Do You Consider Nuclear Power as an Alternative Energy Option?

Turtwig

Hey guys,

I'm just wondering what people's opinion are on the Nuclear Power as an alternative to fossils fuels. Would you be in favour of Ireland building Nuclear Reactors or would you be vehemently against it?

I'm open to the option at the moment, but I have done very little research on it, so I was hoping people could help me out a little.:)

Capt'n Midnight

A better alternative would be to better insulate houses and especially industrial premisies so that less energy is needed in the first place.


Other alternatives would be to invest in energy storage research or for us to invest in regional pumped storage.

zod

after reading "Revenge of Gaia", the author discusses his transformation to a rabid pro nuclear power actvist ( from a CND activist ) I dont think we have a choice.

Summary : We have too far to go and too little time to reduce CO2 levels enough to avoid a runaway climate. We no longer have the luxury of saying no to nuclear.

Húrin

zod wrote: »

after reading "Revenge of Gaia", the author discusses his transformation to a rabid pro nuclear power actvist ( from a CND activist ) I dont think we have a choice.

Summary : We have too far to go and too little time to reduce CO2 levels enough to avoid a runaway climate. We no longer have the luxury of saying no to nuclear.

Lovelock is writing for a a British audience. In that case, they already have a nuclear background. In Ireland, we have no nuclear expertise, no supply line for uranium, and no technology. It would take much longer to start a nuclear station here than in Britain.

Nuclear is also a very expensive way to generate electricity. If it were not for this and the long start up time I would favour the use of it here. Having read Lovelock's books I do not believe that nuclear waste is as dangerous or voluminous as most Irish people think it is.

Mahatma coat

I dunno bout IReland, It probably will happen eventually

but Australia NEEDS this
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf71.html

Nuclear Desalinisation, we are the driest inhabited continent on earth

Capt'n Midnight

Húrin wrote: »

Having read Lovelock's books I do not believe that nuclear waste is as dangerous or voluminous as most Irish people think it is.

Isn't he they guy who suggested duping toxic waste in the Amazon rain forest as way to keep people away and thus preserve it on the basis that a polluted rian forest was better than a strip mine ?

censuspro

Dont we already get Nuclear power from the UK anyway?

GUIGuy

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2010/0111/1224262051498.html

Capt'n Midnight

censuspro wrote: »

Dont we already get Nuclear power from the UK anyway?

No we don't :rolleyes:

We simply put a Gigger counter on the interconnector and any radioactive electrons are returned to sender.


Actually since it's AC then the electrons don't really move far in either direction.



Yes an interconnector means that some of the power we get is displaced by nuclear, and the UK power industry subsidises this through levies, because in case you didn't get the memo , nuclear power in the UK isn't economical and the UK are far better than we are at enforcing environmental legislation and probably have a lower level of official corruption than we have.

Consider the original contract for the M50 toll bridge, consider the amount we may have to pay for the incenerator if there isn't enough trash to burn , then ask yourself what is likely to happen if we sign a 30-50 year contract for a nuclear power station. :mad::mad::mad::mad:

ConsiderThis

censuspro wrote: »

Dont we already get Nuclear power from the UK anyway?

We do. It's the old irish solution to an irish problem and, like abortion, we can claim we don;t have it here when, if face, we do have access to abortion but it just takes place in another juristiction. So it is with nucelar energy, we have all teh benefits and none of the problems on our own island.

censuspro

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

No we don't :rolleyes:

We simply put a Gigger counter on the interconnector and any radioactive electrons are returned to sender.


Actually since it's AC then the electrons don't really move far in either direction.



Yes an interconnector means that some of the power we get is displaced by nuclear, and the UK power industry subsidises this through levies, because in case you didn't get the memo , nuclear power in the UK isn't economical and the UK are far better than we are at enforcing environmental legislation and probably have a lower level of official corruption than we have.

Consider the original contract for the M50 toll bridge, consider the amount we may have to pay for the incenerator if there isn't enough trash to burn , then ask yourself what is likely to happen if we sign a 30-50 year contract for a nuclear power station. :mad::mad::mad::mad:

Who says we have to sign a contract?

Capt'n Midnight

censuspro wrote: »

Who says we have to sign a contract?

We have always done so in the past

No one is going to build a power plant with a lifespan of ten governments without something in writing.


Look at Enron's white elephant in India.

quentingargan

Húrin wrote: »

Lovelock is writing for a a British audience. In that case, they already have a nuclear background. In Ireland, we have no nuclear expertise, no supply line for uranium, and no technology. It would take much longer to start a nuclear station here than in Britain.

Nuclear is also a very expensive way to generate electricity. If it were not for this and the long start up time I would favour the use of it here. Having read Lovelock's books I do not believe that nuclear waste is as dangerous or voluminous as most Irish people think it is.

Ireland is a relatively small grid, and nuclear needs a large infrastructure of technology, waste handling etc.

Also, at present as far as I know, nuclear only accounts for about 4% of the worlds electricity supply. If that was raised to 100%, or even 40%, how long would the easily accessible uranium last? Would we quickly be looking at "peak uranium"?

In relation to waste, the length of time over which is remains hazardous is quite staggering. 250,000 years is a long time. I like the diagram used in New Scientist which put this into an historic perspective (attached).

censuspro

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

We have always done so in the past

No one is going to build a power plant with a lifespan of ten governments without something in writing.

Look at Enron's white elephant in India.

Excuse my ignorance but could it not be a state or semi-state organisation?

boomshackala

quentingargan wrote: »

Ireland is a relatively small grid, and nuclear needs a large infrastructure of technology, waste handling etc.

Also, at present as far as I know, nuclear only accounts for about 4% of the worlds electricity supply. If that was raised to 100%, or even 40%, how long would the easily accessible uranium last? Would we quickly be looking at "peak uranium"?

In relation to waste, the length of time over which is remains hazardous is quite staggering. 250,000 years is a long time. I like the diagram used in New Scientist which put this into an historic perspective (attached).

I'd agree with that, and would add: If you look at the embedded energy (emergy), that is the energy in construction, mining, decommissioning and waste handling, you are consuming volumes of oil on a level comparable with a direct oil fired power station (not that there are any of these).
Seems like no one really knows and the estimates vary a lot, but some people are of the opinion that some nuclear power plants never actually get to the point where they are net energy contributers. I'd be interested to see if anyone can shed some light on this? If this is the case, then Lovelock needs to back to the drawing board

Capt'n Midnight

censuspro wrote: »

Excuse my ignorance but could it not be a state or semi-state organisation?

Nope.

Remember the ESB had to be split up in the interest of "competition"

Even when prices were raised from the third cheapest electricity in EU none of the main power companies bothered to come here , we are the size of Birmingham. Yes we pay over the odds to make our market attractive for private companies to hand money over to their shareholders and still they haven't bothered to show up.

pljudge321

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Nope.

Remember the ESB had to be split up in the interest of "competition"

Even when prices were raised from the third cheapest electricity in EU none of the main power companies bothered to come here , we are the size of Birmingham. Yes we pay over the odds to make our market attractive for private companies to hand money over to their shareholders and still they haven't bothered to show up.

Endessa have a huge stake in the Irish energy market at this point, 65% of the power generation capacity is owned by non-semi state companies.

paddym355

Thorium nuclear is worth reading about for those concerned about stocks of uranium - it also is not as worrying re proliferation, misuse etc.
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/ff_new_nukes/

EROEI
You can find an amazing range of figures on this - from negative to as high as 100:1 - the answer is probably somewhere in the middle, but it is hard to know. I would be very surprised if it was any less than 7-10:1 from what I've read, and possibly quite a bit more depending on the fuel used etc. (See thorium above)
http://www.google.ie/search?hl=en&q=eroei+nuclear&btnG=Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EROEI

Other advantages:
Dismantled nuclear weapons currently provide 10% of the USA’s electrical power,. Quite literally, swords to plowshares.
For comparison, hydropower currently provides 6% and solar, biomass, wind and geothermal combined provide 3%.

I don't know how anyone can be against dismantling nuclear weapons and using them to generate electricity. The EROEI is very high here as the hard work of refining the uranium is already done, and we might as well use it for something worthwhile now that we've created it anyway. Certainly better than having it in a missile ready to fire, or sittiing in storage in Siberia or somewhere.
http://environmentenlightenmentandreason.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/megatons-to-megawatts-dismantled-nuclear-weapons-currently-provide-10-of-americas-electricity-power/

However, to be clear: as far as I can figure out nothing currently available can replace the free ride, energy wise, our society has got from oil over the last 150 years. Nuclear can help though, but is not a cure all for peak oil. (IMHO)

'The Upside of Down' by Thomas Homer Dixon is excellent for anyone interested in EROEI - he has a great analysis of the impact of this on the fall of the Roman Empire - definitely worth a read.

ConsiderThis

The facts are that nuclear electricity is reliable and is used in many places to produce reasonable clean electricity when it comes to CO2 emissions.

In Ireland, it seems to be politically undesirable to have a nuclear power plant so it's not going to happen here. Quite why is a mystery beyond some worrying about a nuclear accident, although mroe people have been killed or maimed by mining coal and oil per year int he last 50 years than have ever been killed or maimed by the nuclear power industry.

paddym355

Interestingly, a coal power plant can emit up to 100 times more radioactivity into the surrounding environment than a nuclear power plant producing an equivilent amount of energy.

This seems nonsensical, but nuclear produces a very small amount of very radioactive waste, which if managed properly and disposed of correctly etc. is not introduced to the surrounding environment.

Burning coal produces a huge amount of waste, which is slightly radioactive due to the uranium and thorium content of coal - this is emitted to atmosphere when the coal is burned, and is also contained in coal ash, so can leach into watertables etc.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste

McSandwich

quentingargan wrote: »

Ireland is a relatively small grid, and nuclear needs a large infrastructure of technology, waste handling etc.

Also, at present as far as I know, nuclear only accounts for about 4% of the worlds electricity supply. If that was raised to 100%, or even 40%, how long would the easily accessible uranium last? Would we quickly be looking at "peak uranium"?

In relation to waste, the length of time over which is remains hazardous is quite staggering. 250,000 years is a long time. I like the diagram used in New Scientist which put this into an historic perspective (attached).

There are cleaner ways to produce electricity from Nuclear energy, resulting in lower levels of radioactive waste, and also fuel alternatives to Uranium:

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf62.html

Edit: paddym355 - I didn't see your post before replying with this..

jocmilt

It is illegal under Irish law to generate power by nuclear power. This law was passed after the Carnsore plant was blocked by a mass movement of Irish people.

One of the first things the Green Party did when they ligged into power (after abandoning Shannon, Tara and Corrib Gas) was to bring up this topic of Nuclear energy. Minister Ryan was lit on and he quickly issued a statement saying he wasn't saying we should have it, like yourself, he was just saying we should discuss it.

Now, since it is illegal, I assume the only reason one would want to talk about it would be to make it legal. Is that not logical? I mean capital punishment is not legal in Ireland so if someone wants to discuss it I think it is fair they want it legalised.

Well, if you want my opinion I will give you and the Minister the same response his party Dail Deputy Gogarty gave Emmet Stagg; F**k you deputy Ryan, F**k you!

Turtwig

jocmilt wrote: »

Well, if you want my opinion I will give you and the Minister the same response his party Dail Deputy Gogarty gave Emmet Stagg; F**k you deputy Ryan, F**k you!

Eh? Thanks, I guess.

Macha

jocmilt wrote: »

Well, if you want my opinion I will give you and the Minister the same response his party Dail Deputy Gogarty gave Emmet Stagg; F**k you deputy Ryan, F**k you!

jocmilt, this forum is about rational debate not political rants. Cut it out.