Nuclear power : how visions change

Martyn1981

kinger101 wrote: »

Nuclear is much more benign both environmentally and in terms of loss of human lives to any carbon based fuel.

I'm not a huge fan of nuclear, but agree that overall, it's probably a much better bet than fossil fuels, and the high cost of nuclear generation is probably worth it overall for baseload CO2 free (low CO2) generation.

But as slogans go - "Nuclear, at least we're not as bad as coal!" isn't the catchiest.

Mart.

stator

Nuclear is the only clean, safe and reliable option.
Coal, Gas and Shale are not clean
Wind and Solar are not reliable.

Nuclear power is the only option.
The Government should just bite the bullet and build the power stations themselves. Then once they are up and running you sell them off and use the money to repay the debt.

Clean, secure and safe energy for the next 50 years. Problem solved.

kabayiri

stator wrote: »

Nuclear is the only clean, safe and reliable option.
Coal, Gas and Shale are not clean
Wind and Solar are not reliable.

Nuclear power is the only option.
The Government should just bite the bullet and build the power stations themselves. Then once they are up and running you sell them off and use the money to repay the debt.

Clean, secure and safe energy for the next 50 years. Problem solved.

This is kind of my point for including the youtube video link showing a promotional viewpoint for Nuclear power back in the 60s.

I'm pretty sure they had the same aspirations.

50 years on, and the people who made those predictions may be wondering just what went wrong.

How many could have imagined market deregulation; foreign ownership of energy firms; even the demise of coal?

Are we about to make equally wrong 50 year predictions for the next generation of Nuclear power? If the issue of energy storage is mastered, what would prevent the export of solar energy from warmer climes, for example?

patman99

Funnily enough, the Chinese Govt. has switched from investigating improvements to nuclear power and is investing £17Bn a year into getting thorium reaction up and running. They know it is possible to use thorium to generate power as the USA started designing such a reactor before switching to nuclear (as thorium produces nothing that can be used in atomic bombs).

It has been regonsied that whoever gets thorium reaction working, will have won the race for truly cheap and efficient energy for the next 25,000 years.

This is what our Govt. needs to be investing heavilt in. Drop the nuclear sudsidy and invest the money in thorium reaction development instead.

What people do not realise is how inefficient nuclear power is. A uranium fuel rod is spent and unusable after just 1% of it is used. Compare this to gas, coal and renewable energy and it looks even worse.

For instance, gas is used 100%, but the hot gasses can be used to pre-heat the water prior to it passing into the boiler to be turned into steam to turn the generators, thus reducing the amount of gas required to power the plant.

Solar power only requires people to install it. After that, there is no further maintanence needed. No waste is produced.

Wind needs a small team to carry out 3-monthly checks. Failed parts can be recycled, so little or no waste is produced.

Nuclear uses just 1% of it's fuel to generate power, needs a large amount of on-going maintanence, produces waste that needs to be stored for 100,000 years before it is safe to handle and when it goes wrong, can affect an entire Country.

chris_m

stator wrote: »

Nuclear is the only clean, safe and reliable option.
Wind and Solar are not reliable.

Tidal is - untill the moon disappears off on its own in however million years that will be) we are guaranteed four tidal movements per day, irrespective of whether or not the wind blows.
However, too much cash has been spent on developing the technology to build large-scale installations which are dependent upon the wind blowing, primarily due to the lucrative subsidies that have been handed out, instead of developing ALL options

Nuclear power is the only option.

I don't see it as the "only" option, however it should definitely be part of a range of sources, to include tidal and hydro - but less wind, solar and wave.

kinger101

stator wrote: »

Nuclear is the only clean, safe and reliable option.
Coal, Gas and Shale are not clean
Wind and Solar are not reliable.

Nuclear power is the only option.
The Government should just bite the bullet and build the power stations themselves. Then once they are up and running you sell them off and use the money to repay the debt.

Clean, secure and safe energy for the next 50 years. Problem solved.

Wind is actually quite reliable, given that the wind is usually blowing somewhere in the UK.

http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/publications/downloads/sinden05-dtiwindreport.pdf

However, it cannot be used to provide 100% of our needs, so can only be part of the mix. Energy from intermittent sources can also be stored with hydros.

Large power stations also have outages and scheduled maintenance, so overcapacity is always needs to be built in.

I definitely think tidal should be used more. Although this fluctuates too, it is entirely predictable.

cells

stator wrote: »

Clean, secure and safe energy for the next 50 years. Problem solved.

The new designs have 60 year lives and will likely be given a 20 year extension. The existing USA fleet (built out about 40 years ago) is likely to be around for 80 years and maybe more so any new build imo is likely to be around for 100 years

another good fact about nukes is that you can place multiple reactors at one site. For example the UK could build just three stations with 4 reactors each and get 50% of all its electricity in those 3 plants.

however due to over regulation its likely to never be viable again in the UK.

I dont think it matters too much for us, but its important for the world that China and India take the french route and build out a 70% nuke infrastructure before they get too rich to care about rehousing newts

cells

kabayiri wrote: »

This is kind of my point for including the youtube video link showing a promotional viewpoint for Nuclear power back in the 60s.

I'm pretty sure they had the same aspirations.

50 years on, and the people who made those predictions may be wondering just what went wrong.

How many could have imagined market deregulation; foreign ownership of energy firms; even the demise of coal?

Are we about to make equally wrong 50 year predictions for the next generation of Nuclear power? If the issue of energy storage is mastered, what would prevent the export of solar energy from warmer climes, for example?

well i doubt very much a government would want to be at the will of another government or a terrorist group cutting a wire and leading to a 90% crash in your economy due to no electricity!

The advantage of nuclear is that its local its extremely energy dense its totally clean and its proven and works.


wind or solar may get cheaper yet, I don't think its likely to be competitive with Gas/coal/nuclear in the long run BUT we will almost know for certain in the next 10 years so dont rush in wait and see.

cells

Lots of talk in the news over the last two days about osborne getting the chinese to commit to funding uk nukes and possibly building some in the future. Also talk about the sizewell plants being delayed...how can they be delayed when they haven't even started building them!

I recall reading that the plot of land next to sizewell that is to host two of the new reactors was bought by someone for £500 million. Its a plot that should normally cost no more than £5 million.

This is the type of !!!! that inflates nuke prices needlessly.

Although a beautiful technology its clear as things stand it wont be value for money. Just keep what we got for another 10 years and reevaluate at that point.

Mistermeaner

patman99 wrote: »

What people do not realise is how inefficient nuclear power is. A uranium fuel rod is spent and unusable after just 1% of it is used. Compare this to gas, coal and renewable energy and it looks even worse.

For instance, gas is used 100%, but the hot gasses can be used to pre-heat the water prior to it passing into the boiler to be turned into steam to turn the generators, thus reducing the amount of gas required to power the plant.

Solar power only requires people to install it. After that, there is no further maintanence needed. No waste is produced.

Wind needs a small team to carry out 3-monthly checks. Failed parts can be recycled, so little or no waste is produced.

Nuclear uses just 1% of it's fuel to generate power, needs a large amount of on-going maintanence, produces waste that needs to be stored for 100,000 years before it is safe to handle and when it goes wrong, can affect an entire Country.

Consumption of the main raw material is not how you measure efficiency - to say nuclear is inefficient because only 1% of uranium is used vs gas which is 100% burned is meaningless.

Using hot condensate in boilers (condensed from the steam let down by turbines) is a simple mechanical process used in all closed loop steam turbine process including also exothermic chemical reactions and also nuclear. It does not make one any more efficient than the other.

To measure efficiency you must talk about efficient regards to what? Watt per £ / watt per kg / watt per manhour etc

Also re wind and solar you ignore both the ininital production cost ~ money as well as labour and raw mats and energy. Also solar panels degrade over time and need replacing after 20 or so years.

The reason renewables need subsidising is that they are not economically efficient in watts / £ terms.