NationStates Jolt Archive


The case for a new nuclear build (LONG, serious debate only)

Tactical Grace
29-01-2006, 18:16
Why does an individual as frequently and consistently accused of liberalism as I am, give a firm YES to nuclear power in the UK?

Allow me to explain... :)

The first step is understanding the current UK electrical energy mix and history. Our generation capacity is currently 40% gas, 30% coal, 25% nuclear and less than 5% everything else. Most of this is hydro / pumped storage used in system frequency regulation. Some is wind, biomass and waste incineration. The rest is even more negligible.

Our energy transmission and distribution system was largely put in place under the authoritarian auspices of the CEGB in the 1960s, a remarkable technocratic body with near unlimited powers, combining corporate and state characteristics. Prior to the 1950s, the UK's electrical energy system was an inconsistent patchwork of non-interconnected local networks with varying and variable fequencies and voltage levels, and extremely low power quality. It took the CEGB two decades to draw everything together into a unified system with an extremely high degree of centralisation. Those were the days when the body could mark a cross on a map, and say that this is where a power station could be built, draw a straight line on a map and say this is where an overhead transmission line would be built. No-one had the power to object in any effective fashion, nor was there a forum for complaints.

Once built, the system stood, and remained capable of upgrades and expansion for three decades. During this time, the CEGB took a lead in developing the entire body of specifications which dictate electrical energy network construction throughout the world today.

Post-privatisation, the CEGB was dismantled into a group of companies we know today as National Grid, the generators and the distribution network operators. Much of their technical expertise was shed into a multitude of consultancies and multinational engineering conglomerates. Any opportunity the government had, to retain a role in the management of the energy system, was squandered with the closure of the British energy ministry, and the decision that the DTI and Ofgem would handle purely financial regulatory matters. The deliberately intended effect of this was to ensure that no-one had overall control, oversight or crucially, responsibility for British domestic energy policy.

The market also played a role, as virtually all spare generating capacity was perceived and destroyed as glut, rather than the backup it had once been. The earlier decision to shut the domestic coal industry and pursue combined-cycle gas turbine technology was environmentally sound in its day, but would have serious consequences later.

Simultaneously, a dramatic expansion of planning regulations gave the public the mechanisms and right to halt any national infrastructure project. The first uses came during public inquiries into road and airport expansions, but as we will see, this would have a dramatic impact on the energy system.

Returning to the present day, the North Sea has been clocking up a 7% annual decline rate in oil and natural gas since 1999. This implies a halving in the decade to 2010, and halving again in the subsequent decade. In fact the situation is even worse, as enhanced recovery techniques temporarily reduce, then dramatically increase the decline rate. By 2020, the UK would be out of the oil and gas business. In 2005, it ceased to be self-sufficient.

There are numerous short-medium-term technical fixes. Additional pipelines to Norway, as currently being constructed, only drain the fields in that country's waters faster. Liquified natural gas terminals for LNG shipped from Nigeria and Algeria are another, as are strategic gas storage facilities (the UK has capacity for 10 days, while other European countries have 50 days). However, planning regulations impose limitations here, as the process of obtaining permission from the general public is a long and painful one. Ultimately, these are only temporary top-ups until Russian subsea gas pipelines are built. At that point, the current CEGB-era nuclear power stations will have closed, and we will be dependent on natural gas for 60% of our electricity needs, 80-90% of that being imported from Russia.

Essentially by (read, before) 2020, Russia will own our means to provide heat, light, and water treatment. In other words dominance of the full spectrum of our utilities. ;) If this sounds far-fetched, consider the fact that today's network was subtantially built in the 1960s and 1970s. In this industry, accurately knowing the shape of the future 15 years ahead, is easy.

Now that you know something of the background, for the nuclear vs renewables bit. I do hope you have read the above, because very few people in this country understand that the debate is not about climate change, but energy security. Climate change is merely the sweetener used to sell the policy, and it is the only time I will mention it here. If you believe the terms of reference of the debate are in some way connected to it, then to the government and industry, you are yet another member of the public arguing in the wrong room.

The terms of reference of the nuclear vs renewables debate is energy security.

Now consider renewables.

Hydropower in this country is at maximum exploitation. The only further gains to be made are in replacing the generators themselves as they age. The capacity is not great in this part of the world, and it is not even particularly useful when it is constantly running, ie as part of baseload. Its most valuable use is in system frequency regulation. Essentially the system frequency falls when there is an excess of demand, and rises when there is an excess of generation. Opening up the valves on hydro gives an instant boost to generation, and hence allows grid control to correct a falling system frequency.

Suitable fuel for waste incineration and biomass are not quite as easily available as the South African coal shipped to the current generation of coal-fired thermal plants. Just forget them.

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. 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.

By the way, this is another reason why mains-charged battery electric cars are not going to happen. The moment they become numerous enough to cause power quality issues, they get banned.

I will deal with tidal and wave after I have covered wind turbines. Once you know the wind picture, you will understand why the rest is silly.

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.

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

One is the general public. The very best wind resource in the world is off the NW coast of Scotland. The people there do not want their view of the sea ruined by a tiny picket fence type structure 10 miles away on the horizon. And they vote. The existing planning process means they exercise a veto over any such project.

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.

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?

Well, the CEGB just drew lines on a map and put overhead line circuits there. But we can't do that. No new overhead line circuit will ever pass a public inquiry ever again. The process literally takes a decade. But we need HVDC (high coltage direct current, as opposed to alternating current) to bring the power to shore anyway. So we could ship it all the way south as HVDC. Except, not over land, as that is too expensive. It will have to be undersea cables.

A whole new electrical energy infrastructure, then. Except you have to remember that the CEGB is dead, and no-one is in overall charge of UK energy policy. That applies to infrastructure stuff too. The construction conglomerates can build stuff, but someone has to make the decision to order it. You need all the private companies to act in a coordinated fashion, and wait a decade for every project to clear the inquiries. It really can't be done.

This is why tidal and wave fails. The vast civil engineering involved cannot be sold to the public, and is too great a commercial risk.

The simplest solution is therefore to replace the nuclear power plants. The sites on which they sit, are existing nuclear sites. The local network infrastructure is already built. The transport infrastructure is already there. All you have to do is build a new plant on an unused space at each location. Plug and play. What's more, because the technology is nuclear, the government has retained enough strategic oversight to force it through.

Regarding safety, it is a non-issue. Windscale took place in the infancy of the science. Chernobyl was a test, the equivalent of doing a crash dive in a submarine, or taking a car 0-200 to see how it copes. It was a big risk. 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. The stuff we can build today is even better, based on proven methods. A meltdown is a low-probability, high-impact scenario, something the human mind has been shown to be unable to consider rationally. One may as well fear flying, or an asteroid impact. A phobia is not an adequate reason to refuse.

Note that the question of how much CO2 is emitted in the construction process compared to savings achieved, is irrelevant. No-one will sacrifice their present for someone else's future. We can see this in the complete failure of energy conservation.

The government and industry now has no choice but to take all necessary steps to ensure the viability of the energy system. The public has shown itself unqualified to discuss the subject. It has become a national security matter. End of discussion.

There is no conspiracy at work here. I am not lobbying for the nuclear industry, nor is the nuclear industry alone in its lobbying. The whole utility sector needs and wants nuclear. This is merely the public's failure to act in their own interests, when given the freedom to choose.

So this is my argument. I welcome any sensible comments from people who have taken the trouble to read the whole thing.
Randomlittleisland
29-01-2006, 18:29
Very clear and well researched.

Personally I'd like to see more nuclear power plants combined with a network of tidal generators. We're on an island and it seems frankly wasteful not to use the waves that we get at regular intervals every day.
[NS:::]Vegetarianistica
29-01-2006, 18:54
interesting read.

"The simplest solution is therefore to replace the nuclear power plants. The sites on which they sit, are existing nuclear sites."

can they be built on, definitely? if yes, then i think that sounds like the way to go.
-Somewhere-
29-01-2006, 18:58
I've said this many times before, though not nearly with as much depth and research. Renewable energies are all well and good and they can work towards reducing our reliance on other methods of generation. But anybody who thinks that renewables are the answer to all our electricity generation problems is living in a fantasy world. Unless we want to be permanently reliant on Russia (Just look at the recent trouble in Ukraine as a sample of what's to come) or muslim countries in the middle east (Need I go into it?) then nuclear power is an unfortunate necessity.
Tactical Grace
29-01-2006, 18:59
Vegetarianistica']"The simplest solution is therefore to replace the nuclear power plants. The sites on which they sit, are existing nuclear sites."

can they be built on, definitely? if yes, then i think that sounds like the way to go.
In a lot of cases, the nuclear industry took more land than it needed, with expansion is mind. This is why nuclear power plants have the letters A or B after their name, the different reactors usually being built years apart. The new generation of nuclear power plants is also considerably more compact than the old ones. It should not be a problem. You would simply have Heysham C, Sizewell C, etc next door.
Vetalia
29-01-2006, 19:01
I would have to agree, but I would like to know where the UK gets its nuclear fuel from. That might be an energy security issue as well.
Tactical Grace
29-01-2006, 19:17
I would have to agree, but I would like to know where the UK gets its nuclear fuel from. That might be an energy security issue as well.
Australia and Canada, I believe. They have more than two-fifths of the world resource between them, and the Western world has over half the world total. It is probably the only natural resource over which "we" would never have to fight a resource war.
Vetalia
29-01-2006, 19:21
Australia and Canada, I believe. They have more than two-fifths of the world resource between them, and the Western world has over half the world total. It is probably the only natural resource over which "we" would never have to fight a resource war.

Uranium can also be extracted from seawater, although that process is far more involved than mining. Nevertheless, if the UK were willing to invest in the facilities they could likely meet a considerable amount of their uranium needs through that process without importing it even from Canada or Australia.

However, the geopolitical bonds that those deals would build could be invaluable in the event of a Russian energy crisis; they've shown their willingness to do it once and they will undoubtedly do it again if they see fit.
Tactical Grace
29-01-2006, 19:35
...in the event of a Russian energy crisis; they've shown their willingness to do it once and they will undoubtedly do it again if they see fit.
Russia is to natural gas what Saudi Arabia is to oil. They have something we need, and they cannot be bought. NATO vs Serbia in 1999 is a prime example of an event which would be unthinkable a decade from now. They could and would disconnect the electricity grids across Europe, ours included.

And there isn't even anything wrong about it. The international system entitles any nation with power to use it. We just have to accept the reality and adapt.
Egg and chips
29-01-2006, 19:45
Nuclear is to power generation, what Democracy is to running a country - The worst method except every other method we've tried.

No matter what we do we will need nuclear in the medium term, no matter what we plan in the long term.
Syniks
29-01-2006, 22:28
Solid 'Agree' here. You are absolutely correct.

As for the 'dangers' of nuclear, while they are real, as with any technology the more it is used, the more developed, and therefore safer/efficient, it will become.

Today's plant designs are exponentially safer than the designs from the 1970s.

Nuclear "waste" will not always be "waste" either as we find more and more ways to effeciently harness radioactive degradation.

The West MUST use nuclear power if we are to survive the next century.
RetroLuddite Saboteurs
29-01-2006, 22:37
with the increased demands for energy from the developing world especially china, i don't see any other option for the west in general aside from nuclear energy... fossil fuel demands are just rising too fast and no other source can provide the amount of capacity needed.

without vastly expanded nuclear power generation the world runs a serious risk of energy induced hyperinflation when the supply is radically below the demand and prices can hardly rise fast enough to compensate.
Jordaxia
29-01-2006, 22:50
I agree with you. I've never been against nuclear power. If I'm correct, isn't coal slag MORE radioactive (though most likely with a shorter half life) than nuclear fuel?

The only concern (which falls safely into the "low probability/high impact" category is an attack.) but I don't think that that should be a reason to go against them. After all, our existing ones have never been hit.

Mind you, I've never seen peoples viewpoint regarding wind turbines being ugly. I always thought they made the countryside look better...
Tactical Grace
29-01-2006, 22:57
The only concern (which falls safely into the "low probability/high impact" category is an attack.) but I don't think that that should be a reason to go against them. After all, our existing ones have never been hit.

Mind you, I've never seen peoples viewpoint regarding wind turbines being ugly. I always thought they made the countryside look better...
Yeah, the nuclear attack thing is stupid. As the New Scientist magazine wrote a while back, there are waste storage buildings more vulnerable to attack. They even named them, the contents and results. Reactors are a far less attractive target.

And I agree, wind turbines look beautiful. The greater the number, the greater the elegance. The people who object are usually the same "Green and Pleasant Land" people who object to hikers having right of way through their land, and seeing ethnic people. :rolleyes:

Even overhead line towers have a certain charm.
Syniks
29-01-2006, 23:19
If there is one political Ideology I cannot even begin to fathom it is the Greens and their neoLuddite anti-civilizationisim.

A good Read is the Niven/Pournell book "Fallen Angels" about how fu*ked up the world (or at least the US) becomes under Green control.
Tactical Grace
30-01-2006, 00:35
Greens have the same grasp of energy issues as mainstream politicians. None. Both groups simply had the wrong education. The great thing about the CEGB was its "state within a state" character. People who knew what they were doing, being allowed to get on with it.
Old Blues
30-01-2006, 15:26
It's funny how "leftists" around the world are beginning to call for more nuclear power. Low environmental impact, source comes from somewhere OTHER than an unstable, poverty-stricken area and "we" (the west) controls that source.

Here in the US, people are beginning to agree with your post. "Leftists" like me even agree *gasp* with our "president" on this. That must mean it's a good idea.

Only problem is waste disposal. We're struggling with a project to bury it all under a mountain in the middle of nowhere, Nevada. I can't understand why anyone thinks that's a bad idea, given the dangers of storing waste out in the open as it is now.
Dododecapod
30-01-2006, 16:53
Quite. We're having the same problems in Australia; we have literally MILLIONS of square kilometers of largely useless, tectonically ultra-stable land in the centre of the country - and the local morons won't allow it's use for waste storage. It's not like it would even have a major effect on the ecology, just one road in and out to a big underground facility.

So, instead we have it in barrels at our nuclear facility just outside Sydney.
Syniks
30-01-2006, 17:00
Quite. We're having the same problems in Australia; we have literally MILLIONS of square kilometers of largely useless, tectonically ultra-stable land in the centre of the country - and the local morons won't allow it's use for waste storage. It's not like it would even have a major effect on the ecology, just one road in and out to a big underground facility.

So, instead we have it in barrels at our nuclear facility just outside Sydney.
That's purely intentional. You see, if you could actually story your toxic/nuke waste safely they wouldn't get the opportunity to scream and sue if/when there is a leak.