The Government has made recent announcements on nuclear power that 40 years ago would probably have sent 500k onto the streets in protest. It plans to look at options to recommission the former Nuclear Power station on Anglesey and commission Modular Nuclear Power stations. The latter are small nuclear plants that would serve a locality. Proponents claim they are safer, use up certain types of nuclear waste and cost far less to get up and running. But all nuclear power run risks. Modular Power Stations use plutonium (so that needs transportation and local storage) and produce waste that will take hundreds of years to decay. That’s a huge and ongoing commitment to security. A leak or a terrorist event isn’t just going to spoil that day. The consequences would continue for hundreds of years. Our ability to safely handle nuclear waste used to be a National joke. Had the kid from the Ready Brek advert been eating porridge or had he simply been swimming in the sea off Cumbria? Can a small island even consider the mess that could result? And is nuclear simply a distraction from an all out ‘war-effort’ on renewables and insulation? Germany thinks so and it’s a big ‘nein danke’ from them. Or can we safely assume that, like Boris Island or the tunnel to Northern Ireland, this is another Johnson flight of fancy that isn’t getting off the ground?
Same here. I do think the disposal of the nuclear waste is an issue that needs careful planning though.
Well yes, no one has a problem with the power (though it’s very expensive). The problem is everything else.
Maybe it should? Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, ***ushima. Problems are inevitable. In the UK that means on your doorstep. Modular reactors doubly so. Who is up for building one on the Buncefield site? Or the site of the proposed new ground?
Even some climate revolutionaries are accepting that nuclear energy is the way ahead. Some real eco-warriors I know even accepted that nuclear could play a role, as a practical alternative to fossil fuels, whilst cleaner sources were developed. Personally, I think combining the harvest of sea energy, more constant and powerful than wind, with shore erosion protection is a no brainer.
Small nuclear power plants are the way forward, because it is an established technology. Based on the pwr plants in military submarines and ships. Nuclear generated electricity, is safer than other technologies. Unlike hydro or tidal, it has lower environmental impacts. some prominent green scientists were saying so 17 years ago http://www.jameslovelock.org/nuclear-power-is-the-only-green-solution/
It’s superficially attractive, but it doesn’t reduce the problems of nuclear power, its safety, security, waste management and transport, it merely disperses them. So for example, waste transport. Almost every railway line in the Country would be transporting nuclear waste (railway lines with convenient public access) or you have to take it by road. And we would need many modular reactors, so you would have to be happy with one being placed next door to you and to big population centres. All this to get power that may one day be nearly as cheap as renewables, but never cheaper. Reliable, which is important of course, but a major proliferation of dangerous materials. I think one or two may get built, but that will be it.
Well as someone above mentioned the French seem to do alright with their 'mature' nuclear programme (some of their reactors are over 30 years old). The 'trouble' with renewables is the intermittent control of the source of your electrical generation: you can't the wind blow harder and sun shine stronger for an(y) increase in demand. Batteries are not a solution (either economically or thermodynamically). Also the issue of nuclear 'waste' is always highlighted but have you seen the energy, water and environmental costs of solar cell/battery manufacture and recycling/disposal? Our present electrical infrastructure (generation and transmission) is ancient and urgently needs upgrading/replacing - the mini reactors are a cheap(ish) solution to both of these problems and may increase our security of supply.
Yes, I acknowledged there is the reliability issue, though a grid of renewable energy supply across Europe could move energy about. It’s always sunny, windy, tidal somewhere. Batteries are dirty and inefficient but they won’t leave areas of the UK uninhabitable, which is the ultimate risk of nuclear power. For that reason, few of these will be built and most likely only on current sites. Not in my backyard says absolutely everyone.
The French have a policy of "...if you can see the nuclear power station then your electricity's free..."
Nuclear has its downsides, but is an incredibly reliable source of energy. It remains to be seen whether global warming is wind is reducing wind speeds long term. But if so, our reliance on foreign powers is going to only increase at a time where energy prices will be more temperamental as we reduce demand. A sensible balance of wind, solar, tidal and nuclear power feels like a good approach, even if nuclear is more expensive. In 30 years, we’ll probably all be harnessing the immense energy within atoms and it’ll all be moot, but we need to balance risk and reward.
Nuclear certainly has a massive image problem. As to safety it’s statistically safer than coal, oil or gas power. However in the same way it’s far safer to fly to Spain than drive, when a plane fails it is normally catastrophic. A family die in a road traffic accident, might get get a mention on local tv news bulletin. Waste storage is often seen as a problem that is unsolvable, but again it has been stored safely for decades, and there is no reason to believe it cannot be managed safely. Radiation is dangerous stuff, ask any former sun worshiper who unfortunately has had to be treated for skin cancer. However all technologies have dangers to be managed. Coal has had a horrific impact on those who produced it, worked with it and had to live next door to it. Until the climate crisis, most of those downsides were lived with, making coal the top choice for electricity generation. The situation with the impacts of climate change becoming more acute and more visible make tough choices. Small nuclear plants I think will become more common. You can build thirty all on one site. Cheaper and easier to manage than a bespoke mega plant. You don’t need one on site powering every general hospital. Although the NHS produces, stores and applies manages quite a lot of radioactive material, which if mishandled is injurious to health.
You can produce statistics to demonstrate anything. It depends what you take into account. The deaths from Chernobyl are estimated at anywhere between 4 and 200 thousand. How many childhood leukaemias and worker cancers at Sellafield? Nuclear waste has also been stored unsafely for decades. The comparison between nuclear and outdated fossil fuels is moot. The important issue is ongoing risk and however safe it is, when nuclear goes wrong the consequences are massive and enduring. We don’t have the land space to easily lose large areas for centuries if this goes wrong or dispersed material affects other parts of the Country like Chernobyl’s distant fall out did to Wales. But I’m sure you’ll get your way if you can successfully reduce it to an image problem.
's) 's) No statistics (or more correctly statistical models) show nothing - it's the interpretation of the results of statistical models that can either disprove or reinforce an argument. I'm familiar with the game of 'shroud-waving' so I'll join in. How many deaths have been caused by the extraction, processing and usage of fossil fuels? Visiting a mate in Wigan many moons ago (mid 90's) I was shocked by the state of those proud of their time "...down pit..." in the Miner's Welfare Club: the skin cancers, chronic respiratory/pulmonary diseases and 'industrial injuries' on display by men whose industry was only only destroyed by Thatcher only a decade ago. That's ignoring the mountains of toxic waste (s la g) that surround the town and the very full cemeteries of the men killed at obscenely young ages. In fact usage of fossil fuels are literally making vast swathes of the Earth's surface uninhabitable let along drowning many areas.
Yes, but der, not arguing for fossil fuels. Not even arguing completely against nuclear, simply that its supporters don’t wish away the massive issues of safety and security with sophistry.
Soviet built Chernobyl has resulted in a 1,000 square mile uninhabitable zone. The post war soviet irrigation schemes to grow cotton, that has reduced the Aral Sea to a puddle. According to the UN, has created a 25,000 square mile uninhabitable zone, considered the worlds worst environmental disaster. A legacy described by the UN as the most polluted zone on the planet. Coal at Aberfan killed 128 children. Coal workers pneumoconiosis kills 25,000 miners a year. The WHO say 9 million die from coal and oil generated air pollution. on Leukaemia and NHL in children living next to the Sellafield factory, between 1963 and 2006 there were 6 cases in those 43 years, 1.25 more than statistically expected. But there is not a direct discovered link to Sellafield, as there are greater incidences above expectation in other parts of the country without nuclear industry on the doorstep. For example in Cornwall. In particular a wider study looking at West Cumbria showed a statistical association between paternal employment at Sellafield and the risk of leukaemia (and leukaemia plus NHL) in children, although similar associations were found for paternal employment in the iron and steel and farming industries. The question is what tools do we have now to slow global warming very quickly. Renewables have environmental impacts but have to be the way forward, but nuclear technology has to run alongside it.
This is just repeating the same argument and isn’t in the slightest bit compelling. The fact that human beings have found many ways to ruin the planet isn’t any sort of argument for another one. The question here concerns the risks of proliferating nuclear material further in the face of technical and security risks. Low risk of events but massive consequences if it happens. Needs a better analysis than ‘yeah, but coal’. Lots of nuclear shouldn’t be an option that prevents the massive growth in renewables we should be seeing.
If only the (all?) industry had/did massive amounts of work in risk identification, minimization, mitigation and management strategies. [ANECDOTE] I went to a thing a while ago entitled 'Energy for the 22nd Century'. Talking in the bst later I was speaking with a group from 'Big Energy' plc. When I asked what caused them sleepless nights at the moment they said it was rise of 'smart' kettles. They said that if some rogue agent sent a command to switch all of them on at the same time it would blow the UK's transmission network & cause catastrophic demand on our generation abilities. Funny thing risk.[/ANECDOTE]
A ‘smart kettle’ is a classic example of an over-engineered solution to no problem whatsoever. Sure, the nuclear industry puts a lot of effort into risk mitigation. Not so much that it won’t build in an Earthquake/Tsunami zone. Here, more modest risks of storm and rain, but real risks of terrorism. How would a new modular reactor stand up to a plane being flown into it?
Would this new modular reactor have any concrete (enegy absorbing) substructure surrounding it at all? And I'm also assuming it's really easy to hijack and fly a plane into anything as 9/11 was such a long time ago everybody's forgotten about it.
Hardly impossible though and there are lots of different types of aircraft. Nuclear material is often in transport too. But that (concrete) is a better argument than ‘yeah but coal’.
Which flies in the air - UK airspace is one of the most heavily monitored & tracked in the world. **fixed** Which are protected both metaphorically (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Nuclear_Constabulary with assistance from the military where appropriate) and physically in specially designed containers. You do realise that 'our' power generation and transmission is knackered so something radical and quick has to be done. Wind and solar (and tidal) are part of long-term solutions not a short term fix.
I don’t disagree, but it’s the surest way to make a bad situation worse to dismiss objections with of course they can’t do this and of course we will do that. History shows that’s often not so. Nuclear power is a singular risk, nothing else comes close and those risks have to be managed for hundreds of years going forward. I also accept that the tech has moved forward.
