NationStates Jolt Archive

A few weeks ago, I read Tactical Grace’s essay on a new nuclear build with interest. Unfortunately, the thread had been archived, so I did not have a chance to reply. But as we approach the 20th anniversary of Chernobyl, it has been on my mind, so I’d like to make the case against a new nuclear build.

Firstly, TG starts by saying that within two decades, we will be far too dependent on Russian oil and natural gas. No arguments here. He uses this to show that we therefore need to use alternatives to fossil fuels. Again, I agree. But the answer isn’t nuclear, for the following reasons.

1. Safety
TG believes that safety is “a non-issue”. Personally, I’m not so sure. It’s true that Chernobyl occurred due to poor safety standards and something similar is unlikely to occur in the West. But there are still many improperly shielded nuclear power stations in Russia which have never been upgraded. And here in Britain, the Sizewell B nuclear station still uses the Three Mile Island cooling system, despite its obvious dangers.

TG writes that:
There are hundreds of nuclear power plants in the world, the ones we have in the UK largely of 1960s construction. They are reaching the end of their lives without incident.

This is simply not true. 22 major accidents have occurred at nuclear power stations since Chernobyl, of which 15 released radioactive material and 2 came close to meltdown. Take the example of Ohio in 2002, where it was discovered in the nick of time that boric acid had been eroding the reactor wall. Of the original 17cm-thick steel, only 5mm remained. If it had been eroded, the coolant would have leaked and a meltdown could have occurred.

Then, of course, there’s the issue of terrorism. In 1993, 4.5kg of enriched uranium from a nuclear power stations was discovered on the Russian black market. Should terrorists gain control of either nuclear fuel or waste, the results would be devastating. But nuclear power stations are a target in themselves. The Oxford Research Group estimates that an attack on one of the nuclear waste containers at Sellafield could cause up to 210,000 cancer deaths. With 14 containers, that makes Sellafield a potential death-trap for up to 3 million people. Nuclear power is by no means safe.

2. The Environment
Nuclear power has been cited as the solution to global warming by many environmentalists. But they fail to take into account building, decommissioning, mining and transport when calculating their carbon emissions. If they did, studies suggest that a nuclear power station can produce up to 40% of the CO2 of a gas power station over its lifetime. Or, to put it another way, they produce 10 times as much carbon dioxide as wind power for each kWh generated, plus many HFCs.

Not forgetting nuclear waste. Energy generation leaves us with 9000-13,000 tonnes of it each year, and that stays dangerously radioactive for at least 300 years. At first we used to dump it in the sea in unshielded barrels – in fact, US sailors sometimes shot the barrels to make them sink, allowing contamination of the water! But we don’t know what effect that has on ocean ecosystems, so we still don’t know what to with it. How can we dispose of it safely and inexpensively? Answer: we can’t.

3. Economics
This is my favourite reason. Nuclear-generated electricity, at just 23p per kWh, is some of the cheapest in the world, but the real costs are disguised. First, although running costs are low, you have to add on building and decommissioning costs to that. But on top of that are the billions of subsidies and hand-outs given away by the government. Here’s a low-down:
Last year, the EU gave $1.3 billion in direct subsidies to the nuclear industry, compared to just $300 million to renewables.
The EU also spends 61% of its energy research budget on nuclear, even though the industry only generates 13% of its power
The British government has repeatedly had to fork out for the failing British Energy nuclear company, including a $1 billion grant last year.
In France, if the nuclear industry had to pay full accidental insurance, nuclear-generated electricity would be 300% more expensive.

So nuclear isn’t actually cheaper than many renewables at all: this uneconomical industry relies on government hand-outs and insurance write-offs to make a profit. The money would be far better spent on looking for real alternatives to fossil fuels.

4. Uranium Shortages
The nuclear industry consumes around 68,000 tonnes of uranium ore per year, of which just over half is mined. As the demand grows, mining output will have to double within 10-20 years. As there is only a finite amount of uranium on the planet (2-3 million tonnes), this means that sooner or later we will run out.

Actually, it’s sooner, not later. Current projections say uranium reserves will be depleted in 30 to 40 years. So whereas TG claims that fossil fuels cannot be a long-term resource, neither can nuclear power. And as uranium runs out, it will have to be transported from further afield, increasing the carbon dioxide emissions of nuclear power, and the price of uranium will skyrocket, reducing its economic viability even further.

So that’s why I believe nuclear power is not a viable alternative to fossil fuels. I will go on to talk about renewable energy resources later.
Please feel free to post your thoughts.

We need more energy.
Every erg we can get.
That includes using up every bit of enriched Uranium we can exploit.
Oh, and we'll have to compete for ergs as well.

Just a quick thought on the Chernobyl disaster - I would recommend this site:

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chapter1.html

to everyone. It's a very basic site, but essentially it is a collection of photographs from what is now a ghost town. Apparently this woman thinks that if she rides her bike quickly enough through the area she won't be affected by the radiation. :rolleyes:

The pictures are quite haunting; it is as if time has been frozen on one day in 1986.

I'd also recommend looking on Google Earth/maps at 51°23′14″N, 30°06′41″E.

All very interesting stuff.

4. Uranium ShortagesThe plus side of course, is that when the uranium runs out, we'll have to start using those stockpiles of nuclear weapons for fuel. Which removes another threat to global safety. :p

Nuclear power has been cited as the solution to global warming by many environmentalists. But they fail to take into account building, decommissioning, mining and transport when calculating their carbon emissions. If they did, studies suggest that a nuclear power station can produce up to 40% of the CO2 of a gas power station over its lifetime. Or, to put it another way, they produce 10 times as much carbon dioxide as wind power for each kWh generated, plus many HFCs.

Now personally I don't know if building nuclear power plants is the best option, but I feel I have to point out that complaining about the amount of CO2 produced by them is kind of crazy. A nuclear plant can produce the energy that was required to make it in a couple of days. So it might take two or three days to pay off it's carbon debt and after that the power generated is pretty much carbon free.

I'm not bagging wind power here, but it takes a heck of a lot longer for it to pay off the cost of carbon released in the production of the many tons of concrete that are typically required for its foundations.

Just a quick thought on the Chernobyl disaster - I would recommend this site:

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chapter1.html

to everyone. It's a very basic site, but essentially it is a collection of photographs from what is now a ghost town. Apparently this woman thinks that if she rides her bike quickly enough through the area she won't be affected by the radiation. :rolleyes:It's true though. It's radiation with regards to time that cause a problem. It's like with a car crash. It's not how fast you were going, but how fast you slow down that causes the problem. If she spent one whole day on the asphalt outside of the reactor then then that would be equivalent to one years worth of background exposure. If she spent 10 minutes outside the reactor she has increased her yearly exposure by less than 1%.

And she's right about the Sarcophagus, it's listing and developing cracks. It needs to be rebuilt or repaired or it will eventually completely distingerate and leave the radioactive material open to the whim of the elements.

A nuclear plant can produce the energy that was required to make it in a couple of days. So it might take two or three days to pay off it's carbon debt and after that the power generated is pretty much carbon free.

It doesn't just produce CO2 in building; huge amounts of carbon dioxide are released mining the uranium, transporting it to the power station and then transporting the waste away again.

I'm not bagging wind power here, but it takes a heck of a lot longer for it to pay off the cost of carbon released in the production of the many tons of concrete that are typically required for its foundations.

The estimate that nuclear produces 10 times as much CO2 as wind power takes into account the difference in output, so that's not strictly true either.

i don't see neuclear as THE answer either, but only as a last place temporary element in taking up the slack left over from 32% wind+solar + 41% hydro = 73% of existing demand. i don't see nuke making up more then 5 to 15% of total demand. nuclear fuel is niether cheep, safe, nor renewable, the only real bennifit of nuclear is that it doesn't dump carbon into the atmosphere and ocean. and economic incentives are seldom on the side of safty first.

=^^=
.../\...

Going with nuclear would be nuts. Untill we find some way of making the waste safe quickly and cheaply (which would obviously add to the already prohibitive costs) it is a complete non-starter.

How cold we assure the dump sites safety over the next few millenia? No! It's just to risky.

It doesn't just produce CO2 in building; huge amounts of carbon dioxide are released mining the uranium, transporting it to the power station and then transporting the waste away again.


That's the same for any mined substance right now.

If we were generating all of our energy with nuclear, and using hydrogen as an energy storage method (for trucks, machines and the like), this wouldn't be an issue.)

can't the world run on love?




no seriously, whenever someone has sex we figure out a way to take the enerygy created druing, and we all know sex gives off allot of energy. can you say energy crisis solved? sex and cheap renewable energy!

I have just a quick question. Your quote on the percentage of Research funding for nuclear power, is that for fission only or does it also include fusion research.

You see if it is only fission then I don't believe you on that % as fusion is a massive research area at the moment. However if it does include fusion then you would need to revise the stated statistic as fusion works in quite a different way. Could you please provide a link from where you got the statistic as I am quite interested in this area.

I personally believe in nuclear power and and believe it should be a part of a varied energy base. Keeping all your eggs in one basket is never a good plan in my mind.

I liked your argument though as it was much better constructed (and rational) than the usual anti-nuclear supporters.

I have to go now, I will hopefully return later when I can make a more coherent response.

i don't see neuclear as THE answer either, but only as a last place temporary element in taking up the slack left over from 32% wind+solar + 41% hydro = 73% of existing demand. i don't see nuke making up more then 5 to 15% of total demand. nuclear fuel is niether cheep, safe, nor renewable, the only real bennifit of nuclear is that it doesn't dump carbon into the atmosphere and ocean. and economic incentives are seldom on the side of safty first.

=^^=
.../\...
Don't forget biofuel crops they can cover a good bit. Elephant grass being the latest: http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/front/2005/0907/3875614416HM1BA.html

When you say hydro do you include tidal generators? I assume so, given how high that % is.

A few weeks ago, I read Tactical Grace’s essay on a new nuclear build with interest. Unfortunately, the thread had been archived, so I did not have a chance to reply. But as we approach the 20th anniversary of Chernobyl, it has been on my mind, so I’d like to make the case against a new nuclear build.

Firstly, TG starts by saying that within two decades, we will be far too dependent on Russian oil and natural gas. No arguments here. He uses this to show that we therefore need to use alternatives to fossil fuels. Again, I agree. But the answer isn’t nuclear, for the following reasons.
Thanks for the name credit. :)

It's a shame you didn't get to reply to my thread, but I appreciate the fact that you took the time to consider it anyway. :)

1. Safety
*snip*
I do not agree with the comparisons to Russia. The criminal threat to Russian nuclear facilities and assets is of a totally different nature to that in the UK, where essentially none exists. With the collapse of all Soviet administrative structures, nuclear sites have been left unguarded or even abandoned, and material inventories have been lost. The UK nuclear industry's bureaucracy is alive and well, and no insider is going to steal and sell nuclear material. If anything, the NHS is a far greater security threat in this regard.

Regarding corrosion in US reactors, that's a weakness in PWR designs, which may yet manifest itself in the UK's most modern reactor, Sizewell B, scheduled to run past 2030. Now that the problem is diagnosed, checks will be more rigorous. And should the UK opt for the modern AP1000 design, many of the drawbacks of PWR will be removed entirely.

2. The Environment
*snip*
Construction and decommissioning lifecycle CO2 emissions up to 40% of coal-fired-thermal, represents a major saving of emissions when considering the fact that the UK still generates 30% of its electricity from coal hauled all the way from South Africa. The only meaningful comparison is with coal, not wind, which is a moot point since development of that much wind capacity is not feasible.

Geological disposal of nuclear waste for the few hundred years it remains highly radioactive, is a relatively simple matter if there is the will and crucially, permission to commence such a programme. In parallel with a "nuclear power whether you like it or not" policy, I would naturally advocate a "geological disposal whether you like it or not" policy running in parallel.

3. Economics
*snip*
This is my least favourite reason. It does not really matter whether nuclear power makes a profit or not. It is a utility. It provides a service. We must really move away from the absurd notion that every function must in isolation be profitable, for it to have any worth. If electrical energy security can only be achieved through state subsidies, I do not see how objections grounded in free market idealism are valid. Does the military make a profit? Does the welfare state? Let nuclear be subsidised - there is no shame in it, and it does not detract from its usefulness.

4. Uranium Shortages
*snip*
Nuclear power cannot be a long-term source of energy, but it is longer-term than natural gas. Considering the gas turbine method of generating electricity faces an epic structural crisis in the medium term, the important thing is that our power needs are met for one extra century. Thereafter, who knows? Wind energy research and who knows what social and economic transformations, play a part in that distant future, but I would not deny a glass of water to a man condemned to die in a desert.

3. Economics
This is my favourite reason. Nuclear-generated electricity, at just 23p per kWh, is some of the cheapest in the world, but the real costs are disguised. First, although running costs are low, you have to add on building and decommissioning costs to that. But on top of that are the billions of subsidies and hand-outs given away by the government.

Not to mention the fact that the government uses legislation to limit liability, so that they aren't on the hook for the costs of any accidents that might occur. Since insurance would be prohibitively expensive, it reduces the cost of production, effectively providing a massive subsidy.

4. Uranium Shortages...

Wouldn't breeder reactors extend the uranium supply a good deal? They would also take care of some of the waste produced.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor

I do not agree with the comparisons to Russia. The criminal threat to Russian nuclear facilities and assets is of a totally different nature to that in the UK, where essentially none exists. With the collapse of all Soviet administrative structures, nuclear sites have been left unguarded or even abandoned, and material inventories have been lost. The UK nuclear industry's bureaucracy is alive and well, and no insider is going to steal and sell nuclear material. If anything, the NHS is a far greater security threat in this regard.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4272691.stm
While I believe it when they say it's just an auditing error, it's very worring all the same.

Especially when it's saying enough plutonium for 7 nuclear bombs is:
...all within international standards of expected measurement accuracies for closing a nuclear material balance at the type of facility concerned."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4272691.stm
While I believe it when they say it's just an auditing error, it's very worring all the same.

Especially when it's saying enough plutonium for 7 nuclear bombs is:
Know much about the accuracy of a tomographic instrument? :p

Know much about the accuracy of a tomographic instrument? :p
ahh, I watched the video it has(in the top right corner labeled "How Sellafield accounts for the plutonium"). I wasn't aware that the amount of plutonium had to be estimated.

ahh, I watched the video it has(in the top right corner labeled "How Sellafield accounts for the plutonium"). I wasn't aware that the amount of plutonium had to be estimated.
Well that's the thing. The stuff goes in one end, comes out at the other, it doesn't leave halfway through. But the environmental lobby abuses the public's ignorance and makes sensational claims. The problem in this particular case is not the nuclear industry, it is the fact that the public is manifestly not qualified to discuss the subject.

EDIT: And the depressing thing is, the BBC actually does a good job of informing the public. Would FOX News explain the process? Or would they prefer to create and wield the political capital associated with making such claims and leaving them undebunked? What hope can there be of a nuclear debate conducted with integrity?

I do not agree with the comparisons to Russia. The criminal threat to Russian nuclear facilities and assets is of a totally different nature to that in the UK, where essentially none exists. With the collapse of all Soviet administrative structures, nuclear sites have been left unguarded or even abandoned, and material inventories have been lost. The UK nuclear industry's bureaucracy is alive and well, and no insider is going to steal and sell nuclear material. If anything, the NHS is a far greater security threat in this regard.

True, but nuclear power stations and waste depots will be likely targets for terrorists, with potentially devastating effects, and there is still the risk of normal accidents.

Regarding corrosion in US reactors, that's a weakness in PWR designs, which may yet manifest itself in the UK's most modern reactor, Sizewell B, scheduled to run past 2030. Now that the problem is diagnosed, checks will be more rigorous. And should the UK opt for the modern AP1000 design, many of the drawbacks of PWR will be removed entirely.

(Oh, I need to correct a typo - the Three Mile Island reactor is Sizewell, not Sellafield)
But the fact that the government is using outdated and dangerous designs in replacing reactors isn't a particularly reassuring move in itself, and perhaps a sign that safety is not the priority it should be. And hasn't the AP1000 only just be given the green light, so its still experimental anyway?

Construction and decommissioning lifecycle CO2 emissions up to 40% of coal-fired-thermal, represents a major saving of emissions when considering the fact that the UK still generates 30% of its electricity from coal hauled all the way from South Africa.

It's definitely a reduction in emissions, but not nearly carbon-neutral as many nuclear supporters claim.

The only meaningful comparison is with coal, not wind, which is a moot point since development of that much wind capacity is not feasible.

I'll reply to this either later tonight or tomorrow.

Geological disposal of nuclear waste for the few hundred years it remains highly radioactive, is a relatively simple matter if there is the will and crucially, permission to commence such a programme. In parallel with a "nuclear power whether you like it or not" policy, I would naturally advocate a "geological disposal whether you like it or not" policy running in parallel.

This as well.

This is my least favourite reason. It does not really matter whether nuclear power makes a profit or not. It is a utility. It provides a service. We must really move away from the absurd notion that every function must in isolation be profitable, for it to have any worth. If electrical energy security can only be achieved through state subsidies, I do not see how objections grounded in free market idealism are valid. Does the military make a profit? Does the welfare state? Let nuclear be subsidised - there is no shame in it, and it does not detract from its usefulness.

As a leftie, I agree that profits should not dictate service. But at a time when one of the most commonly voiced arguments against renewable energy is that it's too expensive, it is simply a lie to say that nuclear is cheaper (although you never did, I'll point out). However, what you have argued is that renewable energy is unfeasible until technology improves. But it is because of the fact that funding is biased so heavily in favour of nuclear that renewable energy does not receive the research funding it needs.

Nuclear power cannot be a long-term source of energy, but it is longer-term than natural gas. [quote]

Yes - by about 10 or 20 years according to the most recent projections. And before then, wouldn't we just be slave to uranium imports from Australia (with 40% of the world's uranium) instead of slave to natural gas from Russia?

[quote]Considering the gas turbine method of generating electricity faces an epic structural crisis in the medium term, the important thing is that our power needs are met for one extra century. Thereafter, who knows? Wind energy research and who knows what social and economic transformations, play a part in that distant future, but I would not deny a glass of water to a man condemned to die in a desert.

And to hijack your metaphor, nuclear is just a mirage in the desert.

Let's look at energy costs to build an average reactor and carbon produced to run it. We will assume all energy required comes from fossil fuels.

A containment building needs about 20,000 tons of concrete. Let's double this to 40,000 tons for the entire structure. To produce this much concrete would take about 70 trillion joules or 20,000 megawatt hours. It would take the plant about 20 hours operation to produce this much electricity.

If transport and construction take twice as much energy than this then it would take 3 days of energy production for the plant to pay off it's construction carbon debt.

Uranium costs about $20 a kilogram unenriched. Even if 100% of this cost is for oil used to produce it, that is still only a third of one percent of the energy it will generate.

To enrich the uranium to make one year's fuel for a reactor will take from 5 to 300 million kilowatts hours. Which is from about 0.07% to 4.3% of the power produced by the reactor.

So all up, over a twenty year lifespan, the reactor will produce at a bare minimum at least 20 times more energy than it costs to construct and to mine and enrich fuel. So less than one year's operation is required to offset the carbon released.

I have just a quick question. Your quote on the percentage of Research funding for nuclear power, is that for fission only or does it also include fusion research.

You see if it is only fission then I don't believe you on that % as fusion is a massive research area at the moment. However if it does include fusion then you would need to revise the stated statistic as fusion works in quite a different way. Could you please provide a link from where you got the statistic as I am quite interested in this area.

I'm afraid it's a secondary source: I got the statistic from the New Internationalist (www.newint.org), which in turn cites the Nuclear Monitor magazine and the Centre for Energy Conversation and Environmental Technology.

I'd imagine it does include fusion, but fusion is still only a pipe dream at the moment and phenomenally expensive.

Wouldn't breeder reactors extend the uranium supply a good deal? They would also take care of some of the waste produced.

Yep, but then breeder reactors have had a history of safety problems with cooling systems and are still very expensive.

Actually, it’s sooner, not later. Current projections say uranium reserves will be depleted in 30 to 40 years.

Reserves are tricky things. They are not equal to the amount of uranium left. They are how much uranium we have found so far. When demand increases and the price of uranium goes higher people look for more of the stuff and reserves increase. Look at oil. In the 70's people who looked at reserves said we'd have no oil left now, but production is higher than it has ever been. Obviously they were wrong. Of course there is a limit and for oil we are getting close to reaching it.

Uranium can be extracted from sea water and one figure is that it will cost ten times more than current mining. Since uranium and processing is only 7% of the cost of electricty produced by reactors, if it costs 10 times as much as it does now that's only an extra 70% to your electricity bill.

Nuclear is not a mirage in the desert. Given the green light, including full removal of the planning and public inquiry process, the UK can build 10GW in a decade with ease. 10GW of wind is beyond the industry's ability to supply on the same timescale, even granted that same grace. It is not a question of bias in research funding, it is a question of production capacity and manpower allocation currently available in the energy-corporate world. The European energy industry has the factories and the staff to build 10GW of nuclear in the UK. It does not have the factories and staff to build 10GW of wind.

Also from a corporate perspective, it does not matter which technology gets public and state endorsement. Whether it's offshore gas, wind, nuclear, etc, the same multinational conglomerates get the contracts. Thus there is very little political industry bias. If you wanted to build a biosphere next door to a nuclear power plant, it would be the same people pouring the concrete.

But in spite of this, the relative sizes of the markets are very different. Companies would have to "re-tool" at a huge expense, massively expanding some areas of operation, giving up on others. The public does not appreciate that there are subtle yet devastating technological constraints at work - good intentions being restricted not by outlandish conspiracies, but more mundanely, by what the companies are capable of delivering.

A while ago, Rumsfeld said that a soldier goes to war with the army he has, not the army he wishes he had.

This was an extremely unpopular comment, but he was right. The energy industry has to work with what it's got, with what it's capable of delivering, not with what people wish it could do.

I'd have to disagree with the supply of uranium; proven reserves are small because there isn't a lot of exploration for the stuff and demand is relatively low; were demand to rise, exploration would increase and discoveries would grow. Also, there is uranium for seawater, which is a costly but still feasible recovery method. If it becomes large scale the cost will fall considerably..

Furthermore, new reactors are much safer and reprocessing technology has improved dramatically, cutting down on both radioactive waste as well as increasing the amount of recoverable fuel from the waste. As reactor technology improves, so too will the reprocessing technology and that will make reactors even safer and less of a liability.

Nuclear power needs financial support to be viable in insurance terms, but a new generation of safe and secure nuclear plants would help reduce the cost of insurance and make the need for subsidies less. Also, the construction time and cost of reactor construction have fallen considerably.

Thanks for the name credit. :)

Geological disposal of nuclear waste for the few hundred years it remains highly radioactive, is a relatively simple matter if there is the will and crucially, permission to commence such a programme. In parallel with a "nuclear power whether you like it or not" policy, I would naturally advocate a "geological disposal whether you like it or not" policy running in parallel.

.

I agreed with all your points but this one. Nuclear waste comes in several different grades (low, medium and high I believe, though the number of grades depends on how each country grades it (I think Australia has 5 grades)). Your statement is true for the low and medium grades which should be noted make up the majority of the waste (this includes the coolant (e.g. water) most of the nuclear power plant structure etc) but it is not true for the high level waste. This high level waste (the actual fuel itself and parts of the reactor chamber), a very small amount of the total waste, will stay very active for thousands of years and poses a problem still.

There are several possibilites at the moment for partially dealing with the high level waste. One is improving and increasing processing of the waste such that the different grades are seperated better (less low level waste staying classed as high level waste becasue it wasn't removed properly etc) as this will reduce tha amount of waste that truly has to be stored long term. There is also several research avenues being looked at for transmuting the waste to a lower grade (ie. the half life of the high grade level waste is massively reduced from thousands of years as the Uranium is changed to an element that decays a hell of a lot quicker to safe levels.), the proposal that I know about is to use the spent nuclear fuel inside a running reactor where it will act as a kind of moderator (which will slow down and reduce the number of nuetrons produced, i.e. reduce the chance of a meltdown) and in the process the spent nuclear fuel will gradually transmute to these faster decaying isotopes of various elements.

I should also point out, though it is a minor point, that renewables are not completely safe themselves in potential risks. First example is a hydroelectric dam (which is also a major terrorist target) can fail and break apart and results in massive flooding downstream which should be noted is usually the location of large towns and cities. My second example is wind power, a couple of years ago it was reported in the UK media that a farmer was finding that several of his livestock was being killed overnight. It was eventually found that the livestock was being killed by spikes/shards of ice coming off a nearby windmill (not the old fassion ones but one of the new power generating ones). Ice was forming on the blades due to precipitaion and momentum of the blade spining would result in the ice slipping/breaking off at high velocities and skewering the livestock. I do admit that neither of these quite comepare to cheynoble.

3. Economics

This is my least favourite reason. It does not really matter whether nuclear power makes a profit or not. It is a utility. It provides a service. We must really move away from the absurd notion that every function must in isolation be profitable, for it to have any worth. If electrical energy security can only be achieved through state subsidies, I do not see how objections grounded in free market idealism are valid. Does the military make a profit? Does the welfare state? Let nuclear be subsidised - there is no shame in it, and it does not detract from its usefulness.

I have to really disagree with you on this one. If money is not a problem why not gain all your power from wind, wave and solar? Sure this would be incredibly expensive and difficult, but there is no reason why it couldn't be done with massive government subsidies and renewable energy is much safer from terrorist attack or those filthy Australians cutting off your uranium supply.

If it is cheaper to build coal thermal plants and sequester the CO2 they produce, then build coal thermal plants. It is crazy to subsidise nuclear and not other energy sources that are mild on the environment.

Nuclear power may be an economic option. If it is economic then companies should be willing to build nuclear reactors without any government subsidies, while paying for all the capital costs, the costs of disposing or reprocessing waste, and while paying for the vast bulk of their insurance. The only subsidy they should receive is the same subsidy any environmentally friendy power source such as wind, wave or solar should receive.

Until companies are willing to build reactors and raise capital and pay for all the costs themselves I will have strong doubts about claims that it is cheaper than other sources of power

I'm afraid it's a secondary source: I got the statistic from the New Internationalist (www.newint.org), which in turn cites the Nuclear Monitor magazine and the Centre for Energy Conversation and Environmental Technology.

I'd imagine it does include fusion, but fusion is still only a pipe dream at the moment and phenomenally expensive.



Thankyou, I have read it now and the figure does include fusion.

It was quite an interesting read on the fusion article in the same issue. It had several valid points (e.g. the power plant will be much larger, it is more complicated etc, but it is inherently more safe than fission for the simple fact if things go wrong the reaction just shuts down rather than going out of control) but it does not help when they also sprinkle in half-truths to confuse the issue and that extra bit of paranioa in the last paragraph just annoyed me.

I agreed with all your points but this one. Nuclear waste comes in several different grades (low, medium and high I believe, though the number of grades depends on how each country grades it (I think Australia has 5 grades)). Your statement is true for the low and medium grades which should be noted make up the majority of the waste (this includes the coolant (e.g. water) most of the nuclear power plant structure etc) but it is not true for the high level waste. This high level waste (the actual fuel itself and parts of the reactor chamber), a very small amount of the total waste, will stay very active for thousands of years and poses a problem still.

There are several possibilites at the moment for partially dealing with the high level waste. One is improving and increasing processing of the waste such that the different grades are seperated better (less low level waste staying classed as high level waste becasue it wasn't removed properly etc) as this will reduce tha amount of waste that truly has to be stored long term. There is also several research avenues being looked at for transmuting the waste to a lower grade (ie. the half life of the high grade level waste is massively reduced from thousands of years as the Uranium is changed to an element that decays a hell of a lot quicker to safe levels.), the proposal that I know about is to use the spent nuclear fuel inside a running reactor where it will act as a kind of moderator (which will slow down and reduce the number of nuetrons produced, i.e. reduce the chance of a meltdown) and in the process the spent nuclear fuel will gradually transmute to these faster decaying isotopes of various elements.


And then there's the last way, build breeder reactors which can use pretty much any nuclear isotope and end up destroying any waste after it's been run through the process a few times.

And then there's the last way, build breeder reactors which can use pretty much any nuclear isotope and end up destroying any waste after it's been run through the process a few times.

Yeah, but they (along with Canadian Deuterium reactors) are perfect for producing large amounts of weapons-grade plutonium. While that's fine for the western world, it's a little worrying about safety and terrorism - and with a good source of that all over the country, bye bye Disarmament.

I read something ages ago about 'Integral Breeder' or 'Integral Fast' reactors that just eat up nuclear waste and weapons grade material, or unenriched uranium, and the waste is only radioactive for a few centuries, and useless for terrorists. That'd be far cooler than our current designs that date back to the fifties.

OK, I promised I was going to talk about renewables as an alternative, so here it is:

Solar power - ha. Semiconductor plants don't grow on trees, and anything which can be made cheaply enough to print by the square kilometer, will have efficiencies of a couple of percent. You would need to tile every roof in the country with the stuff, and then feed it into switched-mode power supplies.

Don't underestimate the power of smale-scale projects.According to the New Economics Foundation, to match the current nuclear output we would need one third of electricity consumers to install a 2kW renewable system. That's equivalent to about 20 square metres of solar panelling - possible to fit on many roofs. Of course, it would require government grants and a publicity campaign, but the whole scheme would cost around £500 million by my calculations, or less than £3500 per household.

These are great sources of harmonics. For those not familiar with power systems engineering, these are not nice things to have. You could probably fill bookshelves with the British, European and international standards which say that phenomena which cause power system equipment to melt, are not good. There are numerous regulations limiting harmonic sources on the network. Believe it or not, every time you plug in a phone charger or laptop, a power systems engineer cries. Every roof in the country covered with PV - just say no.

I won't pretend there aren't sometimes problems with linking systems up to the mains, but it has occured already in many homes in Britain and on a far larger scale abroad, such as in Europe and Japan.

Wind has made remarkable strides recently, with the turbine rating reaching 3MW on mass-market units, 5-7MW on experimental sets, and 10MW being seen as feasible. The problem is, they hit a ceiling at that point, because materials science imposes certain limitations on the blades. 10MW is probably as big as they can be made. Considering a medium-sized conventional thermal / nuke plant will have 3x 400MW generators, and wind availability is 30% rather than 80%, you are going to need MANY. Also, you will need to retain gas turbines for peak shaving.

Even at the low output of 5MW, you would still only need 200 generators to replace an average 1GW power station, providing power for about one million people. Of course you'd need a back-up system, such as hydroelectric or coal-fired, but that's really not an issue, as these systems already exist. As for the 10MW point, that's really not an obstacle. No-one has even refuted the laws of thermodynamics here, and of course there is an efficiency ceiling, but it's not low enough to be a serious problem.

So we're talking forests of thousands of the biggest feasible wind turbines. Now we run into the first of several problems.

About 12,000 if we were to replace all our existing power stations, which I'm not advocating for a second. So we wouldn't really see thousands in one place.

I'll reply to the infrastructure points tomorrow. Other points:

And then there's the last way, build breeder reactors which can use pretty much any nuclear isotope and end up destroying any waste after it's been run through the process a few times.

You would still have to build hundreds (probably thousands) of breeder reactors worldwide to eliminate waste and produce fuel.

First off – reactor designs have improved a lot in the last 50 years. Additionally, citing Chernobyl is about as relevant as citing one of the odd flying contraptions from the 1880s to say that a 747 is unsafe. The basic design would have been laughed at if someone outside of the Soviet Union had tried to build it.

Modern reactors are very safe. Pebble-bed reactors do not meltdown, do not explode, and if the coolant stops flowing or the controls fail, it stops producing power and goes idle.

The nuclear waste could be reprocessed very efficiently so that nearly all of it can be recycled (even have some very valuable heavy metals extracted from it) and what cannot be processed anymore can be converted into an inert glass – so a solid lump which therefore cannot contaminate groundwater or ‘spill’ to cause problems. Worst case, dump it into the ocean over a deep trench.

Current regulations, restrictions, and liabilities have made it unfeasible to institute large-scale processing of waste. That’s right greenies, onerous regulations have actually left more of a problem. Several methods of dealing with the waste have been developed, but just need the regulatory go-ahead to build prototype processing plants. If the production of nuclear waste goes up, hopefully rational minds will allow it to go through, rather than idiots screaming about how coming up with ways to deal with the waste would just encourage more use of nuclear power, and thus all environmentalists should be making sure that current waste is a huge environmental disaster.

Were the use of nuclear power ramped up a bit; it would become feasible to construct some processing plants, which would greatly minimize the residual impact of nuclear power. Additionally, pebble-bed reactors can utilize a wide variety of fuels, which greatly expands the scope of what is considered to be usable. The reprocessing of waste, the ability to use weapons-grade materials, and the ability to reprocess fuel through many more cycles, would actually greatly reduce the total amount of material coming out at the end of the lifecycle (despite the higher volume of waste produced by a pebble-bed design – though really the quantity of waste per unit of energy output is the same as other designs anyway).

The big reason why nuclear power plants need subsidies is because it makes no sense to front the enormous up-front cost of investment to build a reactor if you cannot be sure you could even complete construction. Local regulations and political manipulation greatly increase costs of getting plans approved, beginning the build, during the process, and to startup the plant – and anywhere during the process everything can be canceled if some local politician thinks it will help his chances of reelection to shut you down. This is why the government gives guarantees and subsidies on the plant.

Reactors take up little space and have huge production consistent no matter what the weather – which is why it is so much better than wind or solar. Huge areas of land devoted to wind-farms or solar plants are a poor use in my opinion. While I do greatly support people putting solar panels on the roof of their houses. I am currently building a house incorporating a solar system to power the lights and such as well as a couple of panels out in the field to power various sensors and have been pondering a wind turbine as well – so you can see that I value both solar and wind power. Fortunately I have a farm and can utilize these systems. What of the cities? It is easy to say that people should just have solar panels on their roofs, but what of the millions of people living in apartment buildings?

Tidal generators are the most appalling suggestion I have ever heard – they destroy the environment where they are built for a comparatively low level of production. Biomass generators are not a significant source of energy unless they are huge, and then you have the additional cost of keeping what is in essence a giant compost heap going. While a nifty way to get rid of some kinds of garbage and produce some compost fertilizer for yuppies with gardens in their suburban homes, it is not a realistic generator of power.

Anyway, this ramble has gone on long enough so I will just summarize:
1)Modern designs are very safe – do not succumb to fear mongering.

2)Environmental impact is no worse than any other source of power – even ‘alternative renewable’s have a significant impact.

3)They are economically feasible – besides, is that really the most important thing? Burning coal without any pollution controls is the most economical methods of power generation.

4)Were there a demand, many sources of currently unexploited uranium can be found. Not to mention the amount of fissile material in current waste dumps and nuclear weapon arsenals will keep us going for the foreseeable future.

Don't underestimate the power of smale-scale projects. According to the New Economics Foundation, to match the current nuclear output we would need one third of electricity consumers to install a 2kW renewable system. That's equivalent to about 20 square metres of solar panelling - possible to fit on many roofs. Of course, it would require government grants and a publicity campaign, but the whole scheme would cost around £500 million by my calculations, or less than £3500 per household.
OK, first off, if a national energy project is not valued in the billions, the sums are wrong. ;)

Can you provide a more detailed breakdown? Current commercially-available systems are priced at £4000-5000 per KW. 2kW would cost £8000-10000.

Even using the very low figure you cite, a total cost of £500m means 143,000 housholds are covered. You're saying one third of electricity customers? So there are less than half a million nationwide? You will find more just in the centre of Manchester.

Let me do my own ballpark thing. I'm going to say there are 20m households in the UK, and replacing the nuclear share with PV means converting a quarter of those households. That will cost £8000 per household at the prices a supplier can quote you now. 5m x 8k = £40bn. Inverter and battery not included.

Including inverters and batteries, you're talking maybe £45bn. Probably a bit out, but that's more like it - there must be 9 or 10 zeros on the end. You can't replace nuclear for significantly less capital investment than the cost of nuclear. ;)

I won't pretend there aren't sometimes problems with linking systems up to the mains, but it has occured already in many homes in Britain and on a far larger scale abroad, such as in Europe and Japan.
Strictly speaking, it's better not to link the stuff back to the mains at all. Trying to feed energy back up a distribution network causes more problems than it solves. It's a nice cuddly idea, selling your spare electricity, but from a technological perspective it's bollocks.

Even at the low output of 5MW, you would still only need 200 generators to replace an average 1GW power station, providing power for about one million people. Of course you'd need a back-up system, such as hydroelectric or coal-fired, but that's really not an issue, as these systems already exist. As for the 10MW point, that's really not an obstacle. No-one has even refuted the laws of thermodynamics here, and of course there is an efficiency ceiling, but it's not low enough to be a serious problem.
Generators have different capacity factors. The nuclear industry has been shouted at by the regulators when unplanned maintenance has dropped it to 85%. Wind averages 30%. The MW rating is misleading - if using wind, you need 3x the installed capacity in nuclear or coal. 3GW of wind to replace 1GW of nuclear or coal.

I would suggest existing CCGT technology is perfect for backup purposes, and pumped storage for system frequency regulation. No problems there.

10MW is an obstacle for horizontal axis turbines. It's materials science not thermodynamics which is the issue. The biggest turbine blades are already pushing the limits of the most advanced aviation-grade composite technology. Fitting them with ring-shaped cowls with an aerofoil cross-section to enhance the effective swept area is one idea from Serbia. Vertical axis turbines may be a different matter, but the R&D hasn't really been done, and mass production, forget it.

The efficiency ceiling isn't a problem with wind the way it is with solar, which is the big reason wind is actually practical with today's technology, and solar isn't.

About 12,000 if we were to replace all our existing power stations, which I'm not advocating for a second. So we wouldn't really see thousands in one place.
Actually, assuming 60GW installed capacity, 10MW sets and taking into account the capacity factor of wind, you'd need around 18,000. We definitely need thousands even with nuclear anyway - I know that wind technology is proven, I am actually in favour of it, and I do not wish to put all our testicles into the nuclear basket.

See, it's a misconception that being pro-nuclear means being anti-everything else, and that pro-nuclear people push the idea that all renewables are uneconomical. Actually I know for a fact that wind is on an equal technological and economic footing. I would like to see a government wind farm construction programme every bit as large as the propsed nuclear programme.

Right now we have:

40%+ Natural Gas
30% Coal
25% Nuclear
<5% Other

Current 2020 inevitability:

60%+ Natural Gas
20% Coal
5% Nuclear
15% Wind + Other

The 2020 I'd like to see:

25% Natural Gas
0-20% Coal
30-50% Nuclear
25% Wind + Other

It's not about one or the other. We probably can't build enough of either, but we can probably build enough of both.

I'll reply to the infrastructure points tomorrow.
I have seen it first hand. I look forward to it. :D

Chernobyl isn't a fair comparison for a long list of reasons.

One is that Western commercial reactors are not used for "what if the worst thing possible happens?" testing to near-destruction. For that, we have things called computers. :rolleyes:

Another is that Chernobyl had one back-up system, which was switched off as part of the test. One backup? Imagine! The very thought! :rolleyes:

Yet another is that Chernobyl did not have a concrete containment building. You know, the 7-metre thick concrete shell that's supposed to stop an airliner, and more to the point, contain a non-runaway reactor explosion? See one on the Chernobyl building? Thought not. :rolleyes:

So, if a Western electricity company planned to stick a reactor into an office building, fully fuel it, build only one backup safety system, and do emergency testing without it being operational, yeah, then there would be a meaningful comparison. :rolleyes:

So, TG, even if the U.K. get's its act together and puts all this in place, what are the odds the U.S. will, do you think, from your expert perspective?

TG, I agree 100%. I live within 5 miles of a nuclear power plant (the Davis-Besse one in Perry) and I've never felt threatened or insecure about the plant. Comparing modern, well designed, secured, and well built nuclear plants like Davis-Besse with Chernobyl is a specious argument that blurs the truth about nuclear power...it's clean, safe, abundant and cheap.

The only things barring progress to a nuclear build are the high startup costs/insurance and the ignorance of people about it. Honestly, the people most opposed to nuclear power seem to be those who don't live anywhere near a plant (at least in the US).

They want cheap energy but don't want the investment or "risks" of nuclear power...that's what forced us in to dependence on natural gas for power, and what happens when Gazprom decides to cut off its shipments of gas to Europe or supplies from Canada are disrupted? Either one of those disturbances alone could wreak havoc in the market if prolonged, even worse during the winter or summer.

So, TG, even if the U.K. get's its act together and puts all this in place, what are the odds the U.S. will, do you think, from your expert perspective?
*shrugs*

The UK and the other major European countries have long traditions of civilian technocracies. In a rush to give up all control to free markets and opinion polls, a lot of that ground has been sacrificed, but the people who want to do it are still there. I am hopeful actually, because 'socialist' France is 70% nuclear, 'socialist' Finland is building more, and there is genuine public support for it there. The Baltic states too are looking at it. And in the UK, there is a lively debate - just think, there are at least as many people in favour of nuclear as against! And they are talking. So a massive new nuclear project is possible, especially if wind power is forced through in parallel.

The US is different. I think the balance of public opinion is similar, but the bureaucratic inertia will be far harder to overcome. Energy project management on the scale required in the US will require coordination on a far larger scale. And I mean true coordination, national, centralised, strategic, not just every company building whatever it finds economical. It's a NASA / military type of undertaking, with state funding to match.

Put simply, you won't be able to keep the tax cuts, and there will have to be a cross-party consensus through several presidential terms. If you have an administration brave enough to say that...

Quick questions:

- Are the costs of the treatment of nuclear waste inputed in the energy production costs?
- If they are not, how much does nuclear energy cost per Mwh?


PS: I'm neutral in the discussion, don't shoot me :)

There has been some debate in Australia over nuclear power and so far no one has been able to make a clear case that once all the capital costs are included that it could produce power cheaper than a coal thermal plant, even if the coal plant sequesters the CO2 produced. Of course in
Australia we have the advantage of being able to build power plants just down the road from a coal mine. We're just finishing a new coal power plant in Queensland that is near a coal mine which burns black coal directly with no need for cokeing as with brown coal. Currently nuclear cannot compete with that. However if other countries can demonstrate that new reactors can produce cheap power then it may be an option in the future. The U.K. lacks cheap coal and so nuclear power seems a much more viable option there.

When you look at the number of people who die mining coal, nuclear appears very safe. However, I wouldn't say that it is safe, only that it is probably safe enough. I am still wary because in a cost cutting measure in Japan nuclear power plants hired unskilled workers who weren't adequately trained. When they found liquid uranium leaking from a pipe they collected it in steel buckets and poured it into a tub, creating an unsheilded reactor. Several people died and a small town had to be evacuated. If such errors can be made in Japan, a country renouned for it's technical efficency and the dedication and skill of it's work force, then it is still possible for accidents to occur in new reactors although hopefully they will be very rare.

Quick questions:

- Are the costs of the treatment of nuclear waste inputed in the energy production costs?
- If they are not, how much does nuclear energy cost per Mwh?
British Energy reaches break-even at £18-20/MWh. That does not include the cost of long-term waste disposal, as currently there is no such programme in the UK. It just gets stockpiled "temporarily", and has been since the 1950s.

So long-term disposal is extra. At the moment there is considerable dispute regarding the cost. Recently, the government has been refusing to explain why their discounted cash flow analysis uses the wrong entry from some table in an official book of rates. It's billions, and the industry's current liabilities extend for something like 70 years.

To answer your question, it's a lot, but the government can't agree on how to calculate it.

British Energy reaches break-even at £18-20/MWh. That does not include the cost of long-term waste disposal, as currently there is no such programme in the UK. It just gets stockpiled "temporarily", and has been since the 1950s.

So long-term disposal is extra. At the moment there is considerable dispute regarding the cost. Recently, the government has been refusing to explain why their discounted cash flow analysis uses the wrong entry from some table in an official book of rates. It's billions, and the industry's current liabilities extend for something like 70 years.

To answer your question, it's a lot, but the government can't agree on how to calculate it.

I see. So basically, Nuclear energy can be the cheapest, or the most expensive that we don't know.. damn :p

But thanks for the straight answer :)

I see. So basically, Nuclear energy can be the cheapest, or the most expensive that we don't know.. damn :p

But thanks for the straight answer :)
There's no denying a few things will have to change before we can be reasonably confident of succeeding with any technology.

Building more nuclear power plants is a stupid idea. Uranium will be gone in 50 years, meaning that nuclear is at best an interim measure, and a very expensive one at that. Remember, decommissioning a power plant takes 40 years, and the waste must be stored securely for 250,000 years. Good luck with that.

Well, North Sea gas will be gone in 15 years. We could just tell the British public the lights are going off around 2020 and they can suck it up.

EDIT: Oh yeah, it's not 250,000 years. Ten times the longest-lived half-life is something some legislator pulled out of his ass, and we're stuck with it. Nuclear waste is no more radioactive than the original uranium ore after only 15,000 years.

EDIT: Oh yeah, it's not 250,000 years. Ten times the longest-lived half-life is something some legislator pulled out of his ass, and we're stuck with it. Nuclear waste is no more radioactive than the original uranium ore after only 15,000 years.

Reprocessed waste can be reduced to uranium ore's radioactivity level in as early as 1000 years, and it's pretty much a given that that will fall as the technology advances...and the amount of recovered fuel and cost will also improve.

First off – reactor designs have improved a lot in the last 50 years. Additionally, citing Chernobyl is about as relevant as citing one of the odd flying contraptions from the 1880s to say that a 747 is unsafe. The basic design would have been laughed at if someone outside of the Soviet Union had tried to build it.

To you and anyone else who has raised the point of Chernobyl, I refer you to my opening post which states explicitly that I do not believe something this severe would happen in Europe or the US today. Saying I'm comparing British reactors to Chernobyl isn't true.

Modern reactors are very safe. Pebble-bed reactors do not meltdown, do not explode, and if the coolant stops flowing or the controls fail, it stops producing power and goes idle.

Again, please look back at my previous posts. There is still a significant number of accidents among existing reactors as they age, and even many of the new fast breeder reactors are constantly having to be reviewed as the sodium coolant system fails. And we're still not using modern reactors - such as the PWR reactor at Sizewell.

The nuclear waste could be reprocessed very efficiently so that nearly all of it can be recycled (even have some very valuable heavy metals extracted from it) and what cannot be processed anymore can be converted into an inert glass – so a solid lump which therefore cannot contaminate groundwater or ‘spill’ to cause problems. Worst case, dump it into the ocean over a deep trench.

High-level nuclear waste can be recycled with 95% efficiency, but low and intermediate level waste (the vast bulk) is still a problem. Dumping it in the ocean anywhere could be an ecological disaster.

The big reason why nuclear power plants need subsidies is because it makes no sense to front the enormous up-front cost of investment to build a reactor if you cannot be sure you could even complete construction. Local regulations and political manipulation greatly increase costs of getting plans approved, beginning the build, during the process, and to startup the plant – and anywhere during the process everything can be canceled if some local politician thinks it will help his chances of reelection to shut you down. This is why the government gives guarantees and subsidies on the plant.

I'll answer this when I talk about infrastructure. I'm sorry I can't answer every other point right now but it's kinda late.

OK, here's the infrastructure point:

Tactical Grace has made the point repeatedly that planning permission and electoral popularity are a great obstacle to renewables. To use his example, the locals of a Scottish village might not be too happy about seeing a wind farm just a few miles away "and they vote."

However, when talking about nuclear, TG has said that he would scrap major planning regulations and introduce a "nuclear-like-it-or-not" policy along with a similar nuclear waste policy. So the argument he uses against renewables disappears when talking about nuclear. In fact, Entropic Creation claims the difficulty in siting nuclear power stations justifies subsidies, which somewhat undermines TG's point.

So here we have a problem. The public may not like wind farms or nuclear power stations much, but when push comes to shove, the (perceived) danger of power stations would probably outweigh the minor inconvenience of a wind farm.

The second problem is the supply bottleneck. Vestas of Denmark own a stack of patents and exercise an effective monopoly over the equipment in question. They also have a limited production capacity, and a country with public inquiries is not a safe customer. Suppose you are about to build a batch of 100 turbines. The UK says, we can buy them at any point between now and two years into the future, but we may not be able to, if the planning process fails. Germany says, here is the cash. To whom do you sell? Not to the UK. A fact which has not yet entered the public consciousness is that the wind generation industry is now under threat in part because we can't buy the stuff. Because of our planning regulations, we are rapidly becoming too much of a commercial risk.

Part of this is covered in the above answer, but it also acts not as an argument against renewables but as an argument for the government to set more concrete targets. Besides, it is not as if Britain is autarkic in nuclear technology either. Other countries, especially France, will also soon want to replace their aging reactors at the same time as us, which would create an identical problem.

(Time is not an issue either. Germany plans to generate 20% of its power through wind by 2020, which is more than five times as much as present. That's about 83GWs in 14 years, so providing 10GWs in 10 years shouldn't be much of a problem.)

The third problem is feeding the power into the network. The network in Scotland is extremely weak, because it was never designed with massive amounts of demand in mind. The network in the North of England and Midlands is strong, because it was designed to cope with massive industrial and residential loads. So you have to ship the power south. How?

Redesigning the National Grid is not necessary. Microrenewables have been integrated into European and Japanese homes with relative ease, and do not require new power lines. In fact, they can amount to a great saving as far less power in lost in transfer. You might find the New Economics Report entitled "Mirages and Oasises" (search "nuclear" on their website) interesting, especially considering they use the same desert metaphor. :D I'd ignore the rhetoric in big blue writing, though, and just concentrate on the good stuff.

Even at the low output of 5MW, you would still only need 200 generators to replace an average 1GW power station, providing power for about one million people. Of course you'd need a back-up system, such as hydroelectric or coal-fired, but that's really not an issue, as these systems already exist. As for the 10MW point, that's really not an obstacle. No-one has even refuted the laws of thermodynamics here, and of course there is an efficiency ceiling, but it's not low enough to be a serious problem.


A few points

With wind generation, the output of the turbines cannot be regarded as constant, wind speed drops by 10mph for 10 mins as a rain shower goes over, then you got 100 people stuck in lifts and 2 tube trains that have stopped due to the resulting brown-out.
The back up systems for wind power MUST be ready to generate at a moments notice, this is basically gas, perhaps hydro, coal? no way can coal be used as a standby back up, as to keep the steam generators at temperature requires burning coal, which defeats the whole idea of 'green wind power'' plus you have about 1-2 hr start up time, but again both gas and hydro have start up times in which to get the generators spinning upto speed, then sychronise the ouput with the national grid, its not a matter of flipping a switch and off you go

To replace the Uk's current generating capacity would take somewhere around 33 000 wind turbines, mostly placed where its best for wind, which means west country, isle of wight/portland, west coast of scotland, south coast of wales, all areas of natural beauty and you can be sure the greens will object to them placed there.

Nuclear will not be built due to peoples stupid ideas of risk, far far far more risk driving your car to work but the public thinks not , so the politicans wont risk nuclear in case they lose their jobs.

As for terrorism, bombing a nuke station is'nt the best idea to disrupt the energy supplies, 5 strikes on the national grid in 5 different key locations at the same time and you can crash the grid causing wide spread blackouts. and for possible radiation release you have to breach the inner containment as well as the outer shell of the building, plus all UK reactors are designed to 'fail safe'. cut the power to the reactors core and the control rods automatically drop into the reactor shutting it down

In conclusion, as far as the UK's energy supply goes, nothing will be done until the lights go out in about 2015-2020 , and then everyone will panic and blame each other.:headbang:

Tactical Grace has made the point repeatedly that planning permission and electoral popularity are a great obstacle to renewables. To use his example, the locals of a Scottish village might not be too happy about seeing a wind farm just a few miles away "and they vote."

However, when talking about nuclear, TG has said that he would scrap major planning regulations and introduce a "nuclear-like-it-or-not" policy along with a similar nuclear waste policy. So the argument he uses against renewables disappears when talking about nuclear. In fact, Entropic Creation claims the difficulty in siting nuclear power stations justifies subsidies, which somewhat undermines TG's point.
Not really. I have already said that I wish to see a parallel programme of wind power development. I even quoted a target (25% by 2020) which is far higher than what the government considers possible under present conditions (they have already conceeded that their promise of 10% by 2010 will not be kept, and 20% by 2020 is unlikely). I have already pointed out the barrier posed by planning regulations, which the government refuses to contemplate removing. Do you believe I would wish to see nuclear gain an exemption, and have wind power continue to be subject to the same process?

Hardly. Actually I favour the scrapping of public inquiries for all energy infrastructure capital projects. A policy of "wind power whether you like it or not" too. I really don't give a fuck what some Scottish hillowner thinks, nor do I feel we should be slowed by their objections. Indeed, such a policy would greatly mitigate the severe problems the UK currently has in turbine procurement - being a financially risky customer for political reasons.

Any perception you may have that I favour nuclear over wind, most likely results from the thrust of my original thread, which put forward one specific argument rather than being a balanced overview of all the opinions I hold regarding the UK's energy system.

So here we have a problem. The public may not like wind farms or nuclear power stations much, but when push comes to shove, the (perceived) danger of power stations would probably outweigh the minor inconvenience of a wind farm.
I see no reason why both technologies should not be pursued with equal determination.

Part of this is covered in the above answer, but it also acts not as an argument against renewables but as an argument for the government to set more concrete targets.
Targets are not the problem - the government loves setting them. The problem is it does nothing to aid the private sector in meeting them - indeed, some government departments (eg - MoD) actively hinder the policy, without communicating with the DTI, which tries to promote it.

(Time is not an issue either. Germany plans to generate 20% of its power through wind by 2020, which is more than five times as much as present. That's about 83GWs in 14 years, so providing 10GWs in 10 years shouldn't be much of a problem.)
We had identical targets, 10% by 2010 and 20% by 2020, and it has been admitted by the government that neither will be met. The 20% target is now supposed to be aspirational. And delivery is not their responsibility. :rolleyes:

Redesigning the National Grid is not necessary. Microrenewables have been integrated into European and Japanese homes with relative ease, and do not require new power lines. In fact, they can amount to a great saving as far less power in lost in transfer. You might find the New Economics Report entitled "Mirages and Oasises" (search "nuclear" on their website) interesting, especially considering they use the same desert metaphor. :D I'd ignore the rhetoric in big blue writing, though, and just concentrate on the good stuff.
It is necessary if you listen to all the dumbass suggestions with which people come out.

"We can all generate power and sell it to the grid".
"Soon, we will all be plugging our cars into the grid to recharge their batteries while we sleep."
"We can all switch to green electricity just by signing up." :headbang:

I like the last one. People pay extra every month to receive only renewably generated electricity? Does the company paint the wind farm electrons green and send them exclusively to their home? If everyone in the country signed up for those rates, would the national energy mix change to 100% renewable?

Heh, at least some clueless people compensate for their tiresome whining by handing over some extra cash. :rolleyes:

I'll see about getting hold of the report. But remember one thing - one cannot substitute one set of capital energy projects with a project that costs significantly less. For every billion not spent on nuclear, or wind, or gas, a billion will have to be spent on something else, by someone.

Well, North Sea gas will be gone in 15 years. We could just tell the British public the lights are going off around 2020 and they can suck it up.
I'm aware that oil and gas are running out. But the fact that uranium is in the same predicament means that nuclear is not worth the investment. You should instead work on improving wind, geothermal, hydroelectric and wave power. They won't run out, and are cheaper (and often safer) than nuclear.

both gas and hydro have start up times in which to get the generators spinning upto speed, then sychronise the ouput with the national grid, its not a matter of flipping a switch and off you go
Actually pumped storage has a response time of under a minute.

Gas turbines, a few minutes.

Both would be perfect for peak shaving (more accurately, trough-filling) and system frequency regulation.

You make some other good points, you have a good idea of the scale of wind generation required. But we won't have one national electricity crisis, more like a gradual erosion of reliability in the form of numerous regional blackouts over a period of several years. Network splits, emergency voltage regulation and so on. Power quality will suffer a bit.

I'm aware that oil and gas are running out. But the fact that uranium is in the same predicament means that nuclear is not worth the investment. You should instead work on improving wind, geothermal, hydroelectric and wave power. They won't run out, and are cheaper (and often safer) than nuclear.
It cannot be achieved on the timescale in question. Simple as that.

Nuclear energy is a bridge we need to cross an energy gap. Better spend tens of billions on that than spend 20-30 years in the dark.

It cannot be achieved on the timescale in question. Simple as that.

Nuclear energy is a bridge we need to cross an energy gap. Better spend tens of billions on that than spend 20-30 years in the dark.
Indeed. Everyone's argument against it seems to be "Well it won't help forever so it won't help at all" which is idiotic. The point is to give us some breathing space to find that which WILL help forever, or what have you. Giving fusion research time, for instance.

I have recently done some calculations which show that while coal power is cheaper than nuclear in places with convenient coal supplies, nuclear is definately a better deal when you include its environmental benefits. (Although I had some problems doing my calculations, I believe my figures are correct now.)

If you look back at some of my previous posts in this thread you will see that I appear to be both for and against nuclear energy. Well I decided to investigate and find out which is actually better and nuclear wins over coal. It is slightly more expensive than current coal power, but nuclear is much cheaper than trying to sequester the carbon produced by burning coal. If improvments in design can increase safety and lower costs then it is a definite winner.

I have recently done some calculations which show that while coal power is cheaper than nuclear in places with convenient coal supplies, nuclear is definately a better deal when you include its environmental benefits. (Although I had some problems doing my calculations, I believe my figures are correct now.)

If you look back at some of my previous posts in this thread you will see that I appear to be both for and against nuclear energy. Well I decided to investigate and find out which is actually better and nuclear wins over coal. It is slightly more expensive than current coal power, but nuclear is much cheaper than trying to sequester the carbon produced by burning coal. If improvments in design can increase safety and lower costs then it is a definite winner.

Nuclear plants also last twice as long and have a 16:1 energy output-input ratio (the energy it takes to create the plant, pour its steel, etc.). Coal plants last only around 40 years to nuclear's 75, and have an 11:1 ratio.

Nuclear plants also last twice as long and have a 16:1 energy output-input ratio (the energy it takes to create the plant, pour its steel, etc.). Coal plants last only around 40 years to nuclear's 75, and have an 11:1 ratio.

When you say nuclear reactors last 75 years do you mean new designs are meant to last 75 years? We've had commercial nuclear power for about 50 years and in that time something like 90 plants have been decomissioned. I thought current modern designs were good for 40-60 years operation?

(Soviet nuclear reactors were built for 30 years but are good for 100, so there is nothing to worry about, honest.)

Nuclear plants also last twice as long and have a 16:1 energy output-input ratio (the energy it takes to create the plant, pour its steel, etc.).

A few people have mentioned the energy cost of the concrete, but most of the energy is required to enrich uranium. The energy required to produce the concrete can be produced an a day by a nuclear reactor. The entire amount of energy spent building a plant and probably be generated in a few days of operation. I posted earlier in this thread about this if anyone wants to check my sums. (I've been haveing trouble getting my maths right recently.)

Actually, there was a very interesting editorial in the post about nuclear power written by the founder of Greenpeace. You guys should give it a look.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/14/AR2006041401209.html

I've been looking at the cost of decommissioning nuclear power plants and I've been surprised at the cost. For many older plants the cost of decommissioning increases the cost of the electricity produced by about a third. It is possible that the costs of decommissioning newer reactors may be cheaper as the designs are more compact. Also if reactors have longer operating lives of 40+ years that will also decrease the cost for each kilowatt-hour produced. If future reactors are 20% cheaper to decommission and operate for forty years then the cost of decommissioning will be about 0.32 cents per kilowatt-hour, for a total cost of about 2.15 cents per kilowatt hour, which should still be slightly cheaper than coal power that sequesters the CO2 produced which would very roughly cost electricity at 2.26 cents per kilowatt-hour or more.

Solar Power is better than Nuclear, if you want to eat the waste go for it.

Actually, there was a very interesting editorial in the post about nuclear power written by the founder of Greenpeace. You guys should give it a look.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/14/AR2006041401209.html

It doesn't nearly tell the whole story. It omits the fact that the nuclear industry is heavily subsidised, ignores their Greenhouse Gas emissions and doesn't even touch on uranium supplies. It's just an exercise in spin.

Solar Power is better than Nuclear, if you want to eat the waste go for it.

So is geothermal; that's going to be a major source of power because it's renewable but doesn't have the same volatility as solar or wind. I could see natural gas replaced by geothermal as a stabilizer in the future. The industry's already poised to double its output in 2006 and if that keep up it will be a major source of power generation.

I've heard that NZ plans to use old oil/gas wells as geothermal plants; the US has 13,000 old wells and if half of them are useable (as are the ones in NZ) we could produce 5,800 megawatts of electricity...that's not a whole lot on a national scale, but given that the places with the most gas and oil drills use natural gas or coal for power, it would be beneficial. Plus, it would be pretty much available immediately; most geothermal requires exploration to find, but this would be automatically known.

The fact that it is subsidised is not an argument against it. ;)

The fact that it is subsidised is not an argument against it. ;)

Aren't pretty much all utilities subsidized?

IIRC, natural gas and coal are both subsidized which makes them have their cost advantage over other technologies. Giving renewables and nuclear subsidies just levels the playing field rather than give them an actual advantage.

The lessons of ANWR. :)

In a year all those hippies with their "leave ANWR alone" bumper stickers on the backs of their Chevy Suburbans are going to demand every last drop of oil capable of being produced there, which isn't much relavent to world demand.

We are going to drill and burn every last bit of oil. We are going to drill and burn every last bit of natural gas. We are going to mine and burn every last bit of coal and uranium. When we are done we will be living in an energy poor world powered by wind and tide and sun - just like we did 200 years ago.

People fight for causes until what they are fighting against helps them. When it becomes clear, through constant rolling blackouts in much of the industrialized world because our fossil fuel based energy infrastructure starts to starve, that our way of life in the west is threatened every tree hugger out there will be screaming about how nuclear energy can solve global warming. In fact, its already starting.

I imagine that in 500 years we'll have found a way to create an incredible amount of energy out of something like, random rocks we can find anywhere, or the oxygen/carbon dioxide process of trees and humans. Something stupid like that.

I'm pretty sure of it, actually - there's always a way. Looking at a rock and thinking "Powers the entire USA for five years."

It doesn't nearly tell the whole story. It omits the fact that the nuclear industry is heavily subsidised, ignores their Greenhouse Gas emissions and doesn't even touch on uranium supplies. It's just an exercise in spin.

I'm trying to understand where the greenhouse gas emissions come from. Earlier in the thread I wrote about how the energy required to make 40,000 tons of concrete, which is more than a reactor needs, would require perhaps one day's energy production by a nuclear plant. Cement takes a lot of energy to produce, but even if transportation and construction take twice as much energy as producing the cement does, the plant can still pay its energy debt in 3 days operation. In a worst case senario, the energy required to mine and enrich uranium will take 4.1% of the energy produced by a nuclear plant. The actual figure should be much less than this. The enrichment process can use nuclear or renewable energy, but even if it is all fossil fuel energy it means that a nuclear plant should emit much less than 5% of the CO2 of a coal plant. I don't see how the 40% figure that has been mentioned earlier in the thread could be possible.

I imagine that in 500 years we'll have found a way to create an incredible amount of energy out of something like, random rocks we can find anywhere, or the oxygen/carbon dioxide process of trees and humans. Something stupid like that.

I'm pretty sure of it, actually - there's always a way. Looking at a rock and thinking "Powers the entire USA for five years."
FLASH!!!!

Ahh ahh!!!

He saved everyone of us!!!!

I'm trying to understand where the greenhouse gas emissions come from. Earlier in the thread I wrote about how the energy required to make 40,000 tons of concrete, which is more than a reactor needs, would require perhaps one day's energy production by a nuclear plant. Cement takes a lot of energy to produce, but even if transportation and construction take twice as much energy as producing the cement does, the plant can still pay its energy debt in 3 days operation. In a worst case senario, the energy required to mine and enrich uranium will take 4.1% of the energy produced by a nuclear plant. The actual figure should be much less than this. The enrichment process can use nuclear or renewable energy, but even if it is all fossil fuel energy it means that a nuclear plant should emit much less than 5% of the CO2 of a coal plant. I don't see how the 40% figure that has been mentioned earlier in the thread could be possible.
The concrete itself releases large amounts of CO2 in mining and drying, never mind the CO2 released from the burning of fossil fuels in the equipment needed to mine and transport it. Next to transportation concrete is one of the largest producers of CO2.

Aren't pretty much all utilities subsidized?
Yes, and I don't like it. I am actually hesitant to say good true things about nuclear because I feel like I am in a way doing the dirty work of people who will demand and get billion dollar sudsidies that nuclear power should not need. The only subsidiy they should get is for reducing CO2 emmissions, the same as for any other low CO2 emission source of power. (Although the government will have to be involved in mega disaster insurance as only the government is big enough.) If we had a decent carbon tax then even this wouldn't be an issue.
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Yes, and I don't like it. I am actually hesitant to say good true things about nuclear because I feel like I am in a way doing the dirty work of people who will demand and get billion dollar sudsidies that nuclear power should not need. The only subsidiy they should get is for reducing CO2 emmissions, the same as for any other low CO2 emission source of power. (Although the government will have to be involved in mega disaster insurance as only the government is big enough.) If we had a decent carbon tax then even this wouldn't be an issue.
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Humans give off a billion gallons of Co2 a day.

Think of the planet. Kill the humans.

The concrete itself releases large amounts of CO2 in mining and drying, never mind the CO2 released from the burning of fossil fuels in the equipment needed to mine and transport it. Next to transportation concrete is one of the largest producers of CO2.

A 1000 megawatt reactor will require about 20,000 cubic metres of concrete. Maximum strength concrete has 550 kg of cement per cubic metre for a total of 11 million kilograms. Making cement requires 3000 kilojoules per kilogram or 33,000 000 000 000 joules for the entire building or 9,200 megawatt hours. Since the nuclear reactor is 1,000 megawatts in capacity it can produce the energy needed for the cement in one day.

Sand and gravel needed for cement might also take some energy to mine and transport, but if we can mine and transport coal for less than 1 cent a kilogram, sand and gravel and cement transportation should be even cheaper. Let's assume we need 20,000 tons of sand and gravel and it costs one cent a kilogram and the entirety of that cost is for power then it would require 10 megawatt hours which is a gross overestimation and a nuclear plant could produce that in less than three hours. If we assume a similar cost for transporting cement that's another three hours power production. If the energy cost of construction is the same as transportation that's another 6 hours of nuclear power generation.

The energy debt acquired in mining and transporting materials and constructing them into the plant should be paid for in a couple of days operation.

If anyone has figures that go against this result, please post them.

The concrete argument is bollocks, as mining and crushing rock is a relatively low-energy activity. If anything, all the exotic metallurgical coolness deep inside is where the bulk of the energy investment lies.

But when you think about one example, extracting aluminium from aluminium ore, it's just a vast cathode and anode job, and plants of that type can produce thousands of tonnes of the stuff in one vat, just off an industrial supply.

Consider off-shore wind. Not only are the advanced composite materials used in modern turbine blades quite energy-intensive to produce, but building an off-shore windfarm means taking an oil industry vessel out to sea and driving reinforced concrete piles into the seabed. A single 1GW nuclear power station, in wind equivalent, means ramming 300+ concrete piles into the seabed, plus running an avionics factory for quite a long time. It's a lower energy investment, but who cares when either way it is paid back within a year?

Let me do my own ballpark thing. I'm going to say there are 20m households in the UK, and replacing the nuclear share with PV means converting a quarter of those households. That will cost £8000 per household at the prices a supplier can quote you now. 5m x 8k = £40bn. Inverter and battery not included.

Including inverters and batteries, you're talking maybe £45bn. Probably a bit out, but that's more like it - there must be 9 or 10 zeros on the end. You can't replace nuclear for significantly less capital investment than the cost of nuclear.

Nuts, I thought those figures looked a bit low. The £3500 one is correct, but the other should have two extra zeroes. :D For a 20GW output, solar costs £50 billion and nuclear £35 billion (assuming the low estimate of $3 billion per 1GW station, a Canadian estimate). That isn't bad considering how expensive solar is in relation to other renewables.

The fact that it is subsidised is not an argument against it.

Of course not, but the fact it is subsidised so heavily shows that the argument that nuclear is a cheap source of power is simply untrue. And the money would be far better spend on developing other sources of power (a New Scientist article today revealed that, with decommissioning and waste disposal factored in, even omitting subsidies and insurance, nuclear energy is around 1p per kWh more expensive than wind).

And if you acknowledge that planning permission will slow down a nuclear build as much as a renewable build, how can it be used as an argument against renewable energy?

The same New Scientist article gave the following points, undermining the viability of a new nuclear build:
Most of the technicians who build Sizewell B are retired, so there's simply not enough people to replace reactors on this scale
Of the 6 main consortiums who build nuclear reactors, none are British. We'd need massive outside help.
Many nuclear reactors still wouldn't be up and running for 25 years, which isn't much use for an energy crisis in 10 years

I don't see how the 40% figure that has been mentioned earlier in the thread could be possible.

Well, the actual figure is between 20% and 40% for a GAS-fired power station, which are usually more efficient than coal. Does that help?

Also, the argument about recycling nuclear waste is possible in theory, but you'd still need to build hundreds or thousands of breeder reactors in order to constantly supply the nuclear power stations.

A 1000 megawatt reactor will require about 20,000 cubic metres of concrete. Maximum strength concrete has 550 kg of cement per cubic metre for a total of 11 million kilograms. Making cement requires 3000 kilojoules per kilogram or 33,000 000 000 000 joules for the entire building or 9,200 megawatt hours. Since the nuclear reactor is 1,000 megawatts in capacity it can produce the energy needed for the cement in one day.

Sand and gravel needed for cement might also take some energy to mine and transport, but if we can mine and transport coal for less than 1 cent a kilogram, sand and gravel and cement transportation should be even cheaper. Let's assume we need 20,000 tons of sand and gravel and it costs one cent a kilogram and the entirety of that cost is for power then it would require 10 megawatt hours which is a gross overestimation and a nuclear plant could produce that in less than three hours. If we assume a similar cost for transporting cement that's another three hours power production. If the energy cost of construction is the same as transportation that's another 6 hours of nuclear power generation.

The energy debt acquired in mining and transporting materials and constructing them into the plant should be paid for in a couple of days operation.

If anyone has figures that go against this result, please post them.
Hey, I'm all for it. I'm just telling you why people talk about CO2 release in regards to concrete. I think we need nukes.

Aren't pretty much all utilities subsidized?

IIRC, natural gas and coal are both subsidized which makes them have their cost advantage over other technologies. Giving renewables and nuclear subsidies just levels the playing field rather than give them an actual advantage.
True. Oil and gas companies offset exploration costs against taxable income, so they get tax rebates from the host government. Wind and nuclear do not enjoy access to that mechanism, so they have to exploit other loopholes.

Of course not, but the fact it is subsidised so heavily shows that the argument that nuclear is a cheap source of power is simply untrue. And the money would be far better spend on developing other sources of power (a New Scientist article today revealed that, with decommissioning and waste disposal factored in, even omitting subsidies and insurance, nuclear energy is around 1p per kWh more expensive than wind).

And if you acknowledge that planning permission will slow down a nuclear build as much as a renewable build, how can it be used as an argument against renewable energy?
I never made that argument. As far as I am concerned, the question of whether nuclear or wind is 1p/kWh more expensive than the other, is irrelevant. Some people try to show that one or the other is "uneconomical", but they are by definition people who have already made up their minds, one way or another. I have no interest in the free market economic viability of either technology. I do not envisage either being developed under free market conditions. The only way to achieve a serious build of either technology, or both, is to force the programme through under command economy conditions.

The same New Scientist article gave the following points, undermining the viability of a new nuclear build:
Most of the technicians who build Sizewell B are retired, so there's simply not enough people to replace reactors on this scale
Of the 6 main consortiums who build nuclear reactors, none are British. We'd need massive outside help.
Many nuclear reactors still wouldn't be up and running for 25 years, which isn't much use for an energy crisis in 10 years
The first two points do not surprise me. I do not work for a British company. None of the multinational engineering conglomerates which currently build UK energy infrastructure are British. Should a new nuclear (or wind) build be ordered, the same (foreign) companies will receive the contracts, and will import staff to handle them. This is something that is done fairly regularly already. When you receive a £1bn order, relocating a thousand people and redistributing your resources, is easy to justify. The types of people the industry attracts, also tend to be OK with spending several years in another country. Thus the "massive outside help" is already in place and has been for years, since the privatisation of the utilities.

We also would not need all the reactors operational at once. A phased introduction, matching the closure of the old reactors, would be adequate, although we would also have to hope that there are no disruptions to programmes aimed at importing naural gas from Russia via Norway.

Although nuclear power isn't the best solution, it is the best thing to buffer us off of fossil fuels until renewable sources can be fully established.

Of course not, but the fact it is subsidised so heavily shows that the argument that nuclear is a cheap source of power is simply untrue. And the money would be far better spend on developing other sources of power (a New Scientist article today revealed that, with decommissioning and waste disposal factored in, even omitting subsidies and insurance, nuclear energy is around 1p per kWh more expensive than wind).

This sounds like an interesting article. Do you have a link?

Now I don't have good figures for the amount of subsidies going to nuclear power today, but one estimate it that the government in the U.S. directly subsidied nuclear energy to an amount of $115 billion between 1947 and 1999 with a further $145 billion in indirect subsidies for a total of $260 billion in subsidies.

$260 billion dollars in subsidies over a period of 52 years comes to an average of five billion dollars a year. This is very rough but we will assume that current subsides are $5 billion a year. The U.S. produces about 3.9 trillion kilowatt hours per year and about 20% of them come from nuclear power. This means that last year the United State's taxpayers contributed about 0.64 of a cent for every kilowatt-hour of nuclear power generated. This seems like a very good deal for power that is pretty much emission free. For example power from a coal plant that sequestors CO2 would cost more than an extra 0.64 cents a kilowatt-hour compared to normal coal power.

However I am wary of a lot of subsidies handed out by the government as they are often inefficent uses of money and can give certain people and companies unfair advantages. Nuclear should only receeve the same subsidy as other low emission power sources such as wind and solar. (Actually a bit less due to cover the fact that the government acts as the insurer for large scale nuclear disasters.)

Wind appears to cost very roughly the same as nuclear to install but presumably has lower operating costs. However, the more wind power you have the more trouble you have with peaks and lulls in power production and dealing with these will push the price of wind higher. The obvious solution would be to increase the amount of wind power until the price roughly matches that of nuclear power. Just where that point will be, I don't know.

We also would not need all the reactors operational at once. A phased introduction, matching the closure of the old reactors, would be adequate, although we would also have to hope that there are no disruptions to programmes aimed at importing naural gas from Russia via Norway.

At the moment, we have 14 operational power stations in the UK. 11 of those will be closed within ten years. There is simply not enough time to slowly replace them, especially considering the fact that the new power stations will need at least a decade before they will be generating electricity.

None of the multinational engineering conglomerates which currently build UK energy infrastructure are British. Should a new nuclear (or wind) build be ordered, the same (foreign) companies will receive the contracts, and will import staff to handle them. This is something that is done fairly regularly already. When you receive a £1bn order, relocating a thousand people and redistributing your resources, is easy to justify. The types of people the industry attracts, also tend to be OK with spending several years in another country. Thus the "massive outside help" is already in place and has been for years, since the privatisation of the utilities.

Yet there will be huge demand from other countries who are also looking to replace their nuclear power stations. And with just a limited number of staff and resources at their disposal, there is no guarantee that the nuclear reactor designers will be able to meet demand in Britain. Compare to tidal, wave or offshore wind power: Britain has many experts involved in building offshore platforms for oil and gas in the North Sea, and those skills could easily be transferred to many renewable projects.

This sounds like an interesting article. Do you have a link?

I'll find the link, but I think you have to subscribe before you can read it in full.

Edit: http://www.newscientisttech.com/channel/tech/mg19025481.400.html

At the moment, we have 14 operational power stations in the UK. 11 of those will be closed within ten years. There is simply not enough time to slowly replace them, especially considering the fact that the new power stations will need at least a decade before they will be generating electricity.
I am not talking about very slow replacement of the type discussed at the moment. Gradually phasing in, yes, but quite quickly. A new one going online every year, as opposed to building and completing a dozen simultaneously, or waiting a decade to get just one or two. Basically timing the commissioning in step with the decommissioning.

Yet there will be huge demand from other countries who are also looking to replace their nuclear power stations. And with just a limited number of staff and resources at their disposal, there is no guarantee that the nuclear reactor designers will be able to meet demand in Britain. Compare to tidal, wave or offshore wind power: Britain has many experts involved in building offshore platforms for oil and gas in the North Sea, and those skills could easily be transferred to many renewable projects.
There is no real skill disparity. There are as many people available for nuclear work, as there are for offshore / wind, in the UK. And one of the reasons the energy industry plays politics is to have leverage when required. If the UK wants nuclear, wind or both bad enough, rather than seeing the resources allocated to an overseas project, it will pay a premium for the privilege. Make no mistake, the government is procrastinating, but it will panic sooner or later, and when it realises the scale of the project before them, they will pay anything and redraft any legislation to make it go away. Whatever else happens with tidal and the like, nuclear is going to be a big winner. Really the decision has already been made and the energy review a formality.

I am not talking about very slow replacement of the type discussed at the moment. Gradually phasing in, yes, but quite quickly. A new one going online every year, as opposed to building and completing a dozen simultaneously, or waiting a decade to get just one or two. Basically timing the commissioning in step with the decommissioning.

Gradually phasing in...quite quickly? :P There's still going to be a huge amount of demand in a short space of time however you timetable it, and nuclear reactors don't grow on trees.

There is no real skill disparity. There are as many people available for nuclear work, as there are for offshore / wind, in the UK. And one of the reasons the energy industry plays politics is to have leverage when required. If the UK wants nuclear, wind or both bad enough, rather than seeing the resources allocated to an overseas project, it will pay a premium for the privilege. Make no mistake, the government is procrastinating, but it will panic sooner or later, and when it realises the scale of the project before them, they will pay anything and redraft any legislation to make it go away. Whatever else happens with tidal and the like, nuclear is going to be a big winner. Really the decision has already been made and the energy review a formality.

We seem to agree on most points in this thread, so here's a brief run-down of why I don't support nuclear power.

1. It's expensive. Not a problem on its own, as you've said, but the money would be far better spend on developing renewables.
2. It's polluting. Again, not on the same scale as coal, but far more so than renewable sources.
3. It's not safe. I'm not screaming "Agggh! No more Chernobyls!" but the risk is still there, as sky-high insurance premiums show. Luckily the nuclear industry doesn't pay them.
4. It's not a long-term strategy for the future. It'll see us over for at least ten years (after the new stations have been built, of course), but that's really not worth the expense and cleanup we're left with.

The reasons you state are not sufficient grounds to stop the programme. The drawbacks of nuclear compared to renewables are of no relevance, as it is not an either-or policy question - both are required. As far as energy requirements and the industry's capacity to deliver, fundamentally, there is no actual choice between the two technologies on the table.

The UK government is already strongly hinting that the decision has been made already. The only question is how it sells the policy to a split public, and how far it pursues it.

There is incidentally nothing amusing about a quick phase-in. Many people fear and are quick to criticise a construction programme with a simultaneous start and completion of 10 reactors. The obvious drawbacks with regard to manpower and industry resources become apparent. An even more popular delusion (assumed even by the Parliamentary Environmental Audit Committee) holds that a single nuclear power station takes a decade to build, and the scope for a quick succession of builds is limited.

It's all crap really. The dozen nuclear power plants that are being phased out over the next 10-15 years, are being phased out one by one, not simultaneously. A nuclear power station can be completed in a mere 3-4 years if all phases of public scrutiny are removed. It makes sense then, to have a staggered build, in rather the same way that the project management of a ship-building yard operates. You complete a new one every year to take the place of one being withdrawn from service, and never have more than four under construction at any one moment, thus reducing industry resource requirements to achievable levels.

This does require a quasi-military command economy style of programme with contractors not so much competing, as being appointed based on expertise. But I believe the situation is serious enough to make such an approach feasible. The sooner the public realises that talk of comparisons (ie choice) is an illusion, the better. :)

1. It's expensive. Not a problem on its own, as you've said, but the money would be far better spend on developing renewables.

Currently nuclear is cheaper than most forms of power except solar hot water and coal. Wind can produce power for about 3 cents a kilowatt-hour but nuclear is about 1.9 cents per kilowatt, even with the costs of decomissioning added in. Although wind has some room to become cheaper there is also some room for nuclear to become cheaper. Wind seems unlikely to become cheaper than nuclear and once you get more than 15% percent of your power from wind, dealing with its variability can become expensive.

2. It's polluting. Again, not on the same scale as coal, but far more so than renewable sources.

CO2 emissions are very low (see my calculations earlier in the thread) and should be less than for wind. Provided waste is kept secure that won't harm the environment either, although it is definitely a risk factor.

3. It's not safe. I'm not screaming "Agggh! No more Chernobyls!" but the risk is still there, as sky-high insurance premiums show. Luckily the nuclear industry doesn't pay them.

It is safer than coal when you consider all the coal miners who die every year and also the possible deaths that may result from global warming. But the industry should pay for it's own insurance. Since the government has to pay for mega disasters the nuclear industry should be taxed to cover this.

4. It's not a long-term strategy for the future. It'll see us over for at least ten years (after the new stations have been built, of course), but that's really not worth the expense and cleanup we're left with.

We are a long way from peak uranium. Any plants that are built in the near future will have more than enough fuel for their entire operating lives so it's not really an issue at this current time. Australia has more than enough uranium for the next 100 years. (But we're not thinking of acting like OPEC, honest! Actually it's hard to act like OPEC when a nuclear plant can easily keep ten years fuel on hand.)

Nuclear is cheaper than wind and other renewables, but it does have some risks. I would imagine that a logical course of action would be to build both nuclear plants and perform further research into renewables. If people in an area decide they want to pay extra money for renewables, I don't see whey that can't be up to them. People might decide they'd rather pay an extra $200 or so a year for cheap renewable power than nuclear power. Personally I think each electricity customer should be allowed to decide.

(If a household uses 10,000 kilowatt-hours a year and renewable energy such as wind and thermal solar is 2 cents a kilowatt hour more expensive than nuclear then it would add $200 a year to the power bill. Personally I use about 500 kilowatts a year so I would only have to pay an extra $10.)