Should we go Nuclear?

ei.sdraob

yawnstretch wrote: »

Right now the human race needs to be scaling back industrialization.

You go first so, start by switching off and recycling your computer.

yawnstretch

ei.sdraob wrote: »

You go first so, start by switching off and recycling your computer.

My personal efforts towards sustainability are reasonable but I can achieve more by convincing others to come with me.

I'll leave this thread and reduce the energy it takes to maintain it if you agree not to pursue nuclear technology?

paul75

Japan is a country that essentially resides on a massive fault line. It developed it's nuclear power program in the wake of the oil crisis in the 70's so as to ensure it's energy security.
Along comes the biggest earthquake in 200 years and subsequent tsunami and still there is no meltdown. A few employees were exposed to radiation. How many people have been killed working in the oil/gas fired power stations.

Lets go nuclear! Not in my back yard though, let's build it on the Aran islands!

mgmt

paul75 wrote: »

Japan is a country that essentially resides on a massive fault line. It developed it's nuclear power program in the wake of the oil crisis in the 70's so as to ensure it's energy security.
Along comes the biggest earthquake in 200 years and subsequent tsunami and still there is no meltdown. A few employees were exposed to radiation. How many people have been killed working in the oil/gas fired power stations.

Lets go nuclear! Not in my back yard though, let's build it on the Aran islands!

Have you watched the news? 3 of the reactors have melted down.

paul75

mgmt wrote: »

Have you watched the news? 3 of the reactors have melted down.

Ha ha - no core meltdown mate, just core overheating which is now under control. Core meltdown is what chernobyl was, which this ain't

ei.sdraob

Crowd-Sourced Radiation Maps

use the XKCD poster posted earlier as reference...

robd

yawnstretch wrote: »

I'd love to believe that the waste is safely recycled or only lasts 40 years but when I hear about mountains being stuffed full of waste for millions of years I remember that nuclear has always been marketed as clean and safe.

Uranium, Plutonium, etc. are radioactive in their natural form. When we mine them we concentrate them. When we use them we concentrate them further. So in essence what we are doing when we put it in a mountain is simply concentrating that which exists naturally already. Up close, without containment, in it's concentrated from it is dangerous, but as it decays it becomes less so. A small amount within a large mountain is not dangerous to the mountain itself, no more dangerous than in it's natural from that it's extracted from the ground.

yawnstretch

robd wrote: »

Uranium, Plutonium, etc. are radioactive in their natural form. When we mine them we concentrate them. When we use them we concentrate them further. So in essence what we are doing when we put it in a mountain is simply concentrating that which exists naturally already. Up close, without containment, in it's concentrated from it is dangerous, but as it decays it becomes less so. A small amount within a large mountain is not dangerous to the mountain itself, no more dangerous than in it's natural from that it's extracted from the ground.

It's not dispersed throughout the rock to anything near the original less harmful concentration.

Separate point - Today we know little about civilizations from a couple of thousand years ago. Who's going to tell the locals of the future to stay away from the mountain? If someone from a couple of thousand years ago hid something somewhere would we know about it today?

The concentrated material will be released into the environment at some point. (via river or whatever). The more we produce the worse the outcome. People today won't have to worry as much but we're damaging the environment for humanity longterm.

If we could do our nuclear generation someplace safe (i.e. not on the only known habitable ecosystem for hundreds of thousands of light years) I'd be more amenable.

robd

yawnstretch wrote: »

It's not dispersed throughout the rock to anything near the original less harmful concentration.

Separate point - Today we know little about civilizations from a couple of thousand years ago. Who's going to tell the locals of the future to stay away from the mountain? If someone from a couple of thousand years ago hid something somewhere would we know about it today?

The concentrated material will be released into the environment at some point. (via river or whatever). The more we produce the worse the outcome. People today won't have to worry as much but we're damaging the environment for humanity longterm.

If we could do our nuclear generation someplace safe (i.e. not on the only known habitable ecosystem for hundreds of thousands of light years) I'd be more amenable.

It most certainly would be after 100 years. Plus it's stored within a containment vessel anyway to stop dispersal.

You can't compare civilisations of 2000 years ago to day. We have sophisticated methods of communication and archival of communication not available even 100 years ago.

dubhthach

Thorium produces 1/40th the waste of Uranium reactors (no plutonium or other long lived wastes). It's also considerably more abundant and requires alot less mining. For example 1 tonne of Thorium is enough to fuel a 1 GW powerstation for a year. It only requires 200 Tonnes of ore to be mined.

In comparison a 1 GW Uranium reactor requires the mining of 800,000 tonnes of ore to produce 39 tonnes of fuel. The fact that it doesn't produce any Plutonium as a byproduct is why Thorium reactors weren't built as they couldn't be used to produce Plutonium for nuclear weapons.

SeanW

yawnstretch wrote: »

My personal efforts towards sustainability are reasonable but I can achieve more by convincing others to come with me.

I'll leave this thread and reduce the energy it takes to maintain it if you agree not to pursue nuclear technology?

I've got a better idea: you find a way to circumvent the laws of physics, which is the only way you're going to make renewable energy work, and I will wholeheartedly "agree not to pursue nuclear technology"

The concentrated material will be released into the environment at some point. (via river or whatever). The more we produce the worse the outcome. People today won't have to worry as much but we're damaging the environment for humanity longterm.

The nuclear process does not create any radioactivity. It simply speeds up the rate of radioactive decay, making for more radiation in the short term.

This is in opposition to nuclear's competition: coal, where the carbon dioxide emitted from that (1.2kg per kw/h for brown coal) will allegedly contribute to global warming for at least 10,000 years, cause acid rain to destroy anything it falls on in the near term, and as for the toxic witches brew of poisons (mercury, arsenic etc) those are permanent. As is, BTW, the solid waste matter you get if you attempt "clean" coal ... that stuff is physically much less stable and must be entombed FOREVER.

There a number of things you can do to reduce/eliminate the waste from nuclear. First you can reprocess spent fuels. But the eco-whacko lobby would have kittens if you suggested it. There is also the idea of Subduction Zone Burial, where waste is guided down to a subduction zone, where the movement of tectonic plates would bring it down into the Earth's core, never to be seen again, where ironically the same Earth's core is kept hot by radioactive decay. But this unfortunately is illegal and again, the eco-whacko lobby would have kittens if it were suggested seriously.

Failing that, yes, you dig a hole deep enough into the ground so that it will never be seen again, and should our civilisation totally collapse, future societies would never know, or need to know about the waste. For this I'm thinking of a hole several miles deep, with the waste entombed in boroscilicate (sp?) glass

Idbatterim

just to simplify things, in the case of Fukushima, is it not the case that a taller wall, could have avoided the whole incident? this unbelievable earth quake and subsequent tsunami hit Japan, ONE nuclear facility experiences problems, these design flaws could easily be corrected. Its nearly an endorsement for nuclear power!

TEPCO had apparently not anticipated a tsunami as big as the one that damaged the plant.[89] The plant was designed to withstand a tsunami of up to 5.7 meters in height, but the one that hit the plant after the quake was estimated, by TEPCO, to have reached 14 meters.[90] However, in addition to concerns from within Japan, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had previously expressed concern about the ability of Japan's nuclear plants to withstand seismic activity.[91]

yawnstretch

robd wrote: »

It most certainly would be after 100 years. Plus it's stored within a containment vessel anyway to stop dispersal.

You can't compare civilisations of 2000 years ago to day. We have sophisticated methods of communication and archival of communication not available even 100 years ago.

Did you even read the article I posted from the NY times? It will still be a problem in 100 years.

If you want to learn about archiving using our "sophisticated methods" do a google for digital dark ages or search slashdot for long term archive solutions. You've no idea what you're talking about. Archiving information beyond 10 years is a challenge never mind the durations we're discussing!

yawnstretch

dubhthach wrote: »

Thorium produces 1/40th the waste of Uranium reactors (no plutonium or other long lived wastes). It's also considerably more abundant and requires alot less mining. For example 1 tonne of Thorium is enough to fuel a 1 GW powerstation for a year. It only requires 200 Tonnes of ore to be mined.

In comparison a 1 GW Uranium reactor requires the mining of 800,000 tonnes of ore to produce 39 tonnes of fuel. The fact that it doesn't produce any Plutonium as a byproduct is why Thorium reactors weren't built as they couldn't be used to produce Plutonium for nuclear weapons.

To be fair about Thorium - I'm still researching the details so please note that my comments are not directed at it until I know more.

yawnstretch

SeanW wrote: »

I've got a better idea: you find a way to circumvent the laws of physics, which is the only way you're going to make renewable energy work, and I will wholeheartedly "agree not to pursue nuclear technology"

The nuclear process does not create any radioactivity. It simply speeds up the rate of radioactive decay, making for more radiation in the short term.

This is in opposition to nuclear's competition: coal, where the carbon dioxide emitted from that (1.2kg per kw/h for brown coal) will allegedly contribute to global warming for at least 10,000 years, cause acid rain to destroy anything it falls on in the near term, and as for the toxic witches brew of poisons (mercury, arsenic etc) those are permanent. As is, BTW, the solid waste matter you get if you attempt "clean" coal ... that stuff is physically much less stable and must be entombed FOREVER.

There a number of things you can do to reduce/eliminate the waste from nuclear. First you can reprocess spent fuels. But the eco-whacko lobby would have kittens if you suggested it. There is also the idea of Subduction Zone Burial, where waste is guided down to a subduction zone, where the movement of tectonic plates would bring it down into the Earth's core, never to be seen again, where ironically the same Earth's core is kept hot by radioactive decay. But this unfortunately is illegal and again, the eco-whacko lobby would have kittens if it were suggested seriously.

Failing that, yes, you dig a hole deep enough into the ground so that it will never be seen again, and should our civilisation totally collapse, future societies would never know, or need to know about the waste. For this I'm thinking of a hole several miles deep, with the waste entombed in boroscilicate (sp?) glass

The laws of physics do not need to be circumvented. Our attitudes towards production, distribution and consumption of energy on the other hand need drastic reconsideration if our rapidly diminishing habitat is to be preserved.

Old fashioned thinking about centralized rather than local power production don't make sense any more. Energy efficiency coupled with personal energy production will solve most of our problems. For industry we still need larger power plants but for home use we are being incredibly inefficient.

I know a few folk who don't pay for electricity at all (and they're only using partial renewables - not even combinations). We are sending megawatts across the country for people to reheat water to have a shower. Instead we could save on transmission wastage by using local solar/gravity-water based turbines/ geo-thermal/wave energy for those near the shore/ wind energy.

The problem is there's less profit. It's like Teslas wireless electricity. No one wanted it because theres no easy way to charge people for it.

dubhthach

yawnstretch wrote: »

The laws of physics do not need to be circumvented. Our attitudes towards production, distribution and consumption of energy on the other hand need drastic reconsideration if our rapidly diminishing habitat is to be preserved.

Old fashioned thinking about centralized rather than local power production don't make sense any more. Energy efficiency coupled with personal energy production will solve most of our problems. For industry we still need larger power plants but for home use we are being incredibly inefficient.

I know a few folk who don't pay for electricity at all (and they're only using partial renewables - not even combinations). We are sending megawatts across the country for people to reheat water to have a shower. Instead we could save on transmission wastage by using local solar/gravity-water based turbines/ geo-thermal/wave energy for those near the shore/ wind energy.

The problem is there's less profit. It's like Teslas wireless electricity. No one wanted it because theres no easy way to charge people for it.

Well if the world population stood still then we wouldn't have to worry. Instead it's predicted to grow to 9.2billion people by 2050, the current population is estimated at 6.9billion and will hit the 7 billion mark within the next 12 months. This would mean that the population of the planet has almost doubled in the 41 years since 1970 (3.6 billion)

Without electricity you cannot run a modern economy, these people will need power, the chinese for example are opening a new coal power station every week, however they have even realise that the environmental damage this is doing is unsustainable, thence them announcing that they are spending huge amount of money on thorium reactor development. It's basically going to allow China to leap ahead of the west in terms of R&D of power generation. It could potentially do for China what the Rural-Electrification/Interesate system/Manhatten Project did for America -- make them a world-leader.

yawnstretch

dubhthach wrote: »

Well if the world population stood still then we wouldn't have to worry. Instead it's predicted to grow to 9.2billion people by 2050, the current population is estimated at 6.9billion and will hit the 7 billion mark within the next 12 months. This would mean that the population of the planet has almost doubled in the 41 years since 1970 (3.6 billion)

Without electricity you cannot run a modern economy, these people will need power, the chinese for example are opening a new coal power station every week, however they have even realise that the environmental damage this is doing is unsustainable, thence them announcing that they are spending huge amount of money on thorium reactor development. It's basically going to allow China to leap ahead of the west in terms of R&D of power generation. It could potentially do for China what the Rural-Electrification/Interesate system/Manhatten Project did for America -- make them a world-leader.

We coule be a world leader in renewables. Why follow when you can lead?

dubhthach

yawnstretch wrote: »

We coule be a world leader in renewables. Why follow when you can lead?

Renewables such as wind do not provide for base-load. As been pointed out many times on this an other threads there's about 2GW of installed wind power in Ireland however sometimes you only get 20MW of power out of it -- this what happened during Winter cold spot when we had a surge in electricity consumption but hardly any power production from installed wind-plant.

TBH I do agree that we need to be conserving energy through the use of:

1. Properly built houses which require low energy input to power
2. Use of solar water heating / ground pumps etc

This will save energy however we need to be able to guarantee a minimal amount of power at all times (99.999% of time -- 5 nines) during the 70's there was often a case that there were rolling blackouts/brownouts due to lack of power to deal with the load, this had a major impact regarding industry, in modern day it's even more of an issue especially with all this talk of pushing Ireland as a center for Cloud computing (lots and lots of Data-centers been built).

yawnstretch

Yep. There's a lot to this discussion and a lot to consider. At least people aren't just blindly sticking to oil, coal etc. so that's a good sign.

Hopefully in 50 years time we can look back and be glad so much thought went into it.

Sponge Bob

yawnstretch wrote: »

Hopefully in 50 years time we can look back and be glad so much thought went into it.

You keep forgetting that this thread is a self sustaining critical mass dude . It tends to attract people who have done the maths.

In maybe 10 years time we can SERIOUSLY consider OFFSHORE as in floating turbine wind where we do not have to worry about 2000MW of plant producing a mere 10MW as happens today...with any luck we would never go below 200MW. :P:cool: We must consider interconnectors to export power when we have a surplus and to import when we do not. I am very heartened by the success of NORNED in that respect and the push for NORNED2 so soon after the first one.

We should even be looking at a large production pool off the west of Ireland where the output need not 'enter' the Irish market at all but can go straight to Europe. We are not and should not be grid synchronous with Europe. Why should offshore wind be treated as part of our market any more than UK electricity is coming in on an Interconnector from there. Why can we not locate a plant in Wylfa and negotiate an 'independence' power deal with the UK ...using Wylfa as a host and not countinng Wylfa into UK baseload but into Irish baseload to be interconnected across.

We also need to connect to the 'schengen area' grid from our production pools. This is what Eddie O Connor, in fairness, recognised years ago except that nobody understood what he was talking about and most of those worked for the monopoly...Eirgrid..and were not prepared to tolerate a breach of monopoly. I am sure spirit of Ireland have copped this now but they would have to be ongrid as they are onland unless they are marked out as a storage for offshore wind.




This all means that Eirgrid will have to be cut down to size ...which is vital. Giving Eirgrid a transit monpoly for offshore generation is the very height of stupidity.

Wave energy will be part of this future renewable mix of course. Solar to an extent if the silicon yields and Moores law deliver the watts per sq metre.

But even if some of us can see that in future that does not mean that we can bet the farm on ephemeral and intermittent and unstorable technologies today or on Eirgrids monopoly. That will surely bankrupt us. Eirgrid may even do it on their own.

And we will have cracked renewables and smart grid/demand management in 30 years never mind 50. By 2025 I believe that demand management and granular load shedding to the device level will be an inevitable part of the mix....and I will probably have to firewall my feckin kettle by then

ei.sdraob

So far alot of discussions have been about X vs Y

more than likely we will need X and Y (and Z)

you can never have enough energy especially in a modern economy, and an economy which needs to grow in order to payback all of the debts incurred.

Hotblack Desiato

SeanW wrote: »

The nuclear process does not create any radioactivity. It simply speeds up the rate of radioactive decay, making for more radiation in the short term.

This isn't correct - reactors do create radioactivity by transforming stable isotopes into radioactive ones through neutron activation. E.g. stable* Uranium-238 through neutron capture is transformed into radioactive Plutonium-239. This is how breeder reactors work.

I like the subduction zone burial idea BTW.


* for most practical purposes it is stable - its half-life is about the same as the age of the planet Earth. Recently bismuth-209 which was thought to be stable, was discovered to have a half-life of 1.9×10^19 years. Some theoretical physicists believe that even fundamental particles like the proton are not stable and could spontaneously decay although at a rate that would be impossible to observe.

Hotblack Desiato

Idbatterim wrote: »

just to simplify things, in the case of Fukushima, is it not the case that a taller wall, could have avoided the whole incident?

Probably. Or better designed / better sited backup generators.

It needs to be emphasised that (a) these reactors were 40 years old and the design is even older than that. Modern designs are safer; (b) the standard of protection from earthquake (and, in a coastal area like Japan prone to earthquakes, tsunamis as well) that would be required of a reactor built today would be much greater; and (c) the reactors were not designed to withstand the magnitude of earthquake and tsunami they were subjected to, but nonetheless this has not led to a catastrophic accident.

this unbelievable earth quake and subsequent tsunami hit Japan, ONE nuclear facility experiences problems, these design flaws could easily be corrected. Its nearly an endorsement for nuclear power!

I know, but (with the notable exception of The Register) the media are determined not to play it that way.

Sponge Bob

Pat Kenny covered the issue this morning just before 11am ( end of first hour) , as usual with any factual subject Pat was excellent and will probably revisit the issue again. Wind got its spake and was given fairly short shrift

For was mainly Phillip Walton who is not IMO the best advocate possible, taking a sort of academic/engineering consensus line which is too narrow. In fairness to him he has ploughed a lonely furrow for years. Just because the experts agree does not mean that the public will row in behind them....Phillip is slightly rooted in the golden ages of science in the mid 20th century when public policy followed science. Stephen Kinsella came across much better, I suspect he will be the lead advocate in future. Oisín Coughlan gave the traditional green arguments against, not very enthusiastically may I say

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/todaywithpatkenny/

Podcasts and playback will be here later.

Joining Pat to discuss this was Stephen Kinsella, lecturer in economics at the Kemmy Business School at the University of Limerick, Oisín Coughlan, Director of Friends of the Earth and Philip Walton, Professor Emeritus of Applied Physics from NUIG and an advocate for the group Better Environment with Nuclear Energy.

DUB777

Here's a list of simplistic things we c0ckeD up

We build leaking port tunnels that cant take super trucks
We build a national convention center with insufficient sewage system
We give away our oil
We give away our gas
We lock everybody else up for the stupidest things like not paying fines, or having a dog licence
Yet the B@5t@rds who've got the country in the mess its in robbing the tax payer left right and center are still being chauffeur driven around by retired garda.
Sean fitzpatrick is still strolling around/Gannon/Liam Carroll/Paddy & Simon Kelly in their "wives estates" while the tax payer is picking up the tab for them.
We lock joe soap up for growing a couple of plants yet "GARDA" FINBARR HICKEY gets away with growing 70 odd plants.Has vegging, flowering & drying plants:S:S
The M50 took nearly 30 years to complete from one side of a COUNTY to another.
We build a multi million euro peat burning station that doesn't work after a couple of months in action. The workers all get paid while off work:S
We elect a "Taoiseach" who didn't know he needed to open a bank account:S:S
We let that idiot taoiseach appoint a blundering BIFFO as our new taoiseach.
*Voting machines another cock-up
"On 6 October 2010, the Taoiseach Brian Cowen said that the 7,000 machines would not be used for voting and would be disposed of.[10] As of October 2010, the total cost of the electronic voting project has reached €54.6 million, including €3 million spent on storing the machines over the previous five years"
I'd mention baldonnell airstrip, but not 100% if that was vandalism due to a lapse in security or "bad weather" as previous people have said on another thread?:S?

If the Russians can have Chernobyl in 86, the yanks can have Three mile island in 89, both of which were nuclear disasters caused by human error... And the Japs have had Fukishima[however its spelt] which was a knock on effect of a natural disaster. The above list should be a contribution as to why Paddy's shouldn't go nuclear. We'd probably have countless drunken monkey's with the brain capacity of Homer Simpson sitting behind the controls & with our recent track record, only god knows when the inevitable c0ck up will happen. And guess what, there isn't much of the island to hide from it, or take shelter. We should never go nuclear, its bad for the environment & the majority of nations who have gone nuclear still dont know how or where to dispose of the waste material. I read an article in New Scientist only last night saying that they are thinking of burying it in natural salt deposits in Nevada in the US. What is the world coming to??

DUB777

ei.sdraob wrote: »

So far alot of discussions have been about X vs Y

more than likely we will need X and Y (and Z)

you can never have enough energy especially in a modern economy, and an economy which needs to grow in order to payback all of the debts incurred.

If bertie the b0110x ahern didnt give away our oil fields in the 80's & whomever gave away the gas we wouldn't be confronted with this question. And we could possibly have some collateral export to help ourselves out of this debt the d1ckhe@d bankers & developers have gotten us into.

ArtSmart

lets wait til we see what happens with Drumm and Fitz first.

DUB777

dubhthach wrote: »

Renewables such as wind do not provide for base-load. As been pointed out many times on this an other threads there's about 2GW of installed wind power in Ireland however sometimes you only get 20MW of power out of it -- this what happened during Winter cold spot when we had a surge in electricity consumption but hardly any power production from installed wind-plant.

TBH I do agree that we need to be conserving energy through the use of:

1. Properly built houses which require low energy input to power
2. Use of solar water heating / ground pumps etc

This will save energy however we need to be able to guarantee a minimal amount of power at all times (99.999% of time -- 5 nines) during the 70's there was often a case that there were rolling blackouts/brownouts due to lack of power to deal with the load, this had a major impact regarding industry, in modern day it's even more of an issue especially with all this talk of pushing Ireland as a center for Cloud computing (lots and lots of Data-centers been built).

I totally agree with this chap, we need to start building passive houses, send all the cowboy builders back to another institutional body other than Fás to learn how to construct buildings properly, without cutting corners/taking short cuts/ doing half @55ed jobs. We should have HEP plants off the south west coast, they can generate electricity. And whats off the SW coast of Irleand the biggest current on the European side of the Atlantic, the North Atlantic drift.

Judgement Day

DUB777 wrote: »

If bertie the b0110x ahern didnt give away our oil fields in the 80's & whomever gave away the gas we wouldn't be confronted with this question. And we could possibly have some collateral export to help ourselves out of this debt the d1ckhe@d bankers & developers have gotten us into.

What oilfields?

DUB777

Judgement Day wrote: »

What oilfields?

http://www.wsm.ie/story/2187:p
If you read your history on the the corruption that went on back then & the corruption that goes on now, you'd know:pac::pac:

:mad:Bertie Ahern if you read this your a b0110x, a patriotic sell out:mad: