NationStates Jolt Archive


BBC: Nuclear power station to be closed, local residents want a replacement

Tactical Grace
20-07-2006, 19:55
Everyone knows nuclear power is bad. :rolleyes:

And yet following a decision not to extend the life of Wylfa nuclear power station beyond 2010, the residents of Anglesey are disappointed and hope a new one will be built. Welsh MPs suggested in a report that the isle would be an obvious location for any new build.

Aside from tourism, the biggest employers in the area are the nuclear power station and an aluminium smelting plant which relies on it for power. Around 1500 highly skilled and paid jobs would be lost if these employers were to pull out.

More at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/5198146.stm

This reminds me of an earlier news piece (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4633024.stm) about another 'company town' which contained two nuclear power plants, with local residents saying they don't mind them. One said, "It's sad that [station] A is closing, but we're hoping they'll talk about a Dungeness C."

It is a shame that people try to block construction of energy infrastructure, but perhaps everyone would be OK with it being sited in company towns where everyone who lives there, works there and is content?
Farnhamia
20-07-2006, 20:28
Yeah, bad nuclear power, bad! If I had a dog, I'd name it Nuclear Power.

Anyway, I think nuclear power needs a serious infusion of research and development. It ought to be possible to make it work. The trouble is, companies with their eye on the bottom line won't invest in it because of the public outcry likely to arise. The government ... well, they ought to be the ones funding it but we can't have that, not in the US, anyway. So the existing plants get old and die, and nothing new comes along and we keep sucking up oil ... I must be tired today.

I was going to suggest at everyone invest in one of these (http://www.japar.demon.co.uk/) if plants start proliferating.
Deep Kimchi
20-07-2006, 20:28
There are also much safer designs today, that are much more efficient at not only burning a variety of nuclear fuel, but eliminating nuclear waste.

One might well wonder why so many object to nuclear plants as a knee-jerk - when proven designs exist that are safe.
Neo Undelia
20-07-2006, 21:02
One might well wonder why so many object to nuclear plants as a knee-jerk - when proven designs exist that are safe.
Because people, especially those opposed to “development,” are unreasonable and irrational by nature.
Vetalia
20-07-2006, 21:54
Because people, especially those opposed to “development,” are unreasonable and irrational by nature.

And most of them live nowhere near a nuclear plant. After all, as long as the gas or coal plants are dumped on someone else it doesn't matter to the NIMBYs; they like what electricity gives them but don't want to share in the responsibility of providing it. People like me, who actually live by them support nuclear power wholeheartedly. The plants create great jobs, put millions of dollars in to the economy and our schools, and provide cheap, clean, and reliable power.

Here's the reality to the NIMBYs: Natural gas is not going to last forever and neither are coal or oil; they're going to eventually run out and are going to get a hell of a lot more expensive in the meantime.

We can use renewables to meet most of that demand, but we need load stabilizers to keep the power flowing steadily; geothermal and hydroelectric can provide some of that, but nuclear is the only one that can provide the quantities of power we need to keep our fossil-free grid reliable and efficient.
Taldaan
20-07-2006, 23:20
Here's the reality to the NIMBYs: Natural gas is not going to last forever and neither are coal or oil; they're going to eventually run out and are going to get a hell of a lot more expensive in the meantime.

Glad you brought this up. I'm currently very much in favour of nuclear energy, at least as a way of cleaning up until we can move to decentralised energy and renewables, but it too will run out eventually. In fact, recently, I heard that uranium reserves would be exhausted within 25 years. Now, the source was incredibly open in its agenda against nuclear power, but that doesn't necessarily make this wrong. Can anyone confirm or deny this?

I already checked Wikipedia, which didn't give any information about this, and Google seems to have a lot of nuclear industry pages advertising its lack of carbon, but not much else.
Vetalia
20-07-2006, 23:43
Glad you brought this up. I'm currently very much in favour of nuclear energy, at least as a way of cleaning up until we can move to decentralised energy and renewables, but it too will run out eventually. In fact, recently, I heard that uranium reserves would be exhausted within 25 years. Now, the source was incredibly open in its agenda against nuclear power, but that doesn't necessarily make this wrong. Can anyone confirm or deny this?

I already checked Wikipedia, which didn't give any information about this, and Google seems to have a lot of nuclear industry pages advertising its lack of carbon, but not much else.

The proven deposits about as common as tin or zinc, and there's a good deal of additional known uranium that becomes economically recoverable at prices higher than $40/kg. In addition one of the most abundant sources, seawater, is still not economically feasible for large-scale production due to the still low cost of the fuel. And, of course, we don't know what lies beyond Earth on the moon, Mars, or asteroids. One of the main problems with calculating uranium reserves is that we don't explore for a lot of it; there hasn't been a lot of investment or exploration for new uranium deposits because demand fell following the end of the Cold War and the demobilization of the nuclear-weapons programs in the US and former Soviet Union. Also, ultra-efficient reprocessing and use of other nuclear fuels will reduce the need for considerable additional sources of uranium.

In conclusion, there's plenty of uranium even for a giant nuclear power expansion. We have to remember, though, that nuclear power is not meant to be the sole source of energy but rather a load stabilizer for renewables and a replacement for natural gas. For example, we might have a mix of 35% wind and solar, 6% geothermal, 6.5% hydroelectric, 5-8% biomass and 10-12% wind with the remaining 33% distributed between biogas, nuclear, and coal.

You could also ask Tactical Grace, who works in the power industry and might be able to provide you with some concrete figures.
Tactical Grace
21-07-2006, 00:27
Uranium resources are indeed finite, but the 25 year figure is the very low end of what is quoted by anti-nuclear people for the lifetime of currently exploitable resources in the event of a global wholesale conversion of the power generation sector to nuclear.

It is a nonsensical argument, because we cannot all be like France. No country other than France and Japan advocate more than around 25% nuclear in their electrical energy mix, and they have their own unique reasons. What is more, it is unlikely that the nuclear generation capacity which will be built worldwide in the coming years, will actually amount to a net increase. The debate is over existing reactor replacement policy. The UK for example, will not be building any more nuclear generating capacity than it already has, indeed the figure may end up lower.

In reality, the figure is closer to a century. There is also a fair amount of variation in the uranium content of ores - some mines are radioactive enough to just plain kill you, others have a far lower concentration of uranium and hence require greater volumes of ore to be mined and processed. As we use the good stuff, we have to move to the tougher stuff, eventually accepting resource depletion - the exact same pattern as in the oil industry.

Breeder reactors are not really a solution beyond that, however. The technology has so far been a failure.

Regarding solid nuclear industry stats, you will find them hard to come by, for the simple reason that uranium is not a tradeable commodity, and the production histories of most mines, and inventories of delivered material, are state secrets. However, the price of uranium has risen so high over the last couple of years as a result of energy worries and discussions of new build, that some investors mentioned in the Guardian newspaper a week or two ago, set up a uranium trading vehicle. The idea is that through a special purpose vehicle, individuals purchase uranium from the mining companies, or more accurately, promises to deliver uranium. These notes can then be traded between individual investors, and redeemed for cash (hopefully at a profit) with a licensed buyer, at which point the promise to deliver is fulfilled. Considering the price has been soaring at the same rate as oil, this bizarre arrangement may make a twisted sort of sense. But that just goes to show how opaque the industry is. The real field-by-field oil production histories of the of ME Gulf states will be public knowledge long before anyone knows how much technologically-recoverable uranium is really in the ground.