Electricity Supply

[EddieM]

I guess we should all be grateful for the huge fusion reactor we have 93m miles away.

Would love to see fusion become a reality, apparently, as for the last 40+ years, it's only 10 years away.

 

[AronSearle]

Nothing

Ha, ha, ha

You are suggesting they can be persuaded to hijack only a very small, very light plane.

The F4 in your video has a takeoff weight (excluding weapons which I did not see) of about 20,000 kg

A 747 has a takeoff weight of about 440,000 kg

It might be carrying 240,000 litres of fuel, which could cause a very destructive fire and spread radioactive particles widely, as well as interfering with recovery and repair, and destroying control and safety systems.

www.nei.org/corporatesite/media/filefolder/EPRI_Nuclear_Plant_Structural_Study_2002.pdf

Any more waffle you want to spout?

 

[wobs]

Nothing

Ha, ha, ha

You are suggesting they can be persuaded to hijack only a very small, very light plane.

The F4 in your video has a takeoff weight (excluding weapons which I did not see) of about 20,000 kg

A 747 has a takeoff weight of about 440,000 kg

It might be carrying 240,000 litres of fuel, which could cause a very destructive fire and spread radioactive particles widely, as well as interfering with recovery and repair, and destroying control and safety systems.

You might want to read this:
http://www.nei.org/corporatesite/media/filefolder/EPRI_Nuclear_Plant_Structural_Study_2002.pdf
And a full report here:
http://www.nei.org/corporatesite/media/filefolder/EPRI_Nuclear_Plant_Structural_Study_2002.pdf

Even a 747 is unlikely to course what you suggest.

 

[EddieM]

I don't understand, why is modern nuclear not seen as green, surely under a balanced viewpoint it must the the greenest source of power ever????

 

[JBR]

I don't understand, why is modern nuclear not seen as green, surely under a balanced viewpoint it must the the greenest source of power ever????

Because Greenies, being not only naive but also rather stupid, see it as dangerous. The usual retort is to remind us of Chernobyl, completely disregarding the fact that the Russians don't worry too much about safety precautions.

 

[Norcon]

Uranium ore extraction from mines requires vast amount of fossil fuels to be burned long before it starts splitting atoms.
Thousands of indigenous tribesmen have been hounded from their homes so that the industrial mining process continues.

Then you have the vast concrete structures to contain the atomic boiler made from cement that also requires the burning of vast amounts of fossil fuels just to make the stuff.

Anerobic digestors are being promoted left,right and center.
They need fed with silage and slurry. Huge amounts.
Vast quantities of fossil fuels are burned to make that happen to the point where it would be cheaper to just transport the fuel direct to diesel genrators.

I reckon its the exact same with nuclear if the blokes with vested interests would just admit it. Ain't gonna happen though.

 

[AronSearle]

Uranium ore extraction from mines requires vast amount of fossil fuels to be burned long before it starts splitting atoms.

Then you have the vast concrete structures to contain the atomic boiler made from cement that also requires the burning of vast amounts of fossil fuels just to make the stuff.

All this is considered in the life cycle analysis, it still comes out as a low carbon technology. And we only use fossil fuels to make concrete, because we have a grid mostly powered by fossil fuels. Other countries that have hydro power have lower embodied energy values for their materials.

The people counting this stuff do actually know what they are doing.

Thousands of indigenous tribesmen have been hounded from their homes so that the industrial mining process continues.

Couldn’t give a fig. It is up to other countries how they run their affairs, just as it is up to us how we run ours. Certainly I wouldn’t buy goods made from slave labour, but I don't give a fig about the 'indigenous tribesmen' argument.

After all, where are our 'indigenous tribesmen' hmmm, we got rid of ours and we are better off for it.

Anerobic digestors are being promoted left,right and center.
They need fed with silage and slurry. Huge amounts.
Vast quantities of fossil fuels are burned to make that happen to the point where it would be cheaper to just transport the fuel direct to diesel genrators.

It is a fledgling technology. It may indeed prove to be a load of bull, and indeed there are clearly some shenanigans going in some parts of the industry, but you can't write it off yet.

After all, electric cars where considered a joke, and some still are, but the technology has come a long way, with both viable and developing technologies.

 

[JBR]

Uranium ore extraction from mines requires vast amount of fossil fuels to be burned long before it starts splitting atoms.
Thousands of indigenous tribesmen have been hounded from their homes so that the industrial mining process continues.

Oh we can't have that.

I say we go back to windmills and join the indigenous tribesmen with their camp fires.

Sounds like a Labour policy; make everyone equal - at the level of the lowest common denominator.

 

[AronSearle]

Tribes men are totally self sufficient taking only what they need to survive from the environment.

It's easy to be in harmony with nature as a tribesmen.

High infant mortality rates, death by diseases and a general lack of any healthcare, all good ways of keeping the population down.

 

[Dave54]

Tribes men are totally self sufficient taking only what they need to survive from the environment.

It's easy to be in harmony with nature as a tribesmen.

High infant mortality rates, death by diseases and a general lack of any healthcare, all good ways of keeping the population down.

And of course they mostly seem to live in warm places where they can live comfortably in basic huts. Also where there is a plentiful supply of grub mooching around on the hoof waiting for a spear to get chucked at it.

Be a bit blurdy cold here today in a palm frond hut, and the local farmers get really peed off if you chuck spears at their cows.

All joking aside, I really and truly believe that nuclear is going to be the only way to go for this country. The green energy is a nice idea, but the reality is that it has it's own "carbon costs" and environmental impacts. The biggest concern to me is that all of it apart from hydro it is limited in some way as to when it generates. That's no good. As has been said before many times in these discussions, peak load tends to come on a Winter evening when it's very cold and frosty. On those sort of nights there's often very little wind, and obviously no sunshine. Tidal won't do it, there won't be enough, and it relies on the tide being in the right state, so it's all well and good being green, but just where are we going to get electricity from. Straight answers please!
Remember on that cold night, you're going to have old people and babies getting dangerously cold. People unable to cook or do work. Factories grinding to a halt, and if they have electrical furnaces, processes stopping and possible damage to equipment.
The only other option then is oil or coal fired generators. . .

 

[ladylola]

Mention of the subsidies that green technology has received is not really relevant as pretty much all forms of generation has received such help both historically and currently. If it wasn't for governmental intervention we wouldn't be here talking about nuclear as an option , left to the so called free market it would never have happened. Fusion is in an even worse situation , absolute shed loads of money , time and energy devoted to it with virtually nothing in return. But again irrelevant .
Could the world be powered solely by green renewables? Simple answer is yes but with a big if. It would work but not with the current economic and social situation we have at the moment . It would take a quite seismic shift in society to get us into a lower energy frame of mind and that is much much harder than generating electricity from the wind. Continuing on the track we are on now then it's very likely that nuclear has to be part of the equation. I say part because the old adage about keeping all of one's eggs in one basket applies. Trying to power the whole world with nuclear will run into other problems in itself , uranium is already expensive to source and will only get dearer and harder to get with increasing demand.
The world is built upon cheap energy and profligate use of that energy and it's that basis that contains the seeds of it's own destruction because the real issue isn't generation but consumption. We could generate more and more but unless the consumption is controlled then all we are doing is kicking the can down the road and delaying the inevitable crash. It matters not a jot how electricity is generated but unrestricted access or low prices will see more consumption leading to more generation need leading to more consumption and so on. I'm not really fond of the idea of nuclear but if we do make more use of it at least charge more for it or introduce TEQ's or some mix of the two.

 

[sterowley]

Mr Cameron is begging the Frogs to take our money and sell us electricity at more than the market price, to persuade them to build some atomic boilers here.

Time was we were able to build our own. What on earth has happened to this country? (Rhetorical question.)

We sold it all off thank to thatcher. Instead we let other countries make money off us.

 

[JBR]

Could the world be powered solely by green renewables? Simple answer is yes but with a big if. It would work but not with the current economic and social situation we have at the moment . It would take a quite seismic shift in society to get us into a lower energy frame of mind and that is much much harder than generating electricity from the wind.

I think the only possible 'seismic shift' in society to achieve this would result in our going back to being hunter-gatherers.

I am of the firm belief that if things go on as they are, and we continue to rely on windmills and the like and fail to build enough new nuclear facilities quickly, the lights will begin to go out. As Dave said, above, it's not just lights either; we're talking about life and death.

Hopefully, before that happens the powers that be will be forced to re-open gas- and oil-fired, and even coal-fired, power stations in the short term, and belatedly invest in more nuclear power.

I'd like to ask our greenies and our politicians, "Which would you prefer, old people and hospitalised patients dying or an increase in our 'carbon footprint' as a tiny fraction of those of China and the US?"

 

[ladylola]

Up to a point you are correct. The lights will go out at some point , but they will go out even if we just build nukes without curbing demand. Energy has been too cheap for a long time leading to wastage and giving some the idea that they have some sort of God given right to use it as they want. TEQ's are the obvious solution but politically expedient to implement ? Difficult to say at the least , the masses won't vote for rationing so an increase in price is probably going to happen. Perhaps a sort of graduated charge could help , say the first thousand units charged at a lowish price and doubling after that . That should help protect the old and poor and penalise those whose use is more profligate .
By the way JBR you refer to Greens as naive and foolish . Could you expand on that please? On other forums I use the same accusations are used for those that have the opposite view , deniers are labeled foolish for ignoring the mass of evidence and holding the belief that the economy is the most important thing and simply carrying on with BAU will solve all our problems. We all are entitled to our opinions , just interested in your side.

 

[AronSearle]

We sold it all off thank to thatcher. Instead we let other countries make money off us.

Is there anything Thatcher didnt do?

We stopped building nuclear, because everyone objected to it.

We don't build nuclear plants, somehow people are suprised we no longer have the capability to build nuclear plants.