"Nuclear Emergency"

[Wij]

From genuine greenies:

The dangers of nuclear power in light of Fukushima | Mark Lynas

 

[cHodAX]

Seems that up to 5 feet of the rods have been burned away in reactor #1.

DailyTech - Reactor No. 1 Suffers Nuclear Meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi, Radioactive Water Possibly Leaking

 

[Wij]

Fukushima - Interim 'lessons learnt' report

Gov concludes that Fukushima is not likely to happen here. Quel surpise.

 

[Wij]

Necro 2 for Scouse

 

[Scouse]

Gov concludes that Fukushima is not likely to happen here. Quel surpise.

Unless Teide pops and cornwall gets covered in a massive tidal wave, yep, unlikely.



Auto trumped?

 

[Keitanz]

Can't believe this all happened only 10 months ago, seems like it happened last week to me..

 

[soze]

After reading a bit I am now worried about spent fuel pools. Seemingly a lot of them do not have multiple layers of backup power and are not always in contained buildings. So the threat of meltdown seems higher. The same article talked about I think it was convection cooling. After so many years in the pool they could be moved to concrete structures that that cool them using air so need no power. This also would mean less in the cooling pools so they would not over heat as quickly in the event of power failure.

Dry Cask Storage - http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/nuclear_power_risk/safety/safer-storage-of-spent-fuel.html

 

[Tuthmes]

http://akiomatsumura.com/2012/04/682.html

Isnt it about time the world started to clean this mess asap before Japan starts to shake again?

 

[soze]

I was already worried about spent fuel pools now this

but will also affect the common spent fuel pool containing 6,375 fuel rods, located some 50 meters from reactor 4. In both cases the radioactive rods are not protected by a containment vessel; dangerously, they are open to the air

It is crazy how substandard the safety measures seem to be on these pools.

 

[Scouse]

Your going to look pretty silly when they sort it out without any major problems.

...

 

[Wij]

Interesting look at the German renewables situation:

German Situation
Politically: The Greenies are now a major political force with up to 20% of votes in state elections. They govern the state of Baden-Württemberg together with the SPD, fielding the PM of B.W. Being anti-nuclear has almost replaced "being an anti-fag christian". Nuclear energy is by default bad in the lefty press and even the conservatives have bought into that after Fukushima. I assume it has something to do with German Romanticism, which had lots of faces through the centuries. Being against nuclear is a matter of universal faith and questioning that Dogma is unwise for the successful politico. Angela Merkel wants to stay in power, so she did the opportunistic thing.
Energy Generation: Still a lot of baseload is being produced by nuclear power. The other baseload provide is coal and new power stations must be built, or the network will become unstable. Solar and Wind are now sporting impressive maximum generation power figures. It's in the dozens of GW already.
Energy Grid Stability: Due to the wildly fluctuating Solar and Wind generators, grid stability is deteriorating to the point where serious damage is imminent. At the Leipzig electricity exchange, there are times when the wholesale price is negative, as production spikes must be "destroyed". So if you own a pump reservoir you will sometimes even receive money for pumping water up the hill. Later, you can make money by sending water downhill and selling at something like 20cent/kWh wholesale !
Currently we don't need any UPSs in Germany to run a computer, but these days will soon be over. Industry already complains loudly about the damage this could bring to expensive facilities like steel rolling mills, which can be destroyed by an outage.
In General, the rise of solar and wind generation capacity has not at all been matched by corresponding storage capacity (e.g. pumped storage). Options for new pump storage facilities are very limited, but lots of ideas float around, including the use of decommissioned coal mines for that purpose.
Prices: Consumers already pay more than 20cent/kWh, which is mainly due to very high feed-in tariffs for Solar power. Wind is much less worse in this respect. The solar industry is bitching loud about a reduction of feed-in tariffs for new installations, which is planned.
In general, I would call it a win for romanticism, not for "cold-steel rationality".

 

[Scouse]

You're right Wij. I hate it when wind turbines and solar panels blow up, leaving swathes of people homeless, huge tracts of land uninhabitable and leaves a lasting legacy of tremendous danger that we've no technical solutions for

 

[cHodAX]

You're right Wij. I hate it when wind turbines and solar panels blow up, leaving swathes of people homeless, huge tracts of land uninhabitable and leaves a lasting legacy of tremendous danger that we've no technical solutions for

And they are useless as mirrors when you need to comb your hair!!

 

[Wij]

You're right Wij. I hate it when wind turbines and solar panels blow up, leaving swathes of people homeless, huge tracts of land uninhabitable and leaves a lasting legacy of tremendous danger that we've no technical solutions for

Or, you could just discuss the post I made on its own merits. Wouldn't hurt.

 

[Ormorof]

looks pretty serious to me!


View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u14tBwO5QVQ


that said I admit i was wrong on Fukushima, that shit went baaad

but its still not like we are about to experience apocalypse, it was brought down by a long series of unfortunate events - not a reason to stop investing in improving and rolling out more nuclear tech (they didnt stop building boats because Titanic sunk, they improved the techniques and safety measures )

and in a quick edit: in the aftermath of Germany shutting down its nuclear reactors they had to import energy from France, energy that was produced at - yes you guessed it - nuclear reactors, so its more of a "Not in my backyard" mentality than "Save the world and wear flowers in your hair!" that is giving the Greens in Germany more votes

 

[Scouse]

Or, you could just discuss the post I made on its own merits. Wouldn't hurt.

I did

 

[Job]

Pfff Nuclear reactors are only dangerous to people who live within a 100 miles of them and like I give a flying fuck about them...hang on.

 

[Zenith.UK]

The pissing thing about the Germans backtracking on nuclear production and new builds is the effect they have in other countries.
Oldbury and Wylfa new builds are looking unlikely unless some other major nuclear engineering company buys into Horizon Nuclear.
http://www.horizonnuclearpower.com/wylfa

Right now, that's looking like the Russians. Rosatom are looking at buying into Horizon Nuclear.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-west-wales-17682322

In case the name sounds familiar...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...g-generators-Britain--glowing-references.html

 

[Tuthmes]

The problem I still have with it is the waiste. It's a loose end we don't really take care of (well we bury it). The promising news I saw today was that zeh Germans are making Hydrogen fuel out of the excess electricity the wind turbines make (which then can be used as gas for households). Then again I hate the look of the wind turbines in any landscape, but I suppose the same could be done with solar energy. Hopefully we'll have hydrogen cars soon aswell.

 

[Wij]

The problem I still have with it is the waiste. It's a loose end we don't really take care of (well we bury it). The promising news I saw today was that zeh Germans are making Hydrogen fuel out of the excess electricity the wind turbines make (which then can be used as gas for households). Then again I hate the look of the wind turbines in any landscape, but I suppose the same could be done with solar energy. Hopefully we'll have hydrogen cars soon aswell.

I wouldn't believe that about them turning any excess energy to Hydrogen. Having tried it and thinking about doing it are not the same as doing it. Certainly not the same as setting up the infrastructure. Germany is already running into problems and the politicians, as they do, are trying to ignore them

 

[Wij]

I did

Actually, you didn't. I may have posted it in a Nucularz thread but it's just the most recent energy thread. The point I was highlighting was how the renewables policy was working out in Germany.

 

[Tuthmes]

I wouldn't believe that about them turning any excess energy to Hydrogen. Having tried it and thinking about doing it are not the same as doing it. Certainly not the same as setting up the infrastructure. Germany is already running into problems and the politicians, as they do, are trying to ignore them

http://translate.google.nl/translat...eisung-von-windgas-geplant/mitteilung/290123/

 

[Tuthmes]

Not really rocket science and they are starting next year.

 

[Wij]

Not really rocket science and they are starting next year.

"Will be" this and "will do" that. We'll see

 

[Scouse]

Sellafield nuclear waste repository poses "intolerable risk"...

An "intolerable risk" is being posed by hazardous waste stored in run-down buildings at Sellafield nuclear plant..... Costs of plant-decommissioning [have] also spiralled out of control.....
...over the five decades it was open, operators failed to plan how to dispose of the radioactive waste and some of the older facilities have "deteriorated so much that their contents pose significant risks to people and the environment".....

Intolerable risk eh?

At least we'll be picking the unknown and yet definitely rather massive bill for disposal, rather than the power companies who made the profit, eh? Well, we will if we can figure out what to do with it...

Marvellous stuff this nuclear waste. Marvellous

 

[Zenith.UK]

It might have something to do with this.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-west-wales-20150796

Hitachi are looking to invest in Wylfa and Oldbury. They'll need infrastructure in place to sort out the nuclear waste material. Let's face it, Sellafield/Windscale has been out of public sight for a while so it's just a case of having the torchlight shone on it once again.

 

[Scouse]

I wonder if there's any jobs going on Anglesey - wouldn't mind a cottage somewhere near Red Wharf Bay.

 

[Raven]

I would love to live on Anglesey. Shame that there is very little work in the nicer parts of the country!

 

[DaGaffer]

I lived on Anglesey (Beaumaris) for 8 years when I was a kid. Fantastic place to be that age, but probably boring as hell for a teenager/adult.

They'll be looking at building there so they can flog capacity to the hypocritical buggers over here, who insist on a "nuclear free" Ireland, but are quite happy to buy the stuff from elsewhere. Anglesey is a nice short underground cable to Dublin.

 

[Scouse]

Had a caravan there for 30 years. Great place. Council is bent as a 9 bob note tho. Has been since the 60's.

Beaumaris is great. Would be horrid for a teenager tbh, but I could happily live there now.