Is nuclear power feasible in our current economy.

yoshytoshy

Nuclear power along with wind energy ,might provide good exports for ireland.
Is nuclear power possible in Ireland under the current circumstances ?

ionix5891

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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LordSutch

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)

yoshytoshy

Agreed about being hypocritical ,but in reality we need something to export.
The wind farms are essential ,it would be also nice to export power though ,in the long run.

ionix5891

Camelot wrote: »

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

yoshytoshy

great insight ionix ,it all seems even more worthwhile with this info.

Surely the eu would fund us ,if we could provide power to europe at a reduced rate ?

ionix5891

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:

.

nesf

ionix5891 wrote: »

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

Exactly, especially with you on the bolded part. Nuclear is attractive precisely because it can provide base load supply.

yoshytoshy

ionix5891 wrote: »

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:

.

I was afraid the treaty would be brought into it ,I voted yes at the time and didn't fully know why I voted yes.
This is reason enough to vote yes.

LoveDucati2

It took the Gov 10 years to decide to build the fu*kin LUAS.

Would you trust them to plan building a nuclear reactor?

irish_bob

you can barely get a mobile phone mast errected in this country without a local opposition campaign being launched , same goes with pylons or incinnerators , this country is full of nimby,s

we are a very easy people to scare , nuclear power will never come to ireland

Gurgle

Camelot wrote: »

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?

No hypocracy at all there - the issue with Britain was never their use of nuclear power, it was the systematic dumping of radioactive waste in the Irish sea.

ionix5891

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)

.

peasant

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

ionix5891

peasant wrote: »

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"

.

Kama

how do you put a price on 20.000 years worth of storage cost for nuclear waste?

With a nice bit of cost-benefit analysis, that future cost can be discounted! Go Team Short-Term Thinking!

That being said, the country would swiftly understand the meaning of base-load power if the lights went out on a calm day. Nukes bear a stigma, hopes for renewables are beyond current capabilities. Nuclear also has the (economic) problem that much of its costs are front-loaded (bracketing the waste and decommissioning issue off).

Speaking of Fianna Fail and the Luas, I'm also reminded of Family Guy: 'we can rebuild him, but we don't want to spend a lot of money', which would be bad news in nuclear power. If the Finns get cost-overruns on their new reactor, I can't help thinking we would in spades. Also they got the bonus of a helpful geology for waste storage, definite advantage.

But yeh ionix, although I'm mildy anti-nuke, I'd prefer some power stations to the bank bailout; I know which I think is more likely to catastropically collpase. Opportunity cost fail.

ionix5891

yah same here i just dont see how throwing money at a bursting asset bubble can help and at same time cutting spending out important things like education, everytime i open a newspapers its like wtf :eek: my taxmoney is being squandered



but i firmly believe technology is one of only few things that can move us forward and give and edge (it happened thruout history) the alternative is a big cut in standards of living while things readjust to new realities

as an engineer alot of issues surrounding nuclear are engineering problems that have been solved or can be solved

i dunno i said before i dont like direction this country is going and energy policy is very important, since a economy is driven by energy

i think Obama understands this as well and is still going on about energy policy even tho he is facing bigger issues

nesf

Kama wrote: »

That being said, the country would swiftly understand the meaning of base-load power if the lights went out on a calm day.

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.

nesf

ionix5891 wrote: »

as an engineer alot of issues surrounding nuclear are engineering problems that have been solved or can be solved

The problem, and as an engineer you'll appreciate this, is that renewables just aren't ready to take over from fossil fuel generation. We are a "technological generation" away from being able to remove fossil fuel as our main source of base load generation.

Nuclear is the only non-fossil option for base load generation in this country right now.

Zynks

nesf wrote: »

Nuclear is the only non-fossil option for base load generation in this country right now.

+1

ionix5891

nesf wrote: »

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

peasant

nesf wrote: »

Nuclear is the only non-fossil option for base load generation in this country right now.

It may however not be the only solution anymore by the time the multi billion reactor is finally built and on the net (which realistically speaking is easily 10-15 years away even if it got the green light tomorrow)

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.

It would still be cheaper than a nuclear power station.

turgon

peasant wrote: »

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.

Sesshoumaru

You're wasting your time thinking about these ideas. No politician in this country can see beyond "building more hospitals" or "building more roads and public transport". There is a total deficit of creative & original thinking in Irish politicians.

But since I'm wasting time already now.... I'd be in favour of nuclear power. The technology has come a long way since the days of Sellafield. Wind & Nuclear.

peasant

ionix5891 wrote: »

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 ?)

ionix5891

peasant wrote: »

It may however not be the only solution anymore by the time the multi billion reactor is finally built and on the net (which realistically speaking is easily 10-15 years away even if it got the green light tomorrow)

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.

It would still be cheaper than a nuclear power station.

As someone who visited turlough hill during my time at ESB (great peace of engineering btw)

i would have to disagree that it would be cheaper

here are some back of the napkin calculations i made:

Turlough Hill - built 1968 to 1974 - capacity 272MW for a few hours (as a comparison average windmill is 1-3MW and biggest plant at Moneypoint is 1000MW, irish demand is here and current wind generated is here

now the cost of Turlough Hill is US$ 50 million at the time (And a mountaintop)
thats about US$ 330 million inflation adjusted or 260 million €URO (data in graphs and charts here )


so lets say we build 10 of these @ 2.6 billion €uro (that already in the territory of how much a nuclear plant costs, and im not even counting the price of windmills to generate this energy and investment in the grid)

that gives us 2700MW of storage capacity for a few hours, please keep in mind the above figure in respect to the chart posted from eirgrid :eek:

so from quick calculations and references provided no its not cheaper, not by a mile, now please back up any statements you make with figures and references :cool:

as I said windpower is great and i do support it, but i dont see how it can ever provide reliable energy at economic prices (keep in mind current energy market is heavily distorted with ESB being told to keep prices artificially high to allow for competion, thats no joke! and wind power is heavily subsidies )

regards
ionix5891

.

peasant

turgon wrote: »

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/technology

ionix5891

peasant wrote: »

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/

peasant wrote: »

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?

.

yoshytoshy

It's time to loose the fear of things like nuclear power ,it's not other countries that are being stupid.

peasant

ionix5891 wrote: »

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.

peasant

ionix5891 wrote: »

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 )

Pride Fighter

Modern nuclear power is completely safe and 95% of the waste can be reprocessed into fuel. The other 5% has a half life of about a decade. Dont believe the lies the media tells you. It's no coincidence that several media moguls own oil futures.

T runner

Nuclear Power stations generally take 20 years to build and tend to bankrupt thier builders. Most in the states were not finished by the people who started them. Probably a non runner for financial reasons at the mo although it is a solution to energy sources.

Dont agree with the hypocrisy argument re. Ireland and Britain. I dont think Ireland objected to Britain having nuclear Power. We objected to the shoddy way it was managed in Windscale and Britain's tendency to dump its waste at the frontdoor of its neighbour.

Pride Fighter

T runner wrote: »

Nuclear Power stations generally take 20 years to build and tend to bankrupt thier builders. Most in the states were not finished by the people who started them. Probably a non runner for financial reasons at the mo although it is a solution to energy sources.

A modern fission plant takes about 5 years to build. The French have broken ground on the worlds first fusion reactor, Cadarache. It will be built in 9 years and will use deuterium and tritium as fuel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadarache

Grudaire

Pride Fighter wrote: »

A modern fission plant takes about 5 years to build. The French have broken ground on the worlds first fusion reactor, Cadarache. It will be built in 9 years and will use deuterium and tritium as fuel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadarache

They haven't got fusion to work though...

nesf

peasant wrote: »

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

This technology is at the moment purely experimental (they're looking into compressed air as a better alternative to water fyi). These technologies might not work well enough to provide base load power, it's utterly false to present them as viable alternatives to nuclear. Especially when you take into account that even if these technologies work they are still dependent on a certain amount of wind being there to have sufficient stored energy to meet future demands during lulls in supply which is not good enough given the unpredictability of wind as a power source. Base load sources need to be "always on" and able to increase to meet demand at an instant's notice. Wind right now is more than viable to provide power relatively cheaply compared to other renewables but it cannot meet base load demands.

Seriously, the results aren't there yet for this form of power and it's still not clear whether they'd be viable as the main source of base load power for a national grid.

ionix5891

Cliste wrote: »

They haven't got fusion to work though...

Do read up, fusion works (lookup hydrogen bomb, existing fusion research) lookup at the sun for proof

it doesn't work yet in a commercially profitable way yet (more energy out than in for sustained periods), thats the aim of ITER produce a commercially viable fusion reactor, and its costing alot less than were spending on bailing the banks out

here some reading for yah

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER


theres so much fud around nuclear fission and fusion that one has to wonder


as for the other arguments theres a wide range of nuclear technologies i presented with pros and cons thruout this thread

heres another option that doesnt need maintenance or staff and will work for us "brainless" irish. its a nuclear battery in a container that can arrive in a truck, works for 10-15 years providing electricity for 20,000 houses at $25Million a pop each

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/nov/09/miniature-nuclear-reactors-los-alamos
http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/561553

.

Grudaire

nesf wrote: »

Nuclear is the only non-fossil option for base load generation in this country right now.

There's a few issues that might hamper nuclear as the option for Ireland.

I've not got the maths on it, but I've heard that if you look at the realistic size of an economical nuclear reactor it's output is enough to supply the whole country - wonderful until it needs servicing, in which case you end up with the fossil fuel plants as well as back-up...

Also what do we do with the spent fuel? I vote against sending it to Windscale/Sellafield.

We'll assume that the reactor won't blow the west side of the Island off!

Pride Fighter

Cliste wrote: »

They haven't got fusion to work though...

They have but not on the scale required. This power plant will produce 500MW, about a third of the best fission power plants but it is a good start for fusion.

ionix5891

Cliste wrote: »

There's a few issues that might hamper nuclear as the option for Ireland.

I've not got the maths on it, but I've heard that if you look at the realistic size of an economical nuclear reactor it's output is enough to supply the whole country - wonderful until it needs servicing, in which case you end up with the fossil fuel plants as well as back-up...

Also what do we do with the spent fuel? I vote against sending it to Windscale/Sellafield.

We'll assume that the reactor won't blow the west side of the Island off!

build several reactors, same way as current ESB moneypoint plant has 3 turbines at 333MB each, one is usually down for maintenance

as for waste do read the posts in this thread, it has been addressed

peasant

nesf wrote: »

This technology is at the moment purely experimental ....

WTF is "experimental" about wind & water? Are ye all delusional?

Dissing renewable energies as "experimental" and "unreliable" while nuclear fission all of a sudden is supposed to be available at your local reactor store? Bring a few billion, cash and carry ...:D

What may not be 100% sure is the question if a water "battery" is big enough to provide base supply ...but thankfully that's just a question of scale and not of technology.

turgon

peasant wrote: »

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.

So were having a discussion about nuclear power, and your concerned because it only produces electricity?

peasant wrote: »

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.

With that kind of attitude none of the hydro plants in Ireland would have been built. The first one was built be a German company. Either way, the company would hire Irish people, just like the Germans did.

peasant wrote: »

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.

So the benchmark for new technology is whether or not the common man can understand it?

You have just hit upon the very problem with the nuclear debate, most people dont understand so they automatically go against it.

ionix5891

peasant wrote: »

WTF is "experimental" about wind & water? Are ye all delusional?

Dissing renewable energies as "experimental" and "unreliable" while nuclear fission all of a sudden is supposed to be available at your local reactor store? Bring a few billion, cash and carry ...:D

What may not be 100% sure is the question if a water "battery" is big enough to provide base supply ...but thankfully that's just a question of scale and not of technology.

Yes you can go to a store and buy a nuclear battery (links posted few posts up) that fits in a container at 25 million dollars a pop , requires no maintenance and produces consistent power over 15 year (some quote 30 years) span before being recycled back

Its already being used in remote communities, offshore rigs, islands

so whats your point again?

here more reading

http://blogs.howstuffworks.com/2007/12/19/the-toshiba-nuclear-battery/

http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2008/12/29/backyard-reactors-firms-shrink-the-nukes/

LordSutch

Gurgle wrote: »

No hypocracy at all there - the issue with Britain was never their use of nuclear power, it was the systematic dumping of radioactive waste in the Irish sea.

I never realised that Britain systematically dumped radioactive waste in the Irish Sea!

Surely this is illegal?

nesf

peasant wrote: »

WTF is "experimental" about wind & water? Are ye all delusional?

You really don't understand what you're talking about do you.

ionix5891

Camelot wrote: »

I never realised that Britain systematically dumped radioactive waste in the Irish Sea!

Surely this is illegal?

read up about sellafield on wikipedia

and do note its not illegal for ESB and others to pump toxic gases up chimneys of plants here in ireland, among some of the interesting ones are radioactive ash (yes a coal plant is more radioactive than a nuclear one) mercury and **** load of greenhouse gases and other nasties such as acid rain causing sulphuric compounds

here we have a typical scenarion where people greatly underestimate risk, can be compared about people worrying about dying in an airplane crash compared to car crashed

peasant

Where I'm coming from is not the general discussion of nuclear vs. renewable but this discussion in the Irish context.

How many nuclear scientist have we got again? How many experimental reactors / nuclear test facilities to test and develop this technology?
What experienced personell can we fall back on to run and administer a nuclear facility?

Exactly ...silch, nada, nothing, no-one.

We'd have to buy all of it in, the parts, the people, the knowledge. That costs an awful lot of money but it also raises other issues like trust, dependency, reliability, responsibility etc...

IMO nuclear technology is several shoe sizes too big for a country as small as Ireland.

Renewable energies on the other hand are relatively simple and great advances in effiency (its major downfall so far) could be achieved through targeted small scale research operations and concentrated efforts on energy creation parks (instead of a windmill here and there)
With a focussed effort, I'm sure, significant progress could be made in improving current technologies to make renewables more cost effective and efficient. That would not only yield cheaper (alternative) energy, but also independence from outside suppliers plus it would actually create something tangible to sell ...the technology itself ...while creating jobs and experts in their field. I always hear this "knowledge economy" mantra being banded about. This is an area where it could be created, where the demand is there and the rewards could be reaped worldwide.

LordSutch

ionix5891 wrote: »

read up about sellafield on wikipedia

Yeah I have, so wouldnt 'occassional leaks' would be more realistic than 'systematic dumping' ?

yoshytoshy

peasant wrote: »

Where I'm coming from is not the general discussion of nuclear vs. renewable but this discussion in the Irish context.

How many nuclear scientist have we got again? How many experimental reactors / nuclear test facilities to test and develop this technology?
What experienced personell can we fall back on to run and administer a nuclear facility?

Exactly ...silch, nada, nothing, no-one.

We'd have to buy all of it in, the parts, the people, the knowledge. That costs an awful lot of money but it also raises other issues like trust, dependency, reliability, responsibility etc...

IMO nuclear technology is several shoe sizes too big for a country as small as Ireland.

Renewable energies on the other hand are relatively simple and great advances in effiency (its major downfall so far) could be achieved through targeted small scale research operations and concentrated efforts on energy creation parks (instead of a windmill here and there)
With a focussed effort, I'm sure, significant progress could be made in improving current technologies to make renewables more cost effective and efficient. That would not only yield cheaper (alternative) energy, but also independence from outside suppliers plus it would actually create something tangible to sell ...the technology itself ...while creating jobs and experts in their field. I always hear this "knowledge economy" mantra being banded about. This is an area where it could be created, where the demand is there and the rewards could be reaped worldwide.

My thinking in posting about nuclear power in Ireland ,is as an export in the future.


In relation to wind energy ,can electricity be generated at low revolution and high torque ,or does it have to be high speed to get maximum energy ?

Grudaire

Pride Fighter wrote: »

They have but not on the scale required. This power plant will produce 500MW, about a third of the best fission power plants but it is a good start for fusion.

Last I heard they have had controlled fusion - for .1 of a second. Impressive but useless, have they had results since?

ionix wrote:

build several reactors, same way as current ESB moneypoint plant has 3 turbines at 333MB each, one is usually down for maintenance

I'm not saying that they can't have smaller reactors, just that they become inefficient/expensive to the point of not being cheaper

peasant

yoshytoshy wrote: »

In relation to wind energy ,can electricity be generated at low revolution and high torque ,or does it have to be high speed to get maximum energy ?

Both, it very much depends on the application and the prevailing conditions.
Most wind generators are geared anyway. Obviously for proper grid-power generation bigger is better and you can't really run a big generator/mill at high speed as the mechanical stresses get too much.