Why doesn't Ireland have a nuclear power plant?

maxxie

Coal ash does not make your babies be born with arms on their heads.

Why is the radiation from Coal power plants different to the radiation from nuclear power plants?

It seems that people are comparing radiation from coal plants to 'stable' nuclear plants. I don't think that's the main issue with most people is it... it's when things go tits up at a nuclear power plant that people ae interested to know the radiation levels ......which during a 'Fukushima' obviously are hundreds of times higher than 'standard fly ash radiation' caused by thorium in areas up to 1 mile around smoke stacks of coal plants.

It is disturbing that coal plants emit radioactive material into air and soil.......although most studies, journals and articles on the issue seems to say that the health risk of this radiation on general population is very low and death by such health risks is considereed less likely than being killed by lightening for instance.

However...scientists have agreed that people directly in the shadow i.e. from half a mile to a mile radius.. of a smoke stack of a coal plant CAN inhale fly ash AS CAN people living very close to where fly ash is buried.... in mines....the lesson here is that they should make sure that plants are further away from people...like 2 miles etc although this is unlikely ever to be formalised into any international or global laws or regulations.

There is no point in comparing the day to day radiation of a coal plant (especially without specific science and figures and sources) to the day to day radiation of a nuclear power plant. A disaster at a nuclear power plant means an entirely different thing than at a coal plant. It's like comparing the safety of a bus to a Large Car Ferry. The scale is too different....apples and oranges....but it is worth getting into the specifics of coal plant 'Radiation' and the 'Proven' health risks associated with same compared to the radiation risks involved in running any one of 20 different types of nuclear power plants and all their associated processes from water issues to fuel transortation 'crash, theft or terrosism risk'.... it would be a very very complex debate but worth having.

Apples and Oranges I think.

I want to know the total global pollutive impact of the 7000+ coal plants verses the 435 Nuclear reactors from mining to meltdowns etc.. since the beginning of both.

I'd agree with that...


"
U.S. HOUSEHOLD ELECTRICITY CONSUMPTION IN 2001

Electricity consumption by 107 million U.S. households in 2001 totaled 1,140 billion kWh. The most significant end uses were central air-conditioning and refrigerators, each of which accounted for about 14 percent of the U.S. total. "

so: air con 14%
(we all have fridges.)

according to this report.. that means 204 Watts hours per person just on air con.... we use 664 IN TOTAL EACH ON AVERAGE...USA uses 2.2 times the electricity per person than Ireland.... 1460 !!

It's amazing how one device or thing can have such a global impact....SUV WEIGHT is the same story.... US vehicles are on average 33% heavier than rest of world average vehicles...and so they use 33% more fuel....for no reason at all....just a fashion for SUV's which on average weight 5000 lbs as opposed to a BMW 3 series which weighs in at 3000lbs.

Question is: how will the US change this air con electricity use issue if it's a building design issue and they have too many houses as it is....and no money to retro fit til the economy turns round.

Building energy efficiency (connected to smart grids) is deffo worth >20% of the worlds energy problems IMO but it costs (...and saves) and the homes most in need of retro fit belong to the most cash poor families... which means that to turn these efficient design opportunities into reality on a scale as to REALLY make a difference in a relevant timeframe governments will need to get involved in a big way, subsidies, tax breaks, etc.... which could make sense on a big enough scale as there's millions of jobs to be made in the area of 'energy efficient buildings'.... of couse for every dime you save you take directly from the pocket of the power company... the dynamics of economies need to shift big time.... same amount of money...going to different, smarter, more efficient places...

cavedave wrote: »

Ok lets compare overall deaths by form of electricity generation then.
Deaths per terrawatt hour coal still wins by a large amount

Energy Source Death Rate (deaths per TWh)

Coal – world average 161 (26% of world energy, 50% of electricity)
Coal – China 278
Coal – USA 15
Oil 36 (36% of world energy)
Natural Gas 4 (21% of world energy)
Biofuel/Biomass 12
Peat 12
Solar (rooftop) 0.44 (less than 0.1% of world energy)
Wind 0.15 (less than 1% of world energy)
Hydro 0.10 (europe death rate, 2.2% of world energy)
Hydro - world including Banqiao) 1.4 (about 2500 TWh/yr and 171,000 Banqiao dead)
Nuclear 0.04 (5.9% of world energy)

ok fair enough....but the causes of these deaths better be proven to be specifically coal pollution, radiation, water contamination, mine accident, transport, industrial accident etc.. ONLY attributable to the COAL POWER PROCESS.

Coal IS a filthy business....they're opening a new plant every week in China right now.... and as you can see from your figs...safety is not a primary concern...theyre just moving too fast....and theyre polluting the crap outa their most important resource...water....which I feel will be the limiting factor to China's growth...and within 40 years......water use...water pollution.....water for crops....aquifer decrease etc..

maybe they'll desalinate with their 100 odd nuclear plants....who knows

I want to know about the most efficient most clean coal plant option....and how polluting it is...and how uch it costs and how much power it makes...

There's 118 years of good coal left according to Shell..... just enough to pollute the **** outa this planet I'd say.

Be like Nutella

ok fair enough....but the causes of these deaths better be proven to be specifically coal pollution, radiation, water contamination, mine accident, transport, industrial accident etc.. ONLY attributable to the COAL POWER PROCESS.

So you accept, possibly requiring more evidence, that coal energy kills more people than nuclear energy? Does that mean you withdraw your safety objections to nuclear? There are still worries as expressed in this thread that large nuclear plants do not make sense for small countries and the general question of how cost effective they are. The cost effectiveness somewhat depends on how much you value human life. If killing people does not bother you much then sticking with coal is easier.

The green shibboleth is that nuclear energy is bad. Many prominent greens such as James Lovelock (Nuclear power is the only green solution) and Stewart Brand (Says Nuclear Power Could Save the World) are challenging this.

There is still a nuclear weapons risk. We should be doing much more to reduce stockpiles, prevent proliferation and putting in safety mechanisms on nuclear stocks. “The risk that each one of us dies as a result of failed deterrence is thousands of times greater than the risk you would bear if a nuclear power plant were built right next to your home."

Solair

For a small country, with limited landmass, a nuclear disaster could mean having to abandon the country entirely.
...
As most people would agree, Nuclear's fine, when it's working stably. The problem is that there seems to be a really serious accident roughly every 20 years i.e. INES level 5+.

How many of these disasters have made people have to abandon a country? Or indeed abandon any area long term?
There is a 30km exclusion zone around Chernobyl. If an accident that bad with dangerous Soviet technology results in a 30 km exclusion zone (and 4,056 deaths) how likely is a abandon the country disaster?

Stiglitz makes an interesting point. As the news anchor says oil wells can have similar big accidents. Are you suggesting we do not use oil anymore? Without limited liability very few companies would exist. Niall Ferguson goes into this in the ascent of money about how the big companies that you need to make complicated things needed the idea of limited liability "Invented almost exactly 400 years ago, the joint-stock, limited-liability company is indeed a miraculous institution".

Maybe all of these companies with black swan risks should not be limited liability but a world of small conservative banks, insurance companies, states, airline manufacturers, car manufacturers etc would be a very different.