Nuclear power

ninky_2

Niv wrote: »

Why are you so worried after this latest disaster? What I mean by that is:
- In the UK we are very unlikely to get a 8.9 rated earthquake

no but they are likely to get them in japan and the population were told these plants could cope. it makes me think could there be a situation that could occur here that isn't adequately protected against. iaea is an international body, are we relying on it too much for regulation, is it really fit for purpose?
- In the UK we are very unlikely to get a tsunami

as above. however we have had increasingly severe, "unprecidented" flooding it seems and generally more severe weather patterns. could that lead to landslides / equipment malfunction especially if sustained over a long periods. what if sea levels do rise?
- The reactor in Japan is ancient
40 years isn't ancient. in 40 years the technology being proposed now will be equally ancient. i don't really buy into the out of date argument. why are we still running old plants in that case?
- How do the regulations in Japan compare to UK? If you dont know, maybe you should find out as your phrasing makes it look like (to me) that the UK is directly comparable to Japan. I disagree.
of course there will be some differences with japan but a lot of the technology and expertise is shared internationally. for example the plants in japan are very similar in design to others in europe. are they still running the others in japan that are of similar design or have they shut them down?

If we as a nation move away from nuclear, apart from the rolling blackouts that you would find acceptable to have, how do you propose we protect ourselves from other nations that decide to use nuclear? I am not suggesting that 'everyone is doing it' so lets carry on, BUT, nuclear is here to stay for the time being, imo it will not be gone for quite some time and at the moment there really is not an alternative. Stop banging on about renewables at domestic level, it simply will not work for the majority.

i think the eu suggestions are very sensible. we need a european wide look at things. obviously we have less say in other areas. shows why we need to move towards more global legislation.

Gorgeous_George

We need to spare a thought for the brave souls fighting to make safe the reactors in Japan. As brave as our bravest soldiers IMHO and worthy of Japan's highest honour.

Everything we do carries risk. Shutdown the UK's reactors and we'll buy electricity from France - produced by their nuclear reactors. The lessons from Japan will make future nuclear energy production safer than ever before - but it will still carry a risk.

Risk = Hazard x Likelihood. You could reduce the Hazard by building more, smaller reactors more evenly spread around the UK but this would increase the Likelihood (maybe a price worth paying).

Perhaps, if electricity could only be consumed within 30 miles of its production, people would be less likely to complain about having wind farms and the like within their immediate surroundings. Perhaps they would use less of it.

For me, nuclear remains the only viable alternative to meet our current needs. If you want change, we need to change our needs.

GG

irok20002

Sorry to call you paranoid, I did not mean any offence

It’s fast becoming apparent that this reactor was not fit for purpose, and its also apparent that people have been saying this for years, and nothing was done about it.

Fukushima was the first plant built by Tokyo Electric Power Company at a time in the nuclear industry when every reactor was built differently to different designs as knowledge and experience improved. I cannot defend this design but generation 3+ designs (the new build designs) have to pass far more stringent safety cases and licensing procedures.

I don’t believe an EU stress test into the current reactors is a bad thing, there is certainly a lot of old reactors out there that are having life extensions when maybe they shouldn’t. However I am completely for the building of new nuclear plants once they have passed the licensing process.
As I’ve said before the licensing process looks at even ridiculously unlikely events (once in 10 000 years). For instance flooding, if a flood gets high enough to knock out an EPR (above the exhaust and air vents on the backup diesel generators) then to be honest we are going to be having much bigger problems than an underwater power plant melting down (which the new designs are fitted to deal with even though its almost impossible for that to happen).
I can’t stress this enough but Fukushima happened before Chernobyl, and the industry has changed a lot over 40 years. Japan does have its own HSE equivalent, but 40 years they were not as strict if they existed at all (I really do not know). But it is safe to say on purely safety grounds the Fukushima plant would not be allowed to be built in the UK or Japan today.

John_Pierpoint

ninky wrote: »

we may not have had tsunamis but there is a risk of flooding / landslides etc as well as military / terrorist threat. all these things have to be considered and put into play. "passive safety" may not always be enough if someone actively wishes a nuclear plant ill for example. we've been a relatively trouble free nation for a few years now and not been invaded but we can't assume the world situation will always stay as it is.

There was one hell of a fuss about 30 years ago. It centred on the underwater shape of the Canary Islands.
Apparently the shape was just right for a volcanic blast, Iceland style, to fire off a tsunami at the British Isles.
As it rolled up the Bristol and English channels it would create a massive Seven bore effect, creating a surfer's paradise as it went and tangled with all those nuclear power stations lining the French bank.

[Similarly British Gas dug some huge unlined holes on Canvey Island and filled them with liquid Natural Gas, kept in place with a pressure cooker lid that vented enough gas to keep the rest cold and liquid.
Surprise surprise the ground started to freeze and crack. "Funny it worked ok in the desert when we tried it":eek:
Obviously as methane-CH4-natural gas is a major "greenhouse" gas,
twenty five times the power of the same concentration of CO2, the idea of using it as a refrigerant in an open system, should never be entertained in these enlightened times.]

Gorgeous_George wrote: »

Risk = Hazard x Likelihood. You could reduce the Hazard by building more, smaller reactors more evenly spread around the UK but this would increase the Likelihood (maybe a price worth paying).

GG

But have we got the right to bequeath to our children (all 9 billion of them) a legacy of toxic waste that will need to be guarded for tens of thousands of years.
Let me see, what were we doing tens of thousands of years ago - Ah yes living in caves but without the need to share them with the warmth from the waste in them.

Niv

ninky - 40 years in the nuclear industry is ancient, if you dont get that then that could be the cause of some of your concerns

mustrum_ridcully

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

There was one hell of a fuss about 30 years ago. It centred on the underwater shape of the Canary Islands.
Apparently the shape was just right for a volcanic blast, Iceland style, to fire off a tsunami at the British Isles.
As it rolled up the Bristol and English channels it would create a massive Seven bore effect, creating a surfer's paradise as it went and tangled with all those nuclear power stations lining the French bank.

There was a bit of fuss over the canary islands just after the boxing day tsunami.

I wouldn't worry about the French nuclear power stations, I'd worry about the 3 nuclear power stations (1 decommissioned) along the Severn / Bristol Channel. The prevailing wind is from the west and would blow any radioactive cloud towards London.

1984ReturnsForReal_2

All quiet on the Badger front then.

I wonder if he has come to realise the comments & statements coming from the IAEA were somewhat biased yet?


Kiss my asssssssssssssssssss Badger.

Kohoutek

George Monbiot comes out as a closet nuclear power proponent...

The nuclear disaster unfolding in Japan is bad enough; the nuclear disaster unfolding in China could be even worse.

"What disaster?", you may ask. The decision taken today by the Chinese government to suspend approval of new atomic power plants. If this suspension were to become permanent, the power those plants would have produced is likely to be replaced by burning coal. While nuclear causes calamities when it goes wrong, coal causes calamities when it goes right, and coal goes right a lot more often than nuclear goes wrong. The only safe coal-fired plant is one which has broken down past the point of repair.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2011/mar/16/japan-nuclear-crisis-atomic-energy

macaque_2

Degenerate wrote: »

They can. "Passive safety" as it is known, is what moved me to support nuclear again.

That is encouraging but (as I stated) not the end of the story. An emergency shutdown fault is just one of the many hazards associated with the use of nuclear fuels. These are unstable and acutely toxic compounds. This makes them inherently unsafe. The safety of nuclear power generation is ultimately at the mercy of human error, negligence, corruption, greed, criminal intentions and folly. By comparison to many governments, Japan is a model of good governance and yet it has emerged within the last few days that even they failed to confront serious concerns about their reactors. Like companies who burn fossil fuels, nuclear power generators do not budget for the full life cycle cost of using these fuels and too much gets swept under the carpet.

I agree that nuclear power is probably less damaging than fossil fuels but neither are a good way forward. Although I accept that turning the nuclear tap off today would be impractical, I think we should be planning a deadline after which nuclear power stations would cease to be built.

There are alternative solutions to nuclear power but they involve a radical change in thinking such as population control, higher investment in safer fuels and a drastically lower consumption of energy. At the heart of people's support for nuclear fuel is selfishness and a criminal disregard for the needs of future generations.

Kohoutek

macaque wrote: »

At the heart of people's support for nuclear fuel is selfishness and a criminal disregard for the needs of future generations.

Do you believe in global climate change? If anything like the "worst case scenario" is accurate, surely mitigation of greater carbon emissions is worth the cost of producing and safeguarding spent nuclear fuel. Especially when it may eventually it may be possible to put spent nuclear fuel to productive use.

We'll be using nuclear power in the future, even if no new nuclear power stations are built. Once it is no longer economic to run the world's merchant fleet on bunker fuel (oil), nuclear propulsion as already used in some large military vessels is the only viable option.