UK looking at Newry for potential nuclear waste site

06-02-2019 10:33am

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

So you are saying if there was a reprocessing plant then there'd be a lot less mess to clean up ?

Like the THORP one in Sellafield ? Which closed down in November.

The cleanup bill for Sellafield is currently running at about £91 Billion and growing - that's about three times Northern Ireland's total GDP.

is that because it is 75% of the total nuclear provision?

The 2018 forecast is that future clean-up across the UK will cost around £121 billion spread across the next 120 years or so, a slight increase on the previous year’s estimate.

91bn/120 years is £758m per year. are you claiming NI's GDP is only £252m?

you are a master of making 1+1= whatever it is you want it to equal to prove a point

06-02-2019 10:35am

Perifect wrote: »

Can't they store their nuclear waste in their own ****ing country?

they are

cgcsb · 06-02-2019 12:53pm

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Two points.

Flying is the safest way to travel long distance but there's no hard shoulder at 30,000ft. When things go badly wrong ...

Nuclear is a one trick pony. It can provide base load.
Also Very expensive and prone to no-warning outages that could last years.

To meet changing demand during the day you need some dispatchable power. Unless you are somewhere like France with 26GW of hydropower and lots of neighbours fto import and export from you are going to need lots of fossil fuel plants.

Nuclear means less investment in renewables or conversion of old fossil fuel pants to more efficient ones. Combined cycle gas is up to twice as thermally efficient as old coal. And gas means something like half the greenhouse gases too. Win-win.

In other words using nuclear to offset coal emissions is a complete waste of time. Better off change from coal to gas. Cheaper, years faster and greener.

Nuclear isn't getting cheaper despite the promises.

Renewables are.

Measured over the life cycle of a nuclear plant solar costs are in free fall.

Costs of nuclear are large, no doubt. Nothing else delivers the same result is the problem. Cost of solar and wind is dropping but you can't base load with either, there are promises of better storage to allow for a renewable base load but this remains theoretical and uncosted.
Gas is a low-carbon option but we'll run out of gas in 20 years and depend on Russia and the countries in between here and there for supply.

Here's the big kicker, the Celtic Interconnector which will allow us to baseload with French nuclear, exporting the problem in typical Irish style will cost €930m, might as well call it a billion. And at that we'll be depending on French energy policy to give us a good price and not subject us to French industrial action.

cgcsb · 06-02-2019 12:56pm

Roselyn Muscular Pickax wrote: »

^ Maybe someones (Scarlet Whining Fashion) got their pension fund index linked the lovely Nuc Hazard Waste Industry?

Sellafield 'increases cancer risk' : Children of men exposed to radiation while working at the Sellafield nuclear plant have twice the normal risk of developing certain types of cancer, research suggests. The increased risk relates to leukaemia and lymphoma - cancers of the blood and immune system. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2054694.stm

Britain's nuclear regulator (ONR, est 2014) prosecuted (Health and Safety at Work Act) 'Sellafield Ltd' in February 2018, for allegedly breaching health and safety laws.
They would have been more active had they existed before 2014.

There was clearly an epidemic of thyroid cancer after Chernobyl, you don't have to visit their orphanages to realise this.

Fukushima was x10 less dangerous than Chernobyl and most ended up directly in the Pacific Ocean, foodstuffs were quickly withdrawn, soils bagged up, and iodine tablets were rushed out.

Grand now post a list of the health impacts and mortality rate from continued fossil fuel dependency.

EdgeCase · 06-02-2019 12:58pm

For €930 million?! You've got to be kidding. A large, very standardised combined cycle gas plant can't even be delivered for those kinds of costs.

You'd be talking about an investment of between €3 and €10 billion to do that and we'd be relying on either UK or French reprocessing anyway, but would probably have any waste returned to us as well as non-reprocessable waste for our own longterm storage, which would have to be built and maintained.

If you think the NCH overrun is bad, you'd want to see what can happen with one of these projects.

France has huge economies of scale to do this stuff relatively cheaply because they went so head-first into nuclear in the 1970s.

Any interconnector also gives us access to non-nuclear renewables too - such as solar from much more sunny climes than here.

Regardless of what we do domestically, an interconnection to France and the continental grid makes an awful lot of sense.

Zorya · 06-02-2019 2:38pm

I dunno, all the people on here bigging up Nuclear Power might want to have a look at the trends - Nuclear Phase Out is the trend we are presently in.

From Wikipedia -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_phase-out

A nuclear power phase-out is the discontinuation of usage of nuclear power for energy production. Often initiated because of concerns about nuclear power, phase-outs usually include shutting down nuclear power plants and looking towards fossil fuels and renewable energy.

Three nuclear accidents have influenced the discontinuation of nuclear power: the 1979 Three Mile Island partial nuclear meltdown in the United States, the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the USSR, and the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan. As of 2018, Italy is the only country that operated nuclear reactors but has since phased out nuclear power completely.

Following the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, Germany has permanently shut down eight of its 17 reactors and pledged to close the rest by the end of 2022.[2] Italy voted overwhelmingly to keep their country non-nuclear.[3] Switzerland and Spain have banned the construction of new reactors.[4] Japan’s prime minister has called for a dramatic reduction in Japan’s reliance on nuclear power.[5] Taiwan’s president did the same. Shinzō Abe, the prime minister of Japan since December 2012, announced a plan to re-start some of the 54 Japanese nuclear power plants (NPPs) and to continue some NPP sites under construction.[6]

As of 2016, countries including Australia, Austria, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, and Portugal have no nuclear power stations and remain opposed to nuclear power.[7][8] Belgium, Germany, Spain and Switzerland are phasing-out nuclear power.[8][9][10][11] Globally, more nuclear power reactors have closed than opened in recent years but overall capacity has increased.[10]

Italy is the only country that has permanently closed all of its functioning nuclear plants. Lithuania and Kazakhstan have shut down their only nuclear plants, but plan to build new ones to replace them, while Armenia shut down its only nuclear plant but subsequently restarted it. Austria never used its first nuclear plant that was completely built. Due to financial, political and technical reasons Cuba, Libya, North Korea and Poland never completed the construction of their first nuclear plants (although North Korea and Poland plan to). Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ghana, Ireland, Kuwait, Oman, Peru, Singapore, Venezuela have planned, but not constructed their first nuclear plants. Between 2005 and 2015 the global production of nuclear power declined by 0.7%.[12]

cgcsb · 06-02-2019 2:41pm

The German example: they have domestic coal they want to burn, Fukushima is the berfect excuse to switch from nuclear to coal. There are climate change targets they'll miss as a result, but Germany will simply change the rules on those targets so they'll be fine.

Zorya · 06-02-2019 2:44pm

cgcsb wrote: »

The German example: they have domestic coal they want to burn, Fukushima is the berfect excuse to switch from nuclear to coal. There are climate change targets they'll miss as a result, but Germany will simply change the rules on those targets so they'll be fine.

Yeah, that's why a country decommissions a nuclear reactor at huge cost, and commits to phasing out entirely - because they have coal to burn. Did they not have coal to burn before?

And what about all the other places?

It's just not the fuel of the future.
And the Brits ain't dumping their waste on this island as long as I have breath!

SteM · 06-02-2019 2:55pm

alloywheel wrote: »

Lots of Irish people choose to emigrate to parts of the world where electricity ids generated by nuclear power, and they do not seem to mind.

What sort of argument is this for allowing nuclear waste to be dumped in Newry? Whether you think it's right or wrong to dump/store waste there this is just an awful argument imo, why does people choosing to move to other places in the world justify something happening here?

06-02-2019 3:25pm

Zorya wrote: »

I dunno, all the people on here bigging up Nuclear Power might want to have a look at the trends - Nuclear Phase Out is the trend we are presently in.

From Wikipedia -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_phase-out

It's sad that misinformation, irrational fears and politicians willing to pander to this are resulting in a reduction in the best way the planet has for generating clean electricity (short if Fusion). As a Physicist who has always been strong advocate for nuclear power and absolutely adore the beauty of fission, its power and efficiency I really do sometimes wish I was alive in the days where it was being developed and gung-ho experiments were the norm. People appreciated how good it was then but unfortunately as I said irrational fear has gotten in the way.

Unfortunately my interest in nuclear engineering and the history of nuclear developments is just a hobby but a few decades ago I would have without a doubt have gone down this route with my studies and career also and would have loved to work on experimental reactors, nuclear rockets etc etc.

SteM wrote: »

What sort of argument is this for allowing nuclear waste to be dumped in Newry? Whether you think it's right or wrong to dump/store waste there this is just an awful argument imo, why does people choosing to move to other places in the world justify something happening here?

Even using the term "dumped" is just a loaded way to put it and immediately get peoples backs up on it. You would swear the spent fuel was just being thrown into an open pit in the ground, nuclear waste storage couldn't be more the opposite of this.

4068ac1elhodqr · 06-02-2019 3:39pm

Jade Colossal Page wrote: »

Even using the term "dumped" is just a loaded way to put it and immediately get peoples backs up on it. You would swear the spent fuel was just being thrown into an open pit in the ground, nuclear waste storage couldn't be more the opposite of this.

So never any incidents of cracked concrete, seaguls bathing and overgrown weeds from storage dumping ponds full of 'hot rods' in Sellafield?

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/29/sellafield-nuclear-radioactive-risk-storage-ponds-fears

^ Described as ‘disgracefully degraded’, by the executive director of the Institute for Resource and Security Studies.

One expert (in the article) remarked of the (many) ponds:

“The concrete is in dreadful condition, degraded and fractured, and if the ponds drain, the Magnox fuel will ignite and that would lead to a massive release of radioactive material...

...It’s not for me to make comparisons with Chernobyl or Fukushima, but it could certainly cause serious contamination over a wide area and for a very long time.,”

Anyway all this irrelevant, as there was unanimous cross-party from the N&MDC which was in the way off "f away off" to any proposals of using the area, (or anywhere in the North for that matter) for any type of storage.

06-02-2019 3:48pm

Roselyn Muscular Pickax wrote: »

So never any incidents of cracked concrete, seaguls bathing and overgrown weeds from storage dumping ponds full of 'hot rods' in Sellafield?

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/29/sellafield-nuclear-radioactive-risk-storage-ponds-fears

^ Described as ‘disgracefully degraded’, by the executive director of the Institute for Resource and Security Studies.

One expert (in the article) remarked of the (many) ponds:

Anyway all this irrelevant, as there was unanimous cross-party from the N&MDC which was in the way off "f away off" to any proposals of using the area, (or anywhere in the North for that matter) for any type of storage.

Again a storage facility build in the 50's, hardly a good example of what a modern day strange plant would look like.

EdgeCase · 06-02-2019 3:52pm

cgcsb wrote: »

The German example: they have domestic coal they want to burn, Fukushima is the berfect excuse to switch from nuclear to coal. There are climate change targets they'll miss as a result, but Germany will simply change the rules on those targets so they'll be fine.

That's not the reason why. Much like in Ireland, the Germans have a fairly responsive democratic system using PR voting and there's a significant public concern about nuclear power and always has been, at least since Chernobyl. When Fukushima happened, there was very serious pressure put on to move very rapidly towards non-nuclear renewables.

There's a very sizeable green lobby in Germany and going nuclear-free would be a fairly significant factor both for the official greens and just for those concerned about ecological issues who may vote for other parties.

You can argue that it was irrational because German nuclear energy was safer - no seismic risks, different equipment (mostly Siemens or ABB) and so on, but that's what happened. Siemens even disposed of its nuclear energy business.

The French Government on the other-hand doesn't work like that and tends to drive big issues through, not paying much attention to stuff like that. It's a much more executive-heavy, non-listening other than when there's an election and of governance. It's also probably why France tends to have protests more (particularly when you consider France used too have 7 year executive presidential terms!)

Burning coal has been the consequence of what was probably not a very well thought-through plan. From a purely environmental point of view, a longer phase out would have made more sense.

4068ac1elhodqr · 06-02-2019 4:00pm

Jade Colossal Page wrote: »

Again a storage facility build in the 50's, hardly a good example of what a modern day strange plant would look like.

This photo was from circa 2014, guess there was technology available back then just to pick up a few weeds, nevermind any effort to try to keep the place tidy. Lovely 21st century example for sure:

EdgeCase · 06-02-2019 4:08pm

Jade Colossal Page wrote: »

Again a storage facility build in the 50's, hardly a good example of what a modern day strange plant would look like.

Sellafield's a mess, largely because it was operated under sort of military secrecy for years as opposed to having been a normally managed facility.

There was also a rather weird problem with the original UK Magnox reactors. They made a very strange choice of material, using a Magnesium Oxide cladding/housing on the fuel rods. This was chosen because it made sense from a nuclear physics point of view and allowed them to avoid having to do complex enrichment process.

The downside is that it reacts with water! So, basically the long-term storage of old British fuel rods under water is impossible as they literally rust. This meant that they had to be reprocessed quite quickly after use, which is why Sellafield was so significant.

During the miners strikes / winter of discontent era, the UK's conventional coal fired plants were off line and the nuclear fleet was run at maximum capacity to keep the lights on. Sellafield couldn't keep up, so large amounts of spent fuel was stored in pretty ludicrously bad ways. Hence the huge problem with the massively expensive clean up.

This problem does not occur with ay of the current generation of UK plants which are an evolution of those Magnox designs called AGR (Advanced Gas Cooled Reactor) which is unique to the UK and never managed to achieve any export sales. The design was pretty different - using a gas coolant (mostly CO2) but they were very complex and expensive to build compared to competing designs, so they were really a dead end technology. There was a similar French technology which was also never developed beyond generation one for similar reasons.

Zorya · 06-02-2019 4:13pm

Jade Colossal Page wrote: »

It's sad that misinformation, irrational fears and politicians willing to pander to this are resulting in a reduction in the best way the planet has for generating clean electricity (short if Fusion). As a Physicist who has always been strong advocate for nuclear power and absolutely adore the beauty of fission, its power and efficiency I really do sometimes wish I was alive in the days where it was being developed and gung-ho experiments were the norm.

.

You mightn't believe this but I can also understand the point of view that sees a certain kind of beauty in nuclear power - but I just cannot go there with the human record on carelessness, cost-cutting, political instability, war-mongering, greediness and so on.

Your story brings to my mind Galen Winsor who was

[QUOTEa nuclear physicist of renown who worked at, and helped design, nuclear power plants in Hanford, WA; Oak Ridge, TN; Morris, IL, San Jose, CA; Wimington, NJ. Among his positions of expertise he was in charge of measuring and controlling the nuclear fuel inventory and storage.

Galen Winsor has traveled and lectured all over America, spoken on national talk radio, and made several videos exposing the misunderstood issues of nuclear radiation. He shows that fear of radiation has been exaggerated to scare people … so a few powerful people can maintain total control of the world’s most valuable power resource.][/QUOTE]

(I have taken this from a random site to summarise his background - nobody to jump on me if it is where the crazies live!)

Galen used to swim in a pool of reactor water, eat uranium, and handled it for decades without taking precautions. I admired him for his quirky character and undeniable balls of steel, but I still am not on board the nuclear train.

Nope, no siree.

EdgeCase · 06-02-2019 4:20pm

Well, when you look at sources of radionuclide pollution in the atmosphere nuclear power isn't actually the biggest source by a long shot. The majority of them came from atmospheric nuclear bomb testing in the 1950s, 60s and into the 70s. There were an incredible number of nuclear bombs tested, and we probably are paying for that in terms of health implications.

There are also large amounts of radionuclides released by burning coal and heavy oils. There are none or almost none released by a properly operating nuclear power plant.

I mean, it's odd that people are panicked by nuclear power, which for the most part is extremely safe, yet will happily huddle around a coal fire which is billowing out all sorts of horrible and nasty particulates and gunk, including plenty of carcinogens and quite possibly some radioactive particles.

That being said, I would still rather see us move towards as much green energy as humanly possible.

If you want to talk about radioactive pollutants though have a chat with the people who authorised this insanity:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9lquok4Pdk

And we've just had Trump begin to undo nuclear weapons test ban treaties

Capt'n Midnight · 06-02-2019 10:47pm

cgcsb wrote: »

Costs of nuclear are large, no doubt. Nothing else delivers the same result is the problem. Cost of solar and wind is dropping but you can't base load with either, there are promises of better storage to allow for a renewable base load but this remains theoretical and uncosted.

Whether you invest in Nuclear or Renewables you'll need some way of being able to ramp up output during the deep demand or when wind dies down.

Nuclear doesn't displace gas turbines, it absolutely depends on them to support it.

06-02-2019 11:34pm

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Whether you invest in Nuclear or Renewables you'll need some way of being able to ramp up output during the deep demand or when wind dies down.

Nuclear doesn't displace gas turbines, it absolutely depends on them to support it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station

Dakotabigone · 06-02-2019 11:37pm

Can we parcel motel the stuff?

Amalgam · 06-02-2019 11:47pm

Quite a few people in Ireland, die each year from exposure to Radon gas, particulalrly older homes with timber over earth type foundations. Far more than from the global fatalities tied explicitly to the nuclear power generating grid.

I think nuclear power does still have a place, you're led to believe that batteries are a solution, but they're just, 'pollution displacement', pollution still takes place, just somewhere else.. not near you!

Dakotabigone · 06-02-2019 11:49pm

Amalgam wrote: »

Quite a few people in Ireland, die each year from exposure to Radon gas, particulalrly older homes with timber over earth type foundations. Far more than from the global fatalities tied explicitly to the nuclear power generating grid.

I think nuclear power does still have a place, you're led to believe that batteries are a solution, but they're just, 'pollution displacement', pollution still takes place, just somewhere else.. not near you!

Have you a link to the radon gas exposure?

Amalgam · 06-02-2019 11:55pm

Dakotabigone wrote: »

Have you a link to the radon gas exposure?

Irish Times: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/radon-gas-causes-up-to-200-lung-cancer-deaths-a-year-1.497900

The most dry and credible links are from the EPA, here in Ireland.

Environmental Protection Agency: http://epa.ie/

If you go to their site and search for 'Radon'.

Some of their links are Acrobat .pdf files.

https://www.epa.ie/pubs/reports/radiation/RPII_NCRI_Radon_Health_Risks_2005.pdf

---

Depending on the site you visit, things get a bit tabloid in nature..

http://www.telecare.ie/2017/01/26/radon-gas-kills-250-yearly/

It is enough of a problem that the government has been doing a rolling campaign of information on TV and print for as long as I can remember.

07-02-2019 1:00am

Dakotabigone wrote: »

Have you a link to the radon gas exposure?

It’s the second biggest cause of lung cancer after smoking in many parts of the world.

07-02-2019 6:17am

This is a good xkcd for people who talk about nuclear radiation slewing out of Fukushima into the ocean, or for people who post pictures of the pools containing spent fuel.

https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/

Isn't it amazing that with all this risk, we've had two events, one from incredible incompetence, and another from an Earthquake and some bad luck, yet so relatively few people have died?

People talk of Fukushima like it was a disaster. If that's what a modern nuclear disaster looks like, sign me up. We don't even have geological risks like that so it would never happen.

I'd have no problem with this waste being stored in Newry apart from the chance of a UI in the next few decades. We don't have the expertise to manage it I assume.

Zorya · 07-02-2019 8:24am

Amalgam wrote: »

Quite a few people in Ireland, die each year from exposure to Radon gas, particulalrly older homes with timber over earth type foundations. Far more than from the global fatalities tied explicitly to the nuclear power generating grid.
!

Don't understand this kind of argument. There must be a name for it, but I don't know it. Just because people die of one thing we should not mind them dying of the other thing? Don't mind polio because, look it, loads die from typhus? Nuclear radioactivity causes disease, death, genetic deformities, suffering. But sure, never mind, so does beer.

07-02-2019 8:38am

Zorya wrote: »

Don't understand this kind of argument. There must be a name for it, but I don't know it. Just because people die of one thing we should not mind them dying of the other thing? Don't mind polio because, look it, loads die from typhus? Nuclear radioactivity causes disease, death, genetic deformities, suffering. But sure, never mind, so does beer.

whataboutery

dermo888 · 07-02-2019 1:01pm

Could'nt we lease ..... no rather.....SELL Tyrellstown to them as a storage facility. It could only improve the genetics of the Skangers in the place.

07-02-2019 1:04pm

Deleted User wrote: »

I'd have no problem with this waste being stored in Newry apart from the chance of a UI in the next few decades. We don't have the expertise to manage it I assume.

Which is why Newry won't get selected.

07-02-2019 3:15pm

Zorya wrote: »

Don't understand this kind of argument. There must be a name for it, but I don't know it. Just because people die of one thing we should not mind them dying of the other thing? Don't mind polio because, look it, loads die from typhus? Nuclear radioactivity causes disease, death, genetic deformities, suffering. But sure, never mind, so does beer.

Yes radioactivity causes these things but there is a very long list of radioactive sources to worry about before taking about nuclear energy.

People would be far better served educating themselves about radioactivity where they might learn that they need to look a lot closer to home when worrying about the dangers of radioactivity rater than losing the head about one of the safest industries there has ever been on the planet.

Even with the one major nuclear the planet has had (chernoybl) and include the most pessimistic cancer death numbers predicted because of it nuclear power is still miles safer than other forms of electricity generation and many other unrelated industries that we don't bat an eye lid at also.

UK looking at Newry for potential nuclear waste site

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