If we build a nuclear station, where should we put it?

extremeweather

One of the obvious problems with building a nuclear power plant in Ireland would be deciding where to put it. People object vehemently to pylons, wind turbines and mobile phone masts being sited near their homes. There has been huge opposition to waste incinerators. A nuclear plant surely would meet even stronger opposition. So, if we were to build one, where should we put it?

Large thermal electricity generation plants need a source of water and are usually placed near rivers. Most, but not all, countries try to place them some distance from large population centres. And in the event of a release of airborne radioactive material it may be useful to have the prevailing winds carry the plume away over the sea, rather than across the whole country.

Hartyk87

I think in my opinion taking into consideration what you have said in your first post.

I would build it at the in either the north east or south east of the country as god forbid somwthing did happen it would blow off shore and not hit anything for miles.

All though there is not best place for one this would be probably be the best,

Judgement Day

Given that the prevailing winds in Ireland are Westerlies that rules out siting a nuclear power station in the west. Perhaps we should site it in line with London, or as near as, so in event of an accident the cloud would probably travel in that direction - How about Carnsore Point?

Nuclear power is a disaster waiting to happen - no way of safely disposing of the waste, the crazy unknown costs of decomissioning, safety while operating, open to terrorist attack.....:eek:

A whole new generation of Nuclear power stations look like going ahead in the UK and doubtless some of these will be close to us - Wales, Cumbria etc but that doesn't mean we have to go down the same road. There are two nuclear power stations in Wales - one closed in 1991 at Trawsfyndd BUT still not decomissioned is in an earthquake zone (!) the other is at Wylfa on Anglesey. A new nuclear station looks on the cards for Wylfa.

I was only a schoolboy at the time of the last attempt to build one at Carnsore Point and missed the protests but I will be on the next anti-nuclear campaign in the unlikely event of an Irish government going down that road.

D'Peoples Voice

Judgement Day wrote:

Nuclear power is a disaster waiting to happen - no way of safely disposing of the waste

thats simply not true, we can easily dispose of the waste.

As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died. Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: "Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury - you name it." Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to "dispose" of cheaply. When I asked Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: "Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention."

so take that back, we CAN dump it off the coast of Somalia like every other civilised European country.
oh wait, you said "safely", I'll take back what I said so.

D'Peoples Voice

I voted get electricity from nuclear stations built abroad!

Robbing someone's post from thepropertypin.com, I see
http://www.thepropertypin.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=17711&hilit=cheaper+electricity&start=90

350 MW from Imera Power's first interconnector due in 2010
500 MW from Eirgrid's interconnector due in 2012
500 MW from Moyle Interconnector already in operation
If Imera Power can build those other interconnectors that it has drawn on that map, then we can realistically look forward to importing around 2,000MW from nuclear power stations in the UK and France at dirt cheap prices! Then we'll have true competition!

gaynorvader

Nuclear reactors are encased in thick walls of granite and lead in order to prevent radiation leaking out, the solution is obvious. Build a reactor in the Wicklow Mountains. We already have the abandoned mines there, if it all goes horribly pear shaped, we can just pour in granite and seal off the mountain. The mountains contain many feet of granite already, so should stop any, if not all radiation from leaking out. Perfect!;)

Delta Kilo

Have a look at this thread. Read the posts by ionix5831 especially. He really knows his stuff about nuclear power and dispelled the usual myths about nuclear power. Like everything else in this country, its all about nimbys and money!


http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055503851

VO

it should be built in Moyross Limerick. It should be built and managed by the crowd that built 5 mile point or The Chernoble Plant

Cousin it

D'Peoples Voice wrote: »

I voted get electricity from nuclear stations built abroad!

Ah yes the NIMBY approach. :rolleyes:

D'Peoples Voice

Cousin it wrote: »

Ah yes the NIMBY approach. :rolleyes:

Call it what you like, but if anyone wants to see the extent of irish expertise in anything, they should look at the project management & construction of the Macken Street bridge and then say they are comfortable with a nuclear plant being built here. It taking years to build a simple bridge FFS! I'd be interested to know if its taking as long as the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco.

Look the Irish can't do anything right - look for gods sake at the Waste Treatment Centre in Ringsend and the odours off that still!!!
Lets not even get into the amount of times the Port tunnel is closed for electrical/technical problems.
Then we spent almost a billion on the Red Cow roundabout and still have traffic lights on the main road for Turnpike road.

I've lived here all my life, I know what I'm talking about.

Macken Street bridge is the extent of our technical abilities.

Let other more technically advanced countries handle things like nuclear power.

hick

Bull Island, Spike Island, innismurray, irelands eye, cape clear etc etc, low or no population islands off the coast

jhegarty

As a big believer in Nuclear I have to say , within 20 miles of my house.

Cabaal

Your missing a poll option, "Your back yard"

extremeweather

I'm sure we could do it properly if we wanted to. We wouldn't be designing a reactor from scratch. I don't know anything about the industry but I would presume that plants can be built by contractors on a turnkey basis nowadays so our technical competence wouldn't be an issue. It may even be possible to specify a "build and operate" contract and we just agree to buy the electricity.

Dealing with the waste is a huge problem alright. And I trust our waste industry a lot less than our electricity industry. Another poll? Send it to Sellafield for reprocessing? Or maybe to jhegarty's backyard

Judgement Day

I particularly like the thoughtful approach adopted by all those who voted for Moneypoint as a good option - does the direction of the prevailing winds mean nothing? An accident there could result in most of the country being contaminated.

under the wicklow mountains?:pac:

Phototoxin

surely its hypocritical to say we dont want it as we buy a lot of electicity rom countries that use a lot of nuclear power anyway?

Also given that its ireland I'm sure all the rich people will find a way to benefit from it anyway while making sure that it's actually a half arsed job.

robtri

just build a big old pipe and import the elleccy....
cheapest and quickest way...

if we where to go down the nuclear route, firstly it would take around 3 years of planning then 15 to 17 years of construction and commissioning and another 15 years to make profit.......
not the brightest thing we could do here....

Fairdues

I should imagine the most popular place most people would suggest for a nuclear station would be - NOT IN MY BACK YARD - (Nimby)

gaynorvader

Deleted User wrote: »

under the wicklow mountains?:pac:

Why not?

D'Peoples Voice

Fairdues wrote: »

I should imagine the most popular place most people would suggest for a nuclear station would be - NOT IN MY BACK YARD - (Nimby)

It makes perfect sense - specialize in what you've a comparative advantage in. I believe thats the economic theory put forward by the Classicals such as David Ricardo but i may be wrong.
Ireland has no comparative advantage in nuclear so why build it. the way I see it is that nuclear power stations should strive to achieve economies of scale, so they should be built in larger countries where such economies of scale can be achieved.
We will have over 13,117 MW of non-wind power capacity installed & 2,500 MW of wind-power installed with a max demand for 5,200MW.

Do we need nuclear? Before you answer that, just think how long it has taken to get planning permission for incineration units in this country!

SeanW

Judgement Day wrote: »

Nuclear power is a disaster waiting to happen - no way of safely disposing of the waste, the crazy unknown costs of decomissioning, safety while operating, open to terrorist attack.....:eek:
...
I was only a schoolboy at the time of the last attempt to build one at Carnsore Point and missed the protests but I will be on the next anti-nuclear campaign in the unlikely event of an Irish government going down that road.

Methinks JD has been reading (or writing?) too much Greenpeace eco-whacko propoganda.

In any case, if you do show up at a hypothetical "no nuclear here" protest, I shall start a campaign to built the peat or coal fired power plant we will have to build instead, in your 'backyard'

D'Peoples Voice wrote: »

thats simply not true, we can easily dispose of the waste.

so take that back, we CAN dump it off the coast of Somalia like every other civilised European country.
oh wait, you said "safely", I'll take back what I said so.

So on top of dumping radioactive materials, they've also been dumping permanent toxins like lead, mercury and cadmium into the Gulf of Aden, tracable back to European factories and hospitals - was there some point in posting this other than to remind us all that the Mafia are scumbags?

VO wrote: »

it should be built in Moyross Limerick. It should be built and managed by the crowd that built 5 mile point or The Chernoble Plant

Considering that you didn't identify the plants in either accident correctly (3 Mile Island and Chernobyl) this goes some way towards explaining why you're so ill informed on nuclear power generally. You remind me of myself, about 4 years ago.

jhegarty wrote: »

As a big believer in Nuclear I have to say , within 20 miles of my house.

Amen brother!

As to where to put a hypothetical nuclear power plant?
For a traditional large-nuclear facility, I would say Central Eastern Meath. It would efficiently serve Dublin City as well as some of the Midlands and possibly Southern NI.

But for Irelands small market, I would much prefer a nationwide layout of Toshiba "Micro Nuke" nuclear batteries.
Coming in capacities from 10MW to 50MW, the specifications call for these plant to be encased in concrete underground, with only a control room on the surface, no need for local engineering or refuelling during the plants lifetime, and it would immediately shut up the Greenpeace eco-whackos with their "but the terrorists are going to fly a plane into it" scaremongering.

Putting one of these for example in each town and large city would effectively give us a decentralised grid, without having to go crazy with "smart" grids connected to the public Internet (which is presumably what the likes of Greenpeace wants with all this "Windmilles Uber Alles" crap, that would be nothing more than a recipe for an e-9/11.
Which, much like the first, would give governments an even bigger pretext to destroy what remains of our personal freedoms, similar to the attacks on the U.S. power grid that are now being used as a pretext to create a "Cybersecurity Czar" with an obscene amount of power.
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/blog.php?view=16599

Judgement Day

''As to where to put a hypothetical nuclear power plant?
For a traditional large-nuclear facility, I would say Central Eastern Meath. It would effectively take out Dublin City as well as some of the Midlands and possibly Southern Ireland"


Corrected that for you. :D

Eddiethehill

Duleek, in the Nanny valley.
Any community that builds an estate on a flood plain deserves all the landfills, incinerators, and nuclear power plants.
Is Mise...

djpbarry

SeanW wrote: »

But for Irelands small market, I would much prefer a nationwide layout of Toshiba "Micro Nuke" nuclear batteries.
Coming in capacities from 10MW to 50MW, the specifications call for these plant to be encased in concrete underground, with only a control room on the surface...
...
Putting one of these for example in each town and large city would effectively give us a decentralised grid...

Any idea how much such a project would cost? And what happens when these "batteries" expire?

AngryHippie

We've been suffering the environmental effects of it anyway, up along our east coast, so why not get some juice out of it. I think in with our arse crack history of public projects, it would be obsolete or unfeasible by the time the foundations had been poured. Buy British !?:rolleyes:

SeanW

djpbarry wrote: »

Any idea how much such a project would cost? And what happens when these "batteries" expire?

I don't have figures off hand. I only know that nuclear power is the only (near) CO2 free, and free of other pollutants, form of dependable baseline supply power genereation. It's also the only form of baseline form of power supply where you can store the fuel in any efficient way - as opposed to natural gas where we're going to be depending on a 3000km long pipeline from Russia, and they could turn off the taps and leave us in the dark if we take a political stance they don't like or (more likely) go bankrupt and no longer be able to pay the bill. The environmental and national security benefits must thusly be considered first.

As to what happens when the 'batteries' expire in about 30 years? If you're referring to the nuclear waste there are proven strategies for dealing with it. It can be vitrified in boroscilicate glass, where such a container would take a million years to degrade even if completely subsumed in water. The most widely taken option is to put it in containers of this kind into a big hole miles below the Earths surface, like in Finland and the U.S. and there are other options too.

Even if waste disposal were an issue, you must pose the same question to advocates of fossil fuels (Greenpeace, the Green Party and other eco-whackos - I'm looking at you!) what happens when the alternative to nuclear power is used? Renewables are too small in scale and dependent on the weather to be a viable alternative so in the absence of nuclear energy we must default to fossil fuels. When you burn coal, not only do you release an obscene amount of Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere but there are also mercury, arsenic, cadmium and a few other elements of a toxic witches brew, radiotoxins like Urnaium and Thorium, but also Acid Rain compounds like Sulphur Dioxide and Nitrous Oxides. Norway for example spends NOK100,000,000 annually dumping lime into their lakes and rivers to prevent their aquatic ecosystems from being completely destroyed by SO2 and NoX compounds from Southern European coal burners.
Something which is due to be accelerated as Germany goes on a coal-fired plant building spree the likes of which are not be seen except in China.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,472786,00.html

Here in Ireland, we've not only gone down the road of coal, with Moneypoint et al and handed our soveirgnty over to the Russians with gas, but we've also given Bord Na Mona a mandate to completely destroy our bogland ecosphere - and contribute to global warming at the highest rate per kw/h - by milling peat to supply our insane demands for non-nuclear electricity.

Who is responsible for all this? You are. You, the hippies who went down to the Carnsore Point protests to keep us dependent on traditional thermal energy. You who reads and reguritates wholesale some crap you read on Greenpeace or some eco whack Green Party speech. You who believe and prepetuate spin and scaremongering over fact and reason.

I want a clean energy supply that we can depend on. I don't want to hand our soveigrnty over to a small cadre of fossil fuel suppliers. I don't want to pollute the ecosphere with acid rain, carbon dioxide and invisible toxins. That's why I want nuclear power, because I KNOW we can do better.

Some recommended viewing for the anti nukes here:
An American youtube commentator makes the points much more succinctly than I can.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf4y8fWTp5Y

A BBC documentary detailing the Chernobyl accident - that is, what actually happened there, not what those Greenpeace twats told you happened.
http://pripyat.com/en/media/bbc.html

djpbarry

SeanW wrote: »

As to what happens when the 'batteries' expire in about 30 years? If you're referring to the nuclear waste there are proven strategies for dealing with it.

Oh I’m well aware of the “proven strategies” for dealing with nuclear waste, which generally involve burying it in a big hole in the ground. How much will that cost?

But anyway, that’s not really what I was referring to. I mean literally, what happens when the batteries “expire”? Do we refuel them? How much will that cost?

Is the Toshiba 4S actually in use anywhere?

SeanW wrote: »

Here in Ireland, we've not only gone down the road of coal, with Moneypoint et al and handed our soveirgnty over to the Russians with gas...

As I’ve said before on nuclear-related threads, I believe the threat of Russia turning off the gas taps to the EU is greatly overstated; Russia needs the EU far more than the EU needs Russia.

gaynorvader

Judgement Day wrote: »

''As to where to put a hypothetical nuclear power plant?
For a traditional large-nuclear facility, I would say Central Eastern Meath. It would effectively take out Dublin City as well as some of the Midlands and possibly Southern Ireland"


Corrected that for you. :D

EDIT: Evidence Please.

Judgement Day

gaynorvader wrote: »

EDIT: Evidence Please.

What evidence do you need? Ever hear of Chernobyl or Three Mile Island or Windscale ...or all those near misses that have been quietly hushed up?

If, God help us a nuclear power station was ever built in Ireland it should be built in the SE tip of the country where the fallout would be most likely to end up contaminating the Irish Sea and SW England rather than Dublin City! Common sense dictates that you would build a nuclear power station where an accident, however unlikely, would cause the least damage. Why do you think the Brits built most of there power stations in Third World parts of the UK like Cumbria and North Wales? Come to think of it I am surprised they didn't build them all over NI - probably considered it too much of a security risk.

gaynorvader

Judgement Day wrote: »

What evidence do you need? Ever hear of Chernobyl or Three Mile Island or Windscale ...or all those near misses that have been quietly hushed up?

If, God help us a nuclear power station was ever built in Ireland it should be built in the SE tip of the country where the fallout would be most likely to end up contaminating the Irish Sea and SW England rather than Dublin City! Common sense dictates that you would build a nuclear power station where an accident, however unlikely, would cause the least damage. Why do you think the Brits built most of there power stations in Third World parts of the UK like Cumbria and North Wales? Come to think of it I am surprised they didn't build them all over NI - probably considered it too much of a security risk.

Chernobyl is a bad example, as it was neglected and left in dangerous disrepair. Not to mention the fact that it was build over 50 years ago. Techniques have definitely improved since then! Plus Wales is hardly third world The reason they failed to build them in the North was probably something to do with an organisation called the IRA.;)

EDIT: Also, both the other accidents you mentioned happened ages ago!

Judgement Day

gaynorvader wrote: »

Chernobyl is a bad example, as it was neglected and left in dangerous disrepair. Not to mention the fact that it was build over 50 years ago. Techniques have definitely improved since then! Plus Wales is hardly third world The reason they failed to build them in the North was probably something to do with an organisation called the IRA.;)

EDIT: Also, both the other accidents you mentioned happened ages ago!

As far as the British Government is concerned civilisation ends North of the Watford Gap (as it happens I agree) and places such as Cumbria and North Wales are regarded as the Third World by those in officialdom. I already alluded to the 'boys' in my reference to security being the reason no nuclear power stations were built in NI. As for 3 Mile Island and Windscale being ages ago that does not invalidate safety concerns about existing/future plants. How many nearer misses have there been - we will never know!

gaynorvader

Judgement Day wrote: »

As far as the British Government is concerned civilisation ends North of the Watford Gap (as it happens I agree) and places such as Cumbria and North Wales are regarded as the Third World by those in officialdom.

I don't know one way or another if this is true or not, so I'll trust to your knowledge.

Judgement Day wrote:

I already alluded to the 'boys' in my reference to security being the reason no nuclear power stations were built in NI.

Apologies.:o

Judgement Day wrote:

As for 3 Mile Island and Windscale being ages ago that does not invalidate safety concerns about existing/future plants. How many nearer misses have there been - we will never know!

Of course being over 50 years ago makes a HUGE difference! Computers 50 years ago were a joke compared to the ones we have now, plus the technology was new, so they weren't entirely sure of the best way to maintain it! We have more experience now and the sophistication of computers allows for much more stringent safety protocols to be implemented. Comparing the safety of nuclear power plants now to fifty years ago would be like comparing aircraft in WW2 to aircraft at the turn of the century! There's no comparison!:pac:

SeanW

djpbarry wrote: »

Oh I’m well aware of the “proven strategies” for dealing with nuclear waste, which generally involve burying it in a big hole in the ground. How much will that cost?

For Ireland? I honestly don't know. I would need to get an epxert cost appraisal. And there would be no point in trying because we've got a government that won't even allow energy companies to look for Uranium, or to even consider nuclear issues, except in a terrified "NO MORE CHERNOBYLS" way.

But anyway, that’s not really what I was referring to. I mean literally, what happens when the batteries “expire”? Do we refuel them? How much will that cost?

My understanding is that for the Toshiba 4S, the reactor comes with the fuel load to be used during its design lifetime. I don't expect they would be refuelled.

Is the Toshiba 4S actually in use anywhere?

There is a plan to build one in Galena, Alaska. I belive it's in license-application stage with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

As I’ve said before on nuclear-related threads, I believe the threat of Russia turning off the gas taps to the EU is greatly overstated; Russia needs the EU far more than the EU needs Russia.

You cannot possibly be serious? Russia may need the EUs cash (which I think is overstated) but we need the lights to stay on a lot more - depending day to day on a 3000km pipeline from Russia is just such a bad idea on so many levels.

1. Our economies are in shambles, partly because we don't produce anything anymore. We buy our goods from Asia, our oil from the Middle East, and our gas from Russia and sell them no goods or services to right the balance of trade. So this situation is sustainable only in as much as we keep printing dollars, Euros and Pounds, and they keep taking them. Eventually that will end, or come back to bite us in the backside. Or both.
2. Russia has shown no hesitation to play "pipeline politics." Witness the constant problems Russia has with its neighbors, the Ukraine, Estonia, Georgia - twice supplies to Europe have been cut because of disagreements with the Ukrainians, conspiracy theorists believe that Russia's quarrel with Estonia a few years ago had nothing to do with that silly Red statue their government wanted to move to a military cemetary, and more to do with a pipeline the Russians want to build in waters Estonia claims as its own. Furthermore, at the time of that whole brouhaha, the Estonian government website were hit by massive DDOS attacks - originiting from Russia!
   Also in their war on Georgia, the Russians tried to bomb the BTC (Baku Tiblisi Ceyhan) pipeline, which is the only pipeline taking hydrocarbons from the Caspian Sea westwards without going through Russia.
   
   Furthermore, Russia's on its way back to Communism and has been for the last while - with Mr. KGB man Vladimir Putin and his clique running the country for the last decade, Russia is up to its old tricks in a new millenium.
   Communism is an ideology which has plunged its victims into a nightmare of poverty and despair. I don't think Putin and his cronies would hesitate for one second to turn off the taps if they felt like it regardless of how much they do or do not need the cash.
3. Even if the arrangmenet is not politically dangerous, there is also the phsyical pipeline itself to worry about - we are at the end of some really long ones going from Siberia, and even a small rupture anywhere between Siberia/The Caspian Sea and Ireland, would leave us in the dark very quickly as gas cannot economically be stored. Such a thing could happen by accident or as a result of terrorism, and is a much bigger possibility than the same happening to a nuclear system.
4. Relating to point 3, nuclear fuels have the advantage of being both solid and minimal by volume per kw/h. One oft quoted figure by the World Nuclear Association states that one truckload of Uranium (2 tons) = 25 trainloads of coal (260,000 tons). http://www.world-nuclear.org/education/ueg.htm
   Between this and the fact that nuclear plants generally use a single fuel loading for a long time (anything from 3 months to a year between fuel loadings at a traditional reactor) you can thusly see that a stockpile of nuclear fuel is the only economical way to store energy, either on a day to day basis or as part of a strategic energy reserve.

What evidence do you need? Ever hear of Chernobyl or Three Mile Island or Windscale ...or all those near misses that have been quietly hushed up?

Something other than disingenuous Greenpeace spin? First of all, the TMI accident did not cause significant damage to the environment, neither did the Windscale accident despite silly urban legends of it having caused Downs Syndrome births, an urban legend that has been proven false.

As for Chernobyl, Greenpeace would like you to believe that accidents of that kind, as well as huge mountains of waste, obscene levels weapons proliferation and every kind of horrible evil imagineable, are all inevitable results of using nuclear electricity. Specifically:

Greenpeace's website wrote:

Despite what the nuclear industry tells us, building enough nuclear power stations to make a meaningful reduction in greenhouse gas emissions would cost trillions of dollars, create tens of thousands of tons of lethal high-level radioactive waste, contribute to further proliferation of nuclear weapons materials, and result in a Chernobyl-scale accident once every decade.

They are liars and by repeating these lies, you show your ignorance. When someone makes a statement like this, a logical person has a right to demand clear and conclusive evidence, which garynovader did.

The facts about Chernobyl clearly demonstrate that it could only have happened in the former Soviet Union or someplace with a likewise secretive and morally and financially bankrupt government on a similar scale. I suggest you do some unbiased research (if that is possible) into the accident itself, and by that I don't mean replying with pictures of poor little Natasha from Belarus.

Grudaire

Surely this option: "Nowhere. We should not consider using nuclear power." should read "It is my opinion that nuclear is not the best option", rather then putting words in mouths?!


It's is my understanding that Nuclear power is not the best option, not on a safety basis, but on a general environmental basis. It is a fact that the waste is not easily disposed, and by disposing it we just lock it up for years until it becomes less radioactive. Nuclear plants are a pain to decommission. Two solutions exist - dispose of tons (many many) of radioactive concrete etc, or leave the plant there for hundreds of years.

Secondly Nuclear power is unreliable. In a small country like this we would be rightly screwed if one or two power plants stop working. And I agree with this argument against wind power, but the number of plants that this country could support is so few that we would need to keep current facilities open to provide for this

djpbarry

SeanW wrote: »

You cannot possibly be serious? Russia may need the EUs cash (which I think is overstated) but we need the lights to stay on a lot more - depending day to day on a 3000km pipeline from Russia is just such a bad idea on so many levels.

The EU depends on Russia for about 25% of its gas, but Russia is dependent on the EU for more than 50% of its gas exports. If the Russians turn off the gas taps to the EU, who is going to pick up the slack for them? They’ll have a load of gas with nobody to sell it to.

SeanW wrote: »

Even if the arrangmenet is not politically dangerous, there is also the phsyical pipeline itself to worry about - we are at the end of some really long ones going from Siberia…

According to Bord Gáis, Ireland’s imported gas supplies are sourced from the North Sea.

IM0

NIMBY!

Carawaystick

Judgement Day wrote: »

What evidence do you need? Ever hear of Chernobyl or Three Mile Island or Windscale ...or all those near misses that have been quietly hushed up?

If, God help us a nuclear power station was ever built in Ireland it should be built in the SE tip of the country where the fallout would be most likely to end up contaminating the Irish Sea and SW England rather than Dublin City! Common sense dictates that you would build a nuclear power station where an accident, however unlikely, would cause the least damage. Why do you think the Brits built most of there power stations in Third World parts of the UK like Cumbria and North Wales? Come to think of it I am surprised they didn't build them all over NI - probably considered it too much of a security risk.

How many people died as a result of radiation or chemical contamination from 3 Mile Island?
Zero

How many verifiable deaths occurred from the radiation released in the Chernobyl accident?
The UN reckon < 50 so far and a total of about 4000. this is a lot of people, but this accident happened due to a flawed reactor design, run by eejits who did stupid things.


How many people die each year mining Coal for power plants?
in the 6 years 2001 to 2007, more than 4000 miners in China died in mining accidents per year, each year.


The ESB have a pretty good track record in buiding big power generating infrastructure. Ardnacrusha built in 1928, still going -
Turlough Hill built in 1974, still going strong. Moneypoint, Poolbeg etc.
They are (and pretty much have always been) profitable despite paying their staff crazy money. I'd trust them to operate a nuclear power station, not in my backyard, but just out of sight and upwind of where I live no bother.

Judgement Day

gaynorvader wrote: »

I don't know one way or another if this is true or not, so I'll trust to your knowledge.




Apologies.:o



Of course being over 50 years ago makes a HUGE difference! Computers 50 years ago were a joke compared to the ones we have now, plus the technology was new, so they weren't entirely sure of the best way to maintain it! We have more experience now and the sophistication of computers allows for much more stringent safety protocols to be implemented. Comparing the safety of nuclear power plants now to fifty years ago would be like comparing aircraft in WW2 to aircraft at the turn of the century! There's no comparison!:pac:

Three Mile Island was 30 years ago (!) in, arguably, the most developed nation on the planet. If the reactor had achieved meltdown nobody really knows what the consequences would have been but possibly catastrophic on a global scale. :eek:

Judgement Day

Carawaystick ...you're like the UK MP who tried to argue that loads of people died in the Aberfan in 1966 therefore coal fired power stations are as dangerous as nuclear power stations. 144 died at Aberfan - very tragic - but people hundreds of miles away were not affected and people were not suffering from the after affects years later! :mad:

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

djpbarry

Judgement Day wrote: »

Three Mile Island was 30 years ago (!) in, arguably, the most developed nation on the planet. If the reactor had achieved meltdown...

But it didn't. So-called "nuclear disasters" are extremely rare events and their impacts are usually grossly exaggerated. Besides, accidents tend to lead to tighter regulations - if something went wrong in the past, it's likely that measures have been put in place to ensure it doesn't happen again. The same is true of the aviation industry, for example. Planes have crashed in the past; does that mean that nobody should ever fly again?

Judgement Day

I think that a look at this frightening Wikipedia link

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

says enough for further uninformed comment (from me) to be pointless. The China Syndrome is so utterly terrifying that it is difficult to come to terms with. If you think the Shell to Sea protests are getting bad wait and see what will happen if the powers that be try to ram nuclear power down our throats!

djpbarry

Judgement Day wrote: »

I think that a look at this frightening Wikipedia link

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

says enough for further uninformed comment (from me) to be pointless.

Indeed. Under the section entitled "Meltdowns that have occurred", you'll note that most of these incidents occured in the early days of nuclear power, with the most recent meltdown being that pin-up of the anti-nuke brigade, Chernobyl.

SeanW

djpbarry wrote: »

The EU depends on Russia for about 25% of its gas, but Russia is dependent on the EU for more than 50% of its gas exports. If the Russians turn off the gas taps to the EU, who is going to pick up the slack for them? They’ll have a load of gas with nobody to sell it to.
According to Bord Gáis, Ireland’s imported gas supplies are sourced from the North Sea.

The Chinese? There are 1.3 billion of them, getting richer quickly, and ravenously demanding energy. Unlike us, they also have lots of real money.
Even if the Russians don't have an alternative buyer, you have to remember that communists have no qualms about plunging their people into poverty and despair - as these are apparently central planks of communism - and Putin comes from a distinct KGB background. While they might not cut off supplies at the drop of a hat, I believe your argument understates the potential of them using it as a political weapon.

The North Sea fields are depleting quickly and I don't think our fields will be adequate to replace them.
However we may have a significant amount of Uranium in Donegal.

Judgement Day wrote: »

Three Mile Island was 30 years ago (!) in, arguably, the most developed nation on the planet. If the reactor had achieved meltdown nobody really knows what the consequences would have been but possibly catastrophic on a global scale. :eek:

False.

1. Unlike Chernobyl, Three Mile Island had full double containment vessels. Chernobyl only had a single partial containment vessel which was more of an afterthough in design, and was incapable of protecting the environment against a meltdown.
2. The Chernobyl-4 reactor had a dangerously large Positive Void Co-efficient. That means once the chain reaction started to get out of control - particularly from 12% of output which is where it started from in the botched "safety" test - the laws of physics demanded the reaction level continue to increase and become more difficult to control.
   This is why the RBMK reactor type was never used outside of the Former Soviet Union.
   The plant operators also acted with a total disregard for safety, which would be much more unlikely to happen outside the former Soviet Union.
   
   Neither of these factors affected Three Mile Island.

You either don't know how the Chernobyl accident occurred, and how it differs to the admittedly serious incidents in the West, or you are pursuing an agenda. Please get your facts straight.

Judgement Day wrote: »

Carawaystick ...you're like the UK MP who tried to argue that loads of people died in the Aberfan in 1966 therefore coal fired power stations are as dangerous as nuclear power stations. 144 died at Aberfan - very tragic - but people hundreds of miles away were not affected and people were not suffering from the after affects years later! :mad:

Again, I have to call NONSENSE on this. Coal burning has two dangerous downsides - the danger of deep shaft coal mining and the pollution from burning.

The Earth Policy Institute in the U.S. believes that the emissions from coal fired power plants cause 25000 premature deaths and a whole load of illnesses in America every year.
http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update42.htm
Going further to state that due to mercury emissions from coal fired power plants, potentially 1 in 6 babies are a risk of brain damage from mercury absorbtion in the womb.

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory goes further, stating specifically here among other things
http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html


And none of this even begins to explore the damage done by our dependence of coal fired power.

Your attempts to suggest that with coal, all we have to worry about is the odd misplaced slag heap is transparently disingenuous.

Grudaire

Nobodies dealing with my post :mad: I suppose I better deal with some of yours...

SeanW wrote: »

But for Irelands small market, I would much prefer a nationwide layout of Toshiba "Micro Nuke" nuclear batteries.
Coming in capacities from 10MW to 50MW, the specifications call for these plant to be encased in concrete underground, with only a control room on the surface, no need for local engineering or refuelling during the plants lifetime, and it would immediately shut up the Greenpeace eco-whackos with their "but the terrorists are going to fly a plane into it" scaremongering.

Hmmm, I agree with most of your points, but you haven't dealt with the fact that this is really only in development (According to wikipedia anyway), and it's not as if Ireland is a leading researcher in Nuclear fission.

And can we stop the name calling - sheesh you're the first to mention terrorists in the thread, don't hit yourself then cry about it:rolleyes:

SeanW

Cliste wrote: »

Nobodies dealing with my post :mad: I suppose I better deal with some of yours...

Don't be offended Cliste
It's just that some folks are posting transparent nonsense that I felt had to be dealt with first.

Hmmm, I agree with most of your points, but you haven't dealt with the fact that this is really only in development (According to wikipedia anyway), and it's not as if Ireland is a leading researcher in Nuclear fission.

Both points very much true, but then again Ireland doesn't (yet) have the intellectual maturity to consider nuclear power beyond the realm of scaremongering, and by the time we are if ever, this and an array of other small nuclear technologies will be well matured.

And can we stop the name calling - sheesh you're the first to mention terrorists in the thread, don't hit yourself then cry about it:rolleyes:

You're right again, I really shouldn't lower myself to Greenpeace's level of debating. I am thusly corrected :rolleyes:

Grudaire

SeanW wrote: »

Don't be offended Cliste
It's just that some folks are posting transparent nonsense that I felt had to be dealt with first.

Both points very much true, but then again Ireland doesn't (yet) have the intellectual maturity to consider nuclear power beyond the realm of scaremongering, and by the time we are if ever, this and an array of other small nuclear technologies will be well matured.

You're right again, I really shouldn't lower myself to Greenpeace's level of debating. I am thusly corrected :rolleyes:

I thank you for this post

Now I would like to add that it is my firm belief that Nuclear power, though with a huge capacity to be dangerous, is safe. Most of the arguments about the lack of safety hinge on large incidents (Which were truly tragic). And if we look at the figures it would be very clear that banning all boats and installing nuclear stations everywhere would give the end result of far fewer lives lost!

djpbarry

SeanW wrote: »

The Chinese? There are 1.3 billion of them, getting richer quickly, and ravenously demanding energy.

Energy consumption in China is still way below EU levels and besides, they're far more likely to use their own energy reserves before importing on a large scale.

SeanW wrote: »

Even if the Russians don't have an alternative buyer, you have to remember that communists have no qualms about plunging their people into poverty and despair - as these are apparently central planks of communism - and Putin comes from a distinct KGB background.

Putin is also a major shareholder in Gazprom; losing the custom of the EU would likely result in substantial personal losses. Medvedev also has links with Gazprom, having served as the chair of the organisation's board of directors.

SeanW

djpbarry wrote: »

Energy consumption in China is still way below EU levels and besides, they're far more likely to use their own energy reserves before importing on a large scale.

I doubt it, they're getting richer while we're getting poorer. China is closer to the Caspian Sea than us, the Chinese are even talking about building oil pipelines in Canada just to get tar sand oil as far as the Pacific Ocean! Give it 20 years and there may be no case, either politically or financially to sell gas to the E.U.

Putin is also a major shareholder in Gazprom; losing the custom of the EU would likely result in substantial personal losses. Medvedev also has links with Gazprom, having served as the chair of the organisation's board of directors.

Money may trump politics, but the signs coming out of Russia over the last decade, plus our own battered economics, plus the sheer length of the pipeline involved, simply do not inspire me with confidence.

Judgement Day

Although this item has nothing to do with civil nuclear power, it has everything to do with the cavalier attitude to safety that continues to prevail throughout the entire and secretive nuclear industry.

Of course I am just scaremongering!

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20090427/tuk-safety-fears-at-nuclear-sub-base-6323e80.html

gaynorvader

Nuclear power safety worries seem to be a lot like aircraft safety worries. People (generally) focus on single accidents instead of the overall reliability of the two. For instance, the number of fatalities due to aircraft compared to fatalities due to road vehicles would lead one to believe the sky to be a safer place to be, however more people would believe the inverse of this to be true. The same seems to follow for nuclear power and some of the other power sources. These have already been referenced above, so I won't go into them again. I just wanted to draw a comparison between aircraft and cars and nuclear energy and coal, to show how common perception isn't always correct.

EDIT:

Judgement Day wrote: »

Although this item has nothing to do with civil nuclear power, it has everything to do with the cavalier attitude to safety that continues to prevail throughout the entire and secretive nuclear industry.

Of course I am just scaremongering!

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20090427/tuk-safety-fears-at-nuclear-sub-base-6323e80.html

This report fails to mention the age, state of repair, amount of coolant leaked or anything really significant. While it is worrying that this should've been allowed happen, the report is a long ways from a compelling reason for abandoning nuclear power.