Nuclear power in your back yard, yea or nea?

recylingbin · 27-04-2010 12:50AM

Nuclear power is obviously the way forward. But the politicians would have to fight to get it past the people. Fight like they did for Lisbon 2. I can't see them risking their arses like that again.

Furthermore, there is the security issues. You can't have some ****wit from mayo standing outside saying 'move along there lads' to some one who wants to wreak havoc. We'd need to invest in the army and get an airforce with more than two kites in it. The initial costs would be high, but the benefits more than make up for it.

At the moment, we can barely afford to pay for our TDs holidays, their meals, their fuel, their drinks, their foreign homes, etc, so we could be a long way off this sensible energy solution.

johngalway · 27-04-2010 12:56AM

spudmonkey17 wrote: »

You calling us fat?

And after hours is "specialised". We have the art of talking sh1te down to a fine art. :pac:

More big boned than fat.

That's true, it was a shocking oversight on my part, please accept my humblest apologies Jumbo

PeterIanStaker · 27-04-2010 01:02AM

I wouldnt mind having one so long as it was heavily guarded. If it pisses off the greens and the crusties, I say go for it.

Duggy747 · 27-04-2010 01:07AM

Nulcear power...............think of the POWER a man could possess!!

I hope they get on it.............I need to aqquire.........*cough*........certain materials to make use of this

K-9 · 27-04-2010 01:09AM

Just put it in Limerick. Nobody will care.

Michaelrsh · 27-04-2010 01:33AM

Nuclear fuel will be one of the only alternative methods in the future of producing energy (along with maybe coal - yes, the earth still has huge coal supplies). Also there have been major safety upgrades to nuclear power facilities since Chernobyl. Chernobyl had major design flaws anyway which resulted in it being a greater disaster then what it should have been if it was designed properly. Another possibility is nuclear fusion which is in its development stage. If nuclear fusion is used with the helium isotope called 'helium-3', then it should be perfectly safe and produce more energy than nuclear fission reactions.

starbelgrade · 27-04-2010 01:39AM

K-9 wrote: »

Just put it in Limerick. Nobody will care.

As long as they don't use lead on the roofs.

randylonghorn · 27-04-2010 01:58AM

Chillaxe wrote: »

Yep. A cheaper longer lasting resource. Also more importantly, will piss off the greens.

Or give us all green piss?

Seriously, no thanks. The biggest problem with nuclear energy isn't the technology, it's the human factor: error, negligence, the cover-it-up-to-cover-my-ass factor, etc.

We live in a country which for years apparently believed that we could fuel our economy for ever by building houses ... where people were publicly upbraided by our Taoiseach for "talking the economy down" by daring to suggest that it couldn't last forever ... where blindness to shenanigans and corruption is a way of life for our politicians.

Do we REALLY want to give them a nuclear toy to play with?!

recylingbin · 27-04-2010 02:02AM

randylonghorn wrote: »

Do we REALLY want to give them a nuclear toy to play with?!

I'm pretty sure that the nuclear plants will be run by people who know what they are doing.

bnt · 27-04-2010 02:13AM

Iceland doesn't need nuclear power, they've got energy coming out of the ground (geothermal). I wonder of that could work in Ireland? It would require some extremely deep holes, so this could be something for all those unemployed folk. Dig?

A nuclear reactor doesn't necessarily mean a big building that glows in the dark. There's interesting stuff coming out of Japan, such as the Toshiba 4S: a 10MW sealed reactor the size of a container, to power neighbourhoods or city blocks - or the whole of Connemara.

randylonghorn · 27-04-2010 02:31AM

recylingbin wrote: »

I'm pretty sure that the nuclear plants will be run by people who know what they are doing.

I'm pretty sure that the people of Canada (Chalk River plant); UK (Windscale / Sellafield; Chapelcross); Russia (Kyshtym; Chernobyl; Sosnovy Bor; Tomsk); U.S (Three Mile Island; Idaho Falls; Detroit; Sequoyah; Monroe; Braidwood; Erwin); Germany (Lubmin; Hamm-Uentrop); Japan (Tsuruga; Tokaimura; Shika); France (Forbach; Saint Laurens); Yugoslavia (Jaslovské Bohunice); Hungary (Paks); etc. thought that too.

Many of these were the subject of cover-ups or attempted cover-ups.

Which begs the question: how many others were successfully covered up?

recylingbin · 27-04-2010 02:35AM

randylonghorn wrote: »

I'm pretty sure that the people of Canada (Chalk River plant); England (Windscale / Sellafield); Russia (Kyshtym; Chernobyl; Sosnovy Bor; Tomsk); U.S (Three Mile Island; Idaho Falls; Detroit; Sequoyah; Monroe; Braidwood; Erwin); Germany (Lubmin; Hamm-Uentrop); Japan (Tsuruga; Tokaimura; Shika); France (Forbach; Saint Laurens); Yugoslavia (Jaslovské Bohunice); Hungary (Paks); etc. thought that too.

Many of these were the subject of cover-ups or attempted cover-ups.

Which begs the question: how many others were successfully covered up?

We've moved on from that technology. There's always going to be accidents in the formative years of a new energy source (or anything else for that matter) Unfortunately, with nuclear reactors, accidents can be devastating.But, I take your point.

randylonghorn · 27-04-2010 04:49AM

Paks was 2003, Erwin 2006.

I suppose my point is really that while the technology moves on, people don't ... they still come in feeling under the weather with the 'flu one morning, or they have done the same thing so often over 20 years that they take a little shortcut because, sure, nothing will happen, and 99,999 times out of a 100,000 it won't happen ... but with nuclear fission, once in a hundred thousand can have catastrophic consequences.

In Shika (1999 ... not that long ago) workers neglected the safety procedures and withdrew 3 control rods at once during an inspection setting off a 15 minutes sustained reaction.

The company (a) did not report the incident and (b) falsified records to cover it up until 2007.

Chernobyl would seem to have triggered by a mishandled safety drill, albeit construction / equipment was probably sub-par as well.

That's what I mean by saying it's the human factor that scares me, rather than necessarily the technology itself. The "inanimate carbon rod" in the Simpsons probably deserved its award ... it's generally reliable, it doesn't get tired or take short cuts or cover its own ass when it stuffs things up.

That takes humans.

So, while I reckon that eventually we will develop a nuclear-based method of power generation that doesn't have the same potential for destruction if something goes wrong, I really don't want to see a nuclear plant in Ireland until that happens ... especially not in good ol' brown envelope, stroke the egos and pretend everything's rosy until you're found out Ireland!

WalterMitty · 27-04-2010 04:57AM

whats this "chernobyl heart" disease that yer one Adi Roche is talking about on new radio ad i heard today?

Noreen1 · 27-04-2010 10:48AM

Seriously, I wouldn't trust the powers that be in this country to safely organise a nuclear power plant. Let's face it, if they can't find a competent company to design a system for computerised voting.........

When you see a government minister, with responsibility for energy, completely disregard the opinions of 2 energy experts - be careful, be very careful.......

On the other hand, this "Spirit of Ireland" idea could well have some merit.

Noreen

Sykk · 27-04-2010 11:04AM

@people who voted yes... I don't think you actually realise how dangerous it is to be near a nuclear plant.

No - It's not just a myth or a scare - You can/probably will end up with all sorts of ****ed up diseases / deformities if someone makes a small mistake while your out playing with your kids.

mike65 · 27-04-2010 11:11AM

landsleaving wrote: »

Don't you read the newspaper? everything gives you cancer.

Taking a nocturnal pee will give you cancer

freyners · 27-04-2010 11:21AM

no problem watsoever with it

Pyr0 · 27-04-2010 11:22AM

randylonghorn wrote: »

The "inanimate carbon rod" in the Simpsons probably deserved its award

Indeed ! Let us appease the carbon rod Gods, for they shall keep us safe !

baltimore sun · 27-04-2010 11:27AM

works perfectly in Germany, France & Japan, so why not here too?

RolandIRL · 27-04-2010 11:28AM

it'd be better to have a few smaller reactors in a few different places than 1 big one in one location. it'd reduce the risk of exposure (less material to be working with), and if one reactor had to be repaired, we wouldn't be without power.

i thought that nuclear power was extremely efficient though. that the uranium put in is always used, and you could reuse almost 99% of it(my brother said that the americans don't reuse, and just throw it away). i could be wrong though

sellafield has a bad safety record, doesn't it? that's what all the fuss is about. i think nuclear power is safe, and anyway it'd give no more cancer than what's already out there. For example, in my LC history book, there's a table that gives cancer rates for Japan. Nagasaki and Hiroshima are among them and above the Japanese average, but then it shows Western figures, and they're waaaay higher than Nagasaki and Hiroshima, i think the Western figures were close to 3 times Japan's.

flanzer · 27-04-2010 11:34AM

Isn't this the way the modern world in going? No chance it'll come to Ireland so in our generation. We are a nation that still wan't horse and cart transport and to live off the potatoes we grow

GavRedKing · 27-04-2010 11:35AM

A yes from me anyway.

I think nuclear power will be the way forward for Ireland IMO, but not for another decade or two at least.

vodafoneproblem · 27-04-2010 12:02PM

I'd prefer to use our natural wind and wave power (and, cough, solar, such as it is. Though maybe the PS/CS on bicycles with dynamos in their spare working time would be a better bet.... ) to produce electricity and either feed it into the European grid, when it's available, to be paid back when we need it, or, preferably, to turn it into some sort of potential energy system ala http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turlough_Hill where we could use it when we want.

Also, I would not trust Irish builders to build a nuclear power plant. Has anyone seen the standard of houses they've thrown together during the Celtic Tiger? Scarily bad, ime.

randylonghorn · 27-04-2010 04:47PM

baltimore sun wrote: »

works perfectly in Germany, France & Japan, so why not here too?

How do you define "perfectly"?

randylonghorn wrote: »

I'm pretty sure that the people of Canada (Chalk River plant); UK (Windscale / Sellafield; Chapelcross); Russia (Kyshtym; Chernobyl; Sosnovy Bor; Tomsk); U.S (Three Mile Island; Idaho Falls; Detroit; Sequoyah; Monroe; Braidwood; Erwin); Germany (Lubmin; Hamm-Uentrop); Japan (Tsuruga; Tokaimura; Shika); France (Forbach; Saint Laurens); Yugoslavia (Jaslovské Bohunice); Hungary (Paks); etc. thought that too.

Many of these were the subject of cover-ups or attempted cover-ups.

Which begs the question: how many others were successfully covered up?

27-04-2010 05:33PM

So people think government ministers are going to design the nuclear power plant and some housing construction company is going to build it?
I'm not even going to put forward any arguments. What's the point.

randylonghorn · 28-04-2010 12:43AM

Deleted User wrote: »

So people think government ministers are going to design the nuclear power plant and some housing construction company is going to build it?
I'm not even going to put forward any arguments. What's the point.

No, I don't anyway.

But government / politicians will get involved in the regulatory side, in the planning permissions side, probably in the tendering side. And *some* big construction company will build it.

And ordinary human beings will staff it.

moonflower · 28-04-2010 01:07AM

In any other country I wouldn't have much of a problem with living near a nuclear power plant. However we can barely build a road in this county, us having a nuclear power plant would be a disaster.

jimmycrackcorm · 28-04-2010 01:20AM

moonflower wrote: »

In any other country I wouldn't have much of a problem with living near a nuclear power plant. However we can barely build a road in this county, us having a nuclear power plant would be a disaster.

Actually we are getting better at building roads, newer roads seem tobe coming in under budget and under time.

thecornflake · 28-04-2010 01:41AM

Michaelrsh wrote: »

Another possibility is nuclear fusion which is in its development stage.

Best bet IMO. The only waste product is helium ( fun to play with and inert) , also no chance of a meltdown at all due to the conditions needed for the reaction. They're already building a new fusion reactor that should have a positive net output. This is the way forward ,nothing wrong with fission , but it would be a waste of money with this new technology coming in the next 50ish years. It wouyld prob be better to just stick with coal gas and oil and try to use as much "green" energy until we have these new fusion plants.

Plus all that crapola that we kick up over sellafield would look stupid if we went and built a fission plant. Also arn't we already using electricity from main land britain which comes from those fission plants ?

Nuclear power in your back yard, yea or nea?

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