Impressed £67.5 billion... nope... 263 billion, and rising.

[rynnor]

Its all to do with the great gravy train of fear...much like those stupid anti smoking sdverts showing tumours growing out of cigarettes...smoking cause gene mutations...ffs gene mutations are a part of cell life...everyting can cuse gene mutation..smoking heavily for a.long period just statistically increases your chance of it leading to cancer any why hadnt anyone mentioned thorium...or habe they

This is true but it also degrades your entire circulatory system, fucks up your lungs and makes you stink so its not without other downsides...

 

[Wij]

Its all to do with the great gravy train of fear...much like those stupid anti smoking sdverts showing tumours growing out of cigarettes...smoking cause gene mutations...ffs gene mutations are a part of cell life...everyting can cuse gene mutation..smoking heavily for a.long period just statistically increases your chance of it leading to cancer.
Hasnt anyone mentioned thorium yet?

In fact Thorium used to be mentioned in the 40s all the time alongside Unranium. Bertrand Russell talked about them in the same breath in a lecture

 

[Scouse]

Is this actually true?

No.

True but it's a good point. Some of the nastiest 'waste' could actually be used as fuel.

Absolutely. And it should be. Anything to use up the power that will otherwise sit decaying over a longer period of time.


FWIW we've got ourselves into a bit of a fix over nuclear and should do what is necessary to get ourselves out of it.

I'm with Lovelock on fracking and methane. Wind isn't truly renewable anyway (long term only solar is - and we've not currently got the tec or the political maturity to plaster large swathes of the Sahara with solar and cheaply transport the energy over all of europe - which is what the head of the UN environment committee (*or whatever it was called) said he would do...)

I'm against new build. I don't think it makes a lot of sense given our inability to deal with nuclear waste. But there's no sense whatsoever dismissing the other alternatives out of hand.

 

[rynnor]

But there's no sense whatsoever dismissing the other alternatives out of hand.

Other than they are bloody useless at supplying our energy needs and require a ton of conventional generators for when they arent working.

Oh and they are massively driving up electricity costs, blight the landscape and fill the pockets of the rich at great cost to the poor - but scouse loves them because hes living in la la land.

 

[Scouse]

Other than they are bloody useless at supplying our energy needs and require a ton of conventional generators for when they arent working

Actually, raging-rynnster, you'll notice that that post started with me saying we should reprocess nuclear waste, that I'm with Lovelock on fracking and methane and that I don't consider wind to be a "true" renewable.

Hardly wishy-washy stuff eh? But keep on raging m8. Keep on raging

 

[rynnor]

What else is there - solar is a joke and unless you are Iceland geothermal isnt going to get you far either so what are these mystical alternatives to current methods?

 

[Cemeterygates]

I think it depends on your definition of safe - if you mean safe forever from any conceivable thing then no - if you mean safe beyond the expected lifetime of our species then I think thats achievable.
.

Dunno if it's just me, but that seems quite irresponsible....."we won't be here so fuck it". No different to leaving the world in a shit pile for 5 generations away...."I won't be there so why care"
Kinda proves how shit we are as a species really.

 

[Wij]

Dunno if it's just me, but that seems quite irresponsible....."we won't be here so fuck it". No different to leaving the world in a shit pile for 5 generations away...."I won't be there so why care"
Kinda proves how shit we are as a species really.

Or a logical attitude to risk vs susperstitious cowering.

 

[Job]

We can harness the wind..but its not easy money for the investors..so it wont happen..the real wind is five miles up and wed need kite like structures to grab the 200mph winds..very useful..but noones going to make money out of it

 

[old.Tohtori]

not really: all my probables are based on past history. I'm not saying the site will fail, I'm saying that based on past results the likelihood of success seems rather small. Also, I didn't mean to be condescending and I apologize if I came over that way.

I guess the main point is this: build such a site, and you automatically commit to it's maintenance. If you look at the oldest of the man-made structures they look rather grim, and they're not even 10% of the proposed life of the island site. They haven't been maintained... both on purpose, and because the civilization that built them died out. So, I propose that the site will fail -not because of any technical reason per-se (albeit perhaps ultimately), but for political or sociological reasons.

Well going to ignore Scouses "Nu-uh" arguments and answer this;

The plan here is that there is no maintenance(as stated on the article). It's built, it's covered with tested materials and then forgotten. No matter the political or sociological reasons no-one has any reason to go there. There's only saltwater in the area, there's nothing in the ground worth digging up and the site all in all will be unremarkable at best. In essence it's not just a burial that will keep people safe from it, but also a site that will keep it safe from people.

Why i have faith in this instead of, say, the US making this is that Finland has a better track record of going through with plans and we don't do things half-arsed, or double-paid. Comparing this countries that run or die with politics isn't exactly apt, instead should be judged by the science behind it(which is solid(har)).

Oh and no harm on the condescending part, just sounded that way

And point still stand anyway on the harm being 0 from nuclear power.

 

[Hawkwind]

Staggering the amount of idiocy in this thread. I guess 67 billion in ongoing costs for a single site and no end in sight, or technical fix (because it doesn't exist) just doesn't deserve proper thought.

Sixty seven billion. It is actually the proverbial black hole for cash written large.

Years of many on this board saying that nuclear is cost effective. The government's "independent" advisor blows their last leg out from under them (because cost, not safety, is what they back their views up with) - and it becomes a "meh" issue.

67 billion - and another 67 billion because we don't know what to do with it - and maybe another 67 billion after that, and ...

:facepalm:

67 billion is a lot of money but what is that as a percentage of the output? How much was the electricity worth when sold over those years? Agreed it is a large number but given the alternatives even Greenpeace agree that it is the way to go.

We have no expertise in nuke-tech. We need other countries to build our reactors for us.

The first part of that is plain wrong. British Scientists were at the forefront of nuclear/reactor tech. The issue now is that only governments or extremely large multi nationals can even afford to mount such mega projects. For the past 30 years successive UK Governments have preferred to farm out such work to the Private sector. The costs of such major projects are a huge barrier. Personally I think the Government should step up, keep it British and help fund it. Nationalise a percentage of the end business and use the long term profits to invest in the technology and cleaner methods of disposal.

http://www.centrica.com/index.asp?pageid=1041&newsid=2646

Centrica pulls out the UK new build siting costs, forecasts for the project exceeded their 1 billion GBP cap.

 

[old.Tohtori]

To sum up the thread; nuclear power is like giving a tribal a bazooka. Sure it might get the job done, but it only really works if you know how to use it.

Well, to sum up my opinion on the matter

 

[Scouse]

67 billion is a lot of money but what is that as a percentage of the output?

That's *just* on current waste storage at Sellafield. Not on construction or running of owt.

 

[Bahumat]

Didn't Co-Op buy Sellafield?

 

[Wij]

67 billion is a lot of money but what is that as a percentage of the output? How much was the electricity worth when sold over those years? Agreed it is a large number but given the alternatives even Greenpeace agree that it is the way to go.

2.8p / kWh I believe.

 

[DaGaffer]

Sorry to sort of derail, but what would the other options be to dispose of nuclear waste other than digging deep down and burying it?

Let the Earth do it for you; drop it into the subduction zones along fault lines and let it disappear below the mantle. Its been proposed quite a few times, but it would require a fundamental change to the international disposal treaties (Treaty of London) because you'd have to do it at sea, which is currently illegal. Legislators don't like it because obviously you can't control the way subduction layers behave or the time it takes to do its stuff, but there's active tectonic activity going on the sea bed literally all the time.

Firing it into space is a hilariously unsafe, and bear in mind cost per KG for rockets is mind-bogglingly expensive and spent fuel rods are fucking heavy.

 

[Scouse]

Let the Earth do it for you; drop it into the subduction zones along fault lines and let it disappear below the mantle.

IIRC that's been discounted because some bright spark modelled it and showed that there was a small but real risk that when a volcanoes go through their pop-shots significant amounts of the offending material can be ejected into the atmosphere.

 

[TdC]

that sounds like fun actually: design a delivery casing that is safe enough to allow us to inject it in to magma, but will degrade quickly enough that said casing won't be ejected from a volcano as the world's most well-meant dirty bomb

 

[DaGaffer]

IIRC that's been discounted because some bright spark modelled it and showed that there was a small but real risk that when a volcanoes go through their pop-shots significant amounts of the offending material can be ejected into the atmosphere.

Seems a bit unlikely; the volcanoes around subduction zones aren't right on top of them, they run parallel, and the sheer volume of magma involved would mean spent fuel rods would be literally a drop in the ocean. The fact is, there is no "zero-risk" solution for the disposal of any waste products, not just nuclear waste; you just have to work with the best odds (waste disposal would be a massive issue with plastering solar panels all over the Sahara as well).

 

[Scouse]

The fact is, there is no "zero-risk" solution for the disposal of any waste products

I agree, but the magma-disposal one involves a lot of unknowns and an unquantifiable one is probably worse than a known one. Better the devil you know, so to speak...

As for waste from saharan solar - yep, it'd be a lot of waste, though much of it would be recyclable and none of it would kill humans who were simply stood near it.

 

[Wij]

Couldn't we just shove it all up Scouse's arse?

 

[Bodhi]

Couldn't we just shove it all up Scouse's arse?

What would he talk out of if we did that?



Oh. I see your point.

 

[Scouse]

Couldn't we just shove it all up Scouse's arse?

It wouldn't even count as noxious waste then - what comes out of my arse is far hotter.

 

[TdC]

Seems a bit unlikely; the volcanoes around subduction zones aren't right on top of them, they run parallel, and the sheer volume of magma involved would mean spent fuel rods would be literally a drop in the ocean.

magma injection seems hella cool. I just wonder how we could insert a capsule far enough without the delivery mechanism being destroyed or the capsule being returned. nice problem

 

[Embattle]

At the present time we are stuck with Nuclear with a combined mix from renewables which must also get more investment to improve efficiency rates as well as improving the ability to store captured energy but the main goal is towards Fusion power.

 

[Scouse]

At the present time we are stuck with Nuclear with a combined mix from renewables

Disagree. We're choosing it because it's politically expedient. We could quite easily choose a nuclear free energy solution for the future, meet our carbon targets, use existing technology, and have a similar, if not advantageous, cost base.

 

[rynnor]

At the present time we are stuck with Nuclear with a combined mix from renewables which must also get more investment to improve efficiency rates as well as improving the ability to store captured energy but the main goal is towards Fusion power.

Currently in the UK we are on course for brownouts and energy rationing due to too much spend on unreliable renewables and too much foot dragging over nuclear.

 

[SheepCow]

Solar catcher thingy in space, satellite dish receiving on planet. What can go wrong?








Wait, isn't that in SimCity and doesn't it "miss" the receiver sometimes ...

 

[Wij]

Solar catcher thingy in space, satellite dish receiving on planet. What can go wrong?








Wait, isn't that in SimCity and doesn't it "miss" the receiver sometimes ...

SimCity2000. It went wrong every so often. Meh.

 

[Chilly]

SimCity2000. It went wrong every so often. Meh.

Cost of rebuilding is normally way lower than the benefit from having it. It's why cities dont build proper flood defenses. It's cheaper to just build it all (and handy, cos re-developing cities needs doing every 50 years).