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Nuclear power Stations
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Who's for and against Nuclear power in the UK and the plans to build new stations on the sites of old ones?
I'd say I'm for it because it produces so much output for so little input and what waste it produces is very small (but very dangerous) And although it would be nice to produce all the electricity we need by wind, sun or wave power I don't think we'd ever get enough to supply all our needs.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L22456779.htm
http://www.darvill.clara.net/altenerg/nuclear.htm
Advantages
Nuclear power costs about the same as coal, so it's not expensive to make.
Does not produce smoke or carbon dioxide, so it does not contribute to the greenhouse effect.
Produces huge amounts of energy from small amounts of fuel.
Produces small amounts of waste.
Nuclear power is reliable.
Disadvantages
Although not much waste is produced, it is very, very dangerous.
It must be sealed up and buried for many years to allow the radioactivity to die away.
Nuclear power is reliable, but a lot of money has to be spent on safety - if it does go wrong, a nuclear accident can be a major disaster. poeple are increasingly concerned about this - in the 1990's nuclear power was the fastest-growing source of power in much of the world. Now, in 2005 it's the second slowest-growing.
I'd say I'm for it because it produces so much output for so little input and what waste it produces is very small (but very dangerous) And although it would be nice to produce all the electricity we need by wind, sun or wave power I don't think we'd ever get enough to supply all our needs.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L22456779.htm
http://www.darvill.clara.net/altenerg/nuclear.htm
Advantages
Nuclear power costs about the same as coal, so it's not expensive to make.
Does not produce smoke or carbon dioxide, so it does not contribute to the greenhouse effect.
Produces huge amounts of energy from small amounts of fuel.
Produces small amounts of waste.
Nuclear power is reliable.
Disadvantages
Although not much waste is produced, it is very, very dangerous.
It must be sealed up and buried for many years to allow the radioactivity to die away.
Nuclear power is reliable, but a lot of money has to be spent on safety - if it does go wrong, a nuclear accident can be a major disaster. poeple are increasingly concerned about this - in the 1990's nuclear power was the fastest-growing source of power in much of the world. Now, in 2005 it's the second slowest-growing.
0
Comments
I am going to think on it some more...
we should replace our current nuclear fission stations with new ones, not because of cost but because of virtually perfect output with modern stations, it gurantees energy supply - HOWEVER they are bad in terms of CO2 despite not emitting any directly, because the lifetime of a station due to the amount of resources used in building one, and processing the fuel and absorbtion rods to be ready to be used in a reactor - i only support it for sheer reliability
in terms of renewables:
this country is the best in europe for tidal power, and the tides in this country match our usage patterns well too a recent survey showed - we need more tidal stations obviously, probably the severn estuary
wind farms have been shown in a recent study to be the cheapest to erect and take down, and also have relatively reliable output in this country, only downside is visuals, but in West and NW scotland they'll be fine
solar is useless and it takes huge amount of resources to purify that much silicon etc etc
my plan rounded up:
replace the nuclear stations that are soon to be decomissioned
build more wind and tidal power stations
increase energy efficiency
For - because just like you said, it produces so much output for so little input
For.
Still for.
Nuclear power is safe - to a certain extent. There are other energy sources that are very dangerous to the environment.
What is your defense to this?
There will always be polution. I think that nuclear power is safe - but it has its downs too, I know.
You shall soon see earthquakes damage the Limerick, Pennsylvania nuclear plant and one in the south-west of the USA (California / Arizona).
Nuclear Power is a great thing. It can provide much more power for al onger time, and is far more cost-efficient too. I don't see any reason to be against it. It even pollutes less to keep the green nuts happy, although they appear to be far to ignorant to notice this and break into the plants anyway. Sigh.
At least we can try to do that. We can't try to fix the atmosphere -we just have to stop polluting it and wait. Which I notice no-one is really trying to do.
Actually I pasted that from the weblink I gave in the first post ...
Anyway you're pretty old so you should be able to tell us about electricity supply problems over the years? I remember when I was little there was some kind of miners strike and there wasn't enough coal to supply all the country with electricity .. it got so bad my dad had to make these emergency lights that automatically came on when the electricity died - they were powered by 2 car batteries in the shed .. was funny cos when everyone else in the street was sitting in the dark or hovering around candles we had full lights in every room
Anyway in this modern world we need electricity more then ever, as for storing Nuclear waste - it's pretty much a matter of locking it up somewhere safe and forgetting about it. Australia is one of the best places on earth for that, huge amounts of unused land, free from earthquakes, storms, etc.
it isnt cost efficient, the costs of commisioning, and maintaining waste deposits, and then finally shutting down are enormous
the pollution (in terms of CO2) in making one is huge for how long the building will be used, and for enriching uranium etc
Unfortunately it still isn't. And you don't need any accidents, leaks or terrorist attacks. Just ask some of the people unfortunate enough to live anywhere near a nuclear plant. Cancer rates round those parts make for rather depressing reading.
I'm sure if they were gonna build new plants today they'd be so much safer then anything that's ever been constructed before.
It would be quite nice if we had local wind farms close to where the electricity was actually being used... so less is wasted in transmission but guess that isn't practical
miners strike did indeed cause the lights to gpo out across the land ...those in the business of burglary had a boom time i can tell you.
nuke power realy worries me.
it is not cheap ...not even cost effective.
all this talk about australia is worrying too.
you have to transport the stuff there ...across oceans ...over many years of transporting the stuff across oceans there will be many accidents and losses.
have you seen how many cargoes are lost at sea each year.
i am totaly against nukepower but ...but being realistic it's looking like we no longer have any choice.
it will be a disaster for the planet in the long run ...and thats without consulting zolog.
off the coast at prestatyn you can see a wind farm ...just ...it supplies enough power for 50'000 homes if i remember correctly ...and people winge about it.
why i can't imagine.
50'000 homes is a fair chunk of north wales.
the protesters are now up in arms about a new one being built off the coast of llandudno ...producing enough power for 100,000 homes ...nine miles out to sea ...i can't understand what they have to moan about.
that'll be 150,000 homes powered ...thats a huge chunk of north wales sorted.
ugly dirty cities ...pylons and mile upon mile of cables ...industrial landscapes etc.
if the victorians were as small minded as you appear to be ...there'd be no roads trainlines tunnels bridges etc.
i agree with aladdin.
just found this ..... ...GWYNT Y MOR FACTS
200 wind turbines 8-9 miles off the coast
120 new jobs during operational life
500,000 homes could get electricity from wind power
1/2 a million homes powered in wales which has a population of around two million from north to south is one hell of a lot of renewable energy.
I was under the impression that nuclear power plants are pretty safe (stuff like Chernobyl only happens when you circumnavigate a number of safety systems...which is a bit silly to say the least).
They've put a some turbines on top of some refurbished tower blocks in Bradford (Manchester Road, for anyone familier with the area).
Link.
3,000 watts is just enough to power my kettle, so I'm not sure if they've got the numbers wrong, or they're of sod all benefit (ah, they're for lighting).
I think high power wind turbines on buildings might knacker the structural integrity (no source, I read it somewhere), although there're ways around this. If you've the pleasure of a garden, you can get small wind turbines but they're bloody expensive (with or without a grant).
Wind farms would be brilliant if you could buffer against supply and demand (and windless days) better.
Not really sure about nuclear power. It'd be nice to avoid if possible.
I think one of the most important things is building for energy efficiency.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1475034,00.html
http://www.awea.org/faq/rsdntqa.html
For your own wind power.
For your water power, I have it on good authority that you can wire a small generator to the mains water supply and use the pressure of the water to power your kitchen and charge large batteries overnight. As most people pay a flat rate for their water this is pretty cheap.
http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:fwumoaYgdnwJ:www.re-energy.ca/pdf/cp2.pdf++water+powered+generator+electricity+system&hl=en
Nice plan to build your own hydroelectric generator. Once you learn the basics it's easy to adapt I would have thought.
Also, while the power produced by these system isn't as much as the huge centralised systems we currently have (pun?) there is much less resistance because of shorter shockwave travel time through the metal.
Of course, you can use gravity and magnetism to produce electricity as well, but that's one for some future Nobel prize winner somewhere to actually make.
Don't forget of course, that there is huge political need for you all to be hooked up to a centralised system. After all, if you start having more cash on you and less bills and therefore less need to work somebodies grip starts to loosen somewhere. You gotta keep paying those bills, haven't you?
stream diverted illegaly this summer ...generator installed by a couple of army lads but ...still having problems.
by next summer ...
for instance - to get rid of traditional lightbulbs
We have low energy lghtbulbs in almost every room in the house - only the hall way has a traditional light because low energy bulbs take a while to get to full brightness and we only switch that light on for about 2 minutes whilst we enter the house.
Why doesn't the government put a huge tax on normal lightbulbs and get rid of VAT on low energy ones?
Low energy light bulbs can last up to 15 times longer than standard light bulbs and can save up to £75 each over their lifetime - based on comparing the cost of the consumption of a standard 100W light bulb with the equivalent 20W light bulb over its lifetime of 15,000 hours - based on the average rate of 6.5p per kWh
if you take 20 Million homes around the country with say 8 light bulbs in the house throughout the bedrooms, kitchen, sitting room, etc - that's a saving of around £12,000,000,000
But in the long run, it is far better than that of building and maintaining Coal plants over hte same lifetime. A Nuclear plant is a good long-term investment. A Fossil-fuel plant is a good short-term investment.
As for Terrorist Attacks, the chances of that doing anything but shutting off the power for a while are slim. I doubt they'd manage to get some weapons-grade material to put in, somehow... highly unlikley. If an attack were mounted against it, i'd say the people worknig there could easily seal off everything and start a shutdown prodcedure.
Chernobyl? Look, folks, don't run emergency tests on your nuclear power plant - it might seem to be a test, but that doesn't mean it can't go tits up. People remember this and forget about the many, many plants that are opperating fine across the world - even hundereds of other Soviet ones! (Which are older than Chernobyl - that was the one on the cutting edge!!)
Let's be honest - for the forseable Future, Nuclear Power is the only real option. Fusion is years off, building enough renewable sources would just piss evreyone off - you'd need to practically cover the whole country in Turbines. And then Bird would fly into them like those ones in spain that regularly chop up migrating birds. Only REAL renewable source is Hydro Electric - and sites for it are limited.