New nuclear power plants in the UK, and the downfall of humanity

[Bvenged]

Homer Simpson is apparently a real person now. Also wind farms are inneficient, ugly and noisy.
I don't generally check the news so thanks for pointing this out.

Way to summarise those comments in a nut shell

I don't care for nuclear power stations, or how dangerous they are, because as long as you monitor and run them properly and keep up with adequate safety, security and contingency plans, nothing can go wrong. the risk with it is not so much natural or luck-based, but human-based. Fukushima was human error.

I prefer that we go green, but I'm putting my money on fusion. Fusion is a safer, cleaner and efficient source of power, and I really do think we're our a couple of decades away from inventing a way to utilise it.

 

[Bolwing]

Oh, bloody hell...
It's pretty much the same in my country. There were plans to construct a nuclear plant somewhere in rural Poland, and after the Fukushima leak some backwards folk living near the construction site of the said plant voted against (why the hell was there a poll going on anyway? There are no polls when a "normal" coal plant is being built.)having a nuclear power plant near their land. When asked why, most of them answered "What if a tsunami/an earthquake happens here?". For your information, the Baltic Sea isn't exactly known for tsunamis. And Eastern Europe is completely earthquake-free. I simply can't believe the stupidity of some pepole.

 

[marcooos]

Both of you: READ. [http://www.gregpalast.com/fukushima-they-knew-2/#more-7924]

So what you're saying is, this shoddily-built and woefully-unsafe nuclear reactor, when hit with an earthquake and a tsunami, and ended up causing zero deaths and releasing a negligible amount of radiation... sorry, what was your point again?
This seems like a brilliant endorsement.

Yes cos it's fantastically easy to detect the effects of a nuclear power plant radiation leak on surrounding populaces. Nobody actually knows how much radiation was released, and it will take years for the true damage to be detected. All of which is besides the fucking point, a catastrophe occurred because of incompetence, and nothing is happening to prevent future similar occurences.

Thats either an outright lie or you are incredibly misinformed and just regurgitatin incredibly false "facts" that someone else spewed at you.

Im actually disturbed you even bothered to type it out because of how completely wrong it was.

I work repairing radiation detection equipment for a living believe me it's easily possible to detect the radiation leakage of the plant into the surrounding areas, the highest dose recorded at fukushima was 560ish mSv on one of the workers with the reactors spewing out around 10-20 Sv if you sat on the reactor top. FYI that is not even enough to get fucking radiation burns, I hate I mean cannot fucking stand people who fearmonger stuff like this as it makes clearing up the accident so much fucking harder.

 

[Jamous]

We DO tend to be rather awful when it actually comes to education on such matters. Also, don't read the comments on News articles. It only ever makes you despair. You find worse things there than you do in the bloody Daily Mail, I shit you not.
How I actually feel about the Nuclear Power stations? Meh. Not strongly for or against. If we need them, we'll build them I guess. So long as we're sensible and keep it well maintained it should be fine. They're actually pretty clean comparitively; the only issue I can actually think of is waste -disposal- because that stuff stays hot a long-ass time, and (because you have to acknowledge the possibility, however remote) of it going boom.

 

[Daveman]

For one, the many people complaining that there isn't enough investment in wind energy are in most cases wrong, there are pretty massive plans for on and offshore wind, with the amount of generation planned to more than triple over the next 2 decades. More than that and it starts to become bad economically (notice that it looks good economically for tripling our wind capacity, naysayers) but it means at peak wind power we can supply more than a third of our demand from that one renewable source. If there's a renewable that needs more support right now it'd be better to side with wave or tidal, or just generally improving demand side energy usage. And fuck it, support FUSION. It needs much more funding and publicity.

Next, we've got shitloads of nuclear power already and it has never been a huge risk, plus technology has moved on incredibly since the time of major disasters (except for Japan, but the climate with regards to tsunamis and earthquakes is vastly different). Most of the new generators are replacing ones that are being decommissioned anyway so there's not even that huge an increase.

Nuclear power isn't the answer.

Its just trading one finite resource (oil/coal) for another (fissile material).

It's reliance on water to cool the plants can be a weak point during heatwaves/droughts, although this issue can be mitigated somewhat.

One, the water coolant in nuclear power stations is used in that it gets turned into steam to run a steam turbine. This is exactly the same as what happens in an oil or coal power plant, a source of heat boils water which runs a steam turbine. Most modern gas power plants use gas turbines but also use the waste heat to run a steam turbine meaning they also require water. Some new nuclear generators use liquid sodium as a coolant which then transfers the heat to water for the steam turbine, the idea of which always somewhat terrifies me. Molten radioactive sodium in close proximity to water? Sounds horrendous. Others use CO2 or Helium.

Two, we have one of the best energy prices in Europe as a result of using a large mixture of generation methods. Prices of things fluctuate, oil can become very expensive all of a sudden, and as such we can instead generate from a different source. This is why nuclear power is wanted in the UK; energy security.

One case study would be Albania where 90% of their energy is produced by hydropower. Whilst of course this is wonderfully clean and awesome, when there is a drought the price of energy changes massively.

The idea that there is one "answer" for energy generation is a relatively simplistic way to look at it.

 

[kailus13]

Homer Simpson is apparently a real person now. Also wind farms are inneficient, ugly and noisy.
I don't generally check the news so thanks for pointing this out.

Way to summarise those comments in a nut shell

I don't care for nuclear power stations, or how dangerous they are, because as long as you monitor and run them properly and keep up with adequate safety, security and contingency plans, nothing can go wrong. the risk with it is not so much natural or luck-based, but human-based. Fukushima was human error.

I prefer that we go green, but I'm putting my money on fusion. Fusion is a safer, cleaner and efficient source of power, and I really do think we're our a couple of decades away from inventing a way to utilise it.

I agree that fusion is the future, but until we develop that then nuclear is actually more enviromentally friendly than anything else.

 

[Lieju]

Please amend this if I'm wrong, but this is basically the summary of the anti-nuclear argument:

Look what happened at Chernobyl, Pripyat will be inhospitable for generations to come!

Other arguments against nuclear power:
-They produce waste that will be radioactive for a LONG time
-Uranium is a limited resource
-They are expensive
-Terrorism

Now, I'm not saying I agree with all of these arguments 100% (The expense depends on the case, I imagine, and from what I understand there is still enough Uranium to last for decades), but thinking the vocal people who are just (perhaps irrationally) scared represent the whole anti-nuclear argument is incorrect.

I personally think we should be focusing more on the conservation of energy.

 

[Ironside]

Solar power isn't going to produce ALL of our electricity but it is still going to provide some, which is better than nothing. And currently we are already destroying the planet to get at oil, coal, gas and fissionable materials for existing power sources, saying that production of solar panels will suddenly turn Earth in to a desolate wasteland of potholes is dumb. If we were serious about using solar power then people would start throwing money in to finding better panels that are less harmful and more productive. But apparently that is too much effort for some people.

In my opinion solar panels are not the best way to utilise the power of the sun. I would say that those sun tower things they have in Spain are a lot more interesting (I think they now also use some kind of system involving heating salts, which allows power to still be generated at night as well) and would be a much better idea to invest in for those countries with the right kind of weather.

Thanks, and how long does a turbine last? Before it has to be scrapped?

Well technically they are supposed to be able to last for around 25 to 30 years, which is roughly the same as traditional power stations, but it does mean they have a very slim chance of actually using less CO2 than traditional power stations as well. It seems rather pointless to me to build something so inefficient, unreliable and expensive if its not even achieving the governments goals of reducing CO2 emissions and is still currently less cost effective than coal, oil, gas, etc.

 

[Jamieson 90]

People need be realistic and get in the real world, you want everywhere to be lit up with your house full of large 50' screens, loads of computers and other gadgets, and not have to ever worry about them like we do now, then we're going to have to use things like Nuclear because our energy demands are increasing. As for wind energy it's very expensive, ruins the view and doesn't generate that much energy, no we (UK) should be using other means to supplement the power grid, like water energy considering were you know ... an island.

 

[Section Crow]

Well, it seems safe enough to me.

I mean the only thing i was worried about was the sea wearing it away but the rip rap and the sea wall should suffice, might even encourage some more sea defense in the local area.

 

[emeraldrafael]

...

Speechless! Only in the UK could we be stupid enough to dislike wind farms yet like Nuclear! The German people/government/industry were smart enough to take one look at Fukishima and kill nuclear once and for all. Yet us - an island nation - supposedly can't live without it! To use the term of Homer Simpson - the worlds most famous nuclear power employee whose standards sum up the industry - Doh!

...

... To use the term of Homer Simpson - the worlds most famous nuclear power employee whose standards sum up the industry - Doh!...

... Homer Simpson - the worlds most famous nuclear power employee whose standards sum up the industry ...

Oh god. I know its hyperbole, I really do, but god damn, and they say US people are dumb. Holy christ there's so much wrong with this comment alone its enough to argue for nuclear powerplants even if they are dangerous cause then they at least make idiots like that sterile.

I dont know, I'm biased. I have the pleasure of living in the US, specifically in pennslyvania, which anyone in Nuclear Power or Nuclear Power interests immediately recognizes for the name 3 Mile Island, or alternatively "How to not fuck up a nuclear power plant problem and handle it correctly." Hell I lived in that area for a few months and not a single fuck could be given to the place. and I know where go to school now we have a plant not that far away. I know New Jersey is supposed ot have the most Nuclear plants in the US and they're alright. or at elast their problems werent caused by nuclear power. and they live in a damn hurricane alley.

really it sounds like the only problem is the UK needs to start pushing their engineering program and the time, which, considering the way the EU is going and the UK's trouble with the EU could sink some of these. but eh, good on you UK.

 

[michael87cn]

To be the voice of reason, even if a slim chance of it happening, a Wind turbine can't explode and kill millions of people.

 

[Single Shot]

If only there was a way to harness power from the sun! Like some kind panel that uses solar energy, we could call them panel-that-makes-electricity-from-sunlight panels or something. What am I saying? Such wondrous technology is a pipedream in the realms of science fiction!

For cereal, why aren't we putting solar panels on the roof of every building in the country? It probably won't power everything and certainly won't at night, but you'd offset a huge amount of electricity so we wouldn't need so many power stations. Then shut down the coal and gas ones and swap them for decent nuclear ones. If anyone has a problem with that then they can do without electricity. Arseholes to them.

So, let me get this right. you want to base the entire countries electrical infrastructure on a method that generates noting when most people want energy, 6-9:30AM and 5-11PM according to the government website, due to the fact the sun is too low in the sky by that time.
A method that doesn't work when it's raining, and this is meant for England so it's not uncommon to have a few weeks of rain at a time over 'summer'.
And a method that pollutes an incredible amount during production by releasing things like Silicon Tetrachloride and destroys ecosystems by tearing apart deep sea trenches and starting open pit mines to find the incredibly rare, and finite, minerals needed to make the panels.

So the power you'd 'offset' would be practically useless because of when it was produced, you'd need giant batteries or millions of big capacitors to store the charge until it could be used and most forms of them would produce large amounts of pollution in their production and not last very long. And by what you said you'd still have to build enough nuclear stations to supply the whole country so we won't suffer blackouts every time a cloud forms, so why wouldn't we just use them? Do you want to destroy the planet making unnecessary solar panels?

'GREEN' isn't Green

Solar power isn't going to produce ALL of our electricity but it is still going to provide some, which is better than nothing. And currently we are already destroying the planet to get at oil, coal, gas and fissionable materials for existing power sources, saying that production of solar panels will suddenly turn Earth in to a desolate wasteland of potholes is dumb. If we were serious about using solar power then people would start throwing money in to finding better panels that are less harmful and more productive. But apparently that is too much effort for some people.

Okay, I never said it would turn the earth into a 'wasteland'. What I said was that solar panels are not anywhere near as 'green' as they claim to be.
You need to answer how you'd solve the problem of limited productivity during peak hours and the mindnumbingly idiotic idea of building both a solar and nuclear power infrastructure capable of supplying the grid.
Either the temporary solar grid will be less effective than you clearly want, or the UK will have to suffer power outages every time a cloud appears.

I would be able to answer you better if you made it clear what you're problem with nuclear really is, not just the standard "Everything but 'Green' energy is bad!" arguement.
fission power doesm't damage the planet any more than solar since they both require mining for rare minerals, and both have minimal pollution once operational.
but Nuclear reactors produce more power, require less land, have longer operational lifespans, and lower costs over longer timespans.

also, so far we're putting more hope in nuclear to get fusion running because that will be real green energy since it would only use hydrogen or some of it's isotopes and most likely produce helium or some of it's isotopes.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

People talking about earthquakes any tsunamis hitting them......

LOL ITS THE UK.

Personally I think that nuclear power is definitely becoming more essential and I'm not opposed to having more nuclear power plants.

I know it's not particularly common, but there was a actually a tsunami up the Bristol Channel once, a few hundred years back (I can't remember the details).

Given that if a nuclear powerplant at Hinkley Point went full retards my house would fall firmly in the 'fucked by fallout and general shit' radius, I'm still not bothered. The existing Hinkley stations are a much older design and we've never, ever heard a peep wrong out of them. It's just a non-issue created by people who don't know enough about the actual subject. Anyone that took GCSE Physics should be pretty fucking aware of how safe nuclear energy is, and that is 'pretty fucking safe, unless in the hands of incompetent, cheap Soviets'. The amount of radiation that came out of Fukishima is pretty tiny when you consider the damage it took.

To be the voice of reason, even if a slim chance of it happening, a Wind turbine can't explode and kill millions of people.

Well, they could fall on you... And they make bats' blood vessels blow up, and bats are cool.

Thanks, and how long does a turbine last? Before it has to be scrapped?

Well technically they are supposed to be able to last for around 25 to 30 years, which is roughly the same as traditional power stations, but it does mean they have a very slim chance of actually using less CO2 than traditional power stations as well. It seems rather pointless to me to build something so inefficient, unreliable and expensive if its not even achieving the governments goals of reducing CO2 emissions and is still currently less cost effective than coal, oil, gas, etc.

I might be wrong (I'm hardly an expert), but I thought the gearboxes inside wind turbines needed replacement more regularly than that?

 

[CriticalMiss]

Snippity boo

I think there has been a misunderstanding here. I'm not against nuclear power at all.

 

[Single Shot]

Snippity boo

I think there has been a misunderstanding here. I'm not against nuclear power at all.

Okay.... so why did you want solar again? I mean if nuclear can provide all the pollution free power we can use, why not use just that?

 

[Robot Bunny]

I would like to clear something up, as I had to study Chernobyl excessively for reason I would not like to get in to. The reason why that accident happened was they were testing weather or not if the automatic computerized fail they could stop a it going critical, which as we know they could not also they did not want to alarm the public so did not act quick enough.

Edit

Also just wanted to state my own views I for one will not stand back and let British energy security and and ability to stop the rolling black out that will come, if we don't do this or at least move forward with fracking. The only reason why we are being held back is because people are not educated about these matters and believe to much of what tabloids have to say, the nuclear power case was not helped when Germany duck out.

Also we should be slightly worried about the planets and the task force to defend them in case of a attack was horrible unready, but know thanks to the last chief of it has improved.

 

[srm79]

Don't the French owe like 70%+ of their nation's power to nuclear energy? I've never heard of shit getting real in that regard over there and that's right across the pond from you guys.

Yeah we/they have loads. It's something like 79%, highest percentage in the world apparently.

Seems like a good place to leave this...

 

[CriticalMiss]

Snippity boo

I think there has been a misunderstanding here. I'm not against nuclear power at all.

Okay.... so why did you want solar again? I mean if nuclear can provide all the pollution free power we can use, why not use just that?

Because if you have a roof covered with solar panels you can power all of the small doodads in your house without needing to pull from the national grid, so that power can be used elsewhere or we could just have less demand. I'd rather see the whole world powered by fusion reactors but we just aren't at that stage yet (although it seems from other news posts, it could be around the corner), but as the article began nuclear power has this horrible stigma attached. And if they haven't learned yet then even if the technology exists human ignorance is going to slow down the transition to fusion power. So until that point we could at least make an effort to do better than coal, oil and gas whilst attempting to avoid nuclear for the time being. If solar power was given more of a chance then we could come up with more efficient panels/whatevers and use less damaging production methods.

I would actually be suprised if we had a single source of energy in the future. Anti-nuclear nuts would probably go and live in windmills or something and Iceland will keep on with their hot water (which is brilliant I might add).

 

[tsb247]

Not really, every single one has large drawbacks, but when you take these and magnify them to such a grand scale as would be necessary to supply energy for the counties of the world there pretty much is no other word, because the downsides of each are unsustainable when considered for mass international use. From the well known problems of fossil fuels, to the relatively unknown costly environmental price of solar and wind (which need so many rare earth materials to work, which are not only extremely rare, but highly toxic when disposed of!)

Hydroelectric may seem like a good idea, and it is a fantastically reliable energy source (Iceland's national grid is 70% hydroelectric!) But it takes a huge amount of energy to create the giant concrete dams (produced by highly pollutive industry) and causes absolute environmental devastation to the immediate area (by flooding it) not to mention the long term consequences of having a large body of relatively stagnant water where one should not exist naturally (creating a breeding ground for pests and insects, as was found to the detriment of farmers living near the Aswan dam in Egypt)
Not to mention the Chinese disaster in 1975 when several dams broke, drowning 230,000 people living downstream. That's not a typo, two hundred and thirty thousand people died in that incident.

Geothermal is actually really environmentally friendly, but unfortunately only Iceland can really exploit it to any large extent (and even they only manage to have it make up 30% of their national grid) So it is not a suitable power source for the rest of the world.

Wave energy has a lot of potential, and is really effective when it works... although it's very situational, and as anyone who lives near the coast will tell you, you will get days where there just are no waves, and then the country depending on them for their energy production are absolutely screwed.

All energy sources have their downsides, but when you consider the huge amount of energy we demand today, and you magnify those negatives to a national scale, I think horrific is pretty apt to describe how each would perform on an international level.

It seems to me like you're splitting hairs, and it appears that you're diverging a bit from the topic at hand.

Sure, there are drawbacks, but I would hardly go so far as to call them, "Horrific."

For instance, tidal power is more reliable than you let on. It's not about waves in the strict sense, but rather about tidal fluctuations; a rather predictable and constant phenomenon. Solar energy may requier rare earth metals, but what other piece of technology doesn't these days? Your cell phone has gold in it, so does your PC along with a host of other metals. That's just how things work.

Are some of those drawbacks you mentioned bad? Sure, they can be, but to call them horrific... That's a stretch.

Just in case I missed it, what are your feelings on nuclear power? I want to be clear here.