NationStates Jolt Archive

The essay is really geared more towards showing the nuclear power is not a cure for global warming, but it makes a point about how reliant nuclear power is on oil as well. Can we have nuclear power in an oil-scarce world?

http://home.austarnet.com.au/davekimble/peakoil/nuclear.CO2.htm

I think the point that most people are attempting to make is that nuclear power is a step in the right direction, and it won't fix all of our energy ills overnight. Only a fool would believe that nuclear power can instantly replace the massive oil-based system we currently have. Instead, the oil based economy we currently have must be slowly replaced until we're running on other types of fuel

There's no way to stop the economic addiction to oil besides weaning ourselves off of it. We can't just stop using it, because that would be a disaster.

The essay is really geared more towards showing the nuclear power is not a cure for global warming, but it makes a point about how reliant nuclear power is on oil as well. Can we have nuclear power in an oil-scarce world?

Will you accept at any point that we have to change our energy sources but we do not have the possibility of instantly abandoning oil. All alternative energy sources, at the momnet will depend on oil as we have an oil dependent system. Unless we start weaning off that oil, step by step, we will not be able to eventually obtain an oil free system. This applies to Nuclear power, ethanol, solar, wind etc. They all, at the moment depend upon fossil fuel generated power, because there are not enough of these alternative sources to provide the energy input that these technologies need in being set up. When they are set up, however, they have the potential to become independent of oil. (This, of course, depends on transport technology also weaning itself off oil.)

It's impossible to get off oil overnight, but there's a lot more that could be done.

With regards to the UK, I'd rather replace our creaky rattly and downright dangerous nuclear power stations now, instead of this partisan and politically motivated 'debate', and have renewables replace our gas/oil/coal industry. While that's going on we can research (organised and coordinated by the DTI/CBI/Universities/Anyone) hydrogen powered cars using ammonia/Sodium Borohydrite to store it. Once the current power problems are over, we can start building the extra power infrastructure to produce it.

Problem solved!

The point, in my opinion, is that people keep looking for solutions that will allow us to keep living the way we do in the industrialized world. I don't think there is one. I think the real asnwers involve changing expectations about how we should live. Rather than spending a bunch of money on nuclear power stations we need to use that money to build mass transit. We need to realize that energy was too cheap for a long time and we need to reaquaint ourselves with how precious it really is. Do we need nuclear power? Sure, but don't expect that it's going to save us from the changes that are going to be forced on us. We're going to get off of oil, don't worry about that. It's just how we get off of it that is undecided. Oil is peaking and we're about to go into decline which basically means that we simply wont have as much oil to burn whether we like it or not. We shoudl start preparing for that and the best bang for your buck in terms of oil replacement isn't some tech solution, it's conservation - and I don't mean on a personal level. We need social conservation. Mass transit. Growing food and manufacturing on local and regional levels. Walkable communities.

Nuclear power isn't the end of our energy woes. Probably the best thing to do would be to put a tremendous amount of resources, government and private, into researching renewable energy sources. Improving efficient capture of solar energy, and especially harnessing the power of fusion should be top priorities. We should've started this process of weaning ourselves off oil some 30 years ago. But, yes with a world economy so dependent on oil, changes have to be gradual. There are private companies like Honda and Toyota developing hybrid car engines, so it is a start.
But we still have to go a LONG way

the problem with viewing nuclear power as a "step towards renewables" is the cost of it. It is the most expensive, in money terms, power source there is.

Thanks to Nuclear weapons, the developing countries who truly need power plants like Nuclear ones in the United States and other countries in the western world(some aren't allowed to build Nuke plants over in the west either). Look at this Nuclear Energy is only (lol only) responsible for 16% I think it is in the United States alone, ok only 16%. My point is that places in the third world like Iran, can't provide all their energy with oil plants, they need some exports to get a little money don't they? Oh yeah what's Iran's population? And oh yeah how many people actually get to use the electricity in their own homes...(I'll do the math, I'm sure you are too.) 16% of 300 million i think USA is now, yep that provides 48 million people with power(basically). Although we do have those rivers with power plant dams across the interior... Oh what I'm saying is this, that is freaking ridiculous, A country such as Iran will most likely be able to control a Nuclear power plant by themselves, and if it creates sufficient power then wouldn't they be willing for the UN to watch over these places? I mean how many U.S. troops alone were stationed in Germany a little over a year ago? Whatever, that's BS and the Un shouldn't take itself so seriously, of course a powerful technology like the splitting of the atom isn't for everyone, but if we expect the developing countries to become successful without chopping down an ancient rainforest for extra money, or smog the skies with pollutants from industrial factories, or have wars for the possession of oil, then we shan't intervene, until we are on their same level and getting rid of our own Nuke plants(how fun that would be). >.<

Thanks to Nuclear weapons, the developing countries who truly need power plants like Nuclear ones in the United States and other countries in the western world(some aren't allowed to build Nuke plants over in the west either). Look at this Nuclear Energy is only (lol only) responsible for 16% I think it is in the United States alone, ok only 16%. My point is that places in the third world like Iran, can't provide all their energy with oil plants, they need some exports to get a little money don't they? Oh yeah what's Iran's population? And oh yeah how many people actually get to use the electricity in their own homes...(I'll do the math, I'm sure you are too.) 16% of 300 million i think USA is now, yep that provides 48 million people with power(basically). Although we do have those rivers with power plant dams across the interior... Oh what I'm saying is this, that is freaking ridiculous, A country such as Iran will most likely be able to control a Nuclear power plant by themselves, and if it creates sufficient power then wouldn't they be willing for the UN to watch over these places? I mean how many U.S. troops alone were stationed in Germany a little over a year ago? Whatever, that's BS and the Un shouldn't take itself so seriously, of course a powerful technology like the splitting of the atom isn't for everyone, but if we expect the developing countries to become successful without chopping down an ancient rainforest for extra money, or smog the skies with pollutants from industrial factories, or have wars for the possession of oil, then we shan't intervene, until we are on their same level and getting rid of our own Nuke plants(how fun that would be). >.<
:confused:

*offers paragraphs*

If you ignore the vehicles that the workers use to get to work, the reactor does not produce any CO2. But it does use electricity, as well as produce it, and to the extent that electricity is largely produced by fossil fuels, this needs to be counted in the energy balance.

The argument is circular. The reason that most electricity is produced by CO2 power plants is because we don't use nuclear power. If we used nuclear power only, the nuclear power plants too would be powered by nuclear power not by CO2. The same goes for the stuff about transportation/processing etc. The reason that those processes use CO2-producing fuels is because we live in an oil-economy. If we lived in a nuclear-economy they would not. Hence the argument is self defeating.

And increasingly these days, one also has to defend ones nuclear facilities against attack by an increasingly sophisticated enemy. This is the Tor-M1 - a fully integrated combat vehicle with anti-missile/anti-aircraft missiles, that the Iranians are getting from Russia to protect themselves from the peace-makers.

nuclear arms are a startegic part of a military arsenal that wouldn't go away even if we didn't use nuclear power, so saying that there's a chance of attacks on nuclear facilities is like saying that bullets would no longer be used to kill people if duck-hunting was banned.

For low quality ores (less than 0.02% of U3O8 per tonne of ore),
the CO2 produced by the full nuclear life cycle is EQUAL TO
that produced by the equivalent gas-fired power station.

And for high-quality ores?

The argument is circular. The reason that most electricity is produced by CO2 power plants is because we don't use nuclear power. If we used nuclear power only, the nuclear power plants too would be powered by nuclear power not by CO2. The same goes for the stuff about transportation/processing etc. The reason that those processes use CO2-producing fuels is because we live in an oil-economy. If we lived in a nuclear-economy they would not. Hence the argument is self defeating.But we don't live in a nuclear economy. That has to be built. that will take many years and there is a big question that is unanswered - When you take into account all of the energy inputs to nuclear power, the mining, transport, processing, building, etc... Does a nuclear powerplant use more energy than it produces? If it does not, then there is no way to run a nuclear powerplant on the power it produces because it doesn't produce enough to run itself.



nuclear arms are a startegic part of a military arsenal that wouldn't go away even if we didn't use nuclear power, so saying that there's a chance of attacks on nuclear facilities is like saying that bullets would no longer be used to kill people if duck-hunting was banned.You missed the point here entirely. This isn't about nuclear weapons, it's about the military resources necessary to defend and secure supplies to build, process and run a plant. many of the resources are located in very unstable parts of the world. That measn that tremendous resources have to go to keeping these supplies secure. See Iraq.



And for high-quality ores?
We're running out of those.

Don't forget that in a world with high demand for energy and mineral resources, and insufficient energy availability, the price of raw materials goes sky-high. If you are making anything out of copper and steel these days, your material costs doubled in the last two years. You don't even need a massive energy crisis to raise a question mark over energy infrastructure projects. Double the world price of the construction materials, double it again, and a lot of companies upon which you are going to rely, are actually in a world of pain.