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

[Wij]

The Russians have cheap gas coming out of their ears but they are going nuclear:

http://www.the-weinberg-foundation.org/2012/11/29/more-nuclear-power-in-russia-da-and-fast/

 

[Wij]

Final word:

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/N...es/Radioactive-Waste-Management/#.Uks5Zd_I1UQ

Highlights:
The £73 billion in the UK is legacy. Not building new reactors will not affect it.
For current (not new, or future) nuclear the costs of managing the waste amount to about 5% of the retail value of the power.
We've been managing even the legacy without fatalities.
The high-level waste is reduced to 1% of its original radioactivity after 40 years of storage on the dedicated sites.
That's why there's never a rush to move it to long-term storage; the longer you leave it the easier it gets to handle.
Some of that high-level waste (Plutonium and remaining U235) can already be recycled and some plants use it.
There are known designs that will be able to use the U238 as a fuel as well but they haven't been built yet as we aren't short on U235.

Give it a read.

 

[Scouse]

The Weinberg Foundation[114] is a British non-profit organisation founded in 2011, dedicated to act as a communications, debate and lobbying hub to raise awareness about the potential of thorium energy and LFTR. It was formally launched at the House of Lords on 8 September 2011.[115][116][117] It is named after American nuclear physicist Alvin M. Weinberg, who pioneered the thorium molten salt reactor research

Even if Russia is going full-steam on nuclear, other countries are pulling back. Who knows who is right.

Like I said - I'm not against nuclear as long as the other issues are sorted. I'd love them to be. But they're not.

 

[Wij]

Even if Russia is going full-steam on nuclear, other countries are pulling back. Who knows who is right.

The evidence is already in. In Germany, Japan and Italy where they are moving away from nuclear prices are up and so are CO2 emissions.

Try reading Monbiot's blog as well. He's a hard-green but he puts the choice starkly. Do you want to take the risk of nuclear which so far has killed fewer people than any other form of generation or do you want global warming? No other choice is realistic.

 

[Wij]

The evidence is already in. In Germany, Japan and Italy where they are moving away from nuclear prices are up and so are CO2 emissions.

Try reading Monbiot's blog as well. He's a hard-green but he puts the choice starkly. Do you want to take the risk of nuclear which so far has killed fewer people than any other form of generation or do you want global warming? No other choice is realistic.

Also, nice factoid from his correspondence with one of the Hinckley-C protesters. Covering all the available space in Wales with wind-turbines would produce one fourteenth of the electricity that Hinckley-C will.

 

[Scouse]

The evidence is already in. In Germany, Japan and Italy where they are moving away from nuclear prices are up and so are CO2 emissions.

I don't disagree with you on those points at all.

However, the price issue isn't settled with nuclear. If there was a limit of, say, 100bn on Sellafield for cleanup then yippee. We've obviously solved the waste problem to get to that. But in 50 years time, when it's still there, burning a hole in our pocket? How expensive is nuclear then? Or 200 years?

The head of the United Nations environmental section said he was staggered by the financial crisis because for half the money they threw at the banks he could fix climate change with existing technology.

It seems that the governments of the world don't really care that much about climate change. So maybe we should care about something else. Such as limiting our financial exposure to a costly waste hole?

 

[Wij]

I don't disagree with you on those points at all.

However, the price issue isn't settled with nuclear. If there was a limit of, say, 100bn on Sellafield for cleanup then yippee. We've obviously solved the waste problem to get to that. But in 50 years time, when it's still there, burning a hole in our pocket? How expensive is nuclear then? Or 200 years?

I've made the point again and again that the problem of the legacy becomes less and less as time passes and is not relevant to the debate.

What is relevant is that other countries manage the waste issue by charging a certain %age of the unit price to cover waste management. This is not a large percentage.

The head of the United Nations environmental section said he was staggered by the financial crisis because for half the money they threw at the banks he could fix climate change with existing technology.

No he couldn't it's utter bolox but feel free to show me his figures and plan.

It seems that the governments of the world don't really care that much about climate change. So maybe we should care about something else. Such as limiting our financial exposure to a costly waste hole?

That's not even an argument in that form but taking climate change first I take it you do want to solve it so what governments care about is just a distraction in this context. If you want to solve it then you need zero-carbon energy. Nuclear is the best option.
And the costly waste hole, we're back to point one. The legacy isn't going to go away by not building new plant. For new plant the cost of long-term waste management is a few percent of the retail cost of the lecccy which still leaves nuclear as the best option.

 

[Scouse]

I've made the point again and again that the problem of the legacy becomes less and less as time passes and is not relevant to the debate.

You've stated that point but not made it. The costs are unknowable and rising. Not falling over time.

For new plant the cost of long-term waste management is a few percent of the retail cost of the lecccy

Again, speculation. With a finite end point we could say that. It's factored in as a few percent in government figures - but they're rising.

Agreed, even if it was triple government figures then nuclear is still reasonably cost effective. However, if we can't predict an end point, if we can't remove the waste, how can we cap the costs? That's the whole point I've been making - we can't.

The figures quoted for "storage" or "waste disposal" are fictional - because we can't store or dispose of it.

Would nuclear power be cost effective if that figure turns out to be not a few percent of the retail cost but half of it? Or double?

In the absence of any technological fix, they are real scenarios.

 

[Wij]

I've already stated that after 40 years the HLW is only 1% as radioactive. Soon it will just be stuff.

There is nothing unusual about hazardous waste. There is vastly more of it in the world than nuclear HLW and much of it never gets less hazardous.

It is not unknowable at all. You are trying to equate "The UK doesn't have a fully costed plan yet" (admittedly due to some dithering and fudging) with "INFINITE!!"

 

[Scouse]

I've already stated that after 40 years the HLW is only 1% as radioactive. Soon it will just be stuff.

"Soon".

Still deadly to humans for years with many zeros after the first number. Therefore still requires costly management.

 

[Job]

I see that the windymills are actually all together on a windy day making quite a bit of power...which was bound to happen if you build enough of the fookers..of course some days they make fuk all and Im not sure how actually useable the power is in the real world with the complicated way it all has to be balanced out..but theres no denying once its up and running the power is free and renewable..the ones on land dont bother me too much..in fact thryre building 20 130m high ones right by us..but the sea farms just spoil the fuck out the lovely sea views we had.

 

[Wij]

"Soon".

Still deadly to humans for years with many zeros after the first number. Therefore still requires costly management.

Deadly if you cuddle them in bed maybe. There's vast swathes of similarly toxic stuff on earth that requires no management at all.

 

[Scouse]

Deadly if you cuddle them in bed maybe. There's vast swathes of similarly toxic stuff on earth that requires no management at all.

True. There's vast swathes of cadmium and mercury etc. To be fair though, if they're man made then ethically they require cleanup.

Tho I take issue with "similarly" toxic. I can't imagine someone trying to dirty bomb London with a cadmium bomb

 

[Wij]

Nor with HLW when it's 1% of original radioactivity. You might as well get some fresher stuff.

Or Sarin.

 

[soze]

Reading about this and it is some scary stuff. Not the clean up or storage we seem to be managing that very well and very safely. But the fact that in the 2020's we are looking at a 60% energy shortfall if the old plants go offline when expected. The other worrying part is the EPR reactors are all well behind schedule and there is no other alternative. So even if the government agree the long term energy price which they should (by the looks of it it only gives the makers of the plant a 10% profit over the life of the plant which for the initial outlay is not out of order to expect). It only leaves 7 years for it to go live and as no other EPR plants have gone online in that time frame it will mean forcing existing plants to run on longer than planned. And these plants are one shut down or maintenance check from never starting up again due to safety regulations. The fact is that we needed to be building these plants 10 years ago. While they may not be the future they are the only option for the present. And they need to be bought in to buy the country 35 years to find the alternatives.

 

[Chilly]

True. There's vast swathes of cadmium and mercury etc. To be fair though, if they're man made then ethically they require cleanup.

Tho I take issue with "similarly" toxic. I can't imagine someone trying to dirty bomb London with a cadmium bomb

Actually, the thinking terrorist would never use a nuke. You go and find a load of asbestos or other nasty industrial waste that people leave laying about in dumps and drop it from a plane. Why bother breaking into fort knox for nuke juice when you can just dump lead powder or the wrong flavour of thalidomide over all of london and fuck a whole lotta people.

 

[soze]

If my research into NCIS has taught me anything it is that for a dirty bomb you would not need to go to Sellafield or a Power station, xray machines at dentists and hospitals would give you a dirty bomb. Power stations keep it a hell of a lot safer.

 

[Shagrat]

Ladies and Gentleman, we have liftoff.....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24429621

 

[Raven]

Witchcraft, burn it!

 

[Chilly]

Ladies and Gentleman, we have liftoff.....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24429621

Hardcore as fuck. They reckon fusion is about $80bn away, rather than any specific timeframe. Just gotta wait for the R&D spend to trickle in and produce the results.

 

[georgie]

I wonder what the EU budget for "Green" initiatives is....

 

[georgie]

Ahh, here we go:

In February 2013 the European Council agreed on a budget for 2014-2020 totalling €960 billion (1.00% of the EU's gross national income)

The EU institutions agree that at least 20% of the budget for the 2014-2020 period should be spent on climate-related actions.

So $270m, give or take.

 

[Raven]

...and people wonder why government and industry have such a vested interest in fiddling the figures on "climate change™"

 

[rynnor]

Ladies and Gentleman, we have liftoff.....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24429621

It's still using more power than it supplies though - the real breakthroughs will come with ITER - this stuff is just yanks messing around on a setup that will never produce a surplus.

 

[Raven]

It's still using more power than it supplies though - the real breakthroughs will come with ITER - this stuff is just yanks messing around on a setup that will never produce a surplus.

Actually, for the first time they got it to produce more than it consumed, for a very short time but it is still a massive breakthrough.

 

[Chilly]

What happened is that the power input into the laser system was higher than the output measured from the fusion event BUT the laser system only delivers x% of that input power to the fuel pellet. The difference between the delivered power and the measured output power was positive in the favour of the fusion process. So, yes, it's a breakthrough achievement and there's lots of value to be gained from these experiments. Stuff learned here will pave the way for theoretical refinements which find their way into processes that ITER uses. It's not just dicking about.

 

[rynnor]

Stuff learned here will pave the way for theoretical refinements which find their way into processes that ITER uses. It's not just dicking about.

It's not useless but they will never achieve an energy surplus on that rig and it's no substitute for ITER on proving the potentials for commercial use of fusion.

 

[Chilly]

It's not useless but they will never achieve an energy surplus on that rig and it's no substitute for ITER on proving the potentials for commercial use of fusion.

Of course not, and that's why ITER is getting the lion's share of the funding, as it should. But it's nice to know that this stuff is actually possible!

 

[TdC]

ITER will be using the magnets, yes? This one is using lasers? Fuck me these experiments are cool

 

[Wij]

Scouse will still dis it