Is there a role for nuclear energy?

[Jovial Monk]

Yeah, cut energy use, become vegetarian and live in caves—the Green credo!

[Jovial Monk]

This is by a PhD in physics, a world expert in absolute counting and working at ANSTO:

Melt down in the Japanese nuclear reactors

No Prob, They were designed to take a big quake and a tsunami. The tsumami took out the back up.

As you know, a lot of water break down occured on the Zr/Ox compnents and H2 was generated. Subsequent escape meant a few reactors lost their Use by date.

The volatile releases and a bit of caesium contaminated the local environment in the short term and you'll find they have a few more problems until the fuel is totally poisoned (useless) out.

Essentially the region is wrecked by the tsunami and the degradation due to the regions petrochemical and chemical use spread out everywhere. I wouldnt mind if they ripped the lot out and replaced them with GenIII.

The major problem with decomissioning reactors is not removing fuels but waiting for the construction cobalt to cool down (the iron does so in a year) so that all the bits and pieces (should be) recycled..

These reactors were 1960's or so tech and should have been replaced. the problem is every time you want to replace a reactor, the faux greenies (organics etc) have a hissy fit. If we had Gen IV technology now, 80% of the worlds energy would come from far safer reactors that are far safer than coal plants and gas burners.

Remember a coal burner spreads more nuclear waste over a country side than a reactor of the same size squirrells away in a drum. Gas burners use fractionated gas that has lots of polonium in it (comparatively). No matter what you burn you get nuclides covering the countryside...

I'd prefer it in a drum to be reprocessed for fuel and precious metals...

CF Fukushima with Chiba and you'll get my drift.

Hankers and I talked about recycling sewage YEARS ago. Its now being done in some countrie (china etc) and these cities look to get a 10% first pass saving without GMO e coli and super staphs. Given that second pass and recycle is what organic SAYS its about, one wonders when they hear the call and let governments know they will play the game as they say.

So far the only organic program in all of australia is the rye reclamation of the mouth of the murray darling. Done by technologists, not by foaming mouthed hypocrites.

http://au.groups.yahoo.com/group/ozkitb ... sage/25372

[Outlaw Yogi]

This is by a PhD in physics, a world expert in absolute counting and working at ANSTO:

Melt down in the Japanese nuclear reactors


The volatile releases and a bit of caesium contaminated the local environment in the short term ...

Well I debated with a PHD Dr of particle physics and Uni of technology staff member (whom I knew personally) on the topic of electrical current, and this character was silly enough to state "volts are not a measure of electricty" and claimed that only watts are.
Now for someone who supposedly understands electrical current is just a flow of electrons, he should also have been aware voltage is the measure of the current's potential and so the most critical in knowing what amperage can be drawn from it, and that wattage is just the measure of consumption.
Eventually he backpedalled and admited he'd had no practicle experience with electrical or mechanical devices other than some BP brand PV panels.

So now we have an ANSTO expert who misrepresents or doesn't understand the implications of Cesium 137 contamination.

FUKUSHIMA - Cesium 137 CONTAMINATION HIGHER than CHERNOBYL? Already 3x EPA Evacuation Trigger
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum ... 416954/pg1

Cesium contamination in Fukushima fish 5 times permissible level
http://japannuclearcrisis.wordpress.com ... ble-level/

IAEA Confirms Very High Levels of Contamination Far From Reactors
http://allthingsnuclear.org/post/421319 ... nation-far

Private testing finds high concentration of Plutonium in soil over 30 miles from Fukushima
http://enenews.com/high-concentrations- ... t-released

[Jovial Monk]

Yeah, and there is also a lot of petrochemical and other chemical shit all over the countryside too.

These reactors were Gen I and should have been replaced.

Australia should have a number of nice big Gen3 /4 reactors in stable (cratonised) areas, not be faffing around with windfarms. some of these should provide cheap power to Indonesia so they don’t build reactors on fault lines!

[Outlaw Yogi]

Well I've asked before, and you're yet to answer .. just how and/or who should pay for the most expensive method of boiling water ever divised? ... seeing as the nuke industry doesn't have enough faith in its own product to put any of its own money into nuke power projects.

Lets not forget as a business case nuke power is the greatest failure of all time, and reactors as electrical generation utilities are the greatest white elephants ever known.

[Jovial Monk]

Well in terms of of expense of nuke plants putting out huge megawatts that power whole cities 24/7 there has been no comparison with renewable energy projects of the same scale and probably never will be.

Where real solar energy can come from would be space—far side of the moon or in an orbit where the moon and earth don’t cut off sunlight. Then we have to get the energy to earth, pretty difficult.

But on the moon the electrical power can launch a spaceship with timed electro-magnetic impulses over a long launchway, much better/cheaper than rockets from earth.

I am not against renewables but they are expensive and need subsidies and feed-in tariffs and stuff that mean poor people are subsidising power bills of the well off, fuck that!

On top of all that that are GHG emissions, acidification of the oceans that we are signally failing to deal with and the Greens put back by blocking the CPRS. The Greens are a mistake of the various green/conservation etc groups because now they are more interested in increasing parliamentary numbers than really pushing their causes and the WWF and all the other groups now have little money or skilled people and can’t get their causes publicised.

The existing design of solar panels is inefficient, with the cells in direct sunlight they heat up and lose efficiency—we need a type where the cells are out the sun so they don’t heat up so much, that is possible but I don’t see them being implemented.

A good Solar voltaic set up and a small windmill are not quite enough to power a household, even using woodfired range to cook and heat water and to put them on every house is $$$.

Gen 3/4 nuke can provide shitloads of 24/7 power. GHG emission free.

Long term, world population needs to slowly stop growing and retreat. Good luck with that, the catholic church the Muslim community, all 1.4m of them will all oppose that. Best way: improve living standards and education standards etc—very long term.

Oil is past peak production. This won’t lead to a Green paradise, oil will be produced from coal. We need high living standards everywhere pretty much to reduce reproduction rates which will protect what natural genetic diversity there is, reduce energy needs etc etc and eventually maybe renewables might be enough.

Somewhere in there will be a drive to find other, uncrowded worlds to settle.

not easy.

[Outlaw Yogi]

Well in terms of of expense of nuke plants putting out huge megawatts that power whole cities 24/7 there has been no comparison with renewable energy projects of the same scale and probably never will be.

Incorrect. There's been several. I've posted them before in nuke related threads throughout PA history, and I think I posted such a comparrison in this thread too. If mistaken, feel free to prove me wrong, I'm sure they'll come up in a search if needed.

Anyway, for now I'd like the cost factors addressed.
So can you elaborate on what you think regarding how to pay for nuke reactors? ... and who should foot the bill?

[Jovial Monk]

The biggest solar thermal station in Spain is puny.

How will you fund a 20Km by 20Km solar thermal power station somewhere in a northern desert several thousand Km from where the electricity is needed? Maintenance?

[Outlaw Yogi]

Like I said/wrote previously in this thread .. "nuke power is dead, just not buried yet"

America's New Nuke Showdown Starts Now!
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/05/16-3

Both Japan and Germany---the world's third- and fourth-largest economies---have already made substantial investments in green technology. Much of that was developed in the United States, which has paid a heavy price economically and ecologically for its atomic addiction, and now stands to lose even more ground in what will clearly be the energy growth center of the new millennium.

Some $18.5 billion in loan guarantees for new reactor construction was put in place under George W. Bush. In 2007 the nuclear lobby tried to add $50 billion. The industry has spent some $645 million---$64.5 million per year---over the last decade twisting Congressional arms.

But a nationwide grassroots movement rose up to stop them. In every year since 2007 citizen action has beaten a variety of attempts to slip the industry more handouts. Local movements movements throughout the US focused growing demands for the shut-down of old reactors. In Vermont, a March, 2012 drop dead date looms ever larger, forced by a wide range of political pressures that could start an avalanche of closures.

Yet just last year Obama dropped $8.33 billion in loan guarantees on a bitterly contested double-reactor project in Georgia. Two other reactors are scheduled for South Carolina, where ratepayers are expected to foot the bill as construction proceeds.

But $36 billion in proposed new guarantees were stripped out of the Continuing Resolution that's funding the government for 2011. Now Obama wants them for 2012.

Ironically, the leading candidates for the money have collapsed. A Japanese-financed project for Texas and a French one in Maryland are all but dead. Financial, licensing, siting, design and political problems have decimated the remaining list. The pressures on old and new US reactors, and the collapse of the industry in Germany and Japan, appear on the brink of pushing a failed technology into the scrap heap of history.

Fukushima has changed the nuclear map. Italy and Switzerland have put proposed projects on hold. China, the biggest potential future market, has said it is re-evaluating its atomic future, especially with radiation pouring into it from nearby Fukushima.

Amidst a heavy budget crunch, the administration must now justify lavishing taxpayer money on an industry that can't get private financing or meaningful liability insurance, can't compete in the marketplace and can't deal with its wastes.

[Jovial Monk]

When petrol is $2/L the energy crunch will see some hard thinking about energy. Feel-good renewable energy won’t cut it. Some of this “cut back” in nuke stations is probably a reaction to fukushima, some is decommissioning of nuke plants dressed up as a move to renewables but likely clearing the way for new nuke technology.