Ireland and Nuclear Power

Water John

There would not be any risk from Thorium.
Smart idea of whoever suggested putting our nuclear plant in Windscale if it was the traditional design.

Markcheese

Consonata wrote:

They are currently testing the technology in Scandinavia and the US, but God forbid we lead the world in anything. Are our memory's so short that we forget Ardnacrusha Power station. One of the first of its kind and size in Europe.

Are you seriously suggesting that we set up our own thorium reactor development program -from scratch-
Multi-multi multi billions of R and D, and facilities with no guarantee of a return any decade soon, if at all..
And thats before you try getting the labs built with the public opposition.

I'm not keen on the current nuclear generators, (mainly cost and ill fit for our use),
I'll form a view on thorium if and when they become comercially available- not for a while yet..

Water John

EU is backing the research. Thorium reactor can be built at diff scales.
It could well fit into a mix in Ireland.

timmyntc

BrownTrout wrote: »

I always thought it would be a good idea to put a nuclear power station or incinerator or any other thing with that kind of stigma on the Blasket island or something, away from population centres.

Aside from total meltdowns, modern nuclear power plants emit less radiation to the surrounding (~5km) area than coal plants do. The real issue with location would be our antiquated power grid

Carawaystick

I'd imagine if you got planning for a nuke, you'ld get planning for pylons to take the electricity from the nuke...

Water John

I think Timmy is talking about the Grid being able to distribute from a single large source. Traditionally Nuclear Power Plants are quite large in terms of the total use in Ireland.
New plants are going to be smaller. There is room in Moneypoint for a fourth stack so I presume the lines to Dublin could handle 1,200 Mw. So it could be located anywhere on that line and close Moneypoint.

Carawaystick

Maybe my sarcasm wasn't obvious enough.
Given how hard it is to get a new pylon line built in Ireland to connect Meath with Tyrone, it'd be several orders of magnitude harder to get a nuke through planning - pretty much impossible in the foreseeable future.

But if abp signed off on one, then sticking a few pylons up and down the country would be a doddle, and the least of the constraints imposed on a nuke.

timmyntc

Carawaystick wrote: »

Maybe my sarcasm wasn't obvious enough.
Given how hard it is to get a new pylon line built in Ireland to connect Meath with Tyrone, it'd be several orders of magnitude harder to get a nuke through planning - pretty much impossible in the foreseeable future.

But if abp signed off on one, then sticking a few pylons up and down the country would be a doddle, and the least of the constraints imposed on a nuke.

A Nuclear plant would be confined to one place, pylons affect more people because of the NIMBY approach everyone seems to have. The majority of people could be easily convinced to be on board with a nuclear plant as long as theyll get much cheaper electricity bills, its only those close who'll care. Again, the (not in my back yard) NIMBY approach to things.

ED E

As distribution is clearly a costly and very political issue how feasible would small scale molten salt reactors be? I've no real knowledge in this area but supposedly they can be made to fail gracefully and and use non weaponizeable Uranium. Deploy 2-3 around the Island and transmission and having a single point of failure become less of an issue. Would appear they're still rather new after halted development back in the 60's but by the time we'd get anything done it'll be 2026 even if we started tomorrow.

Carawaystick

timmyntc wrote: »

A Nuclear plant would be confined to one place,

Right up until the confinement stops working...

All those people at Carnsore point were from Carne and St Helens only I presume

Sam Russell

The objectors in the UK against nuclear energy (and objectors here) used to say: 'if it is that safe, why not build it in Hyde Park?'

Obviously, it is not that safe as they choose to build nuclear reactors in remote places - or at least remote to those living in the UK.

timmyntc

Sam Russell wrote: »

The objectors in the UK against nuclear energy (and objectors here) used to say: 'if it is that safe, why not build it in Hyde Park?'

Obviously, it is not that safe as they choose to build nuclear reactors in remote places - or at least remote to those living in the UK.

Just because things can go wrong, doesn't mean they will go wrong. Still, it's much better to have your plans take into account even the extremely unlikely, in the public interest.

Also Nuclear plants have many logistical issues which require them to be in places that aren't always huge urban areas - they need access to vast amounts of running water to generate steam, they need to be in areas safe from flooding/earthquakes/mudslides/godzilla etc.

And they need an easily securable perimeter - it's easier to secure a facility in a flat open remote area than close to a city or large population centre.

cgcsb

Sam Russell wrote: »

The objectors in the UK against nuclear energy (and objectors here) used to say: 'if it is that safe, why not build it in Hyde Park?'

Obviously, it is not that safe as they choose to build nuclear reactors in remote places - or at least remote to those living in the UK.

Well that's more got to do with land values and efficient land use. A power plant in the centre of a city is a waste of land that would otherwise go to apartments, shops and offices.

If a major disaster did happen, the major cities of the UK would certainly be affected given some nuke plants there are almost suburban.

Sam Russell

timmyntc wrote: »

Just because things can go wrong, doesn't mean they will go wrong. Still, it's much better to have your plans take into account even the extremely unlikely, in the public interest.

Also Nuclear plants have many logistical issues which require them to be in places that aren't always huge urban areas - they need access to vast amounts of running water to generate steam, they need to be in areas safe from flooding/earthquakes/mudslides/godzilla etc.

And they need an easily securable perimeter - it's easier to secure a facility in a flat open remote area than close to a city or large population centre.

But none of that helped in Chernobyl when it blew. It still was bad news for everyone everywhere.

timmyntc

Sam Russell wrote: »

But none of that helped in Chernobyl when it blew. It still was bad news for everyone everywhere.

Chernobyl might be the most well known nuclear plant, but it's hardly representative of all nuclear power plants of it's day, especially not modern power plants. Mentioning chernobyl is like godwins law of nuclear power :pac:

Sam Russell

timmyntc wrote: »

Chernobyl might be the most well known nuclear plant, but it's hardly representative of all nuclear power plants of it's day, especially not modern power plants. Mentioning chernobyl is like godwins law of nuclear power :pac:

OK, Windscale, Three Mile Island, and the recent nuclear problems in Japan.

Windscale was so serious they renamed it Sellafield.

Water John

I would not favour a Uranium based reactor. I would only consider Thorium.

But the gearing up of renewables along with storage would be my priority.

ted1

Sam Russell wrote: »

OK, Windscale, Three Mile Island, and the recent nuclear problems in Japan.

Windscale was so serious they renamed it Sellafield.

Three mile island was a very minor incident

gctest50

Sam Russell wrote: »

OK, Windscale, Three Mile Island, and the recent nuclear problems in Japan.

Windscale was so serious they renamed it Sellafield.

Windscale didn't have much to do with power generation, it just cooled the core yokie with fresh air and discharged the warm air up this lovely chimney

http://i.imgur.com/goxMDzp.jpg

Sam Russell

ted1 wrote: »

Three mile island was a very minor incident

According to Wikipedia 'The incident was rated a five on the seven-point International Nuclear Event Scale: Accident With Wider Consequences.'

I think 5 out of 7 was serious to very serious - not minor.

It resulted in a partial melt down of the core - and gave rise to the 'China syndrome' - where the core would melt through all the way to China.

Sam Russell

gctest50 wrote: »

Windscale didn't have much to do with power generation, it just cooled the core yokie with fresh air and discharged the warm air up this lovely chimney

Windscale, started in 1950, shut down in 1957, will not be fully decommissioned until 2037.

Who would want nuclear power?

plodder

Windscale/Sellafield is about 120 miles from Dundalk. I reckon most Dubliners don't realise another plant is only 60 miles from Dublin (Wylfa). It shut down in 2015, but there was talk of building a new one on the same site.

gctest50

Sam Russell wrote: »

Windscale, started in 1950, shut down in 1957, will not be fully decommissioned until 2037.

Who would want nuclear power?

Windscale (the part of it that overheated) wasn't a nuclear power plant

Calder Hall beside it used to do nice things like produce cobalt for cancer treatment and plutonium


.

Sam Russell

gctest50 wrote: »

Windscale (the part of it that overheated) wasn't a nuclear power plant

Calder Hall beside it used to do nice things like produce cobalt for cancer treatment and plutonium


.

Windscale was a nuclear plant producing nuclear material for bombs.

BonkeyDonker

Sam Russell wrote: »

Windscale was a nuclear plant producing nuclear material for bombs.

But it wasn't a nuclear power plant like we are discussing here. It was designed from the outset to produce nasty nuclear material. And the thorium plant being discussed here are not in the same league from a radiation/danger point of view.

Now whether or not it is practical for this small island is another debate.

micosoft

We already use Nuclear Power. We have a single Energy Market with the UK. We use Nuclear Generated Power all the time. From a purely financial perspective it only makes sense to build fleets of Nuclear Power Plants where you make savings across a fleet of 6-30 plants. You could not get any economy of scale in Ireland. As the CEO of ESB once said - the ESB could have a Nuclear Power plant but it would be based in Wales....

Not sure why people are not discussing Fusion? https://www.iter.org/

Sam Russell

micosoft wrote: »

Not sure why people are not discussing Fusion? https://www.iter.org/

Because it does not exist and has always been twenty years away - and still is.

Dr_Bill

I find it incredible that in this country there is huge opposition to nuclear power.

We are happy to spend billions every year importing electricity much of it generated by nuclear power plants, but so long as it's not on my back door thats ok just keep the lights on?

We don't seem too keen on wind farms either because they are perceived to look unsightly? You don't have to build a Hinkley Point in Ireland plenty of options out there for micro nuclear plants which would be sufficient for our needs. Invest in 1 nuclear plant and we could power the whole island. People keep harping back to 1950 & 1960's nuclear technology, wake up time has moved on along with the technology.

A good blend of renewables & nuclear should be in the mix for our future, strategically Ireland should be generating 100% of its energy requirements but not a hope of it happening while we dither about Waterford Hospital's & bog cutting for turf, maybe we just enjoy the life and times of Peig and want to go back to the good auld times.

Sam Russell

Dr_Bill wrote: »

I find it incredible that in this country there is huge opposition to nuclear power.

There is opposition to neclear because of its history, its high cost, its long lead time, its uncertain reliability.

Reliability is many fold.
People in general are nervous of air travel because of the total loss of all passengers is the norm following an accident - even though such accidents are very rare. Nuclear accidents tend to be massive.

Japan has a serious problem following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster because they lost a significant amount of generation power - not to mention the radioactive fallout. If we had a single power plant, its shutdown would shut down the country, so we would need diversity - say three plants in different places.

The cost of nuclear plants is massive and unknown - and we cannot even build a children's hospital.

Future cost of nuclear fuel would be an unknown - no reliable forecasts would leave us exposed.

What do we do with the nuclear waste?

That is why people are opposed to nuclear energy. If it was built like a gas powered plant, there would be less opposition.

Consonata

Sam Russell wrote: »

Dr_Bill wrote: »

I find it incredible that in this country there is huge opposition to nuclear power.

Japan has a serious problem following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster because they lost a significant amount of generation power - not to mention the radioactive fallout. If we had a single power plant, its shutdown would shut down the country

Ah yes, I forgot Ireland is on top of a gap between 3 seismic plates and we have earthquakes every other week.

Talking seriously now, modern Nuclear plants do not produce as much waste as they did in the past. They aren't as polluting as coal generators or oil fields. The only difference between them and Nuclear is that waste is on the ground not in the sky which is happily out of our view but destroying our atmosphere.

Yet again you refer to the long decommissioning times of these nuclear plants which you have probably read in some alarmist magazine somewhere. These plants were built when Chernobyl was considered hip and modern. It gives you an idea of how old these plants are. These plants were built TEN YEARS before man landed on the moon, the technology involved is less than you would find in a bog standard washing machine. Do you truly think that we haven't moved on since then, or are you just blinded by the horror stories of Nuclear Plants and blind to the actual horror stories within coal and oil facilities.