someone coming in waffling about GM mutating babies.

Grudaire

Gbear wrote: »

You said:

My wind figures were 25-40%.

What did you actually mean?

Ah I see where I was confusing... I meant that you said we need 3x wind over our needs where we only need 1x if we use nuclear - But I was disputing the 1x figure..

Gbear wrote: »

I pulled a ballpark figure out of my arse for illustrative purposes.

:mad: ... actually this is AH - what did I expect!?

Gbear wrote: »

I'm fairly sure there's small self-contained modular reactors which are completely replaced when their fuel runs out. It's kinda like the difference between an engine that requires fuel to generate electricity and a battery which is simply replaced when it runs out of charge. Perhaps something along those lines would make sense. It would presumably limit the amount of tech we'd need to invest in on site.

Toshiba reactors I think is what you're talking about - it's not remotely established as a technology...

Gbear wrote: »

Now, again, they may not be economically viable, but I much prefer debating on those lines rather than tired horse**** about safety that's been debunked a million times.

It's like the GM debate where you'r trying to debate about the merits of having corporations control crops and then you get someone coming in waffling about GM mutating babies.

I'm not(haven't) making that argument... so yay for economics?

(although I would make the environmental argument against nukes)

Capt'n Midnight

Gbear wrote: »

Lot's of reasoning and no facts.

Nuclear power is incredibly safe.

Read back about 1 or 2 pages where I go into it at length.

Decade after decade the mantra remains the same

"Tomorrows nuclear power plants will be safe because we've learnt from the mistakes in the past"
"our untested designs will be more efficient and safer"

Nuclear is a sideline. There is enough proven uranium reserves to supply the equivalent of current global electricity usage for 10 years. If all of today's reactors are replaced at the end of their working lives then there is just about enough fuel to keep the replacements running for their design lives. This is kinda important since capital costs are so large that a reactor takes so long to break even.

There are no breeder reactors (the closest the French Superphoenix had only 8% uptime)
There are no thorium cycle reactors
There are no burner reactors
There is uranium in seawater, same is true of gold
There are no more soviet warheads , all the spare ones have already been converted into fuel.
[edit]There are no pebble bed reactors, the German one jammed and the Toshiba ones never left the drawing board[/edit]

The improvements achieved / proposed for each new generation of nuclear plant ( ~7% every 20 years) are about the same as photovoltaic makes every year ( for the last 30 years).

Photovoltaic uses many different technologies - some are more efficient , some are cheaper.
IBM reckon they can print out 500 GW of panels per year using readily available copper, zinc and tin That's more than all existing and planned nuclear plants again. And those panels are only 1/3 the efficiency as the best commercially available one. The latest trend in the lab is to use infra red light which constitutes 40% of sunlight so expect efficiencies of some panels to take a major jump.

Wind costs are falling by about 14% every time capacity doubles ( since 1984)

Remind us again how much cheaper the next generation of nuclear power will be ? (please backup any prediction with previous industry cost trends)


Improvements in LED lighting and Insulation can help. Back in 2006 nineteen percent of global electricity was used for lighting. That's five percent more than nuclear power provided.

If we switched to LED lighting we wouldn't need Nuclear power.

Dr Roland Haitz's law says that LED lighting costs are dropping by a factor of 10 every decade. He predicted 200lm/watt by 2020.
254lm / watt was announced in April



If the billions needed for new nuclear power plants were invested in LED technology or in providing extra insulation for buildings there would be no need for more reactors.

Capt'n Midnight

Cliste wrote: »

But if we need the backup generation capabilities now, then how will adding a nuclear station not increase the potential variation? Moneypoint at the moment is unlikely to have any long term failures!

Thus we'd need more power capabilities?

Money point has three 305MW generating units and there are two 400KV lines to Dublin.

Most of the proposed reactors are in the 1.5GW class. Very different if one that size were to go off line.

Gbear

No

Cliste wrote: »

Ah I see where I was confusing... I meant that you said we need 3x wind over our needs where we only need 1x if we use nuclear - But I was disputing the 1x figure..

What I meant was that you need three MWs of installed capacity of windmills for each MW of installed capacity of nuclear.

Because 1MW of installed wind is 0.25MW and 1MW of installed nuclear is 0.75MW.

Cliste wrote: »

I'm not(haven't) making that argument... so yay for economics?

(although I would make the environmental argument against nukes)

Didn't mean to imply that you were.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Nuclear is a sideline. There is enough proven uranium reserves to supply the equivalent of current global electricity usage for 10 years.

Do you have a source for that?

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Photovoltaic uses many different technologies - some are more efficient , some are cheaper.

You need sunlight for that. There's none at night and night gets pretty long this far north during the winter.
Again, just the same as any electricity that is based on the weather, it needs either power storage or a massive interconnected grid across a huge area (without massive energy losses) to have any hope of viability.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Improvements in LED lighting and Insulation can help. Back in 2006 nineteen percent of global electricity was used for lighting. That's five percent more than nuclear power provided.

If we switched to LED lighting we wouldn't need Nuclear power.

Dr Roland Haitz's law says that LED lighting costs are dropping by a factor of 10 every decade. He predicted 200lm/watt by 2020.
254lm / watt was announced in April

If the billions needed for new nuclear power plants were invested in LED technology or in providing extra insulation for buildings there would be no need for more reactors.

While LEDs will certainly help (we bought a bunch for our house and although they cost **** all to run the light the provide is ****e) your logic is deeply flawed to assume that we won't need nuclear because of it.

Even if lighting energy consumption went from 19% down to near 0% of global usage that doesn't make all the coal plants disappear.

If you're taking all fossil fuel out of the equation (because we have to) except perhaps some gas turbines in reserve (because they're handy) then all you are left with is nuclear and renewables. Right now and for the forseeable future renewable energy can't cut it on it's own.
We can either go nuclear or stick to fossil fuels.
Which is exactly the kind of populist ****e Germany has embarked on.


Windmills and Solar panels will have to get an awful lot more efficient to make up for their intermittency and even still they'll need to be backed up by other sources that can quickly ramp up power, interconnectors or storage of excess power generated when they're producing more than we need.

Capt'n Midnight

TheBegotten wrote: »

Just like to point out, nuclear powerplants don't have to be large. The reason Uranium plants are large is generally to produce Plutonium in large enough quantities to be weaponised economically. Thorium reactors can be anywhere from 1MW to 330MW, and Thorium is generally found in ore form near lead. It is a bit more sophisticated than bombarding Uranium with neutrons, however.

yes it is a tad more sophisticated
it produces 0.5% the high level waste that uranium cycle does
and in theory it lends itself to actinide burners so most of that 0.5% can be zapped with neutrons - sounds great

there is just one tiny fly in the ointment

we've had full scale nuclear reactors since 1944 and the thorium cycle was publicised in 1946 and we still haven't managed to build such a reactor

Capt'n Midnight

Gbear wrote: »

Do you have a source for that?

Sorry my bad. It's 80 years not 70. http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf75.html

the world's present measured resources of uranium (5.3 Mt) in the cost category around present spot prices and used only in conventional reactors, are enough to last for about 80 years.

Yes you can get recover more uranium , but at greater costs which further undermines the dubious economics of Nuclear.
much of the input for uranium recovery is for energy or fossil fuel products

Also expect uranium prices to increase as workers in some countries get better health and safety legleslation.

I guess uranium is easy to detect with a geiger counter ? so not sure it's as well hidden as other minerals.

Also do those resources include Irish uranium even though it's going to be difficult to get a license to run such a mine here ?

You need sunlight for that. There's none at night

:eek:

In all seriousness a rotating space mirror costs less than a nuclear plant.

Again, just the same as any electricity that is based on the weather, it needs either power storage or a massive interconnected grid across a huge area (without massive energy losses) to have any hope of viability.

To give an example of the economics the 580Km NorNed interconnector recovered 8% of it construction cost in the first two months of use. (what's the payback time on Nuclear ?) Europe as a whole has enough hydro to provide six weeks storage. All that's needed to do is rent some desert and join the dots.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_super_grid

While LEDs will certainly help (we bought a bunch for our house and although they cost **** all to run the light the provide is ****e) your logic is deeply flawed to assume that we won't need nuclear because of it.

You say we need to invest Billions so that in ten years time there will be more nuclear plants to provide electricity for light and heat. I'm saying those same billions could be spent reducing the demand instead. And do it sooner.

Even if lighting energy consumption went from 19% down to near 0% of global usage that doesn't make all the coal plants disappear.

King coal will be around until there are massive CO2 fines, because coal is cheap.

If you're taking all fossil fuel out of the equation (because we have to)

check the news.
the US has found a lot of natural gas, cheap power is helping their imports, they have put 4 reactors on hold because gas is cheaper.

Right now and for the forseeable future renewable energy can't cut it on it's own.
We can either go nuclear or stick to fossil fuels.
Which is exactly the kind of populist ****e Germany has embarked on.

I've said before , if there is a breakthrough in photolysis of water all bets are off.

Windmills and Solar panels will have to get an awful lot more efficient to make up for their intermittency and even still they'll need to be backed up by other sources that can quickly ramp up power, interconnectors or storage of excess power generated when they're producing more than we need.

our peak wind power here is 31 times our 1931 peak demand that's how far we've come along

you are missing the point. Nuclear isn't getting cheaper. It's slowly getting more efficient though. Uranium usage is 1.87 times more efficient over 28 years.* But the price of Uranium has gone up too by ~5 times so the cost of uranium per Kwhr has gone up by 2.67 times. The price of Uranium is rising faster than efficiency.

In that same time the cost of PV has fallen 7% year after year and there enough developments in the lab to believe this will continue for quite some time and the economies of scale that apply to the rest of the semiconductor industry also apply here.


If someone comes up with a cheap renewable powered battery. Direct photolysis would be nice - silicon or transition metal or dye or bacteria or nanotubes just a matter of who gets there with an economic system first. Forget fuel cells , just burn the hydrogen in a CCGT. Holy grail would be to use atmospheric CO2 to make something like methanol. At present we can do this , just not economically.



*2.67 figure from

(Over the years 1980 to 2008 the electricity generated by nuclear power increased 3.6-fold while uranium used increased by a factor of only 2.5.) ....
Reducing the tails assay in enrichment reduces the amount of natural uranium required for a given amount of fuel. Reprocessing of used fuel from conventional light water reactors also utilises present resources more efficiently, by a factor of about 1.3 overall.

Gbear

No

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Sorry my bad. It's 80 years not 70. http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf75.htmlYes you can get recover more uranium , but at greater costs which further undermines the dubious economics of Nuclear.
much of the input for uranium recovery is for energy or fossil fuel products

Also expect uranium prices to increase as workers in some countries get better health and safety legleslation.

I guess uranium is easy to detect with a geiger counter ? so not sure it's as well hidden as other minerals.

Also do those resources include Irish uranium even though it's going to be difficult to get a license to run such a mine here ?

That there are only 80 years of proven U reserves is not the same as saying as that's all the Uranium there is.
Based on the proven oil reserves and our (growing) daily use we only have 45 years of oil left. I doubt very much that the reality is anything like that.

It's ignoring Thorium, improvements in technology and it's not as if oil or coal are impervious to increasing costs (especially if governments make a serious effort at imposing tariffs to stop their use).

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

:eek:

In all seriousness a rotating space mirror costs less than a nuclear plant.

Titter titter. Solar power doesn't work during the night time. That's quite a large portion of the day it's sitting idle. That's not even mentioning what cloud cover does to it (rather important in Ireland).

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

To give an example of the economics the 580Km NorNed interconnector recovered 8% of it construction cost in the first two months of use. (what's the payback time on Nuclear ?) Europe as a whole has enough hydro to provide six weeks storage. All that's needed to do is rent some desert and join the dots.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_super_grid

There's a bit of a difference between a big cable and something that actually generates power.

The power is going to need to come from somewhere. Having a world wide grid of interconnections makes sense regardless of what power we're using.

What I most want to stop is the likes of Germany making coal stations now because nothing else will fit the bill and scrapping their nuclear program because of populist horse****.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

You say we need to invest Billions so that in ten years time there will be more nuclear plants to provide electricity for light and heat. I'm saying those same billions could be spent reducing the demand instead. And do it sooner.

LED lights are already cheaper (even if the light they produce is crap).
Insulating houses already makes economic sense. This isn't something the government really needs to put much effort in to other than to raise awareness.
They don't need to spend billions retrofitting people's houses with fancy new kit that makes them more economical. They need to be persuading people to make this sensible investment themselves.

The government's money should be directed towards less polluting power generation because that's the big capital expenditure. They don't want to and voters don't want to, because whether it's renewable or nuclear, it's still more expensive than coal power.

The feasibility of voters actually putting on their grownup pants and acting against their immediate interest to avoid environmental catastrophe in 50 or 100 years isn't what's being debated here.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

King coal will be around until there are massive CO2 fines, because coal is cheap.

check the news.
the US has found a lot of natural gas, cheap power is helping their imports, they have put 4 reactors on hold because gas is cheaper.

I have no doubt people will continue using coal. The debate is about what we should be doing. Anybody with an ounce of sense knows that we can't continue burning fossil fuels. It doesn't matter a **** what the economics are, it just isn't an option. That wont stop wanker populist politicians from sticking their fingers in their ears and dragging their heels.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

our peak wind power here is 31 times our 1931 peak demand that's how far we've come along

I'd imagine our peak demand in 1931 was the square root of **** all.
That really doesn't say anything about anything.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

you are missing the point. Nuclear isn't getting cheaper. It's slowly getting more efficient though. Uranium usage is 1.87 times more efficient over 28 years.* But the price of Uranium has gone up too by ~5 times so the cost of uranium per Kwhr has gone up by 2.67 times. The price of Uranium is rising faster than efficiency.

In that same time the cost of PV has fallen 7% year after year and there enough developments in the lab to believe this will continue for quite some time and the economies of scale that apply to the rest of the semiconductor industry also apply here.


If someone comes up with a cheap renewable powered battery. Direct photolysis would be nice - silicon or transition metal or dye or bacteria or nanotubes just a matter of who gets there with an economic system first. Forget fuel cells , just burn the hydrogen in a CCGT. Holy grail would be to use atmospheric CO2 to make something like methanol. At present we can do this , just not economically.

Storage and interconnections are great (even if they're not here now).

The fact of the matter is that if we want to build renewables now we need to have several times peak power use in installed capacity and even then we need to have something like gas or coal in backup if it's either very windy/calm or cloudy/nighttime.


My point is that either we can **** the environment in the face with fossil fuels while we wait for renewables to be able to synergise with storage and interconnection technologies or we can kick the can down the road and build nuclear until renewables become viable.

Heroditas

Cliste wrote: »

Nothing hard to understand, what's the breakdown of that capacity?

I assume you'll grant there is a reason that our installed capacity vastly exceeds our needs?

You can use Google, can't you?

POWER PLANT MIX


Then there's the windfarms that aren't included in that mix.
There's also Kilroot, Ballylumford and Coolkeeragh in the North.
Also, we now have the two interconnectors.
The reason there's an excess is because some may be decommissioned in the future but also, shock horror, there's an excess in case a few of them go offline, like for example if the gas interconnectors to Ireland were cut.

You can very easily take a 1.5GW generating plant offline for a number of months and there would still be plenty of capacity in the market.

A very good reason why a nuke might not be allowed here is, quite simply, because it would stifle competition in the market.
If it was used as a baseload plant, the expectation would be that it was generating and not curtailed or constrained in any way, thus leaving a smaller slice of demand to be divided up amongst the other generators who had built capacity under a different set of market rules.

Grudaire

Heroditas wrote: »

You can use Google, can't you?

POWER PLANT MIX


Then there's the windfarms that aren't included in that mix.

Apparently not

Well straight off wind and torlough hill can't be relied on for stable power for several months while a reactor gets fixed.

Other than that argue with the Captain - he know's this stuff far better than I do :-)

Heroditas

Gbear wrote: »

Insulating houses already makes economic sense. This isn't something the government really needs to put much effort in to other than to raise awareness.

They've spent a lot of money raising awareness and have been very generous with grants yet this year, retrofitting work has fallen off a cliff.
They need to do a lot more than just raise awareness.

Capt'n Midnight

Gbear wrote: »

That there are only 80 years of proven U reserves is not the same as saying as that's all the Uranium there is.

yes there is more uranium
but it's going to get a lot more expensive
unlike renewables which are getting cheaper

we only have 45 years of oil left. I doubt very much that the reality is anything like that.

we are only extracting 1/3 of the oil in a well , so lots still in the ground
the US has a new source of gas that is killing nuclear
Canada has tar sands , there is lots of coal. We have hundreds of years of non-conventional fossil fuel left. The real problem is EROEI , soon fuel extraction may produce more CO2 than electricity generation.

It's ignoring Thorium, improvements in technology

No one has gotten Thorium working yet, even the latest Candu's are skimping back on heavy water so they could no longer use Thorium.

I've said before Thorium has advantages
- easier to pre process so fuel rods are way cheaper
- 0.5% of the waste - you could entomb it all in the reactor
It has two disadvantages
- in a few hundred years time the waste could be used to make bombs , (unless you mix in depleted uranium)
- despite the information being publicly available since 1946 no one has gotten it working


What improvements ? Breeders don't work. Pebbles don't work.
When you have more than a critical mass of a fissionable material in one place it gets hot, you can use that heat to run a steam turbine. New materials mean we can now run reactors hotter, new processes mean we can recover more fuel. But the cost of fuel has gone up cancelling the effencies. (it's extended the uranium reserves a bit though)

And besides CCGT means that fossil fuel has become a lot more efficient too. So at best the improvements are only keeping pace.

and it's not as if oil or coal are impervious to increasing costs (especially if governments make a serious effort at imposing tariffs to stop their use).

I think you are beginning to understand one of the advantages of renewables.

Titter titter. Solar power doesn't work during the night time. That's quite a large portion of the day it's sitting idle. That's not even mentioning what cloud cover does to it (rather important in Ireland).

The point is that PV is getting ridiculously cheap. Unlike nuclear there are real improvements. PV Window coatings that let most of the light through.



All it needs is a good battery.

LED lights are already cheaper (even if the light they produce is crap).
Insulating houses already makes economic sense. This isn't something the government really needs to put much effort in to other than to raise awareness.

LOL
Have you seen how much DIY attic insulation costs in the UK ?
http://www.wickes.co.uk/invt/161279

Over here I'd say most of the grants go into the builders back pocket :mad:


{quote]They don't need to spend billions retrofitting people's houses with fancy new kit that makes them more economical. They need to be persuading people to make this sensible investment themselves.[/quote]I was suggest investment in developing the technology. LED's that are cheaper than existing light bulbs will happen in the next few years.

The government's money should be directed towards less polluting power generation because that's the big capital expenditure. They don't want to and voters don't want to, because whether it's renewable or nuclear, it's still more expensive than coal power.

People in fuel poverty can't afford the capital cost for insulation. :mad:

The point about insulation is that lots of little capital expenditures will provide more benefit then big ones.

Look at badly Irish housing stock is insulated after record house prices during the boom. All the new build during the boom could have been close to passive heating without affecting the price by much.

Storage and interconnections are great (even if they're not here now).

We have two 500MW links to the UK, and more have been planned.

Interconnectors take 2-3 years to build and we'll have no problem exporting wind until the UK is up to 30% renewables. A billion would interconnect us with France (no need to go to Norway, the Scots are planning that)

The fact of the matter is that if we want to build renewables now we need to have several times peak power use in installed capacity and even then we need to have something like gas or coal in backup if it's either very windy/calm or cloudy/nighttime.

They need to change the rules on CCGT so it can switch mode during the day without economic penalty.
CCGT can be made even more efficient by using CAES , using renewables to store compressed air to improve compressor efficiency and extract even more heat from the exhaust.

My point is that either we can **** the environment in the face with fossil fuels while we wait for renewables to be able to synergise with storage and interconnection technologies or we can kick the can down the road and build nuclear until renewables become viable.

You are missing the point.

If we started today and spent the cost of a nuclear power plant (including reserve for clean up) on insulating the worst of our housing stock would it have paid for itself by the time the plant was operational ?

Capt'n Midnight

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/10/14/fukushima_feared_shutdown_lawsuits_if_tsunami_risks_revealed/

In the document management admits it “Feared that if tsunami risk studies were disclosed that it would lead to immediate plant shutdown” and that “There were concerns of back-fitting operating reactors and litigation depending on the recent intention of the Nuclear Safety Commission to regulate severe accident measures.”

shedweller

Wrt the price of insulation in the uk mentioned above, i must point out that a uk resident can get their house insulated for free if they are a gas user (maybe other energy suppliers do it?) It is cheaper for the gas company to insulate your house for you than to pay the carbon tax!
I'm sure Ireland is involved in this carbon tax. I do recall something about it being levied onto everything!

Heroditas

shedweller wrote: »

Wrt the price of insulation in the uk mentioned above, i must point out that a uk resident can get their house insulated for free if they are a gas user (maybe other energy suppliers do it?) It is cheaper for the gas company to insulate your house for you than to pay the carbon tax!
I'm sure Ireland is involved in this carbon tax. I do recall something about it being levied onto everything!

The cost of carrying out that insulation is built into the unit price of electricity and gas in the UK. It's not strictly "free".
It's about 0.5p per kWh of electricity.
It's usually only aimed at fuel poor but there are instances where you'd get your attic done for free because the energy companies might not have spent their energy efficiency budget completely. They also have mandatory targets with a threat of a fine consisting of 10% of their global turnover - quite a stick to beat them with.
We have the carbon tax here and about €70 to €80m was assigned this year in the form of grants for the Better Energy Homes and Better Energy Workplaces grant programmes.
The rest of the money raised through the carbon tax goes into the government's coffers. It's a pity all of it can't be ringfenced for retrofitting.

Wacker The Attacker

Its not necessarily about whether you are for or against nuclear power.

There are some practical concerns.

For Arguments sake, if Ireland were to start a nuclear programme today we have no experience or expertise in the area and would need to import experts from abroad.

Allied to the prohibitive expense and time issues involved nuclear power is not a viable option for Ireland.

spankmemunkey

No to Nuclear Power!

Lets say one day the world is at war i mean real war, that will most deffinetly be the end of the world, There will be no rebuild and start again,

Nuclear Power stations need to be monitored manned and controlled at all times, if for what ever reason(war) this is not possible then the worst possible outcome will happen, rendering the planet uninhabbitable.

Economies come and go but Nuclear power will be around for 100's of thousands of years, thats a possible threat to man kind for those thousands of years!

Is Chernobyl not enough of a warning for us? if it can happen then its not worth it, then we have Japan. World war is a threat as are extreme weather cycles, Oh and by the way, the next Chernobyl will be Chernobyl itself.

Nuclear power will render the planet uninhabitable, the way the world is going the way extreme weather and terrorism is going? Isnt the Irish Sea suppose to be suffering as a result of sellafield?

dizzywizlw

No

Oh no two examples

spankmemunkey

2 is enough, Chernobyl wont be inhabitable for another 100,000 years!

All it takes is a terrorist attack on sellafield for example and the Island of Ireland will be uninhabitable!

People too worried about getting power for their I phones and their computers not too worry about the natural world that we live in. The natural world we live in doesnt really exist anymore and people generally dont think of the planet as something we need to protect and preserve just something that owes us the life we want to lead.

Once we have nuclear power thats it we have it for life for good or for bad.

Capt'n Midnight

spankmemunkey wrote: »

All it takes is a terrorist attack on sellafield for example and the Island of Ireland will be uninhabitable!

People too worried about getting power for their I phones and their computers not too worry about the natural world that we live in. The natural world we live in doesnt really exist anymore and people generally dont think of the planet as something we need to protect and preserve just something that owes us the life we want to lead.

Once we have nuclear power thats it we have it for life for good or for bad.

Unless you can back up those claims with some facts I'm going to have to assume you are a pro-nuclear troll

Let's face it you are using a computer :pac:

spankmemunkey

Pro Nuclear? Anti Nuclear!

Look facts schmacts, I dont need facts to state the obvious! Im not trolling im debating against nuclear power, does this mean that because i am against it and you dont like it that you want me to come up with stats or facts or else?

Ill leave it at that so if you dont want me to argue against it fair enough. but there are some things in life that you dont need to produce facts and figures on.

spoofilyj

Sir Pompous Righteousness wrote: »

Rockets into space. Dump it on the moon.

And what about when on a routine dumping mission to the moon one of these rockets explodes spreading neuclear waste all over the 2000 square mile radius and into the atmosphere! Great:mad:

jsd1004

No

shedweller wrote: »

So fukushima, chernobyl etc are ok then? We can all just move back in. Theres nothing to worry about?

Those places will be uninhabitable for a very long time!

Chernobyl has become a wildlife haven since the accident with an unofficial nature reserve formed,

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120411084107.htm

Capt'n Midnight

jsd1004 wrote: »

Chernobyl has become a wildlife haven since the accident with an unofficial nature reserve formed,

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120411084107.htm

Dumping radioactive waste and heavy metals/ dioxins in the Amazon rain forest is probably the only thing that could stop it's destruction. Seriously.

brandon_flowers

Ireland is not big enough to have nuclear plant. When the Interconnector is finished Ireland will just pay a levy to Britain to get "green" power from them until Ireland develops its "green" power that it can go the other way.

I'd be far more interested in seeing the development of any sort of Oil & Gas industry for export rather than a nuclear plant.

some_dose

No

spankmemunkey wrote: »

2 is enough, Chernobyl wont be inhabitable for another 100,000 years!

All it takes is a terrorist attack on sellafield for example and the Island of Ireland will be uninhabitable!

People too worried about getting power for their I phones and their computers not too worry about the natural world that we live in. The natural world we live in doesnt really exist anymore and people generally dont think of the planet as something we need to protect and preserve just something that owes us the life we want to lead.

Once we have nuclear power thats it we have it for life for good or for bad.

What a massive load of rubbish. I suppose Hiroshima and Nagasaki won't be inhabitable for 100,000 years also?

mach1982

andrew wrote: »

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./QUOTE]

If the Japs had built all their plants on the west , the land would have acted as a buffer , as the plant survived the initial earthquake it Tsunami that took it out. People are afraid what that don't understand

Capt'n Midnight

spankmemunkey wrote: »

Look facts schmacts, I dont need facts to state the obvious!
...
Ill leave it at that so if you dont want me to argue against it fair enough. but there are some things in life that you dont need to produce facts and figures on.

If terrorists attack Sellafield Ireland won't be uninhabitable.

That's just FUD ( Fear Uncertainty Doubt). Once someone starts using such tactics any right minded person should start taking any information from that source with a pinch of salt.

Emotions are like religion in that it's very hard to argue about them or change peoples opinions.


Facts are very easy to debate because they can be refuted.
Everyone is agreed that nuclear power should not be used unless it is economic, safe, and you clean up afterwards.

Economics - is mainly about the upfront costs and the interest rate needed. Also you have to pay off those costs with electricity being sold for only 3-5c per Unit. (nuclear can't get premium prices unless you apply Enron tactics). The price of uranium isn't that critical unless demand goes up, in which case they have you over a barrel because you have to buy it to pay off the loans.

Safety - been done to death, suffice it to say that bad design decisions and cost cutting by operators (see economics) have fallen short repeatedly

Clean up - again been done to death

Capt'n Midnight

Short Version
Fukushima wasn't the first Nuclear power plant to loose it's power supply because of a sea wall being overwhelmed. It also happened in France in 1999 and the lessons still don't seem to have been learnt. :mad:


AFAIK the French sites with more than one reactor still rely on the other reactor to supply cooling power if one goes off line, even though having no cooling power on site if all reactors shutdown is probably not a good thing.

mach1982 wrote: »

andrew wrote: »

If the Japs had built all their plants on the west , the land would have acted as a buffer , as the plant survived the initial earthquake it Tsunami that took it out. People are afraid what that don't understand

If were to build plants in the West they would most likely be on the coast for access to cooling water. That's what the French tried. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blayais_Nuclear_Power_Plant

On evening of December 27, 1999, a combination of the incoming tide and high winds overwhelmed the sea walls at the plant and causing parts of the plant to be flooded.[1] The event resulted in the loss of the plant's off-site power supply and knocked out several safety-related backup systems, resulting in a 'level 2' event on the International Nuclear Event Scale.

Recently there was a report that European reactors would need €25 Bn spent on safety refits.

The draft report for the European Commission was ordered following a safety review designed to ensure a disaster such as Japan's Fukushima cannot happen.

It also reveals that some safety measures agreed 20 to 30 years ago still have not been implemented in some countries.
...
The stress tests found that four reactors, in two different countries, had less than one hour available to restore safety functions if electrical power was lost.
...
Existing legislation also needs to be enforced, it said.

The deadline for passing the existing nuclear safety directive into national law was July 2011.

The commission started infringement proceedings against 12 member states that missed it.

To date, two have still not complied but the report did not specify which ones.

jsd1004

No

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Short Version
Fukushima wasn't the first Nuclear power plant to loose it's power supply because of a sea wall being overwhelmed. It also happened in France in 1999 and the lessons still don't seem to have been learnt. :mad:


AFAIK the French sites with more than one reactor still rely on the other reactor to supply cooling power if one goes off line, even though having no cooling power on site if all reactors shutdown is probably not a good thing.

mach1982 wrote: »

If were to build plants in the West they would most likely be on the coast for access to cooling water. That's what the French tried. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blayais_Nuclear_Power_Plant
Recently there was a report that European reactors would need €25 Bn spent on safety refits.

People dont see the elephant in the room. We are killing (killed)the planet with co2. It is not a choice it is a necessity we reduce c02. The only feasible way is nuclear. Renewables will only work in conjunction with fossil fuel and that means keeping fossil fueled stations running when there is no wind/sun/waves. You can not switch power stations on and off. The ice caps are melting because the greens have opposed nuclear for so long. It is ironic that we have nearly lost the planet due to the opposition to nuclear by greenpeace and others.

shedweller

jsd1004 wrote: »

People dont see the elephant in the room. We are killing (killed)the planet with co2. It is not a choice it is a necessity we reduce c02.

How much of that is caused by deforestation, i wonder? Aren't they clearing forest in south america to grow biofuels?
If true that may be one of the greatest ironies!

As ever, the pro nuclear lobby is going to be working hard to promote its agenda. They have weapons to make!

B.A._Baracus

As of posting 298 for, 78 against.
Reality is those 298 would gladly welcome nuclear power as long as its not on their door step or within reach in an catastrophic event.

Capt'n Midnight

jsd1004 wrote: »

People dont see the elephant in the room. We are killing (killed)the planet with co2. It is not a choice it is a necessity we reduce c02. The only feasible way is nuclear. Renewables will only work in conjunction with fossil fuel and that means keeping fossil fueled stations running when there is no wind/sun/waves. You can not switch power stations on and off. The ice caps are melting because the greens have opposed nuclear for so long. It is ironic that we have nearly lost the planet due to the opposition to nuclear by greenpeace and others.

Nuclear provides 14% of electricity.
19% of world electricity is used by incandescent light bulbs
Changing to LED's in the next decade will affect release more electricity than doubling the number of reactors world wide. LED's will happen within 10 years, based on past trends and commercialisation of existing discoveries. That many Nuclear reactors won't get built.


If you take into account fuel used for heating and transport etc. nuclear represents supplies less than 3% of global energy. So doubling Nuclear power won't significantly affect CO2.

And you can't propose more than a doubling without explaining where the uranium will come from.
Technologies that have been in development hell for over 50 years are not credible.



If you want to stop CO2 provide broadband and public transport so people can telecommute and not have to rely on cars. Ban SUVs so people on bikes can feel safe. Insulate buildings so we don't waste fuel.


Or invest in research in greenhouses / algae ponds warmed by power station exhaust, the plants can also use the CO2 and provide biomass / hydrogen



The biggest cost in a Nuclear power station is financing.
We've just had the longest period of low interest rates and rise in electricity demand, if they couldn't build reactors then I can't see how they can do it now.


The first modern efficient steam turbine powered electrical generator was build in 1884. With Nuclear power the main change is that the heat to produce the steam comes from having enough fissionable material packed closely enough together, that was back in the 1950's.

There have been few improvements in the overall Carnot efficiency of steam turbines or nuclear reactors since.


None of the advanced technologies promised by the nuclear industry, since the first generation reactors, have been delivered.


Please explain how a technology that provides less than 3% of our global energy can stop the CO2 emissions of transport ?

Heroditas

jsd1004 wrote: »

Chernobyl has become a wildlife haven since the accident with an unofficial nature reserve formed,

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120411084107.htm

There have been sightings of five-assed monkeys.

Curly Judge

No

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

In that same time the cost of PV has fallen 7% year after year and there enough developments in the lab to believe this will continue for quite some time and the economies of scale that apply to the rest of the semiconductor industry also apply here.

PV statistics are inherently dishonest. A 7% increase or decreases in either cost or efficiency are almost meaningless when at the cost end the base is so high and at the efficiency end of the base is so low.
The basic problems with PV are: [1] It won't work in the dark.
[2] It is grossly inefficient at Northern latitudes.
[3]PV is limited to gathering the energy from the sun which falls on the earth. Even its most deluded proponents are not forecasting an ability to multiply or leverage the energy, [per square meter] which falls on the earth each year. Therefore the only option is to cover more and more of the earth's surface with its hideous footprint.


[/QUOTE]

If someone comes up with a cheap renewable powered battery. Direct photolysis would be nice - silicon or transition metal or dye or bacteria or nanotubes just a matter of who gets there with an economic system first. Forget fuel cells , just burn the hydrogen in a CCGT. Holy grail would be to use atmospheric CO2 to make something like methanol. At present we can do this , just not economically

. [/QUOTE]

And you are the one who constantly poo poos the option of thorium.
LFTRSs will be up and running and my aunt will have balls long before any of these become a major player.

Curly Judge

No

B.A._Baracus wrote: »

As of posting 298 for, 78 against.
Reality is those 298 would gladly welcome nuclear power as long as its not on their door step or within reach in an catastrophic event.

And your evidence for this smug assumption is...???

Herb Powell

Curly Judge wrote: »

And your evidence for this smug assumption is...???

Well who the fucck actually wants a nuclear disaster?

Curly Judge

No

Herb Powell wrote: »

Well who the fucck actually wants a nuclear disaster?

Mainly anti nuke types, so their prophesy of nuclear Armageddon can be realised?
I wouldn't be worried in the slightest if my daughter moved into a house near a nuclear power station. I would be seriously worried if she moved into a house north east of Moneypoint however.
It's a strange fact but the people who most fear nuclear power are those farthest removed from it. Do you seriously imagine that nuclear power operatives go to work each morning in fear and trepidation?

Gbear

No

Soz for the delay in replying. I was traveling from the US.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

yes there is more uranium
but it's going to get a lot more expensive
unlike renewables which are getting cheaper

But they're still incredibly expensive and inefficient right now.

And while PV can get very efficient at ideal conditions it will always be hamstrung by lack of light and cloud cover. We're still miles away from cheap, efficient storage.

Another question. Although there's massive amounts of energy to be tapped in the wind, if we started tapping a non-negligible amount could we start affecting the weather adversely? Taking all that energy out would start to have an effect at some point, surely?

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

we are only extracting 1/3 of the oil in a well , so lots still in the ground
the US has a new source of gas that is killing nuclear
Canada has tar sands , there is lots of coal. We have hundreds of years of non-conventional fossil fuel left. The real problem is EROEI , soon fuel extraction may produce more CO2 than electricity generation.

That's not surprising but there's a necessity to somewhat disregard the economics if they mean abandoning the planet to climate change.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

No one has gotten Thorium working yet, even the latest Candu's are skimping back on heavy water so they could no longer use Thorium.

I've said before Thorium has advantages
- easier to pre process so fuel rods are way cheaper
- 0.5% of the waste - you could entomb it all in the reactor
It has two disadvantages
- in a few hundred years time the waste could be used to make bombs , (unless you mix in depleted uranium)
- despite the information being publicly available since 1946 no one has gotten it working

India will show the way forward on this. They actually have a reason to because they've got a boatload of thorium.
Has there been any incentive up until now to use thorium?

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

LOL
Have you seen how much DIY attic insulation costs in the UK ?
http://www.wickes.co.uk/invt/161279

Over here I'd say most of the grants go into the builders back pocket :mad:

I was suggest investment in developing the technology. LED's that are cheaper than existing light bulbs will happen in the next few years.

People in fuel poverty can't afford the capital cost for insulation. :mad:

The point about insulation is that lots of little capital expenditures will provide more benefit then big ones.

Look at badly Irish housing stock is insulated after record house prices during the boom. All the new build during the boom could have been close to passive heating without affecting the price by much.

We need to be increasing efficiency of our power usage - waste is waste regardless of the energy source.
Even if the government doesn't have much money, why not 0% interest loans to cover the capital outlay but get it paid back? Perhaps any savings made on electricity are paid to the government until the cost of the insulation is paid back? Long term it saves money and doesn't actually cost the state anything.
It's a form of capital investment that's basically free.

On LED's even though they're quite expensive, they're cheaper in the long run already. You save money on electricity and they last for like 10 years.
Even if you replace your lights one at a time with LED's (because they cost about 25 quid each) you'll eventually kit your whole house out with them.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

We have two 500MW links to the UK, and more have been planned.

Interconnectors take 2-3 years to build and we'll have no problem exporting wind until the UK is up to 30% renewables. A billion would interconnect us with France (no need to go to Norway, the Scots are planning that)

Perhaps it would simply make sense to not bother with any power generation on this island (we have a few hydroelectric dams don't we? May as well keep them) and just get all our energy from the UK and europe? If we had enough interconnectors they wouldn't be able to fleece us because we'd have a few options about who we get our power from and it'd secure against one of the connectors going down.

Indeed, if we got our energy from France we could claim to have negligible carbon output from electricity.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Nuclear provides 14% of electricity.
19% of world electricity is used by incandescent light bulbs
Changing to LED's in the next decade will affect release more electricity than doubling the number of reactors world wide. LED's will happen within 10 years, based on past trends and commercialisation of existing discoveries. That many Nuclear reactors won't get built.
[...]


Please explain how a technology that provides less than 3% of our global energy can stop the CO2 emissions of transport ?

For transport, we can either move to electric or hydrogen. I'm fairly certain that both use a lot of electricity.

Incidentally, what's more efficient? Making electricity at an oil power station and using that electricity to power an electric car or having the car produce it's own electricity with an engine?

Anyway, the point is, that we still need to be getting the energy for somewhere. For the foreseeable future, that means fossil fuels or renewables and renewables are still pretty useless.

Unless we replace that fossil fuel source with a Nuclear source the efficiency gains aren't going to cut it in terms of preventing climate change.

Capt'n Midnight

Curly Judge wrote: »

PV statistics are inherently dishonest.

please inform us of the cost of a nuclear plant including financing and clean up.

A 7% increase or decreases in either cost or efficiency are almost meaningless when at the cost end the base is so high and at the efficiency end of the base is so low.

that's 7% a year for the last 30 years

The basic problems with PV are: [1] It won't work in the dark.
[2] It is grossly inefficient at Northern latitudes.
[3]PV is limited to gathering the energy from the sun which falls on the earth. Even its most deluded proponents are not forecasting an ability to multiply or leverage the energy, [per square meter] which falls on the earth each year. Therefore the only option is to cover more and more of the earth's surface with its hideous footprint.

Of course we aren't going to run Ireland with panels here :rolleyes:

you stick the PV in a desert, I believe North Africa has some to spare, and run a long extension cable, or you electrolyse water and pump the hydrogen in a pipe. Or you use the electricity to refine Aluminium or Zinc and then use that metal in batteries for cars, and recycle it afterwards. ( Yes you could use boron but that's not been ironed out yet.)
Aluminium smelting has been proposed as a way for Iceland to export electricity.

And you are the one who constantly poo poos the option of thorium.
LFTRSs will be up and running and my aunt will have balls long before any of these become a major player.

Thorium has been tried without success since the 1950's

Don't get me wrong it would be far better than natural uranium but I just can't see them getting it working cleanly and reliably in the short term. The reactors proposed and the companies involved are the same old, same old that have been disingenous with the truth (cf. BNFL falsifying records - but stuff like that has happened worldwide.)


Solar panels are down to 75c per watt with 50c per watt on the horizon.

Transparent plastic solar panels (they use infra-red instead of visible light)
http://planetsave.com/2012/07/22/solar-power-generating-windows/

NTMK

No

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Thorium has been tried without success since the 1950's

do you have a link to this because i was under the belief that it never went beyond a theoretical stage because the US couldn't make weapons from the byproducts

spankmemunkey

Is it completely 100 percent safe? NO

Does it have a deadly and dangerous by product? YES!

energy being used in the home is something that needs to be used more effectively and responsibly.

There should be an emphasis placed on how much power we are using and for what and that theres a cost to the planet for the production of that energy.

Look theres always a greener way to produce energy but the powers that be want to keep this repressed as best they can.

Anyway im not going to argue my point anymore Its dangerous and it only safe when its managed and controlled and lets face is world events are going to allow us to manage this forever.

What was it Jeff Waynes war of the worlds, We'll start all over againnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn, Eh no we wont.

Curly Judge

No

NTMK wrote: »

do you have a link to this because i was under the belief that it never went beyond a theoretical stage because the US couldn't make weapons from the byproducts[/QUOTE

The Captain is not strictly correct as thorium experimental reactors were run in the sixties and the early seventies.
They were so docile that the researchers used to turn them off on a Friday evening, go home for the weekend, and start them up again on Monday morning.
What they lacked, and still lack,[through want of investment] is an economic method of covering the seed fuel with the breeding fuel, a fool proof and economic method of of fuel recovery and some more research into alloys needed in the high temperature molten salt environment.
Their great advantage over currently operated uranium reactors is that, although they operate at high temperatures [north of 800C and therefore very useful for producing relatively cheap hydrogen] they work at sea level pressures.
There is enough thorium in the world to last for 100's of years.

This link might be of interest to anyone seeking further information. http://www.itheo.org/

Curly Judge

No

spankmemunkey wrote: »

Is it completely 100 percent safe? NO

Does it have a deadly and dangerous by product? YES!

energy being used in the home is something that needs to be used more effectively and responsibly.

There should be an emphasis placed on how much power we are using and for what and that theres a cost to the planet for the production of that energy.

Look theres always a greener way to produce energy but the powers that be want to keep this repressed as best they can.

Anyway im not going to argue my point anymore Its dangerous and it only safe when its managed and controlled and lets face is world events are going to allow us to manage this forever.

What was it Jeff Waynes war of the worlds, We'll start all over againnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn, Eh no we wont.

Spanky has spoken!
We might as well all go home.

spankmemunkey

Damn straight!

jsd1004

No

radioactive wolves . Good doc. Think it is on youtube. Shows that chernobyl has turned into a wildlife reserve with no impact on the wolf population after quarter of a century. The huge catfish in the cooling pond is interesting too. They are huge not from radiation but from the lack of humans killing them.