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!