Peak Oil - myth or reality ?
- Thread starter SEATALTEA
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Although there may be plenty of oil left in oil tar sands there are a couple of problems:
Regards,
Elephants
- Its going to be really expensive (and energy intensive) to extract and process.
- The levels of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere are already way too high; just because theres still plenty of oil around doesn't make burning it a good idea.
- We have no idea how to deal with waste thats toxic for 1000's of years. Don't believe anyone who says it can be buried in geologically stable holes in the ground. Its a lie. Theres nowhere on the planet that can be guaranteed geologically stable over that sort of timescale.
- Nuclear fuel is extracted from uranium ores which have to be mined and processed, a very energy intensive process which uses lots of oil fueled excavation equipment.
- Theres not that much uranium ore around anyway, only enough to last a few decades if the whole world starts using nuclear as their main means of power generation.
Regards,
Elephants
1) Australia for example has been, is, and will be stable for many thousands of years, and quite probably to when this planet ends. In any case, this objection contains the myth of danger and longevity. Long lived wastes are not highly toxic, highly toxic wastes are short lived, the higher the toxicity, the shorter the life. That's why we happily store our waste above ground in this small island at no danger to anyone. The quantities involved even with the whole world on nuclear are tiny relative to this planet's size, and easily dealt with. They could just stay above ground in the many useless remote deserts we have and will always have.
2) At present yes. But plenty of nuclear power will see such equipment, like all transport, running on hydrogen, it's waste product water.
3) But then the valuable huge stockpiles of waste, especially the cold war stuff and the vast spoil from uranium mining will carry on for many decades more by using fast breeder reactors. Not quite as economic now, but it will then. By then in a couple of hundred years we may well have cracked nuclear fusion which could take over, but what happens then is for the people of that time to deal with. Past generations have never planned far ahead for future ones, and neither should we, and I think we have become somewhat arrogant in this respect.
In summary the objections are not a problem.
However, in parallel I believe that the real most urgent problem the world faces must be dealt with as well, containing and then reducing the world population to more nearly match the resources.
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Flecc, I can certainly see your argument here, and it is very practical, but where this falls down is when you consider terrorism. All you would need is a group of terrorists to intercept a transport and ....
The waste is still a problem.
I am not happy at all that we store our waste as we do. All we need is a 9/11 attack on one of these stores and we could have a major disaster on our small island. I dont think that we should use technologies that we cannot use cleanly anymore, it simply doesnt do us any good at all and give us a headache 'down the road'. It has to be a part of any long term plan to move away from these.
John
Terrorist attacks on PWR nuclear stations have already been shown to be not a problem, and I don't consider attacks on stored waste could possibly be a problem. What remains of the higher level waste after five years under water is vitrified in a manner that would take vast quantities of explosive to split open a few cylinders, the waste being distributed throughout the solid glass means the parts are no more dangerous than the whole. The tiny amount of the aftermath would be cleared with ease and couldn't possibly present any danger to anyone not actually pressing up against it.
Again an imaginary problem I'm afraid, having no possible attraction to a terrorist group.
Sorry John, but all the anti nuclear arguments commonly heard are based on fallacies or the earliest nuclear technology which is no longer used as it was originally.
Academic anyway of course, we are at last going to get it I'm pleased to say, and with time the antis will be pleased to use the resulting electricity. I'm just annoyed that we didn't go ahead in the 1970s and '80s thanks to the anti movement.
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Again an imaginary problem I'm afraid, having no possible attraction to a terrorist group.
Sorry John, but all the anti nuclear arguments commonly heard are based on fallacies or the earliest nuclear technology which is no longer used as it was originally.
Academic anyway of course, we are at last going to get it I'm pleased to say, and with time the antis will be pleased to use the resulting electricity. I'm just annoyed that we didn't go ahead in the 1970s and '80s thanks to the anti movement.
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Totally agree with you flecc - never had anytime for the anti nuclear bunch then or now.
Probably find the one's that shouted the loudest are all millionaires now (big shares in BP, ESSO, etc)
We are all going to pay for those idiotic political decisions based on emotion instead of logic
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Sorry guys I have to disagree. If we cant deal with the waste then we shouldnt use it. And that stands for everything in my book. This idea that, 'we can deal with the problem after I am dead' is just wrong.
I understand that nuclear power stations generally produce about 100Kgs of waste per day. Not a lot, and as Flecc says, IF encased in glass then it SHOULDNT be a problem. But how much glass does it take to render this 100KGs of radioactive waste RELATIVELY harmless, perhaps 1KG waste to 100Kg glass, so 10,000KG of glass, per day, per reactor?
I dont trust that all countries around the world will adopt such measures to deal with their waste either, and even if every single one did, thats going to be one hell of a stockpile after 25 years of growing energy demands!!
There is no easy answer, but we wont find it if we arent looking, and we should be putting all our eggs in this basket.
John
I understand that nuclear power stations generally produce about 100Kgs of waste per day. Not a lot, and as Flecc says, IF encased in glass then it SHOULDNT be a problem. But how much glass does it take to render this 100KGs of radioactive waste RELATIVELY harmless, perhaps 1KG waste to 100Kg glass, so 10,000KG of glass, per day, per reactor?
I dont trust that all countries around the world will adopt such measures to deal with their waste either, and even if every single one did, thats going to be one hell of a stockpile after 25 years of growing energy demands!!
There is no easy answer, but we wont find it if we arent looking, and we should be putting all our eggs in this basket.
John
I have to disagree that long-lived wastes are not highly toxic, they're just toxic in a different way.
Plutonium-239 has a half life of 24,110 years. Radiation from Plutonium-239 comes primarily from the emission of Alpha particles, which only travel short distances (less than a metre), but will cause extreme damage to any living tissue they pass through. Contamination of water courses through leakage of this type of material would be extremely hazardous. Transporting this stuff around by road, rail or sea is very safe... unless an accident results in broaching of the containment vessels. Burying it is extremely safe... as long as the setting is geologically stable for several 10's of 1000's of years, and as long as the containers in which the waste is sealed remain intact for those 10's of 1000's of years.
Heres a quote from the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Radioactive Waste Project:
Irradiated nuclear fuel rods discharged from commercial nuclear power plants are highly radioactive, a million times more so than when they were first loaded into a reactor core as “fresh” fuel. If unshielded, irradiated nuclear fuel just removed from a reactor core could deliver a lethal dose of radiation to a person standing three feet away in just seconds. Even after decades of radioactive decay, a few minutes unshielded exposure could deliver a lethal dose. Certain radioactive elements (such as plutonium-239) in “spent” fuel will remain hazardous to humans and other living beings for hundreds of thousands of years. Other radioisotopes will remain hazardous for millions of years. Thus, these wastes must be shielded for centuries and isolated from the living environment for hundreds of millenia.
Highly radioactive wastes are dangerous and deadly wherever they are, whether stored at reactor sites (indoors in pools or outdoors in dry casks); transported on the roads, rails, or waterways; or dumped on Native American lands out West.
Regards,
Elephants
We, and the planet are in a mess because we are using the planet unsustainably, due both to our number and way of life. And climate change is by no means the only problem caused by this. Is it sensible therefore to turn to nuclear fission, yet another unsustainable technology with it's own consequential problems? There may be a short term argument for nuclear in some countries, but Britain has much greater renewable resources than many. If we don't embrace renewables then who will? So lets show the rest of the world the way to go.
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Flecc's right when he mentions population. Our environmental impact as nations and as a species in general is the product of the way we way and the number of us. If population keeps rising, our use of resources must fall. If use of resources (whether that's oil, gas, phosphorous, etc.) is forced to fall due to scarcity then war and famine become more serious risks.
Remember that all artificial nitrogen fertiliser is made from natural gas, and the price of that is rocketing...
Remember that all artificial nitrogen fertiliser is made from natural gas, and the price of that is rocketing...
Firstly, alpha particles are slow and have very poor penetration, unable to pass through our outer skin layer, so they are only dangerous internally.
Secondly but much more importantly, plutonium 239 isn't waste since it's well worth storing. As I said earlier we will need that when the supply of readily obtainable uranium runs low, since it will then be used as seed in fast breeder reactors in combination with bulk from our other uranium wastes.
Nuclear waste warnings like those you quote are like the many warnings on medicines, worst case scenarios and vague possibilities rather than likely outcomes, All our fuels have risks, and the far worse one of burning carbon fuels is that we may wipe out all biological life on our planet. Against that the nuclear risks are insignificant, incapable of such a catastrophic outcome.
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There have been estimates that our modern way of life is only sustainable for a maximum of 1.5 billions, so we need to downsize long term for viability. It means harsh population control, but the alternative could be nature's even harsher penalties.
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You may well be right.
I agree that a drastically lowered population is probably essential, although its hard to imagine mechanisms to achieve this that would be palatable to Joe Public.
In the meantime, as well as looking for new, clean, sustainable energy sources, I think there needs to be far more emphasis on using less energy. The amount of energy we waste by leaving electronic kit on stand-by, over-heating our homes, not insulating our homes, flying, using air-con, driving 2 tonne cars around, etc. is unbelievable.
Regards,
Elephants
Fast breeder reactors have not proved a viable technology and have been all but abandoned by just about every country in the world. As the cost of renewables falls, particularly solar, they are unlikely ever to be able to compete at any kind of acceptable level of safety.
This is not the case John, they aren't used because they haven't been economic against PWRs and non nuclear generation, but the two French and two Russian fast breeders have worked well considering their early stage of development, especially both the later ones. In fact some while ago the USA nominated the Russian fast breeder BN600 as the model for their future reactors. As energy costs continue to rise and uranium extraction gets more difficult I believe they'll become economic.
Whether solar or other technologies reach a lower cost by then is a matter of conjecture and opinion of course, we cannot possibly know at present.
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The French Superphoenix reactor closed in 1998 after generating for just 6 months. I won't mention how much electircity Japan got out of their reactor. If France cannot get this to work with their commitment to nuclear then who can? As for Russia, I think we know their record on nuclear.
In theory, FBR's are a good way to dispose of waste, my point is that this doesn't work in practice. France is no longer considering this option, they plan to bury their waste (if they can find anywhere to put it).
As for costs, of course we cannot know future costs, but we can estimate, and estimating solar is much easier than estimating nuclear.
Sorry John, but that's an incredibly biased view.
As I'm sure you know the Superphoenix was their second, the first smaller Phoenix working for very much longer. As I've said, it closed for economic reasons.
Japan has experimented with a variety of nuclear technologies and has had many failures on record in various designs, so they are hardly a basis for judgment.
That comment on Russia was not called for. The Chernobyl acident came from an ill chosen testing routine, not normal working, and the RBMK reactors are excellent, running to this day including the world's two largest and so efficient that they can run on the waste from PWRs. Russia's PWR design is also an effective and reliable one. Research on improvements continues with the BN800, though held up for a while after the breakup of the Soviet union by the lack of funds at that time. In a related field, Russia's Tokamak fusion reactor design is the only one of the world's three designs to be of any use to move forward in this field. In an askance reference to Chernobyl, the Tokamak is also by far the safest design to date, and that's why all the fusion research reactors are to this design
Hardly things to be so casually dismissive about, and the US choice illustrates their much greater respect for Russian nuclear technology.
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The thing with all of this nuclear tech is the incredible cost. We really should be making this investment in renewables first, and then supplementing as we need to. Not the other way round, its just a recipe for disaster environmentally and economically.
I say environmentally because we will have tons of waste that we will have to deal with, and we dont have a solution for, and because this tech has an extremely hazardous nature.
I say economically because apart from the unbelievable huge initial investments to start up, once you start using this tech, you are tied to the companies that make it, and their extortionate contracts and sub-contracts, and all your resources have to be invested in it to keep it going.
We dont need another big bang one stop shop approach. Reducing what we need by being responsible, and investing in every single green tech we can is the way forward.
John
I say environmentally because we will have tons of waste that we will have to deal with, and we dont have a solution for, and because this tech has an extremely hazardous nature.
I say economically because apart from the unbelievable huge initial investments to start up, once you start using this tech, you are tied to the companies that make it, and their extortionate contracts and sub-contracts, and all your resources have to be invested in it to keep it going.
We dont need another big bang one stop shop approach. Reducing what we need by being responsible, and investing in every single green tech we can is the way forward.
John