Go Nuclear or no?

Dave!

The 20th anniversary for Chernobyl is coming up, terrorist attacks are a constant fear, and with the price of oil reaching I think it's $72 a barrel, the idea of nuclear energy is being reexamined, and the debate is coming back to life.

56 direct deaths have been attributed to the Chernobyl disaster, but 20 years later the effects are still being felt, with cancer and mutations occuring in the children of those who were children in 1986.

Nearly every country in the world has become dependent on oil, to the point that were sources to suddenly dry up, we'd be brought to an extremely quick halt.

Anti-nuclear campaigners tend to be of the mindset that we don't have all the answers, we have a few suggestions that can be added to, but it's not worth the risk of building nuclear power plants, because the cost is too great, as Chernobyl demonstrates -- one accident can have catastrophic effects for the rest of time.

Nuclear advocates usually take the more pragmatic, if a little more callous, approach that, we're running out of oil, natural sources of energy are ineffective, and nuclear is the only viable option left, even though it is risky.

So the question I pose to you is,
Should Ireland adopt nuclear power?

aidan_walsh

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054915924

scojones

We're already nuclear. Didn't you hear yer man on the whatsit today?

Dave!

aidan_walsh wrote:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054915924

bleh!

That thread hasn't really been too popular... Maybe a mod could move it to AH or else leave this one here for the dregs of Ireland who post in AH (ie. me) could also discuss it without wrecking it with our ignince[sic]

Cos it's a really important issue at the moment!

EDIT:

lol, just realised that I actually posted in that thread... pretty bad memory tbh

Hail 2 Da Chimp

Yes... No... Yes... wait! what was the question again?

scojones

You should probably rename this thread to delete too

county

fcuk it why not, whats the worst that can happen?:rolleyes:

patbundy

we dont need to go nuc and we dont have to

Dave!

patbundy wrote:

we dont need to go nuc and we dont have to

What happens when the oil runs out?

Zhane

There are other alternatives.

Dave!

Zhane wrote:

There are other alternatives.

Effective alternatives? Do you feel alright about having windmills in your front and back gardens, and solar panels on your roof?

Zhane

DaveMcG wrote:

Effective alternatives? Do you feel alright about having windmills in your front and back gardens, and solar panels on your roof?

Live quite close to the windmills in wexford actually.
Do you feel alright having a nuclear power station in the country that could possibly leak and pollute water, blow up or be a target for terrorists?

Dave!

Zhane wrote:

Live quite close to the windmills in wexford actually.

Now just get rid of oil and multiply those windmills by a few hundred

Zhane wrote:

Do you feel alright having a nuclear power station in the country that could possibly leak and pollute water, blow up or be a target for terrorists?

No sir! My post from the other thread:

DaveMcG wrote:

I'm undecided about this to be honest... Fossil fuels are running out, so we've really gotta get working on an alternative soon! Environmentalists would tend to recommend wind power and solar power for the most part, but, the amount of power they generate isn't exactly amazing, for the amount of space etc they take up. I mean, everybody having wind turbines in our front and back gardens, and solar cells on our roofs -- is that really plausible and practical? I'm not sure it is or isn't, maybe there's practical ways to impliment it.

I don't know much about hydraulic power from dams (how powerful they are, etc), but they seem like the most realistic environmentalist option. I know that they cause some problems with fish etc, and nutrients reaching the land at the lower part of the river, but if those factors could be overcome, and the amount of power produced was significant, then more dams along the major rivers could be a good idea (although how many big enough rivers do we have... I dunno).

The thing about nuclear power is that when it's good it's very good, but when it's bad it's horrid -- as we have seen. Is it worth the risk? And with all this terrorist attack malarky, it's even more scary/risky.

Perhaps we should spend more time trying to make our energy use more efficient (eg. leaving phone chargers plugged in, tv's switched on) and maybe lower it to the point that environmentally friendly measures can be used more extensively, without being impractical.

I fall into the 'undecided' category

Lump

I'd love to have plenty of Windmills in my house.... and solar panels, I think Wind Turbines look great.

John

Dave!

Lump wrote:

I'd love to have plenty of Windmills in my house.... and solar panels, I think Wind Turbines look great.

John

Okay Then you wouldn't have to spend so much on electricity! Get building one!

nuttz

I'm against the nuclear option, and can't see it happening here either. People will protest as they did thirty years ago.

One of the problems here at the moment is that there are little or no incentives for companies to set up wind farms and go into competition with the ESB. The ESB needs to be deregulated properly. The incentives here amount to nothing, when compared to the grants available up north.

vector

no nuclear

sure when it works it can be great, low greenhouse emmissions, protected from oil price hikes however even if was too cheap to metre, and generated loads of jobs, and money, and so on etc its just not worth it, the consequences of an accident are too high, look at chernobyl, sure people say it couldn't happen again but something similar could

plus from a practical point of view an air force would be required to shoot down planes heading towards it if necessary

oil will eventually run out, I'm not talking like an environmentalist here just being practical, the government should give financial support to wave energy now, to let ireland do what denmark did for wind

jimmycrackcorm

Aren't we very lucky to be so close to Sellafield to send our future nuclear waste.

Welcome to La La land. When the the oil finally gets scarce, we'll see the anti-abortion lobby join the anti-nuclear lobby.

nuttz

jimmycrackcorm wrote:

Welcome to La La land. When the the oil finally gets scarce, we'll see the anti-abortion lobby join the anti-nuclear lobby.

basis?

Wertz

Not when we can't be seemingly arsed to bother investing in proven renewable sources which are guaranteed clean, inexhaustable and risk free.
Nuclear is no quick fix...any plant or plants being built would take a fair while to construct and bring onstream, would have to be done by foreign contract companies, cost an arm and a leg and leave us with a mess to clean up for it's entire lifetime (40-50 yrs?). Nuclear fuel isn't cheap either and we'd have to import that too, then export the waste, or (god forbid) reprocess it ourselves...

To me that's all a big white elephant. There was a thread about wave enrgy here a few days back...we have no shortage of waves along every coastline, and we never will have, same goes for wind to an extent. Solar, we're too far north to avail of it and it's still mucho expensivo.
All the renewables take a lot of inward investment and you need a LOT of the generating plants to match the output of thermal plants, but it's not beyond us.

Also, don't forget that when oil (and maybe gas) run low and/or become prohibitvely expensive, we need to start fueling our cars with electricity too...I dunno wtf we'll do with our planes, I don't think anyone does.
Plastics and a whole host of other oil byproducts too, that we need to find viable alternatives to...
Growing plant crops for biomass is looking like a way to go too, but once again, we'd be importing and it's a greenhouse emitter...might solve the plane thing though.

Intersting piece on BBC 24 this morning about Gazprom (russian state owned gas company), who have the biggest reserves in the world, basically holding the EU to ransom by threatening to sell to china...that's scary stuff...kinsale hasn't got long left either and I think we already import gas from the UK who are running low themselves.

Fun times ahead folks...

Manic Moran

Definite 'yes' here. It's the most cost/space effective clean source going. Wind farms would be a good second bet, but they take up a lot of room and are dependent on the weather co-operating.

NTM

nuttz

Manic Moran wrote:

It's the most cost/space effective clean source going.
NTM

Please define clean, bearing in mind we have an unusually high cancer rate in Dundalk, and that some of the material processed in Sellafield have a half life of 25,000 years+?

nuttz

nuttz wrote:

Please define clean, bearing in mind we have an unusually high cancer rate in Dundalk

not to talk about miscarriages.

It might be worthwhile reminding people that Chernobyl is in the Ukraine and the majority of the 9 million people affected were in the neighbouring country, Belarus, just because the wind happened to be blowing that direction.

Manic Moran

nuttz wrote:

Please define clean, bearing in mind we have an unusually high cancer rate in Dundalk, and that some of the material processed in Sellafield have a half life of 25,000 years+?

As in non-polluting in the conventional sense. No smoke, greenhouse gasses, etc.

Is not Sellafield a processing center, and not a power plant? The two will have different intakes and outputs, I'm not sure that the effects of the one will have much of a bearing on the effects (if any) of the other.

NTM

Wibbs

nuttz wrote:

Please define clean, bearing in mind we have an unusually high cancer rate in Dundalk, and that some of the material processed in Sellafield have a half life of 25,000 years+?

Equally there is research to show no increase in cancers around nuclear powerplants/processors. Depends who you want to believe. Look at the cancer rates in Hiroshima and Nagasaki where two very dirty fission bombs where exploded and you'll find the rates are on a par with the Japanese average. In fact in some areas of Japan the rates are higher.

In another thread on this a while back, one poster lumped Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Chernobyl in the same anti nuke argument. As I said there I'll say again that's like suggesting the dambusters raid is a point against hyrdroelectric. That raid alone killed more than a couple of thousand people. terrorists can blow up dams too, you know, which puts the whole driving a plane into a power station into some kind of perspective.

Speaking of Chernobyl. Read the WHO report on the issue. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr38/en/index.html Only 50 deaths, directly attributable to the disaster. Now obviously there were more, but not the figures the scaremongerers would have you believe.

While people like Adi Roche are to be admired for their charity and fortitude in helping the people of Belarus, you have to look at the rabid anti nuke stance they come from and research and make your own mind up. Her wittering on about "thinking about the children" on the Late Late last night does not always a cogent argument make. When people use lines like "there is no such thing as a safe radiation level", they may need to read more and emote less(luckily the pub beckoned before I put my boot through the screen).

I found a Sunday Times magazine from 1984 while rooting about recently and contained therein was a report on the huge health problems affecting people, mainly children. This was caused by huge levels of industrial pollution. Quess where? Belarus. This 2 years before chernobyl. Makes one think.

Also many(the UN included) want to make Chernobyl and it's environs a world heritage site as the explosion in wildlife in the evacuated areas is huge.
http://www.nsrl.ttu.edu/chernobyl/wildlifepreserve.htm
http://ranprieur.com/crash/naturechernobyl.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/05/AR2005090501144.html

A bit at odds with the armageddon type picture portrayed by some in the media. Put it another way, how many have died as a result of nuclear powerplants(not the atom bomb BTW). Eg 3 mile island? eh none for that one for a start. Many more have died from the extraction of fossil fuels(miners, oil workers etc). Inhalation of fumes from coal and oil burning powerplants is blamed for many many deaths from asthma etc.

Alternatives? Well wind is all very well, but is nowhere near a national solution, Hydro has it's pluses, but the damage to the environment/ecosystem is greater than people realise. Biofuel has a place too, but the amount of land you're going to need to supply just the airline industry will be huge. Wave energy has the same issues that wind and hydro face. Solar is good, but inefficient for large scale implementation.

Personally I reckon the oil will not run out as there are huge reserves in Venezuela http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4123465.stm and elswhere. Some of these are uneconomic to extract now, but how long will that last?

Basically the same groups who witter on about "NO Nukes" are usually the same groups wittering on about global warming. Without nuclear power, the greenhouse effect is going to go up. No if buts or maybes. If the world went nuclear in the morning, sure we may have problems, but global warming caused by emissions would be drastically reduced.

Apologies for this rant, but I didn't sleep that well and it's early.:o

Omnipresence

I agree we HAVE to go nuclear... Was watchin a bit of the late late show and that woman (forget her name) while doing amazing work with chernobyl is totally clouded when it comes to thinking about nuclear energy...

Everyone is saying keep ireland nuclear free... what a joke.... were NOT already... if you live in dublin etc sellafield is closer than cork etc... we are ALREADY under the shadow of a nuclear power plant... these people think that if there is a leak it will not affect us cause its not in our country.. wake up...

We have to realise that if any nuclear reactor was built new today it would be generations better in terms of safety and technology...

Oil and gas are gone... face it... countries that produce and export are going to stop exporting and keep for themselves (russia has plainly said that about thier gas)

But we also have to have schemes whereby every new home has solar panels no new cars should be allowed to be sold unless are hybrids etc etc... all these little things help massively (for home users yes)

But for industry...we need nuclear power to supply the demand...

Dave!

Does anyone know when that new show 'Fallout', in which they simulate the public (and gvmt) response to a nuclear incident, is airing? It looks pretty cool, it tells the story through news bulletins, like most people found out about 911.

Wertz

Aaarrgghhhh, listening to some round up of the week on RTE radio 1 just now, and my post above sounded like it came straight out of the mouth of Duncan Stewart...that was not my intention.

He did make a very good point on our energy efficiency in the country though...what's the point in going apesh*t over becoming a nuclear power producer when we're already wasting so much of the energy we're currently creating?

[edit] Fallout is on sunday night and like anything else in this country you can expect debate, dáil questions and people throwing their hands in the air about it till at least next week.
I've no fear of an explosion in the reactors at sellafiled...what I fear is leakage of the waste already stored there and the continued emission of low level waste into the sea water.

bonkey

Wertz wrote:

I've no fear of an explosion in the reactors at sellafiled...

Neither have I.

The only reactor there was decomissioned in 1981.

jc

Wertz

Calder hall didn't stop generating power until 2003 when it's last reactor was shut down for safety reasons.
http://www.bellona.no/en/energy/nuclear/sellafield/25298.html

mang87

Fusion, maybe. Fission, no. Check out the Fusion Reactor "ITER" over in france. It uses much safer substances Deuterium and Tritium (which are infact much more abundant than uranium, as tritium is extracted from seawater) and forces them to fuse together, creating temperatures in excess of 100,000,000K(3 times that said to be at the heart of the sun)
But don't let that deter you, the reaction is inherently safe with the heat being contained by incredibly powerful electromagnets

The only problem is this technology probably will not be put to practical use anywhere else in the world til about 2030+. But it's definately something to look into for the future.

I'm a definate no to a Nuclear Fision reactor in Ireland. Our country is too god damned small. If something were to happen, that would be the end of us.

I am not worried about the background radiation problem, there are studies that say it causes unusualy high rates of cancer, but there is also studies to disprove that. It's just if a meltdown was to occur it would be devastating. And you know what our country is like, everything is done half-assed. We'd probably make the feckin reactor out of tin to save on the cost.

mang87

aloleary wrote:

But we also have to have schemes whereby every new home has solar panels no new cars should be allowed to be sold unless are hybrids etc etc... all these little things help massively (for home users yes)

No not hybrids, hydrogen powered cars. I read about reactors in america being rigged to produce hydrogen from the steam created by the reactors, or something along those lines. If we went that route, it could be used in transport and piped to houses for heating etc

Wibbs

Hydrogen is great in theory and many car manufacturers for example have tested it out, but it has serious problems. The primary one would be the explosive nature of the gas, secondly how do you transport and handle the stuff in it's super cold liquid state? Another issue is extracting it in the first place. It's usually done by electrolysis which means we're back to producing the electricity in the first place. The only place I can see hydrogen at all would be in fuel cells. They're very efficient altogether, have been around a long time, but many things still have to be ironed out for commercial use.

Fusion is the way forward, but no technology is inherently safe. What happens if those electromagnets suddenly lose power. That might be a big enough bang. Oops, is the term I think. If you think that's safe, why worry as much about fission? Granted the radiation should be significantly less with a fusion reactor breakdown.

mang87

Wibbs wrote:

Fusion is the way forward, but no technology is inherently safe. What happens if those electromagnets suddenly lose power. That might be a big enough bang. Oops, is the term I think. If you think that's safe, why worry as much about fission? Granted the radiation should be significantly less with a fusion reactor breakdown.

Because these electromagnets are part of the reaction, if they stop, the reaction stops, and the temperature would drop to levels that could be maintained by blast shielding. Mind you the reactor'd be rightly ****ed

Yes, much, much less radiation. I don't know if this is BS, but I was talking to a physics major about the ITER project, and he said the waste would only have a 50 to 100 year half life :cool: as opposed to 25,000+

Ivan

nuttz wrote:

not to talk about miscarriages.

It might be worthwhile reminding people that Chernobyl is in the Ukraine and the majority of the 9 million people affected were in the neighbouring country, Belarus, just because the wind happened to be blowing that direction.

Um, sorry to break it to you, but if the wind had of been blowing the right way the fallout from Chernobyl was capable of covering the entire planet. The same can be said for almost any reactor on the planet. No one is safe...

well we will always have the leitrim gas field to fall back.apparently one of the biggest in Europe.:)

Tellox

Chernobyl was at what, 400% of its maximum operating power before it blew?
And nuclear plants are much better designed these days. Look at the three mile island incident. Meltdown, with no real long-term damage, no deaths, no mutations etc etc.

Nuclear power is a good thing. And terrorists arent going to ****ing attack Ireland, where's the bloody point in that? "Right, we bombed the paddy's. America will be terrified now!"

Considering America's closest ally is just another few miles away from Ireland, which has a fully operational nuclear power plant, Im fairly sure they'd rather target that one.

Nevertheless, Nuclear Plants are made to withstand the impact of missiles. And the difficulty in flying a plane into a power plant is fairly huge, at that. And dont start with the "oh but they flew one into the pentagon!" bollocks, because we all know how I feel about that. (FYI; http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=51220136&postcount=97 )

Nuclear power is clean, and safe, when its not being abused. Chernobyl is a prime example of that.

hullaballoo

I'd be an advocate of wind farming. I don't trust any nuclear reactors after James Bond.

mackerski

aloleary wrote:

if you live in dublin etc sellafield is closer than cork etc...

True enough - Sellafield is approximately 5km closer.

Dermot

meowCat

I voted against nuclear power here. But it's a vote out of my gut feeling. I feel nuclear power seems unsafe in many ways. The human potential to orchestrate a desaster out of something that is theoretically considered safe, is just too high.

On the other hand, I think that not enough research is done in the area of alternatives like solar and wind energy. There doesn't seem enough interest in funding such projects. And the public opinion about them isn't decidedly more positive either. I remember that only a few years ago in Germany, a wind farm wasn't built because people in that area complained about the noise.

There's a lot to be done in terms of efficiency, for each method! Also, just because it's alternative power, it doesn't follow that it has no impact on the environment. Or do you really think a wind farm or wave energy has no impact on the animal life for instance?

It's a difficult issue. I hope someone comes up with a clever solution at some stage not so far in the future!!

chern0byl

Isnt the conversation pointless? We dont have the money to do it.

Dave!

chern0byl wrote:

Isnt the conversation pointless? We dont have the money to do it.

Then let it be hypothetical :rolleyes:

mayhem#

Two words:

- Fusion
- Fision

Think about it.....

E.

robinph

mayhem# wrote:

Two words:

- Fusion
- Fision

Think about it.....

E.

You mean that they would make a spelling mistake when doing up the plans for the reactor and we'd end up with the wrong sort?

Wertz

robinph wrote:

You mean that they would make a spelling mistake when doing up the plans for the reactor and we'd end up with the wrong sort?

lol whatever chance there is of us affording the latter, there's not a chance in hell that we could bankroll the former...

Tar.Aldarion

I have cold fusion down, keep it under your hat.

The Gnome

mang87 wrote:

Fusion, maybe. Fission, no. Check out the Fusion Reactor "ITER" over in france. It uses much safer substances Deuterium and Tritium (which are infact much more abundant than uranium, as tritium is extracted from seawater) and forces them to fuse together, creating temperatures in excess of 100,000,000K(3 times that said to be at the heart of the sun)
But don't let that deter you, the reaction is inherently safe with the heat being contained by incredibly powerful electromagnets

I agree, Fusion is the way to go. Wouldn't one large fusion reactor be enough for the residential population here? or have I gone delerious with lack of sleep?

mayhem#

Wertz wrote:

lol whatever chance there is of us affording the latter, there's not a chance in hell that we could bankroll the former...

So what do you suggest?

E.

mayhem#

The Gnome wrote:

I agree, Fusion is the way to go. Wouldn't one large fusion reactor be enough for the residential population here? or have I gone delerious with lack of sleep?

Exactly my point.
When discussing nuclear energy people tend to look to much to the past and not towards the future.
Does anyone really believe that wind energy can replace the current useage of fosil fuels?

E.

The Gnome

mayhem# wrote:

Exactly my point.
When discussing nuclear energy people tend to look to much to the past and not towards the future.
Does anyone really believe that wind energy can replace the current useage of fosil fuels?

E.

True but for all that can be said about wind power, that massive tower they are building (built?) off the coast of Germany is quite impressive. A rake of these babies of the West coast wouldn't hurt* anyone.








*Unless they fly into the blades etc. (Which I would pay to see if anyone is offering...)

mang87

The Gnome wrote:

I agree, Fusion is the way to go. Wouldn't one large fusion reactor be enough for the residential population here? or have I gone delerious with lack of sleep?

Yes, it probably would. I'm be all for it myself, but it will probably cost an arm and a leg to make one, and it is far from being an immediate solution becasuse it won't be ready for commercial use for another 20 to 30 years because, like pretty much all the alternative solutions to what we currently have, there is not enough funding and research being put into the idea, so it's all still experimental. Fusion reactors still have huge mile stones to conquer. One being desiging and building electromagnets that will be strong enough to contain the reaction, a practical way of creating the immense temperatures that are required for Fusion of the two fuels involved, and another being a cost effective way of farming Tritium for the reaction.

I really do love the idea of Fusion, because you would get the same background radiation off of a fusion reactor as you would from sitting too close to the telly