Will the greens ever accept nuclear power?

silverharp

Turbine - fair point but you have have to access the risks of current technology as opposed to the stock of 40 year old reactors

It comes down to how seemless do you want the transition from oil to other sources of energy, it's sobering to view a graph of population growth compared to supply of oil. We may just need nuclear to jump start us onto new technology

turbine?

So what is the probability of a reactor meltdown for new technology reactors?

And bear in mind that a reactor meltdown is a worst case scenario, what are the probabilites of fugitive emissions and other major incidents?

Not to mention the issue of waste.

As far as population vs oil is concerned, I wont argue its not worrying, but perhaps with higher efficiency and more importantly de centralisation to smaller scale networks, electricity will be less of a problem than the major oil user, transportation.

see http://transitionculture.org/?p=293#more-293 for an (idealistic) picture of decentalised energy production

Nuclear doesnt resolve this issue, and to my mind nor do bio fuels.
Transportation rather than electricity generation is the sector which has, so far, no real alternative to oil.

Mortmain

tj-music.com wrote:

Rubbish! It is unsafe, costly and dangerous. Talked to Emma Gibson from Greenpeace UK for radio and the statistics she had were showing that it is cheap enough for the world leaders to keep or bring it back into the focus point. You can´t get rid of the stuff, nowhere to put with a lifespan of literally 1000s of years and don´t think that Tchernobyl like incidents can´t happen.

call the RPII - Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland and they´ll tell you the truth about how safe it really is. Think twice!

Is this the same greenpeace who were recently fined for running the rainbow warrior over a coral reef? Not whiter than white and not exactly impartial in the area. As far as i can see, most of the objections in the tread are based on the waste issue - there is one compelling argumant which should be borne in mind. We may not have the technology to deal with it now, but the liklihood is that we will, in the future, if left to continue our technological advances, devise ways to recycle the waste at a future date. If one follows the law of conservation of matter, when we can utilise 100% of waste product we will have achieved pure renewable (cyclical) energy. Getting there won't happen if we stem or chances to innovate.

bonkey

Mortmain wrote:

We may not have the technology to deal with it now, but the liklihood is that we will, in the future,

Well then...at that point, the waste issue will be no longer an issue. Until then, it is an issue.

Getting there won't happen if we stem or chances to innovate.

Who's stemming anything? Ireland isn't dictating that the entire planet cease research into nuclear waste management.

I also don't see the need for more nuclear waste in order to facilitate such research - there's plenty of it to go round already. If someone wants to innovate....there's a massive market already established, as well as no shortage of governments and corporations who will fall over tehmselves to make such a successful innovator a very, very rich person.

However, deciding an issue should be disregarded on the grounds that "I believe it will be solved in the future as long as we keep heading in this direction" strikes me as foolhardy.

It also has a marked similarity to GWB's stance on Global Warming - we don't need to do anything about it, cause advances in technology will probably solve the problem anyway. All we have to do is keep advancin' and we're fine.

In both cases, its also noteable that the people willing to bet that science will supply the answer are not teh ones who will suffer if science doesn't deliver the goods on time. Nope - that will be some other generation.

In short, it boils down to little more than "let our kids worry about it".

jc

silverharp

OK, as was mentioned I have a suspicion that the greens have a “religious” dislike of nuclear and that in some way risk of death by man made radiation is more objectionable then risks from other types of energy production. So let me assume this is not the case and that the green case is based on sound risk/reward and cost/benefit analysis. As an example I assume a Green would have objected to the 3 gorges dams in China on the basis that a habitat was wiped out, a million people or more had to move, a future generation will be left to deal with the dismantling of the dams and there is a risk of large scale death if the dam fails for whatever reason. (feel free to comment if you think a nuclear plant is x10 worse then the dam eg or broadly that they are in the same ball park)

From a peak oil point of view I can understand why nuclear might not be a good idea on the way up the curve as “Jevon’s paradox” would imply that nuclear doesn’t even displace oil demand as other uses are found for oil and even more unsustainable development occurs, however once we hit peak oil and go down the other side the carrying capacity of the earth goes down, how that plays out is anyones guess and this is where I say we need every option available to us, even if 100,000 die because of (New) nuclear developments over the next 100 years, that will be small beer compared to the potential reduction of the carrying capacity of the earth from 7bn back to say 4bn, nuclear won’t bridge this gap but will it will certainly help along the way.

It was mentioned that transport will be more affected then power generation, indeed, but the challenge will be to go back to electrically powered transport , trains busses even cars. Electricity generation will increase as a % of our overall energy use.


It will be interesting to see how the publics attitude to risk change in relation to nuclear over the coming years, given that collectively we decide to drive even though 10’s of thousands of people die every year in car accidents, how will people react when the power starts to go off

bonkey

silverharp wrote:

As an example I assume a Green would have objected to the 3 gorges dams in China on the basis that a habitat was wiped out, a million people or more had to move, a future generation will be left to deal with the dismantling of the dams and there is a risk of large scale death if the dam fails for whatever reason.

I would have said they would be the negatives that noe would have to weigh-up in the equation, not the reason to object.

Let us not forget that without the dam, thousands of people were killed and more dishomed, literally every year. I think the figure was something like 10,000 deaths per year were caused on average by seasonal flooding which will no longer occur.

One-off relocation, and the risk of catastrophic flooding vs the reality of almost-annual semi-catastrophic flooding, deaths, dishomed.....not quite as unbalanced as your objections made it sound. But I agree...if the Greens were to object to the 3 Gorges, it would be most likely because the costs you outline outweigh the advantages you omitted.

The dismantlnig of the dams is indeed an issue for future generations, but I'm not sure what teh issue with that is. Is there some reason (other than a return to the flood-prone pre-dam conditions) that this is comparable to the "we don't have a long-term workable solution" problem of nuclear-waste storage, for example?

(feel free to comment if you think a nuclear plant is x10 worse then the dam eg or broadly that they are in the same ball park)

What technological problems regarding the dam do we not have solutions for?

What cumulative problems does it face (i.e. problems which, like nuclear-waste storage, grow in size, year-on-year).

In the face of catastrophic failure, what would be the time-to-recovery for both the agricultural land that would be affected (and on which China is dependant) and for the damage to cities?

how that plays out is anyones guess and this is where I say we need every option available to us,

But nuclear is still an option available to us. Its not like anyone is suggesting that we erect an indistructable barrier around the country which will prevent anything nuclear (fissile) from ever getting through.

Today, the Greens do not appear to believe that nuclear is the least worst option available to us to remedy problems that need to be remedied. If and when it becomes so, I do not believe they will sit on "religious" opposition, but rather will accept it as a necessary evil.

However, they will not accept it as a "preventative" evil - something that we should implement now because we just might need it down the line.

It is important to remember that while we see figures for the shortfall of energy, and how technology X, Y and Z cannot fill the gap, not every nation will fit that model exactly. Swizterland generates almost 60% of its power through hydro....a figure far in excess of what the global average potential contribution of hydro is currently reckoned to be. There are no shortges of other examples - every "renewable" power-source is more suited to certain areas than others. Thus, just because one can argue that the world cannot meet its energy demands without resorting to nuclear, it does not immediately follow that Ireland cannot do so.

even if 100,000 die because of (New) nuclear developments over the next 100 years, that will be small beer compared to the potential reduction of the carrying capacity of the earth from 7bn back to say 4bn, nuclear won’t bridge this gap but will it will certainly help along the way.

So what you're really saying is that you agree nuclear carries risks, but you think there's so many other dangers out there, that really, the risk of huge numbers of people getting killed in the occasional disaster isn't worth worrying too much about ???

Interesting perspective, but not one I can see being too popular. You could just as well use the same logic to argue for making oil-based heating illegal. Sure, hundreds of thousands might die from freezing over the years....but the net savings would stave off what might be a more terrible fate, and - like you said - we need every option.

Right?

collectively we decide to drive even though 10’s of thousands of people die every year in car accidents

Indeed, but those deaths are not concentrated in a single (or a few) localised area as would be the case with nuclear (or nuclear storage) disasters.
Nor is it the case that driving accidents have the potential to leave nation-sized areas of land uninhabitable.

It is also the case that some people choose not to drive for exactly the reason you've given. Collectively, the world has chosen nuclear. That doesn't mean every single nation must embrace it.

jc

saibhne

The political context should also be considered alongside the scientific when analysing the Greens viewpoint here. The Greens are a small party and can only realistically hope for a maximum of 15% of the vote in the forthcoming election, they will always be either a minor partner in a coalition or an opposition party so they will never call the shots entirely.
In government they will always have to compromise to get their policies enacted (especially one as sensitive as Nuclear) and as any haggler knows it is best to start with an idealistic offer and work to an acceptable conclusion. To extend this analogy to the political debate on Nuclear energy it may be Green tactics to maintain the rigid stance on nuclear in the belief that this can be relinquished in a future compromise with a governing partner.
At least that's how I would do it...

Oldtree

I think you're right, just look at the PD's now! If the investment that was to go into setting up a nuclear source of energy here in ireland, was to go to setting up a renewable source, I feel that there would be little difference in the end costs. It seems to boil down to a question of a political choice and the political will. Vote carefully as its our only input into this decision.

silverharp

I think it's a mute point for Ireland, the irish market is too small to support nuclear, I would be interested if anyone has info on Finland, they are either building a new plant or have just built one. I saw a survey recently that showed that the Scandanavians are not afraid of nuclear.

bonkey

silverharp wrote:

the irish market is too small to support nuclear,

I coulda sworn you'd been backing it all the way, and saying its foolish to rule it out....now you're saying we're too small to support it anyway?????

I saw a survey recently that showed that the Scandanavians are not afraid of nuclear.

And were we Scandinavians, that would be significant.

jc

silverharp

Bonkey apologies for the confusion, I didn't clarify at the start wherther I was talking about Ireland specifically or Green attitudes in general worldwide, I did say ealier that I'd be happier with the "green" argument if they focused on practical reasons appropriate to Ireland like size of market, necessary skills, displacement of renewables



re previous post -Wasn’t aware of the background of the dam project in china so thanks for that, I was trying to point out that a nuclear project has some similarities and risks as other large scale projects. Some peak oil writers have made the point that large infrastructural projects like motorways or my example the dam will get increasingly difficult to maintain when oil runs out

Dealing with nuclear waste is an issue but is not a reason to not go nuclear, the volume is tiny and could be stored for 100’s of years if necessary

The potential contamination due to an incident is a risk but it has to measured against the systematic failure of oil supplies to the west
for geological or geopolitical reasons. I agree nuclear is not appropriate everywhere, countries with natural advantages should go for those first, other areas around the globe however don’t have (sufficient) natural resources to fall back on.

Capt'n Midnight

silverharp wrote:

Dealing with nuclear waste is an issue but is not a reason to not go nuclear, the volume is tiny and could be stored for 100’s of years if necessary

100's ? you think

We have had earthquakes here in Ireland in the last 100 years.

Look at the wars on the continent WWI, WWII, Balkans, Poland vs. Russia, loads of civil wars, domestic terrorists who have attacked infrastructure.

And the time scale is not measured in 100's of years
its longer than any recorded history, in fact the really nasty stuff needs to be hidden for a time further away than the last ice age. And glaciers tend to remove all above ground markers and structures, so how do you warn people about the waste then ?

silverharp

The pyramids have lasted pretty well

bonkey

silverharp wrote:

The pyramids have lasted pretty well

You mean some of the pyramids have lasted pretty well, surely.

The concern is exactly that - some nuclear storage would undoubtedly work fine for the timeframes needed.

Some isn't a good enough quantity, and pretty well isn't a terribly inspiring quality level either

silverharp

How high do you want to set the bar - Commet proof?

Desert location/away from tectonic plates/ underground/ as much concrete as is needed with eartquake proof features/ material stabilized so not in liquid or gas form/ hi tech monitoring...pretty well does it for me, in a hundred years time it can be sent on a probe back to the sun for ultimate recycling ;-)

bonkey

silverharp wrote:

How high do you want to set the bar - Commet proof?

Probably not...I was just pointing out there's a lot of pyramids that have fallen by the wayside where Giza hasn't....and that this is exactly the issue. Everything must survive.

Desert location/away from tectonic plates/ underground/ as much concrete as is needed with eartquake proof features/ material stabilized so not in liquid or gas form/ hi tech monitoring...pretty well does it for me, in a hundred years time it can be sent on a probe back to the sun for ultimate recycling ;-)

So what you're basically saying is that the US and/or some African nations should store the nuclear waste of the world? God knows there isn't a location in Europe that meets those criteria....unless we skip the desert / away from tectonic plates combination.

Concrete, incidentally, isn't terribly useful for sites that need to take year-after-year of storage. It also defeats the use of monitoring...after all, what good is it to know that the stuff you've buried is leaking, if you can't get back down to it.

Current plants (if memory serves) produce about 30 cubic metres of post-processing dangerous waste per GW of generated power per year. While this may seem like a small amount per plant, imagine the quantity that would be produced if nuclear were to be far more widely adopted (world total at present == 6% nuclear generation). Also bear in mind that one of the criticisms of pebble-bed reactor design is that it produces a greater volume of waste....

All of a sudden, the "tiny amounts" of waste don't seem so tiny....

Storage is neither a trivial issue, nor one that is as easily solved as many would have us believe. It can probably be solved, but we can't be entirely certain, may not be willing/able to afford the proper solution, and may not be able to store as much stuff in this manner as we'd like to.

Advocates will tell you that all of these issues have been surmounted. Critics will tell you why these claims are exaggerated. I don't claim to have the answers....I just recognise that (in general) anyone taking an absolutist position on either side is downright wrong.

jc

democrates

All we need is a device to connect to our rectal sphincters to capture methane for use in energy production. 6.5 Billion humans wasting farts left right and centre, it's a disgrace. Not to mention adding dynamos to exercise machines.

But seriously. On the one side reduce energy consumption. If every household replaced all bulbs with cfls, that would save megawatts per annum. Anyone care to estimate? More public transport than private. Composting. I won't go on, there are countless measures all of which ultimately cut energy consumption and also pollution.

The talk now is CO2 footprint. But our footprint is much larger and with many more harmful elements. It all needs to be reduced, we need to consume less unneccesaries. How many products that people buy are necessary for comfortable lives?

We've been encouraged to consume more, and produce more for others to consume, to drive economic growth, ostensibly because that will deliver prosperity and support social services. So people by into the economic growth imperative and nations compete ever harder to survive. Leaving aside the transnational vested interests driving the wealth concentration agenda, infinite economic growth in a limited ecosystem? La la land.

Sadly it's a la la land that we can live in now at the expense of future generations. "We'll have the technology to dispose of the waste in the future". Asbestos. Oil spills. Mercury in tooth fillings. It doesn't get cheaper to clean up a mess, it gets more expensive. If the Billions needed to clean up that windscale sizewell B were put into r&d of renewables how much progress would be made? Not to mention weaponry and space excursions.

At least there is one corporate voice of sanity, the insurance industry openly contradicts the received capitalist 'wisdom' of infinite excess, because their profit projections are the only ones that must account for the backlash. The rest are free to privatise the profit and socialise the risk.

You might guess my position on nuclear is that I don't buy our current production or consumption needs, let alone projected increases, so it's a moot point for me. Consume less and make do with renewables. I remember the oil shortage in the early 70's. We weren't very rich then. But the climate was fine. Maybe most people are happier with an Ireland of tycoons and tornados? If only it were that simple.

irishguy

Not sure if this has been said before, but the founder of greanpeace seems to think nuclear is now an option
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/14/AR2006041401209.html

Capt'n Midnight

silverharp wrote:

The pyramids have lasted pretty well

In 1301AD they were damage in an earthquake and the smooth outer surface of limestone was used to rebuild the earthquake damage in Cairo.

Most of the tombs have been opened by tomb-raiders. In the future people may think a great treasure lies behind all the protection.

Several thousand years ago the Sahara was green. www.uea.ac.uk/sahara/conf04/docs/abst_drake.pdf - up to 10% of it was covered by lakes !
And crocs still live there http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/06/0617_020618_croc.html

Oldtree

A main problem with nuclear power is that the constructions and storage facilities will be built by the lowest bidder, and we all know what kind of value we get for that sort of bid! A greedy citizen is not a concerned citizen.

Sending the waste to the heart of the sun sounds like an ideal medtod of disposal. But the rockets would be built by the lowest bidder.................

democrates

Oldtree wrote:

Sending the waste to the heart of the sun sounds like an ideal medtod of disposal. But the rockets would be built by the lowest bidder.................

"Obviously a major malfunction"

silverharp

It's been an easy sell up until now as oil and gas have been cheap, wait until the lights go off, the people will not find nuclear so objectionable.

I really don't know how this one will turn out, I've read scenarios by Colin Campbell for instance where he says that nuclear won't be needed in 20 years because trade and industry will have reduced so much that the energy won't be required, but think what the implications of that are. I doubt if the greens have put out forecasts that they expect a permanent recession for the rest of our lives or that the population of the globe will go back to 3bn. But to say there is some cosy transition from oil back to less dense forms of energy is not probable from what I've read.

democrates

silverharp wrote:

It's been an easy sell up until now as oil and gas have been cheap, wait until the lights go off, the people will not find nuclear so objectionable.

That's precisely the problem, not enough is being done on renewables to avert that scenario.

Seagull76

Time heals everything, doesn't it? It has been 20 years since the name Chernobyl became the infamous nuclear accident that devastated the lives of millions of people in Western Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine. 20 years on, and the nightmare for thousands of people is still frightening.
93 000 victims is the number I heard on BBC news. Can nuclear energy ever be 100% safe?
If you do oppose nuclear energy, you can sign this petition:
http://ctk.greenpeace.org/gp-en/ctk-collectors/respond?item%5fid=2047368&obj_skin_id=51

Capt'n Midnight

Oldtree wrote:

A main problem with nuclear power is that the constructions and storage facilities will be built by the lowest bidder, and we all know what kind of value we get for that sort of bid! A greedy citizen is not a concerned citizen.

Sending the waste to the heart of the sun sounds like an ideal medtod of disposal. But the rockets would be built by the lowest bidder.................

IIRC it takes a lot more energy to send something to the Sun than to leave the solar system. Apart from the expense, there is the reliability issue. The shuttle costs about $1.5Bn per launch and was supposed to be 99% reliable.

Perhaps if we could guarantee that it would not leak out somewhere else a subduction zone would be ideal, as it would go back into the earths core for a very long time.

BTW: you're talking about 10,000 years for spent fuel to fall back to a radiation level of uranium ore. This does not mean it's safe then just that it's back to being as radioactive as it was at first, uranium ore is of course way above any normal background level.

democrates

Seagull76 wrote:

Time heals everything, doesn't it? It has been 20 years since the name Chernobyl became the infamous nuclear accident that devastated the lives of millions of people in Western Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine. 20 years on, and the nightmare for thousands of people is still frightening.
93 000 victims is the number I heard on BBC news. Can nuclear energy ever be 100% safe?
If you do oppose nuclear energy, you can sign this petition:
http://ctk.greenpeace.org/gp-en/ctk-collectors/respond?item%5fid=2047368&obj_skin_id=51

Already signed. Heard an interesting quote on a documentary the other night "the next chernobyl will be chernobyl". Rain seeping through the cracked concrete, and the core is burning down through the ground below.

rooferPete

Hi,

A very interesting topic with many very good points for and against nuclear energy in particular one sited here.

Personally I have not researched the subject and rely on experts regarding safety of the power plants and disposal of spent fuel.

One point I have not seen raised is the amount of energy used to make one tonne of portland cement which appears to be the product agreed on as the best construction material for both construction of the plant and containment of the spent fuel.

Regarding Peak Oil I do believe that point has already been passed and nothing short of politics has kept the full truth from being told, maybe "The Experts" believe we can't take the truth ?

My point being if a nuclear reactor takes ten > twenty years to build and come online how sure can any of us be that we will be able to afford the cost (not Euro, Energy) to build such a plant let alone maintain it ?

I find the fact that our Government will have one department launch a grant system to encourage the citisen to switch to renewable energy strange, while they have other departments building roads for cars that we will not be able to run in twenty years.

Perhaps in these times of plenty it would make more sense to build a reliable rail system with a wide choice of stations to keep us mobile not only in the long term but the immediate future.

While Ireland is behind our European neighbours in recognising that oil is a finite rescource if we can somehow put the right people in the decision making chair (not necessarily the Green Party) we may find thoughts of the future a lot more positive.

.

turbine?

democrates wrote:

Heard an interesting quote on a documentary the other night "the next chernobyl will be chernobyl". Rain seeping through the cracked concrete, and the core is burning down through the ground below.

was reading about this in last months National Geographic. A very interesting article. The reactor is monitored constantly and one wet day they noticed it had started to heat enough that if it continued it would go critical. Some brave soul rushed in and doused it with deuterium. since then sprinklers have been installed. The french are manufacturing a giant movable cover for the site, as the old concrete tomb is decaying.
Scary stuff:eek:

silverharp

rooferPete wrote:

Hi,

While Ireland is behind our European neighbours in recognising that oil is a finite rescource if we can somehow put the right people in the decision making chair (not necessarily the Green Party) we may find thoughts of the future a lot more positive.

.

I can't see it to be honest, we will need a crises first before peoples minds are focused and even then when have politicians ever been reelected for being honest with the people.

Now is the time to be investing in futureproofing our infrastructure but again I don't see any evidence of it. In world term I can't see that there will be a clever rationing system where oil is used to build solar systems etc while we still can, I bet that even if petrol is €5 a ltr, people will still buy SUV's (allbeit less) and will still comute to work by car

There was an interesting piece on the BBC news last night where the price of building wind farms is going up bacuase of material costs (aka rising oil prices)

rooferPete

Hi silverharp,

A very good example, it appears that we all have yet to grasp the idea of "Energy" as being a costly rescource, in fact energy could become the next global currency in a similar way that gold used to be.

.