They kinda are [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/14/nuclear_reactor_salt/].bloodmage2 said:
New nuclear power plants in the UK, and the downfall of humanity
- Thread starter Loop Stricken
- Start date
Non-cynical answer - It would require starting over from first principles. The reactors would have to be redesigned, and the tech would have to be researched. That takes time and money. When LFT was considered, the US government had already started building uranium powerplants. It was easier and cheaper to stick to what they knew.bloodmage2 said:
Cynical answer - you can't weaponise thorium, therefore it's useless. (Not counting dirty bombs).
There are several TED talks on thorium if you have a look on YouTube. Very much worth look.
Natural gas is the best source of energy. It has the least side effects right now and would make to US closer to the center of the production. Its the best choice right now. The only big issue is the fact that natural gas was burned to get to oil for centuries, but we still have centuries left of natural gas reserves.warmachine said:
Not quite, been a while since I read the case study but the issues with Chernobyl are a little more than a simple disabling of the safety systems, it goes well in to the realms of lack of worker training, worker communication failure and poor reactor design.
The first thing to note is the positive co-efficient design of the reactor means that it becomes very unstable at very low power levels. To sum it up simply under normal power conditions water flows through the reactor, water acts a neutron absorber. When the reactor is at low power levels the water tends to flash over to steam which has a much lower neutron absorbtion rate than water. In this instance the control rods would be used to control neutron flow.
The second critical design flaw was the graphite tipped control rods, in essence you insert the control rods to absorb neutrons. They get inserted in to the cooling fluid channels. Now in the RMBK the tips are made of a non neutron absorbing graphite which means they actually displace coolant on the initial insertion. Ergo you get a reactor output spike if you try to insert the control rods after they have been fully removed.
Reactor 4 was to undergo a power down set up in preparation for a test to see if the turbines could be used to provide enough power to the MCPs during power down, i.e could the turbines power the coolant system with no emergency backups during normal reactor power down. This would take place over 3 shifts and the course of a day. The Early and Day shifts would do the power down and test and the Night shift would be in charge of an all put shut down reactor.
The shut down started as planned however at some point during the early evening another reactor in the area went off line and power down was put on hold to allow for supply of power during the evening peak demand. This meant the Night Shift were in charge of bringing the reactor rapidly down to the test power levels.
They did this by inserting the control rods, which had the effect of
a). Bringing the power level down and
b). Generating Xenon 135 within the reactor
Xenon 135 is another neutron abosrber this combination of rapid power down and the insertion of the control rods to far in the reactor meant that the reactor dropped rapidly to unexpectedly low power levels. The manual control rods were removed to try and bring reactor power back up to the desired test levels, but a combination of the Xenon poisoning and poor worker understanding the reactor meant the control rods where totally removed in an attempt to bring the reactor back up to test power levels.
A number of additional alarms where ignored in the attempt to bring the reactor back to power level including the excessive increase of coolant in to the reactor (neutron absorber). The reactor finally reached test power levels, however a number of critical factors where in play. The amount of coolant in the reactor, the full removal of the control rods and the positive reactor co-efficent design.
The test went ahead, the reactor was powered down and the main coolant pumps set to power off the powering down turbine. As the turbine power dropped the coolant flow in the reactor slowed and the coolant flashed over to steam (no longer a very good neutron absorber) this resulted in power spikes which the automatic control system is meant to have controlled. It is suspected that as the coolant flashed off to steam it in turn flashed off the Xenon 135 which was poisoning the reactor reaction this resulted in a multiple increase in reactor output, and a massive increase in core temp, by the time the SCRAM button was pushed it was too late, the rods inserted, displace yet more coolant fluid, became vastly overheated, warped got stuck in their channels and then the internal pressure of the core blew the reactor cap clean off, followed by secondary thermal explosion as the core reached critical thermal output.
The design of the RMBK reactors was unique to the Russians, it wasn't physically possible even back then for Western reactors to suffer similar failures that occurred at Chernobyl let alone for a similar thing to happen in any of the modern reactor designs. It is truly worrying the ignorance some people show when it comes to any mention of radiation. Failing to understand that we allow radioactive elements in to our house every day of the week, most folk will gain a greater level of radioactive exposure from undergoing medical tests such as Xrays during their life time they ever would from living next door to a nuclear power station. You also have to take in to consideration that in a world where land is a valuable thing it may be nice to have desires on renewable sources but the reality is that these usually produce a poor amount of power vs the amount of land they take up. Chances are the facilities required for storing any nuclear by product combined with the nuclear power site itself would still produce far more power per square mile than anything renewable sources could ever hope for.
Cant we fire nuclear waste into space? There aren't many problems that cant be solved by firing stuff into space.
So these nuclear power stations will provide power and jobs. I say go ahead, we need them. Wind turbines are ugly, inefficient and kill birds while solar power isn't really viable in the UK when we have like two weeks of summer then eternal winter.
As someone who lives near a shitload of wind farms (because that automatically makes me an expert 
), the idea that wind is sustainable is bull. Wind farms are some of the worst forms of energy to draw from and are massively inefficient in terms of land. Much like ethanol, it is one of those green technologies that people like to use, but in reality they are nothing more than money sinks.
), the idea that wind is sustainable is bull. Wind farms are some of the worst forms of energy to draw from and are massively inefficient in terms of land. Much like ethanol, it is one of those green technologies that people like to use, but in reality they are nothing more than money sinks.
Oh wow! I get to use this quote again, and we're less than an hour into this new day! It's like my birthday or something. (though, now I've said that I'm kind of sad it isn't my birthday... *sigh*)
Listen to Asimov!
Deaths per terawatt hour of various energy sources [http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html]
So, basically, wind power kills people 3.75 times as quickly as nuclear power! So much for "safe", huh?
Listen to Asimov!
And I'll just leave this here, for fun!
Deaths per terawatt hour of various energy sources [http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html]
So, basically, wind power kills people 3.75 times as quickly as nuclear power! So much for "safe", huh?
They don't actually kill birds. They do kill bats though, in a rather horrible way. The capillaries in the bats lungs burst, and the bats end up drowning in their own blood. Wind turbines are ugly and innefficient though, I do agree with you on that. You did forget noisy.BristolBerserker said:
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.
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.
Now if we could raise solar panels into space, then found a way to transfer the energy they collect down to Earth without it frying stuff along the way, that would be neat and would bypass a lot of efficiency problems like cloud coverage etc.CriticalMiss said:
Still, the space stationed panels would be awesome. *nods*
But I suppose the catch here is that the production and disposal of solar panels does involve some rather nasty waste. I'm not too well versed on the subject yet, but while those things are clean while they work, they might not be so clean when they're being produced or disposed of once they go defunct...
I'm with you I think Nuclear power is a really really good think, the electricity it produces is much cleaner in it's effect on the environment compared to other forms, as it can be controlled and anyone who thinks wind farms are cheaper is an idiot, they require a crazy amount of maintenance and to power the UK an area the size of wales would need to be covered in a giant wind farm.Loop Stricken said:
But an this is a BIG but, I'm a final year engineering student an we had a guy who designs nuclear power stations come and give us a talk on sustainability, an he said if we start build 6 Nuclear power stations a year that take 3 years to setup (which is more than any country on earth has ever built in a year) it would take 20 years to finish the program and transfer the UK totally to nuclear power. An by the time it was finished the stations that had been finished would need to be replaced, resulting in a never ending & costly cycle. So not really sure where the BBC got those figures that 1 could power 5 million homes tbh, as if anyone had reason to lie and make the figures look better he did. SO in all honesty I'm up in arm's without a clue which is the best way to go. but I'm fairly sure wind farms are not it lol.
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.CriticalMiss said:
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
Yeah, that could work.Vegosiux said:
It's just sad we wont get there commercially for a few more decades because of how underfunded a lot of space research is at the moment.
God how I hate stupid green freaks.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the environment, but I detest the 'Greens'. They are without a doubt the stupidest bunch of morons this side of PETA. Solar/Wind/Wave are all great technologies... but they will NEVER provide enough power for first world nations, it's just as plain as that.
Nuclear power is SAFE, CLEAN, and produces a MASSIVE amount of power. Don't believe me? There have been three 'major' nuclear 'disasters', one was overblown bollocks (three mile island), one was due to negligence (Chernobyl), and one was basically an ACT OF FREAKING GOD, it got hit by an EARTHQUAKE. All of them were designs at least thirty years old, Nuclear power has evolved three or four generations since then, but no-one has the balls to build the damn things.
I once read a book about friendly Aliens showing up on Earth and giving us Cold Fusion tech, there was a bit where they were doing a 'person on the street' interview and this hippy bint was enthusing about how great the Aliens were for giving us clean power and how we could finally get rid of 'those dirty nuclear power stations' when the reporter said 'err Cold Fusion IS nuclear power' and the hippy totally changed her tone 'If it's nuclear IT'S FILTHY'. That's a perfect example of the stupidity preventing wide spread adoption of nuclear power.
Hell my own Australia sits on a THIRD of the worlds Uranium, we've got the ability to build the stations (we had a 'research' station previously) but no government has the balls, so we keep burning coal and pissing money away on 'renewable' energy.
GAH
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the environment, but I detest the 'Greens'. They are without a doubt the stupidest bunch of morons this side of PETA. Solar/Wind/Wave are all great technologies... but they will NEVER provide enough power for first world nations, it's just as plain as that.
Nuclear power is SAFE, CLEAN, and produces a MASSIVE amount of power. Don't believe me? There have been three 'major' nuclear 'disasters', one was overblown bollocks (three mile island), one was due to negligence (Chernobyl), and one was basically an ACT OF FREAKING GOD, it got hit by an EARTHQUAKE. All of them were designs at least thirty years old, Nuclear power has evolved three or four generations since then, but no-one has the balls to build the damn things.
I once read a book about friendly Aliens showing up on Earth and giving us Cold Fusion tech, there was a bit where they were doing a 'person on the street' interview and this hippy bint was enthusing about how great the Aliens were for giving us clean power and how we could finally get rid of 'those dirty nuclear power stations' when the reporter said 'err Cold Fusion IS nuclear power' and the hippy totally changed her tone 'If it's nuclear IT'S FILTHY'. That's a perfect example of the stupidity preventing wide spread adoption of nuclear power.
Hell my own Australia sits on a THIRD of the worlds Uranium, we've got the ability to build the stations (we had a 'research' station previously) but no government has the balls, so we keep burning coal and pissing money away on 'renewable' energy.
GAH