And Nuclear Power Stations every 40 plus 90 years to "Fudge cleaning up afterwards?"
Not viable in any way, are they?
Brexit, for once some facts.
- Thread starter flecc
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Not viable in any way, are they?
I completely agree on Hinkley Point, my preference is for proven PWRs, but I realise you won't agree with that.
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40 years is historic, 80 years useful life with more recent designs, and they create less waste per annum.
I believe they are viable and think there's too much hysteria about nuclear generation. The world is a very big place and we probably only need to use existing nuclear generation technology for less than a hundred years. The aftermath of that is very easily coped with.
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Decommissioning has been factored into the cost of the kWh I am paying for to type this message. All my pedelec kilometers are nuclear or solar, there is no fossil fuel plant near where I live. There is a huge solar farm just up the road and on the other side the hills are covered with windmills.
@KTM Bike Industries UK I used to row with a retired engineer from EDF nuclear division. Immediately after the tsunami he wrote an e-mail to the Japanese company to tell them "Don't pump sea water in to cool the core down" but apparently nobody read it...
Nuclear is convenient and complementary to renewable. But it has to be done right.
@KTM Bike Industries UK I used to row with a retired engineer from EDF nuclear division. Immediately after the tsunami he wrote an e-mail to the Japanese company to tell them "Don't pump sea water in to cool the core down" but apparently nobody read it...
Nuclear is convenient and complementary to renewable. But it has to be done right.
And although you probably don't like paying the bills, the production cost of French energy is the lowest in Europe, hence so much of it being bought by other countries, including the UK. And since it's almost four-fifths nuclear, it gives the lie to the claims of the antis that nuclear is far too expensive.
If it's done right as you say, and if there's a long term strategy, it's the best solution for clean baseload generation.
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There are a couple under construction here and it is a money pit. I think you might be paying for the over budget expenditure...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)
Indeed, but the Hinkley Point one here will benefit from the new model simpler to build design. If that works out ok we should suffer fewer of the problems experienced in Finland and France.
EDF wouldn't be persisting unless the potential benefits weren't going to be very rewarding, so I'm happy to bear with them to see what results.
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There seem to be too many "if's" with these reactors to fill me with expectation that they will come online in my short remaining lifetime.
And frankly their notion of security being provided by a pressure vessel and 2.5 metre thick concrete has about the the armour protection level of a big Girls Blouse.
For instance one of Barnes Wallis's smaller earthquake bombs could do this.
"Tallboy was designed to be dropped from an optimal altitude of 18,000 ft (5,500 m) at a forward speed of 170 mph (270 km/h), hitting at 750 mph (1,210 km/h). It made a crater 80 ft (24 m) deep and 100 ft (30 m) across and could go through 16 ft (4.9 m) of concrete."
And now this monster has been replaced by a pocket sized wonder.
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GBU-28
"It proved capable of penetrating over 30 meters (100 ft) of earth or 6 meters (20 ft) of solid concrete; this was demonstrated when a test bomb, bolted to a rocket sled, smashed through 22 ft (6.7 m) of reinforced concrete and still retained enough kinetic energy to travel a mile downrange"
No nuclear facility is safe with that sort of ordnance around, is it?
And a normal front line jet fighter or fighter bomber aircraft can drop one...
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I.S. don't have them though, or the planes to launch them.
This is the old "What if" attack again, meaningless and without possible end.
Acting on "What if" threats means no-one can ever do anything at all.
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KTM
Do you think all the wind generators are actually viable in UK..
As I,ve mentioned before I,m a keen windsurfer, and the point boards start working properly I,d guess is about same wind generators start working ( aprrox 15 mph) I reckon in any year we get probably 50 days of 15 plus mph.. There are places in Europe with well above that but east coast UK ??? I know windfinder / windguru etc show more but suspect they are optimistic...
What wind strength do they actually start paying for themselves ??
Do you think all the wind generators are actually viable in UK..
As I,ve mentioned before I,m a keen windsurfer, and the point boards start working properly I,d guess is about same wind generators start working ( aprrox 15 mph) I reckon in any year we get probably 50 days of 15 plus mph.. There are places in Europe with well above that but east coast UK ??? I know windfinder / windguru etc show more but suspect they are optimistic...
What wind strength do they actually start paying for themselves ??
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But then a jumbo jet in power dive weighs quite a bit. And could do significant damage. IS have done that sort of thing. There is some residual risk then. But who knows how fast they can scram the reactor. I haven't a clue. And I suspect anyone who did wouldn't tell.
You miss the point we are vulnerable to conventional attack by other nations that we cannot respond to by using Trident.
And if you think that isn't possible, why not? European nations have these capabilities, and we are no longer in the EU.
The whole point of forming the EU was to make war impossible.
That no longer applies, does it?
Do you think we can trust other countries?
look up "Plan Red" the American plan to attack us with poison gas before the second world war.
Nuclear Power stations and the storage dumps for decommissioned materials are prime targets for enemies of the state, whoever or whatever they are.
Pretending they don't exist as a threat is foolhardy in the extreme.
These Nuclear sites are far too risky to have scattered around the landscape when better methods of power generation can either be found or devised.
Brexit is not going well.
Theresa May and Liam Fox have started arguing....May wants,actually needs,to retain the EU passport to keep the city of London alive,but the EU insists that to keep the passport we have to abide by EU trade deals with non EU countries.
Liam Fox is trying to get free trade deals with non EU countries such as China and the US,but he is wasting his time if May is agreeing to us keeping EU trade deals....resignation No 1 coming up.
Hammond now has sight of what his next tax take is looking,he wants a non austerity budget but he won't have the money to do so.
The House of Lords can delay Article 50 for ages,they are still largely remainers. They also have realised that Article 50 is reversible by the way the Treaty of Lisbon was written.
The EU have started to criticise that the UK cannot even get a foot on the Brexit ladder until they have any idea of what they want from Brexit,the U.K. Don't even have a start of a plan.
Boris promised the UK farmers that their EU grants would be maintained post Brexit but May is suggesting that the grants may be scrapped or reduced....I can see the farmers getting very upset with Boris...resignation No 2 coming up.
The Leavers wanted us to have control over EU immigration but May is having to accept only partial control if we are to keep access to the single market.
The Scots and NI are threatening the break up of the U.K. If we leave the EU.
Looks like May's honeymoon period is becoming a disaster.
I spoke to my currency trader today as to why the £ is stronger against the dollar,he said the market is already factoring in that Brexit won't happen.
Told you so!
KudosDave
Theresa May and Liam Fox have started arguing....May wants,actually needs,to retain the EU passport to keep the city of London alive,but the EU insists that to keep the passport we have to abide by EU trade deals with non EU countries.
Liam Fox is trying to get free trade deals with non EU countries such as China and the US,but he is wasting his time if May is agreeing to us keeping EU trade deals....resignation No 1 coming up.
Hammond now has sight of what his next tax take is looking,he wants a non austerity budget but he won't have the money to do so.
The House of Lords can delay Article 50 for ages,they are still largely remainers. They also have realised that Article 50 is reversible by the way the Treaty of Lisbon was written.
The EU have started to criticise that the UK cannot even get a foot on the Brexit ladder until they have any idea of what they want from Brexit,the U.K. Don't even have a start of a plan.
Boris promised the UK farmers that their EU grants would be maintained post Brexit but May is suggesting that the grants may be scrapped or reduced....I can see the farmers getting very upset with Boris...resignation No 2 coming up.
The Leavers wanted us to have control over EU immigration but May is having to accept only partial control if we are to keep access to the single market.
The Scots and NI are threatening the break up of the U.K. If we leave the EU.
Looks like May's honeymoon period is becoming a disaster.
I spoke to my currency trader today as to why the £ is stronger against the dollar,he said the market is already factoring in that Brexit won't happen.
Told you so!
KudosDave
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The Americans have crashed tested a plane into a reactor structure and failed to penetrate the core, but of course it would wreck the cooling system.
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And they have to cut out and stop at high wind speeds to avoid self damage, so they have a rather narrow operating band. I've grown rather used to TV items on wind farms showing most or all the turbines not rotating.
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Nicely constructed piece Dave and I can't see any argument to be had from either camp.
The prospect has become steadily but surely less attractive by the day as people come to understand the degree of difficulty involved to achieve perhaps nothing, indeed possibly worsening our economic situation and losing us lots of friends abroad.
In my view, increasingly it seems that the anti-immigration voices were the ones which drove the 'Brexit' train into the very long tunnel we are now in. I'm sure we will see daylight again but it won't be any time soon. Meantime, we just wait for the expected increase in retail prices for imported goods to hit every family in the land. That should concentrate minds, I think!
Maybe it will all be ok and the chancellor will produce a budget that puts more money in people's pockets while funding the NHS properly and still leaves enough in the kitty so Mrs May can pay the billions she has promised the armaments suppliers.......and pay the French and Chinese bills for another Nuclear power station.
Article 50......it's beginning to look like the most major failure of democracy this country has ever had. One-man, one vote; simple majority only required......more than a month later, nothing! I think it's quite embarrassing to be British these days; we are a laughing stock.
Tom
As I've implied, I won't argue on "What if" propositions, since anything is possible, so such arguments are never ending.
This is another Brexit type situation, people are either for or against nuclear power and the two will never agree, so discussion is pointless. That is especially so since we are committed to nuclear stations, not just Hinkley Point but new second generation at other sites too.
But we haven't got them yet, and wishful thinking won't keep the lights on. Another thing that's being forgotten is Brexit. If we leave the EU we will have to quickly get manufacturing again to survive so will need a big increase in generation soon.
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And the gearboxes between the sails and the drive shaft keeps on failing,quite a job replacing that gearbox at sea.
KudosDave