Brit nuclear reactor planned for Ireland?

Curly Judge wrote: »

Most of the delays and cost escalation are caused by the experimental nature of the reactor design as has happened in Finland

as you can probably guess I'm going to go with something like "after 70 years of building reactors they still can't do it right"

by ludicrous safety ratcheting forced on utilities by the anti nuke lobby [whose real agenda is to stop nuclear altogether]

If by ludicrous you mean safety measures implemented in response to constant failings in the industry ?

http://www.bellona.org/articles/articles_2012/EU_Stress_tests_poor

The EU-sponsored stress tests conducted on 134 nuclear reactors point to a myriad of potential safety hazards, notably in Britain, France and Spain,
...
By Bellona’s estimates, at an average cost of €20 billion to upgrade European nuclear power plants, each of Europe’s 68 nuclear stations – in a figure based on the funding being spread evenly – need at least €300 million in upgrades to meet safety specifications that the leaked report indicated they are lacking.

Bellona President Frederic Hauge called this a “shocking” amount of money, “enough,” he said, “to build five mega nuclear power plants a year” based on an average nuclear power plant construction cost of €3 billion.

The bit about €3Bn for a nuclear plant is just laughable in light of what the UK have agreed to pay.


The US is worse, they've recently released statistics and some plants have had hundreds of regulatory breaches over time.

I'm thinking of forming a "Revenge for Carnsore" group with the intention of stopping the current Ponzi snake oil peddlers proposal to destroy the midlands with wind turbines.

Bord na Mona are launching a billion euro project on old bogs.

It's chicken feed compared to the amounts squandered on nuclear.

Curly Judge wrote: »

[/COLOR]
Well, you could have knocked me down with a feather!:eek:

LOL

No... by ludicrous I mean a safety review which ordered that all welds on one particular plant be inspected by x-ray.

This is absolutely essential for critical areas. I knew a radiologist and on some storage tanks they used only inspect the T welds where three plates overlapped on the basis they were the most critical. But everyone knew this so the best welders did those bits and the whatever about the rest.

Having done so they get a negative report because the welds on the stainless steel steps leading up to the canteen store room hadn't been x-rayed.

daft if true

This of course made it's way eventually into your famous book of Breaches where it is added to the thousands of other pieces of horse**** used to blacken the name of an industry that has an unequalled safety record.

Explain that to the people of the exclusion zones.


http://www.theoaklandpress.com/general-news/20130311/safety-breaches-seen-at-us-nuclear-reactors

Nearly one in six U.S. nuclear reactors experienced safety breaches last year due in part to poor oversight by federal regulators, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Incidents including a cooling water leak and unusual wear on steam generator tubes were reported at 16 units owned by companies including Entergy and Edison International, the Cambridge, Mass.-based environmental group said in its third annual report on reactor safety released Thursday.

"The NRC has repeatedly failed to enforce essential safety regulations," wrote David Lochbaum, director of the group's Nuclear Safety Project and author of the study.

Since the 2010 report, almost 40 percent of the 104 U.S. reactors have had safety breaches serious enough to require the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to dispatch inspection teams, the group said. The agency, in response, said none of the incidents posed a risk to public safety.

some recent incidents
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/prelim-notice/2013/

Curly Judge wrote: »

The misinformation and exaggeration about the dangers associated with nuclear radiation are way over the top and need to be tackled head on.

So you are sticking with the nuclear industry line that it's all under control ?

There are two ways of discussing this.

When things are working as intended the workers are exposed to very little radiation. So little that the problem with radon in homes was discovered when a worker triggered very sensitive alarms on the way in to work.

Or you can accept the fact that there are a lot of people who can't go home. And that a Fact not an opinion.


It's really simple safe, clean nuclear power isn't cheap over the whole lifecycle. And that's against a background of plummeting renewable prices.

I've discussed this before that fossil fuel recovery will depend more on renewables in the future as EROEI falls. I've also said that I view nuclear as an energy time shift rather than a source of energy (though not in those words - one reason to post is to get my thoughts in order )

To get nuclear power you have to use a lot of fossil fuel to mine and process the initial charge and build. Then you get power, and you aren't using so much fossil fuel (until peak uranium). Then comes decommissioning and long term storage and that's heading into blank cheque territory.


The US navy have been operating reactors since 1953. Every so often the industry makes noises about small self contained reactors of about 300MW. Which is another way of saying that after 60 years they still haven't commercialised naval reactors. And the number of naval reactors is similar to the number of nuclear power plants so not a lack of experience.

Curly Judge wrote: »

Meanwhile, back at the ranch:
Dedicated engineers are striving for excellence inside an industry they are proud of.
http://www.powermag.com/bruce-nuclear-generating-station-kincardine-ontario-canada/

On Mar. 16, 2012, the CNSC granted permission to lift reactor shutdown guarantees and begin start-up. Criticality was achieved on Apr. 10 for the first time in 17 years.

http://www.thestar.com/business/2010/11/04/bruce_nuclear_refit_2_billion_over_budget.html

TransCanada Corp. reported Wednesday that refurbishing two units of the Bruce A nuclear plant has cost $3.8 billion to date.

And chief financial officer Alex Pourbaix said the final cost of the project is now likely to be $4.8 billion.

The original cost estimate when the project was announced in 2005 was $2.75 billion.

Curly Judge wrote: »

Is this the same kind of hydrogen you were talking about here?

Post number 2, your reply, paragraph 4.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=80462042

yes

the only difference since August last year is that I now know that you can some "store" hydrogen in the existing gas mains.

And I'm only referring to hydrogen generated from surplus electricity because hydrogen is an inefficient way to store energy. But surplus electricity is cheap, to the point where in some crazy schemes it can have negative value especially if you can use a hydrolysis or other plant for grid stabilisation.


IIRC in Germany the hydrogen produced from electricity was four times the price of other hydrogen so to make it from base load is insane.

To suggest that the physical and chemical problems of operating a new type of reactor at vastly elevated temperatures could be sorted out on time and on budget and then compete economically with surplus electricity from renewables , well yeah.