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…I am reverting to my .. evangelism for nuclear power: because if there is an answer to global warming, then nukes must be part of the mix, and because we cannot afford to be dependent on foreign gas, and also, finally, because it would help to reinforce the crumbling science base of this country
That is why the nuclear power programme - if and when it arrives - seems to offer hope.
It is not just that nuclear energy is environmentally friendly in itself: it offers a cheap way of producing the energy necessary to produce hydrogen, and therefore to produce hydrogen fuel cells
We need nuclear power and a new generation of boffins
It’s enough to make you weep. Here we are, a nation that once led the world in scientific discovery. Who proposed the theory of gravity? A Briton. Who discovered the circulation of the blood? We did. Where did Faraday hang out, when he came up with the theory of electromagnetism? Right here in Britain.
We are responsible for just about every ground-breaking scientific advance, from the television to the computer to the hovercraft and the trouser press. We worked out DNA and we came up with antibiotics. There was a time when the upper reaches of the British Establishment were populated by scientists: J B S Haldane, C P Snow, you name it.
Before she became a politician, it was Mrs Thatcher’s proudest claim that she had revolutionised the composition of Mr Whippy ice cream, so that it contained more cold air bubbles per quart of vegetable fats. Above all, we were the nation that ushered in the dawn of the atomic age.
That was the subject of the first major essay I ever wrote, and I am happy to confess now, at a safe distance, that I plagiarised it entirely from a Ladybird book. It was called “Atomic Power”, I produced it at the age of nine, and in a spirit of unabashed and exuberant technological optimism I hymned the wonderful things that followed the fission of an atom of uranium-235.
I expect that there were thousands of children like me, who were amazed and enthralled by the pictures of Cockroft and Walton in their Cambridge labs, and the eerie radioactive glow from their tubes and alembics, their hair slicked back, their faces rapt with the concentration of genius.
And who can forget the great Rutherford himself - I can see the illustration even now - and how he worked out that heavier isotopes must be more unstable by looking at a pile of falling books? This is the nation that split the atom and yet now, my friends, how fallen, how changed we are from that position of global eminence.
There is now a growing agreement that for the first time in a quarter of a century we must build nuclear reactors; there can be argument about how many, but they must be a part of the solution to our increasing energy problems.
But here is an awful truth, confided in me the other day by a deputation of engineers and scientists. “If the Government decided to build a nuclear reactor today, there are only half a dozen people who have the experience to do it in this country, and they have all retired.” That’s it, my friends: the birthplace of Newton, and Boyle, and J J Thomson - and we can’t even build our own nukes any more!
The Government is desperately trying to remedy the problem with a £6.3 million nuclear science programme, aimed at keeping nuclear studies going for the next four years in seven universities, but in the short term it will make little difference. If we want a clean, green, nuclear source of energy, we will have to get the French, or the Japanese, or even the South Africans to equip us with the necessary technology.
Unless, of course, students and potential students see what a huge opportunity there is in this field, and start turning back to the subjects - in physics and engineering - that they have been spurning over the past 20 years. I hope I will not be seen as a boss-eyed, propeller-headed nukophile when I say that I hope they do, for all sorts of reasons. As I said on this page recently, I am far too terrified to dissent from the growing world creed of global warming.
But even if it turns out that the worry has been overdone (by the way, jolly nippy today, eh?), then there still seem to be overwhelming arguments for going nuclear. Look at the size of your gas bill; look at the extraordinary growth in the proportion of our energy needs that are now satisfied by gas. It was about five per cent in 1970, and it is about 45 per cent now.
It is terrifying to think that Mr Putin, or any less amenable successor, could have his thumbs on our gas feed-pipe; and it is terrifying to think that we could be perpetually vulnerable to the vagaries of some European gas cartel. We need an alternative, and one that doesn’t just involve crucifying our landscape with wind farms which, even when they are in motion, would barely pull the skin off a rice pudding.
That is why I am reverting to my nine-year-old self’s evangelism for nuclear power: because if there is an answer to global warming, then nukes must be part of the mix, and because we cannot afford to be dependent on foreign gas, and also, finally, because it would help to reinforce the crumbling science base of this country.
We are good at pharmaceuticals, and there are some of the spookier areas - such as the human genome and animal experimentation - where we are world leaders. But we have long since lost our lead in physics and engineering, and if what the engineers tell me is true, the problem begins at school.
We have too few physics graduates teaching physics; we have too few mathematicians teaching maths. The result is that far too much of the first year of university is spent on remedial mathematics, and the result is that it is quite hard to find people who want to be lecturers or tutors in the physical sciences - especially when they can earn double in the private sector.
That’s why science departments have been closing - 30 per cent of physics departments gone in the past 15 years - and without science graduates you can’t get good teachers, and the vicious circle continues. That is why the nuclear power programme - if and when it arrives - seems to offer hope.
It is not just that nuclear energy is environmentally friendly in itself: it offers a cheap way of producing the energy necessary to produce hydrogen, and therefore to produce hydrogen fuel cells, and heaven knows what else. It also offers the hope that we can restore British activity and prestige in the physical sciences, not just as an end in itself, but because if we have to rely endlessly on the Russians for our gas, and on the Arabs for our oil, then no nukes will be bad nukes.
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What total balderdash Boris! Nukes are hellishly expensive: all we will be doing is taking out a quadruple mortgage on the house with a clause which commits our children to paying it off.
A solar panel on every roof would reduce hot water costs by 70%, a wind generator on every gable end, a water wheel and generator on every weir, more use of the millions of tons of seawater the moon hoists up twice a day, etc., are all good ideas that should be implemented.
Unfortunately, because we were warned about this 20 years ago and did nothing, nuclear may well be the only option that can now be implemented in time.
As to the lack of British scientists, maybe grants should be made available to those who want to do science degrees? I can’t help feeling that Physics is a slightly more useful degree for the country than, say, drama and art.
C. P. Snow was the author of The Two Cultures, a slim little book that highlighted the division between one largely artistic and literary British culture, and a scientific and mathematical culture, which spoke different languages, and barely spoke to each other. It struck me as a very accurate description of the state of affairs, and I’m not in the least surprised that the teaching of science has been slowly withering in the face of a near-universal contempt and scorn for science. Anyone who studies it is almost by definition a nerd and therefore a social outcast. And yet the science developed over the past few hundred years has been arguably the greatest human achievement of all time, surpassing anything produced by all our artists and poets and authors put together.
And science knows no borders. The science developed by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton was not uniquely British. If anything, it was largely European. And we didn’t invent everything, and certainly not the modern television sets to which we are forever glued.
As for Margaret Thatcher’s contribution to science, is that why the symbol of the Conservative party looked exactly like a Mr Whippy ice cream cone?
The oldest extant institution (of which I am aware) would be the Jewish ‘church’, allegedly +/-5000 years old.
Is anyone suggesting that the Nuclear Energy Authority will be knocking about for the 20,000 years needed to keep an eye on the waste?
By the way, has anyone heard of ‘over-unity engines’?
Well said Boris. We risk losing our expertise in science at our peril.
Though you can hardly blame our students from shying away from a career in nuclear science if the Government fails to make its support for nuclear power clear - not that the recent wobbles from some in the Conservative Party have helped either!
A 1000 MW nuclear power plant produces 30 tons of spent fuel per year that can be recycled in integral fast reactors or Carlo Rubbia energy amplifiers, leaving behind only short lived isotopes. A 1000 MW coal fired power plant dumps tens of thousands of tons of NOx, SOx and COx to the environment, in addition to mercury, and radioactive uranium, thorium and radium that naturally occur in coal. Every day a coal plant leaves behind a never decaying mountain of waste ash. In fact, coal plants dump more radioactivity than what a nuclear power plant stores on site! This whole issue of ‘nuclear waste’ is a red herring, and so-called renewable enery is infeasible for the base-load power needs of a modern industrial society. Solar power doesn’t work when there is no sunlight. Wind power doesn’t work when there is no wind. With dwindling oil and natural gas supplies, that leaves only one alternative to nuclear power: dirty, nasty coal that kills tens of thousands in North America and Europe every year from lung disease. No radiological event at a commercial nuclear power plant in either North America and Western Europe has either killed or injured any member of the public for the fifty years of its use. But coal - the ONLY feasible alternative - kills TENS OF THOUSANDS every year.
Ok Paul, I’m sold: On coal! (Well, there are about 5 Billion too many people for the planet…along with random disease, this seems like as good an idea as any for reducing population levels).
Besides, with capitalism being based on a continually expanding market (on a persistantly finite planet) industry’s requirements will become increasingly superfluous as the whole system crashes down around itself.
The depoplulation, etc., will be greatly accelerated if we continue to let the americans (sorry, they don’t deserve a capital letter in my opinion) run things. In civilization terms, letting the septics be in charge is similar to letting prepubescent teenagers run the world.
For those thinking of taking to the hills…be careful. I am already there, and i’m not reknowned for being friendly.
;o)
Psimon,
The apparent philosophy your post espouses is the Eco-Imperialism of “Green Power - Black Death”:
< http://www.eco-imperialism.com/main.php >
Robert Heinlein summed this up very well:
There are hidden contradictions in the minds of people who “love Nature” while deploring the “artificialities” with which “Man has spoiled ‘Nature.’ ” The obvious contradiction lies in their choice of words, which imply that Man and his artifacts are not part of “Nature”-but beavers and their dams are. But the contradictions go deeper than this prima-facie absurdity. In declaring his love for a beaver dam (erected by beavers for beavers’ purposes) and his hatred for dams erected by men (for the purposes of men) the “Naturist” reveals his hatred for his own race–i.e., his own self-hatred.
In the case of “Naturists” such self-hatred is understandable; they are such a sorry lot. But hatred is too strong an emotion to feel toward them; pity and contempt are the most they rate. As for me, willy-nilly I am a man, not a beaver, and H. sapiens is the only race I have or can have. Fortunately for me, I like being part of a race made up of men and women–it strikes me as a fine arrangement and perfectly “natural.”
Psi and Paul et al
I see a key point here being an ideological, essentially religious, commitment to propositions that the ideologues do not wish to subject to rational criticism. Boris noted this in his environment article here. Scientists, except for the media glamour boys and babes who often seem more interested in being celebrities, are seen as nerdy. The reason for this may be that scientific reasoning and argument is step by step and often counter intuitive. By contrast celebrities who have things to say about serious issues are more pressed for time and effect and go for rhetoric that pushes the right buttons. I recall RAH making the point about the absurdity of assuming that a sports or film celebrity had anything useful to say about politics or science unless you had good reason to believe otherwise. In fact I think I plagiarised him in a comment last week!
I guess what makes a view religious is that there is some sense of faith that brooks no criticism. If a Christian tells me that his or her belief is through faith but is not trying to use their faith to browbeat me then we can get along and talk about things. However greens often seem to be a browbeating lot. A couple of friends of mine, originally concerned about the environment, left the local Green party because every non-Green infringement was pounced upon by young singles who didn’t have to travel far to work or ferry kids about.
I have heard the stories of some friends who were accosted last week by wild eyed animal rights people shouting ‘murderer!’ and witnessed the sharp intakes of breath if you suggest that nuclear power is not a plot by the Illuminati under GWB to blow up the world. What’s the problem we face? None of GWB, nuclear power or animal testing is the answer (to that question I mean - see what I mean by nerdy!).
Since all these things are seen are seen as the Great Satan by one or more of our great modern (often non-theistic) religions, it often makes critical discussion difficult. Rhetoric is so much more fun and sexy that reasoned arguments that plod from one place to another.
Of course one of the losses in our education system from the disapperance of physics and maths, and the dumbing down in the name of fun of what remains, is an inability to think logically and critically. I’m not usually a conspiracy theorist - it’s in the hands of one or two professionals on this blog - but I do wonder if there is a real Dan Brown organisation of people making the world safe for people with degrees in media studeies and comparative social skills.
Like Boris I was brought up with the nuclear solution to our energy problems, that was highjacked by the loony lefties and Greens.
Meanwhile our French industrial competitors with their usual gallic shrug got on with it and now are far less dependant on the whims of our Eastern neighbours.
Will they be saying “Zut Alors” when the lights go out , no.
Meanwhile we will be kept in the dark, literally, by sucessive governments delaying making decisions that any free marketeer on supply and demand would see as a simple exercise of GCSE standard.At the same time we will be debating how to educate the Golf Course management MBA students not the engineers needed to cure the failures of their forfathers.
The government declared that the cheapest, safest and easiest ways to combat climate change were “reducing the amount of energy we consume, together with a substantial increase in renewable energy.”
Investing in new nuclear power stations, they said, is the wrong answer. It would guarantee “that we would not make the necessary investment in both energy efficiency and renewables.” What has changed in 3 years ? Is nuclear safer, more realiable, cheaper ? No it is not.
Nuclear energy is not the answer for so many reasons. Not least because there is still no way of disposing of the waste safely or reducing it’s impact on the environment. It will still fail to significantly cut CO2 emissions within the necessary time frame, and is sensitive to terrorist attack.
“Traditionally our energy has been produced by large power stations under a system that wastes most of the fuel we put into it. Two thirds of all energy that goes into any conventional power station is lost as heat. Further loses are made transmitting the energy across vast distance through our old and inefficient electricity grid. Essentially, most of the energy generated by our stations is thrown away before any of us have a chance to waste it.” - source Greenpeace
The way forward is investing in renewable energy, both locally and nationally. If we had renewable energy mortgages or grants easily available, or incentives where several families or streets could collectively buy and install renewable energy systems, this would be far more economic in the long term, less reliant on foreign energy, and help reach CO2 reduction targets sooner.
I’m surprised at you Boris and disappointed…
Paul: I have re-read my posts, and i STILL fail to understand where you got the idea i was anti-nuclear. I fear you may have spent too much time near a radioactive pile.
What i was proposing was a bit of everything, rather than all the eggs in one basket.
Your failure to see that, and your vitriolic lambasting, lead me to the conclusion that simple arguments are too much for you…And, consequently, your views are likely to be equally as erratic and mis-judged.
I wasn’t anti-nuclear before, but you are definitely edging me that way!
I enjoyed your charming beaver metaphor. I’m still racking my brains to think of another species that poisons its environment (well, ALL the environment) as well as humans do, though. 15 Billion population? Make room! Make room! (and water, food, shelter, sewage processors…you really think more humans is better?)
Signed
Much more scared than i was, Henley, Oxon
Psimon,
I agree with you when you write, “…a bit of everything, rather than all the eggs in one basket.” No one energy source will be sufficient to meet all our needs. However, we should do whatever is necessary to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels due to their devastating environmental impacts and adverse consequences for human health, and due to the wars of foreign adventurism in lands of Islamic fascism to secure reliable oil supplies. This will require whatever measure of renewable energy (solar, wind, geothermal, hydro-electric, tidal) that we can build as well as advance generation nuclear reactors and clean coal plants whose gaseous and particulate emissions are sequestered from the environment. No one source of energy will be sufficient and nuclear has to be a part of that mix. That being said, the Free Market should determine how much is supplied from all these resources. The job of government should be to ensure public health and safety, not mandate a certain form of energy production.
Adam,
Your words, “Is nuclear safer, more realiable, cheaper ?” are clearly incorrect. Nuclear generated electricity is cheaper than coal and far cheaper than natural gas, and only government subsidies to so-called renewable energy schemes makes them worthy of construction.
Kindly read:
Safety of Nuclear Power Reactors
< http://world-nuclear.org/info/inf06.htm >
There is a chart near the bottom of this web page that gives a comparison of fatality accident statistics in primary energy production. As always, nuclear is lowest. Now bear in mind that NO fatality at any commercial western reactor has occurred as a result of any radiological event. There have been steam leaks that have killed people in all manner of industries (nuclear and otherwise) as well as electrocutions from energized switchgear, and other type incidences. When these are all added together, nuclear comes out lowest.
Psimon,
I apologize that my words were taken as “vitriolic lambasting”. But kindly keep the capitol “A” in Americans where you said “americans…don’t deserve a capital letter in my opinion.” Americans kept the people in the UK free from the Nazis in WWII and won the Cold War for them. Don’t forget it.
There are possibly more arguments for, than against, nuclear power stations , but the one thing which they are not , is instantly creatable.
It takes time to design and build a safe nuclear power station, and it takes time to convince certain sections of the NIMBY population, who , in most cases I suspect,do not understand the real reasons for the objections to the installations in the first place .
These objections can , again I suspect , be traced to relatively small, but politically powerful pressure groups, of would be nursemaids to the human race.
Solar power is nuclear power : at a distance ; agreed , but it is just that , all the same .
Wind power. Only today, according to an interview on radio 4, once more there are pressure groups busy promulgating their short sighted views on the environmental impact of such monstrosities as wind farms.
The sooner someone in Government actually makes a final decision on these various, non-fossil fuel based, alternative forms of energy the better for all concerned.
If the money being poured into the lost cause of Iraq were diverted , in total, to developing alternative energy sources, (even including heavily guarded nuclear installations), the problem would be on the way to being solved.
Sorry, but as the americans have done more damage to the world since the war than the nazis (and have no intention of slowing down or stopping until they have consumed all), caused the deaths of more people than the holocaust - and brought us to the very brink of WW3 - they remain, as far as i am concerned, unworthy of any capitals.
Also, when’s anyone going to realise that the worlds supposedly richest country (apparently that is why we have to do what they say, or something) is actually the worlds poorest country with a great line in spin? Their debts are now greater than almost everyone else put together. Well done. Another fine example of lunacy, courtesy of the septics.
Psimon,
Your latest post epitomizes “vitriolic lambasting” and is completely untrue. It deserves no response other than this: I am an American and I am exceedingly proud to be a citizen of the strongest, freest, and kindest nation our planet Earth has ever seen. I am equally proud that the United Kingdom has been our closest and dearest ally, and regret that even here in these United States there are people like you who spit in the very face of Lady Liberty - something that your own great country started with the Magna Carta.
Completely untrue?
American drug companies (america only gets a capital because it’s at the beginning of a sentence) have caused the deaths of millions of Africans, american bombs have recently rained on and killed hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and children in areas like Afghanistan and Iraq (to name but 2…this list is VERY extensive!).
The actions of the american government in the last 6 or seven years have seriously disturbed an area of the world that was just starting to learn to live peacefully.
Your country is SO free, crossing the road where you want is a criminal offence (i don’t really think you understand the concept of “free”, eh?).
You mention the Magna Carta. Due to direct american influence in British politics, the current government has now over-ruled this historic and important document, removing the freedoms the document allowed us.
So, as i said, the americans ARE worse than the nazis, demonstrably, and it is merely your lack of education that makes you believe otherwise. I understand that many of the nazis pleaded something similar at their trials.
Freedom? You haven’t the faintest idea what freedom even is.
As a great man once said: “The americans think the world hates them. This is not true. We just want them to go away.”
Psimon,
I have written my peace. Believe what you wish. We should perhaps now get back to things nuclear than this digression into politics and philosophy on which neither of us will agree with the other. I am very sorry you feel the way you do, but feelings are not reality.
Sincerely Yours,
Paul
Dear Paul,
It’s really not your fault you are american.
Better luck in your next incarnation.
PS. what does “written my peace” mean? Is this a misspelling, or are you imagining stuff? Just wondered.
Paul Primavera, full marks for an entertaining name. No marks, however, for veracity.
If it is indeed true that so little nuclear waste is produced from each reactor, why then have there been so many tonnes shipped on so many ships, to destinations as far away as Japan and Russia? And an interesting point has been raised that these ships are regular old cargo ships, not some bomb-proof supertanker. One simple explosion and you could turn much of the Atlantic into a nuclear wasteland; don’t think terrorists aren’t aware of this.
Shipment of Japanese Nuclear Waste
The high level waste on board the Sandpiper is a by-product of plutonium separation from Japanese irradiated nuclear fuel at the French state-controlled COGEMA reprocessing plant. This waste is among the most radioactive material ever produced - the glass blocks are so radioactive that a person standing within one metre of an unshielded block would receive a lethal dose of radiation in less than one minute. If released into the environment, the waste would be a deadly environmental pollutant for hundreds of thousands of years. The waste is not suitable for making nuclear weapons, but has the potential to be an enormous radiological weapon or ‘dirty bomb’.
And here is an article about a shipment of 1,000 tonnes of nuclear waste.
“The European nuclear power industry can’t deal with its waste mountain so it started dumping some of it in Russia. This is illegal and highly dangerous,” said Vladimir Tchouprov of Greenpeace Russia. … only a small fraction, 10%, of this nuclear material is processed and sent back to Western Europe…In total, Greenpeace has collected evidence that over 100,000 tonnes of nuclear waste has been shipped to Russia during the last ten years. Last week, industry officials confirmed Greenpeace’s calculations that some 90% of the waste remains in Russia. In addition to uranium waste from enrichment, contaminated and highly radiotoxic uranium produced during reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel has also been shipped to dumping sites in Russia. European utilities dumping uranium wastes in Russia include: OKG - Sweden, Vattenfall - Sweden/Europe, EoN and RWE - Germany, Electrabel - Belgium, EPZ - the Netherlands, British Energy - the UK, EDF - France, Iberdola - Spain, and NOK/Swissnuclear - Switzerland. The UK and France have shipped the largest amount of uranium waste from their respective enrichment and reprocessing plants. This nuclear waste dumping trade exposes the industry’s cheap attempt to portrait itself as a producer of clean and climate friendly electricity. The reality is that nuclear power is dirty and expensive; it produces vast quantities of nuclear waste for which there is no safe solution. This is another illustration of the deep waste crisis the nuclear industry is facing globally and the ordinary citizen is left with the tax bill to pay for waste disposal.
The notion that nuclear waste is unique in terms of long-term health/environmental risk is a myth. The risk to public health and the environment, tens of thousands of years from now (or whatever timeframe you choose), from coal plants, the chemical industry, and from ordinary garbage (landfills) will all be far greater than that posed by nuclear waste. These other waste streams are generated in vastly larger volumes, are much harder to contain, and contain toxins that never decay away (unlike nuclear waste).
Coal plants generate ash/sludge, containing toxic elements like arsenic, mercury, lead, and even uranium, in volumes that are more than 100,000 times that of spent fuel or high level nuclear waste. In addition, whereas the tiny volume of nuclear waste is in the form of a highly leach/dispersion-resistant glass or ceramic solid, the coal sludge is in a form that will spread into the environment (contaminate water, etc…) much more readily. Then there is the fact that many of the same toxins are simply dumped directly into the air, where they eventually spread over the land as “fallout”, contaminating the water and soil. In effect, these materials were taken from deep under the earth (in coal seams) and then sprinkled throughout the biosphere. Whereas nuclear waste decays to an activity level less than that of the original mined uranium ore in tens of thousands of years (far less, if we reprocess), it will take far longer for these coal toxins to migrate back down into the earth. In the meantime, the nuclear waste will be extremely isolated/contained from human contact (and the biosphere) while it decays to harmlessness, whereas the coal toxins will spend that time distributed throughout our soil and water, in intimate contact with us.
Similar arguments apply for chemical wastes, as well as ordinary landfill waste. Thousands of years from now, the residual health risk posed by nuclear waste will be much smaller than most waste streams.
Rigorous scientific analyses show that, even under the absolute worst-case leakage scenarios, the Yucca Mtn. repository will not expose anybody (let alone a significant number of people) to radiation levels outside the range of natural background, at any time in the future (no matter how long the timeframe). Nuclear is about to demonstrate not only that it does not release any toxins during operation, but that its toxins will remained contained over all time. Thus, nuclear has completed a task that other energy sources and industries have not even started to pursue. Nobody has ever asked them to even try. The double standard that nuclear faces, and has always faced, is so profound it is difficult to adequately describe.
Psimon writes:
“What i was proposing was a bit of everything, rather than all the eggs in one basket.”
All nuclear proponents in Britain are proposing is to replace the existing reactors with new (far better) ones, thus merely keeping nuclear’s share of generation the same (at ~20%) if that. That leaves a whole lot of generation to be covered by conservation, renewables, clean coal, and (Russian) gas.
Rarely do I encounter a nuclear advocate who doesn’t support renewable energy development as well. The favor isn’t returned. It is very common for “environmentalists” (renewables advocates) to be completely unaccepting of any future role at all for nuclear.
That’s all we’re arguing against; the thought that renewables can do it all, and that no further development of any traditional sources is necessary. We’re also arguing that, among traditional sources, nuclear is a better choice than either coal, or gas imported from Russia or the Middle East. For the portion of energy supply that can’t be provided by renewables (i.e., most of the supply), it really does boil down to those three choices (nuclear, coal, or imported gas).
The favor isn’t returned
Perhaps you didn’t read my first post in this thread; I’m an ex-Greenpeacer who would happily support nuclear reactors if I believed them to be clean and safe. I believe, indeed, that one day they will be; that day is not yet here. Please don’t characterize everyone who disagrees with you as a logic-defying extremist.
It seems that Boris is actually proposing to do a lot more than simply replace existing reactors; he’s encouraging the development of the British nuclear industry to a point of world leadership.
Eventually you’re going to run out of land in Siberia to dump on. I feel this issue particularly strongly because the Canadian Shield is looked at, particularly by the American government, as an equivalent: “hey, there are no American voters there! Let’s use it for a dumping ground!” I mean, I’m not fond of Alberta either, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable for a country to be forced to deal with its own waste products.
On a more humble note, I have been investigating solar power for our house, prompted by the recent 22% increase in British Gas prices. The results are not encouraging.
Efficient systems cost £2,000 upwards and can provide (as a contributor states above) around 70% of domestic hot water. Unfortunately hot water is only a small part of our domestic energy needs; the saving amounts to around £50 a year.
So it would pay for itself in about 40 years - always assuming there are no other maintenance costs, which is unlikely over half a liftime. Of course the manufacturers are at pains to stress the environmental benefits but the fact remains that most people base a decision like this on simple economics.
The last thing I want to do is rubbish alternative energy. I have been fascinated by the subject since visiting the Machynllech Alternative Technology Centre as a schoolboy and it grieves me to discover that, even today, solar heating is hard to justify economically.
If we are to encourage a variety of energy sources (it seems to be the one area of agreement in the discussion above) shouldn’t we be looking at much cheaper ways of harnessing natural power at local level?
Hells bells, I recently bought a superbly engineered bench-mounted vertical drill for £29 from Aldi. There’s undoubtedly sweat labour involved in the manufacture of this tool (friends were guessing it cost £200-£300) but just suppose that same industrial base concentrated on producing small solar and wind systems. Now they would really be worth buying.
With a little nuclear back-up, of course.
Could you switch to hot water heating systems, ie radiators for the house? It’s unfortunately true that solar and other alternative energy sources work best when built into the house from the beginning. If your heat reservoir is under the floor, you can have practical, efficient heating and energy storage at the same time.
Paul W. Primavera and Psimon
It might be worth pointing out that the biggest European export - Marxism - has killed about 40 million people.
America and the UK, and I think Denmark, were the major fighters agianst the slave trade, which was not invented by America funnily enough.
I admit that listening to Michael Moore can make you take a dim view of Americans but he isn’t representative.
I can’t help thinking that some folk reasoning in a QA way - if the box is ticked then the truth is arrived at. I was listening to the radio 4 interview with an American lady about Guantanamo Bay. She thinks, rightly or wrongly, that the inmates were arrested in a combat zone and are likely to have information that will assist in the fight against the Taliban and al-Quaeda who have declared war on America. Releases have been made where they felt there was no further threat. I think the problem some Europeans have with the US is that when it decides to do something (and you could been a bit quicker in the 30’s Paul) then it tends to try and carry it through rather than go for the rhetorical and artistic. That’s why German is not my first language. So I’m pretty glad the US is around warts and all!
Jack, I’m surprised at you. Surely you recognize that the Underground Railroad, the runaway slave’s route to freedom, ran from the US to my country. It was operative for several generations, and is why the Maritimes and Ontario have such substantial black populations. I wouldn’t call the US a major opponent of the slave trade, then or now.
And yes, they were a few years late to WWII. Okay, enough American-bashing for now. They’re all asleep and it’s too easy.
Jack, I promised Melissa i would try and behave.
The slave trade was around thousands of years before america. I do not dispute this. The US was about 20 years behind us in trying to abolish the slave trade. I’m just not sure why you brought it up!
As to the war help, i recall a wit saying “The americans are trying to make up for being late for the last 2 world wars by being really prompt for the third one”. And thereby lies my problem with them. For a supposedly christian nation, they do seem to have a bit of a problem as regards “Thou shalt not kill”.
Bush is a warmonger, Roosevelt was the opposite. And, as the septics made us pay for their help (we have only recently finished paying them back!), their presence in Europe was more akin to a mercenary army than as fighters for European freedom. In the same way as the americans declare the worlds biggest debts are (in their view) what makes them the richest nation, so their “help” in WW2 wasn’t nearly as altruistic as they want you to believe. It’s just spin.
In a similar vein, the US loves to remind the French of the same supposed debt to them for their freedom - quite forgetting that their very independance was directly due to the help the French gave them!
America 60 years ago was different to the america of today…as Germany is too (odd role reversal, eh?). 60 year old history is NOT an excuse for what they are doing now.
raincoster
Didn’t the Underground Railway run from slavery US states to non-slavery ones?
Wasn’t there some unpleasantness called the Civil War which had more than a passing effect on slavery?
Would the world be a better place if the US had withdrawn all its armed forces from Europe and Asia during the cold war? (I suppose given the way the EU is going sometimes it would be difficult to know on that one. Velvet Stalinism may be less murderous but I’m sure it can rot the spirit as much as the full blooded item).
A very good American friend and colleague of mine once found that another colleague had posted on his door an article about modern education. He had added the title “How to be as stupid as an American”. She sighed slightly but said she wasn’t going to bother anyone about it. I offered to replace the word American by Ethiopian or Irishman but she said “I don’t think you should do that Jack”.
The most obnoxious American person I know is a fully paid up Guardian reader who insists on telling everyone what to do, what to think, how to feel. If it weren’t for her accent it would be difficult to tell her apart from many others on the Labour payroll vote.
Psimon
I brought slavery up because the US palyed a role in abolishing it even if they were later than GB.
I have no doubt that the motives of the US are mixed. Nations don’t do altruism. However there are societies that I hope will prevail - the open societies - and they tend to rub along together. I don’t suppose for one moment that the prevalent thought of every US soldier in Iraq is “Goody - another day fighting for liberty”. Somehow I don’t think soldiers think like that (No offense to said soldiers - I had two very decent cousins who joined the army as privates and worked up to NCO’s. Two of the kindest blokes you could meet).
However if a democratic Iraq can be established this will be a step forward for the people of the region. If Saddam had remained in power then he would have been looking to develop WMD just as Iran is now. It may be ‘unfair’ (You’ve got one so why can’t I have one!) but if it’s a choice between US and the West having nukes or Islamacist and/or secular fascist countries having them then I would rather have the former arrangement.
Certainly outlawing slavery within a state that has previously allowed it is laudable, but it can’t really be categorized as “crusading against slavery.” And the Underground Railway did indeed run to Canada; the Mohawks on the St. Lawrence began a long tradition of people-smuggling, getting blacks across the river under cover of darkness. There are many places in Northern New York state with hidden rooms in which slaves fleeing North were kept from the forces of the US government.
Here is an interesting site which discusses the history of slavery in the Northern US. Even I didn’t know that slavery wasn’t abolished in New Jersey till 1865!!! And interestingly enough, it turns out that the British were largely responsible for the freeing of American slaves.
Snips:
African slavery is so much the outstanding feature of the South, in the unthinking view of it, that people often forget there had been slaves in all the old colonies. Such Northern heroes of the American Revolution as John Hancock and Benjamin Franklin bought, sold, and owned black people.
Every New World colony was, in some sense, a slave colony. French Canada, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Cuba, Brazil — all of them made their start in an economic system built upon slavery based on race. Slavery was still very much alive, and in some places even expanding, in the northern colonies of British North America in the generation before the American Revolution. That war, however, proved to be the real liberator of the northern slaves. Wherever it marched, the British army gave freedom to any slave who escaped within its lines. This was sound military policy: it disrupted the economic system that was sustaining the Revolution.
Just for the record Psimon, your quip about: “Thou shalt not kill” is a popular misconception. A more accurate translation of this item from the laws of the covenant would be (allegedly) “Thou shalt not murder”, murder meaning to kill unlawfully. (Kind regards to Eliezer Segal: “…The verb that appears in the Torah’s prohibition is a completely different one, “ratsah” which, it would seem, should be rendered “murder.” This root refers only to criminal acts of killing.“)
The other issue of course is that this is a Jewish, rather than Christian tenet as it derives from the Pentuarch. Jesus, given that you believe he existed, exhorted us to: “love thy neighbour” and so, given we adopt this philosophy, the issue of killing or murder becomes academic unless it’s for their own good.
From this we can only deduce that he (Jesus) was probably a Liberal Democrat and, along with St. John the Divine, on some outstandingly good sh!t.
Not that I have any time for this sort of dogmatic nonsense but if you’re going to have a pop at them for hypocrisy it’s as well not to lead with the chin.
And, before I end up under a scrum of outraged God botherers, I would like to remind anyone offended by these notes that I am entitled to my opinions too.
Fair enough, Jack.
Although i should point out that there is NO evidence or proof that Iran is trying to develop WMDs…as, indeed, none have been found in Iraq.
I warn again of the dangers of listening to american spin.
Iraq was about oil…you know it, i know it, the whole world knows it.
Iran is selling IT’S oil in euros, undercutting the U$ and threatening the US economy.
Afghanistan is the proposed route for the pipeline.
But, if people want to be ignorant of such things, who am I to argue.
It’s just sad that so many innocents have to die to service american greed.
I’ve always been about as terrified of the nuclear option as Boris is enthusiastic. But just lately I’ve started to wonder if it’s actually the issue that will test the environmental lobby’s ability to adapt as the world changes. There’s no way it’s the answer to all our prayers, but it’s just possible it might play a part in an integrated energy programme that made the most of all the options at our disposal, were such a programme to exist.
I think that might be what Boris is suggesting, in amongst all that jingoistic twaddle about how we used to rule the world in science. Whather the earth is warming or not, allowing the Russians to take charge of our future energy consumption IS truly terrifying.
But there are other things that frighten, and we need to give them thought if we do choose a proud new (part) nuclear future. How you get rid of the waste is the obvious question, but just as tricky is how you decide who runs the nuclear industry. In the current climate, irrespective of ruling party, it will doubtless be put out to tender. The tender document will be full of exhortations to deliver ‘best value’ along with a lot of weasely lawyerspeak about risk assessment that’s designed to get the government out of trouble should anything go wrong. In the end, government procurement being what it is, the contracts will go to private companies offering the lowest prices and the blandest promises.
And then corners will be cut.
Joe…
Matthew 19:18 “Thou shalt do no murder”
Mark 10:19 & Luke 18:20 “Do not kill”
New Testament, old chap! Words (allegedly) of Christ…as were Matthew 5:30-40 “Resist not evil: if a man smite thee on one cheek, turn to him the other also.” As opposed to the nice Christian americans who just blow everyone and everything up.
Yes, I lead with my chin…but it’s only because i keep a horseshoe in my glove…
;o)
Psimon
I have no desire to remain ignorant of anything (important) I may be wrong about.
I don’t know that the Iraq war was about oil. I believe that the US government is legitimately concerned about the threat of Islamacist and other extremism, particularly in the Middle East, which has terrorist manifestations. If part of
the threat were to deprive America of oil then I think that is something the US governement should be concerned about.
raincoster
I was holding forth on the topic of slavery one day, saying much as I’ve said here, and one of my lucky audience smirked at me and said “But there are more slaves today than there were then”. I have no idea if he was right but I’m prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. However they sure as hell aren’t in the UK or US, except in foreign diplomatic buildings or imported as sex slaves to UK usually by non-UK citizens.
Iraq, though, was one of the more moderate Islamic states. Saddam Hussein was far too fascist to share power with any god. If the US were really concerned with Islam, they’d have gone for Saudi Arabia, which they could easily have done. That, however, would have brought the nukes down on them. Saudi Arabia is, politically speaking, probably the most fascinating country in the world right now. Israel used to be the tinderbox, but I think it’s moved somewhat to the east now.
The true threat to the US is not Islam (many of the American soldiers fighting in Iraq are Muslim). I do believe that the threat to the US is the independance of the oil economy from the American dollar. I don’t, however, believe that the US went to war for this reason alone: I believe that the US went to war for this reason and to improve the Republicans’ chances of hanging on to the White House through a few elections. Not going after Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf War made Bush Sr vulnerable. Cheney didn’t make that mistake.
Of course if the darker greens get their way slavery may be the best source of power we have. I think the US and UK fought slavery just to ensure the potential domination of nuclear power.
Going slightly meta for a moment: Wasn’t someone just complaining that this blog was getting complacent and sleepy? Hard to think of a current hot button that hasn’t been included in this thread.
Sorry to be a bore, chaps, but isn’t this thread supposed to be about nuclear power?
Forgive me if I’ve posted this before: It’s worth a look.
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/
Mark, how sad that you should accuse Boris of “jingoistic twaddle” (in an otherwise rational posting). I also find it intensely depressing that Britain can no longer produce world-leading, buccaneering scientists and inventors - a situation not entirely unrelated to all the other negative forces at work these days (dummin down, health & safety, human rights, etc).
If James Dyson is hailed as the pinnacle of our technological achievements we should be bloody well ashamed of ourselves.
Psimon:
These references are basically JC quoting Moses Laws.
Jesus replied, “Do not murder, …”
The word is still murder not kill which is the get out of jail free card for the increasingly Christian fundamentalist state we know as The United States of America.
OK guys - I’m laying down my keyboard, putting my hands up and heading towards the door - you nucophiles and nucophobes can have your thread again - but I’ll be back!
Awww, Jack, that’s no fun. Come back and fight!
If there are indeed more slaves now than ever before, it’s more of a reflection of the increased population than anything else: there are unquestionably fewer countries in the world where it is legal, even if you count China.
PaulD: if you are implying that we,( GB.Inc), are going through a technological vacuum , with or without a bag; you are probably correct.
We do have a surfeit of graduates in non productive areas though. Something for “Good old New Liebour” to be proud of.
Joe…as i understand it, the word actually differentiates between the taking of a human life and an animal life, rather than actually being “murder”. Regardless, the new testament was written in greek and latin, not hebrew…fairly irrelevant, as it was destroyed by fire and completely re-written from memory by one man, but still. I always refer any christian that believes in an “eye for an eye” to Matthew 50:30-40 (turn the other cheek, walk the extra mile, blah blah), and remind them of Ghandi’s words: “An eye for an eye, and soon the world is blind”.
Now, i’m off to follow Jack - see if i can talk him round to the idea of the pub…(well, it IS Friday! And Liebore haven’t made pubs totally illegal yet.)
BUT, not before i point out the stupidity of Bush’s stance on Iran: “They don’t need nuclear power, they have huge oil and gas reserves”. Did he miss the meeting on global warming, and the backlash of burning those fuels? Oh yeah, the yanks don’t DO ecology, they just kill and steal. Sorry.
Now, i really am on my way…anyone see which way he went?
:o)
Nuclear probably has got to be part of the mix in terms of energy production. It may well be that over time cleaner ways of producing energy from Nuclear will be developed but from what I have read and heard there is no way of producing energy economically that is environmentally squeaky clean anyway.
Interesting side thread on America.
I think people in the west often have an emotional attachment to hating America. One develops identity in opposition to others and America is about the only safe target for some one who likes to think of themselves as highly moral and left wing.
I think it’s often a personal or emotional thing.
I read all the arguments as to why the USA is demon central but it doesn’t wash for me.
Rich societies tend to be less corrupt societies. They are the people that other people feel safe dealing with.
It’s a functional way to be. I don’t see what’s wrong with that.
I also don’t see what is wrong with a country looking after its own interests.
However, to the degree that we are now globally interdependent that’s not enough now. I think American interventions stem in part from this realisation.
I didn’t think the war in Iraq was a good idea. Not because I was worried about war or making an intervention but more because I didn’t think the Iraqi’s had the capacity to carry out a democratic project and I figured we would end with a dangerous mess. I thought this based on prejudices I held about inherited character, and culture/precedent. 40% of me still thought ‘don’t confuse the unlikely with the impossible’ it could be a terrific success. Doesn’t look like it will be though.
Back to the topic at hand, the problem of energy sources is always framed in terms of whether to use nuclear or gas or coal or solar or wind or tidal or whatever energy resource.
What we do with all that energy is seldon questioned. And what are we doing with it? We are, in great part, converting it into work, to power our offices and factories and transport systems. We are enormously busy and industrious. For no good reason that I know of, we think that this industriousness is in itself a ‘good thing’. And our politicians, left or right, without exception, aim for ‘Full Employment in Wealth Creation’.
And it’s crazy. It eats through energy resources, pollutes the atmosphere and the rivers and the land, and causes enormous injury, stress, and burn-out. Rather than keep ourselves as compulsively busy as possible, we should instead arrange to minimize work, not maximize it.
If we were to do that, our energy requirements would fall dramatically, rather than keep on rising as they presently do. But we would first have to question our fundamental assumptions about the nature of wealth, the purpose of the economy, and a great many common beliefs about what is good for humanity.
That requires serious thought, and nobody likes thinking. And so we won’t question our own profligate industriousness. But, sooner or later, we will have to.
Could you switch to hot water heating systems, ie radiators for the house? It’s unfortunately true that solar and other alternative energy sources work best when built into the house from the beginning. If your heat reservoir is under the floor, you can have practical, efficient heating and energy storage at the same time [Raincoaster]
We already have conventional oil heating and rads, Raincoaster. Any alternative source would have to be a retro-fit which is, as you say, much more expensive than building into new.
More people would consider solar and wind (and water if they’re lucky) if the price of the kit plummeted. At the moment it’s still seen as a premium product sold by specialist companies who have to survive on low volumes of hand-built components, equating to high prices.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could go into a DIY store and buy a decent solar system for under £100? Earlier I mentioned Aldi; have you seen some of the gear they sell? Well engineered, industrial scale power tools for under £30. Unbelievable. Recently I bought a 2.5Kw generator for about £130 which powered our office PC network for a week while some major works were being done on the mains supply. It didn’t blink once (no, I don’t work for them!).
All I’m saying is that on this kind of manufacturing scale the sub-£100 solar system or wind generator could easily become a reality.
It would be mighty heartening if the Fat Controller took this up as a cause instead spending his time writing laws to ban me from wiring my garden shed.
Psimon and raincoster
I’m back - nice thought the pub but I would be tempted to take up smoking after 20 years off the weed just to annoy Nanny Hewitt.
Charlotte
Is democracy in Iraq doomed? I think and hope it’s still in with a chance. The experience of partition didn’t bode well for democracy in India but they seem to be doing OK. That proves nothing of course. The Palestinians have had their first democratic change of leadership for years. Obviously I would have liked it if they had voted for the Israel Isn’t All That Bad party, which strangely didn’t field candidates. However they chose Hamas. I don’t think this is as bad as the Germans voting Hitler in in 193? - can’t find my history book. Of course this could go either way. Maybe Hamas or significant sections will move closer to the overall democratic road away from terrorism. Or perhaps they will take it as a vote of confidence in terrorists and go down the Mugabe preferred theory of democracy - one man, one vote, one time. However given that a large part of the Hamas vote was anti-corruption I am hopeful.
My information is mainly from books and newspapers so my premises may be at fault. I am encouraged by some of my e-fellows to go to various websites where the truth will be revealed. But hell! I put stuff on websites.
How on earth a political party fo Moslems could call itself “Ham as ” is a mystery to me, but then I don’t speak a lot of Arabic .
If the Israelis nor the Palestinians are determined not to recognize the existence of each other , how can they be expected to make some sort of agreement to co-exist?
When will the leader of the Western World finally lose patience and demand that civilized bi-partisan talks must take place , on pain that total withdrawal of the aid to the area would be withdrawn upon non- compliance with the requirement?
Macarnie, I think Bono is preoccupied with Africa, but you can ask him.
Charlotte, Canadians have special reasons for distrusting Americans, the fact that they’ve already invaded us once being one of them. If Vancouver ever decriminalizes heroin, I literally expect them to pull a Grenada on us and do a lightning invasion to “restore order.” It may seem cynical, but I live forty minutes (in rush hour) from the American border; if there is one country I know better than my own, it is the US.
Further to my diatribe about alternative fuel sources earlier. Nuclear Power Stations generate a tremendous lot of waste heat, which could be used to desalinate seawater, (under a suitably calculated partial vacuum), and thus contribute to the dwindling water supplies, about which, everybody and his dog seem presently to be moaning.
The limited vacuum mentioned, by the way, is for heat saving reasons;since water boils at a lower temperature in a partial vacuum; not to stop ” radioactive” steam leaks: there is no free radioactivity, ( other than the normal ambient background stuff ), at this stage of the proceedings.
We are talking about exhaust steam here, after it has been used to drive the turbines, which generate the electricity.
Steam loses heat with loss of pressure, but the exhaust stem would retain sufficient heat to boil water in a partial vacuum, before being condensed, to be re-used, as pure water, in the boilers.
The seawater, would boil, and the steam therefrom condensed, giving pure distilled to add to the drinking water supply reservoirs water. The salts remaing , as a deposit on the heating coils,could be used for the chemical industry. A cycle of almost waste free perfection.
Giant, skyline spoiling, ugly, concrete cooling towers could be a thing of the past, if all power station exhaust steam were to be so used.
PaulD
Being able to buy your own panels to save money and the world seems like a good idea. Why can’t we? One of Boris’ previous missives or maybe it was in the Speccie, spoke of the local government legislation nightmare involved. There is an attitude of nothing can be done without the government organising us.
I read a nice little alternative history story about how the Soviets won the cold war and were leading in computers. Their idea was to have a few mega main frames and everything coordinated by them. The idea of individual computers was a hoot to the commisars. We may be rude about IBM and Mr. Gates but popping in to Dixons to buy a perfectly useful machine for £500 or less is one of the things I like about the free market. Actually maybe Bill G, obviously burdened down with dosh, ought to see if he can something about personal solar panels.
Mac’s comments are also interesting.
An imaginative nuclear program for the base and a host of free market personal technologies of all sorts to tailor our individual needs. It will never get out of Quality Assurance and Diversity of course!
And you couldn’t install it yourself; it’s the elf and safety.
We’re lucky here: we can buy small solar panels for less than a hundred dollars at Canadian Tire. Certainly not powerful enough to run your house, but powerful enough to be darn useful; would be perfectly adequate in a shed, for instance, or a playhouse, or for lighting alone. But of course, since at any given moment in my city it is 86% likely to be overcast, solar panels aren’t the very best solution.
I have worked for almost 30 years in the nuclear power field, first as a submarine reactor operator, then as an instrumentation specialist at a pressurized water reactor and now as a plant process computer specialist at a boiling water reactor. As Rodney Adams points out at Atomic Insights (http://www.atomicinsights.com/AEI_home.html):
Atomic power is:
• Safe enough to power floating cities with more than 5,000 people living within 1000 feet of the plant. (The US owns and operates ten of these floating cities. We call them nuclear powered aircraft carriers.)
• Clean enough to operate inside sealed submarines.
• Cheap enough to provide overnight power for about 1.5 cents per kilowatt hour.
• Competitive enough to make suppliers of all other energy sources very nervous.
My experience is entirely consistent with this.
Now if the serious reader really wants to improve his or her knowledge of nuclear energy, then I recommend browsing the following web sites (there is a veritable wealth of information out there from which the unbiased reader may learn):
Nuclear Energy Institute:
http://www.nei.org/
NEI Nuclear Notes:
http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/
World Nuclear Association
http://www.world-nuclear.org/nb/nbhome.htm
The Virtual Nuclear Tourist
http://www.nucleartourist.com/
Dr. Bernard Cohen’s Radiation Research Web Site
http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/
Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems
http://nuclear.inl.gov/gen4/
http://gen-iv.ne.doe.gov/
Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness
http://www.c-n-t-a.com/
Innovative Nuclear Space Power and Propulsion Institute
http://www.inspi.ufl.edu/
Uranium Information Center
http://www.uic.com.au/
Thorium Power
http://www.thoriumpower.com/
Nuclear Energy Agency
http://www.nea.fr/
International Atomic Energy Agency
http://www.iaea.or.at/
Nuclear Energy Research Initiative
http://neri.ne.doe.gov/
The interested reader who has questions about nuclear wastes may want to review the information at the following web pages:
Nuclear Waste Perspectives Part 1
http://www.energypulse.net/centers/article/article_display.cfm?a_id=589
Nuclear Waste Perspectives Part 2
http://www.energypulse.net/centers/article/article_display.cfm?a_id=724
Yucca Mountain: Right Answer, Wrong Question
http://www.atomicinsights.com/FTROU/02-02-02.html
Nuclear Waste Mountain: Unnecessary Sense of Urgency
http://www.atomicinsights.com/mar96/Nothing.html
The amount of nuclear waste to go into geologic repository can be reduced by recycling spent nuclear fuel, which is the process by which 97 percent unburned fuel (U-238, leftover U-235, and Pu-239) can be extracted and re-used. Various methods are available for such re-use that would reduce the amount of long-lived actinides, thereby making millennia-long geological repositories such a Yucca Mountain in the US a moot point. These include the Integral Fast Reactor and the Carlo Rubbia Energy Amplifier. See web links below:
INTEGRAL FAST REACTOR:
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy99/phy99xx7.htm
http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA378.html
CARLO RUBBIA ENERGY AMPLIFIER
http://einstein.unh.edu/FWHersman/energy_amplifier.html
http://www.nea.fr/html/trw/docs/saturne8/sat15.pdf#search=‘carlo%20rubbia%20energy%20amplifier’
http://doc.cern.ch//archive/electronic/other/generic/public/cer-0210391.pdf
Until economics force us to reprocess, then maybe we should use a geological repository (e.g., Yucca Mountain in the US) to store the spent fuel. When we need it, then it will be available for reprocessing.
Additionally, there is far more naturally occurring Th-232 than U-235, and in a reactor Th-232 can be transmutated into U-233 which is fissile. The Indians are working on such a design:
http://www.iaea.org/programmes/inis/aws/fnss/fulltext/te_1319_25.pdf
http://www.iaea.org/inis/aws/fnss/fulltext/0412_7.pdf
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf62.htm
http://www.dae.gov.in/publ/3rdstage.pdf
http://www.dailyexcelsior.com/web1/03jan05/busi.htm#3
To put the whole issue of radioactive waste into perspective, consider that a coal-fired plant of 1000 MW releases more radioactivity than a 1000 MW nuclear power plant:
Coal Combustion: Nuclear Resource or Nuclear Danger
http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html
Consider also from http://www.nucleartourist.com/:
Key airborne pollutants of concern in energy generation are - sulfur dioxide (which contributes to acid rain), nitrogen oxides (which contribute to smog), and carbon dioxide (which contributes to global warming) The following graphs and tables compare release levels for these major pollutants from a 1000 MWe plant of each of the 4 energy generation methods - coal, natural gas, oil, and nuclear.
SULFUR DIOXIDE EMISSIONS
from a 1000 Megawatt Power Plant
in Thousand Tons per Year
Coal 70
Natural Gas 0
Oil 30
Nuclear 0
NITROGEN OXIDE EMISSIONS
from a 1000 Megawatt Power Plant
in Thousand Tons per Year
Coal 25
Natural Gas 16
Oil 14
Nuclear 0
CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS
from a 1000 Megawatt Power Plant
in Thousand Tons per Year
Coal 6000
Natural Gas 3000
Oil 5000
Nuclear 0
These gaseous emissions never ever decay away. Note that nuclear has ZERO such emissions.
What I have written next describes the lunacy of anti-nuclearism. If you want the full text, then you will have to purchase the book, “Magawatts + Megatons - The Future of Nuclear Power and Nuclear Weapons” by Richard L. Garwin and Georges Charpak. Space permits me only a summary account. When you read this, you’ll find a remarkable parallel between the 19th century opposition to railroads and our own activist’s opposition to US and UK civilian nuclear power.
In considering the negative reactions to nuclear energy, we often find a fear of change, an instinctive mistrust of the unfamiliar. This has been the fate of all great technical innovations. It is important to separate myth from reality.
Nothing illustrates myth better than the way in which railroads were regarded in the early nineteenth century. To quote the Bavarian College of Physicians, dismayed by the unprecedented speed of trains (about 35 miles per hour): “The speed of movement would addle the passengers’ brains, causing a kind of Delirium Furiosum. Even if the passengers are willing to face up to this danger, the State must, at least, protect those who watch the trains go by, because they will be affected in the same way. It will be necessary to construct a high wall on either side of the right of way.”
One Professor Kips, of the University of Erlangen in Baravaria, Germany, took the railroads to task for the effect they would have on the breeding of horses. He predicted that the army would no longer have cavalry or artillery. In case of an invasion of Bavaria by enemy cavalry, the army would not be able to put up serious resistance except by importing foreign horses at exorbitant prices. The charming book from which we glean these gems also tells us that the budding railroad lobby proceeded to purchase and burn anti-railroad pamphlets that were being distributed so that the population would not be influenced.
These masterpieces of visionary ecology were not limited to Bavaria. The great French scholar Arago, renown physicist and member of the Academy of Sciences, was totally opposed to railroads. He saw in the tunnels and underground passages the menace of all kinds of diseases for the passengers, such as inflammation of the lungs, pleurisy, bronchitis, colds, catarrhs, and other kinds of diseases brought on by the underground chill following suddenly upon the heat of the sun in open air. And to further blacken the picture, he took to the rostrum and expounded on the terrifying dangers to passengers if the boiler were to exploded in the narrow darkness of a tunnel.
Arago could not foretell the future, yet he was partly right. Consider the indifference that greets the news from faraway countries of horrendous railroad accidents causing hundreds of deaths. Every year, all over the world, thousands of travelers are killed because of equipment failure or human negligence. Nevertheless, no one suggests that railroads be scrapped. Their benefits are evident and countless, while their dangers are negligible compared with the toll on the roads due to automobile: 8000 deaths and 100,000 injuries in France alone every year; and in the United States 35,000 annual deaths. Politicians are well aware that efforts to reduce the number of victims by imposing speed limits on drivers could practically lead to riots, or even worse, electoral defeat. Recall the uproar when a 55-mph speed limit was imposed in the United States in the 1970s. In no way should there be negligence in operation of the railroads, or that investments not be made to maintain and improve safety. But the elimination of trains because of their toll in death or injury would be far more damaging to society than would be their continuation.
Our descendants will experience major and minor nuclear accidents. They will continue, nevertheless, to use nuclear power, along with accepting the obligation to correct anything that compromises its safety, as society gradually does for the railroads.
The shortsightedness of the violent opposition to the railroads in the nineteenth century finds a parallel with regard to nuclear energy in positions held today by some ecological extremists who thereby imperil the valuable contributions of a reasoned ecological movement. Opposition to developments that show no concern for their long-term consequences is warranted, provided that judgment is correct. But opposition based on unreasoning fear and unthinking hysteria does us all a grave disservice.
Does the fact that the US sends its nuclear-powered aircraft carriers into wars which are obviously inconsistent with optimal bodily safety not make you wonder just how safe they’re supposed to be? If the US really believed that nuclear reactors were that safe, they would use them to power land-based cities. That, instead, they use them to power mobile units on which no-one serves more than a few years, seems to me to indicate the support is not unlimited.
Statistics on death from biomass energy, that great darling of the environmentalist left, are given at the following web page:
A brief excerpt serves to illustrate my point:
“…An estimated 2.5 to 3 billion people worldwide and up to 90% of rural households in developing countries rely on traditional biomass fuels–wood, charcoal, animal dung, or crop wastes–to meet their household energy needs. Burning biomass fuels in simple stoves, these households typically generate high levels of indoor air pollution that adversely affect health, especially of women and young children. In fact, conservative estimates of global mortality from exposure to indoor air pollution are approximately 2 million deaths annually, with approximately one million due to acute lower respiratory illness (ALRI) in children under 5 years. Chronic bronchitis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), tuberculosis, low birth weight, cataract, and asthma have also been associated with biomass smoke in epidemiological studies. At the aggregate level, the use of biomass fuels tends to elevate rates of mortality (and subsequently fertility), delaying the demographic transition and potentially impeding economic growth and development…”
“…Taken as a whole, the results from the macro and micro data support the conclusion that dependence on traditional biomass fuels leads to higher risks of child mortality. On a global level, the health effects associated with traditional biomass fuels are substantial and potentially rival those of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Successful interventions and policies to address this public health risk thus have important implications for the quality of life for billions around the world.”
Nuclear supplied electricity can eliminate these 2 million deaths annually from biomass energy. Furthermore, there have been NO public fatalities or injuries from the operation of US or UK civilian and naval nuclear reactors in the past 50 plus years of use. Environmentalists obviously cannot say the same about biomass energy.
So is nuclear power dangerous? Yes. Has its use cause any public fatalities in the US or UK? No. Is biomass energy dangerous? Yes, by about a 2 million deaths annually (over 3 human lives every minute!).
You decide.
Raincoster,
No one pays me to post what I sincerely believe to be true. Study the information at the web links I have provided.
Raincoster,
This is NOT a debate about US wars of foreign intervention. It is a debate about nuclear energy. If you want to hate America, then so be it. The Nazis did, too.
Raincoaster,
Please forgive me saying this, but I remain unsurprised yet exceedingly dismayed by the number of people in both the US and the UK who with no commercial nuclear power training or experience think that they merit an opinion on the use of nuclear power as a means of industrial production. This is similar to thinking that a person with no medical training or experience merits an opinion on the means of conduction brain surgery. I intend no disrespect to the citizen who has serious questions about nuclear energy (which we in the industry have an obligation to answer), but the idea that the ignorant merit an opinion is laughable. Again, I intend no offense to the serious reader seeking knowledge in order to form an intelligent opinion. This can be done first by self-study at:
Nuclear Power Fundamentals
http://www.tpub.com/content/doe/
Now remember that the means of industrial production are not up for popular vote at the ballot box. Rather, it is with the pocket book that the vote must be cast. If you don’t want nuclear-supplied electricity, then simply don’t buy it and erect your own wind mill:
Do not expect the government to do for you what you want done for yourself. To consider that the government must act as nanny or to maintain that the means of industrial production are up for popular vote is nothing other than socialist. Athens was a democracy, and look what its citizens did to Socrates.
Ah, Paul, I wasn’t aware that you controlled the terms of the debate, only that you aren’t, apparently, that good at summing up.
I am, of course, free to post whatever I like here, regardless of whether or not it meets your criterion. I don’t actually hate America either, as you can see from my posts in this thread and also here. As I state there, I was a charter member of the George Stephanopoulos fan club, and as I do not state there but should have, I met Clinton, Stephanopoulos, and many Secret Service men at the Vancouver Summit, and had the highest respect for them. I have less, however, for those who attempt to bully communities into obedience or agreement.
Well of course people do have the right to an opinion; that’s not socialism, it’s democracy. Surely you don’t think that voting should be the exclusive right of politicians, do you?
I am a socialist. I’m fine with it.
Raincoaster,
This isn’t about attempting to bully communities into obedience or agreement. Rather, economics will do that for all of us. When the lights go out in the UK or US as they have been in South Africa over the past several weeks, then we’ll see what does the bullying.
Yes, you are free to express your opinion even as I am. I am continually baffled, however, over the arrogance of those who have never even stepped foot in a commercial nuclear power plant let only actually studied fission nuclear power think they merit an opinion.
Being a charter member of the George Stephanopoulos fan club qualifies one in no way concerning things nuclear.
Do as you wish. Make
whatever opinions you wish. The facts will not be altered by such. When the lights go out, then we’ll all have regretted not building more nuclear power plants.
Now study the web links I posted previously.
Paul, I have been in a nuclear power plant, and I have studied fission and fusion on a very basic level at University, although I believe that even those who have not have the right to an opinion.
The lights don’t generally go out in my country, thanks to abundant hydro power; we even call our electricity company “BC Hydro”. The power has gone out in yours, in Orange County, California for instance, and not too long ago. Orange County now buys its power from British Columbia.
I brought up the George Stephanopoulos thing not because I felt it gave me nuclear cred, but because you seemed to be accusing me of knee-jerk anti-Americanism, which is false and offensive. It was not an impression I could let stand.
As I have said more than once in this thread, if nuclear power were clean I would support it. Currently it is not. And the plans for disposing of the waste do not reassure me.
Ah, one more thing. When I signed up for University, McMaster was my top choice, for one reason alone: it had its own nuclear reactor. Surely you must see that I’m not a dogmatic anti-nuke.
Hey chaps! Please make up!
Karl Popper once said “You might be wrong or I might be wrong or both but by critically discussing the matter maybe we can both move a little closer to the truth”
raincoster has a point. Lack of information on a topic doesn’t mean you don’t have a right to an opinion. Else I would be opinionless. On the other hand it does mean that maybe you need to listen more than talking when discussing with someone who may have more information. On the other other hand sometimes an uninformed comment can cause new lines of thought.
We, in the old mother country, find it quaint how you colonial cousins squabble with each other. I am sure that Our Own Dear Queen would be prepared to let bygones be bygones and let the rebel colonies south of the 49th place themselves b
There may be only half a dozen people in the UK capable of designing a nuclear reactor, but the trouble is, there is not one that knows what to do with the resultant radioactive waste. That’s the real problem with nukes. As an ex-Greenpeacer, I wish nuclear power were clean, but the waste is noxious and remains so for, unfortunately, many thousands of years. Nuclear power can’t be a viable option until we have either a more efficient reactor system which produces little or no waste, or something useful to do with the waste itself. Anybody want a pile of radioactive slag in their backyard?