Swedish nuclear reactors "unsafe"

[Wilburn]

Aye lucky for us danes sweden put most of the neuclear reactors at the far regions of sweden, but wait.
Did any of the swedish politicians think of the fact that one of those Neuclear reactors (Barsebäck(sp)) is placed around 30 km from one of the largest cities of northern europe, Copenhagen ?

 

[WiiWii]

Aye lucky for us danes sweden put most of the neuclear reactors at the far regions of sweden, but wait.
Did any of the swedish politicians think of the fact that one of those Neuclear reactors (Barsebäck(sp)) is placed around 30 km from one of the largest cities of northern europe, Copenhagen ?

we don't like danes

 

[Tijl]

A few solutions below, just a few out of many.

Making oil out of any kind of garbage:
http://www.dynamotive.com/

Solar power through windows:
http://www.xsunx.com/

And like Eggy said, deep sea oil is getting accessible since a short time.

And making oil from coal will be used more and more, which is possible since 100 years, but today it's a lot less expensive by some new technique. Biggest coal countries are US and China btw.

The oilcompanies are calling out for d00m, to get us to pay way to much before we get access to new technologies.

 

[Naetha]

A few solutions below, just a few out of many.

Making oil out of any kind of garbage:
http://www.dynamotive.com/

Solar power through windows:
http://www.xsunx.com/

And like Eggy said, deep sea oil is getting accessible since a short time.

And making oil from coal will be used more and more, which is possible since 100 years, but today it's a lot less expensive by some new technique. Biggest coal countries are US and China btw.

The oilcompanies are calling out for d00m, to get us to pay way to much before we get access to new technologies.

Its all about sustainability though, the only reason these "new" technologies (such as deep sea drilling etc) are becoming more accessible is because they are more economical now the price of oil is higher, but oil, coal and gas are still finite resources. Other technologies such as oil from coal, coal washing, and most renewable energy sources are very inefficient. They are becoming economically viable now due to the high price of middle eastern oil (and to a lesser degree coal and north sea gas), but for example the efficiency rate of coal washing is still only about 6% so it is unsustainable to rely on these things to provide the bulk of our energy.

Renewable sustainable technologies are the way forwards, however they are not proven long-term technologies, nor proven high energy producing technologies - over the next 50 years most governments will be researchin these much more, but before they can be brought in as mainstream, we need to baulk up our ever increasing energy demands, and the safest way to do this is nuclear.

We are more at risk from fossil fuel power stations (in terms of atmospheric pollutants [and for anyone that says that NOx and SO2 scrubbers are a problem solver - they're good, but not that efficient]) than nuclear power stations, and don't the good old cars are responsible for a hell of a lot of air pollution.

There are much bigger and more influential companies than the oil companies, and other than the short term economical boon, there's not much of an advantage from having artificially high oil prices.

 

[Huntingtons]

i say windmills \o/ billions of windmills.

 

[swords]

If i ran the planet i'd cull a hell of a load of people...so it's a pretty good thing im not running the show i suppose. I'm not evil per se but logically cutting population dramatically solves pretty much every problem for a while.
Think we're about due for some horrific plague to do just that anyhow

 

[Commandment]

I have reasonably high confidence in nuclear power - when Chernobyl happened, more than 5000 deaths were predicted as being directly attributable to the event. Since then (20 years ago now) there have been 57 attributable deaths.

i did a class project on this a few years ago ... have you done your homework? it wasent about just the total number of deaths. one picture of a deformed baby is enough tell you it was wrong. but there wasnt one, there were thousands. miles upon miles of wasteland. its disgusting to see, and to think with me living in the west of ireland... if a simaler <sp> thing happened in cellafield.. i could be affected.

i more so think it was about the long term effects than the number of people who died. all those cleaner doods who got killed by radition.

worst think was reactor was in ukraine and it was belarus that got the worst of it.

 

[snushanen]

The answer to new energy is not to make oil form garbage or anything, because making oil form garbage costs energy and why use energy to produce energy when we will loose energy in the process? The oil we use today contains much energy because it has been exposed to heat and pressure for a long time.

The energy we must depend on is all kinds of solar energy. Water plant, wind plants, wave plants and solar cells are all getting their energy from the sun and will provide uss with energy as long as the sun burns (the sun is fusion based).

Fusion may be the solution in the future. For those of you that dont know, Fusion is nuclear power too, but instead of splitting heavy nuclear cores to gain lighter cores, Fusion is to gain one bigger nuclear core from two or more lighter cores.

Fusion would be a lot healthier then fision because neither hydrogen or Helium (the simplest fusion) is radioactive ( some hydrogen Isotopes are radioactive like tritium). And we could easily get loads of hydrogen from water but that would take some enegy.

I think in the future hydrogen reactors will provide us with energy but until they do provide us with a profittable amoount of energy, i think fision is a good solution tbh. There have only been one big accident this far, and the security is much better then in Tjernobyl.

The question about energy is simple, if you look at einsteins law:
Energy equals Mass multiplies with square lightspeed (E=MC^2)
That means that energy can not be produced if we dont manage to get ridd of mass. Both fision and fusion loose mass in the process. Other energys like oil just contains a higher chemical energy and when consumed it gets a lower chemical energy level and cant be used again, Solar power, wind power etc is only a way to use the energy of the suns fusion here at earth and are ok , becasue they stay as long as the sun stays.

I only hope we manage to use fusion in a profittable way before the oil ends

 

[Darzil]

Can people please start lumping nuclear fission in with finite resources, not renewables.

Cos we have fewer years of it left of Uranium than coal.

Darzil

 

[snushanen]

Can people please start lumping nuclear fission in with finite resources, not renewables.

Cos we have fewer years of it left of Uranium than coal.

Darzil

correct you are. No resources are infinate. not even the sun !
to create energy you need mass, and because there is not infinate mass in universe, it is neither infinate energy. But when we speak of infinate resorces we refer to the energy that comes from the sun and Uranium is certantly not one of those



And to all people protecting oil and hate fision:

Oil is far more damaging to the planet then fision. When we are finished with the uranium we got something else witch is radioactive. This might be used in another fision or burried down. Thats a little problem but most countries with fision plants have huge storing areas for radioactive waste. Another downside with this is that there is a smal risk with the fision plants

Oil on the other hands produses huge loads of CO2, sulfat, NOx gasses and other crap. I also think (this is a wild guess tho) that more people have lost their lives in oil rigg acidents etc then in nuclear meltdowns

I am not saying that we should trow our cars away and not use oil. I am only saying that imo fision is a better alternative for electrisity production

 

[Darzil]

I am only saying that imo fision is a better alternative for electrisity production

But only in the short term unless we discover vast new reserves of Uranium, as there's only 40-50 years supply at the current rate of usage.

Darzil

 

[Naetha]

i did a class project on this a few years ago ... have you done your homework? it wasent about just the total number of deaths. one picture of a deformed baby is enough tell you it was wrong. but there wasnt one, there were thousands. miles upon miles of wasteland. its disgusting to see, and to think with me living in the west of ireland... if a simaler <sp> thing happened in cellafield.. i could be affected.

i more so think it was about the long term effects than the number of people who died. all those cleaner doods who got killed by radition.

worst think was reactor was in ukraine and it was belarus that got the worst of it.

Um not being funny, but genuine research > class project a few years ago. Admittedly its not my research, but information I got from watching a BBC2 documentary, and is corroborated on the BBC website, the WHO/IAEA and other places. The information is here, here and as attributable deaths, this is anyone that died from being affected by radiation from Chernobyl - this included people involved in the cleanup afterwards, and subsequent cancer-related deaths caused directly by chernobyl (i.e. above the average for that time, place and population average) in the last 20 years.

Also, studies of the wildlife in the reactor's 30km exclusion zone have shown it to be thriving, with only a certain breed of mouse showing any genetic differences. This isn't the wasteland you talk about - this was a government imposed exclusion zone that is now one of the biggest wildlife reserves in Europe.

You say you live in the west of Ireland - this puts you in one of the safest places in the world with respect to nuclear radiation (depending on the local geology ofc, but from what I remember, its all carboniferous limestones and shales, i.e. non-radon emitting rocks) as the prevailing wind from the southwest would blow any radiation from Sellafield or anywhere in the UK towards Scandinavia, not Ireland.

There is a lot of information available on the internet about Chernobyl. Some of it is more valid than others (i.e. I would be more likely to believe scientific research funded by the WHO than some crackpot Greenpeace nut venting frustration and posting a load of bullshit). Just be careful what you believe, and where it comes from

 

[Naetha]

But only in the short term unless we discover vast new reserves of Uranium, as there's only 40-50 years supply at the current rate of usage.

Darzil

Uranium exploration has recently been heavily invested in (as coal, oil and gas were in the 60s and 70s) and economically viable reserves are being discovered all the time.

Also, Uranium can be reprocessed, and at the end of the day, Uranium isn't the only fuel for nuclear reactors - Thorium is being looked into as well, as currently proven worldwide Thorium reserves are three times as abundant as Uranium.

I don't want to sound like a nuclear fanboi (and I know that I am here), but having studied nuclear waste strategies at Uni, and working for an environmental consultancy that deals with climate change, energy, and nuclear waste disposal, I've found out a lot more about nuclear power, and I've seen a lot more of the realism rather than the sensationalism and fatalism that is more often found in the media.

 

[snushanen]

Also, Uranium can be reprocessed, and at the end of the day, Uranium isn't the only fuel for nuclear reactors - Thorium is being looked into as well, as currently proven worldwide Thorium reserves are three times as abundant as Uranium

yes i forgot to mention that. Fision fuels can be used several times

Example: Uranium core has 92 protons. When it fisions it can become example a Thorium core (with 90 protons) and an alpha particle with 2 protons. The thorium can also be used and so on. Theoreticly you can use all nuclear cores in fission down to Iron (26 protons) and still gain a positive energy profitt. That is because Iron is the atom with the smallest energy amount per nucleon. With Fusion it is reverse, there you can theoreticly gain poitive energy amount from all cores lighter then Iron (Hydrogen, Helium, Carbon etc ).

This is still theoreticly, we dont have the thecnology to do all these fisions, and non profittable fusions yet. Thats why we need to keep reserching .

When every atom on earth is Iron,we have COMLEATLY depleated our planet

 

[Commandment]

Um not being funny, but genuine research > class project a few years ago. Admittedly its not my research, but information I got from watching a BBC2 documentary, and is corroborated on the BBC website, the WHO/IAEA and other places. The information is here, here and as attributable deaths, this is anyone that died from being affected by radiation from Chernobyl - this included people involved in the cleanup afterwards, and subsequent cancer-related deaths caused directly by chernobyl (i.e. above the average for that time, place and population average) in the last 20 years.

Also, studies of the wildlife in the reactor's 30km exclusion zone have shown it to be thriving, with only a certain breed of mouse showing any genetic differences. This isn't the wasteland you talk about - this was a government imposed exclusion zone that is now one of the biggest wildlife reserves in Europe.

You say you live in the west of Ireland - this puts you in one of the safest places in the world with respect to nuclear radiation (depending on the local geology ofc, but from what I remember, its all carboniferous limestones and shales, i.e. non-radon emitting rocks) as the prevailing wind from the southwest would blow any radiation from Sellafield or anywhere in the UK towards Scandinavia, not Ireland.

There is a lot of information available on the internet about Chernobyl. Some of it is more valid than others (i.e. I would be more likely to believe scientific research funded by the WHO than some crackpot Greenpeace nut venting frustration and posting a load of bullshit). Just be careful what you believe, and where it comes from

yea i understand that, but i just find it hard to believe...


rox im safe, ill sleep easy tonight

but whats with the hype?

the compensation the people recievied was terrible :/

 

[Lamp]

Just a thought...if everyone running in the London (or wherever) marathon was to instead run on a gigantic treadmill - like a mouse's ball - how much elecy would that generate ?

 

[Naetha]

Just a thought...if everyone running in the London (or wherever) marathon was to instead run on a gigantic treadmill - like a mouse's ball - how much elecy would that generate ?

Already been thought about with respect to gyms - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4900188.stm.

Imo the best ideas for renewable technology are offshore and urban wind farms (i.e. a small wind turbine on everybody's roof) and solar panels. One of the main things preventing solar panels being more widely used is local authorities. You need to apply for planning permission to fit solar panels to an existing house. If it is not in character with the property (i.e. if the property is older than 20 years) then planning permission will usually be refused.

Eco-homes are also becoming more and more popular, with energy-saving ideas implemented throughout the house (better insulated doors, windows, roofs and walls, integral solar panels, intelligent thermostat etc), but until the idea is really sold as a marketable home rather than a gimmick house to the developers, it won't catch on.

 

[Tasslehoff]

yea i understand that, but i just find it hard to believe...


rox im safe, ill sleep easy tonight

but whats with the hype?

the compensation the people recievied was terrible :/

Basically the media always wants to sell the story, which sells the most, that's why you've seen all those horrible pictures and heard the horrible stories.
Can't even know for sure that the picture you've seen of a deformed baby is from the Tjernobyl-accident.
And there's people living happily in the Tjernobyl area at the moment, and everything's fine around there, read that in some article, where they'd gone in to check up on the Tjernobyl accident 20 years after