Nuclear Power

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...???