Topic: Nuclear Energy

[rotistgeil]

For a debate to occur, there are several conditions. Both sides have to recognize the reasons for the debate/dialog. Both side have to realize that a debate is the only way forward. Both sides have to accept the rules of the debate and adhere to them. Both sides have to be willing to make a compromise. Both sides have to accept the outcome of the debate and adhere to the path forward.

In your case, there can be no dialog. You have an agenda, you don't care about others' opinion, you have shown no acceptance of the rules of fairness (presenting the full picture). Why are you even posting here?

I voted no and have posted that link to underline why I personally think it is not safe or the potential consequences of it are just too worrying. Sure, safe and clean when it is under control and I agree that a lot of reactors are safer and better controlled compared to an incident like Chernobyl. But there is no 100%, something like that will never happen again.

What full picture am I supposed to be presenting? I posted a link to a site with Images that are a sad legacy of a terrible disaster. Something that ought to also be remembered. The suffering it has caused and still is causing. Who knows what will happen in Japan (and I am just as much in admiration of the people at the plants, trying to stop a disaster from becoming a major one). I have also thanked people like you about the updates and thoughts in the other thread, so I am not really trying to push an Agenda. I am just trying to show that we must not forget what a major nuclear disaster can cause. That aspects of this type of generating electricity are not always safe and carry quite a risk if something goes wrong.
If there was a safer (and in this world ruled by money), cost effective alternative with the same amount of efficiency and output, you would welcome that too, would be happy to switch off all reactors, or not?

[farawayred]

Rotistgeil, yes, the pictures are horrible. But where are the pictures of the people poisoned from gas well drilling? Or the pictures from Valdez and the BP Gulf accident? Or the people from poisoned by silane in the solar cell production plant? Of hell, why don't we keep burning fossil fuel and screw the entire human race?

This thread, as I understand it, had the purpose to compare nuclear energy to alternative energies. As it has been mentioned several times, no 'clean energy' comes clean, it has a baggage. What purpose has posting gruesome picture from a nuclear disaster without presenting the other part of the story? We shall not forget Chernobyl, but we shall not forget the other disasters we hardly hear about because they are covered up. Nuclear energy has the strange ability to attract the most negative attention for the wrong reasons. It is still the safest method of producing electricity. I suppose you can measure safety by human deaths per gigawatt produced. The personal side should not enter the equation because it is irrelevant; even one death case of severe injury is tragic, especially for people close to that person.

[The China Fox]

...no 'clean energy' comes clean, it has a baggage...We shall not forget Chernobyl, but we shall not forget the other disasters we hardly hear about because they are covered up. Nuclear energy has the strange ability to attract the most negative attention for the wrong reasons. It is still the safest method of producing electricity. I suppose you can measure safety by human deaths per gigawatt produced. The personal side should not enter the equation because it is irrelevant; even one death case of severe injury is tragic, especially for people close to that person.

Indeed. It is also essential to bear in mind that Chernobyl was the result of blatant disregard of safety procedures coupled with a poorly-designed plant. Modern nuclear stations have huge levels (upwards of 400%) of redundant safety features just to make sure that the core cannot be exposed in event of accident.

If there was a safer (and in this world ruled by money), cost effective alternative with the same amount of efficiency and output, you would welcome that too, would be happy to switch off all reactors, or not?

Of course. That'd be the holy grail. Yet there is not.
The fact is that energy demand cannot presently be met without nuclear reactors in many countries, unless people would be happy with rolling blackouts. France, for example, which generates nearly 80% of its electricity through nuclear power. How do you replace the demand? People are not going to all go green overnight, reducing their usage, buying their own turbines and solar roof panels, and given the irregularity and expense of most renewable solutions at the present time the only other way to go would be to build more natural gas stations (less polluting than most coal or oil). Naturally in the future it would be nice to have a larger proportion of generated electricity as renewables, but as things stand nuclear power is an essential feature of modern electricity generation, and it is simply not feasible that it will go away in the short term.

[Les Willis]

I think nuclear power is safe to a certain extent. Let's face it, we don't have scale 9.0 Earthquakes in the U.K. We don't have hurricanes (to any great extent). In fact, the worst we can throw at the Nuclear plant over here, is persisitent drizzle. If they had that at the moment in Fukushima, it might solve half of their problems.

I realise that there's always the capacity for a major incident, but the probability is a lot lower over here than it would be on a major geographic faultline.

[Red_Mist]

I realise that there's always the capacity for a major incident, but the probability is a lot lower over here than it would be on a major geographic faultline.

Hits the nail on the head.

Before I start, I've zero expertise in nuclear power (except what I've learnt from faraway & redbyrdz in the other thread, so feel free to shoot me down). But in light of recent events, I think there's going to have to be a major re-think concerning the geographical location of these plants. Hindsight is great and the tsunami was extraordinary, but the decision to build them on the coast near a major geographical faultline in a known tsunami zone would make for an interesting risk assessment. As I say, hindsights a wonderful thing, but these were known risks.

I realise coastal areas give direct access to sea water to be used in an emergency (as is the case now) but it's that direct access to sea water that caused the problem in the first place. Perhaps Japan's geography limits the possible locations (in fact I'm sure it does), but I just think they now need a rethink. A quick look at France shows that a very small persentage of their nuclear power plants are on the coast, despite them having a very large coastline, so they clearly don't have to be, technology wise.

Also, as others have said, it's the spent fuel and what to do with it that's probably the major worry when it comes to long-term safety. But for me that's just a general concern. I don't know enough about it to say how much of a problem that could be. But it's exactly that lack of knowledge that causes a lot of the lingering doubts about it. I don't think you'd be human if you didn't share at least some of those doubts.

Quick edit: Sadly, even if the world one day concludes that it's not safe (and this would only be if and when a viable alternative exists) the genie is very much already out the bottle when it comes to problems of nuclear waste and the associated risk of rogue nuclear weapons development. So in many ways, the original poll is irrelevant.

[JP-65]

Another good one:

Out of experience comes knowledge. Already the world is gaining new knowledge from the Tôhoku earthquake and tsunami. The nuclear power industry is gaining insights from the tragedy unfolding at the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant.

Fukushima has six separate reactors that range in age from 31 to 40 years old. Not all units were identical, and not all were built by the same contractor.
Unit 1 is the smallest unit at 460 megawatts. Its reactor was supplied by General Electric, and the plant was designed by Ebasco Services, which is now nestled deep within URS through series of mergers. Unit 1 went into commercial operation 40 years ago, almost to the day of the earthquake.
Unit 2 is almost 37 years old. It's a 784-megawatt unit, with its reactor supplied by GE and plant designed by Ebasco.
Unit 3 is almost 35 years old; it's a 784-megawatt unit whose reactor was supplied by Toshiba, which also designed the plant.
Unit 4 is almost 33 years old; it's a 784-megawatt unit, and its reactor supplied by Hitachi, which also designed the plant.
Unit 5 is almost 33 years old; it's 784-megawatt unit; its reactor was supplied by Toshiba, which also designed the plant.
Unit 6 is almost 37 years old; it's a 1,100-megawatt unit, with its reactor supplied by GE, and the plant was designed by Ebasco.
All six units were constructed by Kajima Construction.
Each of these reactors independently survived an epic earthquake. Each of these reactors responded to the earthquake by immediately inserting their control rods and automatically shutting down to about 7% power, just as their designers intended. These plants proved to be earthquake-proof.

Unfortunately, the earthquake was only the beginning of the assault. These same plants lost offsite power. They could not rely on the grid to power their pumps, instruments and controls -- the grid was lost, and all six units had to rely on emergency power resources. These included station batteries and standby diesel generators.

The assault continued with the tsunami (it is not clear if the tsunami arrived before or after Fukushima lost access to the grid). The tsunami was epic in size and arrived just minutes after the earthquake. The generators and batteries continued operating and provided each unit's operators with control and shutdown services.

It takes time for nuclear power plants to reach cold shutdown. It also takes power to keep nuclear plants in cold shutdown, even if fuel is stored in spent fuel pools. The operators were denied that power and denied time. After one hour passed, the tsunami-induced damage to the diesel generators became apparent. Each one shut down as water interfered with their power production.

Seven hours later, station batteries gave out. While some believe this was a technical failure, in fact this was the technical intent. Batteries were designed to last approximately eight hours, and contrary to what has been reported, they were never intended to run large pumps. The batteries at these 30-to-40-year-old plants performed exactly as intended.

Lessons Learned

One lesson learned is that these old technologies remained incredibly robust in the face of implausible adversity. They could survive an epic earthquake. They could survive an epic tsunami. They could survive a loss of outside power. They just could not survive all three at the same time. Pick any two, and the technology works better than expected; add a third, and it overwhelms.

To assail U.S. companies that own similarly designed plants is a disservice to the public. While six U.S. nuclear reactors use the same base design as the Fukushima Daiichi's Unit 1, none of them is likely to face similar challenges. The six units in Massachusetts, Minnesota and Illinois are in improbable locations for earthquake-induced tsunamis.

A second lesson learned is that it may not be a good idea to cluster six nuclear power plants in one location. A single nuclear reactor's demand for offsite services is substantial. Multiply that demand by six, and operators become overwhelmed.

A third lesson learned is that it might be a good idea to upgrade transmission lines servicing nuclear power plants to withstand design-basis events like earthquakes. Access to offsite power and transmission lines have proven to be a critical success factor to Fukushima.

A fourth lesson learned is about communications. It is essential that open communications are maintained between plant owners and their public. It is understandable that Tokyo Electric Power Company may be overwhelmed. However, the lack of reliable information from Fukushima caused wild speculation and panic within Japan and around the world. It also delayed evacuations that should have been completed hours earlier. It also causes other nations, such as the U.S., to doubt the credibility of those in Japan managing the crisis.

The same communications problem appeared with BP's Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The company at the accident scene was not communicating, and the government seemed unaware of critical facts.

It seems that U.S. nuclear utilities learned this lesson. They are concerned about misinformation, the publics' use of that information and the public's trust and confidence in their nuclear power operations. On Tuesday, dozens of nuclear utilities issued press releases explaining why their particular nuclear plant is not at risk of experiencing a Tôhoku-type earthquake. Further, utilities are concerned about commentators arguing that nuclear plants located near geologic fault lines are at, in their opinion, unacceptably high risk to the public. They are not, and Fukushima proved it.

As events unfold in Fukushima, more lessons will be learned. In the interim, Fukushima's dedicated employees who are risking their lives in the attempt to control the crisis and manage challenging problems must be honored. They are not only heroes to their community; they are heroes to the rest of the world.

[Red_Mist]

Further, utilities are concerned about commentators arguing that nuclear plants located near geologic fault lines are at, in their opinion, unacceptably high risk to the public. They are not, and Fukushima proved it.

Except it didn't. The fault line caused the earthquake, which caused the tsunami, which caused the power loss, which caused the risk to the public. I accept the rest of the article completely, but that last bit is a nice bit of spin that's almost as bad as the false scaremongering imo.

[JP-65]

Except it didn't. The fault line caused the earthquake, which caused the tsunami, which caused the power loss, which caused the risk to the public. I accept the rest of the article completely, but that last bit is a nice bit of spin that's almost as bad as the false scaremongering imo.

Think this addresses it: A third lesson learned is that it might be a good idea to upgrade transmission lines servicing nuclear power plants to withstand design-basis events like earthquakes. Access to offsite power and transmission lines have proven to be a critical success factor to Fukushima.

[Red_Mist]

Think this addresses it: A third lesson learned is that it might be a good idea to upgrade transmission lines servicing nuclear power plants to withstand design-basis events like earthquakes. Access to offsite power and transmission lines have proven to be a critical success factor to Fukushima.

True.

Hopefully there's no "might" about it.

[sminp]

Interesting and very valid points JP-65. I'm all for nuclear power, I think it's the way forward. As for safety I think it is safe but there will always be risks involved in anything in life, we just have to minimise those risks as much as possible. Minimising the risk for nuclear power comes byeither placing plants more carefully or the upgrading of the transmission lines. In an ideal scenario you would do both. As times passes we learn more about nuclear power and safety so I can certainly see a positive future for it.

One thing is for certain, the media don't help with their scaremongering which then gets repeated as fact by people with little or no knowledge. I've seen this happen within my own family from people much older and wiser than me who have been brought up with no knowledge of nuclear power and automatically thinking nuclear = bad.

[Veinticinco de Mayo]

Think this addresses it: A third lesson learned is that it might be a good idea to upgrade transmission lines servicing nuclear power plants to withstand design-basis events like earthquakes. Access to offsite power and transmission lines have proven to be a critical success factor to Fukushima.

Not just that, but the back up power facilities have got to be designed with the same resilience to earthquake / tsunami as the reactors themselves.  This event has proved that although the reactors took everything nature could throw at them they were fatally compromised by the weakest link in the design chain which was clearly not built to the same spec.

[JP-65]

they were fatally compromised by the weakest link in the design chain which was clearly not built to the same spec.

'tis always true Kev

[Red_Mist]

Not just that, but the back up power facilities have got to be designed with the same resilience to earthquake / tsunami as the reactors themselves.  This event has proved that although the reactors took everything nature could throw at them they were fatally compromised by the weakest link in the design chain which was clearly not built to the same spec.

Correct. It's a basic systems engineering approach to identify weak links. As said, it all helps the learning process, but it's a bit worrying if reactor safety has been seen in isolation. Having said that, nature does seem to have gone overboard this time in reminding us who's boss.

[Andy @ Allerton!]

This is interesting;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12860842



More than 10,000 people have died in the Japanese tsunami and the survivors are cold and hungry. But the media concentrate on nuclear radiation from which no-one has died - and is unlikely to.

 Modern reactors are better designed than those at Fukushima - tomorrow's may be better still Nuclear radiation at very high levels is dangerous, but the scale of concern that it evokes is misplaced. Nuclear technology cures countless cancer patients every day - and a radiation dose given for radiotherapy in hospital is no different in principle to a similar dose received in the environment.

What of Three Mile Island? There were no known deaths there.

And Chernobyl? The latest UN report published on 28 February confirms the known death toll - 28 fatalities among emergency workers, plus 15 fatal cases of child thyroid cancer - which would have been avoided if iodine tablets had been taken (as they have now in Japan). And in each case the numbers are minute compared with the 3,800 at Bhopal in 1984, who died as a result of a leak of chemicals from the Union Carbide pesticide plant.

Continue reading the main story
Becquerels and Sieverts
A becquerel (Bq), named after French physicist Henri Becquerel, is a measure of radioactivity
A quantity of radioactive material has an activity of 1Bq if one nucleus decays per second - and 1kBq if 1,000 nuclei decay per second
A sievert (Sv) is a measure of radiation absorbed by a person, named after Swedish medical physicist Rolf Sievert
A milli-sievert (mSv) is a 1,000th of a Sievert
Q&A: Health effects of radiation
Energy solution or evil curse?
So what of the radioactivity released at Fukushima? How does it compare with that at Chernobyl? Let's look at the measured count rates. The highest rate reported, at 1900 on 22 March, for any Japanese prefecture was 12 kBq per sq m (for the radioactive isotope of caesium, caesium-137).

A map of Chernobyl in the UN report shows regions shaded according to rate, up to 3,700 kBq per sq m - areas with less than 37 kBq per sq m are not shaded at all. In round terms, this suggests that the radioactive fallout at Fukushima is less than 1% of that at Chernobyl.

The other important radioisotope in fallout is iodine, which can cause child thyroid cancer.

This is only produced when the reactor is on and quickly decays once the reactor shuts down (it has a half life of eight days). The old fuel rods in storage at Fukushima, though radioactive, contain no iodine.

But at Chernobyl the full inventory of iodine and caesium was released in the initial explosion, so that at Fukushima any release of iodine should be much less than 1% of that at Chernobyl - with an effect reduced still further by iodine tablets.

Unfortunately, public authorities react by providing over-cautious guidance - and this simply escalates public concern.

Over-reaction
 
On the 16th anniversary of Chernobyl, the Swedish radiation authorities, writing in the Stockholm daily Dagens Nyheter, admitted over-reacting by setting the safety level too low and condemning 78% of all reindeer meat unnecessarily, and at great cost.

 Bottled water was handed out in Tokyo this week to mothers of young babies Unfortunately, the Japanese seem to be repeating the mistake. On 23 March they advised that children should not drink tap water in Tokyo, where an activity of 200 Bq per litre had been measured the day before. Let's put this in perspective. The natural radioactivity in every human body is 50 Bq per litre - 200 Bq per litre is really not going to do much harm.

In the Cold War era most people were led to believe that nuclear radiation presents a quite exceptional danger understood only by "eggheads" working in secret military establishments.

To cope with the friendly fire of such nuclear propaganda on the home front, ever tighter radiation regulations were enacted in order to keep all contact with radiation As Low As Reasonably Achievable (ALARA), as the principle became known.

This attempt at reassurance is the basis of international radiation safety regulations today, which suggest an upper limit for the general public of 1 mSv per year above natural levels.

This very low figure is not a danger level, rather it's a small addition to the levels found in nature - a British person is exposed to 2.7 mSv per year, on average. My book Radiation and Reason argues that a responsible danger level based on current science would be 100 mSv per month, with a lifelong limit of 5,000 mSv, not 1 mSv per year.

New attitude
 
People worry about radiation because they cannot feel it. However, nature has a solution - in recent years it has been found that living cells replace and mend themselves in various ways to recover from a dose of radiation.

These clever mechanisms kick in within hours and rarely fail, except when they are overloaded - as at Chernobyl, where most of the emergency workers who received a dose greater than 4,000 mSv over a few hours died within weeks.

Continue reading the main story
“
Start Quote
Some might ask whether I would accept radioactive waste buried 100 metres under my own house?”
End Quote However, patients receiving a course of radiotherapy usually get a dose of more than 20,000 mSv to vital healthy tissue close to the treated tumour. This tissue survives only because the treatment is spread over many days giving healthy cells time for repair or replacement.

In this way, many patients get to enjoy further rewarding years of life, even after many vital organs have received the equivalent of more than 20,000 years' dose at the above internationally recommended annual limit - which makes this limit unreasonable.

A sea-change is needed in our attitude to radiation, starting with education and public information.

Then fresh safety standards should be drawn up, based not on how radiation can be excluded from our lives, but on how much we can receive without harm - mindful of the other dangers that beset us, such as climate change and loss of electric power. Perhaps a new acronym is needed to guide radiation safety - how about As High As Relatively Safe (AHARS)?

Modern reactors are better designed than those at Fukushima - tomorrow's may be better still, but we should not wait. Radioactive waste is nasty but the quantity is small, especially if re-processed. Anyway, it is not the intractable problem that many suppose.

Some might ask whether I would accept it if it were buried 100 metres under my own house? My answer would be: "Yes, why not?" More generally, we should stop running away from radiation.

Wade Allison is a nuclear and medical physicist at the University of Oxford, the author of Radiation and Reason (2009) and Fundamental Physics for Probing and Imaging (2006).

[Mello]

Good article which I agree with.  It would be nice if people were better educated about radiation levels and how much radiation is needed to cause certain problems.  Many people overreact to the stigma of radiation without knowing the facts.  That said, I don't believe that's a reason for governments to stop "providing over-cautious guidance".  Nuclear power is serious business where the highest level of safety must be maintained to keep dangers to a minimum.  They should just have consistent policies which are communicated to the public.

[The_Cutter]

And Chernobyl? The latest UN report published on 28 February confirms the known death toll - 28 fatalities among emergency workers, plus 15 fatal cases of child thyroid cancer - which would have been avoided if iodine tablets had been taken (as they have now in Japan). And in each case the numbers are minute compared with the 3,800 at Bhopal in 1984, who died as a result of a leak of chemicals from the Union Carbide pesticide plant.

I do agree with the sentiment of the article, there has been a lot of useless scaremongeing. However, this bit pissed me off. Minute? Fuck off. I can tell you that he hasn't visited the abandoned children homes in parts of Ukraine and Belarus, nor the hospitals where only 15-20% children are born healthy, nor has seen the miscarriage statistics. What about the health of the 600000 liquidators (these people are/were heroes) or the people of Pripyat? Wade Allison, you're on notice.


The sooner we get to fusion the better.

[Libertine]

George Monbiot in today's Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/05/anti-nuclear-lobby-misled-world?CMP=twt_fd

Over the last fortnight I've made a deeply troubling discovery. The anti-nuclear movement to which I once belonged has misled the world about the impacts of radiation on human health. The claims we have made are ungrounded in science, unsupportable when challenged, and wildly wrong. We have done other people, and ourselves, a terrible disservice.

I began to see the extent of the problem after a debate last week with Helen Caldicott. Dr Caldicott is the world's foremost anti-nuclear campaigner. She has received 21 honorary degrees and scores of awards, and was nominated for a Nobel peace prize. Like other greens, I was in awe of her. In the debate she made some striking statements about the dangers of radiation. So I did what anyone faced with questionable scientific claims should do: I asked for the sources. Caldicott's response has profoundly shaken me.

First she sent me nine documents: newspaper articles, press releases and an advertisement. None were scientific publications; none contained sources for the claims she had made. But one of the press releases referred to a report by the US National Academy of Sciences, which she urged me to read. I have now done so – all 423 pages. It supports none of the statements I questioned; in fact it strongly contradicts her claims about the health effects of radiation.

I pressed her further and she gave me a series of answers that made my heart sink – in most cases they referred to publications which had little or no scientific standing, which did not support her claims or which contradicted them. (I have posted our correspondence, and my sources, on my website.) I have just read her book Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer. The scarcity of references to scientific papers and the abundance of unsourced claims it contains amaze me.

For the last 25 years anti-nuclear campaigners have been racking up the figures for deaths and diseases caused by the Chernobyl disaster, and parading deformed babies like a medieval circus. They now claim 985,000 people have been killed by Chernobyl, and that it will continue to slaughter people for generations to come. These claims are false.

The UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (Unscear) is the equivalent of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Like the IPCC, it calls on the world's leading scientists to assess thousands of papers and produce an overview. Here is what it says about the impacts of Chernobyl.

Of the workers who tried to contain the emergency at Chernobyl, 134 suffered acute radiation syndrome; 28 died soon afterwards. Nineteen others died later, but generally not from diseases associated with radiation. The remaining 87 have suffered other complications, including four cases of solid cancer and two of leukaemia.

In the rest of the population there have been 6,848 cases of thyroid cancer among young children – arising "almost entirely" from the Soviet Union's failure to prevent people from drinking milk contaminated with iodine 131. Otherwise "there has been no persuasive evidence of any other health effect in the general population that can be attributed to radiation exposure". People living in the countries affected today "need not live in fear of serious health consequences from the Chernobyl accident".

Caldicott told me that Unscear's work on Chernobyl is "a total cover-up". Though I have pressed her to explain, she has yet to produce a shred of evidence for this contention.

In a column last week, the Guardian's environment editor, John Vidal, angrily denounced my position on nuclear power. On a visit to Ukraine in 2006, he saw "deformed and genetically mutated babies in the wards … adolescents with stunted growth and dwarf torsos; foetuses without thighs or fingers". What he did not see was evidence that these were linked to the Chernobyl disaster.

Professor Gerry Thomas, who worked on the health effects of Chernobyl for Unscear, tells me there is "absolutely no evidence" for an increase in birth defects. The National Academy paper Dr Caldicott urged me to read came to similar conclusions. It found that radiation-induced mutation in sperm and eggs is such a small risk "that it has not been detected in humans, even in thoroughly studied irradiated populations such as those of Hiroshima and Nagasaki".

Like Vidal and many others, Caldicott pointed me to a book which claims that 985,000 people have died as a result of the disaster. Translated from Russian and published by the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, this is the only document that looks scientific and appears to support the wild claims made by greens about Chernobyl.

A devastating review in the journal Radiation Protection Dosimetry points out that the book achieves this figure by the remarkable method of assuming that all increased deaths from a wide range of diseases – including many which have no known association with radiation – were caused by the Chernobyl accident. There is no basis for this assumption, not least because screening in many countries improved dramatically after the disaster and, since 1986, there have been massive changes in the former eastern bloc. The study makes no attempt to correlate exposure to radiation with the incidence of disease.

Its publication seems to have arisen from a confusion about whether Annals was a book publisher or a scientific journal. The academy has given me this statement: "In no sense did Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences or the New York Academy of Sciences commission this work; nor by its publication do we intend to independently validate the claims made in the translation or in the original publications cited in the work. The translated volume has not been peer reviewed by the New York Academy of Sciences, or by anyone else."

Failing to provide sources, refuting data with anecdote, cherry-picking studies, scorning the scientific consensus, invoking a cover-up to explain it: all this is horribly familiar. These are the habits of climate-change deniers, against which the green movement has struggled valiantly, calling science to its aid. It is distressing to discover that when the facts don't suit them, members of this movement resort to the follies they have denounced.

We have a duty to base our judgments on the best available information. This is not only because we owe it to other people to represent the issues fairly, but also because we owe it to ourselves not to squander our lives on fairytales. A great wrong has been done by this movement. We must put it right.

[greenone]

I began to see the extent of the problem after a debate last week with Helen Caldicott. Dr Caldicott is the world's foremost anti-nuclear campaigner. She has received 21 honorary degrees and scores of awards, and was nominated for a Nobel peace prize. Like other greens, I was in awe of her. In the debate she made some striking statements about the dangers of radiation. So I did what anyone faced with questionable scientific claims should do: I asked for the sources. Caldicott's response has profoundly shaken me.

First she sent me nine documents: newspaper articles, press releases and an advertisement. None were scientific publications; none contained sources for the claims she had made. But one of the press releases referred to a report by the US National Academy of Sciences, which she urged me to read. I have now done so – all 423 pages. It supports none of the statements I questioned; in fact it strongly contradicts her claims about the health effects of radiation.

I pressed her further and she gave me a series of answers that made my heart sink – in most cases they referred to publications which had little or no scientific standing, which did not support her claims or which contradicted them. (I have posted our correspondence, and my sources, on my website.) I have just read her book Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer. The scarcity of references to scientific papers and the abundance of unsourced claims it contains amaze me.

Reminds me of the IPCC.

[Drippy Dick]

I never thought of CHOPPER as a scientist. My mental picture of him has changed significantly.

[The Gulleysucker]

A proper Chopper..



It's quite an old term in electronics and power supply arrangements... Chopper

[Drippy Dick]

Know that one, for some reason my mental picture of our Chopper was quite different. Now I think of him as a nerdy, spectacle eyed guy in a white coat.

[RojoLeón]

Following on from the Earthquake thread:

Anti-nuclear power protesters must rank among the thickest people alive.

Yes, that's entirely possible: But also certain by that logic, and incontrovertibly so, that they are markedly more intelligent than pro-nuclear supporters. 

Thats an opinion.....

Although people seem to be much more aware of the dangers of nuclear power vs. Fossil fuels, seemingly ignorant to the massive impact continued fossil fuel use may have on our environment.

Fossil fuels are bad. Nuclear is worse. See below for a more detailed response but basically, we're using more fossil fuel to have Nuclear as an option. It's a costly extra with many worse side effects as well as all of the exiting ones. And it's just as finite as fossil.

I've never met a pro-nuclear supporter who thinks sitting in the dark with no heating is a good idea...

Again see below for more detail. Utilising Nuclear energy will hasten the depletion of our energy not prelong it.

Nuclear power fails on the sustainability count three times over.
Firstly: cost a lot of money and energy to extract Uranium: Itself is a finite resource and one that is toxic mining product that is otherwise useless (except for bombs: the real reason).  And, once extracted, it cost a lot to refine it for practical use.
We’re wasting oil to extract and prepare it: We’re simply converting oil into Uranium and at great cost (though great profit for the mining interests)

Secondly: Nuclear power costs more input than it gives in  output. It is not a self sustaining system. Maybe poor and aging design contributes to this but at the moment there is a big deficit in cost benefit relationship.
We’re wasting oil to prop it up: Oil that can be used directly for less cost (though less profit for the Nuclear industry)

Thirdly: The waste lasts for tens of thousands of years and currently we have no practical solutions to this problem.
It’s costing oil to keep it relatively safe. (we are using oil to clean and store the wastes and residues).

On three sustainability counts it fails and fails hard.


I recommend these video lectures for anyone that perceives that Nuclear Power is a solution  to our energy problems

Lecture on arithmetic   Part 1 of eight.

This is basic stuff but is increasingly relevant. Things like Nuclear power, oil sands and bio fuel make things worse: they do not improve anything except the bank balances of those who profit from them.

[BIGdavalad]

Itself is a finite resource and one that is toxic mining product that is otherwise useless (except for bombs: the real reason).

So why don't Germany or Japan have nuclear weapons then? Or Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Mexico, Holland, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden or Switzerland? All use nuclear power.

Secondly: Nuclear power costs more input than it gives in  output. It is not a self sustaining system. Maybe poor and aging design contributes to this but at the moment there is a big deficit in cost benefit relationship.

No existing power generation system gives more energy than it uses. It's a physical impossibility to do so as it's impossible to create energy.

Thirdly: The waste lasts for tens of thousands of years and currently we have no practical solutions to this problem.

It is possible to recycle and reuse some nuclear waste (and produce things such as depleted uranium as well as new fuel). As technology advances we will only increase the amount of waste that we're able to reuse.

[mulfella]

It is possible to recycle and reuse some nuclear waste (and produce things such as depleted uranium as well as new fuel). As technology advances we will only increase the amount of waste that we're able to reuse.

Just a quick point Dava, even when you reuse it you are still only postponing the date when you have to decide what to do with a large quantity of radioactive waste with a long half life.

This remains the elephant in the room for Nuclear.

Due to exposure to Nuclear waste also in the room the elephant now looks like this

[xerxes1]

For me the equations are simple.

Nuclear power has a slight risk with disproportionately large consequences if things go wrong, and an unresolved safe waste disposal problem.

Our population, and our power demands continue to increase.Fossil fuels continue to reduce, wind power, at the moment extraordinarily inefficient will only ever be a modest part of the solution. If you want your flatscreens and mobile chargers to work in the future, Nuclear Power will have to be part of that.

As an aside, the Green Party Elite are the most useless bunch of conservative tossers known to man, and an embarrassment to a cause which is a noble and vital one.

[BIGdavalad]

Just a quick point Dava, even when you reuse it you are still only postponing the date when you have to decide what to do with a large quantity of radioactive waste with a long half life.

That's true but there's not that much waste created. I read on Wiki (so yes, I know it's arguable) that in the entire history of the US nuclear industry they've only produced enough of the really bad nuclear waste to cover one football field to a depth of three foot. That's with the US not reprocessing their waste at the moment because of concerns about nuclear proliferation or something.

The French apparently recycle as much as 38% of their nuclear waste, a figure which will only increase in the future as technology improves. I'm not claiming that nuclear is perfect by any means, but it's by far the best way we have of producing electricity right now in a world that relies almost utterly on power generation.

[mbroon]

Just a quick point Dava, even when you reuse it you are still only postponing the date when you have to decide what to do with a large quantity of radioactive waste with a long half life.

This remains the elephant in the room for Nuclear.

Reusing the waste should decrease the half life of the waste, not increase it. There are new types of nuclear reactors being planned that will reuse waste and shorten the half life of the waste by about 90%.

What to do with that?

Just a few months ago Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Co approved a new disposal method for that final waste that has been researched for 30 years. I haven't got the time now to write about it, but you can follow the link below and read a better account of it than you would get from me.

http://www.skb.se/default____24417.aspx

[RojoLeón]

Reusing the waste should decrease the half life of the waste, not increase it. There are new types of nuclear reactors being planned that will reuse waste and shorten the half life of the waste by about 90%.

That is a remarkable statement: I would dearly love this to be the case but it appears to defy established atomic physics. MOX (an existing solution rather than a proposed and as yet untested one) fuel is particularly toxic and its waste has the same, perilously high half lives.

Ninety percent. The half life for some of the waste is tens of thousands of years. It would be remarkable and possibly the greatest discovery in modern technology. It would re-write all known textbooks.

I hope it's true.

That's true but there's not that much waste created. I read on Wiki (so yes, I know it's arguable) that in the entire history of the US nuclear industry they've only produced enough of the really bad nuclear waste to cover one football field to a depth of three foot. That's with the US not reprocessing their waste at the moment because of concerns about nuclear proliferation or something.

That football field (lets say Wiki is correct), approx, 3 acre feet of highly toxic waste with a half lives up there with the length of time humans have been in existence. Let's hope the above statement by mbroon is correct. Because we will be spending petroleum dollars every year to store this. Further waste of finite and precious resources.

The French apparently recycle as much as 38% of their nuclear waste, a figure which will only increase in the future as technology improves. I'm not claiming that nuclear is perfect by any means, but it's by far the best way we have of producing electricity right now in a world that relies almost utterly on power generation.

These are Uk relevant articles on the Selefield MOX reprocessing site.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/economic-benefits-outweighed-mox-plant--concerns-630201.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/steve-connor-the-nuclear-industry-must-learn-its-lesson-and-stop-building-these-white-elephants-2281142.html (10 years later. note: published a few days before fukishima which used MOX fuel in reactor 3 (the one that is a gaping ruin as opposed to the others that are just fubar))

Some Ł1.34bn has already been spent on building and operating the Sellafield Mox Plant. British taxpayers will be expected to spend a further Ł800m or so on running it for the rest of this decade, and then there will be another bill for about Ł150m to decommission this expensive heap of radioactive metal.

Look at the first comment: Clearly a man that understands basic arithmetic 


      Danny
      Ł2.3bn - and you would have more energy from it if you had burned the banknotes in a bonfire. Now they want us to waste another Ł6bn simply to line their pockets? Utter madness.

Ok. The French have had more success but still convert petrol/oil into nuclear electricity: At a big loss

For me the equations are simple.

Nuclear power has a slight risk with disproportionately large consequences if things go wrong, and an unresolved safe waste disposal problem.

Our population, and our power demands continue to increase.Fossil fuels continue to reduce, wind power, at the moment extraordinarily inefficient will only ever be a modest part of the solution. If you want your flatscreens and mobile chargers to work in the future, Nuclear Power will have to be part of that.

You're right. Equation is simple: We must halt population growth and reduce consumption. Nuclear Power is nothing less than window dressing (and highly toxic problem that we are defering, to be solved by our great, great, great, great, (etc..) grandchildren).

So why don't Germany or Japan have nuclear weapons then? Or Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Mexico, Holland, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden or Switzerland? All use nuclear power.

But you don't contest that it's extraordinarily expensive to mine and refine. Also, Germany is decommissioning all of their Nuclear power plants.

No existing power generation system gives more energy than it uses. It's a physical impossibility to do so as it's impossible to create energy.

You're right. We can't afford to waste energy by that irrefutable logic. We are wasting it by converting petrol/oil into Nuclear power.

It is possible to recycle and reuse some nuclear waste (and produce things such as depleted uranium as well as new fuel). As technology advances we will only increase the amount of waste that we're able to reuse.

There's an 'if' there. We cannot rely on the technology white knight to save the day. Anyhow: lets say we have unlimited, free and clean electricity. Population and consumption growth would be exacerbated, not relieved. We are in a quandary and Nuclear Power is not going to be the solution. Sorry.

Though; depleted uranium unquestionably reduced the life expectancy of many that have killed or aquired fatal cancers due to its use. Perhaps a part solution to over-population 

[BIGdavalad]

That football field (lets say Wiki is correct), approx, 3 acre feet of highly toxic waste with a half lives up there with the length of time humans have been in existence. Let's hope the above statement by mbroon is correct. Because we will be spending petroleum dollars every year to store this. Further waste of finite and precious resources.

Petroleum dollars come from a resource that is going to run out very soon. Possibly within the lifetime of people alive right now. The more we waste using it to generate electricity when there's better options out there the less we have to use for things that we can't currently use anything else for, like fuelling cars or producing fertilisers.

These are Uk relevant articles on the Selefield MOX reprocessing site.

Which seem to say nothing except for it must be bad because they're expensive to build?

But you don't contest that it's extraordinarily expensive to mine and refine. Also, Germany is decommissioning all of their Nuclear power plants.

As oil and gas are also expensive to get out of the ground and turn into usable products. I assume we're going to agree that your bollocks assertion that "it's all about the bombs" is clearly bollocks since the majority of nuclear power users don't have nuclear weapons?

Germany are stopping using nuclear power because they've got an election coming and Merkel's listened to the green morons to buy votes. Let's see where Germany's electricity's going to come from before we get too excited. I presume they won't be too much against nuclear power that it'll stop them from importing electricity from France, for example?

You're right. We can't afford to waste energy by that irrefutable logic. We are wasting it by converting petrol/oil into Nuclear power.

So how do you suggest we produce enough energy to fulfil the world's needs then?

There's an 'if' there. We cannot rely on the technology white knight to save the day. Anyhow: lets say we have unlimited, free and clean electricity. Population and consumption growth would be exacerbated, not relieved. We are in a quandary and Nuclear Power is not going to be the solution. Sorry.

I'm all for the execution of useless mouths but it's never going to happen. Assuming then that we have to work with our existing system what does nuclear power have to do with population growth?

Though; depleted uranium unquestionably reduced the life expectancy of many that have killed or aquired fatal cancers due to its use. Perhaps a part solution to over-population 

Depleted uranium is less radioactive than most of the buildings in Edinburgh (the ones that are built of granite anyway) and it's use in munitions almost certainly doesn't cause cancer in anyone unless they happen to make it a habit to go round licking burnt out tanks.

I assume you'd also like to see airliners and radiation shields in hospitals and industry banned too, since they also use DU?

[mbroon]

That is a remarkable statement: I would dearly love this to be the case but it appears to defy established atomic physics. MOX (an existing solution rather than a proposed and as yet untested one) fuel is particularly toxic and its waste has the same, perilously high half lives.

Ninety percent. The half life for some of the waste is tens of thousands of years. It would be remarkable and possibly the greatest discovery in modern technology. It would re-write all known textbooks.

I hope it's true.

I'm gonna try to back it up tomorrow, when I've had some sleep. It's not just something I've made up, even if it may sound unbelievable. It is what I've read and been told by reliable sources. However, since I am not the most clued up when it comes to nuclear physics, it is very much possible that I have misunderstood something.

[RojoLeón]

Petroleum dollars come from a resource that is going to run out very soon. Possibly within the lifetime of people alive right now. The more we waste using it to generate electricity when there's better options out there the less we have to use for things that we can't currently use anything else for, like fuelling cars or producing fertilisers.

Indeed. Using Uranium will accelerate their depletion and will not solve the energy crisis.

Which seem to say nothing except for it must be bad because they're expensive to build?


They do raise the issue that the reprocessing plant did not fulfill its design: it did not produce the MOX fuel and had to buy French MOX fuel to meet orders. And then the Japanese (their only customer) stopped ordering. Oh, and it cost a fortune of tax payers money. Lose and lose. It’s cute to think we will reprocess waste into fuel but currently impractical and sadly a further waste of fossil fuels.

As oil and gas are also expensive to get out of the ground and turn into usable products. I assume we're going to agree that your bollocks assertion that "it's all about the bombs" is clearly bollocks since the majority of nuclear power users don't have nuclear weapons?

Oil and gas are expensive to extract. It’s then a further expense to convert them into Uranium. We would save money and potential electrical power by utilizing them without the waste of Nuclear power.

I'll state it really simply: We are using more oil/petrol to have Nuclear electricity: We are depleting the fossil resources faster by having Nuclear electricity: And, we will require additional fossil resources (soon to be depleted), for tens of thousands of years into the future, simply to keep the waste from killing us.

And, if bombs have nothing to do with Nuclear power: how does Iran and N. Korea fit into your equation?

Germany are stopping using nuclear power because they've got an election coming and Merkel's listened to the green morons to buy votes. Let's see where Germany's electricity's going to come from before we get too excited. I presume they won't be too much against nuclear power that it'll stop them from importing electricity from France, for example?

Great. Maybe they’ll save some Uranium, Itself a finite resource (the forgotten or glossed over aspect of Nuclear energy), and use less oil/petrol in the process of boiling their water to make electricity: Less oil/petrol than if they kept turing Uranium into toxic and hazardous waste for a net loss of money and fossil resources

So how do you suggest we produce enough energy to fulfill the world's needs then?

I don’t. I think we’re past that. We need to drastically reduce consumption in the short term to give time for a long term answer to that question. Nuclear power does not fulfill the requirements of the role you state.

I'm all for the execution of useless mouths but it's never going to happen. Assuming then that we have to work with our existing system what does nuclear power have to do with population growth?

Less people = less consumption = less required energy.

Depleted uranium is less radioactive than most of the buildings in Edinburgh (the ones that are built of granite anyway) and it's use in munitions almost certainly doesn't cause cancer in anyone unless they happen to make it a habit to go round licking burnt out tanks.


No one has ever ingested fragments and contracted cancer from depleted Uranium: Ever? A bold assertion.

I assume you'd also like to see airliners and radiation shields in hospitals and industry banned too, since they also use DU?

As a member of the military, you may be an inadvertent Environmentalist: Your job role involves reducing population and therefore consumption. It’s possible that you may save the planet yet! 

When was the last Nuclear reactor built, anywhere in the world? How long does it take to build one and get it online and producing electricity (let along repaying anything close to the energy required to get it up in the first place)

How long do the existing ones last for? How many have gone over their recommended shelf lives? (Just in the Uk mind)

How much Uranium is there (worldwide) to fufil existing let alone increased energy requirements? Allowing for the finite fossil fuels required to extract them.

How much does it cost in fossil fuels to decomission an old reactor? How much does it cost in fossil fuels to maintain waste products?

http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met_y=sp_pop_grow&idim=country:GBR&dl=en&hl=en&q=uk+population+growth

Uk population growth is increasing. Doubling every 100 years at 0.7% steady growth. Growth rate is increasing according to the trend on the graph.

http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met_y=sp_pop_totl&idim=country:GBR&dl=en&hl=en&q=uk+population

Uk population is 61.8 million (as above). That'll be an extra half million a year (approx - rounded down).

http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met_y=sp_dyn_le00_in&idim=country:GBR&dl=en&hl=en&q=uk+life+expectancy

Life expectancy 80 years (as above) and on an upward trend.

Population growth is and related consumption are the two, fundemental factors to take into consideration when working out energy requirements.

We must reduce consumption. Or, we will run out of freely available resources and natural selection will take matters out of our control.

[mbroon]

I'm gonna try to back it up tomorrow, when I've had some sleep. It's not just something I've made up, even if it may sound unbelievable. It is what I've read and been told by reliable sources. However, since I am not the most clued up when it comes to nuclear physics, it is very much possible that I have misunderstood something.

Almost all my sources are in Swedish, but I guess you can try to use Google Translate:

http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=83&artikel=3447764 About using transmutation to shorten the half life of radioactive waste.

http://www.miljoportalen.se/energi/kaernkraft/kaernkraftens-naesta-generation Short article, under the title 'Ingen härdsmälta' a statement about shortening the half life is made.

http://www.miljoportalen.se/nyheter/05/ateranvaendning-av-kaernbraensle-kan-korta-avfallets-lagringstid/ A short article, notice, about a thesis on separating radioactive elements with long half life from radioactive elements with short half life using oil and water

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0375960109004113 You have to pay for this, not worth it. I was lended a paper copy in school. Turns out their experiments were very poorly executed and the quality of the analysis of data was shockingly bad, which obviously impacts the credibility of the article hugely. Introduced by CERN Courier, not very critically, with

'It is a common belief that radioactive decay rates are unchanged by external conditions, despite many examples of small shifts (particularly involving external pressure and K-capture decays) being well documented and understood. However, Fabio Cardone of the Institute per lo Studio dei Materiali Nanostrutturati in Rome and colleagues have shown a dramatic increase – by a factor of 10,000 – in the decay rate of thorium-228 in water as a result of ultrasonic cavitation. Exactly what the physics is and whether or not this sort of effect can be scaled up into a technology for nuclear waste treatment remain open issues.'

http://www.stralsakerhetsmyndigheten.se/Global/Forskning/Forskningsseminarium/janne-wallenius-fjarde-generationens-reaktorer.PDF This is a messy .pdf, the bit about shortening the half life is titled 'Strategi för ĺteranvändning'.

http://svtplay.se/v/2366734/vetenskapens_varld/finns_det_liv_i_rymden_ 09:08 to 09:16, they also discuss it but it's all in Swedish and they basically say what I've written in the first paragraph.

[RojoLeón]

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi suffered a trouncing in referendums that wiped out his plans to return Italy to nuclear power and dismissed a law designed to keep him out of court.

The results, following hard on disastrous local election results, have already provoked a growing unease from his supporters.

Final results showed crushing votes of more than 90 percent against the government in the four referendum questions: on nuclear power; on a law to give Berlusconi legal immunity; and two on water privatisation.

Official figures released early Tuesday by the interior ministry do not yet include votes cast by Italians living abroad.

But more than 94 percent of voters slammed the government's plans for brand new atomic power stations, which had been one of Berlusconi's flagship policies.

And nearly 95 percent voted to strip Berlusconi of special privileges accorded him as prime minister that exempted him from court appearances.

Berlusconi himself did not vote and the government had encouraged its supporters to stay away. But official data showed that nearly 56 percent of voters had turned out to have their say.

(more at link)

Huff Post link

(excerpt from link)

It also sends a strong signal to the nuclear energy industry as Italy joins Switzerland and Germany in shelving plans for nuclear energy. The role of the people -- either in voting as in Italy or in demonstrating as in Switzerland and Germany -- was in each country critical to bring pressure on their governments.

After anti-nuclear demonstrations in May, Switzerland decided to shelve plans to continue nuclear energy.

Switzerland's five existing reactors will remain in operation until the end of their lifespan with the last one being decommissioned in 2034. Nuclear energy provides about 40% of Switzerland's current energy, which Switzerland states will be met by increased renewable energy.

Switzerland is not alone in its decision to phase out nuclear energy. On May 30, German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that Germany would phase out all nuclear energy by the end of 2022, after more than 100,000 had protested nuclear energy in over 20 cities across Germany.

Germany will achieve this goal by increasing efficiency of buildings (for example, by renovating buildings with insulation in walls and double glazing windows); and by ramping up renewable energy.

While some doubt whether Germany's energy needs can be met by renewable energy sources, numerous studies suggest that it is entirely feasible, including the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

[RojoLeón]

Almost all my sources are in Swedish, but I guess you can try to use Google Translate:

I take your word for it that people are attempting this innovation. I hope they succeed. The only piece I could find on related tech (at a short google search) was a fluff article on GE website talking about how future tech will make Nuclear the bestest and cleanest and nicest energy around. (Great - what about right now, rather than Sci Fi fantasy tech that doesn't actually exist?)

[BIGdavalad]

Indeed. Using Uranium will accelerate their depletion and will not solve the energy crisis.

Could you explain exactly how you think the use of uranium depletes oil or gas reserves?

They do raise the issue that the reprocessing plant did not fulfill its design: it did not produce the MOX fuel and had to buy French MOX fuel to meet orders. And then the Japanese (their only customer) stopped ordering. Oh, and it cost a fortune of tax payers money. Lose and lose. It’s cute to think we will reprocess waste into fuel but currently impractical and sadly a further waste of fossil fuels.

Using the assumption that the plant will stay open for forty years, the Forsmark power plant in Sweden is estimated to have 'repaid' the non-nuclear power consumed in producing power throughout it's life in five month of operation. The energy required to construct and decommission the plant was repaid in one and a half months. The power required to dispose of the waste from the plant also came to one and a half months worth of operation. Therefore the total power required to build, run and decommission the plant came to less than 1% of the power produced over the estimated 40 year life of the plant.

Oil and gas are expensive to extract. It’s then a further expense to convert them into Uranium. We would save money and potential electrical power by utilizing them without the waste of Nuclear power.

How does "converting oil or gas into uranium" come into it? Uranium is a natural metal found in the ground.

I'll state it really simply: We are using more oil/petrol to have Nuclear electricity: We are depleting the fossil resources faster by having Nuclear electricity: And, we will require additional fossil resources (soon to be depleted), for tens of thousands of years into the future, simply to keep the waste from killing us.

Again, how do you think oil or gas are used in the nuclear power process?

And, if bombs have nothing to do with Nuclear power: how does Iran and N. Korea fit into your equation?

How do Germany, Poland, Slovenia etc fit into your's? Some countries have/wish to have nuclear weapons. A large number of countries with nuclear power plants don't. Therefore proving that your statement that nuclear power = bombs is bollocks.

Great. Maybe they’ll save some Uranium, Itself a finite resource (the forgotten or glossed over aspect of Nuclear energy), and use less oil/petrol in the process of boiling their water to make electricity: Less oil/petrol than if they kept turing Uranium into toxic and hazardous waste for a net loss of money and fossil resources

The estimated amount of uranium in the earth's crust is forty TRILLION tonnes. Less than one-millionth of this has so far been removed. It might be finite but it's not going to run out any time soon.

Again, where are you getting your facts about this oil/petrol and other fossil resources that are used in nuclear power?

I don’t. I think we’re past that. We need to drastically reduce consumption in the short term to give time for a long term answer to that question. Nuclear power does not fulfill the requirements of the role you state.

It's simply not going to happen. All we can do it maximise the power we create. Nuclear power seems to be the best way we currently have to do that.

Less people = less consumption = less required energy.

Great. I've signed a machine gun out, who do we start with?

No one has ever ingested fragments and contracted cancer from depleted Uranium: Ever? A bold assertion.

I don't believe I said that, did I? I said the chances of someone developing cancer through exposure to DU munitions are minimal. The people most likely to be affected are the crew of the AFV being hit and frankly the chances of developing cancer in thirty years is fairly small worry compared to the hundreds of litres of POL and dozens of rounds of ammunition that are about to go up like a volcano underneath them while they're trying to escape the steel coffin they're sat in.

As a member of the military, you may be an inadvertent Environmentalist: Your job role involves reducing population and therefore consumption. It’s possible that you may save the planet yet! 

I've already told you, I'm up for a bit of genocide. Just let me know who we're going to herd into football stadia and machine gun first.

When was the last Nuclear reactor built, anywhere in the world? How long does it take to build one and get it online and producing electricity (let along repaying anything close to the energy required to get it up in the first place)

It takes around eight months of operation for a nuclear power station to repay all of the energy it uses throughout it's lifetime. A nuclear power station produces roughly 93 times more energy than it consumes.

How long do the existing ones last for? How many have gone over their recommended shelf lives? (Just in the Uk mind)

Forty years appears to be the estimated life of a modern power station.

How much Uranium is there (worldwide) to fufil existing let alone increased energy requirements? Allowing for the finite fossil fuels required to extract them.

Shitloads.

How much does it cost in fossil fuels to decomission an old reactor? How much does it cost in fossil fuels to maintain waste products?

A fraction of one percent of the energy produced during the life time of that power station.

Uk population growth is increasing. Doubling every 100 years at 0.7% steady growth. Growth rate is increasing according to the trend on the graph.

So?

We must reduce consumption. Or, we will run out of freely available resources and natural selection will take matters out of our control.

I'm up for that, I've got access to the guns.


Facts about nuclear power stations come from Martin Sevior, Associate Professor, School of Physics, University of Melbourne, who I assume knows more about them than a random poster on a website?

Everything else was thought up by me or has already been gone over repeatedly on here (the DU munitions stuff).

[RojoLeón]

Machine gunning of undesirables, notwhistanding; the problem remains that our rapid and increasing consumption of resources (not just those of power sources) is not sustainable. We will continue inexorably on this path until there is an Easter Island effect of consuming everything that keeps us alive.

'Salting' the earth through radiation wastes could be part of that though it would be nice if we didn't leave a legacy, for our future generations of mutation through genetic damage  The Nuclear power issue is a side issue: Population growth will stop eventually but we might not like the consequences that bring this to pass. Nuclear power (assuming it does all you say) will delay the inevitable.

The mining of Uranium is a highly toxic and Environmentally damaging to start with. The residues (thousands of tonnes worldwide) of ore processing is a highly toxic and radioactive dust that has half lives longer than humans have been around.
We use oil/coal/gas electricity to power and petrol to move all of the equipment, machinery and facilitate the logistical movements. And we will require energy to deal with the waste. Pretty much forever, from a human point of view.
You will agree that fossil fuels are required (and in great volume).

Supply wise, the 40 trillion tonnes seems high. The NEA did a study http://www.neutron.kth.se/courses/reactor_physics/NEA-redbook2003.pdf that estimates approx 4 million tonnes (rounding up) known to exist and an additional 15 million tonnes(rounded up) thought to exist, but not found..
 
The 4 million is estimated at enough for 60 years at current usage rates. And if you make that 20 million in the earth's crust (to make the arithmetic easier  ) then, that would be 0.000005% of the optimistic (I like optimism though) 40 trillion figure you suggested.

That's all before we even boil water.

One (who has the time) might estimate how many barrels of oil it takes to produce the equivalent electricity from another resource; Be it coal, gas, oil shales, nuclear etc..
If you are spending more oil (equivalent) then you are wasting energy to create energy. That's why Nuclear is costly. You tot up all the extraction, maintenance and post-waste stewardship then you have an energy source that is more costly than the fossil equivalent.

As we have seen with the MOX reprocessing debacle, the Uk government isn't shy of making toxic and very costly (always for the tax payer) decisions so I wouldn't be surprised to see new Nuclear power plants go up.

Those great big generators of “cheap” power that cannot provide their own electricity. They need a centralised power grid. They cannot be powered down safely without generator backups, etc. When the sit hits the fan, those big pampered (and heavily subsidized) contraptions threaten to have lethal tantrums with multi-decade, maybe multi-century consequences.

They're the very opposite of “robust” technology. Ultra-fragile and lethal.

With that in mind, that and Cameron has tried to 'Easter' the british isles by cutting down all the trees, I'm certain that it's just a matter of time.

I'm up for that, I've got access to the guns.

A way of looking at modern, industrial agriculture is to view it as converting oil into food.
Keep your machine guns ready for when the oil prices get too high and people start to get hungry and restless. All the flat screen TVs and IPhones in the world won't put food in their bellys. Cheep leccy won't bring down food prices.

[Sudden Death Draft Loser]

Google Sovacool Nuclear

click on the first link, then download the pdf. This a (shock horror) peer reviewed journal article on Nuclear power, might be worth a read.

[Sudden Death Draft Loser]

A way of looking at modern, industrial agriculture is to view it as converting oil into food.
Keep your machine guns ready for when the oil prices get too high and people start to get hungry and restless. All the flat screen TVs and IPhones in the world won't put food in their bellys. Cheep leccy won't bring down food prices.

Great post Rojo

[RojoLeón]

Record dry spring could drive up wheat prices, and lack of water may force nuclear reactors to shut down

(from link)

And the French government has set up a committee to keep an eye on the country's electricity supply situation and monitor river levels, as 44 of the 58 nuclear reactors that supply 80 percent of France's electricity are cooled by river water.

The problem appears to be not that the reactors might overheat because of the lack of water but that the depleted rivers might overheat, creating ecological havoc, when the water returns to them after cooling the reactors.

[RojoLeón]

Google Sovacool Nuclear

click on the first link, then download the pdf. This a (shock horror) peer reviewed journal article on Nuclear power, might be worth a read.

It seems pretty solid. I did have to laugh at the 2 links below (on the google search)

The blogger has a go at Sovacool for being biased and being a pseudo-scholar. Then opens his critique with "Since I am familiar with some basic concept of nuclear safety I will first review the Sovacool & Cooper account of nuclear safety." 

All while being a cheerleeder for a theoretical design of reactor - pretty much untested as a major supplier of comercial/domestic electricity.

The comments under the faq page rip up most of the arguments the blog puts forward. Hence a theoretical design rather than one comercially viable at this stage.