'No Quick Fix' From Nuclear Power 615
humoly writes to tell us BBC News is reporting that while many are calling for nuclear power, new nuclear plants are not the answer to combating climate changes or the wavering energy concerns for the UK. From the article: "The Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) report says doubling nuclear capacity would make only a small impact on reducing carbon emissions by 2035. The body, which advises the government on the environment, says this must be set against the potential risks. The government is currently undertaking a review of Britain's energy needs."
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Solar power is the real answer. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Solar power is the real answer. (Score:3, Informative)
Also here [solarbus.org]
Since the price of solar panels makes the economic breakeven point 10-20-50 years, this must be because of the cost of materials, which can be recycled. All of this, of course, assume you live somewhere solar is useful, not, say, England.
Quick Fix, Instant-Oatmeal One-Hour photo answers (Score:5, Insightful)
While I was shocked how little nuclear power would reduce emission and the fact apparently intelligent people thought this would be a silver bullet deal, it should not surprise anyone that
There is no quick fix. A lot of things have to change, like our automobile usage, suburban lifestyle, and the excessive packaging of one time use products.
Re:Quick Fix, Instant-Oatmeal One-Hour photo answe (Score:5, Insightful)
Nuclear power does reduce emissions by helping us eliminate coal and oil power plants. Something's better than nothing, and nuclear waste is infinitely easier to contain than a cloud coming out of a smokestack.
Moreover, nuclear power scales better for the future. Like it or not, our energy usage is only going to go up. Nuclear also makes possible other technologies that reduce emissions- where do you think the hydrogen for fuel cells comes from? The easiest way to generate it is in a reactor.
Re:Quick Fix, Instant-Oatmeal One-Hour photo answe (Score:5, Insightful)
We done it many times before. Or do you believe that humans have always driven cars to work?
Re:Quick Fix, Instant-Oatmeal One-Hour photo answe (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Quick Fix, Instant-Oatmeal One-Hour photo answe (Score:5, Insightful)
People love those sorts of lifestyle changes that represent a reduction in lifestyle.
Re:Quick Fix, Instant-Oatmeal One-Hour photo answe (Score:3, Insightful)
I used to drive 45 minutes to work, as did practically everyone in the area that I was from. Dinner I cook, but then, I don't think that most people ever made McDonalds their primary source of dinner-food. I see plenty of TV dinners at work, and most people do not pick their fruit from their own tree.
Re:Quick Fix, Instant-Oatmeal One-Hour photo answe (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Quick Fix, Instant-Oatmeal One-Hour photo answe (Score:3, Insightful)
Or allows us to become complacent again?
Re:Quick Fix, Instant-Oatmeal One-Hour photo answe (Score:3, Insightful)
And I think you need to check your numbers. How much of all of that "available" land is arable?
Re:Quick Fix, Instant-Oatmeal One-Hour photo answe (Score:3, Insightful)
In reality it's far, far worse than that. The best farmland is also, generally, the best living land. Two areas I'm familar with -- rural Maryland and the Willamette Valley in Oregon -- were once among the most fertile areas ever seen. Unfortunately, they are also great places to live so every year thousands of acres of prime farmland becomes yards and parking lots
Re:Quick Fix, Instant-Oatmeal One-Hour photo answe (Score:5, Insightful)
As gas prices rise, we will see people move closer to their jobs (ie, the city) from the suburbs. Suburban sprawl is obviously more likely if the act of commuting is not in the least bit taxing (See: United States). If we want people to stop driving so much, make it expensive as hell...and in turn, maybe start using Europe's incredible public transportation. We don't have that in the U.S. (realistically).
The biggest problem with environmental concerns (very similar to security concerns which any of us involved can relate) is obviously that a single person experiences very little payback for their contribution (and/or can see very little return instantaneously). To curb the public's tendencies, we may have instate some pretty intense restrictions.
How far do we need to go to really protect ourselves against Global Warming (yes, I said it), or environmental concerns?
Re:Quick Fix, Instant-Oatmeal One-Hour photo answe (Score:3, Insightful)
Own a home with a lawn and having some space from the neighbors is probably the pinnacle of the American dream. Telling Americans they
Re:Quick Fix, Instant-Oatmeal One-Hour photo answe (Score:3, Insightful)
More to the point though, I think it is still political suicide. I don't think the "stick" approach is going to win anyone. You will just severely punish the poor while the middle class family that desperately wants to own a home outside of a city with green laws and elbow room will simply shrug off the expense.
There is no socia
Re:Quick Fix, Instant-Oatmeal One-Hour photo answe (Score:5, Insightful)
That is the biggest evil in our culture... How many people bother recycling now that a bag of aluminum cans isn't worth much? [If anything].
I was away from my apartment for a couple of months. I turned everything off. My electric bill was insanely low, less than 100KHh -- 1/10 of my usual usage. Guess what? My electric bill went down only a third... Still paid $25/month for not using anything. In other words, using 10x the electricity only costs 3x as much -- a bargain! Where's the incentive?
Water here is shared.... I pay $40/month (USD) whether I bathe three times a day or once a week. And I live by myself...
Judging by the number of souped up 4x4 trucks with sparkling-new looking cargo beds, cars are still too cheap... Even a recent (Lexus) commercial seemed to make fun all-solar car attempts in an effort to promote their new SUV.
Forget environmental concerns... When oil becomes scarce [Or when people think it has], what will happen? How will goods be transported? How will plastics be manufactured? How will coal be mined without the use of gas-powered vehicles? How will people get to work? What will propel ocean liners carrying goods? How will farmers harvest food? How will they deliver it? Keep it refrigerated? Commercial planes aren't going solar anytime soon...
Yes, there are alternatives to some of these... No, I don't think people will plan the switch in time.
Society should not be promoting this sub-culture of waste and greed. Unfortunately, "society" has too many idiots and greedy businessmen for this to change anytime soon.
We seem to try to live as far apart as possible, as far from work, school, etc as possible... Just imagine how much time we could save doing more useful stuff, how much less driving done, and how things could be better...
Or do people in southern california and in large cities enjoy a 1-hr commute to work? Do people really dream of sitting in stopped traffic? Do they fantasize about gridlock? I for one, do not.
Re:Quick Fix, Instant-Oatmeal One-Hour photo answe (Score:3, Interesting)
Ahh the joys of all them taxes and regulatory fees simply for being hooked up. And being hooked up is mandatory in most places. Go figure.
Forget environmen
Where's your quick fix for production rate? (Score:3, Informative)
Which doesn't matter one bit if you can't produce it fast enough (due to limitations on e.g. water for gasification or natural gas for upgrading and desulfurization) to keep pace with the decline of conventional oil.
And that oil is declining. Cantarell (Mexico's biggest field) has peaked. Kuwait's biggest field has peaked. Even Ghawar has peaked (and if you don't know what that that means, you don't know enough to expound on this subject). A million barrels a day from Alber
Re:Quick Fix, Instant-Oatmeal One-Hour photo answe (Score:3, Insightful)
People don't commute for fun, they commute to afford a home. Every off-ramp closer to LA you go the price of homes climbs around $5000. When you are up here in the Antelope Valley they start at $200,000 for a prefab.
This all has little to do with the commute. If you want to reduce emmisions then you have to reduce the number of poluters, in other words, people.
Lot's o
+5 a winner -- POPULATION is the problem (Score:3, Insightful)
There's no way that we can sustain the growth of our current global population and I'm not entirely sure we can sustain our existing population. I can't help but think that the global strife we're experiencing now isn't just a side effect of too many people sharing the same space.
Re:+5 a winner -- POPULATION is the problem (Score:3, Insightful)
In non-Western countries which still cling to ancient/tribal/religious/supertitions, population growth continues unchecked, aided and abetted by well-intentioned charity programs that mitigate natural balancers like disease, pestilence and famine.
Re:Quick Fix, Instant-Oatmeal One-Hour photo (Score:3, Insightful)
There are also a lot of things we can do to cut down transportation energy costs w/o making sacrifices or massive changes. For example, you could more double the effective MPG of 18 wheelers by changing the regulations that limit them so heavily (pun intended) to rather light loads.
For example, Michigan raised it's limits and the largest food quality tanker truck fleet went from 5MPG to an effective 12.5 by carrying more cargo in a
Irony of ironies (Score:4, Informative)
Ethanol does not come straight from the field; it requires considerable inputs to grow the crop, and more to turn it into liquid fuel. The average EROEI that I've seen for ethanol from today's sources is 1.34:1; the most optimistic is 1.67:1. Further, about 20% of the energy in a gallon of E85 is from petroleum. Summing that up, you've got:
- 0.15 gallon of gasoline per gallon E-85
- Of the 0.6 gallons-gasoline-equivalent of ethanol in the
.85 gallons of ethanol, between .36 and .48 gallons-equivalent is from fossil fuels (petroleum, coal and natural gas).
Your total fossil energy per gallon of E85:Re:Quick Fix, Instant-Oatmeal One-Hour photo answe (Score:3)
There are other issues, environmental and economic concerns are complex, but I don't believe that they are necessarily contradictory. I do believe there are ways to encourage more sustainable energy use, it seems many countries do this by selective tax credits and taxes. The EU has
There are no quick fixes! (Score:5, Insightful)
However, if you add them all together, and you might just have a really slow, big pain in the butt fix.
If I hear "such-and-such is not the answer" one more time, I am seriously gonna smack the idiot who says it upside the noggin. There is no single answer!
Re:Quick Fix, Instant-Oatmeal One-Hour photo answe (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_mountain [wikipedia.org]
http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/ymp/about/index.shtml [doe.gov]
"The Yucca Mountain Project is currently focused on preparing an application to obtain a license from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to construct a repository."
Re:Quick Fix, Instant-Oatmeal One-Hour photo answe (Score:5, Insightful)
Most objections to nuclear power are driven by the coal industry, who stands to be the biggest loser if the US and UK move towards more nuclear power.
Anybody else who objects is simply echoing the fears which were fed to them by coal lobbyists.
Nuclear power is both safer and cleaner than coal. Anybody who rejects nuclear in favor of coal plants out of "environmental" concerns is either badly informed or deliberately lying.
Also, anybody who says we can avoid the need of nuclear power by just riding bikes, using a more efficient furnace, and holding hands while singing "Kum Ba Ya" is simply not looking at the real numbers of what our future power needs are, even after you account for a radical scaling back of elective consumption.
Re:Quick Fix, Instant-Oatmeal One-Hour photo answe (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, that energy was stored for the entire history of the Earth, but it was built up in a matter of seconds by the enormous neutron flux in a supernova. We're releasing the energy over a much larger timescale than it was built up over... in reactors, at least.
Re:Quick Fix, Instant-Oatmeal One-Hour photo answe (Score:4, Insightful)
Why?
Because he thinks nuclear energy comes from fossil fuels!?
Because he thinks a few nuclear waste sites represent a greater threat to future generations than unspent uranium lying around in unused ICBMs!?
Because he's worried that solar energy will cook us to death!?
Oh... I get it. You mean you would mod him up "+1, Funny."
Coal is Not Radioactive (Score:3, Informative)
Coal contains on average 3ppm uranium.
By comparision ordinary soil contains 1.8-5ppm uranium.
Coal fueled power plants have aerosol filters. Fields, roads, deserts, and lawns do not.
Could people please stop perpetuating this idea that coal is radioactive please. Coal is a kinematic and chemical pollutant, not a radioactive one. Unless you consider your breakfast cereal to be radioactive.
Re:Quick Fix, Instant-Oatmeal One-Hour photo answe (Score:3, Insightful)
Apples and Oranges. Enriching Uranium or creating enough plutonium to make a bomb is a dirty business, and we weren't exactly too concerned about the enviroment during the cold war(at least for weapons production).
But it's only significantly cleaner than coal when you ignore the waste.
No, it's significantly cleaner when you acknowledge the
Re:Quick Fix, Instant-Oatmeal One-Hour photo answe (Score:3, Insightful)
That's the thing about cadmium, arsenic and mercury; they're poisonous forever.
Re:Quick Fix, Instant-Oatmeal One-Hour photo answe (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe
autos, lifestyle, packaging for one-time use, ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Next time I run down to the store to pick up a new computer, I'll bring in back home on my bike. Of course, it won't be in a box, so I'll take a blanket with me to the store to wrap it in for safety.
And, when I go for additional RAM, NATs, graphics boards, etc., I'll bring my own anti-static bags.
And then there's the candy and cookies for the kids. Buy in bulk or make our own, and when we take it with us we'll re-use baggies. Or wrap it in leaves.
Of course, since we'll be changing o
Don't be (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Quick Fix, Instant-Oatmeal One-Hour photo answe (Score:4, Insightful)
Fixed it.
Honestly, doubling nuclear capacity would do more towards reducing CO2 emissions than doubling wind capacity. It's not like you couldn't go on a building program and build at a rate to commission, say, 5 plants a year using parallel building. 20 years of that and you'd have another hundred plants, enough to shut down most coal plants. That'd cut down on something like 700 million tons of CO2 a year.
Re:Quick Fix, Instant-Oatmeal One-Hour photo answe (Score:5, Insightful)
All of the "zero carbon emissions" or "clean" people have forgotten that it is an industrial process that exists in the real world and not a washing powder commercial. One third of the carbon emmissions of gas turbines (assuming the best possible quality of ore) is still very good - but it isn't zero.
Big power plants of any description are never going to be quick anyway. It can take three years just to get a turbine rotor delivered out of a catalogue.
Re:Quick Fix, Instant-Oatmeal One-Hour photo answe (Score:4, Funny)
A lot of things have to change, like our automobile usage, suburban lifestyle, and the excessive packaging of one time use products.
Re:Quick Fix, Instant-Oatmeal One-Hour photo answe (Score:3, Insightful)
As an aside, put this
Re:Quick Fix, Instant-Oatmeal One-Hour photo answe (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Quick Fix, Instant-Oatmeal One-Hour photo answe (Score:4, Informative)
What about trippling (Score:5, Insightful)
What about trippling the nuclear capacity? What about quadrupling the capacity? That should have an impact surely.
Re:What about trippling (Score:5, Insightful)
That is currently true, but vastly increased electricity production using clean nuclear plants could allow electricity to substitute for other places that are responsible for carbon emission, such as electric cars replacing internal combustion engines.
Energy is energy, in the end, and once it's availible as electricity you can do almost anything with it without generating further pollution.
Re:What about trippling (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Nuke em till they glow! (Score:3, Interesting)
These are one-time improvements. A growth rate of 2% will double in 35 years. If England is growing at 2% a year, then doubling the gas mileage simply puts the problem off 35 years. Oil will have peaked in 35 years (probably sooner..) The first doubling of gas mileage may be easy, but each succesive doubling gets exponentially harder. It can't kee
ZPG not equal extinction (Score:3, Funny)
>This means without immigration they are not growing. If England can achieve this, and ban immigration, and go carbon neutral by conservation, then - for england - they are done. As a practical matter they would also be on their way to extinction.
If England's population continues to grow forever, at some point its biomass would exceed the mass of the universe, causing some difficult gravitational issues.
England, and every other subset of humanity, and humanity itself, will limit its growth eventually
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Okay? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't build nuclear, and instead build that new coal plant, does that somehow cause CO2 levels to go down? Didn't think so.
It's time for the world to face the fact that nuclear energy (and hopefully fusion in the "next 20 years") is the only practical way to truly reduce CO2 emissions and solve pollution problems. If cheap nuclear energy exists, it is possible to reduce pollution and CO2 production in other areas, in addition to the initial electrical generation. Hydrogen fuel for vehicles, electrical heating instead of natural gas or oil, etc.
While other forms of alternative energy are "nice", they all have their downside - solar cells aren't exactly environmentally friendly to produce, wind plants take lots of land and are an eyesore, etc. Nuclear plants may have some miniscule risks, but when properly managed, they are by far the best solution. The problem with nuclear energy (dealing with the waste included) is entirely political, not technical.
Re:Okay? (Score:5, Insightful)
Technical problems we can solve. Idealogical problems, on the other hand, ...
Re:Okay? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Okay? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Okay? (Score:3, Insightful)
centralized/decentralized doesn't matter (Score:3, Informative)
It is not immediately clear to me that decentrali
Re:centralized/decentralized doesn't matter (Score:3, Interesting)
PVs are probably a red herring. They are all made by oil companies, so even were they viable, the oil companies will keep them at a price to maintain the oil demand. I have never advocated PVs in this discussion.
Batteries are also a red herring. If our demand were just lights and electronic devices we could supply everyone in
Re:Okay? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wind, solar, hydroelectric, and nuclear are the only viable methods that don't produce massive amounts of waste while in operation. Solar involves very nasty manufacturing waste. Wind and hydro only work in limited areas. Nuclear works anywhere and anytime. It is the most viable option for replacing the energy production of the world.
Wind power takes a few orders of magnitude more land to produce the same amount of power that a nuclear plant would generate. It also produces *unrealiable* power, since the wind does not always blow. It is a supplementary production method, not a primary method.
You have to dispose of the waste from any hydrocarbon burning plant, too. There is less waste from a nuclear plant, and that waste can be largely reprocessed. Since you're suddenly looking worried about the desecration of land.... how about we put wind turbines on that land? I'm sure that isn't "desecrating" anything.
As far as weapons, anything can be a weapon. If someone really wants to destroy a city, they can come up with a way that doesn't involve a fission bomb. I can think of a few just sitting here typing this reply. Your excuse is ridiculous. You simply don't locate power production in the middle of a city, regardless.
Nuclear isn't the magic bullet, but all of your alternatives are non-functional. They require the world to magically have zero population growth and zero increase in industry.
Re:Okay? (Score:3, Insightful)
You do have to get fuel from somewhere... what's your point. Geothermal vents aren't that common, places to do highly effective hydro are limited, some countries lack enough coastline for tidal, etc. All resources are limited resources eventually. It is currently *much* less of a problem to get sufficient uranium tha
Re:not quite (Score:3, Insightful)
What gives? (Score:5, Insightful)
Annoying as hell - "by 2035" of F'ing course not! (Score:3)
Are these the same people telling us we should just give up fossil fuels for WIND? That some combination of animal dung methane and solar power will make it happen?
Look, we rely on fossil fuels because they have a huge amount of easily available energy in a very dense package. Where else do you find that kind of energy density? Seems like the nuc plants work -- though they're expensive.
How about magic microwave beams from spacecraft with huge solar sails? Ummmmm......ok. Right after Scotty rides down in the space elevator to show us how to make transparent aluminium out of mile long flexible carbon nanotubes. Let me know when its working, I swing by in my flying car to come check it out.
Fast neutron reactors, recycled fuel (Score:5, Informative)
Move it off-world (Score:2)
Conflicted report? (Score:5, Insightful)
1) The economics of nuclear new-build are highly uncertain, according to the report
2) Nuclear would lock the UK into a centralised energy distribution system for the next 50 years when more flexible distribution options are becoming available
3) The report claims that nuclear would undermine the drive for greater energy efficiency
4) If the UK brings forward a new nuclear programme, it becomes more difficult to deny other countries the same technology, the SDC claims
Points 1 and 2 seem to indicate economic and technological malfeasance, but points 3 and 4 seem to imply the technology is good enough to curtail better economic options which would be desirable to other countries? Hmm...
Point 4 also implies that the UK would seek to deny other countries nuclear plants in general, or that "other countries" might use said plants for other than above-board reasons. I can't figure out whether point 4 is insulting to other countries or insulting to the UK...or both.
Talk of Doubling is Silly (Score:5, Insightful)
I couldn't find details, but the study likely also ignores the benefits of nuclear plants in relation to automobiles. Currently, if a person drives an electric car, he'll still be causing emissions at the electric plant. In conjunction with electric car technology, nuclear plants could be a way to significantly reduce emissions that result from vehicles.
Re:Talk of Doubling is Silly (Score:5, Interesting)
As for CO2, a coal powerstation is about 35% efficient at converting C to electricity, a LiIon battery is about 80% efficient round trip, and electric transmissions are about 90% efficient. The overall efficiency is thus about 25% C to miles.
ICE engines are on average about 15% efficient at converting C into miles.
Plug in hybrids probably make more sense.
Reducing the energy usage (Score:5, Insightful)
* Replace bulky monitors for flat screens
* Incentivate low-power CPU's
* Invest in information campaigns about not using home electronics in stand-by mode
* Invest in solar power R&D for home applications
* Incentivate usage of bycicles instead of cars, change the infrastructure of cities to provide smaller stores in more places rather than huge walmarts 10 miles from home
Any other ideas?
Re:Reducing the energy usage (Score:3, Informative)
The problem with conservation as a solution to CO2 emmissions is industrial energy use and the economy.
There are probably ways via market prices or the tax system or whatever to motivate individuals to use less energy. But industrial users, who account for something like half of all energy use, aren't having any. Charge them more for energy and they will move to places where cheap energy is available.
Here in Ontario, industrial growth for 50 years or more has been driven by cheap energy. Now that energy
Re:Reducing the energy usage (Score:3, Insightful)
I can drive to Lowes to pick up my screw driver,
then drive to Old Navy for a T-shirt,
then go to Star Furniture for that baker's rack,
then drive to Exxon to fill up my tank (lots of driving),
then I have to go to Hobby Lobby for my ribbon (I mean model plane... that's it),
then I drive to CompUSA for my X-box game,
then I go drive to Southwest Music Store for my Rush CD,
then I drive to Kroger for my groceries... and so on,
or I can drive to one place, Walm
Re:Reducing the energy usage (Score:3, Interesting)
Or even better: use dimmer switches and
* Replace bulky monitors for flat screens
Too minor (see below). Now, change out all the CRT Television screens and you've got something.
* Incentivate low-power CPU's
One word: Cell. Again though, this won
At least here in Quebec... (Score:5, Funny)
In 1968, after a nuclear meltdown in Charlemagne [wikipedia.org] (Quebec's own Chernobyl accident), the government decided to ban nuclear power for fear of another disaster. Unfortunately, it was too late, since Celine Dion was unleashed to the world soon after that and the rest, as they say, is history...
Sounds like a badly written Uncyclopedia article or something.
what is missing is STORAGE of energy (Score:5, Interesting)
And personally, I think that Nukes is about the only good choice left.
that's an odd metric (Score:5, Insightful)
Even a small impact in terms of *reducing* emissions over 30 years is a *huge* change form the level they would have *risen* to by '35 at the current rate.
Let's look at these "five disadvantages" (Score:5, Insightful)
First, keep in mind that the longer it stays radioactive, by definition the less radioactive (and thus less dangerous) it is. Depleted Uranium, for instance, despite being technically radioactive, is actually used as radiation shielding!
The obvious solution to dealing with waste is to seperate it into stuff that can processed back into viable fuel (and used as such), stuff that's so mildly radioactive that it could be ground into powder and scattered into the ocean and you'd never notice the difference in the background radiation level, and stuff that's not viable as fuel but still radioactive enough that it needs to be stored--which I imagine you'll find is not very much waste.
2) Economics of building nuke plants
Yeah, and how much of the economic uncertainty comes from artificial barriers created by scientific illiterates who oppose nuclear power? Other than fossil fuels, nuclear is the only type of generator that is proven to be long-term viable and scalable to any capacity. If the economics are "uncertain" for nukes, they can only be worse for anything else.
3) Centralized distribution system
4) Undermines the drive for efficiency
Uh, no. Efficiency is, within reason, its own driving force. Despite what some people would like, we're never going to use less energy. There's only so much efficiency gain possible, for one thing. Besides, efficiency gains don't reduce consumption any more than getting a bigger house reduces clutter. Efficiency just lets us get more value from the energy we do use.
5) Difficulty in denying other countries the technology
Oh yeah, because that's working really well as is.
Re:Let's look at these "five disadvantages" (Score:4, Insightful)
Uranium is chemically indeed quite toxic, much like lead or any other heavy metal, radioactive or otherwise. Furthermore small particles (such as those created by ammunition impacting a target) are prone to spontaneous combustion when exposed to air, exacerbating the spread of the toxicity.
DU is however--as the gigantic half-life indicates--simply not appreciably radioactive. Also, if I recall correctly, the form of radiation it emits is harmless from an external source (i.e., as long as it's not ingested or inhaled, in which case you'd still be in more trouble from the toxicity anyhow). Its dangers, not to be disregarded, are at least 99.9% chemical in nature. Radioactivity has precisely nothing to do with it, and any source claiming radiation hazards from DU is either deluded or intentionally deceptive.
Or to turn that around how much of the economic costs are born because nuclear power in any form is supported by scientific illterates? Once closing and storage costs are factored in nuclear plants are expensive even with the massive government subsidies they usually get. And its not like they are long-term viable, the world can run out of affordable uranium too - it will just take a couple of hundred years longer than oil. Right now wind power in many locations is cheaper and more viable long term than nuclear power. And BTW nulcear power is not a type of generator.
The statistic of the world running out of nuclear fuel in a few hundred years is based on the assumption that waste will be disposed of instead of being reprocessed into fuel. Using reprocessing and breeder reactors, we have more than enough nuclear fuel to last thousands of years. Conveniently, this also eliminates a great deal of the costs involved in disposing of waste.
As for wind power, it's only viable in a limited number of locations and will never supply remotely enough energy to replace other forms, and all the wishful thinking of wannabe "environmentalists" won't make that otherwise.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The new nuclear - its better than the old (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not sure what you mean by "supplemental" here. Nuclear power traditionally has been used full time (along with coal and some hydroelectric) and often forms the backbone of a grid where it is used.
The last disadvantage caught my eye (Score:5, Interesting)
* No long-term solutions for the storage of nuclear waste are yet available, says the SDC, and storage presents clear safety issues
* The economics of nuclear new-build are highly uncertain, according to the report
* Nuclear would lock the UK into a centralised energy distribution system for the next 50 years when more flexible distribution options are becoming available
* The report claims that nuclear would undermine the drive for greater energy efficiency
* If the UK brings forward a new nuclear programme, it becomes more difficult to deny other countries the same technology, the SDC claims (emphasis mine)
While the first four are significant, the last one is an interesting angle I hadn't considered. If going nuclear becomes the model for leading first world countries, second and third one countries are going to demand the technology in order to follow the dominant pattern. If they're refused it, they'll probably feel very littlle remorse in cranking up their fossil fuel plants and polluting like elephants with dysentary in order to set up a little environmental blackmail. If every tinpot dictator is given nuclear tech, the chances of someone turning Manhatten or heaven forfend, downtown Vancouver into a radioactive cloud go up dramatically. Just on that point alone, it seems like going nuclear would only buy a respite of a few decades before the energy squeeze moves further down the chain and gifts us with a whole new set of problems.
Re:The last disadvantage caught my eye (Score:3, Interesting)
Rationing = Power (Score:5, Insightful)
No government panel wants a solution to global warming that produces a lot of energy. No one wants there to be plenty of energy for everyone who needs it. They want an excuse to strictly limit and control energy. If they can decide who gets energy, and who doesn't, they have total control in a modern industrialized world.
Wind power, solar power, and such, cannot produce enough energy to satisfy current consumption. Nuclear Energy is the only technology that we have off the shelf that can produce the energy in vast amounts to satisfy our energy hungry society. That is why so many people are so dead against it. How are you going to usher in a new age of central planning and government control if there is no crisis to justify such a thing. Nuclear power is just not acceptable.
We don't need nuclear (Score:3, Informative)
There is no reason why what can't be scaled up to provide electricity to every one in Australia (and presumably other countries too). (Of course, if everybody signed up in one day, I doubt they'd have the infrastructure
This isn't an anti-nuclear rant - it just isn't the best option for domestic electricity.
"Sustainable Development Commission"? (Score:5, Informative)
Nearly all of the people on the board are lawyers, administrators, or prominent members of anti-nuclear organizations.
So a government body of people, with no knowledge whatsoever of nuclear power, and who were already ideologically dead set against nuclear power from the get-go, decided that nuclear power is bad. Wow, what a shock!
Yes, the advanced research determined that if you double the tiny amount of energy produced by nuclear power in England, you get double a tiny amount! Wow! I wonder what happens if you generated ALL OR THE VAST MAJORITY OF ENERGY VIA NUCLEAR ENERGY? I guess that would produce a lot more energy and reduce a lot of greenhouse gases, wouldn't it?
How come people take things like the "Sustainable Development Commission" seriously? I mean, this "commission" is a joke!
Look at the Chairman (Score:5, Informative)
The reality is that any grouping put together by this man is unlikely ever to come out and say nuclear power (of any type, including Pebble Bed) is acceptable. The only acceptable solution in their book is for everyone to 'power down' and accept an energy budget akin to the Victorian era.
Although Nuclear Power isn't the full answer, we need lots of renewable investment as well, its almost certainly the best shot we have at the existing time for continuing our civilisation in roughly the same shape as it is at the moment as the oil supply declines. Renewables are just too low in energy density to be able to build fast enough to match the problem.
File under ignore - the government will.
Nuclear Ignorance (Score:5, Informative)
How many people here have worked in a nuke plant? How many know the logistics of it?
First off, redundancy factors make failure and meltdown a near impossibility. Unless an operator is asleep in the control room, and then deaf and blind to all of the alarms and lights that go off when a coolant failure might occur, the reactor will be shut down.
Second: Waste storage. Many people don't seem to know what a spent fuel pool is. Everyone's talking about disposing of waste, when all nuclear facilities in this country already have a means of storing the waste for the approximate life of the reactor. The spent fuel pools are huge buildings with a huge pool, where spent Uranium fuel bundles are stored. The walls of this building are solid concrete, approx. 10 ft thick. No radiation is getting out of there.
On top of that, most slashdotters would probably be surprised to know that they pick up more radiation in a year from their computer monitors, cell phones, simple radios, and other devices, than a nuclear employee does from the plant. Everything is carefully monitored with dosimeters (devices that measure your radioactive dose).
Another thing that annoys me: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A RADIATION SUIT. The suits that nuclear workers put on are are called "Anti-C's" or anti contamination suits. Inside the reactor building, and in other areas where boric acid is used to absorb radiation, loose radioactive particles are everywhere. Movement of those particles from where they're expected to where they're not desired is called contamination, so these suits are used to prevent the spread of contamination. There's even a special process you are to use in removing these suits which prevents contamination. After that, you enter a scanning device which does a once-over of your entire body to detect contaminants, and if you're contaminated, a number of things can happen. If it's an article of clothing, it's simply disposed of. A shoe or boot, generally on the bottom, the offending region is sliced off. On your skin, anti-contamination soap is used, and if that isn't successful, they bring out the SOS pad.
Also, people don't realize how common Radon is. Often, workers would enter the "hot side"(we call it that because that's the area where exposure to radiation is possible) and come out, having gone nowhere near contamination, and they set off the alarm, mostly on rainy days. That's because of Radon. The water causes the radon to essentially stick to your shoes, and while sticky pads on the floor can help removing this, often a de-ionizing fan is required to get rid of it totally.
This is the extent to which they go to prevent public exposure to radiation/radioactive material from their facility. Environmental concerns are nil.
Fear of meltdown is an irrational, uninformed position, and an easy fear to maintain through ignorance.
Re:Nuclear Ignorance (Score:3, Informative)
You missed the most 'obvious' way: the operators can deliberately deactivate and/or ignore the alarms, and override the safety cut-outs. Stupid? Well, yes, but that's how Chernobyl happened.
You could redesign the control systems to avoid such issues.
Re:Nuclear Ignorance (Score:3, Informative)
[...]
Fear of meltdown is an irrational, uninformed position, and an easy fear to maintain through ignorance.
That's what they said last time too.
I had no technical expertise to validate their claims then, and I have no technical expertise to valid
Re:Nuclear Ignorance (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's assume the answer is "zero". What makes your opinion any more credible than that of anyone else?
That sounds horribly personal, and I don't mean it that way. The problem is the amount of faith based reasoning in this debate. For most commentators the risk factors associated with nuclear power seem to be a matter of doctrine rather than evidence. Some do it out of genuine conviction. others because they represent v
Re:Chernobyl (Score:3, Insightful)
Shit happens in all industries; we just need to work to make sure it happens as rarely as possible.
It works for France (Score:5, Interesting)
What oil crisis?
Oil today (NYMEX): $61.47/bbl.
are small impacts good impacts? (Score:4, Insightful)
And driving more hybrids would also make a small impact, and using solar power would make a small impact, and using energy efficient appliances would make a small impact, and using wind power would make a small impact, and using more hydroelectric power would make a small impact, and developing fuel cell technologies would make a small impact, and turning off lights at night would make a small impact,
The point is there's no magic bullet, there's no one thing that will make us stop using dirty, non-renewable energy sources. But, if we encourage all the things that will make us less dependant on oil, we'll be better off.
Missing the Point (Score:3, Insightful)
So looking at things from a logical perspective, the goal is to minimally inconvenience peoples lives (whether it be by global warming, running out of oil, or disposing nuclear waste). Since this is another example of the Tragedy of the Commons, governments will need to intervene or the problem won't get solved. The problem seems to come from too many people using oil and not a renewable energy source. Thus people need more motivation to use less oil (whether in their cars or in power plants).
Solution: do what the government does best and tax; tax crude oil or tax machinery based on CO2 emissions. Let the market sort out for itself whether it wants to use nuclear, hydroelectric, wind, tidal, geothermal, solar, or some other form of electricity generation. Let the market determine how much people want to decrease their energy consumption. Maybe spend the increased revenue on renewable resources; it's not necessary, but that would help too.
In other news ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Doubling Hybrid and electric car use would make only a small impact on reducing carbon emissions by 2035.
There you go, some perspective.
Good Nuclear Side effects (Score:3, Insightful)
Coal/Oil/Gas stations would by definition produce more CO2 than a Nuclear station, however the big Carbon saving comes from nuclear vehicles(okay stay with me). By nuclear cars I actually refer to a hydrogen (or similar) vehicle that has its fuel create by nuclear power (i.e. Electrolysis). If 25% of the US and Europe's cars all switched to this virtually carbon free energy source then we would see some serious carbon reduction.
Save, save, save (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps 5% is not what we will have to live with in the future, it could be more or less, but I suspect it won't be far off at least for our children.
But, it's FUN to bash the tree-huggers! (Score:3)
It's good that some of the other drawbacks are gaining attention too. But I suspect that this is going to be framed as "radical leftist nonsense" by the media, and dismissed, and soon we'll return to building tons of nuclear plants. Oh what a joyous future we'll have. Can we please build them in Republican neighborhoods?
People in groups are stupid creatures (Score:2)
Interestingly enough, sans immigration, industrialized nations would have collapsing populations now.
Re:Use less energy or kill all (some) humans (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good to see common sense (Score:5, Insightful)
This is true. Radioactive waste is, overall, less harmful to the environment, easier to capture and contain, and has the added benefit of actually being potentially useful if reprocessed into viable nuclear fuel.
That IS what you meant, right?
Re:Good to see common sense (Score:4, Informative)
Yes we can - just keep using coal plants and dumping radiation into the atmosphere.
we will only have 10,000 years until the waste we create today will be even approachable
That's "will be safe enough to ignore", not "approach". And the newest line of breeder reactors take in waste like that and give off less radioactive waste that only lasts 1/10th as long. Even if it didn't generate energy, just using these reactors to clean up the mess we already have makes a lot of sense.
CO2 waste compared to RadioActive waste isnt even in the same league
But this isn't a CO2 vs radioisotopes question. It's between CO2 and radiation in the air we breathe, and radiation sealed in glass, encased in lead, and entomed within the earth.
Re:Reduce by 8% or do nothing? (Score:4, Interesting)
Unfortunately, as they point out, instead of resulting in a decrease in carbon use, what it might do is simply give people the ability to blithely continue the current climb in power usage (i.e. no real decrease in carbon emissions). Worse yet: knowing that an increase in power capacity, people might just continue increasing their power usage, rather than holding back in the knowledge that a wall was up ahead (i.e. the result would be (at least in the short term) an increase in carbon emissions.
And, on top of that, a massive increase in nuclear power would have notable structural and political downsides.
It's nice when the answers in life are simple, but it's rare.
Re:Solar Energy is the Fix (Score:4, Insightful)
"and causes pollution in other ways such as in radioactive waste"
Yes but this waste can be easily contained and has zero chance of worsening global warming, most deffinitly the worlds chief environmental concern.
"Considering the fact that getting even one nuclear power plant built takes years, nuclear power does not look optimal."
Call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure more than one reactor can be built at a time.
"Therefore, solar energy is our best chance at meeting our energy needs."
Well you pretty much eliminate your "best chance" yourself in the next sentence by pointing the very obvious problem with solar power: "conversion/storage". There are plenty of places in the world where solar power would not be a viable sorce of mass power for several months out of the year because of this very issue.