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Is nuclear power feasible in our current economy.
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04-03-2009 12:03pm#1
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with the billions that were poured into the banks we could have built quite a few nuclear reactors and have plenty of capacity left over to sell to the continent and pushing the electricity prices thru the floor
also all the polluting coal, oil, gas and turf plants could have been closed making ireiland one of the "greenest" countries and exceeding our Kyoto obligations
and all that excess base load capacity and cheap electricity could have been used to provide data centers and make Ireland an internet hub, or lure heavy energy use industries, or even use this electricity to make windmills for export
but instead we bailed out the banks pouring money into black holes, continue polluting the environment and our health by pumping toxic **** up chimneys of dirty power plants, and we still have one of the highest electricity costs in Europe
welcome to modern day Ireland, were sensible decision making is an exotic concept
in meantime heres some interesting reading from today
http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/22114/page1/
a reactor that uses spent nuclear waste and doesn't need to be refueled for decades
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After all the 'Anti-Nuclear' abuse & litigation leveled at Britain over the last thirty years (re their nuclear power stations), can Ireland even consider the nuclear option, or would that be hypocracy?
I say load up the west coast with wind turbines & harness the wind (maybe stick one in Dail Eireann too) 0 -
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After all the 'Anti-Nuclear' abuse & litigation leveled at Britain over the last thirty years (re their nuclear power stations), can Ireland even consider the nuclear option, or would that be hypocracy?
I say load up the west coast with wind turbines & harness the wind (maybe stick one in Dail Eireann too)
i agree that we need expand wind power, but as someone who worked with these things i can tell you they are great BUT do not provide reliable base load power required for modern day economy (this is something that people outside generation business fail to grasp), i cant ever see wind power reliably providing more than 30% of our needs, short of building alot more turlogh hill type pumped storage stations in our hills and mountains
that money being poured into aib this week along with existing wind mills would have allowed to built one largish plant and take offline all other carbon based ones, but aib is more important :cool:
as for exporting power we still dont have an inter connector (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_West_Interconnector), and airtricities DC grid is but a dream
as for being hypocrates yes we are, already a certain % of the energy powering the computer in front of you comes from nuclear power generated elsewhere, unfortunately we have no way of strip searching electrons to make sure they are non nuclear based 0 -
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other EU countries are too busy with their own economic problems
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601100&sid=aSXa50yAhQfg
Germany effectively said they will not "bail" anyone out they have own problems
this resulted in currencies moving against euro http://www.google.com/finance?q=EURUSD
one simple problem is why lend us money (more of it!) when they can build and have build these things themselves? Germany is a leader in renewables for example
another thing to remember is that windmills are heavily subsidies, at 1 to 10 million a pop they are not too cheap (but they do pay themselves back after few years, minus continuos maintenance costs) and require access to constant wind resource (thats not faster than 25mph) and more importantly (and expensively) access to the grid which means building powerlines and that means facing NIMBYs http://www.indymedia.ie/article/76465
Ireland could become a leader in wind generation (we are still far behind Denmark and countries like India have more windmills :eek: see table on RHS @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power ) but im not sure where the money to build them and the related infrastructure (power lines) would come from
just look at France they were laughing thruout the whole oil price peaking to 145$/barrel, they generate 75% of their energy from nuclear and hence are not at whim of Russia, Middle East and Homo Speculatous (i sure hope this breed of humans go extinct )
finally another No vote to Lisbon would mean saying bye bye to our participation in EuroAtom and projects such as ITER fusion reactor, locking Ireland in 10-20 years from having the expertise and access to fusion technology that can potentially change the game in Energy generation in few decades
we certainly live in interesting times, overall shortsightedness is gonna get us far I tell ya :mad:
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LoveDucati2 wrote: »It took the Gov 10 years to decide to build the fu*kin LUAS.
Would you trust them to plan building a nuclear reactor?
true thats probably the best argument against nuclear power here
i would not trust a governemnt with the word Fail in its name to build anything like that :P
tho imho ESB was setup way back to build one of the largest dams in Europe at the time (with German labour of course) and provided electricity for the country for quite some time
thankfully we have bright graduates and companies like ESB/Eirgrid that proven then can run plants safely, and frankly i trust the private sector more
a modern nucular plant would cost few billion (spare change in current times) take a decade to build and employ a lot of highly trained engineers
as i said the cheap electricity in turn can lead to more job creation in high tech areas such as more Intel Fabs and Datacenters
as for safety modern Pebble bed reactors physically can not do a Chernoby on it and then there was the interesting new design i posted earlier in thread
to be honest i would rather live next to a nuclear plant than a coal plant, one of these 2 kills hundreds of thousands of people world wide every year the other got a bad name after ancient soviet based reactor went boom (btw the other reactors at Chernobyl are still making electricity to this day and are based on this old design)
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Nuclear energy is only ever "cheap" when you look at pure running costs only.
To buy in a nuclear reactor together with the expertise to build, run and maintain it would finance plenty of windmills.
The real sucker though is the cost of processing the waste (unless you just secretly dump it somewhere) and the massive cost of taking a reactor offline again at end of life. (which very few price calculations on nuclear energy ever show ...how do you put a price on 20.000 years worth of storage cost for nuclear waste?)
And then there is the risk of the thing going "pooof"
This wet and windy island of ours lends itself like few other places to the full exploitation of wind / hydro and wave power generation ...with the added advantage of better control over spending as and when resources become available0 -
Nuclear energy is only ever "cheap" when you look at pure running costs only.
To buy in a nuclear reactor together with the expertise to build, run and maintain it would finance plenty of windmills.
The real sucker though is the cost of processing the waste (unless you just secretly dump it somewhere) and the massive cost of taking a reactor offline again at end of life. (which very few price calculations on nuclear energy ever show ...how do you put a price on 20.000 years worth of storage cost for nuclear waste?)
And then there is the risk of the thing going "pooof"
This wet and windy island of ours lends itself like few other places to the full exploitation of wind / hydro and wave power generation ...with the added advantage of better control over spending as and when resources become available
There would be no waste if breeder reactors were used, but these are rare as they involve weapons grade plutonium
please see the link at the start of the thread about a reactor design that uses "waste"
alot of the "waste" is only waste due to fears of weapons proliferation (about time Ireland got some teeth ) and only 1% of the available energy is used
look into breeder reactors http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor
these eat "waste" for a living, theres no need to store waste for 20k years when you can transform it into isotopes with very short half lives
some interesting reading here
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/4259/
its interesting to note that alot of the arguments against nuclear keep surfacing up in these threads but im the only one every producing references and try to back up my arguments, not hold hands to the ears and say "la la la, nucular nucular, la la la" 
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Or when they realised that wind generation tends to produce the most power at night when demand is lowest. There is some interesting work being done with compressed air storage in an effort to get around this but it's very much only in the experimental stages at the moment and it's cost per kW is unknown for large scale operations.
The only proven "renewable technology" that's suitable for base load power is geo-thermal and that's only an option in a small handful of countries and it has some serious drawbacks on top of this.
for all purposes nuclear should be considered as a "renewable" "green" power, beside the initial building costs (that are also present in wind, carbon projects) theres no CO2, the "greens" should be happy but i think they dug themselves into a corner with greenpeace extremist thinking
with breeding we can produce enough fuel to last us until the sun burns this planet to a cinder, hell geothermal power is nuclear power, it uses the heat energy from the gigantic nuclear reactor few miles beneath our feet
who knows maybe by then we will finally have a comercial fusion reactor using seawater 0 -
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We've got a good few bright heads going spare these days ...I'd be much more in favour of funding research into storage for alternative energy than sink it into a radioactive behemoth that will plague us with its end of life cost for centuries well after it's gone off the grid.
Seriously ...a massive wind park that pumps surface water into a reservoir to run a hydro power station for base load isn't a totally unrealistic scenario in this sparsely populated country of ours. Plenty of boggy valleys and windy hills with nothing but the foundations of famine cottages going spare for one or more large scale projects like this.
peasant, you need to start listening to ionix5891! Firstly wind power is great and all, but its just not practical as the wind doesnt blow all the time. You then go on about having a back up hydro plant, but wouldnt said plant just negate the windmills?
Secondly you want to do more research. Until we come up with a solution when? 10, 20, 50, 100 years??? True, nuclear takes a while, but its a lot shorter than researching, and then starting to build.
Finally, ionix5891 already addressed the issue about decommissioning and waste. He seems to know what hes on about so it might be worth taking note of what he says. 0 -
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its interesting to note that alot of the arguments against nuclear keep surfacing up in these threads but im the only one every producing references and try to back up my arguments, not hold hands to the ears and say "la la la, nucular nucular, la la la"
Whatever about breeders producing "weapons grade" byproducts ...it might also be worth mentioning that Plutonium is not only a possible weapon but the most toxic and lethal substance known to man.
In all fairness ...Ireland does not have the infrastructure or expertise to even think about handling and processing such a material, never mind running a breeder reactor.
And then there would be the minor issue that even experienced "nuclear nations" have as of yet failed to keep a breeder running reliably or safely long enough to recoup the cost of building it (Belojarsk 3 may or may not be an exception, but the Russians are not exactly honest when it comes to reporting safety issues, are they ?)0 -
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peasant, you need to start listening to ionix5891! Firstly wind power is great and all, but its just not practical as the wind doesnt blow all the time. You then go on about having a back up hydro plant, but wouldnt said plant just negate the windmills?
Secondly you want to do more research. Until we come up with a solution when? 10, 20, 50, 100 years??? True, nuclear takes a while, but its a lot shorter than researching, and then starting to build.
Finally, ionix5891 already addressed the issue about decommissioning and waste. He seems to know what hes on about so it might be worth taking note of what he says.
You're gas !
First you're incapable of grasping the idea that the pumped water acts as a "battery" for the unreliable wind energy supply an then you tell me to listen to some other fella who "seems to know what he's talking about" as he posted two links to wikipedia
So, good Sir, who of our current crop of politicians would you like to see in charge of a technology that could possibly:
a) kill us all instantly by blowing half of this island out of the water
b) kill us all within a few days with a massive plutonium leak
c) kill us more slowly with a small plutonium leak
or less gloomily
d) never be built after we sunk billions into it because it is no longer politically opportune
e) never go on grid once it is built (having sunk billions into it) because it turned out we bought in the "wrong" experts/technology0 -
Whatever about breeders producing "weapons grade" byproducts ...it might also be worth mentioning that Plutonium is not only a possible weapon but the most toxic and lethal substance known to man.
In all fairness ...Ireland does not have the infrastructure or expertise to even think about handling and processing such a material, never mind running a breeder reactor.
And then there would be the minor issue that even experienced "nuclear nations" have as of yet failed to keep a breeder running reliably or safely long enough to recoup the cost of building it (Belojarsk 3 may or may not be an exception, but the Russians are not exactly honest when it comes to reporting safety issues, are they ?)
expertise can be learned/imported (ESB was build on German engineering) and ironically my relative living here was involved in building N plants back in the day
i already addressed the issue with "waste"
theres also Thorium reactors, they are being built in India, Thorium is plentiful and no Uranium/Plutonium involved http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/348/You're gas !
First you're incapable of grasping the idea that the pumped water acts as a "battery" for the unreliable wind energy supply an then you tell me to listen to some other fella who "seems to know what he's talking about" as he posted two links to wikipedia
So, good Sir, who of our current crop of politicians would you like to see in charge of a technology that could possibly:
a) kill us all instantly by blowing half of this island out of the water
b) kill us all within a few days with a massive plutonium leak
c) kill us more slowly with a small plutonium leak
or less gloomily
d) never be built after we sunk billions into it because it is no longer politically opportune
e) never go on grid once it is built (having sunk billions into it) because it turned out we bought in the "wrong" experts/technology
im quite capable of grasping the idea, no need to resort to insults as I said i visited one of these and certainly know more about the technology than you, as for wikipedia links these were convenient im not witting a thesis here is public forum, go to ESB site for more info on Turlough Hill, what i did was provide a detailed argument that this country will never economically be able to afford wind power/pumped storage combo for all the energy needs, you on other hand are resorting to "omg itz NUCULAR" arguments and below the waste punches
a) you should have done leaving cert physics, im not even gonna answer this its so rediculos
b) and c) if your allergic to plutonium see Thorium reactors mentioned above
d) and e) these are not technical issues with the technology, just because this country is run by incompetent fools does it mean we stop building infrastructure and go back to digging potatoes?
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now please back up any statements you make with figures and references :cool:
Ok ...you win on facts and figures ...but only because I can't quote figures for things that don't yet exist
Just bear with me for a minute:
Assuming the country got a breeder reactor, how would that work and what would we actually get out of it?
Well ..duh ...electricity of course, that's what we would get.
But nothing else. We have neither the expertise nor the technology to build our own. So we would have to import it all at massive cost. Other than relatively cheap energy we as a nation and economy would get nothing.
Now take the renewable energy alternative:
We have plenty of builders going spare that can build the infrastructure (dams, power lines, foundations for wind generators)
We have plenty of engineers and technicians that are capapble of building and improving renewable generating technology ...hell, we could even have an indigenous industry for this and export some of our technolgy.
Also ...we have the space, geology and resource (water, wind and hills) a plenty ..all currently under-used.
And last but not least ...investment in this technology can be made in phases, as and when it suits the economy, as resources become available and as revenue gets generated.
So, investing in renewable energy would actually not just generate energy but also economic activity all by itself, which, leaving aside all other concerns, in my mind is far preferable to paying billions to some foreigners to build us a breeder.0 -
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d) and e) these are not technical issues with the technology, just because this country is run by incompetent fools does it mean we stop building infrastructure and go back to digging potatoes?
I think it would be much more realistic to invest in technology that we (and the incompetent fools) at least have a chance of understanding and controlling, yes.
(Plus it won't blow up in our faces, no matter how incompetent the fools are ...worst case scenario is it doesn't work) 0
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